Designed for Success: Learning At 33-1/3 Revolutions Per Minute

Local authors examine America through mid-century instructional vinyl records

By Craig Manning | Aug. 3, 2024

Learning Morse code. Finding an effective yoga routine. Getting better at photography. Figuring out a game plan for getting into college. Mastering a foreign language.

These days, no matter what you want to learn, help is only a Google search away. From blog posts to podcasts to YouTube instructional videos to cheap online masterclasses, it’s easier than ever to access knowledge and follow a path toward enlightenment and self-improvement, right from the comfort of your own home.

Once upon a time, though, before the internet existed, you might have tried a different tactic for learning at home: You might have dropped the needle on a vinyl record.

American Vinyl

Among music fans, the vinyl format has seen a remarkable resurgence in recent years, with Americans buying nearly 50 million vinyl records in 2023 alone. In comparison, compact discs, the format once credited with rendering vinyl obsolete, moved a little shy of 37 million units in the United States last year.

Clearly, a lot of consumers are in love with vinyl right now—especially if it has something to do with pop icon Taylor Swift, who herself accounted for 3.5 million vinyl record sales in 2023.

But even though vinyl is back, that doesn’t mean the full spectrum of what the format once represented has been dragged screaming into modern times. Today, vinyl is primarily a collectible product that musical artists like Swift lean on to drive physical media sales and bring in revenues.

Years ago, though, vinyl played a broader role in American lifestyle and culture than simply serving as a delivery mechanism for songs.

Designed for Everything

For more than half a decade, authors Janet Borgerson and Jonathan Schroeder have been telling the story of America’s past through the lens of vinyl records. The couple—who hail from Flint but have long spent their summers on Duck Lake in northern Michigan—started the project in 2017 with Designed for Hi-Fi Living, an expansive look at how day-to-day American life was encapsulated in the record album covers that were being made in the wake of World War II.

Rather than focusing on the iconic album covers of the rock ‘n’ roll era—from acts like Elvis, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones—Designed for Hi-Fi Living instead searched for meaning in the covers of forgotten compilation albums or promotional records. For instance, it wasn’t uncommon in the post-war era for airlines or travel companies to sponsor vinyl albums themed around destinations like Hawaii and spurring Americans to travel the world.

Borgerson and Schroeder’s book looked back at those records and asked: What did these covers communicate about the America that used to exist?

The second installment in the series, 2021’s Designed for Dancing, kept the theme of mid-century record album covers, but focused specifically on records about different types of dances. From the waltz to the hula to the tango to the twist, the covers featured in that book charted dance records released in the 1950s and ’60s and examined them “as expressions of midcentury culture, identity, fantasy, and desire.”

Now onto the third installment of the colorful coffee table book series—Designed for Success, published by The MIT Press earlier this year—Borgerson and Schroeder have found yet another twist on their favorite theme. The book’s subtitle is Better Living and Self-Improvement with Midcentury Instructional Records, and the vinyl records featured offer pep talks, how-to guides, tutorials, and other roadmaps to help listeners learn about everything from personal fitness to musical instruments to finding harmony in marriage.

The Ghost of Vinyl’s Past

Even as vinyl has mounted its resurgence, the concept of instructional LPs has stayed firmly lodged in the past. Why buy a record telling you how to mix a cocktail or cook an Italian feast when there’s a whole internet’s worth of recipes and tutorial videos right at your fingertips? But back in the day, the thing vinyl is most known for today—music—was actually secondary to the instructional approach documented in Designed for Success.

“The book, in a sense, tells an alternate story of the whole recording industry, because when Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, [instruction] is what he thought would be the main use,” Schroeder tells Northern Express. “He thought it would be used for business; it would be used to record great works of literature; it would be used for teaching languages. And then, obviously, music took over.”

While vinyl’s instructional era is largely forgotten, the topic fascinated Borgerson and Schroeder, especially as they began brainstorming a third book about the cast-aside pieces of vinyl ephemera from the middle of the 20th century.

According to Borgerson, the seed for the new book was planted all the way back during the writing process for Designed for Hi-Fi Living.

“We had started pulling out records that were sponsored by all these different companies,” she says, not just airlines, but also brands like Marlboro, Budweiser, and General Motors. “We started to think that it would be really interesting to write about these business records, these branded records, and try to understand what these companies were trying to communicate by putting out vinyl LPs.”

It was a good idea on paper, but the authors soon realized that, while they could almost certainly find enough branded records to fill a book, the next steps in the process probably wouldn’t be so easy.

“We got a little panicky when we started thinking about getting the permissions for those images,” Borgerson says, noting that she, Schroeder, and their publisher have to get clearance to use every album cover they reproduce in the pages of their books.

To avoid that kind of scrutiny, Borgerson and Schroeder pivoted to a book about instruction and self-improvement—a broader topic that the pair ultimately found to be even more illustrative of a certain era in American history.

“What we realized from these records is that, back then, time with your record player wasn’t just about fun and leisure,” Borgerson says. “It was trying to get ahead in the hours you had off from your day job. There was this sense, in the post-war/Cold War era, that each individual American had a responsibility to increase their potential, to build their capacities, because we were now in a global competition. We had to stay ahead of the Soviets, whether it was through physical fitness, or expanding our minds, or learning a language.”

Spinning Your Way to Expertise

As Designed for Success shows, there was really no limit to what you could learn from a vinyl record back in the day.

One record in the book pledges to help listeners “reduce tensions and sleep deeply.” Another promises “better golf through hypnosis.” A third offers a guide to outboard motor boating. And a whole chapter’s worth of records (supposedly) offer up the secrets to seduction, romance, love, marriage, and sex.

In the internet age, the idea of sitting next to a record player and jotting down notes about any of the above subjects may seem almost comical. Still, Schroeder contends that Americans might have lost something by trading professionally-assembled instructional records for poorly-shot YouTube videos and typo-ridden blog posts.

“We ended up thinking a lot about expertise, and about who got to make these instructional records,” Schroeder says. In most cases, he notes, the records featured in Designed for Success were anchored by people who carried a lot of weight in their respective fields or crafts. Examples include records that offered up golf advice from Arnold Palmer, tennis tips from Arthur Ashe, bass-playing lessons from 1960s instrumental rock band The Ventures, and exercise routines from pioneering fitness guru Bonnie Prudden.

“Now, with YouTube and TikTok and the internet, so many people are putting out advice and instructions, but in most cases, we really have no idea who they are,” Schroeder laughs. “One of the things that’s interesting to look at is how these records established who was an expert, who got to kind of give advice. And today, anyone with an iPhone can pass themselves off as an expert.”

If you want to learn from the bona fide and diversely-talented experts—with records like Secrets of Successful Varmint Calling, You Be a Disc Jockey, and How to Ski (A Living-Room Guide for Beginners)—head to mitpress.mit.edu to find Designed for Success, or order a copy at your local bookseller.