'Useful Objects' examines the cultural history of nineteenth-century American museums through the eyes of writers, visitors, and collectors. Throughout this per

Table of Contents Foreword 6 Preface 7 Acknowledgments 9 Objects of Design 10 Plates 23 1 Turning Points 24 2 Machine Art 46 3 A Modern Ideal 70 4 Useful Object

From the former director of the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, a timely and passionate case for the role of the well-designed object in the digital age.

"An innovative new history of how the migration of designers in the 20th century shaped modernist art and architecture"--