Modernizing Main Street : architecture and consumer culture in the New Deal / Gabrielle Esperdy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Esperdy, Gabrielle M.

Series:

Center books on American places.

[Center books on American places]

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Storefronts--United States--History--20th century.

Storefronts.

Commercial buildings--United States--History--20th century.

Commercial buildings.

New Deal, 1933-1939.

Consumption (Economics)--United States--History--20th century.

Consumption (Economics).

Physical Description:

1 online resource (318 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2008.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

An important part of the New Deal, the Modernization Credit Plan helped transform urban business districts and small-town commercial strips across 1930's America, but it has since been almost completely forgotten. In Modernizing Main Street, Gabrielle Esperdy uncovers the cultural history of the hundreds of thousands of modernized storefronts that resulted from the little-known federal provision that made billions of dollars available to shop owners who wanted to update their facades. Esperdy argues that these updated storefronts served a range of complex purposes, such as stimulating public consumption, extending the New Deal's influence, reviving a stagnant construction industry, and introducing European modernist design to the everyday landscape. She goes on to show that these diverse roles are inseparable, woven together not only by the crisis of the Depression, but also by the pressures of bourgeoning consumerism. As the decade's two major cultural forces, Esperdy concludes, consumerism and the Depression transformed the storefront from a seemingly insignificant element of the built environment into a potent site for the physical and rhetorical staging of recovery and progress.

Contents:

Introduction

Main Street, U.S.A

The New Deal on Main Street

Marketing modernization

The architecture of consumption

Modernism on Main Street

Conclusion: a Main Street modernized

A note on sources.

Notes:

Series title taken from book jacket.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786612679018

9781282679016

1282679015

9780226218021

0226218023

OCLC:

648759788