Building a Market: The Rise of the Home Improvement Industry, 1914-1960 9780226317687

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Building a Market

HISTORICAL STUDIES OF URBA N A MERICA

Edited by Timothy J. Gilfoyle, James R. Grossman, and Becky M. Nicolaides ALSO IN THE SERIES:

Segregation: A Global History of Divided Cities by Carl H. Nightingale Sundays at Sinai: A Jewish Congregation in Chicago by Tobias Brinkmann In the Watches of the Night: Life in the Nocturnal City, 1820–1930 by Peter C. Baldwin Miss Cutler and the Case of the Resurrected Horse: Social Work and the Story of Poverty in America, Australia, and Britain by Mark Peel The Transatlantic Collapse of Urban Renewal: Postwar Urbanism from New York to Berlin by Christopher Klemek I’ve Got to Make My Livin’: Black Women’s Sex Work in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago by Cynthia M. Blair Puerto Rican Citizen: History and Political Identity in Twentieth-Century New York City by Lorrin Thomas Staying Italian: Urban Change and Ethnic Life in Postwar Toronto and Philadelphia by Jordan Stanger-Ross New York Undercover: Private Surveillance in the Progressive Era by Jennifer Fronc African American Urban History since World War II edited by Kenneth L. Kusmer and Joe W. Trotter

Blueprint for Disaster: The Unraveling of Chicago Public Housing by D. Bradford Hunt Alien Neighbors, Foreign Friends: Asian Americans, Housing, and the Transformation of Urban California by Charlotte Brooks The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia by Guian A. McKee Chicago Made: Factory Networks in the Industrial Metropolis by Robert Lewis The Flash Press: Sporting Male Weeklies in 1840s New York by Patricia Cline Cohen, Timothy J. Gilfoyle, and Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz in association with the American Antiquarian Society Slumming: Sexual and Racial Encounters in American Nightlife, 1885–1940 by Chad Heap Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America by David M. P. Freund Selling the Race: Culture, Community, and Black Chicago, 1940–1955 by Adam Green The New Suburban History edited by Kevin M. Kruse and Thomas J. Sugrue Millennium Park: Creating a Chicago Landmark by Timothy J. Gilfoyle Additional series titles follow index

Building a Market The Rise of the Home Improvement Industry, 1914–1960

RICHARD HARRIS

The University of Chicago Press Chicago and London

Richard Harris is professor in the School of Geography and Earth Sciences at McMaster University in Canada. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a 2005 recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship. The publication of this book was supported by a grant from the Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts. The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London © 2012 by The University of Chicago All rights reserved. Published 2012. Printed in the United States of America 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12

1 2 3 4 5

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-31766-3 (cloth) ISBN-10: 0-226-31766-8 (cloth) Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Harris, Richard, 1952– Building a market : the rise of the home improvement industry, 1914–1960 / Richard Harris. pages ; cm. — (Historical studies of urban America) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-226-31766-3 (cloth : alkaline paper) ISBN-10: 0-226-31766-8 (cloth : alkaline paper) 1. Construction industry — United States — History—20th century. 2. Building materials industry — United States — History — 20th century. 3. Dwellings— Remodeling — United States— History — 20th century. 4. Dwellings— United States — Maintenance and repair —History — 20th century. I. Title. II. Series: Historical studies of urban America. HD9715.U62H37 2012 338.4⬘769024 — dc23 2012005110 o This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

CONTENTS

List of abbreviations / vii Preface / ix ONE

/ Introduction / 1

PART I: ORIGINS

/ The Foundation of Home Ownership / 23 T H R E E / An Industry Unready to Improve / 54 F O U R / The Realm of the Retailer / 75 F I V E / The Birth of the Home Improvement Store / 98 T WO

PART II: CRISIS, 1927 – 1945 SIX

/ A Perfect Storm for the Building Industry / 127 / Manufacturers Save the Retailer / 161 E I G H T / The State Makes Credit / 190

SEV EN

PART III: RESOLUTION, 1945 – 1960

/ Mr. and Mrs. Builder / 229 / Help for the Amateur / 264 / The Improvement Business Coalesces / 301 NINE TEN

ELEVEN T W E LV E

/ A Zelig of the American Cultural Economy / 335 Notes / 347 Index / 419

A B B R E V I AT I O N S

AB(BA) AL(BPM)

American Builder (and Building Age) American Lumberman (and Building Products Merchandiser)

BHG

Better Homes and Gardens

BSN

Building Supply News

[US] FHA Hagley H&H HB

Federal Housing Administration Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware House and Home House Beautiful

HHFA

Housing and Home Finance Agency

HOLC

Home Owners’ Loan Corporation

IMP

Insured Mortgage Portfolio

J-M

Johns-Manville Corporation

JMR

Johns-Manville Records, JWT Account Files, Archives of J. Walter Thompson, John W. Hartman Center, Duke University

LAC

Library and Archives Canada

MVL

Mississippi Valley Lumberman

NARA NYT PCHH PI

U.S. National Archives and Records Administration New York Times President’s Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership Printer’s Ink

PJT

Peoria Journal-Transcript

PM

Parents Magazine

viii / Abbreviations SHG TS WP WRL WSJ

Small Homes Guide Toronto Star Washington Post Western Retail Lumberman Wall Street Journal

P R E FAC E

There is an incessant give and take between historical and theoretical analysis . . . though for the investigation of individual questions it may be necessary to sail for a time on one tack only. —Joseph Schumpeter, 1951 Any fool can write a book but it takes a man to dovetail a door. —Charles Lummis

Charles Lummis may be right: having botched a couple of dovetailing jobs, I’d have to say for me the writing comes easier. But I can report that, in at least one respect, the two types of tasks call for the same method: improvisation. A literal observer, observing the course of my research over the past two decades, might describe it as “one thing just led to the next.” Certainly, the process did not unfold to an original plan, in the manner that grant agency committees prefer. In my defense, and with the benefit of hindsight, I could claim to have followed the example of Michel Foucault and many lesser lights among known historical scholars: I tracked the genealogy of a social practice, home improvement, that we now take for granted. This entailed plodding, step-by-step, back to a time when things were different from the way they are now. True enough. But both accounts would be generous. Originally, I planned a book about the boom in owner-building that occurred across North America in the decade after 1945. I still believe that this is an interesting and overlooked subject but, early on, I learned that it was part of a broader, longer-term, and more continuously significant trend: the rise of home improvement. It was only when the unraveling and expla-

x / Preface

nation of this trend became my goal that I fumblingly adopted a strategy as logical as that of allowing one clue to lead to the next. It was not just the method that I improvised, then, but the purpose. Just so, faced with a broken door, the home improver may conclude that the best solution is to remove a wall. As the purpose changed, the scope grew. My original interest had been in the men and women who jointly made decisions about whether and how to build, and in the nature of their needs and aspirations. To the extent that decisions about improvement must always be made by the home owner, this focus has remained. But household decisions have always depended on the availability of the goods and services that are usually provided by local building suppliers and lenders. As I tracked back in time, it became clear that this business environment changed steadily in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century, in part through the actions of manufacturers and federal agencies. To make sense of these changes, and for long stretches of time, I followed clues wherever I could find them: in the homes and personal records of amateur builders; in newspapers, consumer magazines, and business trade journals; and then in the records of government agencies, manufacturers, and retailers of building supplies. When the diverse economic and political, as well as cultural, dimensions of the history began to emerge, it became necessary to situate home improvement in wider terms, as part of changing gender norms; the rise of affluence, consumerism, and consumer credit; the evolution of retailing and marketing; and the state’s growing role in structuring modern markets. And so, as the scope of the project widened, I had to acquire new conceptual tools and skills, often on the fly. And so, as Schumpeter says, I found it useful to shift back and forth between a mountain of material and some new (to me) theoretical ideas. But in the end I tried to tell a story, in part because I like stories and in part because I became convinced that there is an interesting story to be told. One aspect of this study has remained constant, probably because I cannot help it. As a Canadian, I am constantly struck by the many similarities, and intriguing differences, between consumer and housing markets here and in the United States. The most obvious difference is the lower salience of race in Canada; another is the persistence of different practices with respect to debt. But if my inclination to compare has personal roots, it has a broader payoff. It is arguably impossible to make any judgment without implying some point of comparison. By making this object more explicit, it becomes easier to define differences, as well as to identify causes. Using occasional references to the experiences of Canada and Australia, I have tried

Preface / xi

to clarify the nature of the American story of home improvement while also suggesting its wider significance. None of this would have been possible without the financial support of a series of agencies. It was a Fulbright Fellowship that first took me to the University of Maryland and the Library of Congress, where I discovered the materials that planted seeds for the project. Later, a Visiting Fellowship at the Australian National University, and research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Hagley Museum and Library, made it possible to build a comparative frame a reference. Eventually, it was a Guggenheim Fellowship that gave me the time to pull everything together, while a publication subvention from the Graham Foundation has supported what turned out to be quite a long manuscript. To the donors and taxpayers who have supported these agencies—wittingly or unwittingly—I give thanks. Also anonymous are the readers, both of the book manuscript and of the articles, previously published and listed elsewhere, that describe some of the territory covered here. The editors of two journals, Philip Scranton and Walter Friedman, not only passed on comments but added thoughtful observations of their own. Valuable feedback was also provided by participants at meetings of the Urban History Association, the Society for American City and Regional Planning History, and the American Historical Association; by audiences at seminars at the Universities of Birmingham, Harvard (Joint Center for Housing Studies), Leicester (Centre for Urban Studies), Maryland, Toronto, and University College London, as well as the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy, and the Australian National University; and by members of the H-Urban list, who have provided a community of kindred spirits for two decades. Special thanks are due to Wendy Plotkin, for so long the moving force behind H-Urban; to Pat Troy, Tony Dingle, and Alastair Greig, for being such excellent hosts Down Under; and to Alex von Hoffman and Kermit Baker, for giving me the opportunity to participate in a real-life industry meeting. Others, who can and should be named, have provided important feedback at various stages of the research, and on the manuscript. These include Reggie Blaszczyk, Greg Brooks, Michael Buzzelli, Lizabeth Cohen, John Dargavel, Richard Dennis, David Freund, Ryan George, Aman Gill, Graham Holland, Mike Mercier, Gail Radford, Mark Rose, Mary Sies, Mark Swenarton, Carol Town, Alex von Hoffman, and Carolyn Whitzman. Special thanks are due to Robert Lewis—friend, colleague, sounding board, and now partner in crime. Aman Gill, Sarah Hardy, Matt Kerns, and Tricia Shulist were able assistants.

xii / Preface

At my university especially, librarians are an endangered species. I would like to make a point of acknowledging the able and indispensable assistance I have received from archivists and librarians at the U.S. National Archives, the Library and Archives of Canada, the National Library of Australia, the CSIRO Library (Canberra), the Archives of Ontario, the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto, the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections at Cornell University, the Hagley Museum and Library, the John W. Hartman Center for Sales, Advertising and Marketing History at Duke University, Peoria Public Library, and the Library of Congress. Many, perhaps, were just doing their job, but this meant doing it well, and I would like to thank four people for being especially supportive: Susan Decker at Edward Hines Lumber, Kathryn Hodson at the University of Iowa Libraries, Aloha South at the U.S. National Archives, and above all Cathy Moulder at McMaster, who made her map library a home. Staff at the Veterans Land Administration in Charlottetown, the Peoria Journal-Transcript, and the Hamilton Spectator, and Paul Wahlfeld of Wahlfeld Lumber, Peoria, helped however they could. I would very much like to thank those owner-builders in Peoria, Illinois, Canberra, and Hamilton, Ontario—and not just those whose experiences are mentioned here—for their hospitality and enthusiasm in letting me into their worlds. And above all I thank Carol, Alex, and Peter, who have lived with this project for as long as I have.

ONE

Introduction

Contrary to popular belief, houses don’t stand still. They either march forward or they slip back. —Julius Gregory, House and Garden, 1934

Today, home improvement is ubiquitous, but its history remains inscrutable. If you own your home, you may relish the challenges of fixing that leaky faucet, redecorating the living room, or subdividing the basement to accommodate a home office. Alternatively, if you are like me, you may view these jobs as chores, best evaded with that all-purpose tool, the telephone. Either way, you cannot long escape the need for repairs and maintenance, or easily resist the temptation of making alterations and additions. On that premise a whole industry depends: eager lenders; the manufacturers of tools, appliances, and materials; a retail sector that includes the second-largest bigbox chain in the United States; and a range of media—including consumer magazines, TV shows, and now websites and blogs—that instruct, entertain, and feed our desires. How could it be otherwise? And yet, not so long ago, it was. Our collective commitment to home improvement dates back decades, not centuries. So does the industry that sustains that commitment. In fact, it is possible to be very precise. It was in 1952 that do-it-yourself (DIY) emerged as a distinctive market, and by 1954 it was a recognized fad. Within two years, there was an identifiable home improvement industry to service not only amateurs but those who preferred to use the yellow pages.1 How did this suddenly happen? Oddly, nobody has thought to ask. It turns out that the rise of the home improvement industry didn’t happen overnight. It took decades, and involved a wide range of cultural and economic forces. Indeed, I argue that this story is in many ways that

2 / Chapter One

of America in the twentieth century. It involves rising affluence and growing consumer debt, together with the emergence of home ownership as the “American” (not to mention the Canadian and the Australian) middle-class dream. It couples the partial domestication of men with an equally incomplete emancipation of women. Decade by decade, it was shaped by major events: Progressive-era trust-busting in the 1900s; the rise of the automobile in the prosperous 1920s; the crisis of the Depression, leading to the rise of New Deal intervention in the markets for housing and credit; and World War II, with its aftermath of housing shortages and can-do optimism. War and peace, boom and bust, class and gender, dreams and realities, state and society, culture and economy—all figure prominently in the story. One of the reasons that the story is so complex is that it blurs some of basic social categories that we like to take for granted but which turn out to be overly neat. These include the distinctions we make between production and consumption, and the roles still deemed to be appropriate, separately, for men and women. Home improvement has some obviously productive aspects, but it is the property-owning consumer who gets the ball rolling, who shops for materials, and who often tackles the job himself. In fact, as far as we can tell, do-it-yourself has accounted for roughly half of all the improvement work done by home owners in the postwar decades. The producer and consumer, then, are often one and the same, with neither being very effectively counted in economic statistics.2 More importantly, this combination presents a conundrum to building suppliers and lenders. To whom, and how, should they market their goods and services? Meanwhile, contractors must insert themselves into the mix as best they can. Confusing the picture further, home improvement sits uneasily at an intersection of gender roles. The building industry has long been a male preserve, and when home owners take over their tasks it still seems natural to speak of the home handyman. But to this day, it is women who care most about the home and who do most of the shopping. Today, when families do work on their home, it is not always clear who will take on the tasks. The same was true when amateur repairs and alterations were first becoming common. Would men do everything? Would women invade the lumberyard, shopping for the ideas, materials, and tools that their husbands would use? Would they tackle improvement jobs themselves, as extensions of housework? The answers were uncertain and varied, but they mattered, not only for family life but for retailers and manufacturers. Already discombobulated by the rise of the amateur, companies had to think about marketing to women, who had particular expectations about product design, showroom cleanliness, and staff demeanor. Lying at the shifting inter-

Introduction / 3

section of culture and economy, then, the rise of the home improvement industry makes for a richly intriguing story.

Improvement’s Appeal Its hybrid ambivalence is part of improvement’s intellectual appeal. Take the average renovation project—a remodeled kitchen, a refinished attic, or a redecorated living room. Typically, it brings together tradesmen and amateurs, working sequentially or side-by-side in a way that in other contexts is rare. It may see women tackling tasks that even today are considered nontraditional. A basic challenge in constructing the history of the home improvement industry is that of figuring out who—men and women, amateurs and professionals—did what; how the division of labor was negotiated; when and why it changed. The shifting balance mattered for those involved, and also for their supplier, the retailer of tools, matériel, advice and, commonly, credit. To this day, men and women shop differently: the handywoman, accustomed to stores with a more feminine “counter culture,’ is inclined to browse, ask “dumb” questions, reflect, and, only then, buy; her mate, diffident about shopping and perhaps no less ignorant of construction, is keener to barrel ahead. And amateurs have different needs than the professional, almost invariably male, who is indifferent to well-lit displays, who knows what he wants, and mostly wants to cut a deal. Worse, from the retailer’s point of view, some types of customers are less familiar than others, though this does depend on where you are. In a small town, the building retailer might know most of his customers, but in a city or suburban store the consumer is anonymous. How can retailers satisfy such diverse customers, and especially those pesky women? This vexing and multifaceted conundrum, vital to the retailer, is no less central to any understanding of the home improvement market.3 The conundrum of satisfying diverse customers is not the retailer’s alone: he—almost all building supply retailers have been men—is the indispensable middleman in a two-way exchange of views that is typically managed by the producer.4 In one direction this exchange involves advertising and salesmanship directed at the consumer; in the other, it involves discovering which products are selling and which are not, the unavoidable knowledge about consumer preferences that companies may supplement with longerrange market research. Between the 1930s and the 1950s, this guided exchange of information came to be thought of as the domain and purpose of marketing. Instead of the huckster’s efforts “to get the consumer to buy what you have,” the marketer aims “to have what the consumer wants”; the prod-

4 / Chapter One

uct became a consequence of marketing, not vice versa. It puts the retailer in the middle of a two-way relationship between producer and consumer.5 This relationship is rarely more complicated than in the home improvement industry. Any sensible manufacturer markets to particular buyers, and even in a well-defined consumer market such as apparel this is rarely a straightforward task. With a new product, or in a changeable market, there is the challenge of predicting and imagining exactly what the consumer might want.6 There are questions about the best ways to sell: whether, and how, to brand your product; how much, and where, to advertise; and which retailers to enlist, how best to use them, and so forth. A whole other set of marketing strategies are needed when manufacturers sell to other producers: advertising may need to focus on trade journals while the more limited number of well-informed buyers may be handled personally by agents and specialized dealerships.7 Unusually, manufacturers as well as retailers in the home improvement field have to think about both types of buyer, the amateur and the professional, and so must mix and vary their marketing methods to an exceptional degree. The messy complexity of home improvement is intriguing, and also significant. Some scholars have suggested that research on marketing is an important way to understand the interplay of production and consumption, which describes and arguably guides the trajectory of modern consumer society.8 They have pointed out that this interplay happens in different ways. It depends on the scale and nature of the production system employed by the manufacturer, ranging from speculative mass production to the fashioning of batch or customized products; it depends just as much on the character and needs of the buyer, whether an anonymous consumer or a personal customer and client.9 Over the past century, writers and the media have given a great deal of attention to the mass producer—Ford in the automobile industry, McDonald’s in fast food, and, on a smaller but still impressive scale, the Levitt brothers in house building—and to their relationship with the mass consumer. But many industries contain companies and consumers who relate in other ways, and in this regard no industry contains more significant complexity than residential construction and its partner, home improvement. As its suppliers, building manufacturers and retailers struggle to make sense of a level of complexity than can become bewildering and inscrutable in periods of rapid change. The task of making sense of that fluid complexity, and of the struggles of its major players, is a significant challenge. The story of how home improvement became a business offers us an intriguing window on more than half a century of economic and cultural change, a point to which I return in the concluding chapter.

Introduction / 5

Contexts and Connections Consumers and the mass media pay plenty of attention to home improvement, but, at least in their professional capacity, historians and other scholars have ignored it, and to an absurd degree. Reported figures are inadequate, because it is difficult to give proper weight to do-it-yourself activity or to track the informal, under-the-table arrangements that loom large in the commercial segment of the field, but it appears that about as much money is spent on the repair, maintenance, modernization, remodeling, and rehabilitation of existing dwellings as on the construction of new. Indeed, survey data suggest that, in every quarter of the year, something beyond mere repairs is done to about a third of all dwellings, more in higher-income households.10 Industry insiders know about this. Currently, they track and discuss short-term fluctuations at semiannual meetings organized by Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. But neither the national media nor historical scholars pay much attention. Following the onset of the financial recession in 2008, media reported monthly data on sales, prices, mortgages, and housing starts, as experts looked for signs of a bottoming out or market upturn. Evidence on improvements has received little attention. Such neglect is typical. When popular interest in historic preservation and rehabilitation began to gather momentum in the 1960s and 1970s, it passed under the media’s radar. As Stewart Brand puts it, we don’t seem to be very interested in “how buildings learn.”11 Researchers and historical scholars have paid little attention to the way dwellings are changed once they have been put in place. Economists rarely consider improvements when they model housing demand, while social scientists and historians have neglected what families do to, as opposed to within, their homes.12 We have been told how women, especially, have carried the burden of housework, and how in working-class families they often brought paid work into the home. But how much work did different classes of people do on their own homes, and how have men and women divided up the tasks? We have no idea. Historians of technology have properly emphasized the importance of considering the mundane as well as the spectacular, and the everyday actor-networks within which innovations occur and spread. In particular, Ruth Cowan has suggested that a consumer’s-eye view offers valuable insights into the way technologies diffuse. In that spirit, several writers have told us interesting things about the evolution and significance of technologies that have made housework easier and lighter. But they have ignored the methods of building and rebuilding, although these have usually required technologies simple enough for any amateur to use.

6 / Chapter One

Cowan’s own history of American technology, for example, ignores the subject.13 Historians of consumption have followed suit. Of course, they have written about the various goods, from clothing to furniture and appliances, that are purchased and then stored in houses, and about the individual and collective significance of these possessions. Grant McCracken has commented, a little ingeniously, that “when our culture is insinuated into our physical landscape, our housing, and its furnishing, the premises of our existence are also the premises of our existence.” But few have considered the significance of houses as consumer items: about the significance for the buyer of architectural style, for example, or of different building materials.14 Then, too, it has become normal to speak of the ways in which purchasers even of mass-production goods use them to find, create, and change their meaning, thereby communicating and sharing identity. As Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood argued, influentially, “the essential function of consumption is its capacity to make sense.” This line of argument has been fruitfully explored by historians. In an early and influential example, Lizabeth Cohen showed how immigrants and workers in Chicago put their own stamp on standard goods. The implication is that consumers are active not only as buyers but also as users. Speaking generally, as John Fiske puts it, “every act of consumption is an act of cultural production, for consumption is always the production of meaning.”15 Maybe so. But for all the talk about the “cultural work” that consumers do, not much has been said about the physical labor they perform on what is after all the most expensive purchase of all. Occasionally, there are surprising denials. For example, in her subtle and otherwise well-informed survey of the field of consumer history, Susan Strasser comments that do-it-yourself is just a hobby because “literally consumers, we do not sew clothes or build houses.” More typically, there is silence. Major recent surveys of consumer culture ignore the making and meaning of the dwelling.16 Historians of consumption have followed their cue and ignored the subject. Students of American business have done no better. Those guided by Alfred Chandler have concentrated on corporations that experienced a managerial revolution, but not including manufacturers of building supplies such as American Radiator, United States Gypsum, or Johns-Manville. Less surprisingly, they have passed over the building trade, with its myriad producers, back-of-the-envelope calculations, muddled and malleable subcontracting, and general air of disorder. These are characteristics doubly true of the renovation business. Indeed, convinced of the merits of bureaucratically organized large-scale production, generations of observers have

Introduction / 7

happily damned the building industry for its inefficiency.17 Since this was an economic arena where branding, advertising, and market research were slow to gain a foothold, marketing texts and histories have not noticed it. Paul Cherington’s The Consumer Looks at Advertising (1928) is typical. Cherington was research director at J. Walter Thompson, the country’s leading advertising agency. In The Consumer, he surveyed how advertising had improved many industries and how it might be applied to others. Housing did not get a mention.18 More surprisingly, building has been ignored by those who have written about “the other side of industrialization,” including industries that involved subcontracting networks that served niche markets, or single clients.19 The neglect of local building suppliers is especially unfortunate. It has been argued that the history of retailing in general, with the exception of department stores, is a poor cousin.20 Main street retailers are mentioned in surveys of small business, but have been accorded little significance even by those who recognize the importance of marketing.21 And nobody noticed the hardware store or the lumber dealer. The latter, especially, was a curiosity: a retailer who could not be found on main street; who sold to producers and almost entirely to men; who made deliveries after other businesses had given up on the practice; and among whom chain forms of organization had begun in the late 1800s, later going into decline at just the moment when this type of business began to gain momentum for other lines (figure 1).22 Much more than hardware stores, lumber dealers mattered, and they figure prominently in the present story: they were by far the main source of materials, advice, and credit to the small builder and the amateur alike. In 1918, however, they were embedded firmly in the lumber trade, and in order to play a major role in the consumer market for home improvement they would have to disentangle their loyalties and linkages. For that reason, the first part of this book pays close attention to the lumber trade, and the retailer’s slow process of disentanglement. Most curiously of all, home improvement has been ignored by historians of housing and urban development. The improvement of dwellings rarely has a dramatic impact on the urban scene. Modernization jobs and renovations are often carried out unobtrusively so as not to attract attention from the property assessor doing a windshield survey; owners may “forget” to take out building permits for the same reason.23 Even a major rear extension that changes the dwelling’s footprint may be invisible from the street. But neighbors know, and pedestrians can see which houses and neighborhoods are well-maintained. Yards alone offer clues. Neighboring property owners respond, emulating improvement or choosing neglect: a survey in the 1970s suggested that neighborhood quality was one of the three fac-

8 / Chapter One

1. The local building retailer. The rise of home improvement depended upon local retailers, especially lumber dealers. Among retailers, the latter were unusual in selling to producers (builders), as well as to consumers. Source: Here’s a Better Way to Build (Washington, D.C.: National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, 1947).

tors that property owners took into account when deciding whether to improve.24 The collective consequences for neighborhood change is clear enough. But in the studies of residential change in the first half of the twentieth century, home improvement barely figures as a footnote.25 The same is true in the fields of housing, and housing policy. Given its economic significance, repairs and renovations should account for about half of what historians have had to say about housing. The actual proportion cannot be expressed without use of a decimal point. Marc Weiss’s survey of the real estate field, dated but exhaustive, makes no mention of it. Before and since, there have been book-length historical accounts of house building but only one that pays attention to improvement—Barbara Kelly’s report on how the first occupants of a postwar Levitt-built suburb adapted their homes.26 Not even speculation has been offered as to its long-term evolution. Even stranger, claims have often been made about the bias of federal housing policy since the 1930s in favor of new suburbs, and to the disadvantage of older city neighborhoods.27 This overlooks the fact that substantial support was offered to home improvement from 1934 onwards, and that seven

Introduction / 9

years later a careful study found that the FHA actually favored new homes built in cities over their suburban counterparts. It also ignores the fact that contemporaries believed that the 1954 Housing Act marked a historic turn in that direction.28 In the end it did not, but there is room for a real debate about the suburban bias of federal policy in this period, a debate that has not yet properly begun. Only two writers have had something general to say about the history of improvement. Both have focused on the do-it-yourself half of the picture.29 Steven Gelber has considered DIY in relation to the history of crafts, hobbies, and masculinity. Complementing this, in the catalog for an exhibition at the National Building Museum, Carolyn Goldstein has shown how DIY depended on the development of new technologies. Both offer interesting and perceptive accounts. But neither connects do-it-yourself to the larger project of home improvement, and hence to the urban housing market. And so they are mostly silent about lumber dealers, finance, federal loan insurance, and the cyclical pressures on the housing stock that accompanied shifts in the wider economy. Similar to urban and housing historians, Gelber and Goldstein both overlook the sea change in the attitudes of the middle class towards home ownership that occurred in the 1920s. It is hard to overstate the importance of this development. Previously, workers and immigrants had tried very hard to acquire property, but white-collar workers and professionals were largely indifferent to home ownership. By the late 1920s, for the first time, it was possible to speak with qualification of home ownership as a social norm, the American dream.30 This mattered because home owners are more interested in home improvement than landlords (or tenants), and much more likely to consider doing the work with their own hands.31 And like just almost everyone, Gelber and Goldstein neglect the radical form that DIY sometimes took: owner-building.32 In rural areas and small towns, many homes had always been erected by owners for their own use. Periodically, the same was true in larger urban centers, with a mini-boom in the late 1930s and a much larger surge after 1945. The changes in gender roles and building technology that Goldstein and Gelber speak about did matter. But so did the wider practice of amateur building, the emergence of federal policy in this field, the changing business strategy of lumber dealers, new marketing efforts by manufacturers, and the irregular cycles of boom and bust. Weighing and interweaving each of these elements, this book’s story of the home improvement industry aims to contribute to five areas of historical inquiry. For the history of technology, it draws attention to a major field of

10 / Chapter One

practical, everyday activity. This saw continuous rather than dramatic technological change, and a constant renegotiation of the line between professional and amateur. For consumer history, it illuminates a major category of shopping and expenditure, one that required buyers to construct meaning, in a very concrete way. For business history, it underlines how significant the building industry has always been, showing how important retailers were for the marketing strategies of manufacturers, while reassessing the role of the New Deal state in that connection. For the history of housing and urban development, it clarifies just how much remains unresolved once a dwelling has been built. Subsequent decisions about whether and how to repair or rebuild have all sorts of implications for home, neighborhood, and urban change. They also have implications for families: for their ability to make do or to improve their standard of living, and for the way in which men and women negotiate their changing family roles. And so, the story of home improvement extends our understanding of the history of the modern family, showing that there was a whole arena of domestic life where gender roles were changing steadily from the 1920s onwards. Part of the messiness of home improvement, then, is that it connects with so many intellectual concerns. To make order out of this confusion we need to consider what conceptual tools are available to characterize and explain the emergence of markets in general, and the home improvement market in particular.

