Hearing Aid
name: label: maker
content: General Acoustic Company
notes: label: Description
content: Miller Reese Hutchison (1877-1944) was an electrical engineer from Alabama who established the Hutchison Laboratory in New York City, and invented a carbon microphone hearing aid (which he termed the Acousticon), and the dictograph. The Hutchison Acoustic Co. showed two hearing aids, the Acousticon and the Massicon, at the St. Louis International Exhibition of 1904. In 1905 Hutchison transferred the rights for the Acousticon to Kelly Monroe Turner (1859–1927), proprietor of the General Acoustic Company. Turner went on to improve hearing aids and apply the technology to other products. By 1918, the Dictograph Products Co. was advertising as successors to the General Acoustic Co., and the Acousticon had become a Dictograph product.
label: Description
content: This Acousticon, a Type RD5 with Serial #17832, was based on U.S. patents of Oct. 28, 1902, Feb. 12, 1907, and Feb. 12, 1907. The inscription on the case reads “ACOUSTICON / GENERAL ACOUSTIC COMPANY / NEW YORK CITY.”
label: Description
content: Ref: Howell W. Haff, “Telephone-Transmitter, U.S. Patent 874,004 (Oct. 28, 1902), assigned to General Acoustic Company.
label: Description
content: Kelley M. Turner and Norton W. Johnston, “Carbon-Ball Transmitter,” U.S. Patent 844,635 (Feb. 19, 1907), assigned to General Acoustic Co.
label: Description
content: Irving Wilson Voorhees, “Mechanical Aids to Hearing” in Thomas Lathrop Steadman, ed., <i>A Reference Handbook of the Medical Sciences</i> (New York, 1915), vol. 5, pp. 47-48.
label: Description
content: “Miller Hutchinson, Inventor, 67, Dead,” <i>New York Times</i> (Feb. 18, 1944), p. 17.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: John William Christopher Draper and James Christopher Draper
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: MG.304826.065
label: catalog number
content: 304826.065
label: accession number
content: 304826
objectType: label: Object Name
content: hearing aid
label: Object Name
content: case, hearing aid
physicalDescription: label: Measurements
content: overall: 5 1/8 in x 8 in x 3 3/4 in; 13.0175 cm x 20.32 cm x 9.525 cm