New Frontiers (1935)

[music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> New frontiers, new opportunities, and these are the explorers of a new America. Men of Westinghouse creating, developing to the end that an institution has grown, building and serving an electrified America. Here in Pittsburgh, the story of this new America began. George Westinghouse and his associate engineers brought out the alternating current system of electrical transmission in March 1886, and thus made possible the universal use of electric power and light. That was 50 years ago. Then, Chicago 1893, the Columbian Exposition. 8:00, they're turning it on. Will it work? That's the question. Certainly it will. It's that new system, you know. Alternating current, they call it. >> [music] >> This was a Westinghouse pioneering achievement that amazed America. The first complete system for the generation, distribution, and application of alternating current power. And the same generator that served the Columbian Exposition is still in service in East Pittsburgh. Light has been one far-reaching result of this pioneering. Light for a nation to the extent that now there's nothing done in the light of day that [music] cannot be done at night. Like, for example, across the airway, sentinels so unfailing that a bulb burned out after months of service, automatically drops down to make room for a fresh one to continue its work. Light in the busy motion picture studios of Hollywood, where Westinghouse lamps of 10,000 candlepower illuminate the scenes of action and romance. Compare this big giant of illumination with this marvel, no larger than a grain of wheat, used by physicians in illuminating the busy interior scenes [music] of the human studio, so that delicate operations can be performed speedily and accurately. Mazdas for millions, and each of these inexpensive lamps is a marvel of science and engineering, with a tungsten coil filament so fine that inspectors checking them for the perfection that ensures efficiency and long life must project their shadows, enlarged hundreds of times upon a screen. And so they pour in an never-ending stream carrying the miracle of Mazda to millions of people. Along with the development of these lighting marvels has come the nationwide educational campaign for better light, better sight. The amount of light required for every indoor task. Throughout America, electricity etches new patterns on evening skies. Light for convenience, light for safety, [music] light for study, work, and pleasure. Light for beauty. And Westinghouse pioneering goes on. >> [music] [music] >> On to a frontier. Power and industry. One project among hundreds underway in Westinghouse for the power and light industry, requiring engineering genius and manufacturing facilities measuring up to the biggest construction job on Earth. Boulder Dam. 110,000 horsepower. 2,058,000 lb in weight. Big enough to light 20 great cities. Parts and sections move into line with the rumble of great overhead cranes. Castings tons in weight swing into their places for assembly in this great production aisle. Broad and deep for the building of electric equipment of gigantic size. >> [music] >> And there's the big job nearly finished. One of the generators for Boulder Dam, the largest water wheel generators in the world, [music] 1,000 tons in weight, 40 ft in diameter, and over 30 ft high. And this is only one of many jobs that are destined to create new frontiers in electrified America. For example, six reversing motors of 3,500 horsepower a piece will drive the 79-in finishing stand, the most heavily powered strip mill in the world. The Youngstown Sheet and Tube Company's new continuous hot strip mill. Of course, this is just a model, [music] but the motors and generators for this big strip mill were built in East Pittsburgh, where Westinghouse modernizes the industrial world. Where the products created for power and industry are of such size and weight [music] that in many instances the tool is brought to the part instead of bringing the part to the tool. The women of Westinghouse play an important part, too. The coils for motors are taped with a precision and perfection of feminine hands. Electricity speeds the heavier work, cutting through thick steel castings, joining sections of steel by means of new and improved welding methods. From coast to coast comes the need for these products. Los Angeles, California, for example, soon to be the greatest consumer of electricity from Boulder Dam, with seven of these Westinghouse transformers of nearly 300,000 V capacity. The insulation of these and other transformers is tested here at the Westinghouse Sharon Works. They're tested with bolts of man-made lightning, with the result that dependable service in electrical generation and protection contribute unfailing power as an accepted part of American [music] progress. On to a new frontier, transportation. Electricity goes to sea in the modern fighting ships of the United States Navy. >> [music] [music] >> Ships of the Merchant Marine, too, ships such as the Manhattan plow ahead with Westinghouse electrical equipment. And on land all over America, electricity's carrying capacity grows with the crowd. The electric trolley bus Westinghouse equipped is now an important link in this transportation service of cities large and small. Transportation up and down. As business and industry reach high into the sky, electricity's carrying capacity must increase. Here in the RCA building, Radio City, 36 Westinghouse Express elevators provide vertical transportation to greater heights of comfort, speed, safety, and convenience. Vertical transportation of another type in Marshall Field & Company's great Chicago store. 