Henry Dreyfuss (March 2, 1904 – October 5, 1972) was an American industrial design pioneer. Dreyfuss is known for designing some of the most iconic devices found in American homes and offices throughout the twentieth century, including the Western Electric

Model 500 telephone The Western Electric model 500 telephone series was the standard domestic desk telephone set issued by the Bell System in North America from 1950 through the 1984 Bell System divestiture. Millions of model 500-series phones were produced and were ...

, the Westclox Big Ben alarm clock, and the

Honeywell Honeywell International Inc. is an American publicly traded, multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina. It primarily operates in four areas of business: aerospace, building technologies, performance ma ...

round thermostat. Dreyfuss enjoyed long-term associations with several name brand companies such as

American Telephone and Telegraph AT&T Corporation, originally the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is the subsidiary of AT&T Inc. that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agen ...

, John Deere, Polaroid, and

American Airlines American Airlines is a major airlines of the United States, major US-based airline headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, within the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex. It is the Largest airlines in the world, largest airline in the world when measured ...

Career

Dreyfuss, a native of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

, is one of the celebrity industrial designers of the 1930s and 1940s who pioneered his field. Dreyfuss dramatically improved the look, feel, and usability of dozens of consumer products. Sometimes compared to Raymond Loewy and other contemporaries, Dreyfuss was much more than a stylist; he applied common sense and a scientific approach to design problems, making products more pleasing to the eye and hand, safer to use, and more efficient to manufacture and repair. His work helped popularize the role of the industrial designer while also contributing significant advances to the fields of

ergonomics Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

, anthropometrics and

human factors Human factors and ergonomics (commonly referred to as human factors) is the application of psychological and physiological principles to the engineering and design of products, processes, and systems. Four primary goals of human factors learnin ...

. Dreyfuss began as a Broadway theatrical designer. Until 1920, he apprenticed under

Norman Bel Geddes Norman Bel Geddes (born Norman Melancton Geddes; April 27, 1893 – May 8, 1958) was an American theatrical and industrial designer. Early life Bel Geddes was born Norman Melancton Geddes in Adrian, Michigan and was raised in New Philadelp ...

, who would later become one of his competitors. In 1929, Dreyfuss opened his own office for theatrical and industrial design. His firm met with commercial success, and continued as Henry Dreyfuss Associates for over four decades after his death.

Designs

* Hoover model 150 vacuum cleaner (1936) * Several Westclox ''Big Ben'' alarm clocks (1931–1956). The style 3 (1931), 4 (1934), 5 (1939) and 6 (1949) Big and Baby Ben cases were all designed by Dreyfuss. *

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Mid ...

's streamlined Mercury train, both locomotive and passenger cars (1936) * New York Central Hudson locomotive for the

20th Century Limited The ''20th Century Limited'' was an express passenger train on the New York Central Railroad (NYC) from 1902 to 1967. The train traveled between Grand Central Terminal in New York City and LaSalle Street Station in Chicago, Illinois, along ...

(1938) * Popular ''Democracity'' model city of the future at the 1939 New York World's Fair at the Trylon and Perisphere Bankers Trust Building 280 Park Avenue

* Styled John Deere Model A and Model B tractors (1938) * Wahl-Eversharp Skyline fountain pen (1940) *

Royal Typewriter Company The Royal Typewriter Company is a manufacturer of typewriters founded in January 1904. It was headquartered in New York City with its factory in Hartford, Connecticut. History The Royal Typewriter Company was founded by Edward B. Hess and Lew ...

's Quiet DeLuxe (late 1940s) * Bell System telephones: Western Electric 500-series desk and wall telephones (1949 - 1972),

Princess telephone The Princess telephone was introduced by the Bell System in 1959. It was a compact telephone designed for convenient use in the bedroom, and contained a light-up dial for use as a night-light. It was commonly advertised with the slogan "It's lit ...

(1959), Model 1500 10 digit touchtone (1963), Model 2500 12-digit touchtone (1968–present), and the

Trimline telephone The Trimline telephone is a series of telephones that was produced by Western Electric, the manufacturing unit of the Bell System. These telephones were first introduced in 1965 and are formally referred to as the ''No. 220 Hand Telephone ...