Tools To understand the rise of the home improvement industry, the concept of the market is essential. The social practices that gelled in the mid-1950s, even those that involved amateurs, depended upon trade: there were buyers and sellers. Since most materials and tools were distributed through local retailers, these were key agents, along with manufacturers and consumers. There were also adjunct markets for credit and building services, that is, construction labor and project management. They were adjunct because not always required: many consumers paid cash and chose to do their own work. Then again, most retailers offered buyers some form of flexible credit, so that specialized lenders came into play only for the larger projects. The following account, then, pays continuous attention to consumers, retailers, and manufacturers, and considers lenders and contractors when appropriate. But there was another player: the state. The question is never whether the state is, or should be, involved in a market, but rather how: markets cannot exist without the enforcement of contracts, while governments rou-

Introduction / 11

tinely do other things too.33 Fiscal policy commonly affects some commodities differently than others. In the United States, until the 1930s, more than two-fifths of the total revenues of all levels of government came from the property tax, which discouraged expenditure on housing. After passage of the Sherman Act (1890), governments also regulated competition. House building and improvement were never a direct target, but they were affected by prosecutions of the so-called Lumber Trust. And in the 1930s, the introduction of federal loan insurance shaped the markets for mortgages, and then consumer loans.34 Clearly, this story must consider the ever-present, and occasionally game-changing, federal state. If markets are political, they are also fundamentally social. Lately, scholars have argued that markets involve the transaction of meanings and cultural practices as well as property rights in goods and services.35 The recent financial crisis has shown, in particular, that they depend on trust. Kenneth Lipartito has observed that business history should consider “how the ideas and strategies expressed by firms find their ways into the minds of consuming agents, and thereby create the environment of ‘demand’ that supposedly disciplines economic activity.”36 This is the company’s equivalent of a nation’s soft power. The argument may be reversed: historians of consumption should consider how consumer preferences make their way into the mind of the CEO and the salesman, shaping the marketing strategy that guides production. The interplay of supply and demand, then, is cultural as well as economic. It is not just the quickening of commerce that defines a home improvement market, but a shared understanding that such trade has a distinctive meaning, and that all agents should orient their thinking and actions accordingly. Men might think of themselves as handymen; retailers might offer services to them as such, while manufacturers market accordingly. The process is public, and in the twentieth century the mass media always played a role. They helped habituate agents to one another, guiding them to perform in predictable ways that helped define the market as a social and cultural, as well as an economic, field of action.37 Markets are anonymous and personal at the same time. The anonymous aspect is obvious in a mobile urban society where goods are mass-produced, branded, widely advertised, and distributed nationally. It has come to be seen as the market’s defining quality. Speaking about consumption in Europe and North America in the middle decades of the twentieth century, Victoria de Grazia has referred to “American notions about the essential facelessness of markets.” James Carrier has discussed the implications for the retailer: dependence on an impersonal “passing trade” that expects branded goods at fixed prices and for whom the provision of store credit is

12 / Chapter One

problematic. These aspects of markets were an important and growing aspect of urban life. Susan Strasser has spoken of the increasingly anonymous character of “the consumer” from the late nineteenth century, in contrast to the familiar customer. This happened as stores grew larger, while advertising and media became more important. But although it was growing, anonymity was not a defining quality of markets. It was most apparent in the larger downtown stores in the largest metropolitan areas, the sorts of enterprises and places that have attracted the most attention from social, business, and urban historians. It was least apparent in smaller cities and towns, and for specialized retailers such as the building supplier whose staff often knew the customer. Any home improver, and especially amateurs, needs frequent advice and services that call for personal attention. Various attempts were made to challenge local ties, notably by the manufacturers of kit houses after 1905. These affected local retailers, but did not become the norm. Indeed, the eventual emergence of a home improvement market after 1945 was preceded by a resurgence in personalized services. The anonymity of the market is a question, not a given.38 What changes a market, or indeed creates it? Obvious possibilities include new technologies, coupled with the initiatives of entrepreneurs who market them. Economists and economic historians have downplayed the significance of the entrepreneur. Following Joseph Schumpeter, however, business historians have given him—and sometimes her—more weight.39 Certainly, in the twentieth century the appearance of whole industries, from autos to personal computers, must be interpreted partly in terms of technological innovation and of the actions of specific individuals and companies. As Richard Tedlow has put it, “The customer disposes. But the company proposes.” On the face of it, the relevance of this line of argument to home improvement seems limited. Despite the hopes of policy makers and the efforts of entrepreneurs who experimented with the prefabrication of housing units, most building technologies were not revolutionized in the twentieth century. Instead, incremental changes made basic tasks easier. This was a sort of deskilling, as skills were transferred from people to materials and tools, making amateur improvement easier. Arguably, as some threshold or tipping point was crossed, a self-conscious do-it-yourself market emerged.40 If truly creative individuals and companies were not required, there was still a role for adaptive responses. These are the sorts of management decisions that, as Henry Mintzberg describes, involve “the ability to detect emerging patterns and help them to take shape.” They fall on a sort of continuum, ranging from the deliberate to the “emergent,” where companies are not acting strategically. Entrepreneurs may not even feel that they have a

Introduction / 13

real choice: they change because competitors or customers compel them to do so. Firms of all sizes do this. In the 1920s, and against the instincts of its founder, Ford began to offer financing to its customers because the success of GM’s Acceptance Corporation in boosting sales left it no alternative. Such adaptive responses are more common in smaller companies and competitive markets. Family-run retailers, especially, squeezed between powerful manufacturers and sovereign consumers, may feel pushed in this direction. For that reason, as Davies has suggested, they exemplify models drawn from evolutionary theory: change usually happens in small increments, punctuated by exogenous events that alter its direction irrevocably; even with only small changes, if enough retailers adapt then their actions may accumulate significantly. At any rate, along with creative entrepreneurship, the possible significance of modest adaptations must be considered.41 Of course, there are more critical intellectual traditions that doubt the ability of business to shape the consumer’s options. There are those who point to the ability of large companies to dominate particular markets, and in particular their power to set prices. In the United States, antitrust legislation has been one response, although deployed inconsistently and often to attack the weak. In the early twentieth century, most prosecutions under the Sherman Act were brought against horizontal combinations of small companies in competitive industries, not the big trusts.42 Lumber retailers and manufacturers were targeted on several occasions, and so market collusion and its opponents must be part of the present story. At a deeper level many critics, especially those drawing on the Marxist tradition, have argued that the system within which all businesses and consumers operate contains forces that push in a consistent direction. The logic of capital is growth, requiring the geographical expansion of markets and their penetration into more spheres of social life. For this line of argument, the initial emergence of the home improvement market presents a conundrum. As a new market it might seem to illustrate the point. But so much of it relied on do-ityourself, which may remove or keep paid labor from the building scene. The net effect is unclear and invites study. Set against this dark view of capital’s logic, as well as the more benign interpretations about the significance of business innovation, are the varied arguments of those who have emphasized the significance of the consumer.43 As noted earlier, consumers shape the meaning of particular goods and services. This matters most when it affects which products, or classes of goods, they choose to buy. Economists emphasize, or simply assume the existence of, this form of consumer sovereignty. In effect, they reverse Tedlow’s formula: the company may propose, but in the end it is the consumer

14 / Chapter One

who disposes. Some historians have argued that this argument carries much truth. Regina Blaszczyk, for example, has suggested that it is changes in consumer taste that have shaped the industries for home furnishings and decoration since the eighteenth century.44 The power of the consumer is most obvious, but also most limited, in determining the relative fate of one brand within an established industry, but it can also affect whole industries. The obvious examples are positive: the widening interest in home ownership during the 1920s, or the way that the rise of the automobile was driven by people’s enthusiasm for a technology that offered new freedom of movement. But since consumer incomes are finite, there is always at least one industry that loses ground. As families spent more on automobiles, they cut back on other items, not just bicycles and public transit but housing too.45 In fact, it was during the 1920s that this type of effect first came to be appreciated. People began to speak of the “new competition,” a conscious rivalry between industries for the consumer’s dollar.46 It was associated with the maturation of brand advertising, the emergence of “scientific” salesmanship, and the first big surge in installment credit.47 The significance of this new competition was recognized by everyone associated with the building industry, and it must be part of the story of home improvement. Over long periods, as living standards change we might expect consumer priorities to shift. Various writers have tried to distinguish between necessities and luxuries or, more subtly, to identify a hierarchy of human needs. Such arguments have problems but contain a grain of truth.48 Many people assume, and a number of people have argued, that as societies become more affluent, their preoccupations change. Ronald Inglehart has marshaled evidence to suggest that people attach growing importance to self-expression. This can take many forms, from music and travel to extreme sports, but do-it-yourself is a prime example. For most of the twentieth century, the real incomes of most Americans were rising, and in the middle decades of the twentieth century disparities narrowed. However we define it, the middle class grew. As more people found their basic needs satisfied they could begin to think about home improvement as a hobby. Whether they chose to do so depended on many things, including the expected economic, social, and psychic rewards.49 Regardless, the long-term effects of rising incomes on consumer behavior is another line of argument to be considered. But incomes do not rise steadily, a fact that was never more obvious than during the 1930s, when spending again focused on basic needs.50 The sheer magnitude of the Depression means we must be alert to its possible impact on the rise of home improvement. Coming on top of the new competition of the 1920s, it was the buyers’ market of the 1930s that led to a

Introduction / 15

general surge of interest in marketing and market research, coupled with the continued rise of installment credit.51 For the first time these were underpinned by federal initiatives that compiled market and demographic data as never before. New data were collected about housing, culminating in 1940 in the first housing census. And of course the state’s role in the economy, and its impact on markets, grew enormously as Roosevelt’s administration worked to rescue the system.52 As is well-known, the New Deal reshaped the mortgage market by offering insurance for long-term, high-ratio amortizing instruments, and introduced subdivision guidelines to help promote the growth of large builders and land developers. Meanwhile, a building slump raised the profile of all types of repair, conversion, and remodeling. It was impossible that the Depression would not have mattered, and indeed I argue that this crisis was in some ways transformative. For that reason the following narrative divides as naturally as a three-act play: set-up, crisis, and resolution. Of course nobody planned things that way. Businesses, consumers, and the federal government all did their bit to raise the standard of living. To the extent that they succeeded, each may be said to have helped create the conditions for the growth of home improvement. But very few predicted the Depression, and nobody schemed to bring it on. The Depression is only one example, albeit the greatest, of the ways in which unintended consequences can shape the course of events. Historians routinely distinguish between the stated goals of government policy and the actual effects, for these are almost invariably different. They find it more difficult to explore the same gap between intention and effect when it comes to businesses and consumers. The goals of businesses are usually not made public, and those of consumers are often inscrutable, if only because they are so varied. But although the size and even the nature of unintended consequences is often unclear, we cannot ignore them. They are often the most important influences of all.

Methods and Materials One of the great advantages of concentrating on just one industry or market is that it becomes possible to follow the continuing interplay between producers, consumers, retailers, and the state, as these are played out in different sorts of urban places, through good times and bad. A number of writers have argued that this is important: that instead of trying to make thin generalizations about manufacturing, consumers, retailing, advertising, or marketing we need more thick descriptions, “substantial histories

16 / Chapter One

surrounding the emergence of given markets and forms of conducting business.” In particular, following the work of Gary Gereffi, interesting work has been done on the commodity chains that link producers, distributors, and consumers, the best of which is attentive not only to the circulation of goods but also of information. The significance of the latter is that it underlines the fact that cultural as well economic considerations are involved.53 Fair enough, and the present study is intended to provide an extended example of exactly this way of thinking. But there is a potential downside. One the advantages of surveying, for example, the whole marketing field is that differences can become apparent. Even though such surveys may not be couched as examples of comparative research, that is what they are, even if only implicitly. The great strength of any type of comparative research is that it sets particular cases in context and encourages us to consider and test explanations. At first glance it may seem that the Depression transformed marketing in one industry, but if comparisons indicate that it had little effect on other industries we may be encouraged to reexamine the issue. How can a thick history of home improvement be given a comparative dimension? In two ways. First, home improvement has a naturally comparative aspect that is so important as to be almost unavoidable. Like any part of the housing market, the dynamics of improvement are local. Materials may be shipped over long distances in ways that create continental, or even global, markets. But local economies rise and fall in different ways, creating varied shortages and gluts of labor and housing that are never in perfect sync with one another. They differ geographically, too, in systematic ways. The housing market in a small town is predictably different from that in a major metropolitan area: there are more small contractors and amateur builders, less specialization and competition among building retailers. These historical and geographical differences create natural experiments. They rarely make it possible to test an argument rigorously, but they do allow for fruitful explorations. A prime example is Peoria, Illinois. During the 1930s, traveling shows, movie moguls, and the Federal Housing Administration alike treated Peoria as the average market: “will it play in Peoria?” became a catchword. But Peoria boomed after 1935, when its main local employer, Caterpillar, won contracts from both the U.S. and Soviet governments, and this made its housing market very unusual. Its local housing market deviated from the norm in ways that make it possible to explore the significance of wider factors. But Peoria is only one example of a general principle: places differ. Alert to historical anomalies, and even more to geographical differences, in a limited

Introduction / 17

way the following account is able to exploit some of the advantages of a comparative analysis. The analysis and narrative also bring in some comparisons at a larger, national scale. In most respects, local housing markets in Canada and the United States are very similar. Building materials and technologies vary locally and regionally more than they do nationally; in both countries lumber is the main building material and some type of frame construction is the norm; in both, too, innovations such as wallboard and power tools were introduced at much the same time, in many cases by the same companies, and with similar effects. Because the two economies have long been tightly connected, even minor booms and recessions in Canada have closely tracked those in the United States. In both countries, the Depression was devastating in broadly similar ways. But federal housing policies did differ: not greatly, but enough to illuminate the improvement trend. The same is true of Australia. Housing and improvement markets in Australia are broadly similar to those in North America but, historically, with one significant difference. Well into the postwar years timber merchants—the equivalent of North American lumber dealers—retained much closer links with sawmills than their North American lumber dealer cousins. For this period, then, the Australian counterpoint makes it possible to explore the significance of vertical connections between retailers and the major manufacturers for the improvement business. The following narrative focuses consistently, and sometimes exclusively, on the rise of the home improvement industry in the United States. But at several points it uses the Canadian and to a lesser extent the Australian experiences as a counterpoint. In order to reconstruct events and build a narrative I have drawn on a very wide variety of materials. The most consistently useful of these pertain to building retailers, and for good reason: local suppliers were always at the heart of the interplay between producer and consumer. Disparate and forgotten, useful surveys were undertaken of building retailers from the 1910s that provide valuable glimpses into changes in the products that they carried, the customers they served, and the nature of the yards, stores, or showrooms that they owned. Some of these surveys were carried out by the trade press, which proved to be a critical source of information. The two main trade journals for retailers, American Lumberman (est. 1898, through merger) and Building Supply News (est. 1917) are rich, and neglected, sources of information about most aspects of the building industry. Virtually all building materials passed through the hands of local retailers, who had to be attuned to all major aspects and trends in the housing market: finance;

18 / Chapter One

contracting; the shifting balance between new construction and improvement; the availability and character of new materials; consumer preferences about materials, designs, and do-it-yourself; and government policy as it affected all of the above. Retail trade journals covered all of these topics, reporting for example on manufacturer or government initiatives. So, too, did builders’ trade journals of which two, American Builder in the 1930s and House and Home (est. 1952) in the 1950s, were also consulted. But uniquely, and best of all, the retail trade journals included numerous reports about how building suppliers were managing their business. Occasionally this would take the form of a feature article on all dealers in a particular town; sometimes the impressions of a correspondent who had taken a rail or road trip through a particular state or region; but most typically they highlighted specific retailers whose operations were reported, illustrated, and discussed in detail. These were not Harvard Business School cases. Key details were sometimes missing, and businesses were used tendentiously to make a point. (Perhaps the Harvard Business School comparison is apposite, after all.) But they are an abundant and rich source of information about the building trade in general and the improvement market in particular. Using the two main U.S. retail trade journals, together with their Canadian and Australian equivalents and several smaller and regional trade publications, it was possible to reconstruct not only outline patterns and trends but also many important details. But of course retail trade journals give a partial and limited view of both manufacturers and consumers. To fill out the picture I undertook a case study of Johns-Manville, which, during the crucial Depression decade, was not only one of the largest manufacturers of building materials but also the most innovative and influential. Training manuals and advertising, some of which were published and some of which were available in the archival records of its advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson, make it possible to piece together a manufacturer’s-eye view of the early improvement market. To get the consumer’s view I interviewed men and women in Peoria, Illinois, who had built and improved homes between 1935 and the late 1950s. As a case study Peoria chose itself. So, because of its convenience to my own home, did Hamilton, Ontario, an industrial city of comparable size where I undertook similar interviews. These checked, and corrected, my reading of consumer magazines. These extended from general-interest publications, notably the New York Times and Time (both searchable online), through a family-oriented publication, Parents Magazine, to others addressed to families who were interested in building and improving their homes, notably Small Homes Guide and Better Homes and Gardens. Indirectly, the consumer’s

Introduction / 19

view can also be inferred from manuals and handbooks. After 1918, the home management manuals that had been read by women were supplemented by handbooks for the home owner, male and female. In time, these became increasingly differentiated: by the early 1940s some continued to address the property owner in general but others spoke to owner-builders and others to home handymen and women. Such handbooks reveal much about the changing views and working assumptions of property owners with respect to home improvement in the early and middle decades of the twentieth century. Relying on these tools and materials, the book offers a closely woven historical narrative. When particular agents played an especially significant role in shaping what became the improvement market, they are given special attention. After World War I, a key development was that a middle-class norm of home ownership rapidly emerged (chapter 2). It was on this basis that a growing demand for home improvement built up. Building suppliers, and above all lumber dealers, eventually learned to respond, but in order to do so they had to learn to detach themselves from the tight-knit lumber trade (chapters 3 and 4). By the 1920s, competition from the marketers of kit houses (chapter 5) and from the manufacturers of a variety of lumber substitutes (chapter 7) was pushing them to reach out to the consumer. Then, during the Depression, a newly active federal government also encouraged them to move in this direction (chapter 8), as did a surge of activity by amateur owner-builders after 1945 (chapter 9). But each of these agents was always present in the market, and in some degree influential, so each figures in most chapters. This is notably true in chapter 6, which sketches the general crisis in the building industry that emerged in the late 1920s, even before the Depression hit, and then in chapters 10 and 11, which deal respectively with the industry response to the postwar owner-building boom and then with the home improvement market that finally emerged in the 1950s. Here, the interplay of consumer, retailer, and producer became more rapid and intimate, making it necessary to track changes and interactions as they happened, almost year by year. The conclusion steps back, summarizes and synthesizes the narrative, and offers some suggestions as to the larger significance of the home improvement story.

T WO

The Foundation of Home Ownership

The firmest foundation for home improvement is home ownership. It is almost always the owner who improves or maintains a house, not the tenant, and owners maintain to higher standards when they also live there. It’s human nature. The landlord thinks of her property as an investment, and maintains it no better than she must, but owner-occupiers have an emotional stake too, and may fret about how they appear to friends and neighbors. They often improve the appearance and livability of their homes, well beyond what makes sense in narrowly economic terms. Then, too, if they invest their own labor they can limit out-of-pocket expenses to bare essentials. In North America in the first half of the twentieth century, the rise of a home improvement industry depended on home ownership becoming a social norm, and in two senses. First, it became common. In 1900, in the United States only about one-third of all urban households owned their own homes; the proportion in Canada was slightly lower (figure 2). In both countries, the proportion then rose irregularly, reaching about 45 percent by 1930, falling during the Depression, but rebounding to reach 59 percent in both countries by 1960. The rise of owner-occupancy and improvement did not move in lockstep. Things are never that simple: as I will show in chapter 7, the Depression actually gave improvement a boost. But in the long run, the association was strong and the cumulative effect telling.1 The growth of home ownership, and its Depression stumble, reflected trends in the standard of living. But, again, causal influences were not that simple. Today, most North Americans assume that home ownership is desirable, and have bought as soon as, and whenever, they could. This was not always so. To be sure, for decades immigrants and manual workers made huge sacrifices to put down roots in the New World. But for many decades, white-collar workers and professionals were largely indifferent to the mat-

24 / Chapter Two

2. The irregular growth of urban home-ownership in North America, 1900–1960. Owneroccupiers are keener on improvement than landlords or tenants, and so the rise of home improvement depended on the growth of homeownership. Compiled from Censuses of Canada and the United States.

ter. Although the fact is not widely appreciated, during the 1910s middleclass attitudes began to change. This shift in attitudes helped sustain the growth in home ownership and, with it, of home improvement.

Immigrant Passions: Shacks and Shantytowns In the early twentieth century, the passion for home ownership and improvement was most apparent among manual workers and immigrants, not the middle class. For immigrants, above all, ownership was a mark of achievement, rescuing tenants from the landlord’s whim and, in an era before pensions and unemployment insurance, insulating workers’ families from the vagaries of the job market and old age. Nothing dramatizes their desire to own, and to improve, property more effectively than the fact that so many were willing to acquire lots and build homes, literally with their own hands. In and around some cities—including Los Angeles, Chicago, Detroit, and Toronto, Ontario—owner-building was very common. In the Toronto area, for example, between one-third and two-fifths of all singlefamily houses erected during the boom of 1900–1912 were built by owners for their own use, typically with their own hands.2 Toronto’s experience was unusual, but owner-building was everywhere common. Although it was not fashionable as the prime subject of con-

The Foundation of Home Ownership / 25

temporary accounts, it often appeared in asides. The best-known managerial experiment of the era was Frederick Taylor’s development of time and motion research. His classic study, published in 1911, was of the laborer “Schmidt,” the immigrant Henry Noll, whom he timed shoveling coal. Taylor chose him because “I knew he was building a house and that he needed money.” He reported that Noll was “engaged in putting up the walls of a little house . . . in the morning before starting to work and at night after leaving [work],” which makes his feats of shoveling even more prodigious. Another inadvertent account of owner-building was provided a decade later by a student of Ernest Burgess, a leader in the influential Chicago school of urban sociology. This student compiled life histories of young men who lived at the Hyde Park YMCA. One man from St. Paul, Minnesota, described how his parents had bought and improved his childhood home. “My father,” he told the student, “has done much of the building himself” while “my mother deserves much honor as well.” He explained that “she even did labor not customary for a woman to do, but,” he concluded, “it was all for the good of the home.”3 One reason why contemporaries often overlooked owner-building is that it happened in places removed from their experience: alleys, unfashionable suburbs, and small towns. In the late nineteenth century shacks, singly or in small communities, were tucked away on many back alleys. In 1909 Charles Weller, the executive officer of the Associated Charities of Washington, D.C., suggested that, along with tenements, shanties were how low-income families—our “neglected neighbors”—found a home. He commented that “a new crop of shacks will ripen and need to be harvested every year.” The metaphor is revealing: like other reformers, Weller was keen to rid the city of this unwelcome growth. By then, owner-builders were being displaced to the suburbs.4 Indeed workers, including many immigrants, were being pulled into the suburbs in various ways. Manufacturing was moving out, and workers followed to where land was cheap. By the 1920s, professional builders were finding it less profitable to erect workers’ dwellings, but for a time many workers manage to house themselves. In 1926, the planner A. G. Dalzell noted that “shack-towns” fringed most Canadian cities. A year later, an American planner, Jacob Crane, commented that the presence of “shacks” had “greatly agitated many suburban towns.” Unusually, Crane defended the owner-built dwelling on the grounds that it was soon improved. The more conventional view was expressed two years later by Robert Whitten and Thomas Adams. Their national survey of building inspectors had found

26 / Chapter Two

that the majority of new single-family homes cost less than $4,200 and that in that price range “most houses are built by the owners for their own use.” This might mean that owners became their own general contractors and hired out the work. But “often,” Whitten and Adams claimed, the houses were “temporary in character or only partially completed,” lacking “modern conveniences” such as plumbing, electricity, or street improvements. Like most observers, they assumed that this situation was regrettable.5 In a few areas, suburban owner-built homes were erected by racialized minorities, including Mexicans and African-Americans. Indeed, before World War II a minority of African-Americans made their way into the suburbs in this way. A fine example was documented in 1931, when President Hoover assembled experts for a national housing conference. A subcommittee on Negro housing provided a vivid story from Nashville. An AfricanAmerican had bought a lot, intending to “put up two little rooms and a shed on the back of the lot and then build the house I wanted in the front as I got the money.” But he bought more lumber than he needed, on credit, and so began building the larger house immediately. He then ran out of money and had to wait six months. He eventually moved his family in before installing windows or doors, though he did soon make a front door. In the end, continuing to improve the house, he claimed that he would not sell it for less than $6,500, though this figure may well have been unrealistic. In the southwest, some fringe areas were first settled by Mexican ownerbuilders. Although the fact has been largely forgotten, some of Phoenix’s early fringe areas began as Mexican cotton camps.6 But the great majority of owner-builders were whites. In 1920, for example, Kenneth Crone noted that around Montreal “in thousands of instances” the suburban lot owner “builds his house with his own hands, scrappily, with such new and second-hand material as he can pick up when he has a little loose change.” Owner-building was most common in the smaller urban centers of the western and midwestern states. In their classic study of Middletown, U.S.A. (Muncie, Indiana), the Lynds refer to the local “shedtown,” a shack community of destitute families, but most ownerbuilt homes were more substantial while, as Jacob Crane claimed and as the Nashville story illustrates, they were commonly improved. A typical smalltown experience was reported in the American Lumberman, the leading trade journal for retail lumber dealers. In 1920, a truck driver in Lombard, Illinois, bought a lot and built a 14⬘ × 18⬘ garage. He married, and the couple moved in with his brother for a year in order to save. He divided the garage into two rooms, laid pipes to the street, wired for electricity, and moved in just before his wife gave birth. Inspired by plan books from the local lumber

The Foundation of Home Ownership / 27

dealer, and with a construction mortgage from the same source, he then began a five-room house on an adjacent lot. The couple completed the ground floor, and moved in just before their second child arrived. Here, for many, was a real alternative to the formal housing market.7 Some lumber dealers had always cooperated with amateurs by erecting what became known as shell houses. These were basic dwellings that owners finished themselves, though the line between “finish” and “improve” was fine. In 1926, the American Lumberman told its readers about W. W. Walls & Co., a retailer in Champaign, Illinois, that also built homes. Sometimes they erected only a frame, leaving the buyer to install plumbing, wiring, and a heating system. It was a matter of what buyers could afford. In Fresno, California, Joe King saw things the same way. At a meeting of large home builders in 1925, King reported how he turned a profit by catering to scores of workers with very modest incomes. He described how he built four-room shells on cedar posts, finishing the exterior only. Inside there was studding but no partitions, or plumbing. Typically, claimed King, the owner would “have a party,” when friends and neighbors would help finish the house. Some party! A canny lumber dealer provided credit, on the condition that buyers purchased all their materials from him.8 King was an operator. He explained how he sold Fresno residents building lots in Florida by going house to house. Even so, he supposed that the cheap methods of construction that worked in balmy Fresno could not be transferred to the midwest. In fact, B. E. Taylor, a real estate speculator, was proving that it could. As Carolyn Loeb has shown, in June 1921 Taylor began to buy up and subdivide land in Brightmoor, beyond Detroit’s city limits. Taylor was willing to sell unimproved lots: after all, he purchased tracts for $1,000 an acre and then proceeded to advertise building lots (ranging from 30⬘ × 100⬘ to 34⬘ × 125⬘) for the same price. This was good business, and he sold hundreds of lots to workers who then built for themselves. But he was also willing to build and then sell, which he also did by the hundreds. His houses were invariably modest, sometimes in the extreme. Loeb illustrates Taylor’s “model 614”—this was not a segment of the market where romantic imagery mattered—which consisted of a 440-square-foot, four-room frame structure, with no bathroom, balanced on cedar posts. But it did have a small porch and outdoor privy, which is what his customers, who were recent migrants from Appalachia, would have expected.9 In some ways, making a house became easier after 1900. Builders, and suppliers, were willing to meet the amateur halfway. New, cheap, and easily worked materials, including tin roof sheeting, tar paper, and stovepipes, were becoming more readily available. By the 1920s, however, owner-building

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was going into a period of decline. The evidence is scattered and contradictory. While Robert Whitten and Thomas Adams believed that ownerbuilding was still common in the late 1920s, John Gries saw it very differently. Indeed, speaking about the very cheapest of owner-built dwellings, he claimed that “the construction of shacks or other forms of cheap temporary dwellings has practically ceased.” The truth surely lay in between. In 1932 Ernest Fisher and Raymond Smith surveyed the trend of land subdivision and development around Grand Rapids, Michigan, since 1900. In two of the four “outlying” areas they studied, they found some “shanty town” districts that lacked services. A similar process of building and remodeling was found in a study of exurban Massachusetts. Owner-builders, then, remained active, but by the late 1920s they had been displaced ever further from the city core, into exurban areas beyond the view of many housing experts such as John Gries.10 To the extent that owner-building remained an option, it gave some flexibility to the housing market’s growing reliance on filtering as the mechanism for housing lower-income households. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, builders and investors were still willing to erect homes for low-income, or at least moderate-income, households. By the 1920s, this was no longer true. More and more families were forced to occupy homes built for their social betters, which had become affordable only after they had deteriorated, and perhaps been subdivided. By the late 1930s, this process had come to be known by the term we use today: “filtering.” In the 1920s, there was no recognized term, but the process was becoming familiar. Robert and Helen Lynd offered an early description: “In each new generation,” they observed, “the less well-to-do tend to inherit the aging houses of the group slightly ‘better off.’ ”11 In the first three decades of the twentieth century, owner-building in urban fringe areas was put onto the defensive by the elaboration and extension of building regulations. The main impetus came from urban fires. Fire regulations inhibited the construction of cheap, flammable housing. In many cities they began to bite in the 1860s. Their introduction, enforcement, and extension varied widely, as did the extent and timing of their effects. In Toronto, for example, a big fire in 1904 persuaded the city to tighten up its regulations. This forced owner-builders to move beyond the city limits while forcing commercial builders to erect dwellings that many workers could not afford. The effect was compounded after 1913 by the city’s decision to pass a law that compelled all property owners to connect to public water and sewer lines, and to install basic sanitary services. The latter requirement was unusual in the U.S., or indeed elsewhere in Canada,

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but everywhere standards were being raised. It is possible to debate whether regulation was a good thing. Reformers and municipal officials claimed that it eliminated some slums and improved public health. No doubt they were right. At the same time it raised costs. Gail Radford suggests that plumbing and central heating systems—of the sort that B. E. Taylor did not provide— accounted for about one-quarter of housing costs in this period. Such averages disguise the effect on the bottom end of the market. In Toronto in the decade after the 1913 law, the cost of improving dwellings that lacked sanitary services ranged between 17 and 40 percent of the total value of these properties. Regulation reduced the construction of housing for workers by the building industry, and helped increase the significance of the filtering process as the mechanism by which housing was delivered to the poor.12 The introduction of building regulations in cities was one of the main reasons owner-building was displaced into the suburbs, and then beyond. In 1898 a writer in the New England Magazine had noted the fact that fire regulations were confined to cities while “flimsy” and “dangerous” frame construction was permitted, if only by default, in the suburbs. For the next half century well-informed observers continued to explain the presence of suburban or exurban owner-building primarily in the same way. In 1911, for example, a writer for American City, the main journal for city administrators, commented that “some of you will recall points of contact with your city where there is as much need for a strong governmental control as in the crowded conditions of your central city.” As urban growth increasingly spilled beyond city limits, the challenge grew. In 1920 the Senate Committee on Reconstruction and Production highlighted the inadequacy and inconsistency of building codes across the country, especially in suburban areas. On its recommendation, the Bureau of Standards established a Division of Building and Housing, with which a Building Code Committee was formed in May 1921. The following year the committee published guidelines that were designed to promote the standardization of building requirements and their geographical extension into unregulated territory. For a decade the committee, and indeed the whole division, was very active. In 1931 it provided “much of the staff” for the Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership that President Hoover had established in August of 1931 and which met in Washington from December 2 through 5. The following year the committee published revised building guidelines.13 But the Depression took its toll. In 1933 the division was “skeletonized . . . for reasons of economy,” and a year later it was shut down.14 Despite, and then in the absence of, the efforts of the Commerce Department, many suburban and fringe areas remained unregulated, with predict-

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able consequences. In her anatomization of urban slums in the mid-1930s, for example, Edith Wood attributed the existence of the suburban shantytown to the fact that “no building code or health ordinance exists to hamper them.” A Canadian survey found exactly the same thing north of the border, and also targeted the lack of public controls. A decade later Richard Ratcliff deplored “peripheral shack towns” as “one of the most serious menaces to our cities,” and he explained that “building permits are not always required and few housing codes are in force.” Of course many suburbs did introduce regulations, sometimes because of concerns about fire risk and health and often in an attempt to attract affluent buyers by, in effect, excluding the poor. Around Toronto, for example, the first suburb to bring in building regulations was Forest Hill as part of its successful attempt to become an exclusive enclave. Other examples on a larger scale were Scarsdale, New York, and Palos Verdes Estates, in the Los Angeles area. In places like these, building controls were one of several tactics, including large-lot zoning and racial covenants, that served the purpose of social exclusion. The growth of these types of well-regulated suburbs attracted a good deal of attention at the time and formed a significant part of the social geography of emerging metropolitan regions. Their effect was to confine suburban owner-building to unregulated areas and to displace it into the further urban periphery.15

The Indifferent Middle Class As a strategy for acquiring a home, owner-building was largely confined to workers and immigrants, but many writers have suggested that the desire to own was felt by everyone.16 In 1968, for example, the Kerner Commission claimed that “the ambition to own one’s own home is shared by virtually all Americans,” adding an endorsement: “we believe it is in the interests of the nation to permit all who share such a goal to realize it.” The merits of ownership have often been asserted in ways that brook no dissent. Thus Walt Whitman in the 1840s: “A man is not a whole or complete man unless he owns a house and the ground it stands on.” Or Herbert Hoover, as commerce secretary in 1923: “The love of home”—and Hoover means to include the desire to own—“is one of the finest instincts and the greatest inspirations of our people.” Or the expert conference on the subject that Hoover convened after becoming president: home ownership is an American “birthright.” By stringing together such quotations we can create the impression that the urge to own is ubiquitous and immutable. In this manner Constance Perin, in an anthropological study undertaken in the

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1970s, suggests that the high social value her respondents gave to property ownership merely continued a tradition.17 Even skeptics, such as those who have promoted the idea of public housing, have been drawn into the boosterish mindset. When the U.S. Housing Authority was established in the late 1930s, President Roosevelt appointed Nathan Straus as its administrator. Appropriately, Straus believed in public housing and, more generally, in a rental sector that met the needs of Americans who could not afford to buy a home or who were so mobile that renting made more sense. Nonetheless, he believed that “throughout the ages man has dreamed of a roof, four walls, and a plot of ground that he could call his very own.” Straus, and generations of policy makers and housing administrators, assumed that home ownership was the prevailing ideal, even if reality called for compromise. For this reason, introducing a recent collection of papers on the history of federal housing policy, John Bauman can speak of “the nation’s historical commitment to the sanctity of private property and the goal of homeownership.” Since the 1930s, the federal government has indeed assumed the desire and defended the “birthright” of every American to own their own home.18 In fact, as Richard Dennis has put it, “there was nothing ‘natural’ about home ownership.” It has been desired in different degrees, for varied reasons, by diverse groups. Historians agree that the desire to own property was stronger among workers, and strongest of all among immigrants. Contemporaries knew, and indeed documented, this fact. In the early 1930s, for example, a large survey of people who were employed on federal work projects in Philadelphia found striking differences. Among this admittedly atypical group of households, 25 percent owned (or were buying) their own homes, but the percentage was higher among foreign-born whites (36 percent) than among the native-born (12 percent), and negligible among African-Americans (2 percent). Immigrants valued ownership more, and in a particular way: as security, and as a supplemental source of income.19 The flip side was that ownership aspirations were weaker among whitecollar workers. Speaking about the late nineteenth century, Michael Katz and his associates have claimed that middle-class women aspired to be managers, not homemakers: having servants was more important than owning the home. The silences in household management books, which were directed at middle-class women, support this view. Their authors ignore issues associated with property ownership: maintenance, repairs, home improvement, or the merits of owning versus renting. This is notably true of Beecher and Stowe’s influential The American Woman’s Home (1870).

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To a modern reader, such silences are astonishing. But if we look across the Atlantic we should not be surprised. In Britain, the middle classes did not care much about owning their home. In his study of Cardiff, for example, Martin Daunton comments that “so far as the well-off were concerned, home ownership was not considered socially necessary, the general attitude being that house purchase for self-occupation was merely another investment and not of any pressing importance.” Richard Dennis has observed that, in London, suburban guides spoke of rents, not prices, and that for the middle class “place mattered more than tenure.” As a result, only about 10 percent of urban households in England and Wales owned their own homes, fewer in Scotland. In nineteenth-century Britain, workers could not afford to buy while the middle class did not particularly care to. In North America, workers had better prospects of ownership, but middle-class attitudes to property paralleled, where they did not follow, British precedent.20 By the early twentieth century, assumptions were changing. Housing tenure was becoming a question, though ownership was still not necessarily the answer. North American advice manuals began to raise the issue, in a neutral way. In The Modern Household (1912), Marion Talbot and Sophonisba Breckenridge expressed a studied neutrality about the merits of owning versus renting, or for that matter of houses versus apartments. An owned house, they note, may have some advantages but it brings “uncertain costs of operating” and a “greater amount of servicing.”21 Indeed, by the 1910s many writers were prepared to make bolder, less balanced, claims. These have to be parsed carefully. In Successful Houses and How to Build Them (1912), Charles White reeled off a list of advantages to property ownership, including control, security, status, promotion of thrift, better maintenance, and citizenship. But he was preaching to the converted: those who purchased his book would already have been more than half convinced that building and owning was a good idea. Moreover, White’s reasoning is very different from what we would expect today. He speaks of the possibility of building houses in order to rent them out. He was also undecided about whether home ownership was a good investment. Indeed, in a book published two years later by the Ladies Home Journal, he conceded that “$3,000 invested in business might yield more profit in dollars and cents than the same sum invested in a home.” His immediate point was that the best reasons for owning were nonmonetary. The larger implication is that, for the middle class, the logic of ownership was still not compelling. And so, as late as 1915, Edward Devine could sketch a “normal” middle-class home life and still make no mention of owning property.22 In fact, according to Margaret Marsh, even by World War I “home owner-

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ship did not appear to be of primary interest” to the middle class. Reformers fretted about the moral and physical threats posed by poor sanitation, overcrowding, and the taking-in of lodgers, but expressed only moderate interest in working-class home ownership. This created tensions. In Chicago, settlement workers pushed for higher building standards but they ran up against what Jane Addams called “sordid and ignorant” immigrant landlords who subdivided their properties to supplement meager incomes. In Toronto, reformers deplored the suburban shacks that immigrants built. In both cities, they believed that workers should not sacrifice health and privacy on the altar of property ownership.23 For themselves, the middle class cared about signaling social status but not, before 1914, about owner-occupation. In Philadelphia, the “city of homes,” Marsh found only middling rates of home ownership among families that could easily have afforded to buy. She cites Americus Underdown, scion of a prosperous haberdashery concern, who did indeed own a house in the district of Haddonfield. But he rented it out, while occupying a similar, rental property in the same area. The same patterns existed in Wissahickon Heights and Chestnut Hill. In Chicago, Margaret Garb has detected an “indifference” of the middle class to home ownership, which is why prosperous suburbs such as Union Park could contain large numbers of tenants intermingled with owners, while LeeAnn Lands has found the same pattern in Atlanta. Speaking of the middle class, she judges that “buying was simply not that important to most families.” The corollary was that the level of home ownership was no guide to neighborhood quality. She concludes, “Americans needed to be persuaded of the ‘value’ of homeownership and the single family home.”24 No group knew this better than builders, brokers, and indeed anyone associated with the real estate business. That is why, between about 1914 and the Depression, they launched a series of campaigns to promote home ownership as a social norm.

