 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 as well as consumption. The American emphasis on efficiency and expediency has always been of fascination to outside observers. The Germans coined the term Fordismus to describe the standardization, mass production, and "streamlined" efficiency of the American industry and business world, assuming that Ford represented the protoype of American productivity. In the course of this growing industrial efficiency and expediency, individualistic and creative participation in the production process has become greatly reduced for the vast majority of employees. There is even a question whether the product itself meets standards of individuality and uniqueness, since it has been mass-produced and is designed to suit the tastes of thousands of people.
In 1933 General Electric launched a new, "streamlined" refrigerator, designed by Henry Dreyfuss, which instantly made its competitors look old fashioned. Westinghouse employed Donald Dohner as an inhouse designer for its whole range of electrical consumer goods.
By the middle of the decade Raymond Loewy's design team had provided Sears Roebuck with a number of annual model changes. lts 1935, 1936 and 1937 models were all subtly different from each other, each subsequent design instantly making the previous one obsolescent stylistically.
By the mid-1930s nearly all the electrical appliances available on the American market - from the Maytag washing machine to Sunbeam's "Mixmaster" food mixer and Hoover's model 150 vacuum cleaner - had been "styled".
Objects played an increasingly important part in creating and sustaining the social myths of progress, modernity and the beneficence of technology. Together with the marketing man, the industrial designer became the principal ' creative force behind their origination, a responsibility that gave him an enormous power in deterrnining the appearance of the consumer society. He provided the main source of imagery in the home, the office and the street. The dominant stylistic idiom was referred to as "strearnlining", "streamform" or "streamlined modeme".
In architecture and the applied arts, Arnerica had developed a popularized version of the faceted, step-formed art deco style that had been in evidence at the 1925 Exhibition of Decorative Arts in Paris. The New York skyscrapers, notably the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, proclaimed the style triumphantly to the world. In both automobiles and appliances a style developed that was aggressively "modem" in inspiration and originated in the concept of transport aerodynamics itself, rather than in an abstract notion of design. Favored by this era's seekers after speed, the "tear-drop" shape, complete with chrome "speed whiskers", epitomized the idea of living with advanced technology, with an eye turned to the future.
Before long the style permeated static objects such as irons and gum-dispensers as well as passenger trains and ocean liners. Norman Bel Geddes contributed to the evolution of this dynamic, futuristic style through his models of automobiles, trains, planes and liners of the future - all of which manifested the same curved, bulbous front and tapered rear end. In his design work for the Pennsylvania Railioad Company Raymond Loewy put a number of highly streamlined designs into production.
American youth, on one hand, are brought up in the knowledge of American history, which includes many well-known and glorified examples of "rugged individualism," and are encouraged to emulate this "truly American" trait. On the other hand, however, American youth are constantly challenged to conform to national and patriotic standards requiring high degrees of conformity to majority opinion. Although these conflicting values have of course been a natural part of any era, they appear to have been unusually intense during the late 1960's when dissent and counterdissent concerning the war in South Vietnam ran high.
Some of the basic questions that emerged for the sociological observer concerned the surprisingly widespread public opinion which perceived dissent not as an expression of independent individual thinking and believing but as subversive and "un-American" conduct. If one studies, in addition, reliable national survey data that captures the mood of contemporary American teen-agers, one is inclined to conclude that the original "rugged individualism" is now juxtaposed with a strong emphasis on conformity. This emphasis stood out in survey data published by the Purdue University opinion research center, showing that "more than 50 per cent [of the teen-agers] think the large mass of us in the United States simply aren't capable of deciding for ourselves what's right and what's wrong."
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