Ebook467 pages6 hours
Imaging Hoover Dam: The Making of a Cultural Icon
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
()
About this ebook
The mighty Hoover Dam, starting as a dream of land developers and farmers, became the most ambitious civil engineering project of the Great Depression. This landmark in the middle of the Mojave Desert, holding back the largest man-made lake in America, also became, like Mount Rushmore or the Empire State Building, a visual and cultural icon. The power and meanings of this icon came not through a single image but via myriad visual representations, in government propaganda, advertising, journalism, and art. Even before it was built, these images were used to shape the public’s perception of the project and frame the dam as the linchpin to an expanding American economic empire in the desert Southwest.
Anthony F. Arrigo has researched a wide array of primary sources and archival materials to trace the project from its earliest representations in illustrations to the documentary photography of its construction and later depictions of the structure in commercial promotions, fine art photography, and paintings. Analyzing Hoover Dam through the trajectory of imagery across several decades, rather than the narrative of its construction, illuminates the underlying cultural and ecological imperatives in the drive to build it, including the influence of religious doctrine and the American agrarian movement. Arrigo also discusses various portrayals of laborers, women, minority groups, nature, and technology in this imagery. In time, the visual icon of power and domination was commercialized to sell cars, vacations, and more.
Imaging Hoover Dam is an important work in both visual rhetoric and cultural studies. It will also intrigue readers interested in such varied topics as the history of the American Southwest, the Great Depression and the New Deal, social and environmental issues, and American popular culture.
Anthony F. Arrigo has researched a wide array of primary sources and archival materials to trace the project from its earliest representations in illustrations to the documentary photography of its construction and later depictions of the structure in commercial promotions, fine art photography, and paintings. Analyzing Hoover Dam through the trajectory of imagery across several decades, rather than the narrative of its construction, illuminates the underlying cultural and ecological imperatives in the drive to build it, including the influence of religious doctrine and the American agrarian movement. Arrigo also discusses various portrayals of laborers, women, minority groups, nature, and technology in this imagery. In time, the visual icon of power and domination was commercialized to sell cars, vacations, and more.
Imaging Hoover Dam is an important work in both visual rhetoric and cultural studies. It will also intrigue readers interested in such varied topics as the history of the American Southwest, the Great Depression and the New Deal, social and environmental issues, and American popular culture.
Related to Imaging Hoover Dam
Related ebooks
Building Hoover Dam: An Oral History Of The Great Depression Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wyoming Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDouble Negative Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Eaton Hall: Pride of King Township Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLady B and Her Memory Box Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Soft Vengeance of a Freedom Fighter Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsGod's Instant Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSummary of Sally Field's In Pieces Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsAscent: The Spiritual And Physical Quest Of Lege Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Gone with the Fins Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsStarved Rock State Park:: The Work of the CCC Along the I&M Canal Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Will County Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsRestoring Colorado River Ecosystems: A Troubled Sense of Immensity Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMore City than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsUnlocked Memories: Young Russians under German Rule Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Finding Fish Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Hominin Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of The Lost City of the Monkey God Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDuke Homestead and the American Tobacco Company Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTod Inlet: A Healing Place Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA 1960s Childhood: From Thunderbirds to Beatlemania Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Memoirs of a Telephone Man Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBlast: My Return to Mount St. Helens Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEnvironmental Politics and Policy in the West, Third Edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsDurham Tales: The Morris Street Maple, the Plastic Cow, the Durham Day that Was & More Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Quick Guide: The Beach Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNorth Carolina Rhododendron Festival Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPaper Butterfly: A Mei Wang Mystery Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Loimologia: Or, an Historical Account of the Plague in London in 1665 With Precautionary Directions Against the Like Contagion Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBonnie Jack: A Novel Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5
Social Science For You
All About Love: New Visions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the United States Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Verbal Judo, Second Edition: The Gentle Art of Persuasion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Art of Witty Banter: Be Clever, Quick, & Magnetic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Come As You Are: Revised and Updated: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dumbing Us Down - 25th Anniversary Edition: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Prisoners of Geography: Ten Maps That Explain Everything About the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fourth Turning Is Here: What the Seasons of History Tell Us about How and When This Crisis Will End Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Like Switch: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Influencing, Attracting, and Winning People Over Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Just Mercy: a story of justice and redemption Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Men Explain Things to Me Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Close Encounters with Addiction Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Denial of Death Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Selection) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5My Secret Garden: Women's Sexual Fantasies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Questions for Couples: 469 Thought-Provoking Conversation Starters for Connecting, Building Trust, and Rekindling Intimacy Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Great Reset: And the War for the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related categories
Reviews for Imaging Hoover Dam
Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Imaging Hoover Dam - Anthony F. Arrigo
1^ book_preview_excerpt.html }˒GlZ2OQ,4|HhLhtD8C$Mƺ{Oї9^@"kfbq3m|Ю{߽ٺuݮ!\xųg?ɏ?m|]aUcMxݎ>kMhYP?W|SW<{yV|<P-_nk,=W_:/g<}IYcA+ܻXo/;kB.|K_ův\gu[n8
=϶Kyzpæ-uWuh\Ns,C
<=0.wq /b:Eq'GNٞ-mٌ>ZXeXwnbAIoK|Z_]ޜ?_<}ɽo<'w&5|w/Rn|wκSy:.n-\7nl\WBZ9->C.ǧ?}2}ޣӧ_=zq|e{=w/gCWl7\}q:YC~!vJol ՛\^.\1DoX
I\ƼJn}QT sm
Ӄx'˺w -!z^>_N0E?{}=o)[',=˯,n:oOCxn8瓌o
\tewNAƕP>Iq4~w|vq&x>