When women bought retro futurism at $4.50 a yard
SHE IS AN icon of 1920s modernity: an independent woman with bobbed hair and a short skirt, walking with her streamlined Borzoi, the quintessential Art Deco dog. Behind her is a New York City street. But instead of skyscrapers and neon lights, it’s lined with old-fashioned chimneyed houses.
This image, with its up-to-the-minute foreground character and historic background tableau, is from a series of 1929 ads promoting the new season’s print fabrics from H.R. Mallinson & Co., a major silk-textile manufacturer. In a second ad, the modern woman, hand on hip, twirls her long pearl necklace in a stereotypical flapper gesture. In the background is a monument featuring the Mayflower and a hopeful-looking Pilgrim couple. A third ad shows the woman standing with her hand on a ledge, gazing thoughtfully in a pose that mirrors the bust of Abraham Lincoln looking down at her.
Mallinson sold its silks around the world, but it was a resolutely American company, boasting from the start that it produced “national silk of international fame.” It carried its identity into its textile designs. Earlier themes had included state flowers, National Parks, American Indians, and “Wonder Caves of America.”
Denne historien er fra December 2017-utgaven av Reason magazine.
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Denne historien er fra December 2017-utgaven av Reason magazine.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Libertarianism From the Ground Up
ARGUMENTS FOR LIBERTARIANISM typically take two forms. Some libertarians base their creed on natural rights-the idea that each individual has an inborn right to self-ownership, or freedom from aggression, or whatever-and proceed to argue that only a libertarian political regime is compatible with those rights.
Lawlessness and Liberalism
THE UNITED STATES is notorious both for mass incarceration and for militarized police forces.
Politics Without Journalism
THE 2024 CAMPAIGN WAS A WATERSHED MOMENT FOR THE WAY WE PROCESS PUBLIC AFFAIRS.
EVERY BODY HATES PRICES
BUT THEY HELP US DECIDE BETWEEN BOURBON AND BACONATORS.
The Great American City Upon a Hill Is Always Under Construction
AMERICA'S UTOPIAN DREAMS LEAD TO URBAN EXPERIMENTATION.
Amanda Knox Tells Her Own Story
\"OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM RELIES UPON OUR OWN IGNORANCE AND THE FACT THAT WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OUR RIGHTS ARE.\"
Trade Policy Amnesia
WHILE HE WAS interviewing for the job, President Joe Biden demonstrated an acute awareness of how tariffs work. It's worrisome that he seems to have forgotten that or, worse, chosen to ignore it-since he's been president.
Civil Liberties Lost Under COVID
WHEN JOE BIDEN was sworn in as president in January 2021, he had good reason to be optimistic about the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bye, Joe
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Q&A Mark Calabria
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