Lurelle Van Arsdale Guild (1898-1985) was an author and illustrator of interior decorating literature; a collector of Americana; a pioneering industrial designer; and an amateur architect. Both a popular antiquarian and a modernist, his diverse interests often intermingled in his industrial designs. This dissertation uses Guild's multifaceted and at times contradictory career, which lasted from the 1920s to the 1960s, to explore how modernism drew upon the legacy of colonial American design to create objects that appeared contemporary but were grounded in tradition. This study positions Guild as the archetypal "historical modernist" while creating a larger framework for exploring the intersection of historicism and modernism in American design. The dissertation's introduction and chapter one explore the stylistic plurality that existed in the 1920s and 1930s and introduce the term "historical modernism" as a way to define the aesthetic and ideological overlaps between the era's dominant styles: the Colonial Revival and modernism. Chapters two and three focus on Guild's early career as an author and illustrator promoting traditional taste. The persona he created of the "Itinerant Antiquer" reflected his interest in early American decorative arts and architectural elements, which he and his wife collected and installed at Milestone Village, their property in Connecticut. Chapter four looks at how Guild's personal collection informed his work as an industrial designer. In the 1930s, Guild became a leading figure in the nascent field of industrial design. He drew upon his knowledge of Americana to create hybrid objects that appeared modern but were informed by the past and reflected the ambivalence many American consumers felt towards modernism. Chapter five explores the postwar years when Guild began to retreat from modernism. Instead, he focused on historicist design projects and became an amateur architect, building series of historical fantasy houses. Most histories of American modernism have disproportionately focused on forward-looking designs. This dissertation uses the work and biography of Lurelle Guild to reintroduce the idea of aesthetic pluralism into the historiography of modernist design and explores the legacy of the Colonial past on modernism in America.

Although many other ethnic and cultural studies have moved beyond essentialist labels and categories, Cuban-American studies persists in categorizing the people belonging to the cultural group in terms of how much time they have spent in Cuba, thus creating a hierarchy of "authentic" Cuban-ness. Isabel Alvarez Borland gives a comprehensive overview of Cuban-American literary categories, and through her description we can see how these categories may lend themselves to stratification. These categories include: the first generation, the second generation, the one-and-a-halfer, and the ethnic writer. To say that one generation of Cuban exiles is more or less authentically Cuban discounts the emotional connection of individuals to a homeland—a homeland that is now different for each generation, and therefore, all Cuban-Americans live with constructed ideas of Cuba that are not necessarily reflective of a "reality" of Cuba. Nevertheless, this does not necessarily mean that any of these individuals are any less Cuban or any less culturally or emotionally impacted by Cuba, as evidenced by someone like Cristina García who delves into Cuban culture in her writing and studying. The Agüero Sisters by Cristina García, can be read as a critique of this cultural categorization through the way in which characters in the novel obsess over taxonomizing animals and even other people. It seems in order for Cuban-American studies to move forward productively, these labels must be revised.

This dissertation traces the rhetoric of two Philadelphians, attorney John G. Johnson and Dr. Albert C. Barnes, as they collected art with a specific public in mind, namely working Philadelphians around the turn of the twentieth century. The individual bequests and resulting legacy institutions of Johnson and Barnes serve as rich case studies to assess the efforts of collectors to control the reception of their respective collections by the public. These particular histories, exceptional in their own ways, are juxtaposed to offer an objective view onto previously understudied challenges to the status quo, mounted by a few collectors by way of unique discursive practices and the establishment of distinctive single collection institutions, in the formative period for American art museums around the turn of the twentieth century in Philadelphia. The focus is on the two men’s often shared, but eventually divergent, ideas pertaining to art and the public, which can be tracked to relevant discourses that informed those views. At stake in this investigation is the relative tension between the agency of the collectors and the repurposing of their individual collections by future publics. More plainly, the goal is to study the interrelated narratives of collectors, Johnson and Barnes, as they unfolded over the course of the long twentieth century with an eye to what is gained or lost from the unraveling of the deliberate plans left by the collectors, which in both of these cases, included relocating the art work from the original site, leading to coincident shifts in the manner of display and targeted audience. It is not the point of this study to weigh-in on matters of justice regarding the individual cases, rather the goal is to probe the limits of an art collector’s vision held against the dynamic needs of publics, and evaluate what this might mean for the twenty first century. / Art History

The problems of this study may be stated as follows: (1) to show the various methods used by Virginia savings and loan associations in handling their delinquent accounts, (2) to determine by research their major advantages and disadvantages, and (3) to determine which methods or procedures would serve the best interests of the associations and their customers. Information concerning the current procedures and conditions were supplied by thirty (30) savings and loan officers, who answered questionnaires mailed to them. These replies represented over 50 per cent of the associations currently doing business in Virginia. In addition, selected representative associations were visited and operating personnel interviewed. The conclusions which were reached as a result of the analysis of the accumulated information have been stated. The study shows that procedures followed by the different savings and loan associations vary to a considerable extent and that innovation in management techniques would benefit many of these organizations. / Master of Science

No description available.

