BED FOR THE ATOM AGE (Nov, 1950)
BED FOR THE ATOM AGE
CAN’T sleep? Worried about the atom bomb? Where would you rather have it find you than in the Acousticot, a super-bed dreamed up by Colonel Elliott White Springs of the Springs Cotton Mills.
It’s soundproof, air conditioned and even has a bundling board for passengers so disposed. Light from outside is kept out by curtains sprayed with your favorite perfume. You can have spruce and sour mash to remind you of your home in the mountains, mint and smoked ham if you’re from Dixie or fresh fish and decayed aristocracy if you yearn for a tidewater town.
Until full production is realized, Colonel Springs is using the Acousticot to display Springmaid sheets in department stores. But he’ll let you have one now for $3,500.
On the shelf over the headboard are a slot machine, movie projector, air conditioner and pulsator for the mattress. On the headboard are installed an electric razor, turn-and-bank indicator. relative humidity hygrometer, oil pressure gauge, naval clock, compass, manifold pressure gauge, electric toothbrush, speed control, artificial horizon, altimeter, and humidistat. An automatic fire extinguisher is mounted over each berth, and the footboard holds a television set, radio and bookshelf.
Toenail view of the remotely controlled radio and TV sets in the bed’s footboard.
Bundling board in center can be raised or lowered by an overhead electric motor.
This looks like some oddball attempt to create a sleeping berth for a fallout shelter.
I’m sure every bed needs turn-and-bank and altimeter, perhaps if you need to perform an exorcism.
So whats a “bundling board” ?
Never caught on here but it did in Japan…
http://www.yesicanusech…
A bundling board is a separator that inserts down the centre of the bed so that two folks who are not …intimately associated…can share the bed. Comes from Colonial times – i am sure that you can find a write-up on the original use on the Web somewhere.
i suppose it’s neat to have an oil pressure gauge and artificial horizon on your bed’s headboard, but even as geeky as i am, i would very much rather sleep in a bed that didn’t need them.
Me, I’d prefer to sleep in a bed that didn’t need a bundling board!
Hold on a minute: fish perfume???
And you thought an altimeter was crazy?
Charlene – yet you’re okay with “decaying aristocracy?”
I’d say the whole thing is an attention grabber for the sheet company named in the article. Build an odd bed, put it in a store, get some PR – humor ensues, or something like that.
When I first read the title, I thought it was going to be something clad in lead, with a dosimeter or Geiger counter built in.
This is just a darn crazy ideal.
http://en.wikipedia.org…
“When used for courtship, the aim was to allow intimacy without sexual intercourse.”