Architectural Forum, 1932-64 A Time Inc. Experiment in American Architecture and Journalism BY SARAH M. DRELLER B.A., Florida State University, 1994 M.Arch.Hist., University of Virginia, 1999 THESIS Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Art History in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Chicago, 2015 Chicago, Illinois Defense Committee: Robert Bruegmann, Co-Chair and Co-Advisor Peter Bacon Hales, Co-Chair and Co-Advisor Esra Akcan Penelope Dean, Architecture Robin Schuldenfrei, The Courtauld Institute © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller This dissertation is dedicated to my father, Dr. Gerry Dreller (1939-2002), who started encouraging me to be “the second Dr. Dreller” when I was 14 years old and my mother, Aletta E. Dreller, who was absolutely instrumental in making both of our Ph.D.s possible. ii © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First I would like to thank Robert Bruegmann for chairing my committee and guiding me toward the completion of this project. Bob gave me a lot of honest feedback about my dissertation over the years. It was just what I needed, and I am grateful – honored, really – that someone of his stature would invest so much energy in me and in my work. I have thanked him privately more times that I can remember, and am happy to finally give him the public recognition he so deserves. I would also like to especially thank my readers, Esra Akcan, Penelope Dean and Robin Schuldenfrei, for their patience and kind advice as I negotiated the ups and downs of this process. Some words are necessary here about the one member of my committee who will not read my dissertation in its completed form, my late co-chair/co-advisor, Peter Bacon Hales. Peter was such an unusual person, a gifted writer and an engaged mentor; I hardly know what to say now that would do justice to his memory and his service to me. Reflecting back over the nine years I worked with him, I think what I appreciated most was his natural penchant for modeling how to be an articulate and thoughtful scholar. He did this most often by paraphrasing my best ideas back to me in language that demonstrated how complex and elegant those ideas could be – language that shared some of his vision iii © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued) of my more accomplished future self. This was his special mixture of critique and praise and faith, and anyone who knew Peter will recognize it as wholly organic to his layered way of looking at the world. Of course the phrasing reflected his unique voice so I didn’t actually use what he sent in the dissertation itself. He didn’t expect me to and I don’t think that was the point anyway. I think, instead, that Peter was trying to empower my imagination, for this particular project and also in a cosmic sense, so that I would be bolder when I was available for boldness and have stores of enthusiasm to help push through the inevitable doubt. That I managed to finish still reasonably lucid testifies to the value of his pedagogy and to the generous spirit that animated all his interactions with me. I always knew the attention he gave me could have easily been directed elsewhere. I hope he knew how much I appreciated that. I would like to recognize the Department of Art History and the Graduate College at the University of Illinois at Chicago for supporting me and my research over the years. I would also like to express my very deep gratitude to Keith Kewley, a close family friend, who subsidized the cost of childcare so that I could have long stretches of delicious uninterrupted time to iv © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued) think and write. My mind and my work would have been much more scattered without Keith’s unconditional help. I had the very great fortune to interview some wonderfully open and giving people for this research. John Morris Dixon, who started his journalism career as an editor at Time Inc.’s Forum, deserves special thanks here. John devoted an enormous amount of his time and intellectual energy to answering my seemingly unending questions. His earnest participation made my work better. I would also like to recognize Hicks Stone, Jayne Merkel, Ann Wilson, Mildred Schmertz, Andy Shanken and Kirk Hazlett, all of whom were patient, honest and gracious. I also had the pleasure of working with dedicated archivists who deserve to know how much they contributed to my project. In particular I would like to warmly thank Janet Parks at Columbia’s Avery Library Curator of Drawings and Archives, who planted the idea of a Forum dissertation in my head as she described her archive’s collections and then helped me navigate Columbia’s “visiting scholar” program when I was preparing to stay in New York. Likewise, I absolutely must recognize Bill Hooper, Time Inc. Archivist, for making his company’s resources so available to me and for engaging with me with so much good humor. I am also indebted to Mary Buchanan at the Audit Bureau v © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued) of Circulations/Alliance for Audited Media, Nancy Hadley at the