From Submarines to Suburbs: Selling a Better America, 1939-1959

From Submarines to Suburbs surveys the development, strategy, and effect of corporate and manufacturing publicity campaigns over a span of twenty pivotal years. Designed, in part, to conflate patriotic war efforts with allegiance to the American Way, these showcases of commercial and domestic innovations created and reinforced popular postwar myths. Cynthia Lee Henthorn examines how prefabricated suburban houses, high-tech kitchens, and miracle products developed from war-related industries were promoted as the solutions for establishing this better America, one led by the captains of free enterprise. Book jacket.

Cynthia Lee Henthorn has taught design history, with an emphasis on advertising and marketing trends, at art and design colleges in New York City. In her current role as a developmental editor of online courseware, she creates interactive, Web-based textbooks and assessment tools for the higher education market.