image: Wikimedia Commons

Few might suspect that when they enter an NFL football stadium or a Taylor Swift concert through turnstiles, they're using a line-management device built for the 1855 World Exposition in Paris. While they brought order to impatient throngs, turnstiles were not without substantial drawbacks. Women's ballooning petticoats, for example, often became ensnared in the crowd-controlling contraptions, here satirized by the artist Honoré Daumier. In this on-the-spot caricature, the renowned illustrator likened the turnstile to a “tourniquet” that trapped extravagantly attired attendees in its metal limbs.