This Day in History

December 20, 1943

Norman Bel Geddes to Designs ASSC Machine Cover

Thomas Watson Jr. informs Harvard University President James B. Conant that Norman Bel Geddes would be designing the cover of the Harvard Mark I computer. Bel Geddes was an American industrial designer who also worked on such things as Philco radio cabinets and a Graham Page car. He was deeply interested in the future, illustrating a book in 1932 that described, among other things, a huge passenger airplane with public lounges and an exercise center. Bel Geddes also desgined the GM pavilion at the 1939 World's Fair.