Elektro the Robot

     All vacation long I'd be waiting for a special museum trip, which took place Monday. And I have to say, the Mansfield Memorial Museum lived up to all my expectations.

     Several friends were going to be in Ohio at the same time, so we did the math and chose to meet in a small town that was roughly equidistant from everyone, in the town of Mansfield. I've never heard of the town, but I figure we could kill an afternoon there, even if it just meant eating a long lunch. However, a little research revealed that the town of 45,000 had several museums. We quickly ruled out the Creationism Museum, but the Mansfield Memorial Museum, a Victorian-era museum with a few updated exhibits, sounded intriguing. The museum is closed in the winter, but when I called, the director was happy to arrange a tour just for me and my four friends. In fact, he personally regaled us with history of the building and the exhibit for an hour and a half.

   The highlight is, without a doubt, the Westinghouse robot Elektro. This robot, featured at the 1939 World's Fair, could walk, talk, smoke, and respond to voice commands. It was extremely sophisticated for the era. I was especially excited, because I had watched the movie "The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair", in which Elektro had a short cameo*. (He also appeared in "Sex Kittens Go to College". The title says it all.) He had a hole cut in his midriff to demonstrate that there was no one hiding inside, and his back is opened up to show the vacuum tubes and old wiring that made him go.
     The museum is one of those old Victorian museums which was originally animal and plant specimens in fine old wood cases. More recent acquisitions included things like pre-World War I uniforms and 600 model planes. Mansfield was an appliance-manufacturing town, so they also had gems like an early 1950's microwave oven - it cost over $12,000 in today's dollars and was so powerful that later models were water cooled.
     After Elektro, my favorite exhibits were from the Victorian era. In particular, I had not encountered anthropomorphic taxidermy before and I am now a fan. I had to include two photos of this because it is so awesome.

 Dr. Jones, the umbrella-carrying raccoon.

A woodland creature band. The badger leads, and a frog sings a solo.

*If you want to get a glimpse into the mindset of the 1930's and 40's of America, I can't recommend this movie enough. It's got automatic dishwashers and robots - and people looking toward the bright future that today's technology is bringing. The hero is a fresh-faced Westinghouse employee, and the villain is an artist who disdains industrial progress. Need I say more?