Modernizing Mainstreet: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal

An oft forgotten program of the New Deal dedicated billions to the recovery and galvanization of the main street store front. Throughout the 1930s the Modernization Credit Plan added store owners, helping them revamp facades, and played a major rollin modernizing the American shopping district. In Modernizing Main Street, Gabrielle Esperdy traces the cultural history of the plan. She shows how the seemingly diametric forces of depression and consumerism interact, and work to transform thearchitecture of commerce. The book is published by University of Chicago Press.