May 15, 2024
Schroeder publishes on cultural history of vinyl records
Jonathan Schroeder, the William A. Kern Professor of Communications, published the third book in a trilogy on the cultural history of vinyl records. Designed for Success: Better Living and Self-Improvement with Midcentury Instructional Records, published with co-author Janet Borgerson, shows how instructional records tap into a distinctly U.S. belief in self-transformation, touted through transcendentalist notions of aspirational striving and human development. The book marks the first comprehensive analysis of instructional records with 125 full-color images of album covers and photography from the 1950s and 1960s.