Russel and Mary Wright's Guide to Easier Living and the “New American Way of Life”

Abstract

ABSTRACTAmerican designers Russel and Mary Wright's seminal home design advice book, Guide to Easier Living, first published in 1950, provided thousands of Americans with instructions for creating flexible and easily maintained homes appropriate for the new, more informal, “American Way of Life” of the post-Second World War era. Embedded in their guide, however, is a strong undercurrent of nationalism which stems from the Wrights' belief that a distinctly American identity for American design, free from European influences, must be created and that only American design could best serve the American people. This article explores how the Wrights' nationalistic vision of American design was both shaped and transmitted in the Guide to Easier Living and its proscribed day-to-day living and housekeeping practices and how their zealous nationalism can be seen as a part of an ongoing trend in American society recognizable in various layers of its culture.