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Established inauspiciously at the outset of the Great Depression, the Airguide Instrument Company—originally known as Fee & Stemwedel, Inc.—managed a 60-year run as one of the country’s leading producers of “weather instruments,” i.e. thermometers, barometers, rain gauges, hygrometers and other instruments such as speedometers, tachometers, and the like. (Didn't Ed Roth's cars have Airguide guages?)
Electrical engineers Albert L. Stemwedel (b. 1904) and Richard L. Fee (b. 1900) were part of the same generation of young entrepreneurs who’d launched radio giants like Zenith, Motorola, and Admiral.
Fee spent the ‘20s (which were also his 20s) working as an electrician in Waukegan, while Stemwedel—a graduate of the Armour Institute of Technology—was an electrical contractor living in Rogers Park.
they hired Howard Taylor, who’d recently been laid off by Western Electric because of the Wall St crash and great depression, as a service man for them, as he had an inquiring mind and a lot of practical know-how.
At the height of its popularity, the Airguide brand name was associated not only with weather measuring devices like this one, but a slightly broader line of products one might categorize as “scouts equipment.” Advertisements in Boy’s Life and Popular Mechanics during the ‘40s and ‘50s showcased a healthy assortment of Airguide compasses, telescopes, and binoculars
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1947 advertising
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1948
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Makes a lot of sense to make opera glasses, binocs, and spy glasses at the same time
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not only did they make a compass for snowmobiles, they made an altimeter. Yes, for snowmobiles
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I grew up in snowmobile country, never saw any with an altimeter, and frankly? Have no god damn idea why the hell a snowmobile needs an altimeter. A flare gun? Yes. A winch? Absolutely. Extra gas tank? Are you kidding? Of COURSE they need an extra gas tank. But an altimeter?
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1957
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they were so compass crazy, they even put a compass on a hand grip
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then used that hand grip for their wind speed indicator
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this nice condo building at the intersection of Winnebago and Wabansia in Chicago is their old factory
I hope you've enjoyed this look at the variety of things they made, and aren't you glad neither of us are collectors of every neat thing we see?
Very, wery interesting. I remember that digital thermometer, too!
ReplyDeleteI spent about 6 hours on this post and half of those were after you commented... you might see new stuff I added if you look again
Deletetotally enjoyed post --- wonderful look at analog Tech
ReplyDeletecompass on a hand grip --- very useful for taking bearings aboard vessels
Sad. Sad. Sad. We used to make things in the country. Little shops and small factories. Made a profit on their products and sold all they made. Didn't feel the need to dominate the market, just to be a part of it. Greed. Greed and ignorance on the public's part.
ReplyDeletethe old carburetted snowsled engines were sensitive to decreased air pressure as altitude increased; early ones with diaphram carbs had adjustable jets and could be tuned on the go, but later Mikuni carb models required the main jets to be changed out for every 1-2000 feet of altitude change in order to maintain the air-fuel ratio by weight.
ReplyDeleteBefore my time, thanks! I didn't know that
DeleteThe “clinometer” brings to mind my good fortune during the summer of 1967 when I worked as a deckhand on the SS City of Milwaukee car ferry, owned and operated by the GTW Railroad. The railroad had three such vessels in their fleet, the Milwaukee (now a museum in Manistee, Michigan), the Grand Rapids and the Madison. Each of them had had four railroad tracks in their belly that held about 40 rail cars (fifty footers) which were carried between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Muskegon, Michigan. One of the three mates supervised the loading process relying on a list on the cars making a given trip and a device that functioned as a crude clinometer. It was nothing more than a four or five foot length of steel, about three inches wide that swung freely with a pointer on the bottom. It was attached to one of the boats (any vessel limited to the Great Lakes is a boat, not a ship) massive center columns, and the pointer had to be almost dead center on the line marked on the column before the boat sailed. Once the mate was satisfied the weight was evenly distributed he would tell us to secure the rail cars to the deck.
ReplyDeletedang, you've had an interesting life! I'm familiar with the clinometer because I crewed on two subs, and those have a couple, one for angle down, one for side to side.
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