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Books > History > History of specific subjects > Social & cultural history
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Domestic Goods (Paperback)
Loot Price: R1,567
Discovery Miles 15 670
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Domestic Goods (Paperback)
Series: HSBC Bank Canada Papers on Asia
Expected to ship within 10 - 15 working days
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Visions of life in the 1950s often spring from the United States:
supermarkets, freeways, huge gleaming cars, bright new appliances,
automated households. Historian Joy Parr looks beyond the
generalizations about the indulgence of this era to find a
specifically Canadian consumer culture. Focusing on the records
left by consumer groups and manufacturers, and relying on
interviews and letters from many Canadian women who had set up
household in the decade after the war, she reveals exactly how and
why Canadian homemakers distinguished themselves from the consumer
frenzy of their southern neighbours. Domestic Goods focuses
primarily on the design, production, promotion, and consumption of
furniture and appliances. For Parr, such a focus demands an
analysis of the intertwining of the political, economic, and
aesthetic. Parr examines how the shortage of appliances in the
early postwar years was a direct result of government
reconstruction policy, and how the international style of 'high
modernism' reflected the postwar dream of free trade. But while
manufacturers devised new plans for the consumer, depression-era
frugality and a conscious setting of priorities within the family
led potential customers to evade and rework what was offered them,
eventually influencing the kinds of goods created. This book
addresses questions such as, who designed furniture and appliances,
and how were these designs arrived at? What was the role of
consumer groups in influencing manufacturers and government policy?
Why did women prefer their old wringer washers for over a decade
after the automatic washer was brought in? In finding the answers
the author celebrates and ultimately suggests reclaiming a
particularly Canadian way of consuming.
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