The Turner Microphone Company was an American manufacturer of microphones in Cedar Rapids, Iowa from 1931 to 1979. Turner operated as a small company but produced and sold many well made but modestly priced microphones. [1] Many of the microphones they produced were general purpose bullet-style microphones and CB radio communications microphones. Many of the company's 1940s-1950s microphones had an Art Deco appearance. [2]
The Turner Microphone company was founded by David Turner and Everett Foster in Cedar Rapids, Iowa in 1931. The company soon began making microphones and public address systems. Turner opened a larger factory in 1936 and produced a large quantity of microphones and grew to 1200 employees by the 1970s. The company was sold to Telex in 1978 and ceased operations in 1979. [3]
The Model 22 was a very popular microphone throughout the 1940s and 1950s which was offered with both a crystal and ceramic element. This model featured a brushed nickel finish and an art deco styling with Turner's distinctive shark fin on top.
The CD, BD, CX, Challenger was another very popular microphone of the era. This model featured an Art Deco styling with a distinctive “shark fin” on the top. It was produced from 1940 to 1948. [4] The microphone was offered in both Brown and brushed Chrome with options of a crystal or dynamic element. The Challenger models have become highly sought after by collectors due to its stying and use by Blues harmonica players.
The Model 33 was a large chrome-finished microphone with an Art Deco styling offered in both a crystal and dynamic element. [5] It was produced from the 1940s to the 1950s.
Art Deco, short for the French Arts décoratifs, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in Paris in the 1910s, and flourished in the United States and Europe during the 1920s to early 1930s. Through styling and design of the exterior and interior of anything from large structures to small objects, including how people look, Art Deco has influenced bridges, buildings, ships, ocean liners, trains, cars, trucks, buses, furniture, and everyday objects including radios and vacuum cleaners.
Cedar Rapids is a city in and the county seat of Linn County, Iowa, United States. The city lies on both banks of the Cedar River, 20 miles (32 km) north of Iowa City and 128 miles (206 km) northeast of Des Moines, the state's capital. The population was 137,710 at the 2020 census, making it the second-most populous city in Iowa. The population of the three-county Cedar Rapids metropolitan area, which includes the nearby cities of Marion and Hiawatha, was 276,520 in 2020. Cedar Rapids is the economic hub of Eastern Iowa, located at the core of the Interstate 380 corridor. The Cedar Rapids metropolitan area is also part of a combined statistical area with the Iowa City metropolitan area.
Grant DeVolson Wood was an American artist and representative of Regionalism, best known for his paintings depicting the rural American Midwest. He is particularly well known for American Gothic (1930), which has become an iconic example of early 20th-century American art.
Bulova is an American timepiece manufacturing company that was founded in 1875 and has been owned by Japanese multinational conglomerate Citizen Watch Co. since 2008. The company makes watches, clocks and accessories, and it is based in New York City.
Streamline Moderne is an international style of Art Deco architecture and design that emerged in the 1930s. Inspired by aerodynamic design, it emphasized curving forms, long horizontal lines, and sometimes nautical elements. In industrial design, it was used in railroad locomotives, telephones, toasters, buses, appliances, and other devices to give the impression of sleekness and modernity.
Shure Incorporated is an audio products corporation headquartered in the USA. It was founded by Sidney N. Shure in Chicago, Illinois, in 1925 as a supplier of radio parts kits. The company became a consumer and professional audio-electronics manufacturer of microphones, wireless microphone systems, phonograph cartridges, discussion systems, mixers, and digital signal processing. The company also manufactures listening products, including headphones, high-end earphones, and personal monitor systems.
The Boston Avenue United Methodist Church, located in downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, and completed in 1929, is considered to be one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical Art Deco architecture in the United States, and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Built by a congregation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, it was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1999. It has 15 floors.
Cressi is one of the largest manufacturers of water sports equipment in the world serving the scuba dive, snorkel and swim industries. The company's five divisions cover four markets—scuba diving, snorkeling, spearfishing, and swimming. Cressi maintains a significant presence in each major economic region around the globe and delivers some 300 distinct products to more than 90 countries. Formerly Cressi-Sub, the Italian company was founded by two brothers, Egidio and Nanni Cressi in 1946 in Genoa, Italy. Still family owned and operated, the company is headed today by Antonio Cressi and its headquarters and manufacturing facilities remain in Genoa.
