Karal Ann Marling

Shows and describes large roadside sculpture across the United States

Myth and Symbol Along the American Highway

The Colossus of Roads

Post Office Murals in the Great Depression

Wall-to-wall America

The cake in kitchen, the house in the suburbs, Mamie in her mink stole, Elvis in his pink Cadillac. It was America in the 1950s, and 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. This book captures a visual culture reflecting and reflected in the powerful new medium of television. Looking closely at a number of celebrated instances in which the principles of design dominated the public arena and captivated the popular imagination, Karal Ann Marling gives us a vivid picture of the taste and sensibility of the postwar era. From Walt Disney's Wednesday night TV show, the leap was easy to his theme park, where the wildly popular TV characters could be seen firsthand, and Marling conducts us through this heady concoction of real life and fantasy. Next she takes us into the picture-perfect world of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book of 1950, the runaway bestseller of the decade, and shows us how the look of food, culminating in the TV Dinner, attained paramount importance. 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, her book shows us as never before those artful everyday objects that stood for American life in the 1950s, as seen on TV.

The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s

As Seen on TV

From prom scenes to Thanksgiving spreads, returning servicemen to smiling boy scouts, the works of Norman Rockwell are imbued with optimism, patriotism, community, and family. Brimming with wholesome cheer, they say as much about his artistic talents as they do about the popular values and aspirations of 20th-century America.

Rockwell

Discusses popular culture in the United States after the invention of the television.

Using mass culture and media to explore the true meaning of Christmas in America, the author separates myth from practice, using lithographs, magazine fictioin, pictorial ads, news photos, cards, and movies to deconstruct the season.

Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday

Merry Christmas!

Provides a fascinating and entertaining look inside the world of the society debut, from the colonial era to the present day, documenting the colorful history and evolution of the tradition, and explains why this custom and its social rituals continue to persist.

Rites and Regalia of American Debdom

Debutante

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) is, without question, the best-loved artist in American history, and yet this is the first book to seriously assess his achievement. It offers penetrating and enlightening readings of many of Rockwell's most popular paintings and promises to be a revelation to both fans and critics alike. In seven chapters, Marling examines the many forces that shaped Rockwell's artistic vision, among them his conception of the calling of the illustrator, his empathy with children, his role in the Colonial Revival of the 1920s and 1930s, his discovery of the narrative power of everyday details, his anxiety over his identity as an artist, and his ambition to create works that would change the world. She uncovers many fresh details about Rockwell, showing, for example, how his friendships with Erik Erikson and Robert Coles in the 1960s influenced his response to the Civil Rights Movement, eliciting paintings such as The Problem We All Live With and New Kids in the Neighborhood that helped to sway public opinion.

Norman Rockwell

Explores the meaning of the subject matter and fame of the paintings of Grandma Moses, revealing an extensive longing for the memories and comforts of the American past portrayed in her work.

The Homemade Art of Grandma Moses

Designs on the Heart

It wouldn't be Christmas without the "things." How they came to mean so much, and to play such a prominent role in America's central holiday, is the tale told in this delightful and edifying book. In a style characteristically engaging and erudite, Karal Ann Marling, one of our most trenchant observers of American culture, describes the outsize spectacle that Christmas has become.

Merry Christmas! Celebrating America’s Greatest Holiday

"Put your mittens on; you'll freeze to death!" admonish the world's grandmothers as the temperature plummets. No doubt the Arctic explorers--today in their GORE-TEX, historically in their woolens--needed no such instruction. Icy climes bring with them the dangers of frostbite, but also the poetic beauty of glaciers and ice shelves, of ice palaces and aurora borealis. Karal Ann Marling explores these topics and more as she considers the history of "hard, cold water." What better place to start than with dessert? The pleasure of ice cream on a hot day has been known since the sixteenth century, although it wasn't until a few hundred years later that reliable refrigeration made the treat readily available. Marling expands her icy explorations to the realm of fiction--the ice crossing in Uncle Tom's Cabin, the frozen wasteland of Frankenstein--and to the movies and Broadway. Cities vie for tourists by building shimmering ice palaces to celebrate winter; explorers compete to reach the poles, and not all live to tell the story. The study of ice by a true aficionado yields fascinating insights and may just inspire readers to embrace winter-or to make their way to the nearest ice cream shop. Karal Ann Marling is a professor emerita of art history and American studies at the University of Minnesota. She is the author, most recently, of Merry Christmas!: Celebrating America's Greatest Holiday and Illusions of Eden: Visions of the American Heartland.

Great Moments in the History of Hard, Cold Water

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 in the 1950s with a gaze newly trained by TV.

Visionen Des Herzens Amerikas

Illusionen Von Eden

Jessica H. Foy

Between 1890 and 1930, the daily life of the American family began to reflect rapid advances in technology, aesthetics, and attitudes about American culture. Pictorial, literary, musical, and decorative arts from this era all reveal a shift from clutter to clarity and from profusion to restraint as modern conveniences, ranging from pre-stamped needlework patterns to central heat, were introduced into the domestic environment. However, the household arts were also affected by an enduring strain of conservatism reflected in the popularity of historically inspired furnishing styles. In this collection of essays, ten experts in turn-of-the-century popular and material culture examine how the struggle between modernity and tradition was reflected in various facets of the household aesthetic. Their findings touch on sub-themes of gender, generation, and class to provide a fascinating commentary on what middle-class Americans were prepared to discard in the name of modernity and what they stubbornly retained for the sake of ideology. Through an examination of material culture and prescriptive literature from this period, the essayists also demonstrate how changes in artistic expression affected the psychological, social, and cultural lives of everyday Americans.

The Arts and the American Home, 1890-1930

Centre canadien d'architecture

Designing the Disney Theme Parks

Where can one find the world's largest prairie chicken, a restaurant shaped like a fish, a massive Paul Bunyan, or an enormous ear of corn? Roadside sculpture is a uniquely American phenomenon and these strange and wonderful figures can be found scattered along highways and standing in small-town squares, particularly in the Midwest. These odd and oversized attractions have become destinations for travelers. Whether it serves art, commerce, or local pride, the colossus is always a place in itself, a stopping place where the everyday rules of reality are suspended and the observer can gain insight into the way these communities imagine themselves. Karal Ann Marling visits dozens of these roadside attractions, viewing them analytically, intellectually, and enthusiastically, tracing each one through folklore and literature. Heavily illustrated, this book takes the reader on the road to examine these treasures and all that they represent.

Describes what Graceland, the home Elvis Presley built in Memphis, tells about the late singer's life and personality

Karal Ann Marling

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