I hope someone grabs this
We have that dryer, if the dial is turquoise. The dial was backlit and had a stationary clear light bar, like later Kenmore dishwashers, past which the dial rotated to show the cycle's progress. It was GE's first auto dry dryer. The door handle is unique for its time. You could pull on the right side of the handle to open the door if you had a free hand, but you could also push on the left side of the handle with your knee to open the door, handy in the days before the foot pedal. The no-heat portion of the cycle has a drop of water for the sprinkle symbol. There is a tube with a row of holes which fits into the drum along one of the vanes. When it was filled with water, it would dampen clothes for ironing, an important task in those days. 1956 was the last year for the old dryer design with the perforated drum, exposed open coil heating element and the Hamiltonesque air flow with the lint screen at the bottom. To make it easier to "air out" the dryer after use, the door would hold in a slightly open position without turning on the tub light. The lighting system was another transitional phase for this dryer. Earlier models had a germicidal lamp (ozone bulb), but with this model, GE introduced a solid cake air freshener. They still had the two porcelain lamp sockets wired in series (so that the 40 watt bulb would serve as ballast for the ozone bulb) in the base of the dryer, but there was a little brass-clad porcelain plug screwed into the socket for the ozone bulb so that the drum lamp would light. The dryer was very quiet in operation.
