JF Ptak Science Books  Post 2148

Let’s Plan a  “Peacetime” Home was published in 1945 by a home gas heating company to try to answer and capitalize on a severe housing shortage being accentuated by returning WWII vets–I’m not sure why “Peacetime” is placed in quotation marks in the cover copy; perhaps it was just sloppy editing.  But the planning was real, and the ideas were sort of fresh for the time, including a number of new and innovative ideas regarding heating/heat retention and cooling services.  It is a slick, bright, shining publication filled with simple luxuries for the middle class–roomy kitchens, playrooms in the basement, extra bathrooms, storage for baby carriages in the garage, and other pieces of happiness that were still relatively new to the Depression-recovering working folks of the United States.

I can see a lot of interest in the archaeology of comfort in the many plans and pictures in this brochure, but that’s not why I’m presenting it here today.  There’s more than a heavy helping of bulbous Bauhaus design, and lots of small rooms surrounding large big main rooms with enormous windows.  But the thing that seems to bookend all of this development are women-in-aprons.  There are men sitting and leaning around plans, smoking pipes, sleeves rolled up, and looking very earnest; at their elbow or across the table is the woman, usually in an apron, looking on in appreciation.

[This item may be purchased at our blog bookstore.]