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Grant Detail
Bill Ferehawk/Bill Kubota/Ed Moore
Lustron:
A New Standard for Living
Media (Film/Video; DVD/CD; Internet)
Producers Bill Kubota, Ed Moore, and Bill Ferehawk researched, shot and edited the one-hour documentary that tells the story of Chicago inventor Carl Strandlund and his crusade to revolutionize homebuilding by mass-producing steel houses, one hundred each day, on an assembly line. At the end of World War Two, twelve million war veterans returned to a housing crisis. President Harry Truman seized the opportunity to force builders and suppliers to concentrate solely on affordable housing instead of racetracks and resort hotels. The answer: prefabricated housing, a new industry that would supercede auto industry and provide a better standard of living to every American family. Leading architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Buckminster Fuller threw themselves at the problem. Every effort failed but one. It took an industrial genius from Chicago pull it off. Charming and relentlessly enthusiastic, Strandlund won over Congressmen, bureaucrats and even President Truman. He negotiated landmark labor agreements with national trade unions. Armed with 37 million tax dollars, Strandlund risked everything he had to mass-produce the American Dream--a dream made of porcelain-enameled steel called the Lustron home. Strandlund's Lustron houses were built at the rate of one house every four days. The social and economic implications were enormous. Then, at the threshold of success, came the tragic downfall of Lustron at the hands devious conspirators connected to the White House.
Contact:
Bill Kubota
Producer
KDN Videoworks
32311 Stephenson Hwy.
Madison Heights, MI 48071
Tel: 248-585-9696
Fax: 248-585-1371
Email: bill.kubota@kdnvideo.com
URL: www.lustron.org
Principal Investigator(s):
Bill Kubota
Project Subject:
Architecture-History and Design (American)
Chronological Period:
1900-1949
Completion Date:
January 2003
Year Funded:
2002