Holly Wahlberg

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1950s Plastics Design : Everyday Elegance

This newly revised book presents a factual discussion of the wide variety of colorful and popular plastics housewares made between 1945 and 1960. Wonderful advertisements that announced to the world what new designs were possible with this experimental material are shown. Many color photographs of today's highly collectible plastics objects demonstrate the variety of colors and useful forms that were manufactured. Vinyl, Lucite, Melamine and Formica, to name but a few, have become common household names since their introduction in this era. Here are chairs, tables, dishes, cups, radios, lampshades, draperies, cooking containers, car interiors, floors and more-all made of plastics. A very useful Collectors' Guide, providing information about all the major manufacturers and trade names, is organized by product types for easy reference. For 1950s families with small budgets and small homes, the "magic" of plastics chemistry promised unprecedented practical benefits mingled with the glamour and drama of sleek modern forms. At last, plastics had stepped out of the kitchen and bath to enter almost every area of home design. In a single decade, plastics had won favor among an astonishingly diverse group-from dimestore shoppers and young marrieds to gifted designers and prestigious proponents of affordable good design. In tracing plastic's whirlwind rise from wartime sham to postwar miracle, this book explores not only the history of an important segment of 1950s collectibles but also the history of a culture redefining its way of life.