(1965–present) * Two American steamships, SS ''Independence'' and SS ''Constitution'' for American Export Lines (1951–2) *

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"the Round" circular wall thermostat (1953–present) * Spherical Hoover model 82 Constellation vacuum cleaner which floated on an air cushion of its own exhaust (1954) * Hoover model 65 convertible vacuum cleaner (1957) * John Deere 1010, 2010, 3010, and 4010 tractors (1960) * Bankers Trust Building at 280

Park Avenue Park Avenue is a wide New York City boulevard which carries north and southbound traffic in the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx. For most of the road's length in Manhattan, it runs parallel to Madison Avenue to the west and Lexington Av ...

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

, with Emery Roth & Sons (1963) *

branding (1960s) *

Polaroid SX-70 The SX-70 is a folding single lens reflex Land camera which was produced by the Polaroid Corporation from 1972 to 1981. History In 1948, Polaroid introduced its first consumer camera. The Land Camera Model 95 was the first camera to use ins ...

Land camera (1972)

Later life and death

In 1955, Dreyfuss wrote ''Designing for People''. A window into Dreyfuss's career as an industrial designer, the book illustrated his ethical and aesthetic principles, included design case studies, many anecdotes, and an explanation of his "Joe" and "Josephine"

anthropometric Anthropometry () refers to the measurement of the human individual. An early tool of physical anthropology, it has been used for identification, for the purposes of understanding human physical variation, in paleoanthropology and in various atte ...

charts. In 1960 he published ''The Measure of Man'', a collection of ergonomic reference charts providing designers precise specifications for product designs. In 1965, Dreyfuss became the first President of the Industrial Designers Society of America (IDSA). In 1969, Dreyfuss retired from the firm he founded, but continued serving many of the companies he worked with as board member and consultant. In 1972 Dreyfuss published ''The Symbol Sourcebook, An Authoritative Guide to International Graphic Symbols''. This visual database of over 20,000 symbols continues to provide a standard for industrial designers around the world. On October 5, 1972, the bodies of Henry Dreyfuss (aged 68) and his wife and business partner Doris Marks Dreyfuss (aged 69) were found dead in the garage at 500 Columbia Street in

South Pasadena, California South Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,619, up from 24,292 at the 2000 census. It is located in the West San Gabriel Valley. It is 3.42 square miles in area an ...

by Dr. Edward Evans, the family physician. They committed suicide together. Authorities reported the cause of death as

carbon monoxide poisoning Carbon monoxide poisoning typically occurs from breathing in carbon monoxide (CO) at excessive levels. Symptoms are often described as " flu-like" and commonly include headache, dizziness, weakness, vomiting, chest pain, and confusion. Large ...

. Lieut. John R. Simmons, chief of the detective bureau of the South Pasadena police, reported that notes had been left. A note instructed the Dreyfuss's maid to call Dr. Evans upon her arrival this morning. Another note held the key to the carriage house and instructions to enter. Dr. Evans reported the deaths to the police at approximately 8:10 A.M. The couple was survived by their son, John A., and their two daughters, Ann and Mrs. George C. Wilson Jr.. Mrs. Dreyfuss was terminally ill at this time.

References

Bibliography

*Dreyfuss, Henry. ''Symbol Sourcebook: An Authoritative Guide to International Graphic Symbols''. New York:

John Wiley & Sons John Wiley & Sons, Inc., commonly known as Wiley (), is an American multinational publishing company founded in 1807 that focuses on academic publishing and instructional materials. The company produces books, journals, and encyclopedias, ...

. 1984. *Dreyfuss, Henry. ''Designing for People''. Allworth Press; illustrated edition, 2003. *Flinchum, Russell. ''Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer: The Man in the Brown Suit''. Rizzoli, 1997. *Innes, Christopher. ''Designing Modern America: Broadway to Main Street''.

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 2005.

External links

Video on Dreyfuss's design for Honeywell thermostat and for his Bell Telephone
at

Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Commons (or simply Commons) is a media repository of free-to-use images, sounds, videos and other media. It is a project of the Wikimedia Foundation. Files from Wikimedia Commons can be used across all of the Wikimedia projects in ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dreyfuss, Henry 1904 births 1972 suicides People from Brooklyn American industrial designers Suicides by carbon monoxide poisoning Suicides in California Joint suicides 1972 deaths