Chapter 8: 1961-1970 8:1: --- Background Information, Useful for Understanding Developments in Woodworking

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Under Construction 11-26-08

America in the 1950s

In the image below on the left, we see a fragment of text from As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, by Karal Ann Marling. On the right , next to the image is an unedited fragment of the publisher's blurb for this book. In particular, be aware of the prominence given "power tools", highlighted in yellow in the center of the text in the image:

"... 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 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."

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