Building a Market : The Rise of the Home Improvement Industry, 1914-1960
Overview
Each year, North Americans spend as much money fixing up their homes as they do buying new ones. This obsession with improving our dwellings has given rise to a multibillion-dollar industry that includes countless books, consumer magazines, a cable television network, and thousands of home improvement stores.Building a Market charts the rise of the home improvement industry in the United States and Canada from the end of World War I into the late 1950s. Drawing on the insights of business, social, and urban historians, and making use of a wide range of documentary sources, Richard Harris shows how the middle-class preference for home ownership first emerged in the 1920s--and how manufacturers, retailers, and the federal government combined to establish the massive home improvement market and a pervasive culture of Do-It-Yourself. Deeply insightful, Building a Market is the carefully crafted history of the emergence and evolution of a home improvement revolution that changed not just American culture but the American landscape as well.
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9780226317663
- ISBN-10: 0226317668
- Publisher: University of Chicago Press
- Publish Date: August 2012
- Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.5 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds
- Page Count: 448
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