A New View: Charles Harrison’s View-Master

Have you ever used a transparent plastic measuring cup? Sat under fluorescent lighting? Pushed a lawn mower, used a curling iron, or taken out the trash? If you have, you’re familiar with the designs of Charles Harrison (1931–2018.) Harrison was a prolific industrial designer, designing over 750 products as a freelancer and for Sears, Roebuck and Company, where he became the first Black executive. Among the hundreds of objects in Harrison’s portfolio is the 1959 View-Master, a portable stereoscope that immersed consumers in three-dimensional scenes of movies, comics, and travel. The Denver Art Museum recently acquired this iconic object, highlighting Harrison’s lasting influence on everyday design.

The Evolution of the View-Master

Stereoscopic viewers, which combine a different left and right image to create a three-dimensional effect, rose to popularity in nineteenth-century households. These early models featured only black and white images on cards that had to be individually loaded. The View-Master, developed by Harold Graves and William Gruber in 1938 after a chance meeting at an Oregon national park, advanced the technology by using Kodachrome film and a paper reel system that held seven color image pairs on a single circular card. This innovation was introduced at the 1939 New York World’s Fair and was patented in 1940.

Between 1940 and 1959, the View-Master underwent numerous design changes, evolving from the original disk-shaped Model A with cylindrical eye pieces to squarer models that simplified reel loading and changing (images 2 and 3). In addition to the scenic, souvenir, and educational reels already in production, manufacturer Sawyer’s 1951 purchase of competitor Tru-Vue granted stereo-licensing rights to Disney characters. These factors contributed to View-Master’s increasing popularity during the post-World War II consumer boom, but it was Charles Harrison’s redesign that would merge these different aspects into a new, and wildly successful, picture.

Charles Harrison’s Design Innovation

Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1931, Harrison studied industrial design at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, graduating in 1954 before being drafted into the Army. When he returned to Chicago two years later, he faced systemic discrimination that made finding permanent design work nearly impossible. Most egregiously, after progressing through multiple rounds of interviews at Sears in 1956, Harrison was ultimately told that the company had an unwritten policy against hiring Black designers. He took on freelance work instead, working with friends at smaller firms to build his portfolio outside the exclusionary practices of larger companies. In 1959, Harrison was hired through the Chicago firm Robert Podall and Associates to redesign the View-Master—a project that would define his career in industrial design.

Harrison’s take on the View-Master, called the Model G (#2014), transformed its status in the market. Instead of Bakelite, a brittle plastic used for earlier versions, Harrison’s design cut production costs in half by using injection-molded thermoplastic, which also made the finished product lighter and more durable. In addition to the new material, Harrison updated the physical shape of the View-Master by adding a rounded cutout at the top to indicate where the reel should be inserted, a larger advancement lever, angled eyepieces, and bigger lenses. An advertisement from 1962 (image 4) highlights the design’s new appeal, emphasizing that with its compact size and straightforward design, “even small children can operate it by themselves.”

Harrison’s design philosophy revolved around simplicity, functionality, and accessibility. Harrison had dyslexia and wanted his products to be intuitive to use even without reading an instruction manual. He rejected extraneous decorative elements, and prioritized affordability in materials, manufacturing, and consumer costs. When Sears finally hired him as a staff designer in 1961, he implemented this approach across a wide range of household products, including the one he was most proud of: the first plastic garbage can. Designed in 1963 utilizing advancements in polypropylene molding, the can was lightweight, nearly indestructible (tested by being dropped from a helicopter), and most importantly, eliminated the clanging of metal cans early in the morning on garbage day. The square bins that you might wheel to the curb today are descended from Harrison’s original design.

Harrison’s Lasting Impact

Harrison and other Black designers remain underrepresented and unnamed in design histories, despite their profound contributions. It is undeniable that Harrison’s work, created in a blatantly discriminatory era, continues to influence even the most mundane parts of our everyday lives. Harrison encouraged future designers to recognize their impact, stating that “what designers do will affect so many people, many more people than you can imagine during the lifetime of that product. They should take that charge very seriously.” Harrison clearly did.

The View-Master in our collection is more than just a nostalgic toy. It illuminates the way design can shape our everyday life and reminds us of the people who make that possible, serving as a testament to Charles Harrison’s enduring legacy.