One of the very first things I started collecting back in Wisconsin was cookbooks. Not only because both my husband, Kurt, and I love to cook (and he’s eternally grateful for having me as his culinary mentor), but because inside, the recipes are often a remarkble reflection of the times - of economic booms and war-time rations, agrarian-driven pasts and the indutrial presents and futures.
The foibles and follies of limitless generations of Foodies was an added bonus. So were the occasional design gems, such as this luscious 1933 promotional booklet the Durkee Famous Sauce Company gave to its visitors at A Century of Progress in Chicago. It’s bright colors sang to me from a crammed, old cardboard box in the corner of an dusty, dilapidated farmhand’s bunkhouse.
By the time A Century of Progress closed its doors in autumn of 1934 (held over another year due to its popularity), nearly 39 million people had visited what that generation’s future was to look like - and being smack-dab in the middle of The Great Depression, designers and innovators made damn sure the future looked bright.
And that everyone kept their eyes looking forward.
The motto of A Century of Progress was “Science Finds, Industry Applies, Man Adapts.”
The predominate focus of the international expostion was on modern visionaries who would pave the way to better times; and the sleek, stream-lined Art Deco designs of the 1930s - with its polished world of curves and color, luxury and modernity - were ideal for helping visitors to the Chicago fair step into “tomorrow”. And, for me, this small booklet captures it all.
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