Industrial design is a fundamental component of the traditional consumer experience. Almost every commercially produced product encountered in our day-to-day lives, from toasters to toothbrushes, has been designed with our taste preferences, our desires and our lifestyles in mind. This book traces the history of industrial design over three centuries, beginning with the eighteenth-century industrial revolution. It identifies the major figures, organizations, styles and evolutionary events of the profession, looking particularly at the refinement of industrial design by nineteenth-century...

Building the St. Helena II tells the story of the 1970 reconstruction of an authentic, operational 1825 canal boat. The narrative unfolds in the small village of Canal Fulton, Ohio, along the surviving one- mile section of the 333-mile Ohio & Erie Canal, which in the 1820s connected the new nation's western frontier to the thriving coastal states. Canal Fulton was at the leading edge of a national environmental movement to reclaim, restore, and reuse historic U.S. canals for education and recreation.

Author Carroll Gantz describes how canals penetrated the wilderness and...

As the Great Depression started in 1929, several dozen creative individuals from a variety of artistic fields, including theatrical, advertising, graphic, fashion, and furniture design, pioneered a new profession. Responding to unprecedented public and industry demand for new styles, these artists entered the industrial world during what was called the 'Machine Age,' to introduce 'Modern' design to the external appearance and form of mass-produced, functional, mechanical, consumer products, formerly not considered 'art.' The popular, modern designs by these 'Machine Designers' increased sales...

This is the story of the wonders of refrigeration. For thousands of years, humans coped with heat by devising natural cooling systems of ventilation and evaporation. They harvested and stored natural ice and snow for summer usage. By the mid 1800s, men began to develop huge machines to make artificial ice using scientific and mechanical principles. By the early 1900s engineers developed electric domestic refrigerators, which by 1927 became affordable and convenient household appliances. By then, a more sophisticated public demanded more modern looking appliances than engineers could produce,...