• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

From Dad to ‘Dropper’: The evolving readership of the DIY manual in post-war North America Cathy Smith School of Architecture, University of Queensland Faculty of the Built Environment, University of New South Wales Abstract This paper examines the evolution of the DIY manual in post-war America, from the 1940s to the 1970s. An examination of key texts of this time— including DIY manuals—reveals the changing nature of DIY and its expanded ‘architectural’ audience. The paper highlights two DIY discourse streams and their target audiences: the DIY discourse associated with the general DIY phenomenon in post-war North America, particularly in the 1940s and 1950s, and; the discourse associated with DIY in the countercultural scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Both discourses refer to DIY sensibilities, however, each associates the deployment of DIY with very different socio-economic and political intentions, and; with a very different audience. An examination of key North American post-war DIY literature by Albert Roland, Carolyn Goldstein and Steven Gelber—and publications in Time and House Beautiful—identifies key issues of the DIY phenomenon in America in the immediate post-war period. This general discourse pertaining to the DIY phenomenon associates DIY with the nuclear family, socio-economic status, consumerism, and masculinity: hallmarks of a conservative post-war society. In contrast, the later discourse in the 1960s and 1970s pertaining to countercultural DIY involved the rejection many of the aforementioned hallmarks of conservatism. An examination of texts by countercultural historians Andrew Kirk and Fred Turner, as well as DIY texts and manuals of the time including WEC and Shelter, may suggest DIY became a mode of operation reappropriated from the mainstream and deployed for critical intentions by a countercultural audience. Introduction This paper concentrates on the discourse surrounding DIY manuals in post-war America where the DIY phenomenon emerged as a billion dollar industry following World War II.1 A focus on the target audience of these manuals reveals social, political and cultural shifts associated with the phenomenon over a three-decade post-war period.2 The term 1 th Audience: Proceedings of the XXVIII SAHANZ Annual Conference Brisbane, Australia, 7-10 July 2011 ‘DIY’ first emerged prior to the post-war period. According to historian Steven Gelber, the first use of the term “Do-It-Yourself” may have been in Garrett Winslow’s 1912 article in the Suburban Life magazine, entitled ‘Practical Decoration for the Home Interior.’3 The article encouraged home owners to paint their houses themselves rather than hire professional painters. However, an interest in hands-on home improvement and manual skills may have begun in the late 1800s in America,4 particularly through the expanding mass publication market. This point is reinforced by Gelber who also identifies a significant interest in craft and making in the 1800s, particularly amongst women.5 According to both Gelber6 and historian Carolyn Goldstein—author of a text devoted to North American DIY--7 the Arts and Crafts movement encouraged an interest in making and craft amongst inexperienced amateurs at the turn of the twentieth century. Goldtsein notes that the how-to publications of the time advocated simple, easy-to-make furniture and homes, targeted at the ‘amateur.’8 To appreciate the post-war North American DIY ‘movement’ and its evolving audience, this paper examines two discourses pertaining to the general DIY phenomenon and specific examples of DIY manuals as instantiations of the DIY approach, including the DIY approach to architecture. In early post-war North America, the audience for the DIY manual was the home ‘handyman:’ in the late 1960s, an alternative countercultural audience emerged for DIY manuals. One such DIY manual associated with the North American countercultural movement was the Whole Earth Catalog or WEC, developed by countercultural identity Stewart Brand. WEC contains information pertaining to architecture, and to architects who were also associated with the counterculture, including Paolo Soleri and Ant Farm.9 The shift from the handymen audience to countercultural audience points to the evolving role of DIY as a critical practice, and specifically, a critical mode of operation later deployed by and associated with architectural practices, including that of Ant Farm and Soleri. DIY for the home handyman and craftsman Fifty Things to Make in the Home10 by Julian Starr is a how-to manual published as a follow-on to the book Make It Yourself; also the title of a weekly newspaper column which spurned the texts. This text is specific to an audience of home-based ‘craftsmen.’ The text includes instructions for making 50 items for the home with items categorised according to the following in the ‘Contents’ section: ‘Kitchen Accessories and Improvements:’ ‘Household Conveniences;’ ‘Furniture;’ ‘Outdoor Accessories;’ ‘Toys and Play Equipment,’ and ; ‘Novelties.’11 Starr also refers to letters from readers of his newspaper column, which are evidence that these publications have “stimulated the 2 SMITH imagination of some craftsmen.”12 The importance of differentiating between “dubs”13 and craftsmen is reinforced in the chapter ‘The Value of a Home Workshop.’ In synch with the generally gendered tone of 1950s post-war America, Starr argues that a man “resist all dulcet-toned suggestions that he surrender his basement or any considerable portion of it to a “rumpus room.”14 Importantly, Starr notes that an ongoing engagement with materials creates proficiency, experience and skill. Starr associates these attributes with a craftsman, who is thus differentiated on the basis of experience and not according to social class or economics per se.15 Starr also associates DIY with the home workshop and a sense of refuge: “[a]s one progresses in the use of tools, the basement workshop will become a place of refuge, a source of rejuvenation for a spirit bewildered or worn by the vicissitudes of ordinary existence.”16 A few years later, an article in House Beautiful reinforced a shift in the DIY audience from budding ‘craftsman’ to aspiring ‘homeowner.’ When House Beautiful magazine published the text titled ‘What not to do yourself’ in July 1954, it signaled the increasing popularity of this post-war movement in North America. This pragmatic article both recognises the popularity of DIY, whilst warning potential do-it-yourselfers of the “dangers in doing it yourself.”17The article also praises the value of DIY: For millions of homeowners, do-it-yourself has proved to be a wonderful new way of life. It results in getting done what they want when they want—and just the way they want it done. There’s nothing so beautiful as something you’ve made yourself.18 The article then outlines “four pitfalls: enthusiasm that exceeds ability, inadequate preparation, inaccurate measuring and abuse of equipment”.19 It concludes on a positive note stating “[o]nly you can decide whether or not do-it-yourself makes good sense for you. If it does, you have a marvelous new servant at your command—and the joy and pride of the creative hand work opens to you”.20 Unlike Fifty Things to Make in the Home, there is no direct reference to the tensions between craftspeople and amateurs in ‘What not to do yourself;’ nevertheless, the article is infused with potential problems stemming from poorly skilled home-owners. On August 2 1954, the North American Time magazine published a cover story called ‘Do-It-Yourself: The new billion-dollar hobby.’21 In the article, DIY is presented as a part- time, suburban “hobby” associated with the family unit: DIY is associated with both fun 3 th Audience: Proceedings of the XXVIII SAHANZ Annual Conference Brisbane, Australia, 7-10 July 2011 and work. The article notes that the “indispensable handyman […] has been replaced by millions of amateur hobbyists who do all his work—and much more—and find it wonderful fun.”22 In the Time article, do-it-yourself is also described as a “craze” and a “cult,” reinforcing the popularity of the phenomenon and its cultural positioning. The increasing popularity of DIY is associated with a range of factors including: postwar lifestyle ambitions and increased leisure/hobby time; remnant skills from the war era, and; an increasing array of DIY products in the domestic market. It is important to note that the article appears in the ‘Business’ section based on it being “a booming $6 billion-a-year business.”23 DIY and the nuclear family The social, cultural and political dimensions of DIY in post-war North America have been explored by theorists including Gelber, Goldstein, Penny Sparke and Albert Roland. These theorists associate DIY with various issues including consumerism, the nuclear family and social status in post-war North America. In a brief paragraph within her text An Introduction to Design and Culture: 1900 to the Present, historian Penny Sparke refers to DIY as a movement in post-war North America which was later imported to Britain. She draws attention to the popularity of DIY in the 1950s era: The do-it-yourself movement was imported to Britain from the USA in these years, offering people the opportunity to modernize their own interiors economically. The consumer-orientated Do-It-Yourself magazine succeeded the much more technically orientated Popular Mechanics of the pre-war era, its front covers showing couples working together to build cupboards and strip walls”.24 The DIY phenomenon as we know it today rapidly expanded in post war North America, which Goldstein describes as “[t]he Age of Do-It-Yourself.”25 It is important to note that an emphasis on the nuclear family cannot be disassociated from gender roles in the home. One of the key issues highlighted by Gelber is DIY’s role in defining American masculinity.

Load more

  14

Copy Link