Download or read book The mid century challenge to American life written by Jacob Blaustein and published by . This book was released on 1950 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Mid Century Modernism and the American Body written by Kristina Wilson and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first investigation of how race and gender shaped the presentation and marketing of Modernist decor in postwar America In the world of interior design, mid-century Modernism has left an indelible mark still seen and felt today in countless open-concept floor plans and spare, geometric furnishings. Yet despite our continued fascination, we rarely consider how this iconic design sensibility was marketed to the diverse audiences of its era. Examining advice manuals, advertisements in Life and Ebony, furniture, art, and more, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body offers a powerful new look at how codes of race, gender, and identity influenced—and were influenced by—Modern design and shaped its presentation to consumers. Taking us to the booming suburban landscape of postwar America, Kristina Wilson demonstrates that the ideals defined by popular Modernist furnishings were far from neutral or race-blind. Advertisers offered this aesthetic to White audiences as a solution for keeping dirt and outsiders at bay, an approach that reinforced middle-class White privilege. By contrast, media arenas such as Ebony magazine presented African American readers with an image of Modernism as a style of comfort, security, and social confidence. Wilson shows how etiquette and home decorating manuals served to control women by associating them with the domestic sphere, and she considers how furniture by George Nelson and Charles and Ray Eames, as well as smaller-scale decorative accessories, empowered some users, even while constraining others. A striking counter-narrative to conventional histories of design, Mid-Century Modernism and the American Body unveils fresh perspectives on one of the most distinctive movements in American visual culture.
Download or read book The American Pageant written by Thomas Andrew Bailey and published by . This book was released on 1991 with total page 1114 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Traces the history of the United States from the arrival of the first Indian people to the present day.
Download or read book Midcentury Suspension written by Claire Seiler and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-11 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did literary artists confront the middle of a century already defined by two global wars and newly faced with a nuclear future? Midcentury Suspension argues that a sense of suspension—a feeling of being between beginnings and endings, recent horrors and opaque horizons—shaped transatlantic literary forms and cultural expression in this singular moment. Rooted in extensive archival research in literary, print, and public cultures of the Anglophone North Atlantic, Claire Seiler’s account of midcentury suspension ranges across key works of the late 1940s and early 1950s by authors such as W. H. Auden, Samuel Beckett, Elizabeth Bishop, Elizabeth Bowen, Ralph Ellison, and Frank O’Hara. Seiler reveals how these writers cultivated modes of suspension that spoke to the felt texture of life at midcentury. Running counter to the tendency to frame midcentury literature in the terms of modernism or of our contemporary, Midcentury Suspension reorients twentieth-century literary study around the epoch’s fraught middle.
Download or read book Our Towns written by James Fallows and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2018-05-08 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "James and Deborah Fallows have always moved to where history is being made.... They have an excellent sense of where world-shaping events are taking place at any moment" —The New York Times • The basis for the HBO documentary streaming on HBO Max For five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, the America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.
Download or read book From Power to Prejudice written by Leah N. Gordon and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2015-05-20 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Gordon provides an intellectual history of the concept of racial prejudice in postwar America. In particular, she asks, what accounts for the dominance of theories of racism that depicted oppression in terms of individual perpetrators and victims, more often than in terms of power relations and class conflict? Such theories came to define race relations research, civil rights activism, and social policy. Gordon s book is a study in the politics of knowledge production, as it charts debates about the race problem in a variety of institutions, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the University of Chicago s Committee on Education Training and Research in Race Relations, Fisk University s Race Relations Institutes, Howard University s "Journal of Negro Education," and the National Conference of Christians and Jews."
Download or read book Science and Technology in 20th Century American Life written by Christopher Cumo and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2007-08-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The twentieth century witnessed the greatest changes in technology and science that humans have ever witnessed. These occurred rapidly and affected such a broad range of people. Scientists, inventors, and engineers built upon the great inventions of the 19th century to expand the reach of modern technology - for a citizen in 1900, communication, transportation, and agricultural was still primarily local activities; by 2000, an American citizen was part of an interconnected global community. These developments in science and technology were also important in the social and cultural changes of the period. The Great Depression, the World Wars and Cold War, the civil rights and women's rights movements - all were greatly impacted by the rapid scientific and technological advancements in the universities and industry.
