As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s ANNOTATION
From the paint-by-numbers fad, to the public fascination with Mamie Eisenhower's apparel, to the visual explosion that was Elvis Presley on stage, As Seen On TV explores what Americans saw and what they looked for during television's first golden era, the 1950s.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
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 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 TV characters could be seen firsthand, and Marling conducts us through this heady concoction of real life and fantasy. She takes us into the picture-perfect world of Betty Crocker's Picture Cook Book of 1950, and shows us how the look of food, culminating in the TV Dinner, attained paramount importance. From 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 trained by TV. A study in style and in material culture, her book shows us those artful everyday objects that stood for American life in the 1950s, as seen on TV.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Historian Marling (Iwo Jima: Monuments and the American Hero) takes us back to those early days of television, when Ike was in the White House and everybody loved Lucy. The author explains TV's tremendous influence: it allowed Mrs. Eisenhower to give the nation the "Mamie Look,'' and advertised both Disneyland and the big-business "leisure society'' created by the 40-hour workweek. Marling also looks into America's love affair with the automobile ("Drive your Chev-ro-lay through the USA,'' sang Dinah Shore); the importance of Elvis and Betty Crocker; and Cold War politics, featuring Richard Nixon in the kitchen with Nikita Khrushchev. A nostalgic, informative and sometimes funny view of 1950's American culture. Photos. (Sept.)
Booknews
Marling (art history, American studies, U. of Minnesota) captures a visual culture reflecting and reflected in the new medium of television in the 1950s. She looks at instances in which the principles of design dominated the public arena, such as Mamie Eisenhower's new look, Disneyland, America's love affair with the car, Betty Crocker's cook book, and Nixon in Moscow. Includes b&w photos. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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