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

Abstract

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.