6. Advances in communication and transportation create the "global village"(throughout the 1900's)

People in the 1900's enjoyed a revolution in personal communication. Leading the way were such advances as Thomas Edison's early telephone, radio signals crossing the Atlantic Ocean (1901), the telegraph linking continents in the 1930's, the first regular television broadcasts in the United States (1939), computers (1946), personal computers (1977), and finally the World Wide Web (1989).

Equally impressive were the transportation developments that created a mobile population. These developments included inexpensive and readily available long-distance transportation by private automobile and airplane. From the first flight of the Wright brothers (1903) to Charles Lindbergh's Trans-Atlantic flight (1927) to jet engines (1937) to modern commercial aviation (1941), cheap transportation made possible global economic and cultural exchange. From Henry Ford's Model T (1908) to the interstate highway system (1956), artists and patrons, and students and scholars could travel to art centers and experience the arts first hand. The Futurists loved speed and violence (Manifesto, 1909). Electric light inspired French artist Robert Delaunay's "Inobjective Art" (1912).

Artists worked worldwide. Students traveled. Art became truly international. The Canadian writer Marshall McLuhan characterized the world as "the global village."

 

Marilyn Stokstad is the Judith Harris Murphy Distinguished Professor of Art History at the University of Kansas. For her Top 10 list, Stokstad selects broad cultural movements of global significance seen in the light of the American experience. She generally notes a few specific events that triggered or characterized the larger issue or movement. She also expresses the impact on art either by a general movement or by a specific work of art.

1.

Science and technology get human beings to the moon (July 20, 1969)
2. Medical research produces "miracle" drugs (middle to late 1900's)
3. The breakup of the old social order (early 1900's)
4.

Private versus state patronage of the arts (throughout the 1900's)
5. The consumer society embraces the machine-made object (throughout the 1900's)
6. Advances in communication and transportation create the "global village" (throughout the 1900's)
7. The advance of civil rights and gender issues (middle to late 1900's)
8. The rise of ethnic nationalism (middle to late 1900's)
9. Totalitarian states attempt to control artists (throughout the 1900's)
10. Dropping the atomic bomb during World War II (1945)