Eugenic Design Streamlining America in the 1930s Christina Cogdell
Winner of the 2005 Edelstein Prize from the Society for the History
of Technology "This is history that is relevant."--"Design Issues"
"Engaging, thoughtfully researched, and well written."--"Journal of
Social History" "Cogdell does much to advance our understanding of
an anomalous 1930s aesthetic that has befuddled several generations
of the best design historians. Her thesis is provocative, her
writing is well paced, and her argument is convincing."--"Journal
of American History" "An ambitious attempt to link the
professionalization of industrial design with the popular eugenics
movement of the 1930s. . . . A bold and truly original
thesis."--"Technology and Culture" "This highly original, well
written, carefully crafted, and vigorously argued volume is a
notable addition to American intellectual and cultural
history."--"Enterprise and Society" "A significant contribution to
the field of cultural history broadly defined. Cogdell's argument
is compelling, and the evidence makes a strong case for linking an
important modernist artistic movement with an important--and
nefarious--scientific doctrine. This book will be widely read and
discussed."--Robert W. Rydell, author of "World of Fairs: The
Century-of-Progress Expositions" "Christina Cogdell provocatively
locates the ideology of streamlining in the popular eugenics
movement of the 1930s. Tracing complex connections between personal
philosophies of industrial designers and the visual rhetoric of
their public design work, her cultural reading of design situates
it dramatically at the intersection of science, technology, and
popular culture. This book could well revolutionize the field of
design history."--Jeffrey Meikle, author of "Twentieth-Century
Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939" In 1939, "Vogue"
magazine invited commercial designer Raymond Loewy and eight of his
contemporaries--including Walter Dorwin Teague, Egmont Arens, and
Henry Dreyfuss--to design a dress for the "Woman of the Future" as
part of its special issue promoting the New York World's Fair and
its theme, "The World of Tomorrow." While focusing primarily on her
clothing and accessories, many commented as well on the future
woman's physique, predicting that her body and mind would be
perfected through the implementation of eugenics. Industrial
designers' fascination with eugenics--especially that of Norman Bel
Geddes--began during the previous decade, and its principles
permeated their theories of the modern design style known as
"streamlining." Christina Cogdell is Associate Professor at the
University of California, Davis, where she teaches art, design, and
cultural history. 2004 352 pages 6 x 9 83 illus. ISBN
978-0-8122-3824-2 Cloth $49.95s 32.50 ISBN 978-0-8122-2122-0 Paper
$24.95s 16.50 World Rights American History, Technology and
Engineering Short copy: In "Eugenic Design," Christina Cogdell
charts new territory in the history of industrial design, popular
science, and American culture in the 1930s by uncovering the links
between streamline design and eugenics, the pseudoscientific belief
that the best human traits could--and should--be cultivated through
selective breeding.
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