
eShop USA > Books > As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s
As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s
List Price: $23.00Our Price: $20.70 You Save: $2.30 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Save $10.00 when you spend $50.00 or more on qualifying items offered by Amazon.com. Enter code BMLSAVES at checkout.
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 791
EAN: 9780674048836
ISBN: 0674048830
Label: Harvard University Press
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 336
Publication Date: March 01, 1996
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Studio: Harvard University Press
Related Items: Featured Listmania!
Editorial Review: Opening with a photograph of a 1950s Disneyland home designed in the shape of a TV (by those fun-loving futurists at MIT), this book's text and photos consistently maintain a balance between insightful social commentary and critique and sensitive recapturing of the essence of visual broadcast's dawn.
America in the 1950s: 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. 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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - "Life In The Age Of Television Was A Feast For The Eye..."
Karal Ann Martling tucks her mission in writing "As Seen On TV" in that last sentence of the next-to-last chapter of her fascinating book. She tours the 1950s' TV-raised images, from First Lady Mamie Eisenhower's dress closet to her husband's paintings to garish car in the garage, ready-made food in the kitchen, and herky-jerky TV images pointing to changed American culture and aestetic. Hers is a more entertaining, breezier read than recent books from, respectively, David Halberstam ... Read More
Rating: - Very interesting book with wonderful photographs
Very interesting reading. It is amazing to actually see how television has changed American life. I can't even fathom how life would be today, without TV. A great read for all who are interested in American pop culture in the 1950s.
Related Categories:
| |
 |