Download or read book A Chosen Exile written by Allyson Hobbs and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-13 with total page 395 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, countless African Americans passed as white, leaving behind families and friends, roots and community. It was, as Allyson Hobbs writes, a chosen exile, a separation from one racial identity and the leap into another. This revelatory history of passing explores the possibilities and challenges that racial indeterminacy presented to men and women living in a country obsessed with racial distinctions. It also tells a tale of loss. As racial relations in America have evolved so has the significance of passing. To pass as white in the antebellum South was to escape the shackles of slavery. After emancipation, many African Americans came to regard passing as a form of betrayal, a selling of one’s birthright. When the initially hopeful period of Reconstruction proved short-lived, passing became an opportunity to defy Jim Crow and strike out on one’s own. Although black Americans who adopted white identities reaped benefits of expanded opportunity and mobility, Hobbs helps us to recognize and understand the grief, loneliness, and isolation that accompanied—and often outweighed—these rewards. By the dawning of the civil rights era, more and more racially mixed Americans felt the loss of kin and community was too much to bear, that it was time to “pass out” and embrace a black identity. Although recent decades have witnessed an increasingly multiracial society and a growing acceptance of hybridity, the problem of race and identity remains at the center of public debate and emotionally fraught personal decisions.
Download or read book The Rise and Fall of American Growth written by Robert J. Gordon and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-08-29 with total page 785 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How America's high standard of living came to be and why future growth is under threat In the century after the Civil War, an economic revolution improved the American standard of living in ways previously unimaginable. Electric lighting, indoor plumbing, motor vehicles, air travel, and television transformed households and workplaces. But has that era of unprecedented growth come to an end? Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated. Gordon contends that the nation's productivity growth will be further held back by the headwinds of rising inequality, stagnating education, an aging population, and the rising debt of college students and the federal government, and that we must find new solutions. A critical voice in the most pressing debates of our time, The Rise and Fall of American Growth is at once a tribute to a century of radical change and a harbinger of tougher times to come.
Download or read book Challenge and Change written by Behrman House and published by Behrman House, Inc. This book was released on 2004 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first volume of the series presents the early years of American Jewish history from 1492-1880, using primary source material such as maps, letters, and supplementary readings. Complimentary teaching guide available. A concise presentation of the early years of American Jewish history, combining thematic and chronological explorations of events from the expulsion from Spain (1492) to the settlement in American cities from New York to Galveston (1880). Developed by the Feinstein Center for American Jewish History, in collaboration with renowned historians, researchers, and educators, this colorful history shows how the Jews brought their religion, traditions, languages, culture, and ideas to a new land.
Download or read book Midcentury America Life in the 1850 s written by Carl Bode and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through his selection and organization of, and commentary on, the documents and illustrations in this anthology Carl Bode gives his readers a vivid picture of American civilization and popular culture of the 1850s. The twenty-eight selections from contemporary documents and thirty illustrations are divided into seven sections covering various aspects of the American experience--the character of the people and country, home life, work, education, religion, pleasures of life, and slavery. Americans in the 1850s, the documents show, were worse off physically and better off mentally than they are today. They felt more secure because they had more absolutes than we do today. Men in the earlier era trusted in God and in the great social institutions of church, family, school, and country. Yet the 1850s were by no means a bucolic interlude before the Civil War, as Bode makes clear, and the revealing look at the period given here is both rich and rewarding.
Download or read book Who are We written by Samuel P. Huntington and published by . This book was released on 2005 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: America was founded by settlers who brought with them a distinct culture including the English language, Protestant values, individualism, religious commitment, and respect for law. The waves of later immigrants came gradually accepted these values and assimilated into America's Anglo-Protestant culture. More recently, however, national identity has been eroded by the problems of assimilating massive numbers of immigrants, bilingualism, multiculturalism, the devaluation of citizenship, and the "denationalization" of American élites. September 11 brought a revival of American patriotism, but already there are signs that this is fading. This book shows the need for us to reassert the core values that make us Americans.--From publisher description.
Download or read book American Culture American Tastes written by Michael Kammen and published by Knopf. This book was released on 2012-10-03 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Americans have a long history of public arguments about taste, the uses of leisure, and what is culturally appropriate in a democracy that has a strong work ethic. Michael Kammen surveys these debates as well as our changing taste preferences, especially in the past century, and the shifting perceptions that have accompanied them. Professor Kammen shows how the post-traditional popular culture that flourished after the 1880s became full-blown mass culture after World War II, in an era of unprecedented affluence and travel. He charts the influence of advertising and opinion polling; the development of standardized products, shopping centers, and mass-marketing; the separation of youth and adult culture; the gradual repudiation of the genteel tradition; and the commercialization of organized entertainment. He stresses the significance of television in the shaping of mass culture, and of consumerism in its reconfiguration over the past two decades. Focusing on our own time, Kammen discusses the use of the fluid nature of cultural taste to enlarge audiences and increase revenues, and reveals how the public role of intellectuals and cultural critics has declined as the power of corporate sponsors and promoters has risen. As a result of this diminution of cultural authority, he says, definitive pronouncements have been replaced by divergent points of view, and there is, as well, a tendency to blur fact and fiction, reality and illusion. An important commentary on the often conflicting ways Americans have understood, defined, and talked about their changing culture in the twentieth century.
