History of the Mini Skirt

Though the miniskirt revolution took place during the 1960s, they have been around for much longer than one might think. In some of Europe’s oldest known villages, archaeologists have discovered ancient females (dating between 5400-4700 B.C.) in miniskirts similar to those of the 60s. Another civilization where the miniskirt was not an uncommon article of clothing was ancient Egypt. Ancient Egyptian frescos have been found showing female dancers wearing short skirts showing off the woman’s hips and legs.

In contrast to the corsets and long, restrictive skirts of the 1800s, advances in women’s emancipation following WWI led to the knew-high “flapper” style of the 1920s. After the drop in skirt lengths in the 30’s, hemlines rose once again to the knee during WWII due in part to fabric rationing. By the 1960’s youth protests for individual expression revealed that young adults no longer wanted to be identified in the same group as their parents, and wanted to form together into a unified group. Up until then, young women had been expected to dress in the same style as their mothers, and did not have a style for their own generation. Young women began to feel more and more empowered and when British designer, Mary Quant, launched her iconic and youthful miniskirt, girls everywhere went crazy over it. This skirt, which she named after her favorite car, the Mini, was the epitome of youthfulness and freedom, and became and instant success.

Sources:

http://www.randomhistory.com/2009/05/25_miniskirt.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miniskirt

The Hula Hoop

The history of the hula-hoop dates back to ancient times although the details of the invention to include the exact date and name of the inventor are not known.   Ancient Greek Art from the Archaic Period (620 to 480 B.C) shows Ganymede, a Trojan prince in Greek Mythology, with a hoop.  Hooping, as it was earlier known, was popular in the 1300 in Great Britain for recreation.  In the 1800s, British soldiers coined the term “hula hooping” after watching Hawaiian hula dancing.

The Wham-O Company, a US based company, was formed in 1948 by Richard Knerr and Arthur Melin.  In 1958, Wham-O obtained a trademark for the name “Hula Hoop” and began manufacturing a plastic version of the toy.  Other hoops in history were made from metal, grass and vines.  When the popularity died after 10 months, Wham-O added ball bearings to the hula-hoop, which made noise and spurred another craze.  Though the crazes were short-lived, the hula-hoop is still present in toy stores.

Sources:

http://inventors.about.com/od/hstartinventions/a/Hula_Hoop.htm

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hula-hoop-patented

http://www.hulahooping.com/history.html

The Fountainebleu Hotel

The Fountainebleu Hotel was named best building in Miami by the American Institute of Architects in 2012.  The hotel was designed by Morris Lapidus in 1952 and built by Ben Novack on the Harvey S. Firestone estate in Miami Beach.  The hotel opened its doors to the public in 1954.  The Fountainebleu was the setting for numerous films to include Jerry Lewis’ film, “The Bellboy” and the James Bond film, “Goldfinger” to name a few. 

It underwent a $1 billion renovation from 2006 – 2008 which preserved some of the original architectural designs to include the famous “Stairway to Nowhere”.  The luxury hotel boasts 1500 guest rooms, 12 restaurants and night clubs and a bow-tie shaped pool.     

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fontainebleau_Miami_Beach

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/18/2755533/voters-miami-beachs-fontainebleau.html

Earl Tupper and Tupperware

Earl Silas Tupper, the inventor of Tupperware, was born in New Hampshire in 1907.  As a child, Tupper worked for his small family farm and greenhouse business.  Tupper was not only a successful inventor but also a creative businessman.  At the early age of ten, he first demonstrated business savvy with door-to-door sales of the produce from the family business.

In his late twenties, he worked for a division of DuPont where he gained his knowledge and interest in plastics.  Tupper founded his own plastics company in 1938. The Earl S. Tupper Company first designed and sold plastic products in support of the war.  After WWII, he focused his design efforts on the consumer, and invented the non-breakable, air tight plastic containers.  Slow sales on the department store shelves encouraged home demonstrations and sales otherwise known as the direct selling system.  Today, Tupperware and Tupperware Parties are household names.

