CONTACT:
Grace McQuade
Executive Vice President
Goldberg McDuffie Communications
(212)446-5101
gmcquade@goldbergmcduffie.com
From the creators of the bestselling Day in the Life series and America 24/7,
comes a new book focusing on Americans at home
AMERICA AT HOME
A Close-Up Look at How We Live
Created by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt
Introduction by Simpsons’ Creator Matt Groening
New York City, April 1, 2008 – As one of the largest collaborative projects in
Internet history, the publication of AMERICA AT HOME: A Close-Up Look at How We
Live (Running Press; Publication date: April 1, 2008; $40.00 hardcover) marks a major
publishing event as Rick Smolan, Jennifer Erwitt and the team that have produced
numerous national bestsellers, including A Day in the Life of America and America 24/7,
apply their unique documentary approach to explore what the concept of “Home” means
to Americans today.
Featuring more than 250 images, AMERICA AT HOME captures “the
emotions of home,” the distinctive rituals, the intimate moments, and all the myriad ways
in which we work, play, learn, conduct our lives, and interact with friends and family
members (and pets!) as we transform our dwellings into our homes. From McMansions
to mobile homes, from tree houses to tenement slums, from ranches to retirement homes,
the images in this book document the harmonies and paradoxes of home life across all
fifty states.
AMERICA AT HOME is the result of an extraordinary creative collaboration
between professional photographers, journalists, noted writers, information researchers
and tens of thousands of amateur photographers who teamed up to document home life
across America over the course of a single seven day period from September 17-23,
2007.
Snapshots Heard ‘round the Nation: The multi-million dollar project
represents the most extensive record of American home life ever attempted. Through
massive grassroots online outreach by IKEA, as well as Google, Snapfish, Facebook, plus
scores of bloggers, tens of thousands of Americans were invited to participate by
contributing their own photos of life at home via a series of daily snapshots taken across
the nation throughout the week. 250,000 digital photographs were submitted to the
project website by both professional and amateur photographers and these images were
then reviewed by a panel of leading magazine and newspaper photo editors.
Mass Personalization: AMERICA AT HOME will offer the public the ability
to personalize their books with customized covers. This unique custom cover feature was
largely responsible for the success of Smolan's previous project, America 24/7, when
more than 21% of all book buyers put their own friend, families and pets on their copies.
This was the first time in publishing history that a New York Times bestseller was mass
customized by its readers. To create the ultimate family gift, readers will be able to create
their AMERICA AT HOME covers by uploading digital pictures of home or scanning
in old B&W photos from Mom and Dads scrapbook.
“The idea of ‘home’ is as universal and deeply ingrained as that of ‘mother’ or
‘father,’” says the author Rick Smolan. “Ask people to describe what the word ‘home’
means to them and their answers tap into a deep pool of emotions and memories. We’re
thrilled that so many Americans helped us to create a digital time capsule that may prove
to be an invaluable resource for Americans to understand the importance of home life in
the new Millennium.”
AMERICA AT HOME features an amusing introduction by Simpsons’ creator
Matt Groening, as well as a series of thought-provoking essays by prestigious writers
including author and former House & Garden Editor-in-Chief Dominique Browning,
Wall Street Journal arts critic and biographer Terry Teachout, New York Times
technology columnist and author David Pogue, bestselling novelist Amy Tan, and
Pulitzer Prize-nominated author and PBS contributor Richard Rodriguez. Detailed
captions and fascinating statistics are utilized to place each of the 250 photos in context,
resulting in a fascinating visual time capsule of American life at the beginning of the 21st
century.
AMERICA AT HOME was produced in association with IKEA, in
conjunction with its ‘HOME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PLACE IN THE WORLD’
brand strategy, and reflects IKEA’s ongoing focus on how people live and build
relationships at home. As Pernille Lopez, President, IKEA North America, explains,
“IKEA is devoted to studying how people live at home; that’s why we supported this
project so passionately. We believe the essence of HOME goes beyond tables and chairs;
it’s the family interactions, the diversity in lifestyles, the joy and celebration that inspires
us to dedicate ourselves to life at HOME. The AMERICA AT HOME project is a
fascinating look of how Americans live and interact. Each image teaches us again and
again, that home goes beyond the furniture; it’s the people and the families that we
cherish most”.
