I recently completed a several years long process of acquiring two identical 1950 Westinghouse BA-74 Commander “All Electric” ranges so as to restore one to near mint condition. It is done, it works fabulously well, but more on that another time.
As a Western Pennsylvania native, the whole thing got me thinking about the Pittsburgh company, however, and I ended up conceiving of this bizarre collage that leans heavily into post-war optimism and atomic futurism.
Westinghouse pioneered much of what would become, for better or worse, Ike’s “Atomic Power for Peace,” so while they were hawking some of the best refrigerators, toasters, and electric ranges, they were also smashing atoms, refining uranium, and developing nuclear reactors in Western Pennsylvania.
In combination with incestuous government policy, as well as sponsored propaganda like Disney’s “The Dawn of Better Living,” Westinghouse encouraged the population to rapidly increase adoption of electric power, and become comfortable with atomic generation in particular — the very technology that had “won the war,” but which also hovered constantly as an existential threat just over the white picketed pastel horizon.
The 1970s witnessed this optimism implode, with all the attendant horror of a reactor meltdown, but it was still a rather impressive effort, all things considered.
Anyway, enjoy untangling this little fever dream of ambivalent feelings toward what was one of our great myth-making engines of the twentieth century. Whatever else may be said, they made very good stoves and you would be spoiled if you had the pleasure of baking in a Westy “Miracle Oven.”
