American Studies Commons^™

From Chinese Painting To Wearable Art: The Development Of Wearable Art Design Process Model And Evaluation Methods For Wearable Art Designers, Ling Zhang

Ling Zhang

Wearable art is “art composed of materials structured so they can be worn on the body and that exhibit visually exciting design elements and principles” (Bryant & Hoffman, 1994, P.86). It is a unique (Becker, 1987) and visible symbol that not only depicts the mood of a designer, but also communicates her/his belief, life style, culture, knowledge, and aesthetic tastes to the world. The goals of creating this wearable art collection were to: (a) incorporate traditional Chinese Xie Yi painting themes, ideals or motifs into modern fashion designs with the silhouettes of Western clothing through the use of a variety …

Our Leschi: The Making Of A Martyr, Alexander Olson

Alexander Olson

In1929, Nisqually Indians erected a tombstone over the grave of Leschi, a former tribal leader who had been executed in 1858 for the murder of a local white man. Leschi's remains were moved to the gravesite in 1917 after the federal government had condemned his previous resting place, on the Nisqually reservation, for an expansion of Fort Lewis. This was the second time that Leschi had been reburied. In 1895, his remains had been moved from his original gravesite just outside the reservation boundaries. His memorialists knew better than to inscribe "Rest in peace" on his tombstone.

Review: 'Fighting Traffic: The Dawn Of The Motor Age In The American City', John Alfred Heitmann

John A. Heitmann

During the early 1960s, as the Golden Age of the automobile in America began to wane, several commentators, including Lewis Mumford, raised the critical question of whether the automobile existed for the modern city or the city for the automobile. How and when the automobile became central to urban life is deftly addressed in Peter Norton’s Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City. This study is certainly one of the most important monographs focusing on the place of the automobile in American society within a historical context to appear in recent times; it interestingly supplements …

Review: 'Storied Independent Automakers: Nash, Hudson, And American Motors', John Alfred Heitmann

John A. Heitmann

Nash, Hudson, and now even American Motors are automobile brands that have largely disappeared from the American memory. Yet, despite riding the twentieth-century economic roller coaster and operating in the shadow of the Big Three, these firms made sustained, significant technological and economic contributions. Charles K. Hyde’s Storied Independent Automakers is the author’s latest foray into the area of automotive business history, following work on the Chrysler Corporation and the Dodge brothers. A professor of History at Wayne State University, Hyde has written a needed critical business history on an important topic that complements the vast amount of “buff” and …

Foster's The Coquette: Audiobook, Part 2 (Chapters 8 To 14), Jon Miller

Jon Miller

Boost Or Blight?’ Graffiti Writing And Street Art In The ‘New’ New Orleans, Doreen Piano

Doreen M Piano

Before the storm, responses to graffiti writing and street art in New Orleans were typical of other urban environments where it was viewed as being “out of place” (Keith, 1999), “a spectacle of filth” (Conquergood, 2004), involving what Ferrell (1993, p. 37) describes as a “war of the walls.” David (2005) describes the political aspects of street art in New Orleans as “visual resistance” (p. 233), a term that captures relations of power among graffiti producers, their products, and the effects of their actions (p. 233). However, attempts to eliminate graffiti and street art by enforcing stricter penalties, encouraging neighborhood …

The Akron Offering: A Ladies' Literary Magazine, 1849-1850, Jon Miller

Jon Miller

FREE FULL-TEXT PDF DOWNLOAD From 1849 to 1850, Calista Cummings edited and published Akron's first literary magazine, The Akron Offering. At the time, Akron was a booming canal town on the verge of even greater prosperity. By turns religious, comic, romantic, and political, this extraordinary collection of early midwestern creative literature expresses a wide range of sometimes contradictory opinions on both the important questions of its day and the important questions of today: historical events such as the California Gold Rush of 1849 and the 1848 revolutions in Europe are considered alongside more timeless contemplations on truth, justice, and beauty. …

In Search Of The Wind-Band: An International Expedition, Daniel Rager

Dan Rager

In Search of the Wind-Band: An International Expedition is a new interactive E-book, exploring 16 countries.

