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ETD_Knopf 7-20-22.pdf (615.37 KB)

ETD Abstract Container

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The Future Great City of the World: The 1945 Toledo Tomorrow Exhibit and the Transformation of the American City

Knopf, Michael D
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-5317-4093
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1657234861628994

Abstract Details

2022, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, History.
The Toledo Tomorrow model city exhibit of 1945 was intended to showcase Toledo to possible investors and revitalize the city’s economy after World War Two. However, its longer lasting effect was to popularize the idea of a national interstate system and the suburban lifestyle it made possible. The Toledo Blade newspaper and its owner Paul Block Jr. not only funded the exhibit; they encouraged citizens to regard their city as obsolete, priming them for expensive and destructive road building projects. The exhibit’s designer, Norman Bel Geddes, used the opportunity to apply the abstract auto-centric principles of his famous 1939 Futurama exhibit to a real-world city. The apparent result by the 1970s was a downtown sapped of vitality and predominantly black inner-city neighborhoods adversely affected by highway construction.
Timothy Messer-Kruse, Ph.D. (Committee Chair)
Rebecca Mancuso, Ph.D. (Committee Member)
81 p.
American History; History; Urban Planning
Toledo; Norman Bel Geddes; Paul Block; Toledo Tomorrow; highway; model; exhibit; city; suburbia; urban; futurism; design; Ohio

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Knopf, M. D. (2022). The Future Great City of the World: The 1945 Toledo Tomorrow Exhibit and the Transformation of the American City [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1657234861628994

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Knopf, Michael. The Future Great City of the World: The 1945 Toledo Tomorrow Exhibit and the Transformation of the American City. 2022. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1657234861628994.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Knopf, Michael. "The Future Great City of the World: The 1945 Toledo Tomorrow Exhibit and the Transformation of the American City." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2022. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1657234861628994

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1657234861628994
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© 2022, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.