Arthur Murray Out From His Shell

 

Arthur Murray (Moses Teichman 1895-1991) was an American ballroom dancer and businessman, whose name is most often associated with the dance studio chain that bears his name. Currently, there are approximately 180 Arthur Murray Franchised Dance Studios worldwide. Though shy as a child and self-conscious about his tall, lanky appearance, Murray won his first dance contest at the Grand Central Palace, a public dance hall where he later became a part-time dance teacher after graduation from high school. In 1920, he organized the world's first "radio dance" on the Georgia Tech campus. He devised the idea of teaching dance steps with footprint diagrams supplied by mail. Within a couple of years, over 500,000 dance courses had been sold. in 1938, the first Arthur Murray dance studio franchise was opened in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Murray turned to television with a dance program hosted by his wife, Kathryn, The Arthur Murray Party, which ran from 1950 to 1960.

Body by Fisher

 

"Pound for pound -- what do you find?" is the headline accompanying this 1949 illustration. Do all sorts of pounding, thumping and slamming to discover the solidity of steel. I guess. The Fisher Body Corporation was a Detroit, Michigan automobile coachbuilder founded by the Fisher brothers in 1908 but its beginnings trace back to a horse-drawn carriage shop in Norwalk, Ohio, in the late 1800s. Since 1919 a division of General Motors, it was dissolved to form other GM divisions in 1984. Noted for many innovations, Fisher Body designed slanted windshields to reduce glare in 1930, dual windshield wipers in 1936 and produced GM's first airbag in 1974. The name and its iconic "Body by Fisher" logo were well known to the public, as GM vehicles displayed the emblem on their door sill plates until the mid-1990s.

Timken Keeps America Going

 

"Roller Freight" rolls out the red carpet for goods the way the 20th Century rolls it out for people in this 1954 advertisement. The Timken Company, an American manufacturer of bearings and related components and assemblies, was incorporated in 1899 as The Timken Roller Bearing Axle Company by Henry Timken after he obtained a patent for an improved tapered roller bearing. By 1901 the company moved to Canton, Ohio, as the automobile industry began to overtake the carriage industry. Production increased dramatically during the 1940s to keep up with wartime demand. Jeep alone used 24 Timken bearings. Timken expanded into new global markets throughout the 1970s and 1980s, establishing a sales operation in Japan in 1974 and opening sales offices in Italy, Korea, Singapore and Venezuela in 1988. By the late 1990s, Timken also had a sales presence in Spain, Hong Kong, China and Singapore. Engineered bearing products continue to be core to their business and reflect a long-standing innovative power in moving global industries forward. 

Zenith During its Imaginary High Point

 

In the 1950s, Zenith produced a line of record players using their own unique record changers called the “Cobra-Matic.” It was unique in that they allowed a variable speed adjustment by simply sliding a lever on the front allowing the unit to accept any sized records. By moving the speed control the operator could set the speed to the standard 16, 33, 45, or 78 rpm by positioning the speed shift lever at the appropriate mark on the scale.

Zenith was co-founded in 1918 by Ralph Matthews and Karl Hassel in Chicago, Illinois, as Chicago Radio Labs, a small producer of amateur radio equipment. The name "Zenith" came from ZN'th, a contraction of its founders' ham radio call sign, 9ZN. They were joined in 1921 by Eugene F. McDonald, and Zenith Radio Company was formally incorporated in 1923. Zenith reached its zenith in the 1990s and was fully taken over by LG Electronics, its parent company today.