Dave Lester’s Finding America

Those who have read my blog for a while know about my ongoing interest in robots, particularly the development of the robot archetype in popular American Culture in the early twentieth century. By and large I’ve sought to understand these depictions of robots within the cultures that produced them. Whether that was the image of the “savage robot” explored in an earlier post about a 1937 Lil’ Abner comic strip, or an earlier attempt to create a brief pre-Asimov robot timeline, the relationship between humans and machine is fascinating. In several weeks I’ll have a call for participants in my newest exploration of the robot archetype, but more on that later.

Elektro was a robot presented by Westinghouse at the 1939 World’s Fair that helped bring the robot into public consciousness, as well as present an idea of what the future of robotics would be. Seven feet tall, this steel humanoid robot walked by voice command, talked, moved its head/arms and even smoked cigarettes. Elektro’s voice used a 78-rpm record player, saying lines including “If you use me well, I can be your slave” — similar to the Lil’ Abner comic. Not only was Elektro made in the image of man, his ability to smoke distinguishes his activities closer to humans than a machine. This fascinating diagram shows the moving components of Elektro, including his bellows.