Michigan Modern: Design that Shaped America by Amy L. Arnold and Brian D. Conway, eds. (review)

Book Reviews Amy L. Arnold and Brian D. Conway, eds. Michigan Modern: Design that Shaped America. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2016. Pp. 352. Illustrations. Index. Notes. Cloth: $50.00. Michigan Modern: Design that Shaped America is part of the State Historic Preservation Office’s ambitious project begun in 2009 to reclaim Michigan’s role in the development of modernist design. As the rich history and complex connections surfaced, exhibitions at the Cranbrook Art Museum (2013), and revised at the Grand Rapids Art Museum (2014), were accompanied by symposia with different speakers and foci. The book gathers many of the symposia participants’ comments and adds contributions by architectural historians, architects, designers, family members, and others. This groundbreaking publication covers enormous ground that ranges from scholarly considerations to oral interviews. An especially helpful foreword by Alan Hess provides a precise summary of Michigan’s contributions via industry (furniture and automobile, which tackled issues of mass rather than hand production), education (Cranbrook and the University of Michigan), and architecture. The book’s five groupings begin with Albert Kahn and his innovative industrial architecture. A strong case is made for Cranbrook’s central educational role in modern American design. Greg Wittkopp’s imagining of the guests at Eero Saarinen’s dining table in 1938 vividly envisions the collection of prominent and soon-to-be recognized designers who passed through Cranbrook. Likewise, Amy Arnold’s chapter on the University of Michigan’s architecture program explicates the Chicago and Prairie school influence and the focus on “pure design.” The importance of the automobile for industrial design and its effect on modern living, including the development of the shopping mall, is explored next. A substantial section considers the reasons for the development of the furniture industry in Michigan and modernism at Herman Miller, Widdicomb Furniture, and Knoll. Another large section on architecture offers chapters on the most well-known Michigan practitioners. Michigan Modern has already gained accolades across the country and spurred awareness of Michigan, not California, as the source of modernist design. Despite it weighing in at 352 pages, I was left wanting more. Most chapters average ten pages, including illustrations and minimal footnotes, but in many cases, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Chapters on Bathazar Korab’s photographic legacy and John Margolies, who photographed “Googie” architecture, left me desiring to know more details about their 126 The Michigan Historical Review projects. Discussions of particular architects (e.g., Ralph Rapson, Alden B. Dow, Minoru Yamasaki, Alexander Girard, and Frank Lloyd Wright) are brief histories of their illustrious careers focused on their Michigan origins or work. Granted that some of this is known from other publications, in other cases, the Michigan Modern project has already spawned new scholarship. Recently published books on Yamasaki, Girard, Albert Kahn, and Mid-Michigan Modern prove that Michigan Modern is a ripe subject for researchers. Todd Walsh’s chapter on Saarinen’s office hints at the numerous regionally active architects who started out in the practices of internationally renowned architects; their contributions would be worth exploring, as are other Michigan architects such as William Kessler (who was omitted). The book is beautifully designed with numerous color and black-andwhite photographs interspersed throughout. While some are known images, many were uncovered in archives. Just leafing through the book is a visual joy. Together with the far-ranging text, it is a most significant contribution not only to the architectural legacy of the state but to the history of modernism writ large. Susan J. Bandes Michigan State University Sara Egge. Woman Suffrage and Citizenship in the Midwest, 1870-1920. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2018. Pp. 233. Bibliography. Index. Notes. Paper: $85.00. Historians note that suffrage campaigns had the most success in the West. In fact, no large Eastern states passed full voting rights for women until 1917. Sara Egge shifts our attention to the Midwest, examining the long history of the suffrage movement in three Midwestern counties: Yankton County, South Dakota; Lyon County, Minnesota; and Clay County, Iowa. By shifting the regional focus and creating a clearer picture of the entire history of suffrage activism there, this study offers three insights and approaches: the detailed study of local...