AMERICA AT HOME puts a human face on the extraordinary diversity that
makes up American family life and encompasses a broad range of economic, geographic,
racial, political, and socially diverse lifestyles. As readers journey through the book’s five
sections—Home as a Sanctuary, Home and Your Obsessions, Home as Your Workplace,
Home and Your Companions, and Rituals and Celebrations, they will meet a cast of
characters including:
•
Heiress Dollie Braggs who lives in a Newport, Rhode Island mansion she
inherited from her grandmother who was once known as the #1 jewelry robbery
victim in America;
•
Eight year old Elise and seven year old Aidan Dowell, siblings who spend
afternoons playing in a $10,000 playhouse, complete with electricity, in
McMurray, Pennsylvania;
•
Anne and Harvey Cook of Gold Canyon, Arizona who built a secret room behind
a bookcase where they can hide in case of emergency;
•
Members of the Jesus Outreach congregation in New Orleans who, since their
church was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, gather to worship every Sunday in
the garage of their pastor, Reverend Bill Zane;
•
Nine families who have converted the classrooms in an old school into apartments
in Seattle, Washington;
•
Apartment owners living across the street from Chicago’s famed Wrigley Field
who have installed rows of private bleachers on their roofs to watch their blessed
cubs play;
•
Dee Williams, who went “green” by building her own 84-square-foot cottage on
wheels in a friend’s backyard (her monthly heating bill is a mere $6);
Also woven through the book are dozens of thought provoking and “gee I didn’t know
that” facts and statistics that place the photographs in a larger context. For example:
• The majority of Americans live their lives within fifty miles of the place they
grew up.
• 61 percent of American families believe money can’t buy happiness.
Relationships with children and friends ranked as the first and second most
important contributor to a happy life.
• More than 82 percent of American families believe in God, 33 percent say they
pray several times a day, and 66 percent pray at least once a day.
• 80 percent of married men say they would marry the same woman if they took a
time machine back to the day they got married. Only 50 percent of married
women would do the same.
• More than 93 percent of homeowners consider their neighborhood safe, and 78
percent are not afraid to walk alone at night.
• 60 percent of American teens eat dinner with their families at least five times a
week and 84 percent of teens prefer to have dinner with their families than to eat
alone.
• As many as 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year—one
percent of the U.S. population.
• More than 1.7 million American households have adopted children, 13 percent
of which are foreign-born.
• Twenty percent of school-age children speak a language other than English at
home.
• America’s population is expected to grow by 100 million people over the next
37 years. More than 50 percent of that growth will come from immigrants or
their children.
• Nearly 70 percent of all Americans share their beds with partners or pets.
• Today, the average new single-family home is 2,349 square feet. In 1950, it was
just 983 square feet.
• The median sales price of new houses sold in September 2007 was $238,000,
compared to $23,400 in 1970.
For more details about the book, review copy requests or to discuss rights, feature
or interview ideas please contact Grace McQuade at (212) 446-5101 or via email at
gmcquade@goldbergmcduffie.com
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Rick Smolan is a former Time, Life and National Geographic photographer best known
as the creator of the Day in the Life and America 24/7 series. He and his partner,
Jennifer Erwitt, are the principals of Against All Odds Productions, which specializes in
the design and execution of large-scale global projects that combine compelling
storytelling with state-of-the-art technology. Their projects have been featured on the
covers of Time, Newsweek, Fortune and U.S. News & World Report and more than three
million of their books adorn coffee tables around the world – many of them New York
Times best-sellers. Their books include AMERICA AT HOME, UK AT HOME, The
Blue Planet Run, AMERICA 24/7, One Digital Day, 24 Hours in Cyberspace, Passage
to Vietnam, The Power to Heal, From Alice to Ocean, Christmas in America, and A
Day in the Life of America. Smolan has appeared numerous times on news programs
including NBC’s Today Show, ABC’s Good Morning America, Ted Koppel’s ABC
Nightline, CNN’s Situation Room, National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation, All
Things Considered and Marketplace. The Oprah Winfrey Show selected America 24/7 as
one of her “favorite things” in 2004. Fortune magazine describes Against All Odds as
“one of the coolest companies in America.” Smolan and Erwitt live with their two
children, in northern California.
ABOUT IKEA, THE SPONSOR
Since 1943, IKEA has been studying how people live their lives in their homes
everyday: how people sit at the dining room table, sleep in their beds, congregate in the
family room, how they interact with their children, their parents, their friends, and their
pets. The AMERICA AT HOME project reflects the core of what IKEA embraces:
meaningful relationships in our homes. IKEA opened its first US store in 1985 and
currently has 34 stores in the US, and 246 worldwide. We are proud to be associated
with AMERICA AT HOME because the photos, stories and statistics in this wonderful
book perfectly reflect our belief that “HOME IS THE MOST IMPORTANT PLACE IN
THE WORLD.” For more information, contact: Mona Astra Liss, IKEA Corporate Public
Relations, sslm@memo.ikea.com , 610.834.0180.
AMERICA AT HOME: A Close-Up Look at How We Live
Created by Rick Smolan and Jennifer Erwitt
Running Press
Publication date: April 1, 2008
$40.00 hardcover
ISBN #: ISBN 9780-7624-3415-2