American plastic
Subtitle: a cultural history
By: Jeffrey L. Meikle.
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: New Brunswick, N.J
Language: eng
Number of pages: 403
Subjects: Plastics -- History; Plastics industry and trade -- United States -- History
Description: Jeffrey Meikle traces Americans' ambivalent involvement with plastic from Bakelite radios and nylon stockings to Tupperware and polyester suits. He moves easily from the rise of the plastics industry to plastic's symbolic hold on style and the popular imagination. Meikle shows how America's enthusiasm for everything plastic has been complicated by environmental doubts and by the plasticity of postmodern existence.

Throughout this witty, compelling history of material and metaphor, Meikle raises crucial issues in science and technology, manufacturing and marketing, design and architecture, and American consumer culture. A provocative conclusion suggests that plastic, endlessly malleable in the face of material desire, merges into the immaterial reality of future electronic media.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-380) and index.