Sources:

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltupperware.ht

http://www.americanhistory.si.edu/archives/d8470b.ht

http://order.tupperware.com/coe/app/home

Futurama

 

One of the most spectacular exhibits at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York City was General Motors’ “Highways and Horizons.”  Designer Norman Bel Geddes created General Motors’ vision of a New York City as it would appear in 1960, 20 years in the future.  Thousands of visitors rode on “Futurama” for an aerial view of nearly 35,000 square feet of a miniature New York City.  The ride took over 300 visitors at a time through multiple dioramas containing hundreds of thousands of houses and buildings, 50,000 futuristic automobiles, and realistic landscaping laced with superhighways. 

Following the Great Depression, the exhibit portrayed a promising future where being an American was synonymous with owning a car and driving through a healthy prosperous city.  While the spectators were buying the idea of owning an automobile, General Motors was selling the system of superhighways funded on taxpayer’s dollars.  “If you build it, they (the automobiles) will come.”  The growth of the city and highways were realized in the New York of 1960 yet not to the extent depicted in “Futurama.”  

Sources:

http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/15-12/ff_futurama_original

http://www.1939nyworldsfair.com/worlds_fair/wf_tour/zone-6/witschard.htm#

http://history.gmheritagecenter.com/wiki/uploads/a/a9/1939-3.jpg

De Stijl

The De Stijl, translated as “the style” was an art movement that began after the First World War led by a group of Dutch artists.  The idea of the movement was to simplify art and abstraction.  Formal art 

concepts were placed aside; the artists incorporated primary colors, straight lines, and geometric shapes.  While various resources credit either Theo van Doesberg or Piet Mondrian as the founders and primary advocates of the movement, several other artists like Rietveld, Oud, and Vantongerloo supported the movement. 

While the members of the movement followed the collective ideas of De Stilj, placing the art ahead of the artist and individuality, the media on which the artists practiced varied.  Mondrian focused primarily on paintings where van Doesberg extended the ideas into architecture and furniture.  The movement published a journal named De Stijl from 1917-1932.  Although the movement did not last, the concepts and influences are still seen today in abstract art, architecture, interior design and furniture.

Sources:

http://www.abstract-art-explained.com/DeStijlMovement.html

http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/d/destijl.html

http://www.arthistoryguide.com/De_Stijl.aspx

John Bull

John Bull, known as the English Uncle Sam, is a political caricature originally created by John Arbuthnot in the 18^th century, specifically 1712.  Bull came to life during the Napoleonic Wars, and just as Uncle Sam, was seen as a symbol of freedom and loyalty by the English people.  He is usually described as a wealthy man with rosy cheeks who is short and stout and wears a Union Flag waistcoat with a tailcoat overtop. On the bottom, he wore light colored breeches and often wore a top hat accompanied by a walking cane.  For obvious reasons, Bull was frequently pictured next to a bulldog.  Bull was an average man who was ready to fight for what he believed in and was said to fight Napoleon with his bare hands if it was ever necessary.  He became so familiar at the time that he was seen in many books, plays, and periodicals, just as Uncle Sam was.  Since the 1950’s, John Bull has been seen much less. 

Sources:

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/uncle-sam/john-bull-history.htm

http://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/John-Bull/

Henry Ford

http://www.moreinterestingfacts.com/michigan-facts

Henry Ford was born on July 30, 1863, and was the oldest of William and Mary Ford’s six children. 16-year-old Ford left his hometown of now Dearborn, Michigan, to work in Detroit for 3 years as a machinist’s apprentice. He then returned to Dearborn where he operated and repaired steam engines until 1891, when Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company. When he was promoted to the position of Chief Engineer two years later, he had enough personal time to experiment with his ideas for internal combustion engines. In 1896, Ford created a self-propelled vehicle that he called the Quadricycle. The Quadricycle had a gasoline engine, which ultimately set Ford on the path to establishing his own automobile manufacturing company. The Ford Motor Company was founded in 1903, which Henry Ford and the chief engineer and vie-president. From there, the Model T was introduced in 1908, and the company has been a success ever since. 

Ford and his Quadricycle
http://oldcarandtruckpictures.com/ModelTFord/

However, beyond Ford’s obvious achievements, he was involved in other activities as well. Ford built and raced race cars early on in his career to prove that his engineering designs reliable vehicles. During the first World War, Ford also financed a pacifist expedition to Europe. During the second World War, Ford’s manufacturing factories were mobilized to produce military bombers, Jeeps, and tanks.  In 1918, Ford campaigned for the United States senate and was unsuccessful. Last, several schools were established under Ford’s influence in various areas of the country, which used traditional one room school and modern teaching techniques, and “learning through doing.”

