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A better home for every body

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TitleInfo
Title
A better home for every body
SubTitle
homemaking and liberal individualism in 1920s America
Name (type = personal)
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Pettit
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Jennifer Lynn
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Jennifer Lynn Pettit
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author
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Lears
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Jackson
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Jackson Lears
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Advisory Committee
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chair
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Cobble
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Dorothy Sue
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Dorothy Sue Cobble
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Advisory Committee
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internal member
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Urban
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Andrew
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Andrew Urban
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Advisory Committee
Role
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internal member
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Brody
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David
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David Brody
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Advisory Committee
Role
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outside member
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Rutgers University
Role
RoleTerm (authority = RULIB)
degree grantor
Name (type = corporate)
NamePart
Graduate School - New Brunswick
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school
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Text
Genre (authority = marcgt)
theses
OriginInfo
DateCreated (qualifier = exact)
2016
DateOther (qualifier = exact); (type = degree)
2016-10
Place
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xx
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2016
Language
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eng
Abstract (type = abstract)
This dissertation finds the meaning of twentieth-century American liberalism within the assortment of historical voices who, during the 1920s, promoted the transformation of houses into beautiful, comfortable, well-managed homes. Most prominent among these was Herbert Hoover, and his efforts to promulgate a modern ideal of domesticity coincided with his promotion of an ideology that he labeled American Individualism. Explaining this connection between material culture and political philosophy is Hoover’s belief that “better” homes sustained American liberalism’s presumptions of individual autonomy and consensual self-government. These precursors of civil entitlement and national identity enabled his model citizen to reconcile the antinomies characteristic of the liberal subject: Hoover’s American Individual was, at once, liberated and restrained, singular and identical, distinct from the state and inseparable from it. Hoover’s perception of the better home’s circular function to reflect as well as construct liberal subjectivity was echoed by housing professionals, social scientists, interior decorators, home economists, popular writers, and civic activists. Examining the prescriptive literature these figures authored, the dissertation identifies within their diverse texts a narrative structure and logic that traced the liberal citizen’s, and thus America’s, origin and development to an innate yearning for an appealing home. Perceived as an authentic, metaphysical condition, this desire not only transformed primal drives into productive initiative, but also established the home-loving subject’s temporal precedence to the political economy. When created and managed through prescribed standards, the beautiful home aesthetically embodied this priority; its décor metaphorically reconciled liberty’s pursuit with a submission to the collectivizing ideals that constituted the nation; and by focusing and educating desire, the home’s beauty and comfort catalyzed a supposedly consensual enactment of the liberal virtues that enabled its inhabitants to become what the better home aesthetically signified. The modern home idealized during the 1920s was thus a product of public policy, civic engagement, scholarly analysis, artistic design, and literary production through which the liberal state created the condition of its own possibility. Although modernizing the home reinforced the traditional role of domesticity in American liberalism’s reproduction, this project prompted professional decorators, housing experts, and home economists to construe homemaking as an allegory for the performance of liberal individualism and, consequently, to frame the liberal subject as potentially androgynous. Emphasizing homemaking’s essential purpose within liberalism’s developmental narrative, white home economists stressed men’s dependency on their wives’ liberal attributes, which the professionalization of household labor served to display. This attempt to depict homemaking as a mode of liberal identity nevertheless failed to establish an identity between the women who worked at home and the men who relaxed there. African-American clubwomen encountered a different paradox when they similarly sought political opportunity in domesticity’s acknowledged function to cultivate liberal virtues and values within citizens who admittedly lacked them. These activists for racial equality confronted a homogenizing racial binary despite the declared inclusiveness of Hoover’s home ownership and home improvement campaigns. Imposed on black citizens geographically, narratively, and aesthetically, racialized otherness helped to make the home an evocative, private space, one that purportedly enabled a liberated and disciplined American Individual to create a progressive, liberal civilization.
Subject (authority = RUETD)
Topic
History
Subject (authority = ETD-LCSH)
Topic
Liberalism--United States--History
RelatedItem (type = host)
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Title
Rutgers University Electronic Theses and Dissertations
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ETD
Identifier
ETD_7749
PhysicalDescription
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electronic resource
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application/pdf
InternetMediaType
text/xml
Extent
1 online resource (vi, 463 p.)
Note (type = degree)
Ph.D.
Note (type = bibliography)
Includes bibliographical references
Note (type = statement of responsibility)
by Jennifer Lynn Pettit
RelatedItem (type = host)
TitleInfo
Title
Graduate School - New Brunswick Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Identifier (type = local)
rucore19991600001
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NjNbRU
Identifier (type = doi)
doi:10.7282/T3PK0JFM
Genre (authority = ExL-Esploro)
ETD doctoral
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Rights

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The author owns the copyright to this work.
RightsHolder (type = personal)
Name
FamilyName
Pettit
GivenName
Jennifer
MiddleName
Lynn
Role
Copyright Holder
RightsEvent
Type
Permission or license
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2016-10-13 15:11:58
AssociatedEntity
Name
Jennifer Pettit
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Affiliation
Rutgers University. Graduate School - New Brunswick
AssociatedObject
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Author Agreement License
Detail
I hereby grant to the Rutgers University Libraries and to my school the non-exclusive right to archive, reproduce and distribute my thesis or dissertation, in whole or in part, and/or my abstract, in whole or in part, in and from an electronic format, subject to the release date subsequently stipulated in this submittal form and approved by my school. I represent and stipulate that the thesis or dissertation and its abstract are my original work, that they do not infringe or violate any rights of others, and that I make these grants as the sole owner of the rights to my thesis or dissertation and its abstract. I represent that I have obtained written permissions, when necessary, from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis or dissertation and will supply copies of such upon request by my school. I acknowledge that RU ETD and my school will not distribute my thesis or dissertation or its abstract if, in their reasonable judgment, they believe all such rights have not been secured. I acknowledge that I retain ownership rights to the copyright of my work. I also retain the right to use all or part of this thesis or dissertation in future works, such as articles or books.
RightsEvent
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = start)
2016-10-31
DateTime (encoding = w3cdtf); (qualifier = exact); (point = end)
2018-10-31
Type
Embargo
Detail
Access to this PDF has been restricted at the author's request. It will be publicly available after October 31st, 2018.
Copyright
Status
Copyright protected
Availability
Status
Open
Reason
Permission or license
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