Results by title
4 books match the query '1910 - 1945'
America's Pursuit of Precision Bombing, 1910-1945
Stephen L. McFarland
University of Alabama Press, 2008
Carl Norden, its brilliant and eccentric inventor, was a Dutch national who never became an American citizen. He took little interest in the day-to-day operations of the firm that bore his name, doing the bulk of his design work at his mother's home in Switzerland, even in 1939-40. His designs were sent back to the United States via sealed diplomatic pouch. Complications arose in World War II when the U.S. Navy retained three-quarters of the instruments despite having little need for them. Also, as production shifted from hand-crafting to mass production, the accuracy of the bombsights fell.
McFarland's exhaustive account remains a definitive and authoritative history of this fascinating piece of technology.
American Women Modernists
The Legacy of Robert Henri, 1910-1945Edited by Marian Wardle
Rutgers University Press, 2005
Seldom recognized, yet contributing significantly to the structure of early American modernism is a group of women who were once the art students of the popular and perhaps most influential American art teacher of the twentieth century, Robert Henri (1865-1929). Henri encouraged an art that was expressive of personal emotions and experience and that was grounded in life. He preached equality among different media and approaches to art. Giving heed to his teachings, his women students engaged in a wide variety of artistic production. Collectively, the stunning variety and power of their work in painting, sculpture, printmaking, textiles, decorative arts, and furniture broadens our understanding of American modernism and illuminates the role of women artists in shaping it. Yet, these women have remained largely unstudied, and virtually unknown, even among art historians.
The seven new essays included in this volume move beyond the famed Ashcan School-the small group of Henri's male students who worked in a narrow range of urban realist subjects-to recover the lesser known work of his women students. The contributors, who include well-known scholars of art history, American studies, and cultural studies demonstrate how these women participated in the "modernizing" of women's roles during this era; how gender controlled their art, productivity, sales, and reception; how their many styles, media, and subjects enrich our understanding of modern American art; and how the work of modern women artists relates to women's involvement in other areas of modern American society and culture, including labor and social reform, patronage, literature, dance, and music.
Lavishly illustrated and complemented by short biographies of more than 400 of Henri's students, this delightful collection adds a long-ignored but deserving dimension to an expanded story of American modernism and to women's contributions to the arts.
Extracting Appalachia
Images of the Consolidation Coal Company, 1910–1945Geoffrey L. Buckley
Ohio University Press, 2004
As a function of its corporate duties, the Consolidation Coal Company, one of the largest coal-mining operations in the United States during the first half of the twentieth century, had photographers take hundreds of pictures of nearly every facet of its operations. Whether for publicity images, safety procedures, or archival information, these photographs create a record that goes far beyond the purpose the company intended.
In Extracting Appalachia, geographer Geoffrey L. Buckley examines the company’s photograph collection housed at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History. Included in the collection are images of mine openings, mining equipment, and mine accidents, as well as scenes of the company towns, including schools, churches, recreational facilities, holiday celebrations, and company stores.
Although the photographs in the collection provide us with valuable insights, they tell only part of the story. Using company records, state and federal government documents, contemporary newspaper accounts, and other archival materials, Professor Buckley shows that these photographs reveal much more than meets the eye.
Extracting Appalachia places these historic mining images in their social, cultural, and historical context, uncovering the true value and meaning of this rare documentary record.
Strike From the Sky
The History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1910-1945Richard P. Hallion, foreword by R. A. Mason
University of Alabama Press, 2010
The definitive history of how air power transformed the battlefield between two world wars.
Strike from the Sky: The History of Battlefield Air Attack, 1910–1945 is a comprehensive examination of the emergence and evolution of battlefield aviation during the first half of the twentieth century. Written by renowned aviation historian Richard P. Hallion, the book traces the development of air-ground warfare from the earliest military use of aircraft in combat through the decisive campaigns of World War II. Combining operational history with analysis of doctrine, technology, and leadership, Hallion reveals how battlefield air attack became a critical element of modern military strategy.
The study explores major conflicts including the First World War, the Spanish Civil War, colonial campaigns, and the global battles of World War II. Hallion examines the evolution of close air support, air interdiction, reconnaissance, command and control systems, and the aircraft that carried out these missions. He also analyzes how military organizations adapted to the challenges of integrating air and ground forces, creating doctrines that continue to influence military operations today.
Strike from the Sky demonstrates how advances in aviation transformed the battlefield and altered the conduct of war. It remains an essential resource for understanding the origins of modern air power and the technological and strategic innovations that reshaped twentieth-century combat.