Uncanny revivals : designing an American identity / K.L.H. Wells.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Wells, K. L. H., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Colonial revival (Art)--United States.

Colonial revival (Art).

National characteristics, American, in art.

Design--Social aspects--United States.

Design.

Arts, American--20th century.

Arts, American.

Arts, American--19th century.

Winterthur (Del.)--20th century.

Winterthur (Del.).

Physical Description:

ix, 277 pages : illustrations (chiefly color) ; 26 cm

Other Title:

Designing an American identity

Place of Publication:

New Haven ; London : Yale University Press, [2026]

Summary:

"From 1930 to 1950, a number of design projects in the United States appeared to bring early American history to life. Sites and artworks such as Colonial Williamsburg, the Winterthur Museum, the Index of American Design, and Narcissa Niblack Thorne's miniature period rooms created immersive fantasies of the past in which visitors seemed to have direct contact with the look and feel of history. Accessible and entertaining for general audiences, these popular projects also had the unsettling effect of naturalizing political ideologies of racial inequality. K. L. H. Wells examines the ways that colonial revival design produced new racial identifications in which the nation's European immigrant communities and "old stock" Americans transformed from being seen as individual groups differentiated by region, ethnicity, and class to a White race with shared ties to early American history. Drawing on an astonishing breadth of archival sources - including letters from designers and audiences, working drawings and documentary photographs, government and corporate reports, magazine articles and newspaper reviews, and exhibition catalogues and guidebooks - Wells offers a revelatory look at how the affective dimensions of visual and material cultures in colonial revival design contributed to the making of twentieth-century American whiteness"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Introduction: Colonial constructs

Colonial Williamsburg. Feeling history ; Restoration politics

The index of American design. A usable past ; Indexing whiteness to American design

Winterthur and the Thorne Miniature Rooms. Into the dollhouse ; The inventiveness of tradition

Conclusion: aestheticizing politics.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Local Notes:

Athenaeum copy: Albert M. Greenfield Memorial Fund.

ISBN:

9780300282719

0300282710

OCLC:

1524235768