American Plastic: A Cultural History / Edition 1

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More About This Textbook

Overview

Jeffrey Meikle traces Americans' ambivalent involvement with plastic from Bakelite radios and nylon stockings to Tupperware and polyester suits. He moves easily from the rise of the plastics industry to plastic's symbolic hold on style and the popular imagination. Meikle shows how America's enthusiasm for everything plastic has been complicated by environmental doubts and by the plasticity of postmodern existence. Throughout this witty, compelling history of material and metaphor, Meikle raises crucial issues in science and technology, manufacturing and marketing, design and architecture, and American consumer culture. A provocative conclusion suggests that plastic, endlessly malleable in the face of material desire, merges into the immaterial reality of future electronic media.
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Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Meikle, professor of American studies and art history at the University of Texas, presents a splendid history of plastic. The book is authoritative, thorough, interdisciplinary and intriguing. As aptly characterized in the preface, ``the narrative itself takes on a certain plasticity, touching in turn on the histories of technology and invention, of industry and marketing, of industrial design and consumer culture.'' The author adroitly balances the different perspectives. He traces the course of plastics from 19th-century celluloid and the first wholly synthetic bakelite, in 1907, through the proliferation of compounds (vinyls, acrylics, polystyrene, nylon, etc.) and recent ecological concerns. Amply considered in context are the cultural influences of plastics, which sprang from the original motives of ``substitution, imitation, and innovation'' to condition our present perceptions, language, lifestyles and expectations. The general attitude of the public toward this industry is ambivalent; the historical details prove instructive. Interested readers of whatever predisposition will likely enjoy this comprehensive and thoughtful treatise. Illustrations. (Jan.)
Library Journal
While many people would like to think that this is the Information Age, we are in fact living in the Age of Plastics. Since 1979 the production of plastic has far outpaced that of steel. It is doubtful that any of us could envision our world without plastics. From the Barbie dolls we grew up with to the cars we drive, for better or worse, plastics have shaped the world we live in. This scholarly and comprehensive work, by an American studies professor and author of Twentieth Century Limited: Industrial Design in America, 1925-1938 (Temple Univ. Pr., 1981), is nontechnical and emphasizes the social and cultural impact of plastics. Meikle's book is so enjoyable that this reviewer began underlining and writing margin notes while reading. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in understanding contemporary society.-James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago
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Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780813522357
  • Publisher: Rutgers University Press
  • Publication date: 10/28/1997
  • Edition number: 1
  • Pages: 424
  • Product dimensions: 6.97 (w) x 9.91 (h) x 0.94 (d)

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Preface
Introduction: A Matter of Definition 1
1 Celluloid: From Imitation to Innovation 10
2 Bakelite: Defining an Artificial Material 31
3 Vision and Reality in the Plastic Age 63
4 An Industry Takes Shape 91
5 Nylon: Domesticating a New Synthetic 125
6 Growing Pains: The Conversion to Postwar 153
7 Design in Plastic: From Durable to Disposable 183
8 Material Doubts and Plastic Fallout 242
9 Beyond Plastic: The Culture of Synthesis 277
Acknowledgments 303
Sources 307
Notes 309
Index 381
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