The Death and Life of Main Street
Small Towns in American Memory, Space, and Community
Miles Orvell
Publisher: University of North Carolina Press
Imprint: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 10/2012
Pages: 316
Subject: Social Science, History
| University of North Carolina
Print ISBN: 9.78E+12
eBook ISBN: 9780807837566
DESCRIPTION
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.