Telectrica Factory Tour Brochure
The exterior of a Telectrica Innovations promotional brochure, it contains photos of machines and factories. On the front cover Tellie leads an amused crowd of cartoon people along the page.
The interior of the brochure. The pages contain illustrations of Tellie pointing at inventions, interacting with tourists, and getting his arm caught in the gears of a machine
In the early 1960s, Telectrica Innovations began offering tours of their New York appliance factory to the public, both in an effort to educate people about their manufacturing process and to build excitement for the 1964-1965 World's Fair. In fact, one of the photographs on the brochure appears to be (from my understanding) an early prototype for Telectricas World Fair monorail. This promotional brochure would have been something tourists could pick up at travel agencies or hotel lobbies to inspire them to include a trip to TL in their vacation plans, or for school groups to have an educational day trip outside the classroom.
Throughout the pages we follow Tellie Lectric, marching along as if he was giving us our own little tour of the brochure itself. What makes the art in this piece stand out compared to other Telectrica materials is the fact that alongside Tellie we also see cartoon human beings, drawn in the UPA style that Telectrica adored. As mentioned elsewhere in our articles, Telectrica preferred to use only Tellie as a fully realized character. Instead of humans he would most often interact with Telectrica's own products as if the machines and electricity was itself alive. The humanization of their appliances was a heavy part of their marketing, TL wanted their products to be valued on the same level as a person would their family, friends and loved ones. To me, these drawings really highlight how strange and inhuman Tellie is. When Tellie is alone in his ads, it's easy to assume he's just a very stylized and cartoony human man, but seeing him next to these people you really don't know what to make of him. Though I guess it makes sense that living electricity wouldn't be easily or entirely contained to a human shape.
Also notable is the photographs throughout the brochure, something that gives us a rare glimpse of what one of TLs factories would have looked like on the inside. Despite Telectrica Innovations marketing framing themselves as friendly and welcoming, they were still a corporation with company secrets to protect and therefore did not allow any photography or filming inside their factories or headquarters (outside of the occasional promotional or journalistic opportunity.)
This pamphlet was sent to us by someone who went on the factory tour as a child and held on to the brochure as a souvenir all these years! She says she remembers the experience fondly, and in fact it sparked an interest in machines and how they work, which lead to her pursuing a career as an electrical mechanic as an adult. The brochure may not be in the best condition now, but that just goes to show how much this little piece of paper meant to her that she would revisit it enough for it to become so beat up.