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Lustron: The House America’s Been Waiting For
Film Screening and Discussion led by Bill Ferehawk
6 pm Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Graham Foundation, 4 West Burton Place, Chicago
Film length is one hour, with discussion to follow.
Set in the turmoil of America’s post-World War II housing crisis, “Lustron: The House America’s Been Waiting For” tells the story of inventor Carl Strandlund’s dream to revolutionize the home building industry and reveals the government conspiracy that destroyed one of America’s most ambitious experiments in manufactured housing. With financial backing from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, Strandlund proved he could mass produce a high-quality, affordable steel house. Lustron, short for luster-on-steel, was manufactured entirely of porcelain enameled steel, the same resistant finish used on bathtubs and appliances. The home could be assembled in just three days and never required re-painting or re-roofing. Using rare period footage, stunning unpublished photographs, and first-hand accounts from former Lustron employees and former government officials, the film chronicles the dramatic rise and fall of the General Motors of housing.
In 1994, buried in a forgotten box in the Ohio Historical Society, film producers Ed Moore, Bill Kubota, and Bill Ferehawk discovered a trail of newspaper clippings, Senate hearing transcripts, and internal Lustron Corporation documents which suggested that the collapse of Lustron was precipitated by more than simply market forces. For two years, the producers scoured the country looking for people who had been inside Lustron when it collapsed. In 1996, they located a former executive of Lustron, Hal Starr, living in Mexico. In a remarkable interview, Starr exposed the government plot to take over Lustron and described the company’s last hours. Research into Lustron’s history continued over the next six years, culminating in a film that recounts a pivotal but largely forgotten chapter in American architectural, industrial, and political history.
Copies of the Lustron film are available for purchase at http://www.lustron.org or by calling 1-800-825-4568.