
Art & Art History ETDs
Publication Date
7-13-1973
Abstract
Streamlining, a term commonly used to denote methods of increasing efficiency and reducing waste, is identified with the teardrop shape in vehicles and other American product designs of the 1930s. Because streamlining was applied widely and, at times, unwisely, it has been held in low esteem as a design principle. This dissertation attempts to show that streamlining had legitimate beginnings in hydrodynamics and aerodynamics, that it was an extension of the functionalism that informed product design in the 1920s and that it provided a useful and optimistic symbol of the future to a nation deep in an economic depression.
Language
English
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Art History
Level of Degree
Doctoral
Department Name
UNM Department of Art and Art History
First Committee Member (Chair)
Peter Walch
Second Committee Member
Charles Mattox
Third Committee Member
Thomas R. Barrow
Fourth Committee Member
Don Paul Schlegel
Recommended Citation
Bush, Donald John. "Streamlining: Functionalism In American Product Design, 1927-1939.." (1973). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/arth_etds/229