Interest in mid-20th century product design has increased dramatically since 1987 when Channing Wallace Gilson began donating his design collection to Cal Poly Pomona. Gilson, a noteworthy designer in his own right, collected significant examples of industrial design throughout his professional life and began donating his unique collection to the College of Environmental Design, at Cal Poly Pomona in 1987 and 1992, with the balance of item upon his passing in 2007.

The collection, which contains over 200 twentieth-century objects dating from the 1930s to the 1990s, and countless archives, prototype designs, preliminary and final drawings, also includes representative pieces by major industrial designers as well as works by lesser-known designers who made important contributions to the field. Over one-third of the objects in the collection were designed by Gilson himself, who also donated his numerous drawings, sketches, papers, prototypes, plaster models and slides that document his design projects from 1951 to 1992. The collection further contains rare documentation of the career of Jean Otis Reinecke, an industrial designer, once his business partner, who was an important force in mid-20th century industrial design in Chicago. Included are several thousand slides of Reinecke’s designs, a folio of drawings, over twenty of his design objects or prototypes, and product photographs. Included are Reineckedesigned household items we still use today, like 3M plastic tape dispensers and Dazor drafting table clamped lamps.

As a professional industrial designer, Gilson recognized the significance of the historical design record. A chance encounter in 1948 sparked his interest in collecting: while visiting a chainsaw manufacturing company he found that companies were routinely discarding prototypes, models, and products once they were put into production. That same year, he also noticed that Hoover vacuum company did not keep historical records of its products either. As a result, he resolved to start collecting obsolete mass-produced everyday items. He began collecting vacuum cleaners and other industrial products, gradually amassing a large collection, acquired over a lifetime of design and study. Over a period of 40 years he sought out well designed objects, especially those with radically new styling made possible by the application of emerging technologies and materials to consumer products in the post-World War II era.

Far from being a gathering of thrift store fodder, the Gilson collection is a valuable exercise in memory. Therese Mahoney, former visual art resource librarian, recalls when the Gilson-designed water fountain common in older high schools was exhibited, that people kept walking up to it expecting it to work. That sort of personal encounter helps people connect these items to the context of their cultural heritage, recognizing them not just as form but as part of their personal experience. During the 1950s, Gilson designed a wide variety of household items for clients such as Xerox, Motorola and Hughes Aircraft Company, and cafeteria beverage dispensing machines for Sunkist Orange Juice and Carnation Whipped Cocoa.

Gilson’s general collection (his collected items, not his by design) includes domestic products that have become modern design classics— space-age Hoover vacuums Henry Dreyfuss, the famous “Grasshopper” Lounge Chair by Eero Saarinen, Harry Bertoia’s “Bird” High-back Chair, and Charles and Ray Eames furniture, Richard Whipple and Sevarin Jonassen’s Predicta “Holiday” Television manufactured by Philco, as well as triangular tapering-tip Sucaryl bottles by Raymond Loewy and “postmodernist” tableware by Russel Wright. As for office equipment, the collection includes noteworthy “sculpturesque” typewriters by Eliot Noyes in contrast to slick, geometric designs by Mario Bellini for Olivetti. Most of these items were designed in the three decades after World War II. Among the most important items in the collection are the Henry Dreyfuss-designed telephone (1950) and his Honeywell thermostats (1953), which were ergonomically advanced for their time. The Simon De Vaulcheir Airlux Electric Alarm Clock, made of acrylic Lucite, is another gem of the collection. The mass-produced everyday items he collected, were objects that he thought were historically significant: everything from toys and dinnerware to furniture and office equipment. Thanks to his foresight, many significant examples of midcentury industrial design are preserved in this collection.

The collection, as a whole, provides a unique window into the industrial design process in the mid-20th century. It presents a sample of midcentury U.S. design, which was shaped by new technologies, new materials (such as plastics and fiberglass), new manufacturing processes and refinements, new aesthetics, new merchandising techniques, and the rising middle-class demand for mass-produced consumer goods. Cal Poly Pomona’s Midcentury Industrial Design Collection is a valuable resource that helps document the historical record and preserve America’s design heritage.

In 2014, Cal Poly Pomona exhibited the Gilson Collection showcasing some of the most important works from this rare, industrial design collection at this Huntley Gallery exhibition titled, The Gilson Collection: Midcentury Industrial Design at Cal Poly Pomona. This show, and its accompanying catalog, highlighted mid-century industrial design through the objects that Channing Gilson collected for inspiration. It also included objects from the Jean Reinecke Collection, as well as Gilson’s own industrial designs and manufactured prototypes by Channing Gilson Design Inc. The book is co-authored by Maren Henderson, former Art Department Chair and Professor, and Therese Mahoney, former Visual Art Resource Librarian for the College of Environmental Design, and designed by Babette Mayor, a professor in the Art Department.