Looks at a range of commercial objects and phenomenon, from television and toys to comic books and magazines. The author looks at the often unspoken assumptions about class, nation, ethnicity, race, and sexual orientation that underscored both media images (like those of 1960s space missions) and social policies of the mass-produced suburb.

Issues of memory and nostalgia are central in the final section as Spigel considers how contemporary girls use television reruns as a source for women's history and then analyses the current nostalgia for baby boom era family ideals that runs through contemporary images of new household media technologies. Containing some of Spigel's well-known essays on television's cultural history as well as new essays on a range of topics dealing with popular visual culture, "Welcome to the Dreamhouse" is important reading for students and scholars of media and communications studies, popular culture, American studies, women's studies, and sociology.

Contents:
Introduction
PART I TV households
The suburban home companion: Television and the neighborhood ideal in post-war America
Portable TV: Studies in domestic space travel
PART II White flight
From domestic space to outer space: The 1960s fantastic family sit-com
Outer space and inner cities: African American responses to NASA
PART III Baby boom kids
Seducing the innocent: Television and childhood in post-war America
Innocence abroad: The geo-politics of childhood in post-war kid strips
PART IV Living room to gallery
High culture in low places: Television and modern art, 1950-1970
Barbies without Ken: Femininity, feminism and the art-culture system
PART V Rewind and fast forward
From the dark ages to the Golden Age: Women's memories and television re-runs
Yesterday's future, tomorrow's home