American Material Culture Commons^™

Midwestern Landscapes, Immigrant Hands: Swedish Artists And The Regionalist Movement, Grace Finney

Celebration of Learning

The Regionalist movement in American art attempted to define an authentic national identity through depictions of the American landscape, rural life, and working-class values and communities. From the mid-19th to early 20th century, over a million Swedes immigrated to the United States, many of whom settled in the Midwest, a region frequently depicted by Regionalist artists. Swedish immigrant artists captured the beauty of the same landscapes, portrayed similar rural values, and even created public art, all of which are defining elements of the Regionalist movement. Their artistic expressions align with the themes of Regionalism, yet they remain absent from the …

"Taking" Photographs: Settler Aesthetics In 20th Century Hawaiian Postcards, Elena Lee, Rebecca Koerselman

Celebration of Research

Due to colonization, Hawaii’s economic, political, and societal structure were changed to fit the white American standard. Colonization also caused a shift in their aesthetics, including the exclusion from participation in the creation of art, and poor visual representations of Hawaiian culture in settler art, which is known as “settler aesthetics.” Settler Aesthetics is a term and theory that seeks to define how a culture’s art and beauty has been influenced by settler colonialism. Many historians have analyzed this theory in Hawaiian literature, music, and visual art, but have left untouched the field of deltiology; the study of postcards. Though …

The Memory Of A Victory: The Spanish-American War Through Cocktail Names, “War Drinks” And The Art Of Mixing, Ilaria Berti

Dublin Gastronomy Symposium

The relevance of examining late nineteenth-century Cuba depends from its being a colony under two powers, one European and one extra-European: the formal Spanish empire that had the political power and the informal supremacy of the US economic influence. However, within the framework of of enlarging its authority in the American region, the US perceived Cuba as a strategic island that was under the Spanish dominion. For the US expansionistic aims, Cuba has, in fact, been defined as a laboratory for the US empire (Pérez 2008) Through the analysis of newspapers’ articles, images published in the satirical magazine The Puck, …

Salvaging Print: Letterhead In Post-Industrial Urban America, Nancy Sharon Collins

The Mid-America Print Council Conference

This panel will explore the link between today’s small press movement and the formal aspects of commercial printing during the American 20th century. Panelists include Christine Medley , Philip Gattuso, and Nancy Bernardo.

Using as its primary example letterhead from defunct companies in Detroit, and secondarily, specimens of business and legal letterhead from other urban centers of the industrial United States, this panel will examine and discuss: What did letterhead represent to 20th century printers in local markets such as Detroit? What is the significance of printed letterhead, and stationery, to the art of small press printing in post-industrial cities …

The Electric Housewife: Post-War Supermoms And The Modernization Of The American Home, Mary Welch

Undergraduate Research Conference

THe ideal American housewife is based off of post World War II media driven model. Society judged a 1950s family on the involvement of the wife within the home. By social standards housewives were expected to work full-time in the home. Electric appliances were introduced as saving devises and became socially accepted as necessities of the modern home. Contrary to popular belief electric home appliances did not reduce the amount of work required by a housewife but rather increased the number of obligations which she became responsible for.