Buy Your Own Home. Please! Janet Hutchison has suggested that World War I marked “a major change in housing policy for the state,” one that “provided a touchstone for the 1920s housing programs.” She understates the point: until the 1910s, there was no federal policy with respect to housing. Then, a policy emerged out of campaigns for home ownership that brought real estate interests and the state together in an unprecedented way.25 The first initiative was taken by real estate brokers, or realtors, as those associated with the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB)

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styled themselves in 1916 in their efforts to present themselves as professionals. The first local campaign may have dated from 1914, and by 1917 a campaign in Rochester, New York, gained national attention and was inspiring imitators. By 1918, the New York Times spoke of a “movement” of “considerable proportions” in the western states that “had even reached New York.” The key initiative was organized by Paul Murphy in Portland, Oregon, becoming the template for an Own Your Own Home (OYOH) movement. Murphy had helped develop “one of the finest subdivisions” in the Portland area. Under his guidance, and the chairmanship of the mayor, those associated with the local building industry, including brokers, lumbermen, furniture dealers, organized labor, and public service corporations, combined to mount a vigorous campaign. They built and equipped a model bungalow where a chosen couple exchanged marriage vows after hearing a sermon on the “merits of the ‘Own Your Own Home’ Movement.”26 In 1918, the initiative shifted to the federal government. The War Industries Board designated house building as nonessential; promotional efforts were suspended. Exceptions were made for industrial centers with munitions factories and shipyards, where some housing was built by a new, but short-lived, federal agency, the U.S. Housing Corporation. In addition, realtors helped the USHC set up a Real Estate Division to make loans for the private construction of houses for war workers. Not surprisingly, the USHC “cooperated” in the OYOH campaigns of 1917. At war’s end, federal involvement grew. On January 1, 1919, the Labor Department adopted and reorganized the movement at a national level. Murphy was brought to Washington as a dollar-a-year man to run it. Working with NAREB, he used the Portland plan as a model. He supervised the preparation of promotional materials, including a manual that suggested how to enlist the support of church, labor, and women’s organizations. He coordinated a new wave of local campaigns. The National Lumber Manufacturers Association vigorously encouraged local lumber dealers to become involved (Figure 3). As Jeffrey Hornstein notes, Philadelphia, under the leadership of realtors, was one of the earliest cities to mobilize. By March, twenty cities had signed up, and within a month the Washington Post reported that “virtually every large city already has initiated an ‘own your own home’ movement in the most enthusiastic manner.” These were led, variously, by the local real estate board (Milwaukee), the chamber of commerce (Chicago), the board of trade (Pittsfield, Massachusetts), and the local builders’ exchange (Toledo, Ohio). In May, the Department of Labor was joined by Agriculture, Commerce, Interior, and Treasury in promoting savings and thrift with “one objective—an ‘own your own home’ campaign.” In June it submitted what

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3. Own your own home. The lumber industry threw its weight behind national and local campaigns to promote home ownership after 1918. This copy of the campaign handbook was donated to his university library by Harvard professor James Ford, who played a significant role in promoting better homes during the 1920s. Source: National Lumber Manufacturers Association, “Own Your Own Home”: Campaign Handbook (Chicago: National Lumber Manufacturers Association, 1919.)

the Times reported as an “own your own home bill.” (The ill-fated CalderNolan Bill, ardently supported by NAREB, would have established a home loan bank.) By then, the campaign had been picked up by reformers associated with the National Housing Association, and over a hundred cities were on board. At a time when construction costs were rising rapidly, the main problem was that of securing affordable finance—Murphy received

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many complaints on the subject. Here, too, his office acted as a guide and information exchange.27 With help from realtors and local chambers of commerce, the Department of Labor also helped establish that modern marketing staple, the home show.28 Other industries had already begun to mount daylong or weeklong events. In January 1900, the first automobile show was held in Madison Square Garden; it became a fixture. In 1919, the Times reported plans for “a new kind of exposition.” Including displays by building and loans, it was “only a part of the greater work which is just being started by the New York Own-Your-Own-Home Committee.” The timing—September 6–13, towards the end of the building season—was less than ideal. Grander, and better-attended, next year’s was sensibly held in February. Led by Wilson Compton, head of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association, and by representatives of dealers and wholesalers, lumber interests alone secured 2,370 square feet of space. Model homes were built, while lectures were offered on domestic science and home finance. Thousands lined up to get in, while a reporter declared that “never before in the history of the United States has there been such an interest in homeowership.” He was probably right; certainly, home shows became the norm. In 1923, the organization of New York’s fifth annual show was taken over by local real estate boards, who never looked back. The idea was being adopted even “by the oldest and most conservative Real Estate Boards in the country.” They were encouraged by NAREB, which had received the baton from the Department of Labor for directing the entire OYOH campaign. By 1923, NAREB ran a large, slick operation. That fall, representatives from forty-seven national building industry groups assembled for a two-day meeting at its Chicago headquarters. Expositions or shows—the terms were used interchangeably—now went on the road, on a tight schedule within five regional circuits. NAREB established an advisory service for places not on the itinerary: for consistency and to maintain standards, expositions were licensed.29 For several years, the OYOH campaign coexisted with efforts to promote thrift. When S. W. Straus formed the American Society for Thrift in 1913, he made no mention of housing. By March 1919, however, he had come to see home ownership as the society’s main purpose. Noting the success of the government’s Liberty Bonds, he argued that in peacetime “no object could be more worthy of the practices of economy than one’s own home.” The federal government agreed. In October 1919, the Treasury designated the first National Thrift Week, beginning January 17, 1920. Business organizations, including those of bankers, building and loans, and construction industries, drew up a “ten commandments for household finance.” The sixth

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was “own your own home eventually,” and the group designated Tuesday, January 20, as “Own Your Own Home Day.”30 At this point the YMCA became involved. Real estate was a commercial field in which the organization had provided instruction for years; NAREB itself was formed in 1908 in a Chicago YMCA hall. Once Thrift Week was announced, the Y began planning a national campaign to reflect its general concern for the “physical, mental, spiritual and social development of mankind” and its specific support for home ownership. By mid-November 1919, its promotional plan had been “approved by the construction industries of the country” and entailed “vast publicity.” Soon, the Y was taking the lead. By January 1920, media reports suggested that Thrift Week was being “sponsored” by the National Thrift Committee of the International Committee of the YMCA. For several years, the organization took charge of the marketing of Thrift Week and worked with real estate interests to promote home ownership.31 The YMCA gave credibility to a campaign that from the early 1920s was largely run by NAREB and that might otherwise have appeared self-serving. Jeffrey Hornstein has observed that realtors claimed to carry a “special moral burden” in promoting home ownership, but this could appear disingenuous. And so when they backed the first Thrift Week Own Your Own Home Day, NAREB emphasized this was not part of a sales campaign. The National Lumber Manufacturers Association took the same approach in the handbook it published in 1919. It suggested that local campaigns should be placed under the auspices of the chamber of commerce and aim for “civic betterment” rather than implying “a purely commercial” purpose.32 Locally, real estate interests used civic groups to give legitimacy to OYOH campaigns; at the national level, the YMCA filled a similar role. Legitimacy was also provided by women’s organizations and, again, the federal government. Women had a greater stake in their homes than their menfolk. They spent more time there, were usually responsible for household management, and thus had greater interest in how homes looked and functioned. For some years, such interest had been fueled by campaigns for domestic efficiency. It is not unexpected, then, that women became involved in local home ownership campaigns from the beginning, individually and through groups and committees. Not surprisingly, in 1922 Marie Meloney, editor of a popular women’s magazine, The Delineator, asked the Commerce Department to sponsor her new housing program, the Better Homes in America Movement. Meloney’s debt to OYOH campaigns is obvious. According to Janet Hutchison, she was inspired by a home exhibit in Ohio. The methods she advocated, including the formation of local Better Homes committees, the designation of Better Homes weeks, and construc-

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tion of model homes, were analogous to those pioneered by Paul Murphy and later refined by NAREB. And although her vision was one of “women’s activities, community service, and home economics education,” the line between these endeavors and commercialism was always blurred. An advertising agency distributed publicity. Locally, Better Homes Weeks drew support not only from women’s groups but also, inevitably, from businesses with stakes in building, selling, financing, or furnishing the home.33 Hoover supported Meloney’s new organization. He agreed to become its president, and instructed his department’s Building and Housing Division to cooperate. In 1923, BHA was incorporated as an educational foundation; James Ford, a professor of social ethics, was brought from Harvard to run it. A new headquarters was opened, a block from the White House. In 1922, the first Better Homes Week proved a “huge success.” That year, more than 500 local committees were formed and many built demonstration homes; the number doubled in 1923, tripled by 1926, and in 1930 as many as 7,279 were active. Meloney’s campaign was endorsed by twenty-eight state governors, leading federal officials including the secretary of labor, and of course the president. Reaching into so many communities, and often attracting strong local support, it acquired a high profile.34 There was, then, an unprecedented amount of activity directed at the promotion of home ownership from the mid-1910s onwards. It went under different labels. It engaged, and overlapped with, organizations that also endorsed thrift, moral uplift, and home economics. It inspired promotional days and weeks, at both the local and the federal levels. At different times, it brought together federal departments (Labor, Commerce), nonprofits (the YMCA, Better Homes in America), and business groups with a stake in real estate (realtors) and the local economy (chambers of commerce). For the first time, then, it becomes possible to speak of home ownership as a national goal, although never debated or articulated as such by Congress. It is difficult to disentangle the separate impact of these agents and forces. The significant fact is that, while the labels and details varied, they perceived a common purpose. As Jeffrey Hornstein has put it, they believed that “the dominant notion of ‘home’ in America [had become] a detached, singlefamily dwelling, which became a home not merely by virtue of habitation or character but by virtue of ownership.”35 But what, exactly, was at stake here?

The Stakes in Home Ownership As they warmed to the theme, boosters compiled a long list of reasons why families, especially, should buy if they could. Eventually, they naturalized

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home ownership, making it appear to be a situation that was then, had always been, and forever would be ideal. But while some arguments had become familiar by the 1910s, others were quite new. Among the more familiar claims on Charles White’s list was the issue of short- and long-term security. The owner, he observed, is “not obliged to move from pillar to post at the will of his landlord” while mortgage debts, which “keep him toiling, grinding, to provide payments for his house,” will promote the sort of thrift that will provide an income in old age. After 1918, boosters such as Coleman Woodbury, Hazel Kyrk, and Herbert Hoover, as well as cautious commentators such as Benjamen Andrews, repeated such arguments. But, evenhandedly, they also expressed doubts about whether, even in the long run, owning was cheaper than renting. If they raised the issue of capital gains, as Hazel Kyrk did in 1929, they remained agnostic. The traditional case for home ownership was not a slam dunk.36 From the mid-1910s, new themes were emphasized or introduced. One issue—control over one’s lived environment—became more prominent, and was cast in a new light. In 1914, White spoke of an “inherent desire . . . to be one’s own lord and master” and argued that the home owner was not “constrained to adjust his mode of life to the pattern of a rented house.” By the 1920s, freedom was framed more positively as the opportunity to make improvements. As Hazel Kyrk noted, “All members of the family, young and old, strong and feeble, may use their ‘spare’ time in the upkeep and improvement of the home.” This could involve painting and making repairs as well as, “if skilful,” projects like adding a porch or window, laying a walkway, or building a garage, the latter being preferred by owners of older homes. Such efforts had an economic aspect, “augmenting the real income of the family in ways that otherwise would not be open to it.” They also had a moral purpose, since “home ownership offers ways by which men and boys especially can make themselves useful when they would otherwise be idle.” We see here a tangible glimpse of the companionate marriage that was emerging in this period, where women’s place in the kitchen was now being complemented by the man’s place on the ladder or, soon, in a home workshop. And they also had psychological and expressive qualities. “One of the motives for home ownership,” Kyrk claimed, is that “the family may build or rebuild something according to its own ideas.” More was involved than mere freedom from constraint; she suggests there is an “enjoyment that comes with a continuing pre-occupation of this sort.” This is surely what Herbert Hoover had in mind when he declared that “a family that owns its own home, takes pride in it, maintains it better, gets more pleasure out of it . . . The home owner has a constructive aim in life . . . [and] spends his leisure time more

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profitably . . .” Home ownership had always meant freedom from; by the 1920s more people reckoned that it also offered an opportunity to.37 The wholly new element to the postwar rhetoric is that it speaks of citizenship and civic advantages. Some had long been apparent. Notably, as Charles White pointed out, “owners usually take better care of their own property than renters do of the landlords’,” or than absentee landlords do of investment property. Hoover, among many others, alluded to this. But soon swamping such considerations were the political implications. From 1918, a growing chorus of voices suggested that home ownership provided a bulwark against the Bolshevik tide. Hoover framed it this way: “[Home owners] have an interest in the advancement of a social system that permits the individual to store up the fruits of his labor.” This was a response to the waves of radicalism and labor unrest that had washed over Russia, Europe, and North America between 1917 and 1920. Since radicalism was often based in immigrant communities, it awakened nativist sentiment. It is likely that, as Regina Blaszczyk has suggested, “nativists came to see ‘home sweet home’ as a proving ground where the unwashed immigrant masses might learn to became more like them.” The irony is that immigrants were already persuaded of the merits of owning property. It was the middle class that needed reeducating.38 With political tensions running high, owning a home swiftly became a duty, “moral, civic, and political.” Charles McGovern has argued that, in the early twentieth century, advertisers embraced a “cultural nationalism . . . asserting that their products were central to a specifically American mode of living.” The most significant arena within which this shift occurred—and very rapidly, too—was the housing market. As LeeAnn Lands puts it, in 1918– 1919 the slogan became “Be a Patriot, Buy a Home,” a new emphasis on Americanism that, in its whiteness, implicitly excluded African-Americans. George Reynolds, president of the Continental and Commercial National Bank of Chicago, declared that buying a home was a “patriotic duty,” not just to help create jobs for returning soldiers but to express “citizenship.” S. W. Straus saw it as a “bulwark against the encroachments of bolshevism” on the domestic front, and as part of “a nation-building process.” As the radical threat abated and immigration controls took effect, the tone moderated, but it left a residue. Marina Moskowitz has shown how a middle-class standard of living emerged between the 1890s and the 1920s. By then, she suggests, “the maintenance and improvement of domestic property became one of the bonds of middle class communities.” “Bonds” maintain community, but they also constrain and, potentially, exclude. Families were increasingly expected not only to buy homes but to use them in particular

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ways. If home ownership had emerged as a new “ideal cultural aspiration” the implication was that those who fell short had failed, while those who rejected it became deviant.39 In sum, there was a new “odor of political sanctimoniousness” on the subject.40 Home ownership was ceasing to be a plausible choice for the middle class and becoming a social expectation. What caused this shift? Margaret Marsh has suggested that booster rhetoric, and associated campaigns, amounted to “popular manipulation.” In fact, however, from the very beginning the campaigns were enormously popular. At first the defensive element was dominant, binding together patriotism, nativism, and an invocation of private property against a new Bolshevik threat. By the mid-1920s, a more positive outlook emphasized new possibilities, including the opportunity to shape one’s living space. The ownership campaigns of the 1920s gave coherence to a change in attitudes among the middle class. In that sense, they had an impact. But they also expressed that change, and were sustained by it. A social movement was producing a new ideology of home ownership.

An emerging consensus Advice manuals show that the new ideology change did not emerge overnight. By the 1920s, these publications usually addressed the issue of home ownership, showing that the subject was now widely perceived to be important. But most remained neutral on the subject. This was even true of Christine Frederick, now known as a booster of suburban consumption. In 1923, she acknowledged that “whether to rent or own is a big question” and insisted that the answer is “to be only determined by the individual family, the location and the profession and permanency of the work of the father.” This almost defines noncommittal. Four years later, Benjamen Andrews offered a similar, if even more vague, opinion: “Modern conditions . . . make a wise individual decision between renting and owning difficult.” Five years on, an early Depression text betrayed only a slight preference. Home ownership, the academic authors suggest, can offer “stability and a sense of pride”; thus, it is “worth careful consideration”; even so, any decision should reflect “sound reasoning rather than mere prejudice.” Such phrasing implies that popular opinion had run ahead of what sober professors would advise. Own Your Own Home may have tapped a powerful new wave of sentiment, but it had not yet become a social consensus.41 Still, the appearance of a small, first wave of manuals on house building does indicate the ramifications of this change in attitudes for the practice of home improvement. These manuals domesticated the persistent strain

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of anti-urban, agrarian opinion in Canada and United States. After 1900, this outlook was articulated by several writers. In Three Acres and Liberty (1907) and A Little Land and a Living (1908), Bolton Hall argued that urbanites could become self-sufficient by moving to subsistence homesteads that they built for themselves. He showed several examples. William Smythe articulated a more moderate version of this idea. In 1908, he launched a “Little Landers” movement that produced “garden cities” near San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Palo Alto. He envisioned a “Home-in-aGarden,” an owned property with a small garden lot that, as he later wrote in City Homes on Country Lanes, would “get[] the rural savor into city life.” He assumed homesteaders would have only a “small outside income.” Articulating a similar vision, John McMahon spelled out its implications for house building. In 1914, with his wife and daughter, he moved from New York City and built a house in the commuter fringe, where they raised chickens, fruits, and vegetables. He described the process of using scavenged materials in The House That Junk Built (1915). In truth it was solid enough. Aiming at fireproof construction, and inspired by his neighbor, Thomas Edison, McMahon used concrete blocks, steel girders, and floor beams gleaned from a nearby bridge that was being rebuilt. His photographs reveal that the result was not an aesthetic triumph, but he saved money, got the house he wanted, and was able to own it. Two years later he published a manual for others who wished to achieve Success in the Suburbs by owner-building, a process that he argued had been made much easier by the development of new materials and tools, such as the hand drill and tool grinder; and by the sale of kit houses. Hall, Smythe, and McMahon spoke to the urban middle class—McMahon himself had an unspecified office job—and so did writers such as F. J. De Luce in Country Life in America, who were writing about the rewards of erecting summer homes and cottages. Such activities were not mainstream, but they are the earliest indicators of a change in middle-class attitudes toward do-it-yourself.42 The possibility of a do-it-yourself house, however, was far from a mainstream interest in the 1910s and 1920s. To be sure, there was much middleclass interest in house building, especially as the war ended. One type of publication, the catalog of kit homes that could be ordered by mail, had already made a mark. By 1920 these were complemented by a national plan catalog, produced by Standard Homes of Washington, D.C. What was most novel after 1918 were the consumer magazines. In 1917/1918, The House Beautiful ran ten articles that followed the building of a house, but ownerbuilding was not entertained: “Of course,” the author notes, “Miss Reader’s Service had made her arrangements with a good contractor.” Then, in 1922,

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the architect Ernest Flagg published Small Houses in an effort “to improve the design and construction of small houses while reducing their cost.” It was not directed at the general reader, but when Harold Cory interviewed Flagg for Collier’s, he was inundated with a “flood of letters” from readers asking “Can I do it too?” Cory tested Flagg’s ideas by building his own home, a process described in a series of articles and then in Build a Home— Save a Third (1924). The savings came from better design; Cory himself supervised construction, but without doing “a lick of work.” In this, he was far more typical than John McMahon. Other book-length guides for the middle class were being published for “anyone planning to build.” As early as 1914, William Arthur had published The Home Builder’s Guide, which pointed out that “there are several dangers in an owner doing the work himself.” A decade later, Gilbert Murtagh’s Small Houses covered “moderate cost” homes, by which he meant those in the $5,000–$20,000 range. Even $5,000 would have bought a solid house in a respectable neighborhood. Such guides addressed the growing interest in home ownership on the part of the American middle class, on the assumption that “building a home” meant hiring a contractor.43 We can parse rhetoric. Better, we can observe what people did. To some extent we can do this for the prewar era: Olivier Zunz has shown that in early twentieth-century Detroit, for example, workers were almost as likely to own their own homes as were professionals. Since their incomes were much lower, we may infer that their ownership aspirations were relatively strong. How relative is relative, and when did this change? Evidence for Canada in 1931 and the U.S. in 1940 indicates that change did not happen overnight. A Canadian study examined the relationship between urban ownership levels and family incomes for men employed in twenty of the most common working-class and middle-class occupations in 1931. Not surprisingly, the families of men in higher-income occupations were more likely to own their own homes, but the correlation was far from perfect. Moreover, there was a systematic class difference. Those in white-collar occupations, notably accountants, professional engineers, and salesmen, had ownership rates that were lower than one would expect, given their income. Those in bluecollar occupations, including policemen, tailors, carpenters, and printers, were more likely to own homes that their income would suggest.44 Relatively low ownership levels among white-collar workers was also apparent for the urban United States in 1940. The U.S. data show ownership rates for income categories within each occupation group, making it possible, for example, to compare ownership rates for professionals and semiskilled workers with the same incomes. Within the $1,500–$1,999

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family income range, which straddled the average, ownership rates were higher among those in blue-collar occupation groups, whether skilled (36 percent), semiskilled (28 percent), or unskilled (31 percent), than among most white-collar groups, including professionals (21 percent) and clerical workers (25 percent). Income is not the only factor that influences whether a family can afford to buy, but it is important. If large groups of people with similar incomes differed in their ownership of property, we must infer that aspirations varied too. Evidently, class differences in ownership preferences did persist until at least World War II.45 Indeed, for a while, it was not clear in which direction attitudes were moving. The 1920s saw a surge in apartment building. Some contemporaries speculated that this revealed a shift in popular preferences away from the single-family dwelling, and home ownership too. This was an issue picked up by Richard Ely, the leading real estate economist of the day and director of the Institute for Economic Research, and also by NAREB. In the late 1920s, Ely’s institute sponsored research by Coleman Woodbury into recent building trends. Woodbury documented the apartment boom and, through interviews, explored attitudes towards home ownership. Writing in 1931, he claimed to have found that many people “still” wished to own their own home, implying that costs and building regulations stood in their way. That same year he and a coauthor found more cause for disquiet. “There is little special prestige attached to the ownership of a single-family home,” they declared. Instead, middle-class families were drawn to the better amenities of modern apartment buildings. Women found the housekeeping easier, while men could golf and spend time “motoring.” From their point of view, the trend in attitudes was flowing in the wrong direction. “In late years,” they suggest, “it has become doubtful if the ownership of a home is really the goal of as many people as it was in the past.” Instead, they endorse “the common opinion that the funds formerly set aside for the purchase of a house and lot are now absorbed by installment payments” on other goods, including cars and radios. Worse, this might be part of a larger, almost inevitable, trend. They cited the New York Times as authority for the claim that multifamily dwellings were “the final break with the rural tradition, the last step in urbanization.” The clincher appeared to be that, as another study funded by the institute found, apartments were spreading into suburbs like Evanston, Illinois.46 It is doubtful that most contemporaries would have followed this argument to its conclusion, but many did believe that the apartment boom expressed a new middle-class taste. Coleman Woodbury’s concerns, and perhaps some of the rhetoric of campaigns sponsored by NAREB and Hoover’s Commerce Department,

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were a defensive response to the apartment boom. But most home boosters believed the tide of history was running in their direction. Popular support for Better Homes in America suggests that they had good reason. This, at any rate, is the opinion of a number of historians. Marsh, for example, claims to have detected a “dramatic shift to a preference for home ownership” between the 1900s and the 1920s.47 Is it possible to reconcile such contradictory perceptions of the state of middle-class taste and, if so, how? Some reconciliation is possible. The most celebrated sociological study of the interwar years was Middletown, Robert and Helen Lynd’s comprehensive survey of Muncie, Indiana. The Lynds had much to say about housing, some of which is more revealing than they perhaps realized. Like Constance Perin in the 1970s, they found in 1920s Muncie “a deep-rooted sentiment . . . that homeownership is a mark of independence, of respectability.” But it is clear that, even if deep-seated, this was new. Elsewhere, they contrast the 1920s with the 1890s. In the earlier decade, they observe, “building houses to rent was a regular and lucrative type of investment,” but a generation later at least 90 percent of new single-family dwellings were being built for owneroccupancy. This is close to the figure that Lloyd Rodwin has estimated for 1920s Boston. Some of the rental properties built before World War I were for workers; most were occupied by the middle class who, like Americus Underdown, were content to rent. But then the demand for new rental houses collapsed, and so when Hazel Kyrk suggested why a family might wish to buy, her most telling comment was pure pragmatism. “In many communities,” she noted, “one must buy a house in order to secure play space for children, a good environment and a properly equipped dwelling.” In the 1920s suburbs, renting was not an option.48 Commentators like Coleman Woodbury had misinterpreted and overreacted. They were confused because two related things were changing, but on different schedules. First, a long-term shift towards the production of singlefamily homes was happening, but at first it was disguised by a temporary boom in apartment building. When this boom died with the onset of the Depression, the single-family dwelling trend asserted itself, quietly at first and then overwhelmingly after 1945. A second change happened more suddenly: from 1918, with local and minor exceptions, any new single-family dwelling was destined for owner-occupation, most probably by the middle class. Building workers’ homes was now unprofitable, while a new middleclass demand was firming up. Looking back, we can see that the middle-class preference for home ownership had solidified by 1945. Significantly, this year saw publication of the first tract against home ownership, which asked “Is it sound?” Writer

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John Dean probed the supposed advantages of home ownership in turn, and highlighted its downsides. Sometimes his tone was almost shrill, indicating that he was battling an emerging consensus that was becoming hegemonic. This was made explicit in Robert Lynd’s foreword. Lynd deplored the fact that impartial advice was now unavailable. Instead, when the potential home buyer asks “ought we to buy?” he “receives in the main only one answer from every side: ‘Sure! It’s the American way.” Lynd also points out that families now had little choice about whether, or what, to buy. He speaks of the “coercions” of a development industry that was producing a suburban monoculture. The potential lack of choice that had troubled Hazel Kyrk in 1931 had become a reality. The timing of Dean’s book, then, was telling. In 1918, many Americans needed to be persuaded to buy homes. By 1945, homes sold themselves.49

The New Stakes in Home Improvement By the early 1920s, the North American housing market was becoming recognizably modern. Hardly any housing was being built for the bottom third of the population, while the middle classes were busy committing themselves to home ownership. It was on this foundation that home improvement, as a social practice and as an industry, built itself. From the beginning, improvement created a dilemma: it sounded like a good idea, but it slowed the rate at which housing filtered down to the poor. A few observers saw the dilemma. For example, as the Depression was beginning to bite, Blanche Halbert acknowledged that “with costs as they now are families of low-income groups must necessarily live in the cast-off houses of families with more money.”50 But she could not approve the idea that middle-class households should let their homes deteriorate, and then move on, for this contradicted her view that owners should care for their homes, and indeed work to improve them. For Halbert, as for the growing middle class, when home ownership became a social norm so did home improvement. The direct evidence on home improvement trends after 1918 is inconclusive. Charles White and Herbert Hoover assumed that home owners maintained their properties better than landlords, and they were surely correct. Owners have reason to care more about their homes, and gardens too. Gries and Ford reported research that showed home owners maintained their gardens better. Although some believed otherwise, this had little to do with race or ethnicity. In 1927 a survey of African-Americans in Richmond, Virginia, found that 69 percent of home owners but only 21 percent of tenants had “well-kept flowers and shrubbery.”51 When ownership rates rose, as they

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did during the 1920s, we might expect that expenditures on improvements would increase in tandem. There were the financial, moral, and psychological considerations to which Hazel Kyrk referred, including the desire to shape one’s living space. But, as newer subdivisions came to consist largely of home owners, peer pressure also played a part. As a consensus emerged about home ownership, norms of maintenance and improvement also rose.52 The probable upward trend in improvement cannot be demonstrated, however, with the available statistics, which are based on building permits, household expenditures, and/or income data. Many improvements were undertaken by owners themselves and were unrecorded; where tradesmen were employed, payments were often made under the table; either way, especially with interior work, jobs were completed without benefit of building inspector. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics commented in 1922, even where permits were required, “considerable building is done without permits because of laxity in inspection and in permit enforcement.” In some cities, in many lower-income suburbs, and throughout unincorporated areas, permits for improvement were not required. And so the available annual data on “additions, alterations and repairs” understate their significance. In the 1950s, studies in the United States and Canada indicated that available data underreported actual improvement expenditures by a factor of up to three.53 Who knows whether exactly the same ratio applied in earlier years. Regardless, when, as in 1921, permit data suggested that repairs and improvements accounted for 23 percent of residential construction, we may safely conclude that the real figure was a good deal higher. Fortunately, even imperfect data show annual fluctuations that carry meaning. The level in 1921 was a temporary high, coinciding with a dip in new construction. This improvement business still attracted only temporary interest from the trade. As the American Lumberman commented, remodeling jobs were a “fiddling” business that many contractors and dealers welcomed only when business was slack. The share of repairs and improvements declined during the construction boom of the 1920s, bottoming at 9 percent in 1925, but then reviving to reach 20 percent by 1929 (figure 4). A slightly later inflection point was apparent in Canada. It is hard to read anything into these fluctuations, except that they mirrored fluctuations in new construction. They do not reveal any obvious trend in home improvement.54

Do-It-Yourself And yet, other sources suggest that something was happening. The available statistics overlook the modest repairs that owners were most likely to

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4. The trend in home improvement in the United States, 1921–43. The available data consistently underestimate the magnitude of improvement expenditures, but usefully reveal trends. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1936), table 830.

do themselves. This matters because women and men were showing some interest in what we would now call do-it-yourself (DIY). This slippery term, which refers to a type of activity, a particular context, and a mix of purposes, has been central to the growth of home improvement in the twentieth century. Clearly, it involves household members doing work that they could otherwise purchase as a service. “Could” is the key word. Settlers on the western plains built, decorated, and maintained their own homes but we would not normally say they engaged in DIY: they had no choice. The same was arguably true for immigrants who built and repaired their own homes in unplanned suburbs. At the suburban frontier, tradesmen were available, but immigrants could not afford to employ them. In practice, the market alternative did not exist, though barter and cooperation might substitute. Doing things for oneself was the norm; no special term was required. The idea of DIY and, with it, the term, emerged after 1900, when urban North Americans began to tackle improvements by themselves instead of hiring tradesmen. That is why Steven Gelber, one of the two writers to explore the history of do-it-yourself, argues that it should be understood as “neo pre-industrial” rather than traditional. The first usage of the term that he found was in an article on home decoration in Suburban Life in 1912. Author Garrett Winslow recommended “do-it-yourself’,” adding “and so wallpaper is out of the question.” Clearly, the practice was still rare and limited, and the term itself did not catch on. Instead, doing one’s own home improvements was referred to in various other ways in consumer publications. Noting the tradition of home crafts in which women, especially, took pride,

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Gelber notes how they were given a practical cast by Gustav Stickley when he founded The Craftsman in 1901. Carolyn Goldstein has also pointed to the founding of new magazines, notably House Beautiful (1896) and House and Garden (1901), though these emphasized taste over tasks, as did Hooper’s book, Reclaiming the Old House (1913). More practical were Popular Science and Popular Mechanics, founded in 1903, which soon reoriented themselves away from engineering reviews and offered advice to amateurs. Gelber suggests that after 1918 there was a “dramatic” increase in DIY literature. The date is about right. In 1000 Shorter Ways around the House (1916), Mae Croy gave women tips on, among other things, house design and decoration, but only one passing suggestion implied that householders might do things for themselves. (For screens, use thinned paint.) In 1917, John McMahon included a chapter for amateurs on home remodeling in his book on suburban owner-building, while Archie Collins produced The Home Handy Book, a compendium of useful home-maintenance tasks.55 McMahon and Collins were slightly ahead of the curve: it was not until the early 1920s that a significant number of authors and publishers perceived a growing market for improvement manuals. A pioneer work was Allen Churchill and Leonard Wickenden’s The House Owner’s Book. Published and reprinted in 1922, and reprinted again in 1923, it clearly met a need, catering to a new interest that, according to its authors, had been “greatly stimulated” by recent OYOH campaigns. It offered advice on building or buying a home, and also on “how to keep your house in repair.” The authors spoke to those who wished to save money, but also the man who “prefers to run his own house, to tinker about . . . in short to be a real house owner.” The use of “real” is telling in an implied moral judgment that is elsewhere made explicit. The home owner, Churchill and Wickenden claim, is a “member of a neighborhood or community,” as opposed to being a mere “floater.” And the home should be a source of pride, “a hobby.” There is the suggestion from these authors that owning wasn’t quite enough: being handy made the man. As yet, however, this expectation was generally muted.56 The success of The House-Owner’s Book invited competition. In 1923 Amelia Hill brought out Redeeming Old Houses, a specialized work dealing with second homes for families of “moderate means.” Assuming that the “country householder will . . . do much for himself,” she offered tips about tools. The following year brought Lescarboura’s Home Owner’s Handbook, already published serially in Scientific American, and Saylor’s Tinkering with Tools, the first chapter of which was actually entitled ‘Do It Yourself.’ These were followed by Fraser’s Practical Book of Home Repairs (1925); Your House, Mc-