American Institute of Architects and Sara Stiberg at Northwestern University Library’s Art and Architecture Collection for their solicitous professionalism. My confidence and spirits would have suffered without the support of a core group of colleagues and friends. In particular, thank you to Dale Gyure for being an early and loyal believer in me and in this project. I would also like to acknowledge my classmates, Mirela Tanta, Catherine Burdick, Sarita Heer and Margot Berrill, for serving as emotional and intellectual sounding boards when they had their own equally exhausting projects to attend. And I am very grateful to my department’s Director of Graduate Studies, Nina Dubin, and the Department Assistant, Susanne Uslenghi, for doing everything in their power to help me succeed, especially in this last complicated year. The intense and isolating nature of this work can make maintaining family connections difficult, so I would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to my family and my husband’s family for being so understanding over the years. Some specific contributions deserve recognition here. First, I would like to vi © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (continued) acknowledge Sid Glaser and Kendra Frassetto for letting me stay with them in New York City so that I could actually afford to do a substantive amount of research there. I am also especially grateful to Laurie Kerr for making introductions that eventually led to important interviews and to Chris Ellicott for enthusiastically taking on childcare responsibilities as I slogged my way through the second and third draft revisions. And a huge thank you to my mother, Aletta E. Dreller, for her tremendous faith in me and for the countless ways she demonstrated it over the years. Finally, there is no possible way I could have imagined undertaking this project – much less actually finishing it – without the encouragement of my husband, Clark Christensen. His contribution defies words, a significant feat considering I’ve managed to find nearly 100,000 words for my dissertation so far, but I can definitely say it adds up to more than I can ever repay. Thank you, Clark, for all the big and small sacrifices you’ve made. Thank you, Clark, for all the confidence you gave me freely when I didn’t have enough of my own. Thank you. SMD vii © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. INTRODUCTION........................................... 1 A. Forum in Context, Part I: Architectural Journalism........................................ 3 B. Forum in Context, Part II: Luce and Time Inc. .... 23 C. Organization of the Study......................... 32 D. Seeing Beyond the “Look”.......................... 35 II. A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME INC.’S ARCHITECTURAL FORUM..... 37 A. 1932: Time Inc. Acquires Forum.................... 37 B. 1932-1941: The Early Years of Time Inc.’s “new Forum”............................................ 47 C. 1942-1952: The Confused Middle Years.............. 60 D. 1953-1964: The Demise of Time Inc.’s Forum........ 72 E. Forum After 1964.................................. 84 III. “ARCHITECTURAL” AND “FORUM” REDEFINED.................. 86 A. Key Concepts 1. Fortune and the Irresponsible Architect...... 86 2. Prospectus for a “New Forum”................. 92 3. Interpreting Luce’s Ideas.................... 99 B. Key Concepts as Developed In and Through Forum 1. Reconceiving Forum’s Physicality: Two Early Changes...................................... 102 2. Reconceiving Forum’s Content: Three Early Changes...................................... 109 3. Completing the “New Forum” Transformation.... 115 4. Three Later Variations on the Forum Editorial Formula...................................... 122 5. The Last Five Years: Old and New............. 133 IV. FORUM’S PUBLIC RELATIONS CHARACTER..................... 145 A. Key Concept: Big Public Relations for a Small Community......................................... 145 B. Key Concept as Developed In and Through Forum 1. At the Beginning: Cross-Marketing............ 156 2. Overt Cross-Publishing: The Life Houses Example of 1938.............................. 158 3. Mature Cross-Publishing: Postwar Time Cover Stories...................................... 166 C. The Vanishing “Gentlemen’s Agreement” ............ 181 D. Public Relations in Action........................ 193 viii © 2015 Sarah M. Dreller TABLE OF CONTENTS (continued) CHAPTER PAGE V. ADVANCING AN AMERICAN AGENDA........................... 198 A. Key Concept: Luce’s American Agenda............... 198 B. Key Concept Developed In and Through Forum 1. Forum’s American Geography................... 205 2. The First Decades: the Modern American Home Mortgage..................................... 210 3. Forum and the “The American Century”......... 219 4. Postwar Forum, Part I: “The American Century” Turned Outward............................... 224 5. Postwar Forum, Part II: “The American Century” and Democracy................................ 231 6. The American Agenda as Justification, 1958 (and 1964)..................................