Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 363-393).

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This study examines the birth of television and the modern media corporation that launched it, through the archives of the designer of the "first" set, John Vassos, a Greek-born American industrial designer, interior decorator, and illustrator (1898-1985). Vassos's early career is used as a case study to analyze the historical and cultural forces that shaped the emergence of this new media and the new profession of industrial design, through archival materials housed in the Archives of American Art at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. and at Syracuse University. Specifically, this thesis unites various parts of Vassos's early career, from his modernist illustrations to industrial design, through the aesthetics and practices of modernism. As RCA's lead industrial designer for over 40 years, Vassos was involved in the design and promotion of RCA's electronic products, including radios and televisions and studio equipment. Vassos also designed the new spaces carved out for their use in the home including the "living room of the future" featured at the 1939 World's Fair. Drawing from his skills as an illustrator, designer and display expert, Vassos helped develop RCA's public image at a time of its greatest expansion in radio and television manufacturing and broadcasting. This reading of Vassos's work is both diachronic, taking into account his work over the early part of his career to analyze his specific contribution and synchronic, in relationship to other designers working contemporaneously. Thus, this thesis explores Vassos's double role as a participant, with active agency within the emergence of the new field and as a subject, constrained by social roles and forces. Ranging from turnstile to the transmitter, Vassos along with other industrial designers used the streamlined aesthetic to create visual unity among mechanical and electronic products, from home to office, from subway to skyline.