American Design Ethic

Overview & Synopsis

What is uniquely American about American design? This first history of American products and the philosophy behind their design, use, and manufacture points to the process - the interaction between industrial technology and culture - that gave form to an American "ethic" in material products and helped shape the life style of its citizens.Pulos discusses the influences and fashions as well as the major figures and schools of design from Colonial times to the 1940s. Central to the story are the objects and artifacts themselves - Shaker chairs, Colonial tea kettles, clipper ships, Sullivan's skyscraper department store; the work of Bel Geddes, Raymond Loewy, Russel Wright and Walter Teague as seen in cars, cameras, housewares, boats, locomotives. These objects and many others, are illustrated in over 300 unusual photographs, engravings, ads and drawings.