The first-of-a-kind, interactive encyclopedic e-book uses text, video, mp3 and pdf files to bring the history and development of the wind-band to life.

1. Overture: What Constitutes a Wind Band? - 2. Introduction to European History and Development - 3. Historical Homogeneous Wind-Bands - 4. American Wind Music - 5. Denmark Wind Music - 6. Finnish Wind Music - 7. Industry Wind Bands - 8. Ireland Wind Music - 9. Japanese Wind Music - 10. Mexican Wind Music - 11. Native American Indian Wind …

The Art And Artifice Of Hand-Lettering, Lauren Gallow, Ellen Caldwell

Lauren L. Gallow

Is there a reason we’re so drawn to hand-lettering right now? Why are we craving handmade cards, signs, and posters in this moment? Why do we gravitate towards making hand-lettered flyers and signs and cards as opposed to designing on the computer? Maybe it’s just because we don’t know how to use Adobe InDesign and Illustrator… but we think there’s more to it than that.

The Young White Faces Of Slavery, Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell

No abstract provided.

Building A Collection Of Contemporary Urban Material Culture, Robert Rotenberg, Alaka Wali

Robert Rotenberg

No abstract provided.

Material Agency In The Urban Material Culture Initiative, Robert Rotenberg

Robert Rotenberg

This contribution to the discussion of collecting contemporary objects reviews the implications of taking seriously how and what objects communicate, especially how we can identify the ways messages are coded in the forms of familiar objects. Of special interest are the conceptual tools that are available to differentiate these messages when objects are arranged in assemblages, including emergent implicit messages, the messages implicit in sets of objects. I advocate an approach to collecting in museums based on the tactics people use to create these assemblages at home. What theorizing about material agency offers to our collection program is a focus …

Blood-Stained Linen And Shattered Skull: Ford's Theatre As A Reliquary To Abraham Lincoln, Erika Schneider

Erika Schneider

No abstract provided.

"The Real Ida May: A Fugitive Tale In The Archives", Mary Niall Mitchell

Mary Niall Mitchell

No abstract provided.

Inventing The Egghead: The Battle Over Brainpower In American Culture, Aaron Lecklider

Aaron S. Lecklider

Throughout the twentieth century, pop songs, magazine articles, plays, posters, and novels in the United States represented intelligence alternately as empowering or threatening. In Inventing the Egghead, cultural historian Aaron Lecklider offers a sharp, entertaining narrative of these sources to reveal how Americans who were not part of the traditional intellectual class negotiated the complicated politics of intelligence within an accelerating mass culture. Central to the book is the concept of brainpower—a term used by Lecklider to capture the ways in which journalists, writers, artists, and others invoked intelligence to embolden the majority of Americans who did not have access …

The Seven Spices: Pumpkins, Puritans, And Pathogens In Colonial New England, Michael Sharbaugh

Michael D Sharbaugh

Water sources in the United States' New England region are laden with arsenic. Particularly during North America's colonial period--prior to modern filtration processes--arsenic would make it into the colonists' drinking water. In this article, which evokes the biocultural evolution paradigm, it is argued that colonists offset health risks from the contaminant (arsenic poisoning) by ingesting copious amounts of seven spices--cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, allspice, vanilla, and ginger. The inclusion of these spices in fall and winter recipes that hail from New England would therefore explain why many Americans associate them not only with the region, but with Thanksgiving and Christmas, …

Introduction To A Register Of Artists, Engravers, Booksellers, Bookbinders, Printers & Publishers In New York City, 1821-1842, Sidney F. Huttner, Elizabeth S. Huttner

Sidney F. Huttner

James B. Nicholson: _Manual Of The Art Of Bookbinding_ (1856), Sidney F. Huttner

Sidney F. Huttner