American Studies Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/2740
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Item "Live in the country with faith": Jane and Ralph Whitehead, The Simple Life Movement, and Arts and Crafts in The United States, England, and on The Continent, 1870-1930(2008-01-23) Nasstrom, Heidi; Sies, Mary C.; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)American artist Jane Byrd McCall Whitehead (1858-1955) and her English husband Ralph Radcliffe Whitehead (1854-1929) are best known for co-founding the Byrdcliffe Art and Crafts school and colony in Woodstock, New York, which was active from 1903 into the present. Long before Byrdcliffe, however, the Whiteheads formulated plans for an "art convent" founded on principles of the simple life movement. A rejection of repressive social mores and materialistic behavior and a critique of social inequality in the modern world, the Whiteheads' simple life was enacted in rural places where nature served as a model for spirituality and aesthetics in art and the built environment, and where handwork in the form of art and craft and working the land were balanced with intellectual activity, leisure time and socializing in order to improve physical and psychological well being. This dissertation uses the wealth of primary source material on the Whiteheads--their personal papers, photographs documenting their lives, arts and crafts by them and their circle, built environs and landscapes--to trace the evolution of simple living as it was holistically expressed in the lifestyle and environs they constructed in their early years abroad; their first attempt at simple living as a married couple at Arcady in Montecito, California; and finally, their mature expression at Byrdcliffe in Woodstock, New York. Incorporating an interdisciplinary methodology involving a material culture approach that looks at the man-altered world as evidence for social and cultural history, this is the first scholarly effort to explore what simple living meant and looked like to these particular individuals, and the first project to look at the interconnectedness of simple living on a bi-coastal United States and trans-Atlantic scale between 1870-1930. It also seeks to restore an understanding of Jane's contributions to the simple life environs and art schools she formulated collaboratively with her husband, which were previously attributed solely to Ralph.Item Making Modern Homes: A History of Langston Terrace Dwellings, A New Deal Housing Program in Washington, D.C.(2007-05-30) Quinn, Kelly Anne; Sies, Mary C; American Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Langston Terrace Dwellings is a complex of 274 units of apartments and row houses in Washington D.C. that opened in 1938 under the auspices of the New Deal's Public Works Administration. Designed by Hilyard Robinson, this modern housing program was built principally by African American professionals for African American families. This study recasts our understanding of modern housing locating it in the broader historical context of modern architecture, urban planning and African American life. Design professionals and residents contributed to the program's early success as an aesthetically pleasing, socially significant community. This work chronicles how African American residents forged a life for themselves and their children in architect-designed modernist apartments and row houses. I begin with an analysis of the application process in which hopeful residents petitioned the federal government; I conclude with a consideration of the pioneering residents' place-making efforts. In Chapters One and Two, I introduce key figures: first, I highlight the ordinary Washingtonians who applied to move into Langston, and then I profile the architect principally responsible for the formal design program. The hopeful residents relied on individual strategies and extensive social networks to secure a spot in government housing; the architect Robinson also developed and honed individual strategies and extensive social networks to advance his architectural practice and to obtain a government contract. I explore the European interwar housing estates he visited in Chapter Three and offer a formal analysis of Langston in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five, I return to the ways in which the first cohort of residents worked to make homes and form community. I marshaled evidence from 2,263 letters applications; city directories; census manuscripts; government project files; private correspondence between architects, reformers and government officials; architectural plans; Sanborn maps; popular and architectural periodicals; and photographs. Additionally, I traced the project's precedents by conducting fieldwork in Europe and the United States. My assessment of the legacy of this project emerged from partnerships with current residents and neighbors. As such, this research relied on a number of interdisciplinary research strategies including graphic documentation, archival research, and community-based collaboration and investigation.