  Streamlined StyleModern Industrial Buildings, Automotive Giants
The Chicago Century of Progress fair, in 1933, introduced many novel schemes of construction, most of which were too bizarre to be practical. The chief advantage to be gained from a study of this Chicago fair lay in the use of color in architecture and in the development of lighting effects, which began to play an increasingly extensive role in the design of buildings after 1930. Read More
Modern Technology and Its Efficiency in 1930s
In the industrial realm, modern technology and its efficiency have resulted in establishing norms and standards for production. The American emphasis on efficiency and expediency has always been of fascination to outside observers. Read More
The Fashion & Hollywood Glamor
The fashion image most associated with the 1930s - a decade of Depression, unemployment, fascism and the approach of war - is probably the glamorous Hollywood pale satin evening gown, a bias-cut creation slithering to the floor, lowbacked and clinging... Read More
Filming Images of Women
Women's magazines proliferated during the 1930s and contributed to the greatly increased circulation of fashion images, which could be copied by local dressmakers. Fan magazines and studio publicity also promoted "Hollywood" styles. Read More
Makeup and Cosmetics: Women Movie Stars as Role Models
We know about the lives of the female actresses by reading the same magazines read by the fans. The juicy stories usually appeared in each and every feature about the person. Every time a new film appeared, the press office of the studio flooded the magazines... Read More
Word Jazz
It was in Chicago that the word "jazz" (or "jaz" as it was sometimes spelled at first) came into general usage. On October 27, 1916, Variety commented as follows: "Chicago has added another innovation to its list of discoveries in the so-called 'jazz bands. Read More
Special Features
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 Crooners and SwingWall Street Crash
In the autumn of 1929 came the catastrophe which so few had anticipated but which in retrospect seems inevitable--prices broke on the New York Stock Exchange, dragging down with them in their fall, first the economy of the United States itself, subsequently that of Europe and the rest of the world. Financial losses of such magnitude had never before been known in the history of capitalist society, and the ensuing depression was also unprecedented in scope. Read More
Bing Crosby's Sweet Music
Bing Crosby was the King of Crooners and one of the best examples of great singing! His voice is still heard everyday around the world. At the opening of the twentieth century the decisive influence of the ragtime pianists fell on white audiences tiring of the minstrel show and willing to pay to hear black performers. At the same time the American band was being heard everywhere, promoted by John Philip Sousa, the most successful musician of his time, and testifying among other things to pugnacious nationalism. Both phenomena would modulate into dance bands playing vigorous dance music. Read More
Radio Music at Home and Dance Halls
A boom in social dancing began during the second decade of the twentieth century, along with the first recognition of music called jazz. Nat Shapiro quotes Variety as estimating that in the mid-1920s there were 60,000 dance bands playing on the dance floors of jazz age America. Read More
V for Victory
A slogan devised in 1941 by the British propaganda offices as a rallying cry for the citizens of European countries which had been occupied by German troops during World War II. It was represented by three distinctive symbols: the capital letter V of the Roman alphabet; three dots and a dash (. . . -), the signal for the letter V in Morse telegraphic code, known and used internationally; and the opening bar of the first movement of Beethoven Fifth Symphony, which resembles the Morse signal rhythmically. Read More
 Sports and NationalismDepression Era and Sports
The Depression left an uneven pattern of poverty and prosperity. Like the rest of the service sector and the mass entertainment industry, spectator sports expanded during the Depression, as those who could afford it grasped the alternative vision of fun... Read More
Alternatives to Conventional Sports
While the west was going through its gorgeous epoch of gambling, drinking, and gun-play, a series of athletic crazes were sweeping through the states of the East. Baseball developed from its humble beginnings in the days before the Civil War to its recognized status as America's national game. Read More
The Nazi Olympics
The 1936 Olympics were the first Games to be televised, although only to 160,000 people in and around Berlin. They became a stage for the incitement of nationalism and ritualistic struggle of one nation... Read More
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  The Studio System in HollywoodThe Dominance of the Big Five
The period between the coming of sound and World War II was dominated by the studios. They controlled the production--including story, the role of the directors, and the selection of actors--distribution, and exhibition (they owned their own theaters). Read More
Morals at the American Movies
So the motion picture in the 1920's. But still further triumphs awaited this popular amusement which had so marvelously evolved from the vitascope of only three short decades earlier. Read More
Gone With The Wind
The diversity of pictures that sound made possible was the most characteristic feature of the movies in the 1930's. They were filling the democratic role that the theatre itself had played a century earlier, and nightly programs often showed a startling... Read More
Gangster Movies
Between the beginning of the Depression in 1930 and the early days of the Roosevelt administration in 1933, when confusion and desperation gripped much of the country, Hollywood momentarily floundered. Not only did the studios have to make the difficult transition to sound, they had to adjust to the rapidly changing tastes of a nation in upheaval. These two variables--sound and the Depression--created a whole new set of aesthetic demands requiring that the old Formula be placed within a new context. Read More
National Film Traditions
Little by little the various firms reorganized themselves, and American firms either opened branches in France or made arrangements for French distributors to handle their output. Read More
Nationalism in the Cinema
The United States, the largest consumer economy in the world despite the Depression, remained immune to cultural incursions from abroad, and had no difficulty in following a policy of cultural as well as political isolationism. Read More
Film and War Propaganda
How far the films were being used as propaganda was another point sometimes raised. Movies played the role in promoting war sentiment through their big navy and aviation films. Read More
Soviet and Nazi Cinema
The ethnic nationality and socio-economic class ascribed to villains in Soviet films have in general coincided with those of real enemies under attack by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In addition, screen villains have usually been depicted as motivated by social goals in the realm of political power. Read More
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Vogue Cover, Autumn Fuchsia, 1957 Art Print Parkinson, Norman 19.7 in. x 27.6 in. Buy at AllPosters.com Framed Mounted |
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