Styling Synthetics: DuPont's Marketing of Fabrics and Fashions in Postwar America

2006 ◽  
Vol 80 (3) ◽  
pp. 485-528 ◽  
Author(s):  
Regina Lee Blaszczyk
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Organizational Innovation ◽  
Industrial Research ◽  
World War ◽  
Mass Market ◽  
Big Business ◽  
Synthetic Fibers ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Market Success

Scholars have studied innovation from various perspectives, but few have considered the interaction between big business and the fashion marketplace. This study examines the efforts of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Company to create and expand the American synthetic-fibers market after World War II. DuPont described this work as transforming the “relatively simple ‘art’ of selling fabric” into the “complicated ‘science’ of marketing.” This process involved developing in-house marketing expertise and reaching out to sources as disparate as American fabric designers, Parisian couturiers, Seventh Avenue manufacturers, southern textile giants, and mass-market retailers. To promote the “wonders” of synthetic fibers, DuPont relied on “fashion intermediaries” to determine what customers wanted and how its fibers could meet those needs. This study suggests that the mass-market success of DuPont's synthetic fibers owed as much to creative marketing, styling, and performance as it did to industrial research and organizational innovation.

Boundaries of Inclusion and Exclusion in Postwar America

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Danielle Battisti
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Ethnic Groups ◽  
Social Position ◽  
American Identity ◽  
The Political ◽  
World War ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
Immigration Laws ◽  
Italian American ◽  
White Ethnic

The introduction comments on the nature of campaigns to reform American immigration laws after World War II, Italian American identity, and the political and social position of white ethnic groups.

The tough Westerner

2021 ◽  
pp. 127-146
Author(s):  
Gillian Kelly
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Real Life ◽  
World War ◽  
Career Trajectory ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
Major Curve ◽  
Star Image ◽  
And Performance

This chapter explores Power’s work within the Western genre. When Power was cast in the title role of Hollywood’s first ‘A Western’ of the 1930s: Jesse James (Henry King) in 1939 it marked the first major curve in Power’s career trajectory. When it became Twentieth Century-Fox’s biggest hit of the year this proved that audiences were ready to accept Power in more masculine roles at the close of the decade. Released in the period directly preceding America’s entry into World War II, the film was integral in developing a much-needed shift in Power’s screen masculinity, appearance and performance style, reflecting the shifting industrial and social context in which it was made. In advancing his star image away from a womaniser, and instead placing it within an overtly homosocial environment, Power was able to convincingly demonstrate male bonding and leadership through a tougher masculinity which was essential for both the historical timeframe and Power’s own upcoming real-life war service. Despite the film’s huge success, it was another 12 years before Power starred in another Western, and made just four in overall: Jesse James, Rawhide (Henry Hathaway, 1951), Pony Soldier (Joseph M. Newman, 1952) and The Mississippi Gambler (Rudolph Maté, 1953).

scholarly journals The Evolution of the UK Wine Market: From Niche to Mass-Market Appeal

Beverages ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 87
Author(s):  
Julie Bower
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Product Development ◽  
New Product ◽  
Brewing Industry ◽  
World War ◽  
Mass Market ◽  
Precipitous Decline ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Narrative Account

This article is an historic narrative account of the emergence of the mass-market wine category in the UK in the post-World War II era. The role of the former vertically-integrated brewing industry in the early stages of development is described from the perspective of both their distributional effects and their new product development initiatives. Significant in the narrative is the story of Babycham, the UK’s answer to Champagne that was targeted to the new consumers of the 1950s; women. Then a specially-developed French wine, Le Piat D’Or, with its catchy advertising campaign, took the baton. These early brands were instrumental in extending the wine category, as beer continued its precipitous decline. That the UK is now one of the largest wine markets globally owes much to the success of these early brands and those that arrived later in the 1990s, with Australia displacing France as the source for mass-market appeal.

scholarly journals Sir Frederick William George White, C. B. E., 26 May 1905 - 17 August 1994

1996 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
pp. 497-521
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
New Zealand ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Industrial Research ◽  
Early Age ◽  
Professional Lives ◽  
World War ◽  
Profound Influence ◽  
Australian Council ◽  
Australian Science

Sir Frederick White was one of the most influential men in Australian science during and after World War II. At the comparatively early age of 39, he resigned from his Chair of Physics at Canterbury College, University of New Zealand, to become an Executive Officer of the Australian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (C.S.I.R.). Many years later he was to write ‘In doing so I abandoned any future personal activity in scientific research. I have never regretted doing so.’ His acceptance of the challenge to participate in leading C.S.I.R. had a profound influence on the advancement of Australian science and on the professional lives of the scientists involved.

scholarly journals The Advantage of Being Swiss: Nestlé and Political Risk in Asia during the Early Cold War, 1945–1970

2020 ◽  
Vol 94 (2) ◽  
pp. 373-397
Author(s):  
Pierre-Yves Donzé
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Multinational Enterprises ◽  
Organizational Innovation ◽  
Relevant Literature ◽  
Strategic Choices ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Risks ◽  
The Cold War

Multinational enterprises faced new political risks after World War II in the context of decolonization and the Cold War. The risks were particularly high in Asia between 1945 and 1970. Although the relevant literature has focused essentially on organizational innovation and strategic choices in explaining how firms dealt with these new political risks, this article explores the informal roles that governments of small, neutral countries played in supporting their multinationals abroad. Looking at the case of Nestlé in Asia, the article argues that the backing of the Swiss federal authorities was crucial for the company to overcome various kinds of risks and ensure a long-term presence in the region.

