Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s [Hardcover]

Christina Cogdell (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0812238249 | ISBN-13: 978-0812238242 | Publication Date: September 3, 2004

In 1939, Vogue magazine invited commercial designer Raymond Loewy and eight of his contemporaries—including Walter Dorwin Teague, Egmont Arens, and Henry Dreyfuss—to design a dress for the "Woman of the Future" as part of its special issue promoting the New York World's Fair and its theme, "The World of Tomorrow." While focusing primarily on her clothing and accessories, many commented as well on the future woman's physique, predicting that her body and mind would be perfected through the implementation of eugenics. Industrial designers' fascination with eugenics—especially that of Norman Bel Geddes—began during the previous decade, and its principles permeated their theories of the modern design style known as "streamlining."

In Eugenic Design, Christina Cogdell charts new territory in the history of industrial design, popular science, and American culture in the 1930s by uncovering the links between streamline design and eugenics, the pseudoscientific belief that the best human traits could—and should—be cultivated through selective breeding. Streamline designers approached products the same way eugenicists approached bodies. Both considered themselves to be reformers advancing evolutionary progress through increased efficiency, hygiene and the creation of a utopian "ideal type." Cogdell reconsiders the popular streamline style in U.S. industrial design and proposes that in theory, rhetoric, and context the style served as a material embodiment of eugenic ideology.

With careful analysis and abundant illustrations, Eugenic Design is an ambitious reinterpretation of one of America's most significant and popular design forms, ultimately grappling with the question of how ideology influences design.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is history that is relevant."—Design Issues

"Engaging, thoughtfully researched, and well written."—Journal of Social History

"Cogdell does much to advance our understanding of an anomalous 1930s aesthetic that has befuddled several generations of the best design historians. Her thesis is provocative, her writing is well paced, and her argument is convincing."—Journal of American History

"An ambitious attempt to link the professionalization of industrial design with the popular eugenics movement of the 1930s. . . . A bold and truly original thesis."—Technology and Culture

"This highly original, well written, carefully crafted, and vigorously argued volume is a notable addition to American intellectual and cultural history."—Enterprise and Society

"A significant contribution to the field of cultural history broadly defined. Cogdell's argument is compelling, and the evidence makes a strong case for linking an important modernist artistic movement with an important—and nefarious—scientific doctrine. This book will be widely read and discussed."—Robert W. Rydell, author of World of Fairs: The Century-of-Progress Expositions

"Christina Cogdell provocatively locates the ideology of streamlining in the popular eugenics movement of the 1930s. Tracing complex connections between personal philosophies of industrial designers and the visual rhetoric of their public design work, her cultural reading of design situates it dramatically at the intersection of science, technology, and popular culture. This book could well revolutionize the field of design history."—Jeffrey Meikle, author of Twentieth-Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1939

About the Author

Christina Cogdell is Associate Professor at the University of California, Davis, where she teaches art, design, and cultural history.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press (September 3, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812238249
• ISBN-13: 978-0812238242
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,143,133 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent and innovative!, November 11, 2009

By 

Nikopol (Lawrence, Kansas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s (Hardcover)

This is a fabulous book that makes imaginative and utterly persuasive connections between the eugenic drive to create more "efficient" machine-like bodies and the "streamlined" industrial design that pervaded American culture in the 1930s and 40s. After reading this book adolescent fantasies about "Superman" seem to be not so adolescent or fantastic, especially since the dream of creating superior specimens of humanity was so widespread. I only wish a paperback edition were available so I could assign it more regularly to my students. In the meantime I recommend it to anyone looking for an innovative cultural history of the body and technology.

2 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good!, April 6, 2006

By 

W.A. Keford (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s (Hardcover)

An innovative treatment of streamlined design and its pioneers. The best work on this subject in recent years.