1930
The Art Institute of hicago exhibits Grant Woods "American Gothic" • Cosmetics become socially acceptable • The Southern Highland Craft Guild is founded.

1931
The tallest building in the world, the Empire State Building opens (and it remains the world's tallest until 1972).

1932
In Michigan, Ellen and George Booth found the Cranbrook Academy of Art.

1933
President Roosevelt begins the Works Progress Administration, that saved thousands of artists from despair and poverty.

1935
Abby Aldrich Rockefeller donates 181 paintings to MOMA - The Museum of Modern Art in New York City, which she was instrumental in founding in 1929.

1936
In Pennsylvania, Frank Lloyd Wright designs the Kaufmann House, which becomes known as Fallingwater.

1937
In Chicago, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy founds the New Bauhaus, a progressive design school. • Alexander Calder debuts his Mobiles at the Paris World's Fair whcih can be described as groups of abstract tin shapes suspended by thin wires, driven by air currents.

1939
Dupon begins manufacturing nylon stockings.• The first New York World's Fair opens.

1940
Charles Eames and Eero Saarinen win MOMA's "Organic Design in Home Furnishings" competition • America House, a cooperative retail shop run the the Handicraft Cooperative League, opens in New York city.

1941
The National Gallery of Art opens on the Mall, in Washington DC.

1942
Peggy Guggenheim founds the Art of This Centruy gallery, where she first exhibits the work of Jackson Pollock • Gustav Stickley dies • Edward Hopper completes Nighthawks, capturing the lonliness at the heart of the city.

1943
In Idaho, George Nakashima leaves an internment camp for afarm in New Hope PA.

1944
Frank Sinatra appears in solo concerts at the New York Paramount and Bobby Soxers swoon, • The Martha Graham Dance Company debuts Appalachian Spring at the Library of Congress with a set design by Isamu Noguchi and music by Aaron Copeland.

1945
World War II ends.

1946
MOMA gives Charles Eames a one-man show, the first such honor extended to a furniture designer.

1949
Death of a Salesman. by Arthur Miller, premieres in New York • The Museum of Modern Art presents a major exhibition of the work of James Prestini, a Bauhaus-influenced sculptor and woodworker, which establishes the validity of the wood bowl as an object of art.

1950
Abstract Expressionism, led by Jackson Pollock, Lee Krasner, and Willem de Kooning, dominates American painting as a reaction to World War II • Haystack Mountain School of Crafts opens in Maine.

1951
I Love Lucy premieres • Metalsmith Earl Pardon begins teaching jewelry making at Skidmore College.

1952
Gene Kellly's performance in Singing in the Rain provides Holly wood with a signature image.

1953
Peter Voulkos has first solo show at the University of Florida in Gainseville.

1954
Italian immigrant Simon Rodia completes the group of towers constructed from junkyard treasures he'd begun 33 years before in the Watts section of South Central Los Angeles.

1955
Marilyn Monroe stars in The Seven Year Itch.

1956
Elvis scores his first number--one pop hit with Heartbreak Hotel. • Jackson Pollock dies in a car accident.

1957
Jack Kerouac publishes his autobiographical novel On the Road, bring national attention to the Beat movement. • American Bandstand becomes the first televised sock-hop. • The U.S.S.R. launches the Sputnik satellite.

1959
Construction of the Guggenheim Museum, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright is completed.

1962
Andy Warhol paints his first soup can - Pop Art begins. • Toledo Glass Worshop is led by Harvey Littleton.

1963
David Smith creates his Cubist series of polished steel sculptures • John F. Kennedy is assassintated.

1964
Ed Sullivan introduces the Beatles to United States' audiences • Second New York World's Fair opens in Queens.

1965
Minimalism emerges as a new genre of American art • MOMA presents The Responsive Eye, a show of pulsating Op-Art paintings• Timothy Leary leads the day-glo revolution, coining the LSD catch phrase "tune in, tourn on, drop out"• Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch is complted in St. Louis as a tribute to Lewis and Clark.

1967
The Graduate and Bonnie and Clyde are box office hits.

1969
Woodstock • U.S. astronauts woak on the moon • The Torpedo Factory in Alexandria VA, is donated to the city and converted into studios for artists to work and sell their art.

1970
The miniskirt raises hemlines to 10 inches above the knee • Greenpeace is founded.

1971
Pilchuck School founding sets the stage for new interest in contemporary American glass art • The Whitney Museum of American Art presents the exhibit Abstract Design in American Quilts, which marks a turning pioint in the appreciation of the quilt • Paul Stankard's paperweights are shown at the indian Summer Art Show in Atlantic City • The Tacoma Art Museum holds the First National Invitational Hand Blown Glass Exhibit. Glass Art Society is founded.

1972
Christo installs Running Fence in California Sonoma and Marin Counties.Sally Hansen adds contemporary glass to her antique shop in Washington DC.

1974
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden opens in Washington DC • The Clay Studio opens in Philadelphia. President Richard Nixon resigns • The Helen Drutt Gallery in Philadelphia opens. Albert Paley wins the Renwick Galler's national design competition and is awarded the commission to design the metalwork gates for its gallery shop.

1977
John Travolta dances in "Saturday Night Fever" • Urban Glass is established as the New York Experimental Glass Workshop.

1979
National Ornamental Metal Museum opens in Memphis Tenn • Lino Tagliapietra travels to the U.S. to teach at Pilchuck.

1982
Bull market on Wall Street creates a steady market of art buyers; SoHo emerges as the epicenter of the heady boom • Michael Jackson and Madonna become household names.

1983
National Endowment for the Arts initiates the Presidential Design awards to recognize and encourage extraordinary achievements in federal design.

1985
The first U.S. Ikea Store opens • Wendell Castle completes his "Ghost Clock".

1986
New Art Forms debuts in Chicago.

1987
The National Museum of Women in the Arts opens to controversy in Washington DC

1989
Public outcry over the Robert Maplethorpe retrospective, The Perfect Moment, forces the Corcoran Gallery of Art to cancel the show.

1992
Sotheby's holds its first auction of contemporary decorative arts.

1993
The White House Coollection of American Crafts is established.

1994
In Chicago, The Sculpture, Objects and Functional Art (SOFA) exposition premieres.

1996
American Visionary Art Museum debuts in Baltimore MD.

1997
The J. Paul Getty Museum opens in the foothills of the Santa Monica Mountains in Calfornia • Windows on the World, the restaurant on top of the World Trade Center in New York opens, featuring four illuminated blown glass sculptures by Dan Dailey • The Art Jewelry Forum is founded.

1998
Legendary potter Beatrice Wood dies at the age of 105. • The Museum of American Folk Art announces the plan for it's new building next door to MOMA in New York City.

1999
Mint Museum of Craft and Design opens in Charlotte NC • Mayor Rudy Guiliani threatens to cut off all city funding to the Brooklyn Museum of art because of the Sensation exhibit.

2000
A new millennium for art, design, and craft begins.