My grandfather worked for a company in Chicago when he was in high school called Ideal Pictures. The company started off doing these plays called Passion plays, which are religious plays, and then for some unknown reason they decided to switch over to doing motion picture projection […] So there was a guy who rented space at Ideal Pictures, his name was Ben Kruger, and he owned this camera. And supposedly […] Ben would use this camera to film stock footage of the Chicago lakefront so that they could splice it into movies. […]
So in 1952 this projector was in something called the “Pageant of Antiques.” It was sponsored by this place called the Second Federal Savings and Loan Association in Chicago and it won second prize. What I really like is that this note was written by my grandfather who was an engineer (it’s like very precise) and it advises the committee about how to properly display this, “Since the outer appearance is nothing more than a wooden case it is suggested that the doors be open when on display to show the inside construction.” So he kinda goes into detail […]
It’s one of those things where not only I think that this is a really interesting camera, I’ve seen a similar one at the Chicago History Museum, but I also like that is has this additional history of winning this prize in 1952 and also this man Ben Kruger. As I have gone through my grandparent’s things [Ben] went to their wedding, I saw his wedding reply card […] I found these little coins from the Second Federal Savings and Loan, which had this “Pageant of Antiques.” […] So these things all kind of come together and I feel like that is one of the most interesting things about maintaining this family history archive. The more you dig into it the more all the stories kind of connect.
This belongs in the Museum of Beautiful and Functional Technology
Exhibited by Susan Golland
Transcript edited by Sarah Crawford
That Belongs in a Museum! 
