Eugenic Design: Streamlining America in the 1930s

Abstract

In this American studies monograph, Christina Cogdell lovingly thanks her family for encouraging her “to love using my mind” and “to express my own opinions” (p. xvii). Cogdell's book certainly shows the influence of such an environment. With limited documentary evidence, she has harnessed a vivid imagination to produce an extended essay that connects eugenic theory and industrial design in the 1930s. Seeking to understand the origins of streamlining, Cogdell draws on visual culture analysis to hypothesize links between eugenic theory and industrial design practice. For evidence, she turns to seventeen eugenicists and consultant designers whose work collectively left the “stamp of eugenic ideology upon the material culture” of the 1930s (p. 5). Cogdell examines advertisements, world's fairs, products, designers' writings and lectures, and educational exhibits to trace the diffusion of eugenic theory into the wider culture by a coterie of consultant designers, including Walter Dorwin Teague, Egmont Arens, and Henry Dreyfuss. Cogdell best articulates her thesis in her examination of the career of Norman Bel Geddes, whose papers at the University of Texas, Austin, support her arguments. Her final chapter delves into postwar and contemporary history, where she draws some provocative connections among eugenics, industrial design, and genetic engineering.