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Mahon’s new offering which assembled pieces already published in Country Life and Popular Science; Wakeling’s Fix it Yourself (1929), most of which had already appeared in Popular Science; Dorothy and Julian Olney’s Home Owner’s Manual (1930); Phelan’s The Care and Repair of the House (1931); Halbert’s Better Homes Manual (1931), and, the most modern-sounding of all, Schaefer’s Handy Man’s Handbook (1931). And so by 1931, in their own guide, John Gries and James Taylor could report that there were “numerous household manuals” on the bookstands.57 None of the household manuals of the 1920s encouraged home owners to be ambitious. Churchill and Wickenden set the tone: “There is no intention of driving the builder, carpenter, plumber or painter out of business,” they insisted, for “the house owner will learn quickly the limit of his capacity.” Phelan distinguished between jobs that “require special knowledge and skills”—which included electrical work—and those that “can be performed by the householder who is handy with tools” and so could effect some repairs and “minor improvements.” The Olneys were blunter: “There is a naturally a limit beyond which the home-owner should not attempt to go in making adjustments and repairs.” Making cupboards and occasional repairs to the plumbing were OK, but not “structural changes.” These authors followed Hazel Kyrk in assuming that their readers’ main concern would be to save money or, perhaps, to handle an emergency. The Olneys comment that “much money can be saved,” while a plumbing job might be “thrust upon us occasionally by dire necessity.” At the same time, however, and again like Kyrk, they concede that necessity did not drive everything. They speak of the “fine sense of satisfaction” and even the “accompanying joy” of work on the home. Collins, as well as Churchill and Wickenden, refer to the “pride” of the owner-hobbyist. Saylor, too, introduced Tinkering with Tools by deploring specialization and by praising the “work hobby.” This helps to explain the paradox, noted by Gelber, that although DIY “produced outcomes with real economic value,” it “might actually cost more in time and money than the product was worth.” Tinkerers and handymen had options; they were middle class; they wanted to save money, certainly, but they were also driven by social and psychological goals. For them, DIY was not just a necessity but a nascent cultural norm.58 The most obvious aspect of DIY—that it involves work on the home—is also the most revealing. It is generally seen as men’s work, although even in the 1920s the stereotyping was incomplete. Writing during the war, when many men were away from home, Collins was careful to make no assumption about whether a “he or she” would be fixing the faucet, replacing the broken window, or wallpapering the living room. After 1918, such neutral-

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ity was more typical of female authors. In their Manual of Home Making (1919), Martha van Rensselar and her coauthors advised women to keep a “repair kit” that included hammer and nails, screwdriver and screws. The woman was responsible for acquiring such a kit and, possibly, for using it. In 1923, Amelia Hill assumed that in the family’s second home, left with the children while her husband worked in the city, the wife was likely to be responsible for repairs. Chelsea Fraser would have viewed this with equanimity. In his Practical Book (1925), he claimed that twelve years teaching public school had convinced him that girls and boys were “equally” capable of learning the skills of home repairs, though he allowed that boys were better at heavy work. Not surprisingly, then, in 1931 Gries and Ford observed that woodwork could be refinished “by the house owner himself or some member of his family,” by which they might have meant a son or spouse, though probably not a daughter. Even so, as Gelber comments, the idea of women working on the home was still a “novelty.” Fraser may have supposed that girls could learn the same skills as boys, but a frontispiece shows “father and son painting own home in their leisure hours.” The fixup manuals were for handymen. As the Olneys put it: it was up to “the man of the house” to take “proper care of the home” through “a knowledge of the physical make-up of his abode,” and of how to maintain it.59 The available evidence confirms a clear gender division of labor. In 1900, for example, Miriam Andrews of Hudson, Wisconsin, picked out some new wallpaper that her husband, James, then put up while she went away to stay with her daughter. Reporting this, Joan Seidl comments, “Miriam’s overriding desire was to see the wallpaper up, not necessarily to hang it herself.” A generation later, a national survey of 331 households of professionals and managers painted a fuller picture. It found that in 1927, men did indeed “help” around the home. At a time when most households relied on coal for domestic heating, most men (72 percent) fired the furnace or stove. That apart, their most common domestic commitment was that of repairing and maintaining the home (31 percent), while 10 percent repaired household equipment. Men did participate in some “domestic” work: caring for children (15 percent), and preparing meals (9 percent), but their house cleaning was confined to the basement or garage, stereotypically male spaces. Women worked in the home, while men worked on it.60 Except for domestic servants, the women who worked at home were unwaged while most of the men who worked on the house—that is, building tradesmen—worked for pay. In middle-class households, a growing shortage of servants meant that women did more of their own chores. Ruth Cowan refers to this as the rise of women’s do-it-yourself. This usage is rea-

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sonable, since a market alternative existed, but was anachronistic: to this day, DIY refers to work done on the home, and usually by men. This is telling. Even in middle-class households, the idea that the woman might do housework was no novelty. But the emerging interest of men in home repairs and improvement called for recognition. And so the accepted social meaning of do-it-yourself speaks not only of a gender division of labor but also the novelty of men’s engagement with the home.61 Part of the domestication of men involved their taking on domestic activities, such as gardening, that had previously been viewed as women’s preserve. Margaret Marsh argues that such “domestic masculinity” emerged in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Gelber speaks of a second aspect as “masculine domesticity.” It saw men doing work on the home that was stereotyped as male but which husbands now did for their own families instead of hiring another man for pay. Clearly, these aspects were related. Both meant that middle-class men were taking more responsibility for the running of the home. Significantly, although nineteenth- and early twentieth-century manuals on household management had been addressed to women, by 1932 Mildred Wood and her coauthors could claim that “the patriarchal family is passing.” Instead, they spoke of “joint responsibilities.” But if there was some loosening of gender roles, it was largely confined to the middle class, while the rise of masculine domesticity had a distinctive identity. It emerged later because, uniquely, it depended on the new norm of home ownership that had emerged after 1918.62 Like home ownership, amateur improvements were encouraged by the federal government in the campaigns of the 1920s. Beginning in 1924, Better Homes in America offered an annual prize for the best model home erected by a local committee. The first prizewinner was Kalamazoo, whose modest dwelling made space for a “small workshop in the basement” for the man of the house. By the late 1920s, “home-improvements contests” were being conducted by “the majority of Better Homes committees,” while the “care and repair of homes” was a leading concern among those who wrote in for guidance.63 Phelan’s manual, as well as Gries and Ford’s, catered to this interest and tried to shape it; both were published as part of the President’s Conference of 1930–1931. By the end of the 1920s, parts of the federal government had concluded that home improvement was important not only in practical terms but also for the way it drew middle-class men into the ideology of home ownership. In the 1930s, it would act on that realization. Meanwhile, the key question was whether the building industry was able and willing to handle the new middle-class consumer. The answer was

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mixed. During the 1920s, a new type of land developer emerged in most major urban centers. These effectively catered to a new type of middle-class buyer by producing efficiently designed homes in master-planned suburbs. By the end of the decade, they had formed a powerful national organization, the National Association of Real Estate Boards. But locally as well as nationally, the building industry took much longer to cater to the demand for home improvement. Retailers, and above all the local lumber dealer, had to play a central role. For many years, however, they were slow to innovate, being tightly embedded—many would have said mired—in the embrace of the lumber trade. To understand how an improvement industry eventually emerged, we need to know how building materials and services were provided in the early twentieth century. That pattern of provision determined whether and how the building industry would respond to the new consumer demand.

THREE

An Industry Unready to Improve

The first crop of improvement manuals offered useful tips about how to maintain and repair homes. But where could home owners go to get more specific advice about colors, designs, and materials? And for the growing number of men and women who were willing to do some of the work themselves, where could they buy those materials, along with the tools to install them? Today, the answer is obvious: a home improvement store, such as Home Depot or Lowe’s. But in the 1920s, such consumer-friendly retailers did not exist. Consumer demand would eventually call them into existence, but the process was painful and protracted. In the 1920s, building suppliers came in two types, and two very different sizes: large manufacturers and small retailers. Neither thought much about the final consumer. The manufacturers were diverse. They ranged from producers of paint, cement, wire, pipe, hardboard, hardware, sanitary ware, asphalt, and asbestos roof shingles for a continental market; through regional manufacturers of lumber and bricks; to the backwoods lumber mill that supplied the local town. Many sectors were dominated by large companies, including Crane and Kohler (bathroom fittings), Sherwin-Williams (paint), American Radiator (heating), United States Gypsum (plaster board), Celotex, Beaver Manufacturing, the Mason Fibre Company (fiber board), and Johns-Manville (shingles and insulation). In principle, like manufacturers of other consumer goods from soup to soap, these were beginning to reach out to the consumer by branding and advertising their goods. Lumber producers—regionally fragmented, disparate in size, and varied in the character and dimensions of their product—were the major exception. The exceptional status of the lumber trade mattered because local lumber dealers dominated the sale of building supplies. Some materials, notably cement and bricks, were sold direct-to-user, but most were distributed

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through local retailers that specialized in paint and wallpaper, plumbing and electrical, lumber, hardware, and so forth. Tradesmen, who themselves were specialized, found this convenient enough, but consumers did not. Strike one. The most important retailer was the local lumberyard. Lumber was the most important building material, and dealers provided construction finance, a necessity for professionals and amateurs alike. But lumber dealers were not accustomed to consumer sales. They were located away from the main shopping areas, in less salubrious parts of town. Their displays were shabby and ill-lit, their staff rough-and-ready. None of this sat well with consumers, especially middle-class women, who were accustomed to attractive displays and attentive staff. Strike two. It was not even clear that dealers wanted to sell to consumers, who made work. Tradesmen knew the materials and tools of their work; consumers needed educating, and that took time. There was also the thorny matter of credit. Dealers might accommodate two dozen contractor customers whom they knew and trusted; hundreds of anonymous consumers were another matter. Their first instinct was to shun the consumer trade. Strike three and, it might seem, out. In the end, large segments of the lumber trade did change their thinking, but the force of inertia was strong.

The New Manufacturers Among building suppliers, the first companies to seek out consumers were those that brought new products to market. Many familiar products were first marketed on a large scale in the early twentieth century. These include concrete blocks, asphalt shingles, hardboard, gypsum board, and linoleum. With blocks, the key innovation was a hollow product that could be sawed. Patented in 1900, the method was adopted by small startups across the country: 1,500 by 1905. They fueled a fad for molded “rockface” blocks, used for basements, which Murtagh’s home manual described as “the latest triumph in the world of building.” F. J. Straub, however, developed a cheaper and lighter version made with cinders, and in 1917 received a patent on the grounds that this block could hold nails, which encouraged its use for partition walls. A possible competitor to concrete seemed to be gypsum: in 1903, U.S. Gypsum began making blocks for partition walls. Cinder blocks were more durable, however, and soon gypsum was redirected for “gyprock” drywall, a wallboard patented in 1894. Once U.S. Gypsum began marketing Sheetrock in 1917, it began to displace wood or metal lath for plaster backing. During the 1920s, the company introduced versions for different purposes. Asphalt shingling was another innovation. It was developed in

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the nineteenth century, when it was sold in rolls, but it took off after 1903, when companies imitated the wood by making individual shingles, or strips of three. Another product that became widespread only in the twentieth century was linoleum, used for floors. In the 1870s the cheapest linoleum cost about $1 per square yard; by 1886 its cost had been reduced by about a third, and by 1911 even the best hard-wearing type cost only 55 cents. Another cluster of innovations saw the introduction of fiberboard and then hardboard made from combinations of wood fiber, chips, and glue. Early fiberboards were lightweight and used for insulation, or for projects such as cottages and sheds where cheap materials served. The most significant of these was Beaver Board, invented in 1903 and produced by Beaver Manufacturing from 1906, together with its imitator Upson Board. Much tougher was Masonite, developed commercially by the Mason Fibre Company (later Masonite) from 1926. Harder than wood, it was later used by the military. During the 1920s and 1930s, Masonite and its competitors, notably Celotex and Homasote, developed boards with different properties and uses. Eventually, plywood became a factor too, though only after an effective glue was developed in 1934. Except for plywood, these products used scraps, shavings, and dust that would otherwise have been wasted. For the few mills that supplied waste material, they were a small boon. But for most mills the new products represented competition: by 1920 they had displaced about 4 percent of the demand for lumber.1 Some new materials became popular because they had a patina of modernity. Linoleum and metal ceilings were trendy for a while. But most products proved profitable because they were either cheaper than traditional materials, easier to work, or both. Pamela Simpson puts it pithily: they were “cheap, quick, and easy.” Light concrete blocks were easier to lay than bricks. Amateurs could use, and even make, them. In 1906, in rural west Texas, Kate and Carroll Purvine built themselves a two-story house from concrete blocks, having made the blocks themselves using a 12⬙ × 18⬙ mold with beveled edges to simulate ashlar. Gyp rock had many advantages over lath and plaster. Plastering involved the combination of sand, “cattle hair in lumps broken up and mixed with the lime, putty and sand.” The lime and putty had to be “slacked, screened, covered and protected from the air with sand, and left to mature for . . . two weeks.” The hair had to be “well soaked, beaten up and worked wet.” By the 1920s, some manufacturers packaged a dry mix in barrels or bags, but fiber- or gypsum board was quicker and cheaper, required less skill, and could be installed at almost any time of year. When an Alberta contractor sued an incompetent plasterer in 1903, he billed him for replacement lime, lath, and hair and also for the

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(nontrivial) costs of the heating the house so that walls could be replastered in the winter. For contractors, the cheapness of these materials lay as much in the savings of time and skilled labor as in the cost of the materials. They were easy to use. This, more than anything else, made the new materials appealing to amateurs.2 At first, the amateur market was too small and untested to justify the development of products specifically for it. One or two manufacturers of tools made a gesture in that direction. Delta brought out an American Boy Scroll Saw, to go with their American Girl Sewing Machine. Black and Decker, an upstart company founded in 1910, introduced a portable handheld drill in 1916, possibly with handymen in mind.3 Nothing comparably innovative was attempted by manufacturers of building materials, but they did realize that their existing products might appeal to the home handyman. Some manufacturers went after consumers quite aggressively. An example was Beaver Manufacturing. Its sole product was Beaver Board, which consisted of an inner layer of ground wood and an outer layer of cooked wood, bound by silicate of soda. The board was marketed as a substitute for lath, though it also served as insulation. It had been invented in 1903 in Beaver Falls, N.Y. After establishing factories in Buffalo, Ottawa (Ontario), and Roanoke Rapids (North Carolina), the company shifted its main production facility to Thorold (Ontario), where it had ready access to “hundreds of square miles of primeval forests . . . in Northern Ontario.” Commercial production began in 1906, and grew rapidly. The board was cheaper to use than plaster because it required less, and much less skilled, on-site labor. Indeed, it was easily installed by amateurs, a fact that the company promoted. In 1920, a company booklet pointed out that installation instructions were printed on the back of every panel. It also offered tips: “be sure to have headers (odd pieces of lumber, 2 × 2 or 2 × 4) inserted between the studding and joists,” it advised, “to provide a nailing surface for all panel edges.” “Use three penny finishing nails, fifteen inches apart, for center nailing,” it added, “and three penny common flat head wire nails, six inches apart for panel edges,” with all nails “slightly countersunk.” Readers who wanted more advice were invited to send for The Application and Decoration of Beaver Board. Clearly, this marketing was directed at the amateur handyman.4 Other companies also began to reach out to consumers using the methods pioneered by manufacturers of other consumer goods. They branded their products: Sheetrock, Rock Lath, Beaver Board, Tempered Presdwood (a water-resistant hardboard, introduced by Masonite in 1931), and Cemesto (a fire-resistant board promoted by Celotex from 1937). Branding influenced builders. An example was Gerald Healey, a speculative builder who

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addressed the homebuilders section of NAREB in 1925. Speaking about how he used a model home to make sales, he explained that he incorporated branded products to help make the sale: a Miracle door, Kohler plumbing, Celotex insulation, Flat Wash windows (that tilted for easy cleaning), and a Gabriel-patented burglar-proof coal chute. He included manufacturers’ pamphlets in the folder that he gave potential buyers, and developed his own branding strategy by putting his company’s “Pridemark” brass plate on the back edge of each front door, “just as the Fisher Bros. attach their little sign on each [car] body.”5 Manufacturers began to advertise brands in national magazines, though not as vigorously as the manufacturers of established consumer goods. For marketing purposes, there is a difference between those manufacturers who sell to industry and those who sell to the consumer. In the mid-1930s the former spent much less on advertising: 0.5–4.0 percent of net sales, as opposed to 1.3–3.4 percent for companies in consumer goods. Building materials, which were marketed to both contractors and consumers, fell in between, ranging 1.5–5.0 of net sales. But the trend was upwards. In the 1910s, the Armstrong company, the leading producer of linoleum, revolutionized its marketing. Starting in 1917, its trade advertising was supplemented with the use of consumer magazines, including the Saturday Evening Post, McCalls, Ladies Home Journal, and Marie Meloney’s Delineator. Pushed by Henning Prentis, an employee who had a bee in his bonnet, it coordinated this advertising with its dealers. Prentis developed pamphlets and booklets for retailers, advising them how to advertise, and began a series called “Told in the Store” on effective sales techniques.6 The new manufacturers soon realized they needed to cooperate. In the 1910s, they began to form industry associations: one for prepared roofing manufacturers, for example, in 1911, and another for concrete block manufacturers in 1919. In the 1920s, encouraged by the National Bureau of Standards, these associations pushed for standardization. The Bureau estimated that blocks were being produced in thirty different lengths, twenty widths, and twenty-six heights. By 1927 the major associations had agreed on a single format, with four widths, which made up 95 percent of its members’ production. The norm was now 8⬙ × 8⬙ × 16⬙. Standardization helped consumers, since it reduced construction costs, and amateurs in particular, who had been bemused by variety. Trade associations also helped members get their message across. The Periodicals Publishers’ Association noted the growth of cooperative advertising. In 1928, it identified fifty-four trade associations that had engaged in promotional activity, showing that manufacturers were becoming more “market minded.” Thirty of the fifty-four

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produced building supplies, and several of the most effective advertising campaigns, including those of tile and brick manufacturers, had been in this sector. Pride of place was the “Save the Surface and You Save All” campaign of the American Paint and Varnish Manufacturers Association, which won awards and doubled sales within four years. Some manufacturers, including most of those that made innovative building products, were attuned to the emerging market for home improvement and do-it-yourself.7 The same was not true, however, for the manufacturers of conventional building materials, notably lumber.

Mills and the Lumber Trade In the early twentieth century, lumber marketing was notoriously “ineffective,” as Nelson Brown commented in an early text. Lumber came in dozens of species, sizes, and grades, none of which were clearly marked or welladvertised. Consumers were confused. Addressing home owners in 1922, Churchill and Wickenden commented that “it is an unfortunate fact that wood, which always has been, and probably always will be, the most commonly used structural material, is the one regarding which exact knowledge is the most difficult to obtain.” Retailers and wholesalers could take some blame, but the problem started with the product itself, and its manufacture.8 Lumber was, and is, the least standardized of any building material. It is varied in type, quality, dimensions, and the purposes to which it could be put. In the mid-twentieth century, about 1,180 species of wood were grown in the United States, 125 commercially. Structural timbers must be strong but, using the balloon-frame technology that prevailed by the early twentieth-century, soft enough to take nails without splitting; for doors and sash, the need is for a surface clear of blemishes; cabinetry favors fancy grain; sheathing can have defects; siding must absorb paint and preservatives; for floors, quarter-sawn hardwoods wear best. Even this did not exhaust the range of needs. In the 1920s, a dealer handbook produced by the Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association (NRLA) tackled the matter systematically. It distinguished three types/purposes of lumber: “yard,” “structural,” and “factory/shop.” It subdivided yard lumber into “select” and “common,” the latter serving four purposes, “natural finish,” “painting,” “use without waste,” and “permitting waste,” which ranged in quality from “No. 3” through “No. 5.” To complicate matters, most purposes could be satisfied by any one of several types of wood. Structural needs could be met by various softwoods, including fir, pine, spruce, and hemlock. Attractive cabinets could be made from pine, cherry, oak, maple, red gum,

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yellow poplar, and other species. The handbook listed seventy-one species alphabetically, from “Alder, Red” to “Willow, Black.” Imports aside, there was in North America a type of wood for every need and taste. This was the great attraction of lumber, and also its greatest curse. Those who prepared the dealer handbook knew that many retailers were confused by the variety of species. How much more challenging was this variety for consumers, not least because it came with a proliferation of grades, dimensions, and prices.9 Consumers want to know what they are buying. A manufactured product comes with a standard level of quality, which a brand name communicates and guarantees. Lumber is different. The point was made by I. N. Tate when he spoke to the Yale School of Forestry in 1925. Founded in 1901, the Yale School was the first of its kind, and by the 1920s it sponsored an annual talk by an industry leader. In 1925 Tate, the assistant general manager for Weyerhaeuser Sales, stated the obvious by commenting that “we shall never find two boards alike, because nature abhors exact duplication.” His grasp of genetics was tenuous, but he knew cut lumber, which varies with the size and location of the tree and which part of the tree a board is from, not to mention how it is cut, stored, and transported.10 The obvious solution was grading. The first agents to grade and sort lumber were wholesalers, and they gave a regional stamp to early grading systems. In his regard, William Cronon notes the significance of Chicago wholesalers in the 1870s and 1880s. Manufacturers of hardwoods, especially, resisted. An early convention tried to oust one member who had “disclosed some of the secrets of grading to one of his customers.” Eventually, the perceived need for grading led manufacturers to form associations in the 1880s and 1890s, but these organizations rarely agreed. In 1923, Charles Perrin, chairman of the Inspection Rules Committee of the National Hardwood Lumber Association, ruefully described a spat about whether grading should consider the better or the poorer side of the board. Jonathan Swift would have had a field day. Grading was, and is, based on the incidence and character of blemishes, most obviously knots, but knots differ in shape, size, and significance. The NRLA’s handbook contained a cornucopia of possibilities, varying by size (pin, small, medium, large), form (round, spike), quality (sound, unsound, decayed, tight, intergrown, water-tight, encased, “not firm,” loose, pith, hollow), and manner of occurrence (single, cluster, branch), which in combination defined limitless possibilities. And that was just the beginning. As Nelson Brown enumerated, other blemishes included, in alphabetical order, checks (lengthwise separation), decay due to fungi, pockets, stain, warp, and worm holes. Since blemishes vary infinitely, grading is an imperfect art. The point was made very effectively by Fred Lud-

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wig, general manager of the Merritt Lumber Yards of Reading, Pennsylvania. By the mid-1920s Ludwig had made his name as a spokesman for retailers, and in this capacity he gave the Yale talk in 1927. Commenting that grading was a mystery to consumers, and “even some retailers,” he added that it was “so technical that two licensed inspectors rarely inspect the same car of lumber with the same result.”11 If informed and dispassionate observers could disagree about the quality of a shipment of lumber, the scope for disputes between interested parties was limitless. Ovid Butler argued for a “give-and-take understanding between the buyer and seller.” This usually worked for manufacturers and retailers, who agreed to accept shipments with a maximum proportion of the lumber—commonly 5 percent—that was “off grade.” Since some mills were more scrupulous than others, smart dealers adjusted the 5 percent rule according to their supplier. They knew that canny mills subjected lumber to “over-severe kiln drying,” which reduced the weight and cost of shipments but promoted splits. Some flexibility made sense anyway, since deterioration could occur in transit, whether through drying and warping, clumsy handling, or temporary storage in the open. It became common for several inspections to be made: after sawing, when still green; after seasoning and before shipment; and upon arrival. Flexibility did not eliminate disputes, not least because there was a “pernicious” practice of deliberately bending the terms of contracts, but it did address the grading issue. Even more informal arrangements were made for some retail customers. Contractors had a rough idea of grades for the lumber they commonly bought. They developed a regular, almost symbiotic relationship, with their preferred retail supplier, bringing them business and relying on credit. Trust, and mutual dependency, encouraged dealers to treat contractors fairly. But the same was not true of consumers, who were anonymous and ignorant about grades. They had to take the word of an unfamiliar dealer or, disputing it, found themselves at a disadvantage. This situation discouraged their trust, as well as their custom.12 The obvious solution was for licensed inspectors to “grade mark” each piece of lumber at the end or side, where it would not show when installed (figure 5). The Department of Commerce liked this idea, and in the 1920s sponsored a National Committee on Wood Utilization to promote it. On the cover of a committee publication in 1928, Hoover declared that “the grade marking of lumber is an excellent idea . . . it is a big step toward better merchandising and will directly benefit the manufacturer, middleman, and consumer.” Consumers and middlemen were easily convinced, but manufacturers were another matter. They resisted grade marking, sometimes be-

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5. Failing to reach out to the consumer. Grade marking by lumber manufacturers was an early attempt at branding, but consumers found the proliferation of grades, species, and producers to be an endless source of confusion. Source: Nelson C. Brown, Lumber: Manufacture, Conditioning, Grading, Distribution, and Use (New York: Wiley, 1947).

cause it prevented them from scamping, sometimes because they did not trust inspectors, and in general because the whole issue was fraught. Encouraged by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA), some larger companies adopted the practice in 1916, but progress was slow and caused resentment from retailers. Prior to the 1927 convention season for the dealer associations, which ran from January through April, the American Lumberman distributed a questionnaire to retail dealers, asking what topics they wished to have discussed. No topic “aroused more interest” than that of grade marking. Dealers reported that they favored the practice, since customers liked it. Still, manufacturers dragged their heels. A decade later, a report for the National Recovery Administration found that grade marking was being done only “in some instances,” despite recent “agitation.” Manufacturers were frustratingly slow to make lumber consumer friendly.13 In some ways, the situation was actually getting worse in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The available variety of types and sizes of lumber increased. Previously, mills had cut first-growth timber whose

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species, because of topography, soil, and climate, varied by region. In the southern states, structural needs were served by yellow pine; on the west coast by Douglas fir; in the northern and northeastern states, as well as in Canada, by white pine and sometimes spruce. The growth of transcontinental railways, the settlement of prairie and the arid interior with little indigenous timber, and the depletion of aboriginal forests meant that by 1900 lumber was being shipped ever further. In the wide region served by Chicago wholesalers in the 1870s, for example, yellow pine brought from the southern states through Kansas City began to make major inroads in the 1880s, and production of white pine soon waned. Even so, as late as 1905, 91 percent of the softwood lumber sold in Minnesota towns, for example, came from the Great Lake states or Canada. But the increasing availability of long-haul freight rates favored the railroad: in 1880, 90 percent of the lumber shipped to Chicago came by water; by 1900 the railroad’s share approached two-thirds. This gave a major fillip to the market for hardwoods such as oak and maple that would not float. Then the opening of the Panama Canal in 1914 made available a wider variety of woods in all regions. In particular, Douglas fir shipped through the canal made inroads in midwestern, eastern, and southeastern markets. By 1920, 50 million board feet of it was being carried to Atlantic ports via the canal; the quantity quadrupled within a year, and reached 1 billion board feet by 1923. The impact in the midwest came sooner. In 1918, a huge survey was undertaken of 2,500 yards throughout the midwestern states. The report, written by Ovid Butler, assistant director of the Forest Products Laboratory, noted “radical changes” in business conditions, the most significant being the increasing variety of species and grades that dealers carried. By 1921, amazingly, 92 percent of the softwood sold in Minnesota towns came from the Pacific coast. In this region, one of the companies leading the wider diffusion of western species was Thompson Yards. Based in Minneapolis, during the 1910s Thompson grew rapidly as a ‘line-yard’ operation, or retail chain that, by 1920, operated 193 dealerships. Its marketing slogan was “Any species, any grade, any size, any place, any time.” Thompson was not typical, but its pattern of buying typified the trend. By 1935, an authoritative report declared that “a retail dealer in any city purchases his materials from practically every state in the Union.”14 The intermixing of species made the grading problem much worse, with the result that the “consumer’s confidence in lumber has been shaken.” Every species was graded differently. In part this reflected real, if small, differences. Within the Southern Pine Association, for example, producers of long leaf pine believed their product was superior to short leaf, and re-

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sisted a standard system of grading and grade marking. But most differences in grading were a legacy of the “local customs and practices” that had been formalized by regional associations in the late nineteenth century. It was the rapid expansion of the trade in western fir that caused the greatest problem. As early as 1914 the point was dramatized by an anecdote recounted by the Mississippi Valley Lumberman, the leading regional journal for manufacturers and dealers. Local retailers were facing competition from mail-order companies, and the trade press carried suggestions about how to respond. The MVL reported that one retailer had received an inquiry from the customer of a mail-order concern who was dissatisfied with the quality of the “No. 2 common fir shiplap” that he had received by rail. The buyer asked whether the dealer might trade this for something better, for a price. But the dealer was flummoxed, being “unfamiliar with the west coast grades.” There followed a detailed account of the differences between no. 1 and no. 2 common fir shiplap, and between the latter and the no. 2 northern pine shiplap with which the midwestern dealers were familiar. To complicate the matter, the MVL continued, some west coast mills were more conscientious than others about shipping lumber that fell towards the upper quality range within each grade.15 Dimensions were just as large a problem. Nominally, a board foot meant the same everywhere: a square foot of lumber one inch thick. But actual dimensions never corresponded precisely to those advertised. A two-byfour, a mainstay, was never, in fact, 2⬙ × 4⬙. This discovery would surely be disconcerting to any amateur, raising questions about the honesty of his retailer, and the transparency of the lumber trade. Worse, every regional association—and sometimes every mill—had its own preferred dimensions. Brown notes that in early years “there was a total lack of uniformity in the sizes of lumber.” Again, the problem grew as species became more widely available, and the distribution of fir produced dissension between the two main regional bodies, the Southern Pine Association (SPA) and the West Coast Lumbermen’s Association (WCLA). During the 1920s, Hoover’s Department of Commerce encouraged the groups to agree on the thickness of “one-inch” lumber. The SPA pressed for 13/16⬙, its own standard, while west coast producers argued for an exiguous 12/16⬙. Such disputes further disconcerted the consumer, frustrated the dealer, and fostered dissension among manufacturers, undermining their ability to respond to the challenge posed by the producers of new materials.16 Worst of all, manufacturers paid little heed to the sizes and lengths that home improvers, as opposed to builders, might need. It was easier to cut, ship, store, and deliver lumber in 12⬘ or 16⬘ lengths. Builders and carpenters

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were accustomed to this practice, cutting and trimming as needed. Such lengths were less convenient for smaller improvement jobs, especially for amateurs who bought in small quantities and who arranged their own transportation home. Beginning in about 1914, department stores started to sell short lengths, and some mills were willing to produce them. In 1918, however, Butler reported that this “movement . . . has really only begun.” A decade later, little progress had been made. In 1927, the Southern Pine Association heard W. M. Nichols, president of the Alabama-West Florida Mill Managers’ Association, claim that “our future depends on our shipping lumber cut to size.” Nichols suggested that if “short” sounded like “scraps,” then manufacturers should use the term “fabricated lumber.” The cut-to-size idea was formally endorsed, but action was slow to materialize. At the end of the 1920s, dealers were still frustrated by the mills’ reluctance to respond to consumer demand.17

How Not to Market If lumber manufacturers were slow to meet the needs of a small but growing consumer market, they were even slower in trying to shape it. Writing in 1923, Brown claimed that his business had been “the last big American industry to adopt advertising.” Manufacturers continued to dither about marketing well into the 1920s, Weyerhaeuser’s experience being revealing. Formed by the merger of several west-coast concerns, by the 1910s Weyerhaeuser was one of the largest lumber companies on the continent, and one of the most progressive in its marketing. But it was riven by dissension on the issue. Its first president, F. E. Weyerhaeuser (1900–1914), favored a separate sales company, hoping to increase sales by coordinating the disparate milling operations. In 1918 George Lindsay, head of sales, toured mills in an effort to sell the idea of grading and grade marking, but he met with strong resistance from local managers. In 1919, he persuaded stockholders to support an advertising campaign that featured the Weyerhaeuser brand and included full-page advertisements in the American Lumberman. In five years he spent $1.4 million on this campaign, using funds drawn from a levy on the mills. Managers objected, arguing that too many benefits leaked away to other lumber companies because brand loyalty was weak. Conceding the point, Lindsay countered that Weyerhaeuser had to take the lead since collective efforts had been ineffectual.18 Lindsay was right. In 1912, the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (est. 1902) had first begun to think about promotion, and it lobbied for forest products expositions in New York and Chicago. But its efforts imme-

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diately faltered. A trade extension department was started in 1915, allowed to lapse in 1917, and revived in 1921; even then it barely survived on a small budget. One question that stymied marketers at all levels was whether it was more effective to advertise to the consumer or to spend on traditional promotions and assistance to the trade. This question divided the southern pine group, the first regional association to take marketing seriously. It separated the northern- from the southern-owned companies, and was expressed in the establishment of two subcommittees, one for advertising and another for trade promotion. Such divisions reflected lumber’s ambiguous status as both an industrial and a consumer good, but it is significant that the manufacturers of new materials resolved the issue much earlier and with more conviction by doing plenty of both types of marketing.19 This dithering by manufacturers frustrated retailers, and became a theme in the 1920s. An especially vocal critic of the mills was Julius Seidel, president of a wholesale and retail yard in St. Louis, Missouri. Seidel was prominent enough to have been invited to a meeting of retailers and manufacturers that Herbert Hoover convened in December 1923 to approve new nationwide standards for grading. He was not satisfied. Returning from Washington, he vented his frustration in the pages of American Lumberman under the heading “Lumber Merchandising—A Chart Without a Compass.” Three years later he welcomed the way that the Lutcher and Moore Lumber Company of Orange, Texas, had canvassed the opinions of its retailers on several issues of the day. Seidel praised Lutcher and Moore, using their example to damn their competitors. His opening sally set the tone: “It is so unusual as to seem almost astounding that any mill writes to the distributor to get a viewpoint.” He argued that for years mills had been operating “with utter disregard of the trend of the time . . . the needs of the consumer, the competitive spirit and progressiveness of the alternatives that can be used for the same purposes as lumber.”20 But, for the first quarter of the twentieth century, progress on the marketing front was painfully slow. Why? One problem was that mills were exceptionally diverse in size. For every Weyerhaeuser there were hundreds of mid-sized companies and thousands of small mills. Many of the latter were adjunct to other businesses, including farming, and were operated only when demand was strong. As James Fickle has described, in the best account of any regional association, within the southern pine region, small mills produced the shoddiest lumber (in part because they lacked proper drying facilities), and knew least about marketing. They were also least inclined to join an association. Nonetheless, they became more important after the war. In 1919 they accounted for 33 percent of regional production, rising to 44 percent by 1924 and 48 percent by

