Bell Telephone Laboratories (founded 1925)
Telephone, model 302, 1937
Manufactured by Western Electric
Die-cast metal base, 5 5/8 x 8 3/4 x 7 1/2 in. (14.3 x 22.2 x 19.1 cm)
Yale University Art Gallery
1999.124.1
Industrial designer Henry Dreyfuss worked with Bell Telephone Laboratory's engineers from 1930, stressing the need for unifying equipment design and modifying the aesthetic of the telephone. As a result, model 302 was a marked improvement over its predecessor, the 1927 model 202, in both form and function. The newer design incorporated the same finger wheel but balanced the weighty transmitter/receiver handset with a sturdy rectangular base. Dreyfuss pays homage to a 1930 Bakelite plastic phone designed by Jean Heiberg for the L. M. Ericsson Company of Stockholm in the upper body's inward curve, a detail that was dropped from later designs. Along with Bell telephones, other works including Hoover vacuums, John Deere tractors, and the Big Ben clock have become recognizable Dreyfuss designs.
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