Senator John Heinz History Center - IMG 7802

Elektro is the nickname of a

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be c ...

built by the

Westinghouse Electric Corporation The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...

in its

Mansfield, Ohio Mansfield is a city in and the county seat of Richland County, Ohio, United States. Located midway between Columbus and Cleveland via Interstate 71, it is part of Northeast Ohio region in the western foothills of the Allegheny Plateau. The city ...

facility between 1937 and 1938. Seven feet tall (2.1 m), weighing 265 pounds (120.2 kg), humanoid in appearance, he could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using a 78-rpm

record player A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move his head and arms. Elektro's body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminum skin. His

photoelectric The photoelectric effect is the emission of electrons when electromagnetic radiation, such as light, hits a material. Electrons emitted in this manner are called photoelectrons. The phenomenon is studied in condensed matter physics, and solid sta ...

"eyes" could distinguish red and green light. He was on exhibit at the

1939 New York World's Fair The 1939–40 New York World's Fair was a world's fair held at Flushing Meadows–Corona Park in Queens, New York, United States. It was the second-most expensive American world's fair of all time, exceeded only by St. Louis's Louisiana Purchas ...

and reappeared at that fair in 1940, with "Sparko", a robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg to humans.

History

Elektro toured North America in 1950 in promotional appearances for Westinghouse, and was displayed at

Pacific Ocean Park Pacific Ocean Park was a nautical-themed amusement park built on a pier at Pier Avenue in the Ocean Park section of Santa Monica, California in 1958. Intended to compete with Disneyland, it replaced Ocean Park Pier (1926-1956). After it closed ...

Venice, California Venice is a neighborhood of the city of Los Angeles within the Westside region of Los Angeles County, California. Venice was founded by Abbot Kinney in 1905 as a seaside resort town. It was an independent city until 1926, when it was annexed by ...

in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He also appeared as "Thinko", in ''

Sex Kittens Go to College ''Sex Kittens Go to College'' (a.k.a. ''Beauty and the Robot'') is a 1960 American comedy film by Allied Artists Pictures, produced and directed by Albert Zugsmith and starring Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld and Mijanou Bardot. The film was als ...

'' (1960). In the 1960s, his head was given to Harold Gorsuch, a retiring Westinghouse engineer. Elektro and Sparko both appear as minor characters in the novel "Mr. Atom" (1969) by

Theodore Pratt Theodore Pratt (1901–1969) was an American writer who is best known for his novels set in Florida. He wrote more than 30 novels, which were adapted into films five times. Biography Pratt was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1901 to Thomas A. ...

. The two join fellow machines in an attempt to go on strike and overthrow humans. In 1992, the dance band

Meat Beat Manifesto Meat Beat Manifesto, often shortened as Meat Beat, Manifesto or MBM, is an electronic music group originally consisting of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens that was formed in 1987 in Swindon, United Kingdom. The band, fronted by Dangers (the only ...

produced the song "Original Control (Version 2)" which prominently featured snippets of Elektro's monologues, quoting lines such as "I am Elektro" and "My brain is bigger than yours". Elektro is currently the property of the

Mansfield Memorial Museum The Mansfield Memorial Museum, originally Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall, is in downtown Mansfield, Ohio. It was founded in 1887 and opened to the public in 1889 as the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall. The museum's collections include vario ...

. In 2013, a replica was exhibited at

The Henry Ford The Henry Ford (also known as the Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation and Greenfield Village, and as the Edison Institute) is a history museum complex in the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan, Dearborn, Michigan, United States. The museum ...

Museum in

Dearborn, MI Dearborn is a city in Wayne County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, it had a population of 109,976. Dearborn is the seventh most-populated city in Michigan and is home to the largest Muslim population in the United States per ...

. Sparko’s fate is unknown.

References

External links

Elektro commentaryYouTube Video footage of Elektro at the 1939 World's FairThe Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair (1939)
Shows entire Elektro demo starting at 34 minutes into movie.
Mansfield Memorial Museum
Historical robots Mansfield, Ohio 1939 New York World's Fair Humanoid robots 1937 robots Robots of the United States {{robo-stub