Streamline Era, The by Robert Reed w/ dust jacket 1975 298 pages

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Streamline Era, The by Robert Reed w/ dust jacket 1975 298 pages
 
The Streamline Era by Robert Reed
Hard Cover with dust jacket 1975   298 pages
Contents
Chapter 1 - The Streamline Style 9
Chapter 2 - Early Experiments Toward Streamlining  21
Chapter 3 - The Evolution of Semi-Streamlining  35
Chapter 4 - The Streamline Era - The Pioneers 1933-1935  47
Chapter 5 - Streamlining - The Middle Years 1936-1937  89
Chapter 6 - The Peak Years - Zenith and Decline  141
Chapter 7 - Diesel Invasion - Uniformity-Conformity  155
Chapter 8 - Streamliner Conversions  169
Chapter 9 - Baroque Steam Power  191
Chapter 10 - Streamlining Abroad  203
Chapter 11- Streamliners in the Sky  219
Chapter 12 - The Airflow Automotive Age  231
Chapter 13 - Streamlining After the War - End of An Era  241
Chapter 14 - The Airplane Comes of Age  265
Chapter 15 - Postwar Automotive Streamlining  275
Appendix  283
Bibliography  285
Index  289

THE STREAMLINE STYLE which swept across this country on bright wings in the third decade of this century touched almost all aspects of American life with its emphasis on sleek, smooth surfaces with clean, unbroken lines and its accompanying implications of modernity and efficiency. The word streamlined was first used to describe the glamorous new trains that appeared in the mid-1930's, but in time use of the word broadened into two meanings, one technical and the other aesthetic. At first the word was applied technologically to the design of swift moving machines -airplanes, trains and locomotives, automobiles, and ships - where speed and movement were vital questions. The term was based on the scientific fact that smooth surfaces with unbroken corners offer least resistance to air currents, hence the idea of stream-lined, assuring the greatest potential for speed and power. Later, as applied to art, the meaning of the word streamlined broadened to include static as well as dynamic forms, and began to suggest theoretical rather than actual efficiency, cleanness of line, and simplicity of form. Thus streamlining came to symbolize all that was modern and moved quickly.
The historical origins of streamline art are complex and remote, having deep roots both in America and Europe. The main course of streamlining as an industrial art of the 1930's, however, results from the confluence of two distinct currents: technology, with all of its connections with utility, and art, with its aura of glamour and luxury. These two forces warrant separate consideration before going further into streamlining as a distinct idiom.
In a scientific sense streamlining goes as far back as the Renaissance, when scientists showed interest in the movement of air around a solid body. As early as 1505 Leonardo da Vinci had compiled data on the shapes of birds for his own aerodynamic experiments with flying machines. In his Principia published in 1686, Sir Isaac Newton reported his studies of the effects that the shape of an object had on air resistance, and in the nineteenth century other men of science such as Euler, Stokes, and Prandtl revealed their own theories on the subject. In England the problem of the air resistance of a moving railroad train caused much speculation even in very early days. The first such investigation on record seems to have been made by George Stephenson and Nicholas on the Killingworth Railway in 1818.

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