Sources: 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford

http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/default.asp#childhood

http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/facts.asp

The design and function of the toast rack

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/1985.311

A toast rack is a serving piece that has anywhere from five to eight vertical partitions, connected to a flat base and is used for holding toast. These serving instruments often have a handle for passing or carrying the toast around the table. The earliest examples of toast racks were made around the year 1770, and are still made and used today. The design of the toast rack is not only for aesthetic purposes, like in the case of Christopher Dresser’s design, but actually serves to keep the toast from becoming soggy. By keeping the slices upright and separated by the partitions, the air gaps allowed the steam from the toast to escape without condensing into the other slices, as would occur in a stack of toast. As toast racks became more and more popular and households, the designs began to change to keep up with prevailing fashion of the period. The dividers were often made of silver or wire, in various shapes and sizes. Later additions made to the design of the toast rack include feet for the base to rest on, removable bases to dispose of crumbs, expanding/folding dividers to minimize storage space, and egg and marmalade cups. Christopher Dresser is the designer known for his innovative rendition of the toast rack, which, in terms of design, was well beyond its time. Dresser known by some as on of the fathers of modern design, studied at the Government School of Design in Glasgow and was one of the most influential designers of his time. Replicas and toast racks influenced by Dresser’s designs are still being sold to consumers today.

Sources:

http://www.designboom.com/history/dresser.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toast_rack 

"The Dark Side of Chocolate"

http://www.greenamerica.org/programs/fairtrade/MovieScreening.cfm

In 2001 when the news of child slavery on the Ivory Coast reached the world of chocolate consumers, the cocoa industry received tons of negative publicity. Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Eliot Engel of Congress tended to the issue by proposing an addition to an existing agriculture bill suggesting the use of a federal system to approve and label cocoa products as slave free. The House of Representatives passed the idea and created a potential disaster for many known chocolate manufacturers, such as Cargill, Mars, Hershey’s, Nestle, Saf-Cacao, and many more. The industry fought back against the legislation in order to avoid having to label their products with “no child labor” and voluntarily agreed to end child labor on their farms by the 2005. However, when 2005 came, the cocoa industry did not follow the terms of the agreement, and a new deadline to end the abusive and forced child slavery was set for 2008. The same situation occurred again in 2008 until yet another deadline was set for two years later in 2010.

http://mediavoicesforchildren.org/?p=4674

Nearly ten years after the initial exposure of child slavery in the cocoa industry, not much has changed.  The 2010 documentary, “The Dark Side of Chocolate” exposes the child labor in the Ivory Coast and how it fuels the world’s chocolate industry. It documents interviews of proponents and opponents of this child abuse, and also shows hidden camera footage from the harsh conditions of cocoa plantations. While richer countries simply purchase and enjoy chocolate products, “The Dark Side of Chocolate” shows the reality for the African children involved in the production of chocolate.

Sources: 

http://documentaryheaven.com/the-dark-side-of-chocolate/ 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1773722/plotsummary  

Samuel Colt

http://www.nndb.com/people/786/000028702/

Samuel Colt, developer of the first modern revolver, was born on July 19, 1814, in Hartford, Connecticut, to parents Christopher and Sarah Colt. Samuel began working in his father’s silk and woolens factory at a very early age. One of his earliest possessions was a flintlock pistol given to him by his grandfather, which sparked his interest in guns. At the age of 13, he went to sea on a voyage to India. On this voyage, inspired by the spinning of the ship’s wheel, he conceived the original idea for the revolver and whittled a wooden model of it. After his return to the United States, Colt had his revolver patented. His six-shooters were not very popular initially, and in 1842, the company he started in Paterson, New Jersey failed. Colt then went on to invent the first remote controlled naval mine and ran a business using the first underwater telegraph cable. When the Mexican War broke out in 1846, Colt resumed the manufacture of his revolver after the government requested that he make 1,000 pistols for U.S. solders. With the help of Eli Whitney Jr., Colt advanced the development of the assembly line and interchangeable parts. His firm went on to create the most widely used revolvers in the Civil War, including the Colt .45. Colt died in his hometown before the end of the Civil War in 1862, as one of the wealthiest men in America.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Colt

http://inventors.about.com/cs/inventorsalphabet/a/machine_4.htm

Fallingwater

Frank Lloyd Wright’s “Fallingwater” was designed in 1935 for department store owner, Edgar J. Kaufman in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. The home served as a mountain retreat for the Kaufmann family until 1963, when it was entrusted to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. The main house was constructed from 1936 to 1938, and the guest house was built later in 1939. The final cost of the home, including the architect’s fee and furnishings, totaled at $155,000. The color palette for the home was simple, consisting of only light ochre and Cherokee red, to create Wright’s now signature unified and organic feel. Since the home has been open to the public, over 4 million people have come to see Wright’s incredible design.

