American Fashion at the New York World's Fair 1939-1940: Spectacle, Gender, and the Invention of American Style

Abstract

ABSTRACT The New York World’s Fair 1939 opened at Flushing Meadows, Queens, on April 30, 1939. During the course of its two seasons, the Fair hosted 45 million visitors making it the most highly attended public event of the early 20th century. The fashion industry, the largest industry in New York City and third largest in the nation at the time, was among the first to commit to participation. Despite early struggles and the failure to secure a dedicated building in the first year, the Fair succeeded in placing American fashion in the public eye largely through the efforts of two key women, Marcia Connor and Mary Lewis. By orchestrating continuous public events, media tie-ins, a dedicated fashion building in 1940, and most importantly, live fashion shows in both 1939 and 1940, hegemonic messages were projected that reinforced a comprehensive picture of the American fashion industry as technologically sophisticated, affordable, stylish, and modern. Ultimately, more than 10 million visitors engaged with American fashion at the New York World’s Fair 1939-40, crystallizing a collective consciousness around American fashion and individual designers that fostered success of American fashion in the years that followed. In exploring fashion at the New York World’s Fair 1939-40, this dissertation brings attention to a subject that has been largely ignored by scholars. Today, the New York World’s Fair 1939-1940 is best remembered for the triumph of the streamlined industrial design aesthetic and the ascendant role of private corporations in creating a future vision of American consumerism. Scholarship around the New York World’s Fair 1939-1940 has centered on the activities of men, especially the work of male industrial designers who were engaged to create the conceptual and aesthetic look of the Fair. Fashion at the New York World’s Fair is the story about women’s achievements and has been ignored. This dissertation centers gender as a factor in the early challenges that surrounded planning for fashion at the New York World’s Fair 1939-40 and recovers the contributions of Marcia Connor and Mary Lewis in launching American fashion at the New York World’s Fair 1939-1940. In addition, this dissertation creates a framework for understanding how the New York World’s Fair 1939-1940 functioned as a crucible for a collective consciousness around the American fashion and its individual designers that secured validation in the eyes of the public.

First Advisor

Anthony Mangieri

Date of Award

1-1-2023

Document Type

Dissertation

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