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Mythologies of an American everyday landscape : Henry Ford at the Wayside Inn / Mythologies of an everyday American landscape : Henry Ford at the Wayside Inn

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 2006. / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 183-193). / Ford purchased property in 1923 in Sudbury, Massachusetts in order to preserve an historic inn associated with the poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Over the next twenty years, his mission expanded to create an idealized New England landscape and a way of living on the land representative of an American identity. This study will demonstrate that this change of intention is one which elevates a notion of collective memory over that of heroic history. It will also show that Ford's endeavor at the Wayside Inn represented not only his own private dialogue with a cultural landscape, but also was emblematic of a broader public engagement with the crafting of what it meant to be American in the early twentieth century. Finally, this investigation will illuminate Ford's collection of the American experience as an attempt to grapple with how to make an American community (both physical and social) that embraced American traditions and technological innovations without the latter obliterating the former. / by Brooke D. Wortham. / Ph.D.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:MIT/oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/34416
Date January 2006
CreatorsWortham, Brooke Danielle
ContributorsMark Jarzombek., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Architecture.
PublisherMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Source SetsM.I.T. Theses and Dissertation
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis
Format193 p., application/pdf
Coveragen-us-ma
RightsM.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission., http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/34416, http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

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