As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s [Paperback]

Karal Ann Marling (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0674048830 | ISBN-13: 978-0674048836 | Publication Date: March 1, 1996

America in the 1950s: the world was not so much a stage as a setpiece for TV, the new national phenomenon. It was a time when how things looked--and how we looked--mattered, a decade of design that comes to vibrant life in As Seen on TV. From the painting-by-numbers fad to the public fascination with the First Lady's apparel to the television sensation of Elvis Presley to the sculptural refinement of the automobile, Marling explores what Americans saw and what they looked for with a gaze newly trained by TV. A study in style, in material culture, in art history at eye level, this book shows us as never before those artful everyday objects that stood for American life in the 1950s, as seen on TV.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Opening with a photograph of a 1950s Disneyland home designed in the shape of a TV (by those fun-loving futurists at MIT), this book's text and photos consistently maintain a balance between insightful social commentary and critique and sensitive recapturing of the essence of visual broadcast's dawn.

From Publishers Weekly

Historian Marling (Iwo Jima: Monuments and the American Hero) takes us back to those early days of television, when Ike was in the White House and everybody loved Lucy. The author explains TV's tremendous influence: it allowed Mrs. Eisenhower to give the nation the "Mamie Look," and advertised both Disneyland and the big-business "leisure society" created by the 40-hour workweek. Marling also looks into America's love affair with the automobile ("Drive your Chev-ro-lay through the USA," sang Dinah Shore); the importance of Elvis and Betty Crocker; and Cold War politics, featuring Richard Nixon in the kitchen with Nikita Khrushchev. A nostalgic, informative and sometimes funny view of 1950's American culture. Photos.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (March 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674048830
• ISBN-13: 978-0674048836
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,950 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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23 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Life In The Age Of Television Was A Feast For The Eye...", September 5, 2000

By 

Anthony G Pizza "trivialtony" (FL) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Hardcover)

Karal Ann Martling tucks her mission in writing "As Seen On TV" in that last sentence of the next-to-last chapter of her fascinating book. She tours the 1950s' TV-raised images, from First Lady Mamie Eisenhower's dress closet to her husband's paintings to garish car in the garage, ready-made food in the kitchen, and herky-jerky TV images pointing to changed American culture and aestetic. Hers is a more entertaining, breezier read than recent books from, respectively, David Halberstam on the 1950s or historian Michael Kammen on American preference.(Marling shared time at Cornell with Kammen, thanking his students in her acknowledgements for "challenging lunchtime conversation.")

Marling merges era icons, fads, and seminal events more seamlessly into social statement than Halberstam did or Kammen attempted. Her understanding of cars evolving into social statements segues best into the image of Elvis Presley, the "King of Rock and Roll" for whom the "gorp"-covered Cadillac was chariot of choice. (she also credits Martin and Lewis with exposing the entertainment's dual sensibilities during early TV).

Marling also writes of home convenience from new appliances and quick dinners colliding with the rustic, more honorable life many felt had been replaced. This clash inspired and popularized Grandma Moses' idealized portraits of American country life, Walt Disney's scale model re-creation of small-town America at Disneyland (and on the accompanying TV program), and Betty Crocker's shorthand version of motherly mentoring through General Mills' best-selling cookbook. Marling's chapter on Walt Disney's inspirations for creating the park is among the book's most fascinating. But a chapter on "American Bandstand," should Marling have chosen to include it, may have tied even more loose ends together.

The book may also have done with some re-arrangement; the closing chapter accurately and humorously chronicles the 1959 Richard Nixon-Nikita Krushchev "kitchen debate." But its tale of form of function, argued by its most important leaders at the peak of Cold War hysteria, may have been more effective introducing Marling's tale. The book may then have received more social context by stating sooner Nixon's belief, according to Marling, in "style as a manifestation or a symbol of difference and, in difference, multiplicity - the possibility of choice - as...connecting idle consumer fetishism to ideology." This would also have more closely tied the 1950s' garish color imagery with its parallel, grainier black-and-white images (Nixon, the Cold War, and Joe McCarthy, a standout 50s figure seen on TV but not in this book.) Nonetheless, "As Seen On TV" is a fun, informative read for those wishing to understand the reasoning behind an era's unforgettable images.

19 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting book with wonderful photographs, May 25, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Hardcover)

Very interesting reading. It is amazing to actually see how television has changed American life. I can't even fathom how life would be today, without TV. A great read for all who are interested in American pop culture in the 1950s.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting read, October 27, 2009

By 

Shatzi Crabtree (KS) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Paperback)

I was born in the 60s but have always had an interest in the 50s. This book gave me some feel for it. Everything from food to Elvis getting his hair cut, to those big wings on cars is here. Even the paint-by-numbers craze is written up. There is a chapter on Disneyland 1955 too. The "New Look" is here, that fashion style after the war. There arent tons of pics, and what there are are black and white.