Organizing for performance: coalition effectiveness on the battlefield

2020 ◽  
Vol 26 (4) ◽  
pp. 953-978
Author(s):  
Rosella Cappella Zielinski ◽  
Ryan Grauer
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
World War I ◽  
Coalition Formation ◽  
Organization Theory ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
Free Riding ◽  
Organizational Dynamics ◽  
World War ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Do So

States often fight side-by-side on the battlefield. As detailed in our new dataset, Belligerents in Battle, 178 of the 480 major land battles fought during interstate wars waged between 1900 and 2003 involved at least one multinational coalition. Though coalition partners fight battles together to increase their odds of securing specific objectives, they vary significantly in their capacity to do so. Why? Drawing on organization theory insights, we argue that coalitions’ variable battlefield effectiveness is a function of interactions between their command structures and the resources each partner brings to the fight. Coalitions adopting command structures tailored to simultaneously facilitate the efficient use of partners’ variably sized resource contributions and discourage free-riding, shirking, and other counterproductive actions will fight effectively; those that employ inappropriate command structures will not. Evidence from Anglo-French operations during World War I and Axis operations during World War II strongly supports our claim. For scholars, our argument and findings about the importance of military organizational dynamics for the operation and performance of coalitions raise important new questions and provide potential insights about coalition formation, duration, and termination. For practitioners, it is significant that, since 1990, 36 of 49 of major battles in interstate wars have involved at least one coalition and the majority of those coalitions have been, like the cases we study, ad hoc in nature. Understanding how command arrangements affect performance and getting organization right at the outset of wars is increasingly important.

Projections of Passing

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
N. Megan Kelley
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
American History ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
World War ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
Hollywood Films ◽  
Counter Narratives ◽  
Racial Ambiguity ◽  
Hollywood Movies

A key concern in postwar America was “who's passing for whom?” Analyzing representations of passing in Hollywood films reveals changing cultural ideas about authenticity and identity in a country reeling from a hot war and moving towards a cold one. After World War II, passing became an important theme in Hollywood movies, one that lasted throughout the long 1950s, as it became a metaphor to express postwar anxiety. In the imaginative fears of postwar America, identity was under siege on all fronts. Not only were there blacks passing as whites, but women were passing as men, gays passing as straight, communists passing as good Americans, Jews passing as gentiles, and even aliens passing as humans (and vice versa). Fears about communist infiltration, invasion by aliens, collapsing gender and sexual categories, racial ambiguity, and miscegenation made their way into films that featured narratives about passing. This book shows that these films transcend genre. Representations of passing enabled Americans to express anxieties about who they were and who they imagined their neighbors to be. By showing how pervasive the anxiety about passing was, and how it extended to virtually every facet of identity. This book broadens the literature on passing in a fundamental way. It also opens up important counter-narratives about postwar America and how the language of identity developed in this critical period of American history.

Evolution and Performance of Indian EPZs/SEZs

2005 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 3-28
Author(s):  
L. B. Singhal
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Import Substitution ◽  
World War ◽  
Export Processing Zone ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Free Trade Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
And Performance ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Processing Zone

A Special Economic Zone (SEZ) is defined as a specially delineated duty free enclave for trade operations. This area is reckoned as a foreign territory for the purpose of duties and tariffs. Movement of goods/services between SEZ and Domestic Tariff Area (DTA) is treated as exports and imports. SEZ units can be set up for export of goods and services including trading. Establishment of EPZs/SEZs is essentially a post World War-II syndrome when import substitution was gradually discarded to adopt export led growth – opened up/free trade policy. Rationale for setting up EPZs/SEZs emanates from natural endowments and other resources of different countries. The developing countries have plenty of cheep labour but they lack in export related infrastructure, technology and even access to their products in overseas markets. The first example of EPZ – Shannon Export Processing Zone – designed to liberalize trade/FDI debuted in Ireland during 1956. First FTZ in India was set up at Kandla in 1965. Then came the establishment of EPZs at SEEPZ (1974), Cochin, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Falta, Noida and Surat. As a part of its Export & Import Policy, the Government of India had announced setting up of SEZs in April 2000. The Government of India has enacted SEZ Act, 2005 in June 2005. At present, 14 SEZs are operating and approvals have been given for establishment of 64 more such enclaves. The paper attempts to throw light on the major issues involving evolution and performance of Indian EPZs/SEZs.

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