General Information

Serial #

N/A

Part Number

8

Total Parts

10

AKA

N/A

Patents

N/A

General Description

Metal drawer and handle

Dimensions

Note: These reflect the general size for storage and are not necessarily representative of the object's true dimensions.

Length

38.0 cm

Width

30.8 cm

Height

16.1 cm

Thickness

N/A

Weight

N/A

Diameter

N/A

Volume

N/A

Lexicon

Group

Domestic Technology

Category

Food processing

Sub-Category

N/A

Manufacturer

AKA

IH

Country

United States of America

State/Province

Illinois

City

Chicago

Context

Country

Unknown

State/Province

Unknown

Period

Unknown

Canada

In order to take advantage of a newly 'electrified' population, which represented an enormous business opportunity for the company, IH created a new domestic refrigeration division with a new plant in Evansville, Indiana. The company planned to leverage its existing distribution system and sell refrigerators and freezers to farmers wives; the company had previously dominate the farming equipment market. This refrigerator was part of a campaign that International Harvester ran from 1947 to 1955 (when it was bought out by Whirlpool). In 1947 IH launched an all-woman sales force and a newly created persona/company's official face/the sales force's fictional leader Irma Harding. Through this campaign, IH presented freezing and refrigeration as a lifestyle change to women who had no familiarity with this technology. IH published recipe books and pamphlets that showed people how to take their produce from the store or garden and preserve them in the freezer rather than canning which had been the domestic standard. The all-female sales force drove across the mid-west giving demonstrations of how this technology worked at various IH dealerships. The company also produced refrigerators that could be custom designed through the application of different patterns and prints to the refrigerator door (starting in 1949) and that had handles that came in a selection of colours (starting in 1951).

Function

To store food items in a refrigerator in a separate, controlled environment.

Technical

"The IH 1952 line was not a complete changeover, but it did bring to the customer a line of refrigerators with new features and new styling. Biggest engineering change was the introduction of "tri-matic" defrosting which is in the top two models (the G-93D and the G-85D). A new front door that involved only the reworking of the old dies was a styling change; the "hairpin" impression became an inverted "L" shape. New "jewelry" in the form of a clear plastic and gold crest parks the newly designed fronts. After exhaustive laboratory tests, a cool shade of "spring green" was picked to be used in the interiors of five models. Starting with the limitations of a stiff rectangle of sheet metal the industrial designer must bring forth forms and colors that are distinctive and pleasing and in good taste. Nowhere can design impar engineering or utility (when this does happen it is really bad design). And, always, the designer owes heavy obligations to his origins in art, which ask him to help better public standards of design." (International Harvester Today: Volume 4, Number 1, July-August 1952)

Area Notes

Unknown

Details

Markings

None apparent.

Missing

Appears complete

Finish

White enameled metal drawer with a black proper top rim and a silver coloured metal handle.

Decoration

N/A