This can was made by the American Can Co. for the 1934 Chicago Worlds Fair. It is quite a beautiful tin. It was designed in the Art Deco style, which was at the height of its popularity in the early 1930s. In contrast with the Arts and Crafts style, Art Deco embraced technology and its straight and simple lines. The philosophy of Technology-as-Savior is evident in the glorious vertical lines of the skyscrapers, which seem to do double duty as steeples in this depiction, and the exaggerated building crane, which juts out dramatically over the skyline to assert its inevitability. In the foreground a gondolier shares the river with a speedboat. In the sky, a zeppelin floats alongside a monoplane.
Sadly, In just a few years the Hindenburg disaster will put the kybosh on the luxury airship industry. Then, just a few years later the atom bomb will pretty much bring to an end the reign of the Technology Savior.
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