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1928. Many shut down when the Depression hit, but a new federal agency, the National Recovery Administration, encouraged them to restart and to join the regional association. Larger companies were more prominent out west, but everywhere the persistence of small mills discouraged regional associations from going into advertising.21 A more serious problem was the fragmentation of the whole industry, with so many competing groups and interests. In 1931, Ralph Breyer surveyed some of the leading commodities in the United States in order to illustrate key marketing principles. He noted that lumber had an exceptional number of associations. Organized by species and region, these pursued their own interests. As the author of Forestry: An Economic Challenge, noted in 1933, “From the earliest days of advertising [of lumber], when a lumberman advertised at all it was for his own particular species of wood.” This remained true when they formed associations. The southern pine group promoted pine; the western boasted of its fine fir and cedar. In some ways, the growing number of associations had made things worse. In 1915, there were six manufacturers’ associations that were promoting their own grading rules; by 1920, there were ten. In 1929 the National Lumber Manufacturers Association published an upbeat survey that acknowledged that a decade earlier there had been “great rivalries” and “bitter enmities” between the regional groups, but then suggested that the growing strength of the NLMA had reflected, and facilitated, a new spirit of cooperation. This overstated a limited and fragile achievement. In 1922, Bryant had commented dryly that the national association “has not had the whole-hearted support of the lumber industry at all times” and the steady incursion of western fir into eastern markets continued to cause tension. The Depression made this worse. By 1933, an NRA report despaired of an industry again hampered by “warring trade organizations.”22 The failure of the industry to cooperate and promote itself was especially unfortunate because it had a poor public image. Passage of the Sherman Act in 1890 eventually led to a wave of legal action. In theory the targets were large corporate “trusts”; in practice, most turned out to be combinations of smaller companies such as lumber manufacturers. These were numerous but, when they formed associations and tried to regulate the trade, they attracted attention. The first of a series of investigations of “the Lumber Trust” led to the indictment of manufacturers within the Mississippi Valley Lumbermen’s Association in 1892. Activity peaked in 1906–1907, not only in the United States but also in Canada, where a federal committee found western mills guilty of price fixing, which led to a “climate of suspicion and hostility” among farmers. But the most significant indictment came in 1912,

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when the southern pine group was found guilty of limiting output and fixing prices. A further congressional inquiry, published in 1913–1914, was more broadly damning. Introducing his bureau’s report, Joseph E. Davies, the commissioner of corporations, claimed that “activities in fixing prices and in restricting output have profited the lumbermen at the expense of the consumer.” Legal action continued. Notably, in 1921 an injunction was brought against the American Hardwood Manufacturers’ Association for limiting competition through an “open competition plan” of gathering and disseminating price information to its members.23 Many saw these schemes as illustrations of Adam Smith’s famous dictum: “People of the same trade seldom meet together . . . but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Perhaps, but when directed at the lumber trade such judgments missed the real point. Mills did try to collaborate to fix prices, but the state of the industry rendered those attempts futile. There were too many producers for collusion to work. Too many were willing to break ranks, especially when business was bad, and most never joined an association. In 1922, Hill commented that “there is probably less artificial control of the prices of lumber than of any other commodity.” Since Hill was sales manager for the Southern Pine Sales Corporation, his comments should be viewed skeptically, but his claim was broadly true. Four years earlier a neutral observer, noting the “extreme and frequent [price] fluctuations,” suggested that attempts at control were “localized and relatively unimportant.” Twenty years later a more systematic analysis reached the same conclusion. The industry’s attempts at collusion were a sign of structural weakness, not market strength.24 Then again, price fixing and collusion are often in the eye of the beholder. In the southern pine region, manufacturers had long walked an “anti-trust tightrope.” The original Yellow Pine Manufacturers’ Association was disbanded after a Missouri court found twenty-five companies guilty of price fixing. The new Southern Pine Association (SPA) was formed in 1914 as a nonprofit organization that provided services to subscribers. Manufacturers were not “members” and hence subject to sanction. Like its predecessor, it gathered trade statistics and as late as 1919 the attorney-general asked the Federal Trade Commission to investigate allegations that it was limiting competition. But in the postwar era attitudes softened, and then warmed, towards such efforts. Hoover encouraged association among producers, and between producers and government. From 1918, the NLMA began to compile statistics on production and prices; by June 1919, it had signed on eight of a possible eleven regional associations. This was the kind of exercise that

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Hoover approved of. By 1925, the SPA’s statistical service was being encouraged, and by 1931 the formation under federal auspices of a Timber Conservation Board marked the state’s endorsement of industry data gathering. Indeed, in 1933–1934 the NRA promulgated a lumber code that required that manufacturers cooperate to regulate production. Attitudes had changed, but then they swung back, and by decade’s end a small wave of indictments were again launched. In September 1940, for example, sixty-nine corporations in the West Coast Lumbermen’s Association were charged. Speaking for the association, Cordy Wagner complained that “in the days of the NRA the industry was compelled to do many things, then held to be in the public interest, which are now regarded as grounds for criminal indictment.” He had a point, but he was whistling in the wind. In the public’s mind, lumber manufacturers had colluded too often. They had indeed reached out to the consumer but often, unwittingly, as the butt of headline news rather than as the sponsors of appealing images and copy. Through the 1920s and beyond, their actions did as much harm as good.25 And so among lumber manufacturers the scene was discouraging. No doubt, as Tate observed at Yale in 1925, in the lumber trade it was “impossible to harmonize entirely the different districts or to standardize the products beyond a definite limit.” But manufacturers could have done much more. Their production and marketing were incoherent. As a commodity, lumber came in a bewildering variety of types, grades, and sizes, a diversity that owed much to the convenience of the mills and dissension among regional interests, coupled with large elements of chance and inertia. It owed little to the needs of contractors, and nothing to those of the consumer. At the beginning of the 1920s building boom, when home owners began to show serious interest in home improvement, the manufacturers of new materials were ready to respond. Manufacturers of lumber hesitated, demurred, and butted heads.26 Unfortunately, the distribution end of the trade did not look very much more promising.

The Distribution of Building Materials The distribution of building materials, including lumber, baffled observers when it did not appall them. In the 1930s the ex-chief of research statistics at the NRA commented that “probably in no industry is the criss-cross pattern of distribution more complex than in the building materials industries.” The point was dramatized by Reavis Cox and Charles Goodman, whose research on the subject in the 1950s is the best to date. They traced the supply route of the 186 tons of raw materials that went into a typical,

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modest dwelling. From 60 “distinct and scattered points of origin,” these materials were processed or handled in 148 places by 366 businesses, 148 of which carried out some transportation. Cox and Goodman concluded that the shipping was so complex that “there is really no way of drawing horizontal lines that will make all the agencies studied homogeneous and their methods of operation strictly comparable.” They were then commissioned by the Producers’ Council, a national agency established in 1923 to represent the interests of building suppliers, to undertake a more comprehensive survey. This found great complexity, with some materials (e.g., builders hardware) being sold to customers mainly through retailers, others (e.g., bricks) being shipped direct by manufacturers, and others (notably lumber) with a more mixed arrangement. The survey also showed “fluidity” in the way distributors made adjustments among themselves, and between themselves and customers. The overall picture was one of a shifting kaleidoscope.27 The same was true in earlier decades, lumber being a prime example. Middlemen were everywhere. In the mid-1910s, only about one-fifth of the lumber sold by midwestern retailers had been handled by a wholesaler. The proportion would have been higher on the east coast, since many midwestern dealers were part of line-yard operations that were able to order direct from the manufacturer, when they did not own their own mills; most east coast dealerships were individually owned. By the 1930s, however, with lumber being shipped over longer distances, the share of distribution taken by wholesalers had risen to about 60 percent, higher (c.70 percent) for hardwoods and lower (c.50 percent) for soft.28 All such averages disguised regional and local variation. Wholesalers were important for longer-distance shipments, notably the growing west coast trade, and for the smaller mills, which relied on them to consolidate orders from large customers or city markets. Within the trade, wholesalers with their own yards were respected. They often graded, dressed, seasoned, and kiln-dried lumber, and their storage facilities enabled retailers to minimize stock and yet satisfy customers at short notice. Some proudly specialized in wholesaling, a notable east coast example being MacLea Lumber of Baltimore. Others blurred categories by integrating vertically (figure 6). A prime example was Edward Hines in Chicago. Fickle describes founder Hines as a “legendary figure” whose company acquired mills—out west, in Canada, and in the south—and then, beginning in 1909, a chain of retail yards throughout Chicagoland. He then earned respect as a pioneer in grading, grade marking, and marketing. By 1929, the company boasted “The Largest Lumber Yards in the World.” Wholesalers like MacLea and Hines

6. Vertical integration in the lumber trade. Many companies, such as George F. Lance, mixed the functions or wholesaler and retailer, while most others were tightly embedded in lumber trade networks. Source: Pennsylvania Lumbermen’s Protective Association, Official Reference Book (Boston: Franklin, 1895) [Hagley Museum].

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were respected for filling a need. Very different opinions were held of “scalpers” or “commission-men” who owned only a phone and a desk. Many mills and small dealers were forced to deal with them, but they entered and left the trade too easily to earn trust. They were viewed as parasitic and unreliable. The National Lumber Manufacturers’ Credit Corporation of Chicago issued a Blue Book that tried to assess the reliability of all wholesalers (and retailers too), but this could not capture or eliminate the fly-by-night operator.29 Occasionally the middleman cut out, and so became, the retailer. Those who owned their own yards could sell directly to local customers, and most did, to some degree. By employing “drummers” (traveling salesmen) or by distributing price lists they could also reach more distant customers. The obvious buyer was one that that required large quantities of lumber: railroads, say, and by the 1920s some of the new breed of community builders. But the typical contractor could not order carloads. In 1918, a railcar of lumber was worth about $500 but the average sale at a retail yard was much less than $100. This mattered because smaller quantities carried higher freight rates. As a result, during the 1920s about 70 percent of lumber was distributed through retailers, and in residential construction—which accounted for 56 percent of lumber usage—the proportion would have been higher, possibly exceeding 90 percent. Retailers were vital for homebuilding, then, and remained so. In time, by the end of the 1950s, the growth of large builders helped wholesalers to bypass the local dealer, but even then most aimed to service the retail yard. Throughout the first half of the twentieth century, then, retailers remained essential.30 Fluid and complex patterns of distribution are not necessarily bad. In the 1940s, a team of industry leaders from Britain concluded that distribution of building materials in North America involved more intermediaries than in the U.K. because of longer distances. Still, they were “repeatedly impressed,” noting “the tendency . . . for unnecessary transactions to be eliminated” and praising the system’s “outstanding . . . flexibility.” Cox and Goodman reached the same conclusion. But that is not what most North American observers have believed. Writing in 1957, in the first survey of the building industry addressed to a popular audience, the editors of Architectural Forum spoke of distribution as “highly-organized chaos.” Their account emphasized the noun over the adjective.31 Chaos implied inefficiency, and the existence of middlemen implies unnecessary costs. In 1918, Butler’s midwestern study estimated that about half of the retail cost of lumber was accounted for by the manufacturer. Retailers (20–25 percent) and railroads (20–25 percent) accounted for

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most of the remainder. Wholesalers took only 2–4 percent, because their involvement in the trade was still limited. Through the 1920s and 1930s, the share going to distribution rose. Harold Barger has estimated that from 1869 to 1947 the markup in retail lumber stores rose from 18 percent to 26 percent. He is probably right about the trend, but his estimates are low. Other sources indicate that, by the 1940s, the retail markup was 40 percent, while wholesalers took 23 percent. This did not mean that retailers made large profits: a Harvard Business School study found that in the mid-1920s, building retailers made 0.3–2.8 percent net profits. Retailers claimed that the gap between high margins and low profits underlined the significance of the services that they provided. Critics, and customers, supposed that it showed inefficiency. In the late 1930s, the federal government initiated a wide-ranging investigation of business efficiency and corporate concentration. In the building sector it found much to deplore, and nowhere more than in the field of distribution. Dealers employed too many people for the business they generated. Because of high overheads, the gap between retail and wholesale prices was judged too high. The whole pattern of distribution was seen to contain “vast duplications.”32 Complexity, high margins, and perceived inefficiency bothered those consumers who thought about the lumber trade. In the late nineteenth century, some wholesalers had seized on this negative perception and tried to sell direct. As I show in chapter 5, after 1905 a new generation of mail-order companies exploited, and magnified, this popular prejudice. But the most general problem with the system of distribution, one visible to anyone interested in home improvement, was the specialization of retail suppliers. Paint and paper, bathroom fixtures, plumbing supplies, electrical goods, hardware, and lumber were sold by dedicated retailers. The exception was department stores, which, by the 1920s, were carrying a limited selection of a variety of lines, from hardware and paint, through “short cuts” of lumber, to whole bathrooms. Specialization was no problem for those who simply needed paint, framing timber, or a toilet. But a substantial job would require various materials that must be obtained from several different stores. In some ways, shopping around was easier in 1918, say, than it is today, since many stores lay within walking distance. As Regina Blaszczyk notes, this was notably true of hardware stores, which by the 1920s were busy making themselves consumer-friendly.33 The same was not true for other outlets and, at a time when few households had a car, shopping around was difficult. For consumers, the introduction of a growing number of new materials after 1900 made the situation worse for a while, since it was unclear which

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retailers would carry which product. Consumers might expect most to be available at the lumberyard. Many were bulky, awkward to deliver to stores located on major commercial streets and, for businesses with limited space, awkward to stock and display. Finding extra space was not a problem for most lumber dealers, especially since many of the new materials, including hardboard, composition shingles, and insulation, either contained wood or substituted for it. They would reduce the amount of lumber that had to be stocked. From the consumer’s point of view they were obvious additions to the lumberman’s lines. And lumberyards, after all, were the most important retailers of building supplies. They had a virtual monopoly of the most important building material. In the 1930s, lumber accounted for about half of the cost of all materials in the “standard” six-room house. This varied regionally, from a high of 55 percent in several midwestern cities to a low of 41 percent in Houston. Unfinished lumber accounted for about a quarter of lumber’s share, millwork (frames, doors, trim) for about a third, and finished material (shingles, siding, flooring) for rather more than a third. At the same time, the census showed that lumber dealers dominated retail sales of all types of lumber, including softwood (97 percent), hardwood (96 percent), plywood (95 percent), and millwork (93 percent).34 To the consumer, then, the lumber dealer was the obvious place to go, not only for traditional materials but also for new products, as well as for general assistance on building matters. The problem was that, at first, dealers did not see things that way at all.

FOUR

The Realm of the Retailer

The local retail lumber dealer was the obvious person to handle the growing interest in home improvements. He supplied the single most important building material. In terms of sales, he was the dominant retailer of building supplies. He was able to offer short-term credit, a powerful sales tool. But he—almost all dealers were male—did not easily rise to the challenge. In 1916–1918, the lumber press noted a minor surge of interest in home improvements. The most important of trade journals was the American Lumberman: in 1912, its circulation of 13,691 was as large as that of the next three journals combined. During the war, it mounted a low-key improvement campaign, but noted that many dealers “held back . . . hoping that something would happen.” By the mid-1920s, it tried again, this time publishing a promotional book with before-and-after photographs. This had some effect, but as late as 1927 the editor deplored the way his readers neglected the “remodeling” field.1 Why didn’t they go after a business that promised to be profitable? In order to understand why, and how, the improvement industry emerged, we need to answer that question.

Lines and Line Yards in Towns, Cities, and Suburbs The core problem was that lumber dealers were neither equipped nor inclined to deal with consumers. Like most retailers, they were specialized and did not feel competent to diversify. The outlook of the average dealer, circa 1900, was captured by Met Saley. At that time, he wrote the American Lumberman’s ”Realm of the Retailer” column. In it, he reflected on his experiences in crisscrossing the midwestern states. His reports probably give a fair picture of the retail lumber scene. Although a federal inquiry soon condemned collusion within the Lumber Trust, the commissioner of cor-

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porations praised the lumber press for their “remarkably accurate” reports, comparing them “very favorably with . . . other trade papers.” At the American Lumberman (AL), Saley does not seem to have had an ax to grind. He traveled incognito, often posing as a customer, while observing yard operations and engaging owners in casual conversation, all being reported in homespun style. He gleaned and imparted wisdom, and a collection of his columns, published in 1902, offers unsystematic but perceptive insights. Neither Saley nor the dealers he visited thought diversification was important. There was no major principle at stake: it was a matter of the individual dealer’s “taste and his environments.”2 The only line other than lumber that Saley advocated was coal. At that time, coal was a staple: with wood, it heated 99 percent of homes in the United States. Saley’s logic was that a coal business provided a seasonal complement to lumber because, during the winter, at best dealers might sell “a little inside finish for jobs that are under way.” This was the conventional wisdom. In 1918, a survey of western dealers found that over half sold coal. The proportion in regions with colder winters must have approached twothirds, notably including Canada. For example, when a correspondent for AL visited Rockford, Illinois, he found that every dealer in town carried coal. This pattern persisted for as long as coal remained an important domestic fuel. In 1926, a survey of dealers in New York, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, and New Jersey calculated monthly net profits for January through August. It found that dealers began to make a profit only in April. It concluded that the case for coal was compelling.3 Among the newer building materials, wallboard was the first to win the acceptance of lumber dealers. Beaver Board led the way. In 1920, its booklet for consumers claimed that the product was “a staple . . . in the regular stock of most lumber and building material dealers.” A year earlier, a company spokesman had told the annual gathering of Texas dealers that, across the continent, about 15,000 dealers were carrying it. At that time there were only about 17,000 dealers in the United States who were important enough to be rated by Dun and Bradstreet. Taking into account, perhaps, another 6,000 small dealers in the United States, and 2,000 of all sizes in Canada, this points to a penetration rate approaching two-thirds. To nudge the undecided, Baker claimed that “a survey of 100 of its most successful dealers in small towns showed that all were using the advertising material provided by the company.” Beaver’s claims were probably quite accurate. The AL reported that every dealer in Rockford, Illinois, carried wallboard as well as coal.4 Even for popular items like coal and wallboard, Saley was right to emphasize the local business environment. Dealers would stock only what

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local customers bought, and local variation was a constant theme in the trade press. During the 1920s, Saley’s anonymous successor in the “Realm” column illustrated the point many times. In 1926, he found that W. W. Walls, in Champaign, Illinois, was offering a profitable new architectural service, but refrained from concluding that that this was for everyone. “In different towns and cities,” he observed, “there is a wide divergence in the amount of so-called service asked for and offered.” Generalizing, in a column published two years earlier, he had declared that “local conditions must determine local service.” It was a mantra, and a truth. A decade later, he traveled through the southwest out to the coast. In Albuquerque he found that “up-to-date merchandising of a complete line of building materials has long been the rule.” A month later, however, he found that in another western city “dealers hardly know a customer [i.e. consumer], since sales are made through contractors.” It is difficult to generalize about retailers in an industry that was so local.5 That said, on the average there broad differences between lumberyards in metropolitan areas as opposed to towns, and in cities versus suburbs. In metropolitan yards, even coal and wallboard were marginal. Coal was often sold through specialized merchants who delivered to the door, or chute. In the midwest, Butler’s 1917 survey included 7 companies in Chicago which together owned 22 of the 142 yards in the metropolitan area. One of them was probably Edward Hines, since few other city operations owned multiple yards. Butler found that, among these retailers, wood products accounted for 96 percent of all sales, with lumber dominant (87 percent) and millwork (6 percent), wood shingles (2.3 percent), and lath (1 percent) making up the balance. This suited customers, since more than 80 percent were contractors. Small-town dealers were more diversified (figure 7). In Minnesota and the Dakotas, wood products accounted for 50–60 percent of sales. Coal (18–25 percent) was secondary, followed by bricks and cement (9–15 percent), with also-rans that included wallboard. The same pattern was apparent across towns in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Yards in smaller population centers received more consumer trade, especially from farmers, and so they were more diversified.6 To some extent, the difference between Chicago yards and those in small towns reflected differences in retail organization. Across North America, the early twentieth century saw the rise of the chain store, especially during the 1920s. A similar trend had shaped the retailing of lumber earlier, and in a different way. In most retail sectors, including food, clothing, and allpurpose department stores, chains were a metropolitan phenomenon. In the lumber business, they were most prominent in small towns, where they

7. Isometric plan of a progressive southwestern lumberyard, 1918. Especially in smaller population centers, lumber dealers might carry a selection of the heavier building supplies. In 1918, this dealer was unusual in selling some hardware and paints. Source: A. W. Shaw, A Report on the Profitable Management of a Retail Lumber Business (Chicago: Shaw, 1918), 14.

were known as line yards: they were strung out along a railroad, having developed to help early settlers. No nationwide data were gathered until 1948, when they accounted for 28 percent of all lumberyards, three times the incidence of chains among retailers as a whole. By then, however, they were on the decline.7

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The boom period for line yards was the period of western settlement. The leading companies had grown to maturity by the early 1920s. LongBell, begun as a small retail yard in Columbus, Kansas, in 1875, had acquired 13 more yards across the southwest by 1883, and reached its furthest extent by 1926, when it owned a total of 120. The Twin Cities were a major center for line yard headquarters. A leading example was Thompson Yards. By 1915, when it was bought by Weyerhaeuser, it owned 60 dealerships, a number that rose to a peak at 193 in 1920. Other chains, such as Laird, Norton, were based in smaller Minnesota lumber towns like Winona. In many states west of the Mississippi, line yards dominated the scene, as Long-Bell and Foster did in Texas. Chains were also influential in the southwest, as an economic presence and as a force within the regional association. In this group, 140 companies owned three or more yards, with 12 headquartered in Oklahoma City, 18 in Wichita, Kansas, and 26 in Kansas City. One of the latter (probably Long-Bell) owned 112 outlets, and line yards accounted for a majority of the membership. Appropriately, a Harvard Business School case study used a company from this region to exemplify the line yard as a business type. Merlin—apparently a pseudonym—began in 1880 as a manufacturer but shifted to a retail operation as local timber stands were exhausted. By 1931, it consisted of 82 retail outlets spread across two southwestern states.8 When a chain invaded territory served by independent yards it caused resentment, and not just from other dealers. In 1902, Saley observed that “very often there is a feeling against a line yard, by the people of the town . . . It is not a ‘home institution,’ they say.” This was a mild form of the resistance encountered by mail-order companies after 1905, as shown in the next chapter. But even if some of its profits were channeled to the head office, and even if its managers came and went, the line yard was seen as a legitimate business. After all, in many cases it had helped found the local town. This was nowhere more true than on the Canadian prairies. In 1919, the AL published a series of articles by John Gries, the Harvard professor whom Hoover soon invited to Washington. These surveyed line yards, and noted their concentration in the western states and western Canada. On the prairies, as in many parts of the American west, there were no significant stands of timber. Line yards followed the railroad, facilitated settlement, and boomed with the population. In Alberta, Crown Lumber, established in 1905, owned 52 yards on the eve of World War II. In Canada, the main line yard headquarters was Winnipeg, Manitoba. There, in 1906, Beaver Lumber was formed through the merger of three companies that together owned 49 yards. Beaver became the largest chain in Canada, with 275 dealers. With

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the other line yard companies, several started by Minnesota interests, it dominated the Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association. In 1907, out of 470 members, 288 were owned by line yard companies. West of the Mississippi and the Ontario-Manitoba border, there was never a question that chains would be accepted. They shaped the trade, enabling settlement to take its modern pattern.9 As Gries also noted, the line yard figured most prominently in small towns. In this regard their distribution exaggerated that of dealers as a whole. In the 1910s, across the midwestern states, four-fifths of dealers were in urban centers of less than 2,500 persons. In such places, there was an average of 1,470 persons/yard. Often, there was only one dealer in town. This ratio increased with city size, from 2,796 persons/yard in towns of 2,500–10,000, up to 13,912 persons/yard in cities of more than 100,000. There were several reasons for this. City yards were larger. Then, too, in cities more building was carried out by larger, speculative builders who could buy directly from mills or wholesalers. And, as we have seen, city retailers were more specialized. But if dealers in general were disproportionately concentrated in small towns, this was especially true of line yards, and this remained true into the 1950s. In 1958, for example, 55 percent of all lumber and building material dealers were located outside the Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas that, according to the census, defined the major urban centers. The proportion was lower (50 percent) for independent yards, and much higher (73 percent) for line yards. The line yard was quintessentially a small-town operation. In many cases, it was the only game in town.10 Small-town dealers were more diversified, in part, because so many were owned by line yard companies that were better attuned to consumer needs. Chains were run in a more professional way. Susan Strasser has suggested that, in this period, retailers relied on “a tradition of seat-of-the-pants skill that had as much to do with human relationships as with numbers.” This was true of the average lumber dealer, who relied on handshakes, memory, and trust. Met Saley, for example, praised some yard owners as founts of practical wisdom, but reckoned that “there is probably not one dealer in a dozen who thinks of rendering a bill when the goods are delivered.” Then again, as Eugene Milener has suggested, their pricing policy was “casual” because few understood their costs. In 1917, Butler’s survey found that dealers followed “no standard system of accounting.” They kept “no record of comparative costs,” and so could not tell which lines were profitable. Except in the roughest of ways, by weighing his debts against his bank balance and receivables at year’s end, the dealer probably had little idea whether he was turning a profit. By the mid-1920s, the National Retail Lumber Dealers

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Association, established in 1916, was showing dealers how to set up cost departments, but its campaign faced a uphill battle. The handbook put out by the northeastern association in 1929 included reference materials, including estimating and size conversion tables, that we might suppose dealers would need. But it also included basic information, for example about the levying of interest on credit (“Notes do not bear interest unless it is so stated”), which we might expect a retailer to have lived and breathed. Such advice was not needed by the manager of a line yard, whose employer would already have required, or provided, some basic business skills. In 1927, for example, Long-Bell’s manual insisted that yards be kept clean and tidy and that stock be attractively arranged. It offered fifteen pages of advice on how to manage credit, prohibiting managers from offering terms of more than sixty days. It told them to keep track of when the materials they sold had been first used on a construction site, since this established the priority of any lien if the customer went bankrupt. Some line yard companies ran a tight ship.11 Because the chains were more professionally run, they responded more quickly to new consumer trends. The point should not be overstated. Butler found that some of the line yards themselves indulged in eccentric accounting, failing to count head office properly as an expense. He also found that throughout Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas no yard had records that showed “the value of their lumber sales as distinguished from other stock.” Those elsewhere, however, including Iowa and Nebraska, were in better shape. In general, they were better able to figure out, if only roughly, which lines were most profitable. They carried new materials on an experimental basis, and adopted them if they proved to be moneymakers. Managers and salesmen who dragged their heels were warned, retrained, or fired. And so, in states like Texas, companies like Foster and Long-Bell were among the most likely to diversify (figure 8). In the mid-1920s, Long-Bell was telling managers to stock a wide range of materials in addition to lumber. The list included doors, windows, hardware, paints, and related supplies including “lap cement, floor wax, linseed oil, turpentine, substitute turpentine, roof putty, lead, dry colors, Kalsomine, Decotint, glue, brushes. . . .” Not that managers had much choice. At Merlin, as in most line yards, purchasing was centralized while goods were shipped directly from the manufacturer or wholesaler. Like those of Long-Bell, Merlin’s yards were diversified. Lumber accounted for only 38 percent of their sales and cement for 13 percent, with hardware, paint, and shingles each weighing in at around 5 percent, while many lesser items made up the balance. Neither company was precisely typical. They were among the first to think seriously about the consumer

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8. A model line yard operation. After 1918, owners of line yards, such as Long-Bell, pioneered the diversification of product lines, while requiring smarter displays and better cost accounting. Source: A. W. Shaw, A Report on the Profitable Management of a Retail Lumber Business (Chicago: Shaw, 1918), opp. p. 28.

trade. But their experience effectively highlights the contrast between the line yard and the independent dealer. Their professionalism helped make smalltown yards more diversified, especially in the western states and provinces.12 But there is a chicken-and-egg problem here. Were small-town yards diversified because they were part of chains, or were line yards diversified because so many were in small towns? The latter, it seems. The business environment in towns was different from that in large centers, and the need for specialization more limited. Geographers have elaborated a theory of market centers that helps explain why larger places contain a wider range of functions, but also a complement of retailers who are more specialized. The key concept is threshold. Today, a small place may contain a diner that doubles as restaurant and coffee counter; a larger center might support a coffee shop, one or two fast food chains, and a family restaurant; beyond that, we would expect more diversity of chains and restaurants, each specializing in different foods and cuisines. Among building suppliers, different threshold populations were needed to support a coal merchant, paint store,

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or brick yard. Below those thresholds, a specialized store was not viable. In the smallest centers, many functions had to be consolidated, and the lumberyard, comparable with the general store, usually picked up the slack. We would expect any small-town dealer to be more diversified than his city counterpart, and that was so. A survey of 741 businesses in the southwestern region in 1927, almost all in small towns, found that lumber made up a similar proportion of sales in line (63 percent) and individually run (64 percent) yards. Only within Kansas City was there a difference between the two types of business—73 percent versus 83 percent, respectively. In both, the city dealer was more specialized in lumber. Diversification was associated with line yards, then, but the key influence was city size.13 The business environment also varied within metropolitan areas. Here what mattered was the nature of the trade. In city neighborhoods, the steady demand came from owners making repairs and improvements. Many hired contractors, but some shopped for themselves. By the 1910s, a few neighborhood dealers had responded. In Chicago, for example, A. H. McGrew, at 64th and Dorchester, was selling small lots of lumber to tradesmen and also “amateur carpenters,” including “a number of women.” He was pleased to report that, unlike his contractor customers, “people [consumers] seldom ask how much lumber is selling for [per board foot]; they ask how much a piece of a certain size will cost them.” This could be profitable: the markup on a few short pieces of lumber was higher than on a large order of standard lengths. But to take advantage of this opportunity, dealers would have to change the way they thought and acted.14 By contrast, in the suburbs the main demand came from professionals who were building new homes. The trade was comfortable buying from specialized outlets, although, because of the social diversity of the suburbs, local contractors varied in their needs. This was pointed out by a consultant in American Lumberman in 1927. He offered advice to those interested in opening a metropolitan lumberyard. Assuming that the improvement business on existing homes was limited, he advised heading for the suburbs. Here, he suggested there were three types of environment. In “residential,” middleclass suburbs a yard would need to be “well-equipped” in order to cater to professional contractors and architects. In working-class suburbs, however, where home owners hired tradesmen directly, or did their own work, the dealer must be willing to cater to consumers directly, whom it should influence through local carpenters. The same, he suggests, was also true in industrial suburbs, but here the residential trade might be supplemented with large orders from factories. A business school case study provided an ex-

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ample of a building supplier—in this case a hardware store—that followed such advice. In 1931, two plumbing contractors had established the Elton Hardware Company in an industrial suburb of Philadelphia. Knowing that many local residents were doing their own repairs, the pair developed a consumer campaign that emphasized low prices. At first they stocked only plumbing supplies but, recognizing their customers’ needs, in 1932 they diversified into general hardware and paint.15 In 1932, as in 1902, local conditions determined what lines building suppliers carried. There were local and regional eccentricities, but also a broad pattern. Towns in comparison with metropolitan areas; cities as opposed to suburbs; and middle-class as distinct from working-class suburbs had unique business ecologies, and dealers paid heed. Metropolitan dealers, particularly those in middle-class suburbs, specialized in lumber. Inner city yards and their small-town line yard cousins were more diversified. Even so, these were variations on a theme. Regardless of location, the vast majority of retailers did not stock the range of materials or tools that a home improvement customer would need.

An Unfriendly Place For consumers, there was a more basic problem with the lumber dealer: he was in the wrong place. Being bulky, lumber was shipped by water and rail and required extensive space for storage. Yards were established next to rail lines, from which cars were unloaded with a minimum of handling. This worked well for contractors, but not consumers. Except in the smallest of towns, yards were away from the main shopping streets, and so they missed the walk-in business. Worse, their neighbors were warehouses and small factories, while their neighborhoods were unattractive, and sometimes threatening. When dealers and the trade press thought about the consumer trade, which was not often, they acknowledged that location was an issue. In 1917 AL published a manual about lumber sheds and sales that discussed the matter at length. “If possible,” the author suggested, the dealer should locate “in a place that is easily reached,” and where there were sidewalks. He conceded that shipping facilities were still “highly important,” and urged the desirability of a private siding, but noted that “a location on a main-traveled street is more and more desired.” The problem was how to reconcile these needs. In dense working-class neighborhoods, such as McGrew’s neighborhood in Chicago, it might be possible to fit a small yard between railroad tracks and a shopping street, but this was not a general

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solution. Another possibility was for a dealer to open a second operation. This approach was adopted by Dix Lumber in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1927, Dix opened a small storefront on Massachusetts Avenue to generate business for its main yard, seven minutes walk away. Its new display room was supervised by Marguerite W. Stoddard, the publicity manager, who explained that it was designed for women, “who naturally are somewhat hesitant about going to the ordinary lumber yard.”16 A more dramatic possibility was a wholesale move. By 1927, Fred Ludwig claimed that many dealers were relocating away from freight yards into “the more desirable sections of the city” and the “principal streets of the town.” He was surely mistaken. During the interwar years every issue of AL included one, and sometimes several, vignettes to illustrate how progressive dealers were responding to new opportunities. The occasional business, like Dix, had opened a new store. Overwhelmingly, however, they stayed put, while even new yards were located according to tried-and-tested criteria. In November 1926, for example, AL featured an “exceptional” new operation in Oroville, California, which supposedly demonstrated that “retail yards can be made as attractive, interesting and in every way uptodate as any other retail mercantile establishment.” Perhaps; the text and accompanying diagrams emphasized its proximity to a railroad siding. Just as telling was a compendium of yard layouts published over a decade later by the Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association. The author, Henry Hellyer, ran the association’s Yard Planning Department, owned a yard in Tenafly, New Jersey, and acted as a consultant. In the latter capacity, he had advised “hundreds of dealers across the country” about designing new yards, or renovating old. To illustrate design challenges and solutions, Hellyer used sixteen examples of plans that had been implemented. Every one, even those in new suburban settings, adjoined a rail line. Only one was able to capitalize on the “advertising value” of being located on a “main highway.” In this case the office was set back fifty feet from the road and “attractively landscaped.”17 The unfortunate location of the average lumberyard, then, remained a feature and a handicap until the 1940s. As the post–World War II building boom began, the Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association published guidelines for retailers. They suggested that “there are many instances where successful operations are carried out in almost every type of location.” The exceptions were “degenerate or undesirable neighborhoods where women will not shop.”18 Doubtless, some dealers survived by relying on the contractor trade that was largely indifferent to location. But, if they stayed put, they would fail to attract consumers, or to serve their needs.

