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The Hall of Electrical Power and The Hall of Electrical Living comprised the two, huge, glass-enclosed rooms on either side of the central exhibit.

Visitors could view demonstrations of how man used the forces of electricity. Also on exhibit was a riderless bicycle and an eight-foot robot that could talk, see, smell, and count on his fingers.

Trylon Tidbits
  • Helen Bennett, Miss Missouri in 1931 (the same year Dorothy Lamour was Miss New Orleans) supervised the young women and men who performed or "smeared" at "The Battle of the Century."
  • Because of the jam-up around the Time Capsule, workers constructed a passageway so visitors could view it single file.
  • Engineers buried The Time Capsule on September 23, 1940 at Lat 40' 44 min and 34 sec .089 north of the Equator; Longitude – 73 degrees 50 minutes.
  • Westinghouse developed one of the most sophisticated national advertising campaigns for its exhibit at the fair. They created a fictional family, the Middletons, to resemble the "typical" American family of the Thirties; Mom, Dad and a teenage son and daughter. Together with their grandmother, who had attended the Columbian Exposition in 1893, the family toured the fair, but, primarily the Westinghouse exhibits.
  • The Middleton family ads ran in the Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Life, Liberty and Country Gentlemen magazines, reaching a total readership of 12,000,000. The company also filmed the adventures of the Middletons.
  • When Elektro faltered during one of his performances, the audience gasped when mechanics removed his head to hunt for a loose bolt causing the mishap.
  • The pavilion's employees nicknamed Elektro "Metal Mike."
Westinghouse
Westinghouse - Photographed by A. Lindsley Lane
Courtesy of Linda Morsani

Westinghouse
Westinghouse - photo 264

Westinghouse  Building
Westinghouse

Westinghouse Fair World
Westinghouse

Click on the image to read the Westinghouse Fair World Newspaper

Westinghouse "Electro" robot
"Electro" was a 7-foot metal man (robot) that talked, saw, smelled, sang and could count with his fingers.

Westinghouse "Electro" robot
Westinghouse "Electro" robot

Battle of the Century


Part of the film "Middletons at the Fair" showing Westinghouse's new dishwasher. Here is the competition between "Mrs. Modern" and "Mrs. Drudge" as they show the audience who will rule in the kitchen of the future.

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