A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Now, to the latest entry in our series America in Pursuit to celebrate 250 years of culture, history and objects in American life. NPR's Anastasia Tsioulcas takes us back to a home telephone with character.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ANASTASIA TSIOULCAS, BYLINE: The Sculptura is not just any phone. It's a whole personality.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Contemporary and novel describe Sculptura - probably the most eye-catching telephone you'll ever see.
TSIOULCAS: It's a gorgeously curved thing, two crescent moons coming to meet in the middle. And it is bright yellow, the kind of yellow you'd see in the Sunday comics or in a Roy Lichtenstein painting. And now it's on display at the Cooper Hewitt, the Smithsonian Museum of Design in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: It's a functional, convenient telephone that marks you as a decorator who is sensitive to every aspect of your home's decor.
TSIOULCAS: That's from a 1979 promotional film for the Sculptura and other home telephones. The Sculptura demands your attention, says Cooper Hewitt curator Emily Orr.
EMILY ORR: So rather than the phone standing out as this technical object in an interior, a phone like the Sculptura telephone could blend in with an interior design.
TSIOULCAS: But there were larger market forces at work. Back then, a majority of households rented their home phones instead of buying them, Orr says.
ORR: This was a standard-issue black telephone that was rented most often from the Bell Labs division of AT&T.
TSIOULCAS: AT&T had another subsidiary called Western Electric, which made telephones. The Sculptura was part of a campaign to get Americans to buy their phones. There were other models, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: All you have to do is pick the one that's just right for your personality or your room's decor.
TSIOULCAS: One that looked like a colonial candlestick for your patriotic living room, perhaps.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: It's the Early American.
TSIOULCAS: Or if you're looking for a little whimsy...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Good grief. It's Snoopy and Woodstock.
TSIOULCAS: But unlike many of its peers, the Sculptura still reads as stylish. That yellow, as bright and appealing as a piece of candy, is always going to turn heads in a home or at a museum.
Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR News, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "867-5309/JENNY")
TOMMY TUTONE: (Singing) Eight, six, seven. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
