Therma : Swiss Pioneer of Electric Appliances 1904–1978

For over seventy years, the Swiss company Therma produced electric appliances ranging from irons and stoves to refrigerators and kitchens. From 1904 to 1978 the firm underwent all economic stages of a successful industrial organization: from its humble beginnings as a small family business in a Swiss alpine valley to one of Switzerland’s most significant industrial manufacturers with international reach.

The company’s history coincides with the long decades of wide-ranging modernization of the Global North over the course of electrification. Therma was a company that did not simply sumbit to this process, but instead actively sought to affirm its competitive edge. Innovations in the field of electric cooking were particularly targeted at the modern housewife – through the gender roles evoked by this image, societal boundaries of the time become visible and legible.

This publication offers the first comprehensive account of the history of Therma and its role in the development of industrial design from art nouveau to modernism. This exemplary history is presented in six chapters filled with a wide range of previously unpublished illustrations, including from the Therma collection in the economic archive of the Swiss Canton Glarus.