Domestic modernism in middle America: Midwestern women in their postwar homes

This dissertation explores the ways in which American housewives, living in the Upper Midwest states of Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, actively fashioned, through the choice and organization of furnishings for their homes, a domestic modernism based on aspects of the mid-century modernist design aesthetic. As they negotiated the complicated terrain of social expectations and personal desires about the domestic interior that emerged with postwar reassimilation, they made choices meant to foster a new style of easy living.;I have developed a model for regionalist study of twentieth-century design and domesticity within America that can be used comparatively to determine whether this research has uncovered a case of Midwestern exceptionalism. My findings reveal a tendency among middle-class women from the Upper Midwest towards a stylistic solution I call Early American Modernism in their homes. In this style, familiar American colonial style elements, such as ladder back and Windsor chairs, streamlined together with modern materials like wrought iron became popular stylistic choices due to their ability to meet the needs of Midwestern homemakers.;Early American Modernism was characterized by an evolutionary nature that emphasized practicality, warmth and comfort, and was easily modified to express the personalities of its users. Examination of popular women's magazines, local builder's plans, newspaper stories, department store advertising, and most importantly, interviews and surveys of the women who remember life during the postwar years uncovered this previously unnamed, common visual aesthetic.;The dissertation begins with an examination of information theory and the prescriptive process to understand how knowledge about the domestic environment was transferred between communities, through newspapers (such as the Chicago Tribune and the Milwaukee Sentinel), popular magazines (such as Better Homes and Gardens and House Beautiful) and domestic advice manuals. It then uses family photographs and oral histories to analyze the reception and performance of these ideas, in particular the ways domestic aspects of modernist design were deemed both appropriate and useful by a woman living in a Midwestern community.