ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
Point a camera, press a button and wait. It takes three minutes to see your photo. For our series America in Pursuit, exploring culture, history and objects in American life, NPR culture correspondent Anastasia Tsioulcas takes us back to a time before selfies.
ANASTASIA TSIOULCAS, BYLINE: In 1972, the Polaroid SX-70, made in collaboration with a famous industrial designer named Henry Dreyfuss, was a revelation.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Hold your left hand out. Place the camera across the palm.
TSIOULCAS: Polaroid recruited another famous industrial design firm, the Eames office, to make a film explaining it to Polaroid stockholders. Somehow, the film manages hilariously to make this easy-to-understand item very complicated.
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UNIDENTIFIED NARRATOR: Grasp the rear of the viewfinder cap. Pull the camera into its erect position. To load, press, and the door opens. Take the 10-picture film pack and push it all the way in.
TSIOULCAS: The color scheme is very 1970s. You can imagine it in a groovy office or in the interior of a station wagon. This model is wrapped in black and cognac leather with metal fittings with one exception, says Emily Orr, a curator at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Museum of Design in New York City.
EMILY ORR: And one other important moment of color on it is the trigger button, which is right there - brilliant red - at the front, making it easy for the user to locate.
TSIOULCAS: Intuitive design at its best.
ORR: This was at the core of Henry Dreyfuss' practice. He believed in simplicity. He thought that objects should be easy to use, easy to manufacture and easy to maintain.
TSIOULCAS: And the public loved it. Everyday people used it to snap pictures of their vacations and holidays.
ORR: By 1974, it had sold over 700,000 units and was quickly a cult favorite used by the likes of Andy Warhol and Ansel Adams.
TSIOULCAS: As well as Richard Avedon, Walker Evans and David Hockney, among other famous artists and photojournalists. That ability to whip out a camera and take a picture wherever, whenever was a preview of our current obsessions. Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR News, New York. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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