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An Eveless Purgatory The greatest challenge to the dealer was that so many consumers were female. This was especially an issue in middle-class neighborhoods and suburbs. In working-class families, there was little question that home repair was men’s work. The husbands were accustomed to handling materials and tools, and would have felt comfortable in a building supply outlet, where they shopped alone. In contrast, male white-collar workers and professionals might have felt uncomfortable in the rough-and-ready environment of the lumberyard. Even today, as David Owen has dramatized the point, “many substantially normal men feel a paralyzing fear when they have to buy something at a lumberyard or hardware store.” Worse, by the 1920s, middle-class women might have wanted to accompany their spouses in order to be involved in making decisions about materials and designs. The question was whether dealers could meet their expectations.19 Women did most of the buying of household goods: the mythic statistic had long been 85 percent. Commentators supposed that the same proportion applied to homes and building services. Of course, buying a home was different: the husband would be present, and might handle the negotiations. But those in the building trade believed that women made most of the big decisions. Marguerite Stoddard at Dix Lumber declared simply “the modern woman has a great deal to say about the building of a home.” J. Earl Brightbill, a dealer in Hummelstown, Pennsylvania, put it more pointedly when he spoke to the Virginia Lumber and Building Supply Dealers’ Association in 1927: “Mr. Owner may pay the bills but in most cases Mrs. Owner tells him what to pay for.”20 In the 1920s, the idea that city women might shop in hardware stores was novel; that they tackle a lumberyard was revolutionary. As Ludwig recalled in 1927, “A woman was never known to go to a lumber yard . . . and possibly it was as well that she never did.” There was little to attract them. Those who worked in the lumber trade saw it as a “red-blooded man’s business.” There were exceptions, of course. During World War I, some women were hired to replace men. The Schroeder Lumber Company, for example, employed twenty women to sort and stack. Described as “strong Hungarians and Austrians,” they were supposedly accustomed to heavy work. In Alberta, Canada, Newman’s hired women in their milling facility (figure 9). But such arrangements were temporary. Then again, a few dealerships were owned or run by women, who in some cases had inherited the business from their husbands. Under such circumstances in 1931, Mrs. J. E. DeSelm took over a yard in Bradley, Illinois. She made her son responsible for day-

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9. Penny the planer. Women workers at Newman Lumber, Alberta, 1918. Women were rarely seen in a lumberyard, whether as workers or as shoppers. During World War I, necessity became the mother of invention. Source: Roger Newman, A Century of Success (Winnipeg: Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 1990), 224.

to-day management and, by 1936, was acting strategically by advertising and by mounting a “house-to-house canvass.” A very few, mostly single, women had worked their way into the business, usually on the clerical side. In 1918 Lumber, a trade publication, told the story of Miss Vera E. Stevenson of the Fidelity Lumber and Supply Company, a small line yard company. Completing a business course in 1910, she had started as stenographer and office clerk. Stepping in when one of the managers was away, or while the owner was trying to fill a vacancy, she was soon given responsibility for a local yard, and she soon learned how to make estimates from house plans. She studied grading, and began ordering stock. She learned cost accounting in order to figure out which lines were profitable. By 1918, she was secretarytreasurer of a substantial concern. But such exceptions proved the rule. Miss Stevenson’s cost accounting put her into a tiny minority among lumber retailers, exemplifying the cliché that to compete in a man’s trade a women had to be better. The trade press treated women like Miss Stevenson and Mrs. DeSelm with respect, and rarely patronized them. As exceptions, they posed no threat to the career prospects of men in this field.21 Physically, the local lumberyard was a very masculine place. It was shabby,

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if not dirty: the coal pile saw to that. Met Saley recalled a time when he had observed a woman following a dealer into the stock room. She trod carefully, “pulling her skirts around her as you have seen your wife do when she thought there was a mouse around.” Saley did not approve of the way this yard was kept, but he did not make an issue of it either. That’s just the way things are, was the message circa 1900. The dealer’s office, smelling of stale cigar smoke, might boast a wood stove and spittoons, while the yard might be unpaved, hence dusty in dry weather and muddy in wet. The manager and staff, all men, knew how to deal with contractors, also men. Their manner, when polite, was rough and ready. Respectable women, in fact women of almost any class, would find the prospect of shopping there unappealing. As middle-class attitudes towards home ownership changed after World War I, trade journals began to see a problem. In 1919, for example, the AL carried a series of articles “of a very practical nature” by women. In one, Agnes Olson suggested that dealers lacked people skills, or the “personality which inspires confidence and satisfaction” in the female customer. She suggested they employ “a woman of the right age, experience, and temperament to develop the service department.” The AL began to carry occasional stories that noted and deplored the dinginess of the average lumberyard. In 1919, it told how one dealer’s office, frequented by a “frowzy group” of retired farmers, scared off a “timid lady” who “walked past in dismay.” But at first little changed. Susan Benson has described the female culture of the department store as an “Adamless Eden.” Sans Eve, the lumberyard was its male antithesis.22 Everyone supposed that women had different shopping styles and expectations than men (figure 10). In 1919, these were summarized in a series of anonymous articles in which “a lumberwoman” advised readers of the American Lumberman. The author described the average woman as a professional buyer with her own methods. Unlike a man, rather than feign knowledge, she would ask “dumb,” awkward questions. She would want to know how something would look when finished, rather than focus only on the price and quality of lumber. In that sense, she is “more readily reached by means of appeals to her eye and her imagination than . . . to her reason.” As a result, dealers should emulate consumer magazines by seeking “filmy, lacy drawings of houses surrounded by trees and capped with billowy clouds,” or by “running pictures of houses for which they have supplied the material,” rather than going on about “grades of lumber or the kind of plumbing.” Predictably, the woman would “shop” (i.e. browse), seek advice, leave, cogitate, return, browse, and seek further advice. She would care about anything

10. Sell the woman. In the 1920s, manufacturers led building retailers in their appreciation that many purchasing decisions in connection with home building and improvement were made by women. Source: Building Supply News 7, no. 2 (February 3, 1920): 125.

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that made this procedure easier: a clean, orderly yard; well-lit displays of finished materials; intelligent, courteous, but not high-pressure, sales staff, which might include a woman; and a service room, which was “little short of a necessity when dealing with Mistress Mary.” As the author concluded, jovially patting her reader on the back, the prospect of selling lumber to women “is not so dreadful, once it is looked at with resignation.”23 As the smarter observers noted, sales methods that appealed to wives were effective with husbands too. In 1914, A. L. Porter in the Western Retail Lumberman commented that catalogs helped people to visualize and so satisfied “not only woman nature but human nature.” A decade later, a similar point was made by W. Wadsworth Wood, who wrote a short-lived column on how dealers could appeal to consumers. Deploying the 85 percent statistic, Wood urged dealers to appeal to emotions through attractive advertising, “the billowy cloud kind.” He imagines his reader’s response— “’But,’ you say, ‘this kind of advertising which will appeal to women is the kind I like too’ ”—and then slyly adds “Thank you, Mr. 15 Per Cent. We are glad you brought up that point.”24 Women were not the only consumers to be put off by dirty yards in inconvenient locations. But while a man might hold his nose and try his luck in the lumberyard, few women were prepared to hold their skirts and do likewise, even when hemlines rose after 1918. The lumberyard was not consumer-friendly, and for the home improvement trade this was a serious barrier.

The Reluctant Retailer Most lumber dealers were ambivalent about consumers, and especially women. Looking back in 1953, Phil Creden, an executive with Edward Hines in Chicago, recalled the 1920s. “We almost never had a woman customer,” he recalled, adding ruefully, “in fact, we didn’t want them.”25 It is easy to see why not. To satisfy consumers, the dealer would have to change his way of doing business. Smartening the yard was one thing; other changes would be costly. He would have to stock unfamiliar lines that would increase his overhead. He would have to hire new staff, or retrain the old. Heck, he would have to retrain himself! And if he was really serious, he would have to relocate, or at least open a storefront on main street. No wonder most dealers balked. In daily operations, the greatest challenge would be to satisfy the consumer’s need for credit. Dealers offered thirty- to sixty-day credit on open account to contractors, and never charged interest. This service bought

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the provisional loyalty of some regulars, but was more a weakness than a strength. Contractors were notoriously hardheaded, incompetent, and unreliable. “We all know the average contractor is not worth the powder to blow him over the fence,” Met Saley cheerfully grumbled in 1902, since he “doesn’t care how many rows he has with a yard man.” Sensibly enough, contractors shopped for the best deal, which dealers scorned as “bid-peddling.” This practice depended on available competitors, and AL’s ”Realm” column suggested that city yards were “plagued by ‘hard boiled’ contractors . . . who are influenced by price and promptness of delivery.” Because most contractors had little capital, and because they were usually paid in stages as each house went up, dealers responded by offering credit. In 1919, humorist Ring Lardner described a Chicago man who employed an architect and contractor. The building process was a litany of frustrations, including the local dealer’s refusal of credit. The contractor must have been exceptionally dubious to have been turned down. In reality, a contemporary survey found that 90 percent of Chicago contractors had “uncertain credit” but all received it, even though many failed to pay on time. In 1918, Butler’s survey showed that midwestern concerns were carrying 25–30 percent of their sales for a year or more. Indeed, managing debtors was the dealer’s biggest headache, and the subject of many articles in the trade press. It was one of the first issues to be addressed by Building Supply News, a new journal for retailers. In 1917, BSN asked “how to deal with the retailer’s most aggravating, yet never-ending problem of the good, bad, and indifferent contractor and his legitimate and illegitimate credit?” They recommended one dealer’s system, which reduced overdue accounts by requiring contractors to make written applications. Informality had been the norm.26 A written system was unnecessary in small towns, where dealers knew the reliability of all their contractor customers. They could refuse or adjust the terms of their credit accordingly. In larger urban centers they faced a greater challenge, though even in metropolitan suburbs the numbers could be manageable. A study of a large midwestern city found that a typical dealer sold to twenty-five contractors, of whom half were regulars, though turnover rates did pose a problem. No figures for the early twentieth century are available, but in the 1990s in Ontario, Canada, one third of the contractors who were active in any given year had not been in the business in the previous year; a third (including some newcomers) would be inactive the following year. Such turnover, or “churning,” had long been a feature of the building industry. To deal with it, in 1920s Milwaukee, the local lumbermen’s club formed a credit bureau. Announcing the initiative, they argued

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that better information would “help every honest contractor who may merit the extension of credit.” Less formally, the exchange of credit information about contractors was surely the norm.27 The challenge of judging consumers was far greater. Informal trust could not work. In rural areas, many customers were local farmers who were known in town. But in city and suburban yards consumers were anonymous, and mobile. For the walk-in trade, dealers could respond by simply demanding cash. That worked for small items. But when more middle-class families began buying or building homes during the 1920s, or in tackling renovation projects, dealers had to think more seriously about improvement, and mortgage, finance. Home buyers, many of whom built their home by employing a contractor, needed two types of credit: construction loans and consumer mortgages. Dealers might provide the former, which usually involved financing the stage payments to local contractors. In Blue Springs, Nebraska, for example, Abbott Lumber and Coal gave construction loans to good prospects, assuming that a local lender would pick up a mortgage on the finished house. By 1924, the Mueller Lumber Company in Davenport, Iowa, was doing the same. But construction mortgages came due when the house was completed, and most home buyers also needed longer-term finance. Until the 1930s, many lenders only offered low-ratio loans, covering 50–60 percent of the cost of the house. Commonly, home buyers needed more. In the late 1920s, a large survey of home owners in Buffalo, New York, found that 57 percent had second mortgages and that these had financed a quarter of what families had borrowed. To generate business, some dealers such as Blytheville Lumber in Blytheville, Arkansas, offered second mortgages, and a few provided a one-stop financing service. In Pawtucket, Rhode Island, by 1926 H. N. Nicholas offered construction loans, assistance in placing a first mortgage, and if necessary would take back a second mortgage. They even offered to budget the home owners’ expenses.28 But it was time-consuming, and costly, to offer such a range of credit options. At their annual conventions during the 1920s, retail dealers wrestled with the question of how to satisfy the credit needs of the anonymous consumer. In the past, some had helped form local building and loans, which by then were calling themselves savings and loans. This practice continued. In San Diego, by 1927 Emil Klicka had set up an arrangement whereby his mortgage company, which pooled the funds of widows and other small investors, created business for his lumberyard, and vice versa. In Davenport, Mueller had placed four family members on the boards of directors of local

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banks. In that spirit, most dealers would have agreed with J. B. Douglas, secretary of the Tecumseh, Nebraska, Building and Loan Association. Speaking in 1924 to the annual meeting of the Nebraska Lumber Dealers’ Association, he argued that dealers should refer home builders and buyers to a local lender. Even for home building, however, this was unsatisfactory, and dealers wrestled with increasingly ingenious ways of packaging finance. Some advocated home owner savings clubs or local second mortgage bureaus. In Elgin, Illinois, in 1919, dealers and contractors implemented a “civic second mortgage corporation” to help fill the financing gap. In their own way, then, dealers contributed to the patchwork arrangement of home finance that had evolved by the 1920s.29 None of this did much to finance home improvements. This mattered because without credit such work wouldn’t get done. Dealers were not in a good position to satisfy this need. It was challenging enough to ask a few dozen contractors to make formal application for credit, but to ask hundreds of consumers would have created unthinkable paperwork. When, in the 1930s, commercial banks began to make consumer loans they found that this business required between two and ten times the staff of their traditional business. It was profitable only on a mass production basis. The challenge for dealers would have been greater, since even their handling of contractor credits was spotty. By the late 1920s, in some communities dealers were able to turn to general credit bureaus. In Atlanta, Georgia, for example, the Kriegshaber dealership used a local bureau for advice about which customers should qualify for its three-month installment plan on roofing jobs. But this tied up a lot of money, which many dealers did not have, and also required careful bookkeeping. This was not an easy type of business to manage, and most dealers avoided it altogether.30

Trade Loyalties While lumber dealers were daunted by the idea of selling to consumers, they were also held back by traditional trade networks. These ranged from financial ties, through established patterns of trade, to vague feelings of loyalty. The tightest ties existed in those vertically integrated companies that owned mills as well as yards. Sometimes, retailers had developed backward linkages. A prime example was Edward Hines. Begun as a single retail yard in 1892, by the early 1900s the company began acquiring forests in Mississippi and then Oregon. Its retail origins shaped the company’s view that “manufacture and distribution should be based on the buyer’s needs” and

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helps explain why it pioneered grading and grade marking. A similar trajectory and emphasis were followed by Long-Bell. Other companies integrated from the other end. The LaPointe Company of Menomonie, Wisconsin, began as a mill and then wholesaler, but soon opened retail yards attached to its mills. On a larger scale, Weyerhaeuser was formed through the amalgamation of several mill companies and then acquired yards, such as those run by Minneapolis-based Thompson, in the 1910s. Complete integration could pose challenges. The St. Paul and Tacoma Company began as a manufacturer and opened its first yard in 1894. It expanded to nineteen yards, but then shrank when it found its managerial energies stretched. In 1919, it turned over management of its yards to the John Dower chain.31 Business arrangements, then, were fluid but sometimes remained close between manufacturer and retailer. Dower and the St. Paul and Tacoma continued to work closely, as did dealers and manufacturers who never had more than contractual linkages. Such business ties, many based on personal trust and “gentlemen’s agreements,” and many of which anchored placebased “local customs and traditions,” had a powerful inertia. Individuals moved easily among these varied concerns, and also between the associations and trade press. Coming from a company that retained milling interests, for example, George LaPointe became president of the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association in the mid-1930s. Until the 1940s, the trade press spoke for the lumber trade as a whole. A weekly until the Depression, the American Lumberman carried advertising from manufacturers and wholesalers, as well as discussions and statistics on the state of the trade; it reported the proceedings of the annual conventions of both manufacturers and retailers, and claimed to articulate the collective interests of the industry. Typically, in 1919 it carried the story—significantly misleading—that “wood is the cheapest material for residence construction.” As late as 1946, its circulation included manufacturers and wholesalers (3,281, or about 20 percent of the total) as well as retailers (11,668), and a small miscellany (1,201) that probably included large contractors. Coverage in other trade journals, such as the Mississippi Valley Lumberman and Lumber, was thinner, but similarly broad. The latter, for example, rebranded in 1931 as the National Lumberman, claimed to promote “the best interests of all branches of the industry.” Those who wrote for the trade press also moved among manufacturers and retailers. For example, in 1911 A. H. Landrum, who had worked for the American Lumberman, went to the National Lumber Manufacturers Association before joining the St. Paul and Tacoma in 1913. A web of financial and personal connections bound dealers to lumber as a building material.32 A significant illustration of the web of industry connections is the early

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career of Arthur A. Hood. Hood acquired a love of the lumber business from his father and grandfather, and showed an early aptitude. He opened a line yard at the age of nineteen before moving to Thompson’s (under Weyerhaeuser ownership) in about 1919. He was twice elected president of the Twin Cities lumber dealers’ association in the mid-1920s. He became an occasional but significant contributor to the trade press before writing two texts for lumber dealers, which were published in 1925 and 1928. Although a passionate spokesman for the retailer, Hood felt strong ties to the industry. He took an advisory sales position with the Cady Corporation, an Arizona-based forest company, and won election as Grand Snark of the Concatenated Order of the Hoo Hoo, the fraternal organization for the whole lumber trade. During the convention season, between October 1926 and March 1927, he crisscrossed the country, speaking at thirty-one Hoo Hoo concatenations and twenty retailer conventions. In April 1927, he declared to the lumbermen of Fort Worth that he saw his role as that of an “industrial missionary” whose job was to “preach the gospel of lumber on the sawdust trail.” He did more than preach. The work he took up with Cady attempted to bring together “all branches of the [lumber] industry.” By August he had formed, and headed, a Southwest Lumber Sales Corporation. More importantly, as Grand Snark, in January 1927, he called a meeting in Chicago, “unique in the annals of fraternal and associational effort,” that gathered retailers and manufacturers in an effort to “coordinate all the organized activities in behalf of the lumber industry.”33 The web of business, personal, and fraternal connections embodied a collective feeling of loyalty to lumber. Invoked and challenged, such loyalty remained a palpable force into the Depression. In 1927, the National Lumber Manufacturers Association mounted a trade extension campaign for which it solicited the cooperation of retailers. Wilson Compton, the association’s secretary-manager, stroked the egos of dealers by reiterating how vital they were to the campaign and reassuring them that they would be consulted “at every step,” but then he gently cracked the whip. “On the other hand,” he added, “retailers will be reminded that notwithstanding their interest in other materials they are lumbermen first and foremost.” Not every retailer found the argument compelling. Some, notably Julius Seidel from St. Louis, had already criticized manufacturers for neglecting the needs of the consumer. But Seidel acknowledged the moral force of Compton’s argument, even as he dismissed it: “It is all right to be sentimental about lumber,” he grumbled, “but when we see public demand drift from lumber to another commodity, we do not propose to lose our customers.”34 Seidel’s views had their supporters, but the Depression encouraged lum-

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bermen to close ranks. In 1933, to help promote economic recovery, the new Roosevelt administration asked industries to cooperate by agreeing on codes of conduct to limit competition. It recognized the lumber trade as a coherent entity, and indeed it was one of the first industries to agree on regulatory guidelines. The federal Emergency National Committee consulted with a subcommittee of nine lumbermen, consisting of an equal number of retailers, manufacturers, and wholesalers. The majority report recommended production quotas and price floors, which pleased manufacturers, together with a code that required manufacturers to “confine their sales to bona fide retail distributors,” which had long been a goal of the retailers. The report was presented in July 1933 to “the largest assembly of representative of all divisions of the lumber industry that the industry has ever known.” The assembly approved the draft code, which academics described as having “astonishing scope and complexity,” with no significant amendment. On the surface, linkages and loyalty remained a major force in the lumber trade.35 As long as dealers thought of themselves as lumbermen first, they remained retailers second. For the consumer, this was bad news. It might mean that dealers would be reluctant to pressure the manufacturers to make lumber more marketable, by grading, grade marking, and delivering goods that were cut to convenient sizes. It would certainly mean that they would be reluctant to diversify simply to suit the consumer. Dealers might stock “sidelines” that complemented lumber, but not competitive “substitutes.” It was not just consumer interests that were at stake. As Seidel, among many others, was beginning to argue, sidelines and substitutes could be more profitable than lumber. Moreover, by diversifying, the dealer might gain credibility with the consumer. Ovid Butler made the point, rather stiffly, in 1918. “The retail dealer who makes a technical study of the relative merits of different structural materials for different uses,” Butler suggested, “may occupy the position of an unbiased observer.” “Position” mattered when translated into “reputation.” That same year, A. W. Shaw, founder of the Harvard case method and soon to prosper as a Chicago-based marketing consultant, published the results of a survey of the retail lumber industry in which he recommended that dealers diversify. That way, he argued, yards would become more appealing to the consumer and the dealer would emerge and profit as an impartial resource on the building scene.36

Trade linkages, and the challenges of the consumer trade, held most dealers back from following the advice offered by industry observers. But the arguments were powerful, and the trade loyalties more fragile than they

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appeared. The lumber trade had always contained tensions, and divisions of interest, between retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers. These persisted. After 1900, trade unity came under growing pressure, initially from within and then from without. Together, these pressures gave birth first to the idea of the one-stop home improvement store and then, increasingly, to its reality.

FIVE

The Birth of the Home Improvement Store

By the 1920s, retail yards were being torn between loyalty to the lumber trade and the growing incentives to go after a new consumer business, to remained specialized or to diversify. This tension was expressed at annual meetings as a conflict between sentiment and self-interest. It was never that simple. Loyalty was based on business ties and expressed common interests. But the lumber trade had long been a house divided, and the divisions grew. After 1905, when a new group of lumbermen developed a new business model, the very conception of the lumber retailer was transformed, laying the basis for the emergence of a more diversified retailer of building supplies who could cater to a home improvement business.

A House Divided Against Itself Retailers occupy a fragile place in the distribution chain. As middlemen, they can appear less essential than producers, and they are the first target for complaints about prices. When manufacturers try to sell directly to consumers they are guaranteed a sympathetic hearing. This has not prevented retailers from resisting direct sales, but such resistance has been deplored and sometimes challenged in the courts. The lumber trade, circa 1900, is a case in point. By the early 1900s, prosecutions under the Sherman Act had created a negative public image of “the Lumber Trust.” Despite the label, this was not monolithic. Legal action was taken against manufacturers for price fixing, but many court cases charged retailers with collaborating against manufacturers who sold direct. Then too, as Butler noted in 1917, retailers and manufacturers sometimes put their heads together to retaliate against unscrupulous wholesalers. In sum, it was common for branches of the lumber industry to be at each others’ throats.1

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Retailers perceived that direct selling, whether by wholesalers or manufacturers, was the greatest threat to their livelihood. Indeed, it was this concern that first drove them to create associations. The first was formed in Iowa on June 8, 1876, to target wholesalers who sold to consumers at the same price as to dealers. In 1877, the Northwestern Lumberman helped establish a larger association that fined Chicago wholesalers for selling direct, boycotting those who refused to pay. As William Cronon has pointed out, once wholesalers complied the association faded away. Looking back in 1915, H. C. Searce, secretary of the Retail Lumbermen’s Association of Illinois, generalized. “The original and almost sole purpose of the retail trade association was to protect its members against the sale of lumber direct to the consumer.” He was unapologetic. “Big stick methods were used, and justifiably so.” The boycott was the biggest stick, backed by the black list. In an early use of the Sherman Act, for example, the Northwestern Lumbermen’s Association was charged with this tactic in 1892. Occasionally, dealers boycotted contractors who bought direct, and in 1894 the Nebraska Lumber Dealer’s Association was found guilty on this count. When, twenty years later, a federal district court found against yet another association, the New York Times reported that “the court . . . noted the friction which always existed between the wholesalers and the retailers” as one or other were accused of “invading its special field.”2 Such jousting abated during the 1920s, but resumed during the Depression. The federally sponsored Lumber Code had been strongly endorsed by the whole industry in 1933, but its influence was short-lived. A survey for the National Recovery Administration in 1936 spoke of disorganization and gloom. The author recounted a succession of failed attempts to introduce production controls from 1928 onwards. In that year alone, efforts included the formation of a Committee of Fifteen, an abortive alliance with producers of oil and coal, a privately sponsored idea of a Director of Production, a Holding Company and—a federal suggestion —a Timber Conservation Board. The latter was approved in 1930 when the Compton Plan, promulgated by the president of the NLMA, also flopped. In 1931, the Southern Pine Curtailment Plan and the Wisconsin Stabilization Agreement helped stall a decline in prices, but this was temporary.3 The Lumber Code of 1933 fared little better. Business was way down, and the whole trade was again riven by “warring trade organizations.” Wholesalers had retaliated against retailers who bought direct from the mills, and this triggered “the bitterest kind of competition.” Such battles, Stone concluded, “played a large part in breaking down Code prices and the Code [itself].” The Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association set up a purchas-

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ing corporation to circumvent wholesalers and browbeat manufacturers. Intense opposition forced them to back down. And so it went on. In 1947, Nelson Brown observed that retailers “generally have refused” to buy from wholesalers or mills that sold directly to the consumer, except for railroads and large industries. Behind this neutral statement lay an armory of tactical weapons, an ebb and flow of strategic battles, a whole history of mistrust. Wilson Compton and others liked to speak about the lumber trade as an extended family. Perhaps. After all, families can be dysfunctional; members squabble, stop talking to each other, and may eventually walk out. What prompted dealers to think seriously about leaving the lumber family was the emergence of mail-order competition.4

Mail-Order Competition After 1905, a growing number of companies caught on to the idea of selling building materials from catalogs they distributed by mail. The timing was not coincidental. As Daniel Boorstin has noted, mail-order operations in general were boosted by the introduction of Rural Free Delivery, which enabled retailers to distribute catalogs inexpensively to millions of households. The main rural routes were established by 1906. This coincided with a boom in building after the depression of the 1890s, and also with a surge of antitrust action against manufacturers. Here was a new business opportunity, and a mail-order business for building supplies was soon growing rapidly.5 Urban and architectural historians have written about the mail-order housing business.6 They have rightly emphasized the effectiveness of the mail-order companies, notably Sears, Roebuck, in marketing house kits. These were more or less complete packages of materials, that could be assembled on site. But historians have downplayed the fact that the first companies to enter this market, notably Aladdin, emerged from the lumber trade. These upstarts were sophisticated wholesaler/manufacturers, shipping direct to the consumer. More significantly, previous writers have neglected the effect of the mail-order business on the organization of the existing building industry, including the retailer. In the long run, this was the effect that mattered most. For a time, many consumers were indeed drawn to the kit. By 1930, about 350,000–400,000 packages had been shipped across the United States and Canada.7 But only a minority of mail-order companies survived the Depression, and even those failed to prosper. Their enduring significance lies in their effect upon other retailers of building supplies. Here, the catalogs are revealing, for they indicate how companies tried

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to insert themselves into local building industries.8 The trade press then shows when and how those local businesses responded. The first mail-order operations sold lumber and competed on price. Gordon-Van Tine, of Davenport, Iowa, one of the larger concerns, entitled its promotional material Our Price Demolishing Lumber List: Lumber at Rock Bottom, Mill-to-You Figures. This was the direct-sale competition that retailers detested. Price lists became catalogs, and the trade press damned their distributors as “catalog houses.”9 But dealers sometimes found it hard to decide which of these were acceptable. Vertical integration blurred the line between manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer. Any might publish a catalog, and if it respected established channels of trade then it was acceptable. The hard part was knowing. In 1914, for example, the Mississippi Valley Lumberman (MVL) confirmed that a “newly organized” company with “somewhat sensational” advertisements was a bona fide wholesaler committed to using retailers. A correspondent claimed that another company, Doty Lumber and Shingle, had either sold to Gordon-Van Tine, by then a kit distributor, or sold by mail themselves. Lines were drawn, and policed.10 Price was the strength of the catalog house, and its weakness. Bennett, of Tonawanda, New York, declared “we undersell,” so that “you buy at wholesale prices.” Competition was fierce, margins narrow, and temptations to cheat were strong. Doty Lumber wrote to dealers, offering not to sell to customers in each yard’s territory, if the dealer agreed to purchase a carload of lumber: blackmail. The railcar unit mattered, since shipping rates were higher for smaller quantities. They were also higher for millwork than common stock. A large catalog company, Hewitt-Lea-Funck of Seattle, was found guilty of mixing grades in its cars, and it was also accused of shipping inferior goods. It was hard to make this charge stick, since lumber grading was not standardized and varied by species. Still, Gordon-Van Tine was found guilty of shipping oak veneer instead of the real thing. Some companies, like Gordon-Van Tine, cleaned up their act. Other companies, such as the Central Mill and Lumber, of Colville, Washington, could not survive without scams.11 The competition for, and with, mail-order lumber was ugly. Until the 1920s, mail-order shipments were confined to rail transportation, and buyers had to arrange carriage from the rail depot to building site. Rosemary Thornton, who has undertaken fieldwork on Sears, Roebuck houses, suggests that few were erected more than two miles from a railroad. More generally, mail-order companies never accounted for more than 5 percent of the lumber sold to customers, even in the Midwest.12 But their

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presence became a leading topic at association meetings, and by 1914 an obsession of the trade press. The threat was real. Catalog companies threatened to shave the dealers’ narrow margins, or eliminate them entirely. As late as 1914, the main threat was still cheap lumber. In that year, the MVL listed the major catalog houses. Of seventeen listed, only four produced kits. Of these only one, Gordon-Van Tine, had graduated from selling wholesale lumber; another, the Chicago House Wrecking Co., had begun by selling used materials from the Chicago World’s Fair; only the remaining two, Sears, Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, had entered the kit business from outside the lumber trade. (Though even Richard Sears’ first retail operation, begun when he was employed as a station agent, involved the sale of lumber and coal.) Significantly, the MVL mentioned these two companies only because they sold lumber. Other kit companies, including Aladdin, were ignored.13

The Kit Companies, 1905–1929 By 1914, the mail-order threat to the local retailer was changing. In 1900, the Hodgson Company had begun shipping garages; in 1905, it opened a factory to produce summer cottages and houses. The following year, Gordon-Van Tine was selling house plans along with lumber, and the Sovereign brothers started Aladdin. In 1908, a contractor and a lumberman teamed up to start Pacific Ready-Cut in Los Angeles; the building materials department at Sears, Roebuck, published its first catalog and soon Sears offered its first complete bill of materials for a house. By then, according to Platt Walker, editor of the MVL, the kit producers were having an impact. In 1910, Montgomery Ward and Gordon-Van Tine began offering “ready-cuts,” i.e., kits, and next year Sears opened a mill in Cairo, Illinois, and created a modern homes department that offered credit—a first. These initiatives raised their operations to a new level.14 Before the United States entered World War I, other companies entered the fray: large concerns like Harris Brothers in 1912, Lewis Manufacturing in 1914, and the International Mill and Timber Company (a.k.a. Sterling) in 1915, as well as smaller aspirants such as Tacoma’s Local Lumber Company, which in 1914 opened an “eastern sales office” in Mitchell, North Dakota, to sell “complete house and barn bills.”15 Business picked up: in 1914, MVL reported that mail-order companies were “more persistent and active . . . during the last twelve months than ever before.” Trade journals began to distinguish “regular” mail-order competition from the newer “ready made houses.”16 Production of kits was taking off. The only available sales data pertain to

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Aladdin, the largest operator until the 1920s, and its experience is indicative. In 1914, its annual sales exceeded 1,000 units; by 1916 they reached 2,500 and in 1917 peaked at 3,200. In 1918, supplying the U.S. government and industrialists, for company towns, Aladdin shipped the materials for about 2.4 percent of all new homes across the United States. Kit companies were beginning to make inroads into the business of local retailers. In 1918, when Shaw surveyed dealers across North America, he devoted a whole section to the topic “how to keep your trade at home.”17 For a time, the kit companies gained strength. Most boosted sales by offering a new service, credit. Quotations now came with a cash discount, usually 2 percent.18 Buyers could send a deposit of 10–25 percent and pay the balance on delivery, or arrange for a letter of deposit with a local bank, which guaranteed the vendor of sufficient funds while allowing the buyer a few days to inspect materials when they arrived. Sears, Roebuck, Pacific Homes, and Harris allowed buyers to make progress payments as the house went up—a construction mortgage. Finally, as the pièce de résistance, was the full easy-payment plan. Sears had discontinued this in 1911–1913, but in 1915 it was adopted by International Mill, which required 60 percent down and repayment over two years. By 1920, Sears offered a more generous plan which was extended to 100 months, and in 1928 further still.19 It then offered cash-back funds to pay for construction so that, in effect, down payments were reduced to 35 percent, then 25 percent and, for those who dispensed with contractors and built their own homes, virtually to zero. Boosted by financing, kit sales boomed again. Aladdin’s stagnated in the early 1920s before surging to peak at 3,400 in 1926. Sears’ peaked later, 1926–1928, when the company might have shipped 4,500 kits a year, or about 1.3 percent of all housing starts. Among the major catalog houses, only Pacific Homes and Montgomery Ward in the United States, and the Canadian department store Eaton’s, failed to joined the credit bandwagon, boasting that “cash on the barrelhead” saved customers money. Pacific, which offered construction finance, managed well: its sales picked up in 1921 and peaked at 4,000 in 1925.20 But the cash requirement surely limited sales at Eaton’s and Montgomery Ward. Kit manufacturers came in all sizes. One was continental. By 1919, Aladdin opened a sales office in Toronto, and operated nine mills across the continent, three in Canada. It soon listed customers in forty-seven states— and in Australia, England, Liberia, Tahiti, and Switzerland. This inspired its claim that “The Sun Never Sets on Aladdin Houses.”21 Although it eventually surpassed Aladdin, with sales of 34,000 by 1926 and perhaps 70,000 houses by 1933, Sears confined itself to the United States, where it sold na-

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tionwide. So did Montgomery Ward, Pacific Homes, and Gordon-Van Tine. Pacific claimed sales in Alaska, Hawaii, South America, and England, while Gordon-Van Tine published a testimonial from Guantanamo, Cuba.22 Other companies never quite reached a national market. Pacific ReadyCut, featured in Buster Keaton’s silent comedy One Week (1920), extended its reach throughout the southwest, and into some eastern states; in Canada Eaton’s, which sold kits from 1911 and published a catalog in 1912, was headquartered in Toronto but shipped lumber from the west coast. It had few customers east of Ontario. The U.S. midwest was the ideal base. Apart from Aladdin, two companies in Bay City, Michigan, reached for a national market: Sterling and Lewis. Their best sales were regional and, for Lewis, on the east coast: its prices included free shipment within the midwest and the Atlantic states from North Carolina up.23 A regional focus was clearer for Harris (Chicago), Bennett’s (Tonawanda, New York), and Hallidays (Hamilton, Ontario). Bennett’s testimonials came mostly from upstate New York and Pennsylvania, while Hallidays sold in southern Ontario, with a sprinkling eastwards. Other companies, such as Bossert, Evansville Planing Mill, Tumwater Lumber, and National Mill (in spite of its name), were never more than subregional. In 1927, Evansville Planing, of Indiana, claimed to offer eighty-two types of “standardized homes” for shipment to “all parts of the country,” but there is no evidence that it came close to that goal.24 Like Evansville, many kit manufacturers depended more on word-of-mouth and local advertising than on mail-order business. They blurred with the local dealer. Although kits had their greatest impact in the midwest, they were sold all over the country. They found their way into the suburbs of major cities from coast to coast, but most ended up in smaller urban centers. This was typical of the mail-order business in general. Company records have apparently not survived but published testimonials suggests their geography. In 1924, the Bennett Lumber Co. published eighteen, all from places like Six Mile Run (Pennsylvania) or Seneca Falls (New York). In 1923, Gordon-Van Tine published a page of forty-eight testimonials, forty-six of which were given a home town. One was large (Philadelphia), and two mid-sized (Indianapolis, Rochester), but the rest were small towns scattered across the eastern and midwestern states, from Hooker (Oklahoma) to Minden (Nebraska), and from Barre (Massachusetts) to Eureka (Utah), but with a bias to GordonVan Tine’s home state, Iowa (Davenport, Grinnell, Mason City, Grand Junction, Riverside, Exira) or to neighboring Illinois (Caseyville, Illiopolis, La Salle, Roseville, Springfield). A similar pattern was apparent in Canada. There, from Hamilton Ontario, Halliday sold to buyers in a few small cities

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(Hamilton, Guelph, Windsor) and a myriad small towns, from Ancaster and Arden, through Oshawa and Orillia, to Willowdale and Woodstock.25 In 1925, Aladdin trumped everyone, publishing a list of over a thousand customers, organized by state. This was probably not a geographically representative sample: the company wanted to name as many states and places as possible. But a predictable pattern emerged. Among the customers in Ohio, for example, none were in Cleveland, and only one in a Cleveland suburb (Bay Village); one was in the state capital, Columbus. The rest were in towns like Lancaster, Mansfield, Steubenville, Pleasantville and—a real concentration here—Zanesville, with nine listings. Perhaps the word had gotten around, or Aladdin had converted a local contractor. Either way, in Ohio as elsewhere, the small-town bias was overwhelming.

