First edition of this contemporary account of the first major dam completed by the Tennessee Valley Authority and an early demonstration of the New Deal’s program of public power, flood control, conservation, and regional planning. 4to (8.75” x 11.5”), stapled printed wrappers, 39 pages, extensively illustrated with b/w photographs, diagrams, and a double-page map. Published by the United States Government Printing Office in 1936 and prepared by the TYA Division of Information.
Published in the year Norris Dam became operational, the booklet documents its construction through dramatic images of workers, concrete pouring, powerhouse framing, turbines, and the completed structure. The concluding photographs of controlled water, cultivated ground, and pastoral scenery frame the dam as the technological center of a regenerated landscape—an accomplished example of the TVA’s merger of design and public persuasion.
The wraparound cover, printed in deep blue on tan stock, reduces the dam’s concrete piers to a forceful Art Deco composition of converging diagonals and monumental slab-serif lettering. Its blue back wrapper reverses the palette to present a finely drawn technical section through the dam and powerhouse: monument on the front, mechanism on the back. No designer credited. Bumping to extremities, with minor open tear to bottom corner of front wrapper. Moderate damp staining to front wrapper, affecting mostly the bottom corner of leaves.
First edition of this contemporary account of the first major dam completed by the Tennessee Valley Authority and an early demonstration of the New Deal’s program of public power, flood control, conservation, and regional planning. 4to (8.75” x 11.5”), stapled printed wrappers, 39 pages, extensively illustrated with b/w photographs, diagrams, and a double-page map. Published by the United States Government Printing Office in 1936 and prepared by the TYA Division of Information.
Published in the year Norris Dam became operational, the booklet documents its construction through dramatic images of workers, concrete pouring, powerhouse framing, turbines, and the completed structure. The concluding photographs of controlled water, cultivated ground, and pastoral scenery frame the dam as the technological center of a regenerated landscape—an accomplished example of the TVA’s merger of design and public persuasion.
The wraparound cover, printed in deep blue on tan stock, reduces the dam’s concrete piers to a forceful Art Deco composition of converging diagonals and monumental slab-serif lettering. Its blue back wrapper reverses the palette to present a finely drawn technical section through the dam and powerhouse: monument on the front, mechanism on the back. No designer credited. Bumping to extremities, with minor open tear to bottom corner of front wrapper. Moderate damp staining to front wrapper, affecting mostly the bottom corner of leaves.
