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There was an abundance of Aluminum Christmas Trees at thrift stores and rummage sales in Manitowoc, the Aluminum Cookware Capital of the World. Millions had been made here during the 1960s and many stayed close to home. We bought any we found at a reasonable price and set them up each December, with rotating stands and colored spotlights, in a silvery forest arrangement in the storefront of our photo studio. In 2004, this story became Season's Gleamings: The Art of the Aluminum Christmas Tree. Richard’s wife Eli spotted our tree installation a few years back while she was at the bank across the street. She brought him by one snowy evening and he introduced himself as the Chief Engineer on the Aluminum Christmas Tree project at the Aluminum Specialty Company, Manitowoc. He and two other engineers had designed the tree and its packaging, and put it into production in time to hit retail stores in 1959. Tree sales peaked in 1962, but they became less and less popular after that, even considered tacky, until the company stopped making them in 1969. As an industrial engineer, his career evolved with the American economy and the rise of consumer goods. He went from working on 105 mm projectiles for use by the US Army in Korea (1950s), to Aluminum Christmas Trees (1960s), to aluminum cookware (1970s), to wooden aircraft (1980s). Now retired, he says “I always enjoyed everything I did, I was so lucky.” When we photographed Richard in December 1997, he and Eli had just moved into a brand new condo in a retirement village. Despite fashion trends or life changes, they’d always set up the eight-foot prototype Aluminum Christmas Tree in their living room, a holiday tradition in their home since 1960. |