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Designed in Toledo
Museum Exhibit Focuses on City's Industrial Design Legacy
 Listen to David D'Arcy's report.
Skippy-Racer Scooter, patented 1933. Design by Van Doren and Rideout for client American National Company. From the collection of Frederic W. Strobel, Gendron, Inc.
Photo: Tim Thayer
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Wayne Pump, ca. 1934. Design by Van Doren and Rideout for client Wayne Pump Company. From the collection of Ron Scobie.
Photo: Tim Thayer
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Ice-cream scoop, patented 1939. Design by Sherman L. Kelly for client Zeroll Company. Anonymous loan.
Photo: Tim Thayer
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Washer Model E, patented 1939. Design by Harold Van Doren & Associates with Thomas R. Smith (engineer) for client Maytag Company. Anonymous loan.
Photo: Tim Thayer
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June 15, 2002 -- If corporate America looks to Silicon Valley for design innovation today, it was looking a century ago to Toledo, Ohio -- an industrial city that once produced everything from spark plugs to glass containers, scales and Jeeps. And each of these items had a design unique to Toledo.
The Toledo Museum of Art has now devoted an entire exhibition to those designs. David D'Arcy reports that the exhibit, "Alliance of Art and Industry: Toledo Designs for a Modern America," is an important reminder of the city's design legacy, and the subtle art of industrial design.
Toledo was a special case among industrial cities, because companies there sought out designers, and the Toledo Museum of Art, founded in 1901, set up a program to train them.
Designers in Toledo were noted for their attention to small details. For example, in the 1930s, stores put scales built by the Toledo Scale Company outside the entrance to attract customers. A company designer noticed that women were avoiding the scales -- so he moved the weight display, which faced outward, to face upward. That way, only the person standing on the scale would know the truth.
"It's a very small design change, but it's a very significant one," says Design historian John Heskett.
After scales, Toledo's best-known product was, and still is, glass. The city's art museum, created by the owners of the Libbey Glass Company, has one of the best art-glass collections in the world.
But if glass is Toledo's most enduring product, the city's industrial icon is the Willys-Overland Jeep. After World War II, Willys-Overland tried to get civilians to buy something called the Jeepster, a cross between the military vehicle and a sports car. It did not take on, and heralded a gradual decline in the popularity of Toledo designs.
By the 1970s, John Heskett says, many companies were fleeing the "Rust Belt" and Toledo had lost many of its factories, jobs and designers.
Today, objects from the days when Toledo led the way in industrial design can be hard to find. Curators had to place ads in newspapers, and even buy some objects -- like an patented ice-cream scoop designed in Toledo -- on the online auction site eBay. Other exhibits were re-assembled from parts found in yard sales.
But not all of Toledo's design days are behind it. A new factory in the city is producing the latest version of the Jeep, the Liberty.
"Alliance of Art and Industry: Toledo Designs for a Modern America" will be shown at the Toledo Museum of Art only until Sunday, June 16. The exhibit will travel to Columbus, Ohio, and then to the San Francisco Airport Museum.
Other Resources
• Toledo Museum of Art
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