America's Favorite Homes: Mail-order Catalogues as a Guide to Popular Early 20th-century HousesDuring the first four decades of the twentieth century, prefabricated and catalogue homes grew in popularity and number. Built and occupied by farmers, merchants, the new armies of factory workers and other lower- and middle-class families, these are the modest homes that today line American streets. Using mail-order house catalogues from the time, Robert Schweitzer and Michael W. R. Davis chart the development of catalogue houses and their variations and include floor plans for many models. Students of architecture, whether amateur of professional, preservationists and academics will find in America's Favorite Homes a handy reference to those homes that soon will be eligible for historic designation. |
Contents
Illustrations | 9 |
Developing Architectural Styles | 33 |
Historical American Construction Techniques | 47 |
Prefabricated Housing | 57 |
History of the Aladdin Company | 81 |
Catalogue Home Advertising | 88 |
National Period 19001920 | 117 |
Revivals | 125 |
12 | 133 |
Academic Period 19201941 | 169 |
Modern Colonial Revivals | 190 |
Vernacular Homes | 227 |
Conclusion | 239 |
Notes | 245 |
Common terms and phrases
20th century Aladdin Aladdin homes American arched architectural Arts and Crafts balloon framing bath Bay City beautiful bedrooms Box House brick building built Cape Cod catalogue homes ceiling chimney closet Colonial Bungalow Colonial Revival color columns companies construction cost cottage cover Craftsman dining room dormers Dutch Revival early eaves English entrance entry erected exterior facade featured feet front porch furnished gable Gable-Front gambrel garage Georgian Gordon-Van Tine Greek Revival half-timbering hall hardware Homes catalogue Honor Bilt inches included interior joists kitchen Lewis living room lumber materials Michigan Modern Homes Montgomery Ward nails offered period plaster plate popular porch post-and-beam pre-cut prefabricated Private collection Queen Anne Queen Anne style rafters ready-cut catalogues rear Revival homes ROEBUCK ROEBUCK AND CO roof sash Sears SECOND FLOOR PLAN shingles side-gable space Sterling stucco studs style timber trim Tudor Revival two-story Vernacular Ward wide