Hearing Aid
date: label: date made
content: 1935
notes: label: Description
content: Silver seal symphonic hearing aid in an oval Bakelite case. One inscription reads “ACOUSTICON U.S. PATENT NO. 844635 MADE IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA MODEL 74 NO 500722.” Another reads “TRADE MARK REGISTERED UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.”
label: Description
content: Miller Reese Hutchison (1876-1944) was an American electrical engineer who developed several electrical hearing aids. The best was the Acousticon, which he introduced in 1902 and showed at the St. Louis International Exhibition of 1904. In 1905 Hutchison transferred the rights for the Acousticon to Kelley Monroe Turner (1859–1927), proprietor of the General Acoustic Company. Turner went on to improve hearing aids and apply the technology to other products. One such was the dictograph, an early inter-office intercom system. Turner's firm later became the Dictograph Products Company, and Acousticon became a division of that firm.
label: Description
content: Ref: Kelly 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: A. L. Griffith, “The Acousticon,” Hearst’s Magazine-World Today 5 (1903): 855-858.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
setName: label: See more items in
content: Medicine and Science: Medicine
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: ZZ.RSN83519R04
objectType: label: Object Name
content: Hearing Aids, Batch of
label: Other Terms
content: Hearing Aids, Batch of; Medicine