Book Recommendation: Populuxe by Thomas Hine
If you are into mid-century modern, road side Americana, or consumer design than I have the book for you. Check out Populuxe by Thomas Hine because this is the book for you. It is an amazing look at the consumer culture of the 1950s and is well worth it. It doesn’t patronize or romanticize the period, but instead is a even keeled and honest book of the period.
Most critics of Populuxe taste tended to project themselves back in time and see themselves in the role of the happy few who had fine things, rather than that of the majority who had little or nothing. The average consumer of the 1950s was, by contrast, quite eager to possess machine-made products which carried the look and associations of handcrafted products that had once been available only to the highly privileged. Manufacturers ransacked different historical periods and different cultures to come up with this year’s anachronisms.”
Thomas Hine