Selling the Consumer Marketing kits was different from catalog lumber. The customer was a consumer, not a contractor, and clever advertising was necessary. At first, manufacturers targeted the rural market and advertised in magazines like Wallace’s Farmer. In some regions, this was big business, nowhere more so than on the Canadian prairies, which lacked local lumber and where settlement was rapid after 1900. B. C. Mills, the main kit company on the Canadian west coast, offered farm plans and made an excellent business out of them. The only large company with a distinctive business model was Hodgson, which used bolted-panel technology; which targeted niche markets for cottages, play and guest houses, camp equipment, and cabanas; which did not emphasize price; and which was able to boast affluent customers who included Mrs. Andrew Carnegie, Marshall Field, and Ellery Sedgwick, editor of Atlantic Monthly.26 As business took off, however, most companies shifted their focus to the market for urban middle-class homes. Aladdin was a pioneer since Otto Sovereign, one of the founders, had a background in advertising. On April 5, 1909, Aladdin bought its first national advertising, half an inch in Collier’s, the Saturday Evening Post, and some Sunday magazines. Six years later Curtis, a pioneer of market research and publisher of the Post, used Aladdin to illustrate the power of advertising by itself placing a full-page advertisement in the Philadelphia Public Ledger. It spoke of “the business romance of a $1,500,000 industry which nine years ago did not exist,” implying that advertising had made it possible. By the 1920s, kits were firmly middle class. Pacific Ready-Cut, for example, which had begun by manufacturing one- and two-bedroom bungalows, moved up-market while Aladdin, and Sears, Roebuck played up the status of owning one of their homes,

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and so helped define a new middle-class norm. As expectations rose, some companies catered to a growing preference for minor additions (figure 11).27 Catalogs—those “silent salesmen”—were crucial. Daniel Boorstin has described these “farmers’ bibles” as “the first characteristically American kind of book.” His observations apply equally to the specialized catalogs that sold homes; at least five have been reprinted as Americana.28 Their rhetoric was florid, but practical. What made them effective was that, through artists’ sketches and photographs, they created vivid impressions of what houses looked like, while ground plans enabled buyers to imagine daily living. As a onetime kit salesman warned lumber dealers in 1931, the catalog “creates and suggests sales that you as merchants hesitate to put over.” It fed what was important not just for “woman-nature but human nature.” Although passive—the catalog sat on the coffee table, kitchen counter, or bookshelf— it was all the more effective, especially for women. Wives cared about, and were intimately involved in, the decision to buy a home. As retailers knew, they liked to shop before they bought: comparison, reflection, and multiple trips to the store were part of the process.29 The more valuable the sale, the more this was true, and no purchase was bigger than a house. A salesman with a quota, or accustomed to contractor customers, might hustle a woman—or a male home buyer, too—out of a sale. As one commentator noted in 1919, catalogs allowed the consumer “to slowly mak[e] up his mind . . . without being embarrassed by the presence and conduct of a salesman.” A book was always available to be picked up, set down, forgotten, but then revisited at the right moment. And to make sure that potential buyers did not forget, the mail-order companies kept track of who had requested a catalog, and then who had ordered. If the customer did not place an order, the company sent a reminder.30 It was an effective system. Mail-order companies appealed explicitly to women. The major ones set up service departments. These designed houses, and also adapted plans (within reason) to suit buyers. Several gave advice on interiors, women’s special domain. In 1921 Aladdin offered a “Department of Service” for “the planning and arrangement of artistic exterior and interior effects”; Bennett organized a free interior decorating service to suggest color schemes, furnishings, and kitchen layouts; International Mill claimed to employ two women advisors and a home decorator who planned “from the woman’s viewpoint,” which meant “adding comforts and conveniences” and “perfecting the room arrangements” as well as “lessening the number of steps that the housewife must take each day in her work.” Sears simply claimed that their woman adviser “understands the requirements of the housewife.”31 Couples, not contractors, were the new target.

11. Kit additions. Only a couple of the larger kit manufacturers marketed additions: in the 1920s, home improvement was still a minor market. Source: Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character (Bay City, Mich.: Lewis Manufacturing Company, 1920).

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Negotiating with Local Building Interests While they addressed consumers, kit companies cared how the local building industry would respond. Like wholesalers of lumber, their main pitch was based on price, but the issue was never that simple. The first and most straightforward argument pointed to the efficiency of their large mill and commercial operations. Bennett’s catalog spoke of “gigantic, powerful machinery,” bulk buying, and “economy in drafting”; Gordon-Van Tine reproduced a picture of its “big gang trimmer” and boasted about its “door morticing machine”; Pacific kicked off its catalog with an illustration of a rafter saw that “does the work of 20 carpenters”; Sears, Roebuck displayed its seventeen-acre sash and door factory, the office of its Modern Homes Division, its window, door, and molding warehouses, and other mills in Illinois and New Jersey. Aladdin argued that its “rapid, automatic machinery” could do the work of a hundred carpenters, “and you get the benefit of this savings.”32 This sort of argument made sense to consumers, especially from the late 1910s. Skyscrapers, with vaguely analogous technology, expressed modernity, and Ford was demonstrating how effective mass production could be in bringing down costs, and prices. A second line of argument was that, as Gordon-Van Tine put it, “by selling . . . direct to the user” the company “eliminat[ed] middlemen’s profits,” which meant the local retailer’s cut. This was an old argument, one that had sustained Granger sentiment in the 1870s. It had a point. Although lumberyards operated on slimmer profit margins than most retailers, their markup accounted for a quarter of the price to the consumer. As Aladdin noted, this “would typically add several hundred dollar profits to the goods you buy.” Of course, the price argument ignored the services that dealers provided, including credit, advice, storage, and just-in-time delivery to the building site, but at face value it sounded persuasive.33 Into the early 1920s, the kit companies’ case against middlemen could tap popular resentment against the lumber trade. The manufacturers who colluded to maintain prices, and the dealers who insisted that all lumber pass through their hands, had tarnished their industry’s public image. Arguably, it was the resultant “climate of suspicion and hostility” among farmers that gave mail-order companies their initial opportunity.34 That overstates the point, but popular sentiment did matter. The Lumber Trust was a sitting target. Mail-order companies encouraged the federal antitrust campaign and mobilized prejudices by enabling consumers make an end run around the trust’s local agents. The moral argument against dealers was complicated, however, because

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local retailers could represent the mail-order companies themselves as bullies. Between 1905 and the early 1920s, small-town retailers mounted “tradeat-home” campaigns against mail-order concerns that employed no local people and paid no local taxes. In 1907, a new Home Trade League, based in the Monadnock Building in Chicago, claimed to speak for half a million midwestern retailers who “are fighting for their lives.” Such campaigning plateaued in the 1910s, when lumber dealers led many local campaigns. In 1917, for example, all dealers in Springfield, Illinois, joined the merchant’s association in a “brisk advertising campaign to promote the ‘trade-at-home’ idea.” One, Millrose Lumber, bought an advertisement listing “ten reasons why we should buy in Springfield” (figure 12). Wayne Fuller, the historian of Rural Free Delivery, has suggested that farmers remained skeptical of trade-at-home rhetoric: they liked catalogs for the choices they offered. But a significant current of support persisted. In 1919, for example, Butterick, publisher of The Delineator magazine and early sponsor of Better Homes in America, agreed not to take advertisements from mail-order concerns.35 Kit companies realized that they had to respond to trade-at-home arguments. Aladdin told its customers “when your dealer says ‘Don’t buy your lumber out of town,’ ask him where he buys the lumber he wants to sell you.” International Mill was emphatic: “The retail lumber man’s position is truly ridiculous. ‘Don’t buy lumber by mail,’ is his daily cry. But let him get short of ship-lap, shingles or lath or anything else and what does he do? He sits down in his office tonight, and orders a carload by mail. He does the very thing he tells you NOT to do.”36 This argument looked reasonable, but it ignored the services that dealers could provide, and the issue of local employment and taxes. At most, it made buyers feel more comfortable about sending their business out of town. The kit companies pitched a third, and very important, argument about housing costs, but it had to be advanced cautiously. With the partial exception of the Canadian companies, Eaton’s and Hallidays, the companies shipped their lumber precut. Their catalogs pointed out that this saved the customer both materials and site labor: wastage was reduced and carpenters would spend less time measuring and trimming. Gordon-Van Tine claimed its kits reduced wastage by 17 percent, and Aladdin upped this to “at least 18 percent”; Gordon-Van Tine claimed reduced labor costs of 30 percent, Aladdin of 30–40 percent, and Montgomery Ward of 33–50 percent, while Sears, Roebuck reckoned that a scientific comparison (shown in a sequence of photographs) yielded a time saving for its Honor Bilt system of 40 percent. These claims were self-serving, but the kit companies had a point and customers knew it. In 1919, to industrial clients of “The Rodney,” a basic

12. Getting defensive. Because of their size, lumber dealers often led the local “trade-athome campaigns” that merchants organized in many smaller urban centers during the 1910s in an attempt to repel mail-order competition. Source: A. W. Shaw, A Report on the Profitable Management of a Retail Lumber Business (Chicago: Shaw, 1918).

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model, Aladdin stated that “a crew of twenty men should erect ten of these houses per week,” and added “they need not be skilled laborers.”37 A customer could go one better by using the “simple, plain instructions and detailed blueprints of erection” that came with each package and literally build his own home. All of the major companies proclaimed this possibility, typically in association with the cheapest kits.38 This was an obvious way to extend their market downwards. In its regular catalog for 1919, for example, Aladdin claimed that “most owners of The Rodney did all the work themselves,” noting that two men could erect it in two days, while reporting that a satisfied buyer from Michigan had declared, “If a man is not a carpenter and wants to build his own house this is the only way.” The company’s Canadian catalog said the same thing, noting that a teacher from Bridgeburg, Ontario, had put up an Aladdin home by himself “with the help of one or two school boys on holidays.” Also in Canada, Hallidays included testimonials such as “my dad and I did most of the work on our house,” saving labor and $500 on materials. For a time, Gordon-Van Tine made a special appeal to “handymen.” In 1915, its building material catalog urged customers to “make your own window screens,” told them “how to lay, finish and keep a hardwood floor,” and claimed that “anyone can apply” their Mission Art Stain Finishes or their Kalsomine, an interior finish akin to paint. Illustrations showed housewives applying varnish and bath tub enamels.39 The owner-build option did away with the contractor. Even the conventionally erected kits threatened contractor’s and tradesmen’s incomes by reducing the hours needed to build a house and by undermining skills, which meant wages. This could be a problem, because kit companies and most buyers depended on contractors. Numerous and mobile, contractors were not in a good position to bargain: a skilled carpenter might decline a kit job, but another, less skilled or more desperate, could take his place. Even so, contractor refusals were a problem, especially in the 1910s. In response, Pacific Ready-Cut offered a construction service within the Los Angeles area. Buyers could take the free services of one of Pacific’s construction foreman, as long as he paid “carfare, room and board,” or they could pay extra for a house erected by one of the company’s own crews. Hodgson Company offered a similar service in the 1930s, offering to send a foreman to hire and train local laborers to bolt together the company’s panels. This complete building service was doubtless attractive to Hodgson’s customers, who were more affluent, but it was a marketing technique that most companies could not afford. Perhaps more significantly, because aspiring home owners viewed him as a source of advice, the contractor was in a good position to

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discourage kit sales, for example by badmouthing the quality of their lumber. The kit companies needed to keep contractors on their side.40 The companies addressed contractors through advertisements in trade journals such as American Carpenter and Builder, or through asides in the catalogs themselves. Their best argument was that kits made home buying more affordable, and so increased business. This would counterbalance the reduction in man hours per house. As International Mill pointed out in 1915, precutting raised the number of houses a carpenter could frame in a building season, from five to perhaps fifteen, the net effect being “almost as much benefit to you as to the general public.” Harris pitched bulk sales and, in a “page to the Carpenter,” it argued that their mills had done the “uninteresting” work, so that site labor could be carried out with “greater speed and pleasure.” Sears, Roebuck also targeted contractors. In 1913, it pointed out that by buying kits, contractors could erect several standardized homes, thereby raising efficiency and savings costs. It also included testimonials, and by the mid-1920s featured a page that reported “what contractors think of our Honor Bilt Ready Cut System”41. No surprises: builders reckoned that the materials were top-quality and that precutting saved time. The question, of course, was whether contractors would actually be able to find additional work to occupy the time saved by assembling a kit. The kit companies tried other methods of persuasion. The simplest was to pay the contractors. Until the mid-1910s, companies recruited contractors as salesmen. Gordon-Van Tine offered 5 percent commissions for productive leads; other companies followed suit, and some reports suggest that “scalpers” gave kickbacks as high as 10 percent. Such incentives did double duty: they generated business and guaranteed contractor cooperation. But they cut into profits and were risky since they risked alienating buyers.42An alternative strategy was apparently used only by Sears, Roebuck. One difficulty the mail-order companies faced was their lack of local connections. In 1916, Sears had opened a local roofing office and in 1919 this idea was expanded to become the first sales office. The company then opened a succession in major urban centers—eleven by 1925, and forty-eight by 1930, by which time it employed 350 salesmen.43 All were east of the Mississippi, and many were in smaller urban centers such as Peoria (Illinois), Zanesville (Ohio), and even Peeksville (New York). Their purpose was to attract and serve buyers, but they also helped develop and cement ties with contractors. As early as 1927, “personal solicitation” by the eighteen to twenty employees who were based at its branches was generating most of the company’s business. Presumably, these employees spoke with tradesmen as well as potential buyers. Out-of-town contractors could visit the nearest Sears sales

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center when making a shopping trip or attending a trade convention. By 1930, Sears was offering to supervise construction of some of the homes it sold, presumably using local contractors.44 The one local building agent that kit companies ignored was the architect. They touted their architectural and design services and plausibly claimed, as Lewis Manufacturing did, that their services produced better plans than the average contractor could “from a plan of his own making.” Indeed they suggested that, because of their scale of operations, each functioned as a “clearing house of building ideas.” But none compared their designs with those of architects. They might not have won such a comparison, but that was beside the point. With few exceptions, those who bought kits were not in the market for the services of an architect. The kit companies knew who had to be placated and who could safely be ignored.45

Dealers React In the kit manufacturer the dealers had discovered a new threat. They responded in two ways. Negatively, they attacked them in every way they could; positively, they reorganized to meet them on their own terms. They were always willing to consider either option, but the balance was to shift in 1914. The lumber retailers’ first instinct was to lash out. They had joined forces before to attack companies that sold direct, so why not again? Since the kit companies appealed directly to consumers, the retailers needed a new approach. One method was to persuade customers to join a boycott by exploiting trade-at-home sentiment. The trade press eagerly reported such activity. In 1914, for example, the Western Retail Lumberman reprinted one woman’s letter that read, in part, “I do not know of any merchants in the small towns of Kansas who are making unreasonable amounts of money . . . Montgomery Ward on the other hand is a multimillionaire.” She concluded: “Who are getting the big profits?”46 Such anecdotes gave dealers ammunition to used on skeptical customers. When all else failed, dealers could harass and calumnize. A favored method was spamming: inundating a kit company with requests for detailed specifications on the bill of goods that would be shipped for a particular order. In 1912, American Lumberman announced a competition for ideas about how to meet the mail-order competition. Declaring it would not consider “espionage, bribery or . . . surreptitious methods,” it nevertheless allowed the use of fictitious names to prevent reprisals. With heavy wit, the trade press referred to mail-order companies generically as Montgomery

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Sawbuck—because they chiseled! Even in print, language became heated. One concern was damned for its “contemptible and dishonorable” advertising, and for a supposed tactic of plying customers with alcoholic drinks.47 Lumber concerns also tried industrial espionage. The polite version was to gather information about how mail-order companies operated. Some retailers collected catalogs. Trade journals advised others to check the package of materials that arrived at the depot. Freight rates varied with the grade of lumber, and dealers knew that some companies included millwork in shipments of common stock.48 Beyond this, trade associations paid investigators to track down the mail-order companies’ suppliers so that they could be boycotted. The mail-order companies responded by pushing federal authorities to take the dealers’ associations to court. In 1911, fourteen association secretaries were charged with exercising a “trust of power” by maintaining a blacklist in order “to put a complete stop to the direct sale of lumber by wholesalers to consumers.” Their Lumber Secretaries’ Bureau of Information maintained a blacklist that included the names of more than a hundred “mail-order houses and wholesalers from Pennsylvania to the Pacific coast.” Another suit followed, against Michigan dealers who had “most specifically opposed” the mail-order companies. Another suit included “sensational charges” against the “Lumber Trust” that “dominates the lumber trade of at least twenty states by maintaining a spy system, blacklists, divisions of territory, and other alleged illegal methods” via a “central agency in Chicago,” the Bureau of Information.49 Some suits were dropped, but the Lumber Secretaries, together with the Mississippi Valley Lumberman, were found guilty. In the end, the most significant case concerned the Eastern States Lumber Dealers Association, also for a blacklist. This became a landmark when charges were upheld by the Supreme Court in June 1914.50 Blacklists had been blacklisted. The lumber industry was also losing in the court of public opinion. Gordon-Van Tine’s building catalog included a customer’s letter from Peavey (Id.), which reported that a local retailer had claimed that “the lumber trust or association, or some sort of combination” had put Gordon-Van Tine out of business. “I do hope not,” the correspondent grumbled, “lumber dealers have a great graft in this new country.” In April 1914, the Department of Commerce published a major report on the lumber trade. The findings were damning: the commissioner of corporations, Joseph E. Davies, commented that the trade’s “activities in fixing prices and in restricting output have profited the lumbermen at the expense of the consumer.” The findings were directed at manufacturers and wholesalers, but in September 1914 yet another

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suit was brought against dealers, this time the Northwestern Lumbermen’s Association and the MVL. The MVL itself noted that politicians and mailorder companies had created a “public sentiment . . . against those identified with the lumber industry.”51 Something had to change. The first to acknowledge this was Platt B. Walker. Walker was secretary of the Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association and one of those charged in 1911. Early in 1915, as editor of the Western Retail Lumberman, he noted that mail-order companies had mobilized “public sentiment,” but then turned to the question as to what dealers should now do. He argued that the best answer was to “give the customer the option of buying the same material on the same terms and conditions offered by the commercial pirates.”52 A decade earlier, this call would simply have meant a renewed commitment to keep prices low. In the emerging kit era, it meant much more.

A New Public Face, 1914–1929 Platt Walker, and soon other trade leaders, concluded that dealers could thrive only if they adopted “modern merchandising methods.” This meant changing what they offered, and how they offered it. Informing everything had to be a new commitment to identify, and meet the needs of, the consumer.53 It followed that associations and trade journals should promote a reorientation of the dealer’s operations. To some extent, they already had. In May 1914, C. H. Ketridge, the veteran lumberman who wrote the MVL’s “Realm of the Retailer” column, noted that lately associations had begun to offer their members more services. These included advertising ideas, legal advice (notably about mechanics liens, a constant aggravation), and in general the application of “scientific principles of business.” Because of the Supreme Court’s decision in June, the pace of change quickened greatly from 1914. Because they had had their knuckles so publicly rapped, the MVL and Platt Walker became lead advocates of the new thinking. In September 1914, the MVL reported that Walker was now arguing that his association must turn away from “protection” and instead “furnish[] each . . . member those legal associational and industrial services which . . . will enable him to conduct his business first, to the benefit of the consumer and, second, to produce a greater net revenue for the business.” The implication was that dealers should think of themselves as retailers first, and lumbermen second. By the end of the year, Walker had redefined his readership: his journal’s masthead now addressed “Professional Retail Building Material Merchants,” while, for the Western Retail Lumberman, A. L. Porter fashioned

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13. The vision. Framed by the ideas of A. L. Porter, this artist’s image of the ideal, diversified, and consumer-oriented retailer, would not be widely realized until after 1945. Source: Western Retail Lumberman 4, no. 10 (December 16, 1915): 8–9.

a prescient image of the future, the diversified retailer (figure 13). Little did he know how far in the future his ideal would be realized.54 Soon, all-purpose retailers were able to subscribe to a new journal, Building Supply News. This was launched in 1917 by Harold Rosenberg, inevitably in the Midwest (specifically Chicago). Rosenberg declared BSN to be “a vigorous champion of the interests of the building material dealer-distributor.” He was willing to offend, and lose the advertising of, some manufacturers, and forty years later he claimed that for this he was at first “ridiculed” by Elmer Hole, then editor of the American Lumberman. There may be an element of myth-making here, but a midwestern dealer agreed that Rosenberg had indeed created a trade journal for a new type of retailer. BSN could not cater to the new breed, for these hardly existed, but instead worked to bring it into existence. Every issue featured a retailer who was adopting progressive practices. Judging from those it selected, its readership—or intended readership—included some hardware stores as well as lumberyards. In 1927, for example, it featured the Scarsdale Supply Co., a hardware store that was so diversified that it was almost a department store. Located on a main street, it contained “every conceivable article,” including paints, furnishings, appliances, radios, and even toys, as well as hard-core building supplies, these

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being located in eleven departments distributed across 4,500 square feet of space. BSN also claimed to express the interests of “the consumer where they conflicted with those of readers,” though this was rhetorical since, in Rosenberg’s view, those interests were synonymous: retailers should stock and do whatever was profitable, that is, whatever the consumer was willing to pay for. The idea of the all-purpose building supply retailer, local but modern, now had an effective champion.55 It was also the competition from kit companies that prompted dealers to form their first national organization. In 1911, the WRL reported that a group of retailers were forming a national body, but nothing came of this. It was five years later that several big-city dealers established the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association. Its role was positive. It promoted communication among the regional groups, and enabled dealers to influence public opinion. By the 1930s, it was affecting federal policy. Indeed, a past president, Norman Mason, was made administrator of the Federal Housing Administration. Even in the short run, it had an effect. By 1923, according to Nelson Brown, it had become “one of the most influential and progressive of the national organizations in this country.” It lobbied the regional and national associations of manufacturers to promote the better marketing of lumber, and threw its weight behind the nationwide Own Your Own Home campaign. As a result, dealers became and remained better organized than manufacturers or their contractor customers. In 1940, there were thirty-six organizations of retailers. Of these, 83 percent (30) could claim membership rates of 40 percent or better. This may not sound impressive, but it was better than the organizations of building suppliers, among whom only 64 percent (77 of 121) achieved the 40 percent membership threshold, and far better than contractors, among whom the equivalent proportion was only 25 percent (3 of 12). In an ill-organized industry, dealers were the interest group that spoke with the most coherent voice.56 A new national organization was helpful, but above all the kit competition had to be met at the local level. The new retailer would have to present himself better, and more often, to the public. In 1914, Ketridge argued that the kit companies’ growth depended on smart advertising. This became the standard view. In 1931, Charles Fish, an ex-salesman for a mail-order company, recalled an experience that he viewed as symbolic. He had called on a potential customer only to discover that the local lumber dealer had preceded him by a few minutes. The farmer would not let the dealer across the threshold, but when he learned who Fish represented he waved him in. Advertising opened doors, and lumber dealers were sometimes coerced into discovering its power. When a Seattle-based concern began advertis-

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ing in local newspapers, one editor approached the local retailer with the proposition that he would refuse to take the mail-order company’s check if the dealer promised to buy space instead.57 This quid pro quo was probably agreed in other places too, but it was not usually necessary. The trade press debated whether advertising was more important for city yards, which had many nearby competitors, or for small town dealers, who enjoyed a local monopoly but who made a higher proportion of their sales to consumers.58 But they agreed that dealers should advertise more, because they were tucked away near freight yards and away from street traffic.59 Dealers began to get the message. In 1918, Shaw’s survey found a new commitment to advertising. He cited Thompson Yards, which had started a “snappy little house organ” named “Upper Cuts,” which aimed at “Making the Fir Fly.” For the next decade, when they spoke about how to meet the mail-order threat, as A. D. F. Campbell (Arnprior, Ontario) did at the Ontario Retail Lumberman’s Association annual meetings in Toronto in 1927, dealers put better advertising at the top of the list.60 By then, the point was taken for granted. Fred Ludwig told his Yale audience that, given the lack of national advertising of lumber, dealers must invest 1½–2½ percent of annual sales in local promotion.61 The norm was probably one-fifth that amount. The challenge was that, unaided, dealers could not match the kit company’s copy. As Ketridge commented, “Many a dealer would change his ads more if he knew how to write them.” Here was where trade associations and journals could help. In 1913, the Northwestern Association established a service department that helped dealers write ads, and other groups did the same, especially in the western and midwestern states, and on both sides of the border. The most creative scheme was launched by W. Wadsworth Wood in 1925, when he founded the Progressive Merchants Bureau in New York City. His bureau offered a consulting service to dealers and associations. Wood persuaded Lumber (Manufacturer and Dealer) to launch an advertising service department through which he offered advice. The unique angle was that dealers were encouraged to submit samples of their advertising for Wood’s critique. His commentaries, polite but penetrating, used these examples to illustrate his pet themes: include human figures in illustrations; emphasize the use, not the product; appeal to emotions; don’t be negative about competitors; do not hint at the negative qualities of any building materials. Stated baldly such generalizations may have sounded abstract, but Wood’s specific suggestions brought them home.62 One point that Wood, and other commentators, emphasized was that dealers should not advertise individual items: lumber, shingles, and mill-

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work; wallboard, cement, and flashing; pipes, screws, and wire. Still less should they wax eloquent about their grade of shiplap. Did the automobile companies exalt tailpipes and shock absorbers? No: they spoke of convenience, reliability, and speed. Dealers were told to follow suit by promoting the whole house. As Platt Walker declared rather bombastically in 1915, advertise “something in which the customer was INTERESTED . . . A HOUSE .”63 And not just a house, but a home: a safe investment, a place of comfort and security in which to raise a family. Through their catalogs, mail-order companies had taken the advertising of homes to a high art. Dealers responded, in effect, by offering their own catalogs. At first, this meant carrying plan books. Soon, major trade journals and dealer associations began to offer plan services for their subscribers and members. An early scheme was the Porter-Ballard system, advertised by the Western Retail Lumberman in 1914. Dealers paid $50, which entitled them to receive a set (catalog) from which they could order up to fifty free plans and specifications. They could also use the association’s “trade-pulling advertising.” Within a year, 524 sets and 2,300 plans were sold in twenty-eight states, as well as Canada (and Australia!). The association for western Canadian dealers also ran a plan service.64 By 1919, 10 percent of independent dealers across the continent had signed on for a plan book system. The proportion would have been much higher among the line yards. Where line yards were common, notably western Canada, most dealers had ready access to a plan service by 1915.65 By the mid-1920s, many dealers used some sort of plan service. Some dealer groups, such as the Michigan association, assembled plan books. Alternatively, trade journals featured a house in each issue and invited dealers to purchase the plans for those that appealed. The American Lumberman and Building Supply News both did this. Catalogs were also sold to dealers by manufacturers of millwork or lumber, such as Bilt-Well and Weyerhaeuser, and by regional associations of producers, of which the southern pine was again the most progressive. Some plan services let the dealer to put his own name on the front page.66 A few architects looked askance, but there was little actual competition between them and the dealers. Architects designed fewer than 10 percent of all new homes in this period, and most of these were expensive. Few were troubled by the dealers or the kit companies, who targeted the more substantial middle and lower-middle segments of the market.67 Dealers also tried to rally the local building industry. Some commentators, notably Arthur Hood, argued that to respond to mail-order competition, “all factors of the building industry [should] unite in a community

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program,” ideally with the dealer at the center. It was easy to get contractors on board since they felt threatened by the kit business and depended on the retailer for credit. Lenders also listened, not least because dealers often sat on their boards of directors, as members of the Mueller family did in Davenport, Ia. Such connections mattered when kit purchases were secured on a banker’s note. Attacking this option, in 1914 the Mississippi Valley Lumberman suggested that each dealer should have “a frank talk with his local banker” to discourage their cooperation with the kit companies. This strategy would not have worked in Davenport, home to Gordon-Van Tine, which doubtless had its own local connections, but elsewhere might have borne fruit. Newspapermen were perhaps the most difficult locals to persuade, depending on local sentiment: unlike the mail-order concerns, dealers were did not spend a lot on advertising.68 Most of all, to push themselves to the fore, dealers would have to present a better face to the public. As the WRL observed in 1915, “Your building should be a daily advertisement of your business.” This meant presenting an attractive facade; cleaning up and covering over the lumber sheds; installing displays; and employing helpful staff. Ideally, displays would be arranged in a purpose-built showroom, with a separate space where customers could sit and consult catalogs. It was a question of meeting the expectations that kit companies had created. In 1927, BSN reported that Montgomery Ward was opening sales centers with “the most modern display rooms it is possible to build.” For dealers to respond, it editorialized, “adequate display rooms are essential. Up-to-date merchandising methods must be adopted.” All the trade journals showed what “progressive” dealers were doing. In 1919, for example, AL discussed the “modern building material store” that William Cameron of Fort Worth, Texas, was currently building. Some argued that dealers should speak of “stores” rather than “yards.” Dealers responded cautiously. Some dolled-up their yard to wow the uncritical customer, but a new showroom was another matter, and relocation was more or less out of the question.69 A cheaper, but still not an easy, stratagem was to retrain or replace staff. This happened first in the line yards. As early as 1915, Platt Walker reported that the general manager of a major western line yard was thinking about replacing his more conservative yard managers, while the auditor at another said that his company was now training young men about the new sales techniques. Change came more slowly in the individually run businesses, whose owners lacked both the skills and the resources to retrain staff and who balked at replacing a family member in the yard. Here again, associations came to their assistance by offering training schools, though few took

