American plastic : a cultural history / Jeffrey L. Meikle.

By:

Meikle, Jeffrey L, 1949-

Material type: Text

text

Media type:

computer

Carrier type:

online resource

ISBN:

0585206937
9780585206936
0813555078
9780813555072
9780813522340
081352234X
9780813522357
0813522358

Subject(s): Genre/Form:

Additional physical formats: Print version:: American plastic.DDC classification:

303.48/3 20

LOC classification:

TP1117 .M45 1995eb

Online resources:

Click here to access online

Contents:

Celluloid: from imitation to innovation -- Bakelite: defining an artificial material -- Vision and reality in the plastic age -- An industry takes shape -- Nylon: domesticating a new synthetic -- Growing pains: the conversion to postwar -- Design in plastic: from durable to disposable -- Material doubts and plastic fallout -- Beyond plastic: the culture of synthesis.

Awards:

Society for the History of Technology Sidney Edelstein Prize, 1996.

Summary: 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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Item type	Home library	Collection	Call number	Materials specified	Status	Date due	Barcode
Electronic-Books	OPJGU Sonepat- Campus	E-Books EBSCO			Available

Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-380) and index.

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.