Georg Neumann GmbH is a manufacturer of professional recording microphones. It was founded by Georg Neumann and Erich Rickmann in 1928 and is based in Berlin, Germany. Its best-known products are condenser microphones for recording, broadcast, and live music production purposes. For several decades Neumann was also a leading manufacturer of cutting lathes for phonograph disks, and even ventured into the field of mixing desks. Today Neumann also manufactures preamplifiers, studio monitors, headphones, and audio interfaces.
The Cincinnati Car Company or Cincinnati Car Corporation was a subsidiary of the Ohio Traction Company. It designed and constructed interurban cars, streetcars (trams) and buses. It was founded in 1902 in Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1928, it bought the Versare Car Company.
The Pontiac Bonneville Special is a concept car unveiled at the General Motors Motorama in 1954, the first two-seat sports car prototype the division had ever produced. Conceived by designer Harley J. Earl and hand-built by Homer C. LaGassey Jr. and Paul Gilland, the Special is a grand touring sport coupé that incorporated innovative styling like a Plexiglas canopy with gull-wing windows on a sleek fiberglass body.
Film title design is a term describing the craft and design of motion picture title sequences. Since the beginning of the film form, it has been an essential part of any motion picture. Originally a motionless piece of artwork called title art, it slowly evolved into an artform of its own.
The Astatic Corporation is a commercial audio products manufacturer founded in Youngstown, Ohio in 1933. Astatic formed CAD Professional Microphones in 1988 as a division of Astatic. The company reorganized as Omnitronics LLC in 2000, and later combined CAD, Astatic and Omnitronics under the CAD Audio brand. DAS Companies purchased the rights for Astatic Citizens Band hand microphones and is one of their acquired brand names.
From its inception in the late 1940s through about 1984, Wacanda Marine, Inc. was owned and operated by Forrest Collins, Colville, Washington. From 1984 to 1988, the company was owned by the Yakima Indian Nation, Wapato, Washington, although Mr. Collins managed the production
Noggin was an American magazine that published art, fiction, cartoons, and social and political commentary. It started in Iowa City, Iowa in 1990, and published semimonthly for three years.
The Red Devil was a high-speed interurban streetcar built by the Cincinnati Car Company for the Cincinnati and Lake Erie Railroad (C&LE) in 1929–1930. They saw service throughout Ohio in the 1930s. After the failure of the C&LE in 1939 they saw service with the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway (CRANDIC) and the Lehigh Valley Transit Company. Several have been preserved.
The Ford Taunus 17 M is a middle sized family saloon/sedan that was produced by Ford Germany between August 1957 and August 1960. The Taunus 17M name was also applied to subsequent Ford models which is why the car is usually identified, in retrospect, as the Ford Taunus P2. It was the second newly designed German Ford to be launched after the war and for this reason it was from inception known within the company as Ford Project 2 (P2) or the Ford Taunus P2.
Waterfall is a style of furniture design from the 1930s and 1940s. It was the most prevalent variation on Art Deco furniture during this time, primarily created for the mass market and for bedroom suites.
The Iowa City Downtown Historic District is a nationally recognized historic district located in Iowa City, Iowa, United States. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2021. At the time of its nomination it consisted of 102 resources, which included 73 contributing buildings, one contributing site, one contributing object, 21 non-contributing buildings, and seven non-contributing objects. Eight buildings that were previously listed on the National Register are also included in the district. Iowa City's central business district developed adjacent to the Iowa Old Capitol Building and the main campus of the University of Iowa. This juxtaposition gives the area its energy with the overlap of university staff and students and the local community. The district was significantly altered in the 1970s by the city's urban renewal effort that brought about the Ped Mall, which transformed two blocks of College Street from Clinton Street to Linn Street and Dubuque Street from Burlington Street to Washington Street. It is the contributing site and the large planters/retaining walls that are original to the project are counted together as the contributing object. There are also several freestanding, limestone planters, five contemporary sculptures, and a playground area are the non-contributing objects.