10,000 people an hour can be carried from floor to floor on these modern electric stairways. And here's the new engineer of modern transportation, and he's way out in front. It's the Comet, a new streamline train equipped [music] with Westinghouse high-speed diesels driving direct-connected generators supplying light, air conditioning, and power for this crack New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad flyer. Schedule, Providence to Boston, 44 miles, 43 minutes, and that's traveling. Electricity on the steel highways today is challenging the speed of air travel. Electric flyers of the Pennsylvania Railroad, for example, [music] 89 of them Westinghouse equipped. And not only in the giant locomotives themselves, but in substation transformers. Oil circuit breakers. And generating equipment. In all of which Westinghouse is proud to have played a part. And the result? On-time schedules from the heart of Manhattan, a 226-mile electric highway to the nation's capital. >> [music] >> On to a new frontier, communications. >> [music] >> I'll bet $5 this dollar watch will keep better time than that new 21 jewel movement you're so proud of. You're on, Conrad. It's a bet. And thus a $5 bet on a $1 watch, a Westinghouse engineer's noonday just started something that was to be heard around the world. To check his dollar watch and win his bet, Frank Conrad, [music] now assistant chief engineer for Westinghouse, built a crude receiver to tune in the Arlington time signal. He was [music] soon deep into the entire subject of radio as it then existed. And within 4 years this crude station initiated a new idea, a program broadcast, revealing an amazing new frontier and electrified America. Westinghouse became convinced [music] that here was a new instrument of communication, one that would prove to be the greatest mass communicational and educational medium that had ever been conceived. From this idea came the decision to broadcast on a regular radio broadcasting station in America with the sign call letters that have become famous. November 2nd, 1920 election day, they were on the air. The Westinghouse [music] Electric & Manufacturing Company at East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In a few moments, we will begin the reading of the presidential election returns between Warren G. Harding and James M. Cox. Stand by, please. Thus was the broadcasting of entertainment for millions born. Here in Westinghouse East Pittsburgh laboratories whose resources and facilities over 600 broadcasting [music] station, 25 million radio receivers in American homes. Today, as ever before, Westinghouse still pioneers in this field with unlimited frontiers still remaining to be crossed. KYW, the new Westinghouse station at Philadelphia, the latest marvel in the broadcasting world. Even the direction of the station's output can be controlled. And on this graphic [music] panel, the position of the beam is indicated and checked. These things are ours today in large measure because of Westinghouse research and development, not merely in the radio equipment field, but in the vastly important field of metallurgy. Kovar, a new alloy, has made possible the further development of radio. This new metal revolutionized radio reception with the greatest forward step [music] since the elimination of batteries, the new all-metal tube. >> [music] >> In other fields of radio as well, Westinghouse is constantly [music] contributing to the advancement of this great communicational medium. Calling all cars in times of emergency police work. Linking ships at sea with other ships [music] and shore stations. And directing the flight of combat planes of the nation's air forces. Maneuver 2191. >> [music] [music] [music] >> On to a new and familiar frontier, America's greatest industry, the home. >> [music] [music] >> Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, be it ever so humble, there's no place [music] like home. But the fact is, home sweet home is a place for hard work, long hours, and endless [music] drudgery for the housewife until electricity created the servants in the wire. These electrical servants stand ready and waiting to do hundreds of tasks. In the modern all-electric kitchen, they preserve food, prepare it, and cook it [music] automatically. A flip of the switch calls them to their duties. Electricity bringing the power to produce a core of personal servants for you has made possible the complete electrification of today's home. The modern Westinghouse iron is fully automatic, not quite to the point we see here, but it contains a million-dollar feature exclusive with Westinghouse appliances, the most efficient and accurate [music] heat-regulating device ever built, the Spencer disk thermostat. >> [music] >> And here it is, another one of the Westinghouse pioneering developments which have made [music] the word electric mean automatic in the modern American home. And here's something we used to call the bane of every housewife's existence, dishes, dishes three times a day. But it's just a matter of racking them now, then throw in some soap powder, turn on the switch, and your electrical servants go into action. And so, with the helping hands of the servants who come to you in the wire, every household task can [music] be done with unfailing accuracy and a minimum of work through the appliances which Westinghouse [music] builds. So that today, home sweet home is more than a sentimental dream, and no queen in all history could have had at her command so large a retinue [music] of faithful servants as the countless electrical servants which await the command of the American housewife. >> [music] [music] >> And finally, on to the newest of the new frontiers, the frontier of tomorrow. And here in the Westinghouse Research Laboratories, the modern frontiersmen are constantly marching on. On to unknown difficulties, uncharted regions, in which a new and greater America will be established. Historians of the future will look back on this era in which we live today, this amazing era, as nearly the beginning of a new age. The end of the first 50 years of Westinghouse accomplishment, and the beginning of a new march toward new frontiers. Here some of the dreams of this future are already coming true. The atom is being disrupted.