FROM DEPRESSION TO WORLD WAR II

Industrial design came of age in the Great Depression, widely believed to have resulted from under consumption or over production. Many thought designers could stimulate demand and thus help end the depression. In the mid-1930s Loewy became the first U.S. designer to expand abroad, opening a London office that spread American-style commercial industrial design to Europe. Wartime closed that office temporarily but fed more growth for Raymond Loewy Associates on the home front and made it America’s largest design consultant business.