http://www.wright-house.com/frank-lloyd-wright/
fallingwater-pictures/F1SW-fallingwater-in-fall.html

Interesting facts about Fallingwater:

-In January of 1938, Fallingwater was the featured cover of Time Magazine.

-Edgar Kaufman disagreed with some of Wright’s designs and had them reviewed by a team of consulting engineers. After Wright received their insulting report, he withdrew from the project until Kauffman gave in to Wright’s original designs, and the engineering firm’s report was buried within one of the stone walls of the house.

-Edgar Kaufman and his wife, Liliane, were actually cousins.

-The contractor of the house, Walter Hall, went behind Lloyd’s back and doubled the amount of reinforcement within the first level’s floor.

-In the past, mold has been an issue within the house which sits in the humid environment directly above the stream

-Lloyd once said to Kaufman that “The visit to the waterfall in the woods stays with me and a domicile has taken shape in my mind to the music of the stream.”

Sources:

www.fallingwater.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallingwater

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSRXHl9RbbU

The Jacquard Loom

http://forum.femmeactuelle.fr/Print
Thread.aspx?ThreadID=450074

In 1801, French silk-weaver Joseph-Marie Jacquard created the Jacquard loom. Jacquard’s new textile loom was the first machine to use punched card.  Joseph was born into a family of weavers, and therefore knew just how long the process of weaving really was. The amount of time that was put into the tedious task of weaving almost eliminated the profit of the fabric, so Joseph sought to invent a loom to speed up the process. The punched cards controlled the weaving, and simplified the textile manufacturing process greatly. The extremely thick cards had rectangular holes punched through them, which guided the hooks and needles used in weaving. The hooks remained stationary when in contact with the card until they came across a hole. Once a hole is encountered, the needle passes through it, inserting thread, and eventually creating a pattern. Jacquard’s loom not only cut back on the amount of human labor, but also allowed for patterns to be stored on cards and to be used over and over again to achieve the same product.

http://www.smith.edu/hsc/silk/History/jacquard.html

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacquard_loom

http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_jacquard.htm

A Room with a View

The Academy Award-winning movie “A Room with a View” is a 1985 British film adaptation of E. M. Forster’s novel, which follows a young upper-class woman on her Grand Tour. The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men, and served as an educational rite of passage. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. In the 19^th century, educated young women began to also go on the Grand Tour, accompanied by an older female as their chaperone.

Left: Charlotte, Lucy's spinster cousin
Right: Lucy Honeychurch

In the film, the main character, Lucy Honeychurch, played by Helena Bonham-Carter, is on holiday in Florence along with her older cousin and chaperone, Charlotte Bartlett. When the cousins arrive at the pensione where they’ll stay in Italy, they’re troubled by the fact that their rooms do not have a view. At dinner that evening, the two meet fellow guests, George Emerson and his father, who agree to exchange their rooms with Lucy and Charlotte. Lucy begins to develop passionate feelings for George, despite her relationship with an uptight but respectable man from her home named Cecil Vyse, played by Daniel Day-Lewis. Charlotte becomes aware of the attraction between Lucy and George, and orders Lucy to return home to England at once. Back in Surrey, Lucy accepts a marriage proposal from Cecil, but soon after learns that George and his father have moved into her small village. Her feelings for George create a lot of confusion for Lucy, who eventually breaks off her engagement with Cecil. The film ends, despite some troubles between the two, with Lucy and George on their honeymoon at the same pensione where they met in a room with a view. 

Lucy and Julian Sands as George

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Room_with_a_View_(film)

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:3PhZMWFkKeIJ:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Tour+room+with+a+view+the+grand+tour&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

http://www.fandango.com/aroomwithaview_v42077/plotsummary#

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091867/synopsis

Images:

Helena-world.com

Rottentomatoes.com

Virtual-history.com