The death and life of Main Street : small towns in American memory, space and community

Resource Information

The work The death and life of Main Street : small towns in American memory, space and community represents a distinct intellectual or artistic creation found in Waubonsee Community College. This resource is a combination of several types including: Work, Language Material, Books.

Label

The death and life of Main Street : small towns in American memory, space and community

Title remainder

small towns in American memory, space and community

Statement of responsibility

Miles Orvell

Creator

• Orvell, Miles

Subject

• Collectief geheugen
• Community development -- United States
• Community life -- United States
• Cultuur
• Dorpsleven
• City and town life -- United States
• Mythevorming
• Representatie (algemeen)
• Small cities -- Social aspects -- United States
• Verenigde Staten
• Kleine steden

Language

eng

Summary

"For more than a century, the term "Main Street" has conjured up nostalgic images of American small-town life. Representations exist all around us, from fiction and film to the architecture of shopping malls and Disneyland. All the while, the nation has become increasingly diverse, exposing tensions within this ideal. In Main Street, Miles Orvell wrestles with the mythic allure of the small town in all its forms, illustrating how Americans continue to reinscribe these images on real places in order to forge consensus about inclusion and civic identity, especially in times of crisis. Orvell underscores the fact that Main Street was never what it seemed; it has always been much more complex than it appears, as he shows in his discussions of figures like Sinclair Lewis, Willa Cather, Frank Capra, Thornton Wilder, Margaret Bourke-White, and Walker Evans. He argues that translating the overly tidy cultural metaphor into real spaces--as has been done in recent decades, especially in the new urbanist planned communities of Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk and Andres Duany--actually diminishes the communitarian ideals at the center of this nostalgic construct. Orvell investigates the way these tensions play out in a variety of cultural realms and explores the rise of literary and artistic traditions that deliberately challenge the tropes and assumptions of small-town ideology and life"--

Assigning source

Publisher description

Cataloging source

DLC

Dewey number

307.76/20973

Illustrations

illustrations

Index

index present

LC call number

HT123

LC item number

.O78 2012

Literary form

non fiction

Nature of contents

bibliography