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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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