Today’s Great American Company is RCA Whirlpool. Now I’m a simple gal. I had heard of RCA (radios, TV’s, electronics), and I had heard of Whirlpool (washers, dryers, refrigerators). It wasn’t until I started putting together this post that I learned that they were deliberately branded as a single company in the mid-century. Whirlpool was making its way up the chain of American Brand royalty in the post-war world. It was founded in 1915 to produce electric washers, but wanted to expand, so it began buying other companies. As a strategic move, it acquired the cooking range and air conditioner line from RCA. From 1955 to 1966, it became known as RCA Whirlpool. Smart move. RCA was an established brand, and gave credibility to the Whirlpool appliance name.
I found several ads for RCA Whirlpool for their laundry room and kitchen appliances. The ad below is for washer model Model LJA-44 which had something called the 2 speed surgilator.
Whirlpool invented the two-speed surgilator – – – the agitator designed to make the water do the work.
Believe it or not, I was able to find a picture of an almost identical washing machine from a site named automaticwasher.org. Here’s a screenshot.
Here are a few more ads for RCA Whirlpool washers.
No luck finding a photo of this washer and dryer pair on the internet, but here’s the next best thing. A close-up of the pink washer and dryer illustration. How mid-century is this?
Speaking of classic mid-century illustrations, here are a few ads from a 1959 campaign with some great illustrations of everyday folks doing laundry.
A teenager obsessed with a phone. Who knew?
Here’s a closeup of their logo during this time. Note that the images change a bit in each of the above ads as they promote their line of home appliances.
Here are a few more ads. These are kitchen-related appliances.
More RCA Whirlpool Ads on MidCenturyPage.com
More Information
Here’s a few RCA Whirlpool Videos I found
As usual, I used Wikipedia as a reference. Here’s the link.
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This focus on RCA Whirlpool consumer advertising deflects attention from the big reason for the newly created pool in Whirlpool Seeger Corp: distribution. Most mid-century TV makers and appliance producers did not sell directly to the end consumer. Instead they sold to wholesalers, which in turn sold goods to retailers. In addition, Jerry McCarthy a marketing manager at Zenith, says consumer advertising was often intended to convince retailers to sell your brand. Thus an important audience for these RCA Whirlpool appliance ads was the retailer’s salesman.
Distributors with big warehouses needed year-round earnings. Here’s how the new pool in Whirlpool worked: during the mid-1950s, the demand for “brown” goods or consumer electronics such as television sets and “white” goods was seasonal. TVs sold well in fall/winter while white goods moved during the spring/summer. Therefore, manufacturers attracted well-funded wholesalers if they offered a complete line of white and brown goods. This kept product moving through wholesaler throughout the entire year.
TV Digest, an industry newsletter, in July 16, 1955 claimed “RCA gets its rounded white goods line.” This RCA line competed with other full-line firms: Philco, Admiral, Westinghouse, Crosley/Bendix and GE. And the new Whirlpool Seegler Corp received anti-trust clearance from the U.S. Dept. of Justice. The new pool in Whirlpool involved RCA (20% ownership of new Whirlpool Seeger plus production of RCA’s Estate ranges for Whirlpool), Sears (20% ownership of new Whirlpool Seeger) and in earlier TVD reporting (July 16, 1955) it said with Seeger (refrigeration, and Sear’s Coldspot producer of which Sears owned 30%) merged with Whirlpool forming Whirlpool Seegler.
TVD claimed RCA, which already sold air conditioners (probably made by York) and Estate ranges, would brand its new washer line RCA Whirlpool.
In many major markets, RCA/Whirlpool products were distributed by a big wholesaler such as Taylor Electric in Milwaukee. This pattern continued until the early 1990s. In New York City Bruno, the RCA Whirlpool wholesaler was owned by David Sarnoff’s brother. Bruno, which at one time offered the Crosley line of refrigerators switched to Whirlpool’s iceboxes made by Seeger now branded RCA Whirlpool. Sears also sold Whirlpool/Seegler white goods but sourced is brown goods from private-label makers such as Warwick.
In sum, RCA Whirlpool was more than a clever brand name. It represented a powerful combination of a full line of white goods (washers, refrigerators and stoves) and RCA’s brown goods (TVs and radios). This helped RCA compete with other full-line giants like General Electric or Westinghouse.
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