General Dynamics/Undersea Frontiers/Electric Boat
Artist
Erik Nitsche
United States
Printer
Lithos R. Marsens, Lausanne
Date1960
MediumLithograph
Dimensions51 x 36 in. (129.5 x 91.4 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.1084
DescriptionFounded in 1899, Electric Boat was the original company from which General Dynamics was born when it merged with Canadair Ltd in 1952. It had provided the U.S. Navy with its first submarine in 1900—54 years before it launched the first nuclear-powered submarine as its inaugural project within General Dynamics. A Scientific American advertisement featuring this same design noted that the company’s nuclear-powered submarines could be used to discover “a limitless wealth of minerals, metals, foods and energy.” The phrase “undersea frontiers” is vague enough that it could be referring to General Dynamics’s nautical-research efforts or its uses by the U.S. military during the Cold War. At the time, science was primarily funded in the interest of national security, irrevocably linking them. After the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I in October 1957, President Eisenhower ordered an equally impressive feat of engineering from the U.S. Navy so as not to appear technologically inferior. On April 25, 1958, the USS Nautilus embarked on Operation Sunshine, completing the first successful submarine voyage under the North Pole. On View
Not on view