In the second half of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth century the collecting of objects from colonized countries and their subsequent display in western museums was widespread throughout Western Europe. How and why these collections were made, the processes of collection, and by whom, has only recently begun to be addressed. This thesis is an exploration of the ethnographic collection of Gertrude Emily Benham (1867-1938) who made eight voyages independently around the world from 1904 until 1938, during which time she amassed a collection of approximately eight hundred objects, which she donated to Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery in 1935. It considers how and why she formed her collection and how, as a an amateur and marginalised collector, she can be located within discourses on ethnographic collecting. The thesis is organised by geographical regions in order to address the different contact zones of colonialism as well as to contextualise Benham within the cultural milieu in which she collected and the global collection of objects that she collected. An interdisciplinary perspective was employed to create a dialogue between anthropology, geography, museology, postcolonial and feminist theory to address the complex issues of colonial collecting. Benham is located within a range of intersecting histories: colonialism, travel, collecting, and gender. This study is the first in-depth examination of Benham as a collector and adds to the knowledge and understanding of Benham and her collection in Plymouth City Museum and Art Gallery. It contributes to the discourse on ethnographic collectors and collecting and in doing so it acknowledges the agency and contribution of marginal collectors to resituate them as a central and intrinsic component in the formation of the ethnographic museum. In addition, and central to this, is the agency and role of indigenous people in forming ethnographic collections. The thesis offers a foundation for further research into women ethnographic collectors and a more nuanced and inclusive account of ethnographic collecting.

Personal media collections are becoming increasingly digitised with physical representations of music, film, games and books being replaced by virtual counterparts. Through qualitative fieldwork, this thesis examines the relationship that people have with traditional collections, and therein seeks to outline the aspects of which we find to be meaningful and enjoyable. Furthermore, this project attempts to apply these qualities to the design of digital media collection services. The research reveals that elements pertaining to identity, curation, presence, sharing, preservation and status are key. In addition to the fieldwork, a market analysis of current digital media collection services is carried out and drawn upon in the development of a design concept. The concept is used as a platform to discuss potential solutions addressing the unfavourable characteristics of digital media collections.

This thesis considers the contemporary work of the museum in the post-industrial setting of Glasgow. It interprets and understands how the museum as a space gives voice to New Labour’s concepts of social inclusion and citizenship whilst being embroiled in the wider process of urban regeneration and city enhancement. This research has been conducted using a mixed methodology incorporating policy analysis, participant observation and interviews, engaging with policy documentation, museum professionals and museum users in its goal to understand how the museum has been and is positioned within society. In exploring how museums have sought to become more socially inclusive, the research examined four different programmes in detail. These included two outreach projects; one working with adult learners and the other with different religious groups in the city. The research has also followed the contribution of a group of volunteers and finally it has engaged with the on-going processes surrounding the building of the city’s latest museum. The research findings have highlighted a complex and entangled set of power relations in the attempts to articulate social inclusion policy through the museum. This suggests, building upon the work of Foucault, that the museum embraces a soft-disciplinary power in relation to citizens. Specific programmes of the museum service targeting social inclusion reveal the benefits the individual may enjoy through participating in cultural events from which they might otherwise feel excluded. Yet, the reach of such programmes question the extent to which they are able to address social inclusion in the city. Recent developments – the production of the city’s newest museum as part of the riverside regeneration in particular – reveal how the installation of the iconic museum is closely allied to the wider project of urban economic regeneration. The planning of the Riverside Museum, however, has been attentive to the social inclusion agenda, particularly through the questions of access. Finally, the research shows how the city’s dominant growth agenda has resulted in a changing role for curators, shifting their agency away from a more traditional practice in which they were key gatekeepers, coordinating what museums displayed and how they did so, and towards a role that reflects a more scrutinised form of managerial control.

Sexually themed objects from ancient Greece and Rome have been present in debates about our relationship with the past and with sexuality since they were first brought to modern attention in large numbers in the Enlightenment period. However, modern engagement with this type of material has very often been characterised as problematic. This thesis pushes beyond the story of reactionary censorship of ancient depictions of sex to demonstrate how these images were meaningfully engaged with across intellectual life in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Britain and America. It makes a significant and timely contribution to our existing knowledge of a key historical period for the development of the modern understanding of sexuality and cultural representations of it, and the central role that antiquity played in negotiating this fundamental aspect of modernity. Crucially, this work demonstrates how sexual antiquities functioned as symbols of pre-Christian sexual, social and political mores, with which to think through, and to challenge, contemporary cultural constructions around sexuality, religion, gender roles and the development of culture itself. It presents evidence of the widespread and prolific acquisition of sexually themed artefacts throughout private and institutional collecting culture. This deliberate seeking out of ancient images of sex is shown to have been motivated by debates on the universal human connection between sex and religion, as part of wider constructions of notions such as ‘culture’ and ‘primitivism’, with Classical material maintaining a central position in these ideas, despite research into increasingly diverse cultures, past and present. The purposeful engagement with sexual imagery from antiquity is also revealed as having acted as a valuable new source of knowledge about ancient sexual life between men which gave new impetus to the negotiation, defence, celebration and promotion of homoerotic desire in contemporary turn of the twentieth century, Western society.

This is a project about the method of collecting, exploring properties and finding out when an object changes to another. It takes its starting point from the analysis of my collection of intuitively chosen objects, or fragments as I call them, and my interests of how space and object relates to each other and us as human beings. The outcome of my project is a collection of pieces of furniture that wants to interact with you, letting you decide how you want to use them depending on how you perceive them.