Overview

An important part of the New Deal, the Modernization Credit Plan helped transform urban business districts and small-town commercial strips across 1930s America, but it has since been almost completely forgotten. In Modernizing Main Street, Gabrielle Esperdy uncovers the cultural history of the hundreds of thousands of modernized storefronts that resulted from the little-known federal provision that made billions of dollars available to shop owners who wanted to update their facades. Esperdy argues that these updated storefronts served a range of complex purposes, such as stimulating public consumption, extending the New Deal’s influence, reviving a stagnant construction industry, and introducing European modernist design to the everyday landscape. She goes on to show that these diverse roles are inseparable, woven together not only by the crisis of the Depression, but also by the pressures of bourgeoning consumerism. As the decade’s two major cultural forces, Esperdy concludes, consumerism and the Depression transformed the storefront from a seemingly insignificant element of the built environment into a potent site for the physical and rhetorical staging of recovery and progress.

Full Product Details

9780226218007

Table of Contents

Reviews

This fascinating and insightful book coaxes us to see the familiar storefront in entirely new ways. Esperdy fluidly explores broad cultural meanings at the same time as she helps us interpret the details of the buildings. The implications for our understanding of New Deal policies and the 1930s are particularly surprising and novel. - Alison Isenberg, author of Downtown America

""This fascinating and insightful book coaxes us to see the familiar storefront in entirely new ways. Esperdy fluidly explores broad cultural meanings at the same time as she helps us interpret the details of the buildings. The implications for our understanding of New Deal policies and the 1930s are particularly surprising and novel."" - Alison Isenberg, author of Downtown America""

Author Information

Gabrielle Esperdy is associate professor of architecture at the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

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