Download or read book The American Civil War written by Peter J. Parish and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-12-06 with total page 806 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Originally published in 1975, this assessment of the American Civil War is a broad treatment of the war as a major historical event, set in the context of a detailed picture of two governments, economies and societies at war. It discusses many controversial topics - the uncertainty and hesitation that surrounded the origins of the war, for example, its economic impact, the Radicals and their relationship with Lincoln and reconstruction as a wartime issue. It offers acute analysis of Lincoln’s political skills, and an evaluation of emancipation and Lincoln’s approach to it; the problems and performance of the opposition during the war; international reactions; an assessment of some of the leading generals like McClellan and Lee and the impact of the war on both Southern and Northern society.
Download or read book The Vanishing Neighbor The Transformation of American Community written by Marc J. Dunkelman and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2014-08-04 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping new look at the unheralded transformation that is eroding the foundations of American exceptionalism. Americans today find themselves mired in an era of uncertainty and frustration. The nation's safety net is pulling apart under its own weight; political compromise is viewed as a form of defeat; and our faith in the enduring concept of American exceptionalism appears increasingly outdated. But the American Age may not be ending. In The Vanishing Neighbor, Marc J. Dunkelman identifies an epochal shift in the structure of American life—a shift unnoticed by many. Routines that once put doctors and lawyers in touch with grocers and plumbers—interactions that encouraged debate and cultivated compromise—have changed dramatically since the postwar era. Both technology and the new routines of everyday life connect tight-knit circles and expand the breadth of our social landscapes, but they've sapped the commonplace, incidental interactions that for centuries have built local communities and fostered healthy debate. The disappearance of these once-central relationships—between people who are familiar but not close, or friendly but not intimate—lies at the root of America's economic woes and political gridlock. The institutions that were erected to support what Tocqueville called the "township"—that unique locus of the power of citizens—are failing because they haven't yet been molded to the realities of the new American community. It's time we moved beyond the debate over whether the changes being made to American life are good or bad and focus instead on understanding the tradeoffs. Our cities are less racially segregated than in decades past, but we’ve become less cognizant of what's happening in the lives of people from different economic backgrounds, education levels, or age groups. Familiar divisions have been replaced by cross-cutting networks—with profound effects for the way we resolve conflicts, spur innovation, and care for those in need. The good news is that the very transformation at the heart of our current anxiety holds the promise of more hope and prosperity than would have been possible under the old order. The Vanishing Neighbor argues persuasively that to win the future we need to adapt yesterday’s institutions to the realities of the twenty-first-century American community.
Download or read book A Documentary History of the United States 11th Edition written by Richard D. Heffner and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2022-06-28 with total page 672 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An indispensable contribution to the understanding of our heritage.” – Robert A. Caro “This insightful collection will fascinate, delight, and challenge all who are interested in the progress of the American nation.”—Annette Gordon-Reed Here, in a single volume, are the documents (speeches, letters, tweets, Supreme Court decisions, and more) that have forged American history. This 11th edition is now updated with a new chapter on the COVID-19 pandemic, the January 6, 2021 insurrection, and the Biden presidency. Accompanied by interpretations of their significance by noted historian Richard D. Heffner and journalist Alexander B. Heffner, the important documents in this book include: • The Declaration of Independence • The Constitution of the United States • Frederick Douglass’ “What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July?” • The Monroe Doctrine • The Emancipation Proclamation • Woodrow Wilson’s War Message to Congress • Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “Four Freedoms” speech • John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address • Martin Luther King, Jr.’s letter from the Birmingham City Jail • The National Organization for Women (NOW) Statement of Purpose • Roe v. Wade Supreme Court Decision • Documents related to September 11 and the Iraq War • Barack Obama’s “A More Perfect Union” speech • Articles of Impeachment against Donald J. Trump More Than One Million Copies Sold!
Download or read book Nature and the Environment in Pre Columbian American Life written by Stacy S. Kowtko and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2006-08-30 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prehistoric North Americans lived on, in, and surrounded by nature. As a result, everything they were resulted from this co-existence. From interpersonal relations to supernatural beliefs, from housing size and function to the food they ate and clothing they wore, the life of Native Americans before the arrival of Europeans was intimately intertwined with the environment. What is known about these societies is often sketchy at best, having survived largely through archaeological remains and oral tradition. Scholars have tried to understand Native American history on its own terms, trying to understand who and what they were in reality - a complex, diverse multitude of populations that defined themselves entirely through what they saw, heard, and experienced everyday - their natural environment. This accessible resource provides an excellent introduction for those needing a first step to researching the daily lives of Native Americans in the centuries before the arrival of Europeans.
