Bell Telephone System’s Preeminent Role in the Growth of Industrial Design (eBook)

Ralph O. Meyer, Russell A. Flinchum (Autoren)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025
216 Seiten
Purdue University Press (Verlag)
978-1-62671-110-5 (ISBN)

Infos

Histories of design pay scant attention to the corded telephone, which played an immeasurable role in early communication. Although the Bell System, with many Nobel Prizes, is justly acknowledged for its technical prowess, it should also be recognized for its early and considerable impact on the developing discipline of industrial design. In 1930, young Henry Dreyfuss, who would later become known as a pioneer of industrial design, was retained by the Bell System as a design consultant and matured in that environment. With substantial input from Bell System engineers, Dreyfuss and his staff produced attractive telephone designs that were manufactured and installed in more than one hundred million American homes and copied around the world. Featuring over one hundred illustrations, Bell Telephone System’s Preeminent Role in the Growth of Industrial Design is a deep dive into the development and evolution of the corded telephone. A detailed case study of an object that would become so ubiquitous and commonplace, it is also the story writ large of the establishment and importance of the field of industrial design.

Inhalt

Acknowledgments

Introduction

PART 1: INDUSTRIAL DESIGN TAKES ROOT

1. Alexander Graham Bell’s Telephone in a Box

2. An Unexpected Configuration Change

3. Rapid Domestication

PART 2: A 20-YEAR DESIGN DROUGHT

4. The Grand System of Universal Service

5. It’s Only Applied Decoration

6. Central Batteries and the Booster Circuit

7. Simplification and Standardization

PART 3: DESIGN BLOOM

8. Theodore Vail, Patron of the Arts

9. The “French Phone” Has a Handset

10. Problems Solved for a New Handset

11. Handset Dimensions

PART 4: DESIGN’S GROWING PAINS

12. Complaints About Appearance

13. Small Changes Make a Big Difference

14. Design Misstep in the Bell System

15. The Bell System’s American Competitors Follow Suit

PART 5: THE ART DECO AND BAUHAUS PERIODS

16. The Iconic Prewar Bell System Telephone

17. New International Designs Emerge

18. Henry Dreyfuss and the Myths

PART 6: POSTWAR IN THE BELL SYSTEM

19. Bell Labs Versus AT&T Headquarters

20. Finally, a Comfortable Handset

21. The Postwar Bell System Standard Telephone

22. Transistors and Push-Button Dialing

PART 7: OTHER VARIANTS AND DESIGNS

23. Copies of the Bell System Standard Telephone

24. The Bell System’s Bedroom Telephone

25. The Dial-in-Handset Telephone

26. Whimsical Bell System Designs

27. Innovative International Designs

Conclusion

References

Index

About the Authors

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 15.5.2025
• Verlagsort: West Lafayette
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Technik
• Schlagworte: AT&T • automatic electric • Bell Laboratories • Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company Antwerp • Bell telephones • British General Post Office • design history • Donald Genaro • Ericsson • George Lum • handset • Harold Dodge • Henry Dreyfuss • Industrial Design • Jean Heiberg • Kellogg • Marco Zanuso • Ralph Lysell • Richard Sapper • Robert Hose • Siemens • Stromberg-Carlson • Western Electric • William Channing
• ISBN-10: 1-62671-110-0 / 1626711100
• ISBN-13: 978-1-62671-110-5 / 9781626711105