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advantage of this service before the Depression; usually, change happened when a dealer retired.70

Merchandizing: Prices, “Lines,” and the Package No matter their public face, the basic idea was to offer competitive prices. The trade press claimed that local retailers could compete with mail-order prices, and illustrated the point, although in correspondence dealers sometimes expressed doubts. In 1919, for example, the AL reported that advertising for Simpson Lumber, of Washington, Indiana, compared their prices with those of a mail-order company that had been soliciting in the area.71 Unfortunately, price comparisons were complicated by the diversity of grades and types of lumber, and were trickier still for kits. For consumers, the meaningful comparison was on a bill of materials, which included lumber of varying grades and dimensions, hardware, electrical and plumbing supplies, and perhaps a furnace. No dealer could offer, or price, an exact replica. Local retailers needed to persuade consumers that their charges were reasonable, but prices alone could not be decisive.72 What really mattered was service. The point was made many times.73 It also had many aspects. It should include a plan service that went beyond the catalog so as to help “Mr. Man’s wife decid[e] which house Mr. Man likes best.” It could also include the provision of credit. As Floyd Reynolds of Burr Lumber (Gloversville, New York) commented: “The large mail order houses are offering all sorts of financing for home builders. The dealers will have to meet this.” Those that had close connections with local lenders could do this. Wilson and Greene Lumber in Syracuse, for example, even allowed owners to count sweat equity towards a down payment. But, as noted in the previous chapter, few dealers could do much about the problem, especially for home improvements. By the end of the decade, some concluded that purely local strategies were insufficient. In 1930, Arthur Hood founded a national finance corporation, whose prime goal was to meet the mail-order competition. Unfortunately, the timing was poor and its impact limited. On the credit front, during the 1920s, few dealers could offer much.74 What dealers could do, and did, was stock a widening range of lines. By the 1920s, led by upstart BSN, trade journals carried stories of dealers in places as diverse as Rockford (Illinois), Birmingham (Alabama), San Antonio, and Chicago who had successfully diversified. They featured claims by prominent dealers, such as Julius Seidel of St. Louis, that “dealers can be department stores in building materials.” This had an effect. As early as 1912, an Alberta line-yard chain claimed that “everything is carried in the building

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line.” Others followed suit. In 1927, a Long-Bell manual insisted that “managers should use every effort to prevent [the] spread” of mail-order competition by “show[ing] their customers the advantages of trading at home.” These advantages included being able to examine goods before buying, to return unwanted goods (“if in good condition”), make exchanges, or buy additional materials at the same price. To realize these advantages, dealers carried a wide range of materials. A survey found that in Kansas, prime territory for Long-Bell, lumber’s share of total sales had dropped to 65 percent and was falling. This was typical. Speaking at Yale, Ludwig identified the diversification of lines as the main recent trend in the business.75 It did not occur overnight, but change was happening. Some foresaw the logical outcome. As early as 1919, the AL reported A. L. Porter’s opinion that “a new era of merchandising of all building materials is upon us,” together with his prediction that the consumer would buy all building materials from “one bang-up modern merchandising institution in his town.” By the 1920s, pushed by BSN and the WRL, trade journals promoted the idea of merchandizing, that is, stocking whatever consumers needed. They reported local retailers, from Milton (Oregon) to Chicago and Boston, who were selling “the complete house.” In Carlinville (Illinois), the local yard rose to Sears, Roebuck’s challenge by entering into “all the activities of building homes.” Even—or perhaps especially—where there was an unprecedented cluster of kit homes, a local dealer reorganized to outdo the competition. BSN reported that in San Antonio, Steves and Sons were copying “the cracker people” by selling the package. More to the point, Arthur Hood claimed that “the most successful merchandisers . . . appear to be those who are selling the most complete line.” Others agreed. Before the 1927 retail convention season, AL distributed a questionnaire on thirtytwo issues. One asked “is the time coming when [the] retailer must sell the complete home?” Most respondents said yes, some forcefully. In published replies, several mentioned the pressure of mail-order competition. In the 1920s, we can even see the beginnings of the all-purpose building supply store. Not a lumber dealer like Dix, or a hardware store like the Scarsdale Supply Co., that had diversified, but a retailer who destroyed categories. Featured by BSN in 1927, the Smith-Green Co. in Worcester, Massachusetts, was a good example. Described as a “building supply firm,” Smith-Green had a fifty-foot frontage on a main street, with display windows “to catch the feminine interest.” In that spirit, it encouraged “shopping” as well as “purchasing.”76 Kit companies had triggered a slow-motion landslide Informing all these initiatives—the improved public face, the plan catalogs and services, diversification, and house packages—was the assump-

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tion that dealers must target the consumer. Contractors, of course, should not be neglected. In large centers, they were the main customers, but even here some argued that the important person was the owner since, as J. Earl Brightbill said to Virginia dealers, he was “the man who pays the bills.” This shift in focus was the key. As early as 1914, when A. L. Porter revised his thinking about the trade, he altered his journal’s motto—“Help One Another”—by adding “to Help the Consumer Buy.” By the 1920s, the shift was happening. Brightbill claimed that at his yard in Hummelstown (Pennsylvania), between 1925 and 1927, sales to buyers, as opposed to contractors, jumped from 39 percent to 49 percent. This shift was a straw in the wind.77 Among the new customers was a sprinkling of women. In 1919, the American Lumberman claimed that had become a “cliché” to speak of the increase in women customers. But the increase was from a tiny base and did not amount to much. During the 1920s, trade journals reported some retailers who were going out of their way to attract women. In 1927 alone, for example, it noted that Harris Lumber of Loveland, Colorado, had organized a “ladies day,” an open house with special displays, and then how Hines Lumber of El Paso had run a competition for two women’s clubs to see which could get more members to visit the yard. Including a competition for best kitchen plan, Hines stimulated two thousand visits in six weeks, pushing up sales by $100 a day. More permanent yard improvements were necessary to get repeat sales. Speaking to the Southeast Missouri Lumbermen’s Association in 1933, J. G. Good of Swanson Lumber of Doniplan, Missouri, reported a recent conversation with a woman acquaintance. “She said ‘a number of years ago I went with father to a lumber yard but came away disgusted. The office was dingy and dirty, cigar and cigarette stubs lying on the floor, several loafers sitting by the stove, and the air blue with smoke, so I had no desire to go there again.’ ” But, according to Mr. Good, on a recent visit to a lumber dealer she had been impressed by a “friendly greeting” and by the “large, clean, nicely painted and decorated” office, with its “assortment of different articles for sale.” Generalizing, she supposed that the dingy yard of yesteryear was being replaced by “ ‘a bright, peppy, cheery successor—the building material store.” Not so fast. For every store like Dix Lumber, Scarsdale Supply, or Smith-Green that attracted a stream of women, there were ten like Harris Lumber of Loveland, or Hines Lumber of El Paso, that for most of the year saw only a steady trickle, and twenty or more who experienced nothing more than a drip . . . drip . . . drip.78 But drips and trickles accumulate. Between 1914 and 1927, the lumber retailer had come far. Dealers were beginning to think positively, and trade journals set the tone. By 1919, the “Realm” columnist in AL conceded that

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kit companies had “unintentionally forced us into the straight and narrow path of progress more than once,” while Ketridge, writing in the MVL, reckoned that dealers owed them a debt for showing how “aggressiveness” could create business.79 Facetiously, AL’s columnist proposed that the trade should endow them with “a maintenance fund in order that they might continue to teach us.” Ketridge learned to eat his words. When Sears, especially, opened attractive home centers that solicited local business, he found the prospect daunting: “the picture was not pleasant.”80 But there was no reversion to the defensive tactics of the prewar era. The trade press continued to report each kit company initiative—easier financing, model homes, and so forth—but their accounts were (mostly) fair, and came with suggestions as to how dealers should respond, for example by building display rooms, using personal contacts, or working to keep contractors loyal.81 The lumber dealers’ response had become positive, and specific. When American Lumberman polled readers before the 1927 convention season it reported that the 500 dealers who replied ranked mail-order competition twenty-fourth on their list of priorities, higher in some midwestern states, for example Illinois (15th). The kit competition still mattered, but the threat had been broken down into its component parts. Dealers now believed that, apart from perennial questions such as how to hold down costs (1st) and generate sales (5th), the leading issues for discussion included yard appearance (2nd), the handling of women customers (7th), and selling complete homes (12th). These were all issues that mail-order companies had put on the agenda. Instead of damning (or ignoring) the source of their problems, dealers now focused on meeting each challenge. A writer for Printer’s Ink, the leading journal for advertisers, made the point by overstating it. In 1931 he claimed that the kit companies had goaded lumber dealers into “thoroughly modernized and effective merchandising.” Most dealers still did not fit that description, but he was right in identifying the force that had goaded them to rethink their business.82 Retailers were finally beginning to think about the consumer.

SIX

A Perfect Storm for the Building Industry

With help from the courts, mail-order companies had forced lumber dealers to think seriously about consumers. This meant diversifying their lines and loosening ties to the lumber trade. By the early 1920s they were learning to live with the new competitors. The defensive militancy of the prewar years was being replaced by a resolve to broaden the services that they provided. But then, with gathering momentum, and eventually with bewildering force, the business environment changed. Sales of lumber, the dealer’s staple, lost ground to other building materials that were cheaper, safer, or easier to use. Families began to spend less on housing and more on appealing new products, notably cars. By the mid-1920s, residential construction had peaked. It fell into a decline that the Crash of 1929 turned into a rout. These developments created pressures that dwarfed the kit companies’ threat. It was out of this building catastrophe that home improvement, as a business and as a social phenomenon, was to emerge.

The Decline of Lumber William Cronon has said that for the rural economy of the nineteenth century “wood was second only to soil in its importance.” It was second to none for construction, on farms and in towns and cities. Forest resources seemed limitless. Lumber underpinned the railroads, it built boats and trestles, framed and clad most dwellings. As the Depression of the 1890s gave way to a construction boom, the consumption of lumber reached new heights, becoming the preferred framing material of every house kit distributed after 1905. The following year, per capita consumption of lumber reached an all-time high: 525 board feet per annum. From then on, everything was downhill.1

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14. The decline of lumber as a building material in the United States, 1919–30. Rising costs of production, the depletion of some regional sources, and an apartment boom that boosted consumption of cement and brick eroded the core business of the lumber dealer. Source: Peter Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, NRA Work Materials no. 79 (Washington, D.C.: National Recovery Administration, 1936).

The prosperity of lumber dealers depended overwhelmingly on the demand for lumber. From 1906, the news got steadily worse. Per capita consumption fell steadily, to 465 board feet per annum in 1910, 315 in 1920, and 275 in 1929. The situation was not initially dire. The population was growing, and relatively more lumber was used for residential construction, therefore passing through the retailer’s hands. But these trends could not compensate for the per capita decline. For a time, the construction boom of 1922–1928 disguised the problem. Indexed to 1920 (= 100), lumber shipments rose to 131 in 1925, slumped slightly, recovered to 129 in 1928, and only then fell. But the demand for all major building materials was rising more rapidly than for lumber. The shells of most buildings consisted of one of five materials: lumber, steel, cement, brick, and stone. Among these, in terms of cost, lumber’s share was 60 percent in 1919, but fell steadily to 40 percent in 1930 (figure 14). Worse, its share of residential construction fell even more rapidly, dropping from 92 percent in 1919 to 68 percent in 1931. The amount of lumber going into the average single-family dwelling declined from 18,902 board feet in 1920 to 15,387 in 1930. In part this decline reflected changes in architectural styles that, for example, favored roofs with a shallower pitch, themselves made possible by the use of manufactured shingles that shed water better. On top of everything, the demand for coal, a staple for most lumber dealers, was also softening. In 1908 lum-

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ber and coal accounted for 99 percent of America’s heating fuel. By 1940, this had dropped to 78 percent, a decline that had gathered pace from the mid-1920s as oil- and then gas-burning furnaces became available. Lumber dealers were in trouble.2 Some of lumber’s decline was due to urbanization: the United States became an urban nation in about 1925. Since most wage earners walked or took public transit to work, the growth of cities pushed up land values and residential densities. This helped account for the apartment boom of the 1920s. Apartment buildings often rose more than three stories, which virtually required brick, concrete, or steel construction, even where not mandated by building regulations. In the nineteenth century, cities experienced serious fires; this prodded them to set limits on the use of flammable materials in core areas. In the early twentieth century, regulations were extended outwards, and tightened, a trend boosted during the 1920s by Hoover’s Department of Commerce. By the early 1930s, experts recommended that even farmers should select roofing materials for their fire-resisting qualities; 40 percent of softwood production and 26 percent of hardwood was used in residential construction that came under building regulations. One of the first products affected was roof shingles, typically made from red cedar. These could be substituted by composition shingles made from asphalt or, by the 1920s, asbestos; nothing dramatizes the impact of building regulation better than the trend in the production of wood shingles. Production had risen steadily from about 350,000 in 1869 to 12 million in 1899 and then 15 million in 1909. It then dropped precipitously to 8.3 million in 1915, where it languished before resuming a gentler decline during the construction boom of the 1920s, reaching 6 million in 1929 (figure 15).3 In hindsight, we can see that challenges to lumber were under way by World War I, and that they entailed a slow shift in attitudes. Writing in 1914 about “successful houses and how to build them,” Charles White emphasized the virtues of the “fireproof house” in which only window frames, doors, and trim would be made of wood. Since the quality of lumber was declining, a bonus would be the greater “permanency of construction.” After the war, his observations were echoed by Christine Frederick. The challenge was obvious. Once upon a time, they said, lumber was bought. Now, as Nelson Brown commented in 1923, “wood must be sold on its merits in competition with other materials.” Job one was to defend it against its critics. In 1919, the Southern Pine Association claimed that, in terms of fire resistance, lumber could be “practically on a par with masonry-walled houses of same design with wooden interior construction,” if only builders used

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15. The declining sales of wood shingles, 1869–1936. Competition from wood “substitutes” challenged lumber dealers to diversify. Source: Source: Peter Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, NRA Work Materials no. 79 (Washington, D.C.: National Recovery Administration, 1936).

the correct designs and building methods. Instead, darn it, they insisted on erecting homes “as cheaply as possible.” Conceding that wood might burn, the association suggested that regulations should require frame dwellings with wood siding to be situated at least ten feet from any neighbor, and those built in rows should have masonry dividing walls. These were defensive arguments. At best, they encouraged municipal officials to limit the use of wood products rather than banning them outright.4 Fire risk was not the only problem with lumber. During the 1920s, home buyers learned to care more about heat loss and the cost of fuel, in part because of the advertising of the companies, such as Flax-li-num, that made insulation. Now the lumber trade could claim that in that regard their product was superior to its main rivals. The conductivity per inch of oak and white pine was 1.02 and 0.78, respectively, while common brick and cinder blocks (both 5.00) together with concrete (8.00) were far inferior. Unfortunately, the new wallboards such as Celotex and Insulite (0.34), as well as insulation such as (asbestos) Rock Wool (0.31) and Flax-li-num (0.33) were much better, making it possible to erect brick or concrete structures that retained heat. It was not until the mid-1920s, however, that the lumber trade began

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to debate the merits of wood. Early in 1927, Wilson Compton, secretary of the NLMA, carried the message to lumbermen everywhere during the convention season. In January, for example, he spelled out the challenge to the Indiana hardwood manufacturers, gathered in Indianapolis. The market for softwoods had fallen by 2½ percent a year for fifteen years, he declared, and for hardwood a full 3 percent. In February, he told the Canadians in Montreal that lumber was losing out to other products, old and new: steel, synthetics, and “fiber products.” “Our market,” he warned, “is no longer a seller’s market but very much a buyer’s.” The Canadians greeted him with “prolonged applause” and “eulogistic comments,” but that night many probably lay awake trying to figure out how to meet the challenge Compton had identified.5 Everyone agreed that the core problem was that lumber manufacturers had done a poor job of advertising. The case was made by dealers on innumerable occasions. In April 1927, for example, Miers Johnson of Sweetwater, Texas, spoke to the state association about “combatting anti-wood building ordinances.” He tried to suggest the merits of wood, but framed his discussion by declaring that “if the wood shingle manufacturers had 10 percent as much pep . . . as the manufacturers of other roofing material, there would not be so much necessity for a discussion of this kind.” A reporter from AL. reported that “Mr. J’s talk was conceded to be the feature of the entire convention.” Arthur Pack, a more objective observer, made the same point in a textbook. Manufacturers of other building products, he commented, “had launched a much more intelligent and effective campaign of advertising than had ever been thought of by the lumber industry.”6 Manufacturers of other materials spent more on consumer advertising, and this surely accounts for their more rapid growth. They targeted retailers too. Representatives from nonlumber companies were now speaking at annual meetings of lumber dealers. At the national convention in Chicago in 1929, the opening session included an “8-reel moving picture” produced by Lehigh Portland Cement. Other companies found ingenious ways of raising their profile. In 1927, for example, the AL ran a series by W. H. Upson, manufacturer of Upson Board (a clone of Beaver Board). Offering “advice” to dealers, Upson was careful not to mention his company’s product, but he did suggest that dealers should aim to provide a “service” to the consumer rather than just selling goods. His clincher was “we must sell what these materials will do for the buyer.” But of course, the easiest way of reaching dealers was to advertise, and by the mid-1920s the trade journals were carrying a host of advertisements from nonlumber companies. By 1927, these included the Mason Fibre Company (Masonite), Flax-li-num, Mule-

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Hide (roofing), Beaver Manufacturing (Beaver Board), Insulite and, above all, Celotex.7 The advertising placed by nonlumber companies tells us about their relationship with dealers, and about how they were trying to change it. Manufacturers knew that dealers did not want to sell lumber substitutes. Insulite, a board made from wood chips, was sold to dealers in 1927 as an “all wood product” that “discourages the use of substitutes.” The manufacturer argued that even when used as a plaster base, Insulite would not affect sales of wood products since dealers had “lost the wood lath trade [to steel] long since.” Materials such as Insulite and Beaver Board were an easy sell and were soon stocked. Products not made from wood were pitched as noncompetitive “sidelines.” Flax-li-num insisted its product was “solely an insulation,” adding, “it is not a substitute for any standard lumber item.” Significantly, as late as 1927, the manufacturers of outright lumber substitutes kept a low profile. A notable example was Johns-Manville, the largest manufacturer of building products and also the biggest spender on consumer advertising. Its main product—asbestos and asphalt shingles—competed head on with a traditional staple of the lumberyard. A number of dealers probably carried J-M’s shingles, but neither they nor the company cared to boast about it, and so J-M did not advertise in the American Lumberman. At first, it promoted itself by stealth.8 Trade advertisements also show that manufacturers of building materials had various ways of bringing dealers around. The obvious line was that their products were in demand, would sell well, and make profits for the local retailer. In 1927, Celotex ran a series of advertisements in AL that included endorsements from specific dealers. In April, it claimed that sales of its insulating board would provoke copycat buyers, and deployed R. J. Bamber, sales manager for the Comfort Coal-Lumber Company of Hackensack, New Jersey, to make the point. “As soon as a few homes in any community have been made more comfortable with Celotex,” Bamber is quoted as saying, “builders of other homes demand its protection.” Crucially, many companies offered practical help in drumming up business. Armstrong, the leading maker of linoleum, prepared pamphlets and booklets that showed retailers how to advertise, and produced a series called “Told in the Store” that offered sales advice. An advertisement for Mule-Hide showed a dealer holding a map that showed a scattering of marked properties and an aerial view of a town at his feet. The copy suggested that one-eighth of all shingled roofs were ready for replacement, and urged dealers to write for “the MuleHide plan for conducting a systematic survey, that will definitely reveal who and where these properties may be located.” It was obvious why Armstrong

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and Mule-Hide might want to help dealers sell their goods, but such manufacturers perceived a more general stake in the effectiveness of the retailer. The eight-reeler shown by the Lehigh cement company focused on a dealer who had “floundered” before getting some “sound merchandising advice” from the company and so becoming a “go-getter.” In the process he presumably sold more cement, and also everything else. Lehigh was trying to capitalize on its investment in providing dealers with advice. The point is that they had made the investment, and dealers knew it.9 And so the manufacturers of sidelines and substitutes were increasingly able to present themselves as allies of the lumber dealer. Early in 1927, Mason Fibre pointed out that it sold Masonite exclusively through lumber dealers, and that its sales campaign was developed only after “400 dealers were personally consulted.” A more sweeping pitch was made by Celotex. In a double-page spread in AL, the company announced that it was committing itself to promoting home ownership and new construction. This policy had been “approved” by the “National Celotex Dealer’s Council,” consisting of eleven dealers including, crucially, Fred Ludwig, a well-known spokesman. This was supposedly “the first public endorsement of a manufacturer’s policy by a retailer’s Council or like Association,” indicating that “the interests of the Celotex Company are identical with the interests of Celotex dealers.” The message was plain, and was expressed by F. M. Hartley, president of the Southwestern Lumbermen’s Association. The manufacturers of substitutes, he declared, offer “splendid and magnificent cooperation,” so that carrying such products becomes the “line of least resistance.” Previously, mail-order competition had pushed some dealers into thinking about diversifying their lines. By the late 1920s, manufacturers of nonlumber supplies were offering incentives for dealers to move in this direction. Carrots had been added to sticks.10

The New Competition While those in the lumber trade were coming to terms with the manufacturers of sidelines and substitutes, both began to perceive a wider problem: growing competition from the producers of other consumer goods. Of course, families had always weighed their needs for one commodity against another. A bookish person spent her leisure time and budget differently than the gregarious man who enjoyed a pint. But when most households were poor they had limited choices. In the 1920s, rising prosperity meant more discretionary income. Those who enjoyed entertainment, and this was the Roaring Twenties, could spend more on speakeasies and movies,

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while maintaining a modest expenditure on food and housing. Domestic types with children could acquire a larger, better-built, and better-equipped home. Many households still lived hand to mouth, but the growing middle class had more choices. The late 1920s survey of Buffalo home owners shows how significant consumers’ choices could be. Interviewers asked families how buying a home had changed their pattern of expenditures. Overwhelmingly, spending on household equipment (97 percent) and furnishings (93 percent) had stayed the same or increased. Spending on everything else had fallen. Proportionally, the commonest reductions were on clothes, motion picture and theater shows (37–39 percent of households each), vacations (29 percent), and books (26 percent), with automobiles (17 percent) a straggler. Many households had probably changed their spending more than expected. Maintenance costs surprise most new home buyers, and soon the shock of the Depression would have forced the Buffalo sample to concentrate even more on essentials, including the mortgage. But to some extent they had known what they were getting into. In buying, they had made housing a priority.11 To some extent, rising incomes affected the consumer’s choice of building materials. Asbestos shingles were more expensive than cedar, but were fire resistant and came in different colors. Safety and curb appeal are good selling points. Brick, too, was more expensive than lumber, but safer, and also more impressive to neighbors and friends. Contemporaries could see that rising incomes and new materials brought choice and new competition into the housing market. In Your Money’s Worth, a best-selling polemic published in 1927, Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink surveyed how consumers were being persuaded to spend their money. They noted how “earnest and persuasive salesmen of asbestos shingles” were shilling their goods, and how competition was setting the manufacturers of lumber and brick against one another. They reported the comments of William Babbitt, speaking for the National Committee on Wood Utilization of the NLMA. Mr. Babbitt—he must have been the butt of an occasional joke—had complained about the emerging “assault . . . on lumber and the industries that it sustains.” But the assault came not only from the likes of Johns-Manville. Chase and Schlink emphasized that the most important fact was that consumers could spend more, or less, on very different commodities. For manufacturers, the most significant choice was not between asbestos and cedar shingles, but between housing and all the other goods and services that consumers might buy.12 Part of the new competition was the way companies formed industrywide associations to help promote their products. One association repre-

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sented the publishers of periodicals, a major vehicle of advertising. For the first time in 1926, and then again in 1928, the Publishers Association surveyed what advertising other associations were doing. It argued that the rise of such associations showed that consumer industries had become more “market minded.” Appropriately, given that Madison Avenue had been a prime beneficiary of this trend, the new reality was expressed most pithily by Printer’s Ink, the advertising industry’s leading journal. Looking back in 1938, PI described the new competition as the emergence of an “interindustry struggle for a share of the consumer’s dollar.” The problem for dealers was that, from the 1910s, they were losing both the lumber battle and the housing war.13 It was inevitable that housing would lose ground to most other goods and services. Prosperous families spend a lower percentage of their incomes on basics, and more on discretionary items. During the interwar years, several cross-sectional studies showed this. In 1930, for example, a study of 540 salaried workers employed in downtown Pittsburgh found that highincome tenants spent 8 percent of their income on housing while those with the lowest incomes spent more than 50 percent. The range among home owners (11–40 percent) was narrower, but the pattern was the same. Of course, those with higher incomes bought more expensive homes but, as was shown by a study undertaken in 1931 for the President’s Conference, not proportionately more. This study gathered data on 789 home-owning families in Buffalo with incomes below $3,000 in 1930, which included diverse wage earners. The modal income group earned $1,750–$2,249 and lived in a house worth 3.1 times their annual income. Those with lower incomes occupied cheaper houses, but these cost 4.0 times the income for those earning $1,250–$1,747, 5.8 times for those earning $750–$1,249, and more still for those even poorer. Conversely, those with higher incomes occupied more expensive homes that had cost a lower proportion of their income: 2.6 times for those earning $2,250–$2,747, and so on. Where regulations prohibit the construction of shacks or cheap tenements, this sort of pattern is inevitable. The poor must spend a high proportion of their income on housing in order get any kind of accommodation. The only way to compensate is to become, or to take in, lodgers. Many did this, especially during the Depression. A study of Cleveland, for example, found that the number of owner-occupied homes with lodgers increased by 39 percent between 1929 and 1933, while the proportion among tenant households doubled. But there was a limit as to how far most families with children were willing to pursue this option. Affluent households, then, spent more on housing, but not proportionately more.14

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16. The relative decline of housing as a consumer good, 1909–51. As consumers spent a declining proportion of their income on housing, the building industry found it increasingly profitable to promote home improvement. Source: J. F. Dewhurst and Associates, America’s Needs and Resources: A New Survey (New York: Twentieth-Century Fund, 1955), figure 35.

The same consideration explains why, when incomes rise, households devote a declining proportion of their income on housing. As economist Louis Winnick later put it, beginning in the 1910s, there was a “downward shift in consumer preference for housing.” On the narrowest measure, that counts only rent or imputed rent (what owners would have paid to rent the dwelling they occupied), in 1909 U.S. households spent 19.3 percent of their income on rent. This fell during World War I, recovering to 17.4 percent in 1921, but then declined steady, reaching 14.1 in 1929 (figure 16). In other words, the share of consumer expenditures going to housing declined by 27 percent in twenty years. If housing expenditures are reckoned to include the sorts of fuel and lighting supplies (mostly coal and kerosene) that lumber dealers and hardware stores would usually have provided, the decline was slightly greater: 29 percent. Lumber was losing out to other building materials while all building materials were losing ground relative to most consumer goods. For retail building suppliers, this combination

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was awful because, although diversification might help address the one it could do nothing about the other.15 Although the fact was not recognized by contemporaries, or indeed by later historians, housing was laboring under a significant disadvantage. It was taxed more heavily than any other commodity. Taking into account all levels of government in the United States, in 1913 the property tax accounted for 42 percent of all revenue, and 57 percent of all tax revenues. Income tax was in its infancy, so sales taxes made up most of the balance. This amounted to a huge disincentive to spend on housing. This was especially true for tenants: owners might reckon that they were acquiring a capital asset, though at that time there was no expectation that this would appreciate over time. This tax disincentive must have depressed consumer expenditures on housing for decades, but it mattered increasingly when rising incomes gave households more in the way of discretionary income. Once they were no longer compelled to spend so much on necessities, families felt an incentive to buy goods that were less heavily taxed. This already unfortunate situation grew slightly worse. Although the revenue share of the income tax rose (from 1 percent to 11 percent) between 1913 and 1932, the property tax share also rose, to 43 percent. The pattern was to change dramatically during the 1930s, as the role of the federal government grew while that of local government stagnated. By 1942, the property tax share had fallen to 15 percent of all government revenues, and it continued to fall into the 1950s. But in the late 1920s this was the future. To building suppliers, and indeed anyone with interests in the housing field, property taxes handicapped them in their competition for the consumer’s dollar.16 To some degree, the decline in expenditure on housing and solid fuels was compensated for by a slight rise in expenditures on related goods and services. Between 1909 and 1929, the proportion spent on furnishings rose from 5 percent to 5.9 percent, and those on miscellaneous household operations increased from 5 percent to 5.7 percent. People were spending more on appliances, together with the gas or electricity required to run them. But the major shift in household expenditure favored the automobile. In 1909 private transportation, which still included some horse-drawn vehicles as well as bicycles, accounted for 2.3 percent of consumer expenditures, but by 1929 fully 7.6 percent, almost all of which was for automobiles. Lumber dealers did not grumble when consumers bought fridges and radios, since this encouraged them to spend more time in their homes and, perhaps, more money on them. Cars were a different matter.17 During the 1920s, everyone agreed that consumers were choosing to

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spend money on automobiles instead of on housing. Wehrwein and Woodbury, for example, spoke of the “common opinion” that “funds formerly set aside for the purchase of a house and lot are now absorbed by installment payments on . . . other goods,” above all cars. This was even true in Canada, where the level of car ownership remained about half of that in the United States until World War II. Between 1921 and 1929, consumer expenditure on housing in Canada rose by 47 percent, but on cars by 192 percent. Indeed, in 1923 Richard Ely had detected a more sinister trend: disinvestment in housing. “It is frequently said,” he suggested, “that people are mortgaging their homes to buy automobiles.” Soon, in their study of middle America, the Lynds echoed this opinion. Noting a “never before equaled array of bidders against the home for Middletown’s dollars,” they described a “not uncommon practice of mortgaging a home to buy an automobile.” Lumber dealers got the message. In an editorial in 1927, the American Lumberman argued that “the automobile is the lumber dealer’s strongest competitor,” a fact that was generally accepted in the building industry.18 More was being spent on cars because, at least until the mid-1920s, they were becoming cheaper. In 1929, Robert Davison, research director for the Architectural Record, reported that over the previous quarter-century an index of building costs had risen by 150 percent while a comparable index for automobiles had fallen by 54 percent. Typically, Davison damned everyone associated with home building for their inefficiency and failure to embrace technological change but the comparison with automobiles was unfair. Young industries innovate faster. But the fact remained that the relative cost of building had risen. For those associated with the building industry, the popularity of the automobile was galling because it was a luxury. By the early 1920s, a motor vehicle—stereotypically a Model T Ford—was becoming indispensable to the farmer but, for many years, it was unnecessary for urban workers. Until then, cities and most suburbs had been built on the assumption that workers and shoppers would get around on foot or by public transportation. To buy a car could seem frivolous, or at least inessential.19 One of the people least likely to moralize about car buying was Paul Cherington, director of research at J. Walter Thompson, the leading New York ad agency. Cherington, of course, believed that advertising served a public purpose. In 1928, he published what many might have regarded as a shocking book, in which he showed how advertising could usefully transform fields that had previously been viewed as sacrosanct, including religion, law, medicine, and banking. He insisted that such advertising would be manipulative, declaring rather pompously that “the will of the consumer . . . constitutes a ponderable cause and not a nebulous effect” of advertising. But even

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he conceded that this will was currently being expressed in an “enormously expanded” interest in “what might be styled nonessentials,” notably the automobile. Lumbermen were more judgmental. “The thoughtful man builds a home,” the American Lumberman’s “Realm” declared in 1919, while “the thoughtless man buys a pleasure car and moves into a flat.”20 Except for Ford, the auto companies were eager converts to Cherington’s cause. Indeed, led by General Motors, they not only advertised but also pioneered the use of installment credit to promote sales. Lendol Calder has observed that “the instalment plan was to consumer credit what the moving assembly line was to the automobile industry.” It evolved at about the same time, gathering momentum after 1918, when nonmortgage debt accounted for only 4 percent of household income. By 1929, the proportion exceeded 11 percent. Consumer debt was becoming socially acceptable. In the past, those who had used credit agencies (or pawnshops) had been desperate, and the practice was stigmatized. In the 1920s, however, it was the middle class that fueled the growth of consumer credit. By decade’s end, 60–75 percent of new cars, 80–90 percent of furniture sales, and 75 percent of radios were being financed. Autos, and especially the General Motors Acceptance Corporation, led the way and dominated the scene. By 1929, 47 percent of the outstanding consumer debt in the United States had been incurred to buy cars. Calder suggests that a psychological turning point came in 1927, with publication of Edwin Seligman’s The Economics of Instalment Credit. Seligman documented the new phenomenon and legitimized it by encouraging people to think of debt as “pay as you use” rather than “buy now, pay later.” He pointed out that this was how people had thought of mortgages for centuries. Martha Olney has shown that auto companies first used installment credit to finance their inventories, and that they did at first feature it in their advertising; nevertheless, everyone knew about the easy payment option and most used it. All of this was galling to those retail building suppliers who were beginning to think about consumer sales. To be sure, some manufacturers of building supplies helped dealers by advertising, but installment finance, as opposed to the open credit that dealers granted to contractors, was another matter. As Ralph Hines, president of Edward Hines Lumber, observed to the Wisconsin lumbermen, the dealer’s main competitors were “those organizations, such as the automobile industry, which have, through better merchandising, succeeded in getting that part of the consumer’s dollar which you should have.”21 It was the new competition that pushed the lumber trade over the edge. Kit companies had encouraged retailers to think about the consumer, but until the mid-1920s there was no general sense of urgency. After all, kits

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had been around for two decades, and had never amounted to more than about 5 percent of housing starts. But the decline of lumber, and indeed of the whole building sector, was another matter. The scale of the problem was larger, and the trend appeared relentless. By 1927, the lumber trade, from major manufacturers down to small-town retailers, was in turmoil. Everyone who was willing to go on record acknowledged that business as usual was no longer possible. A major response was urgently needed.

The Manufacturers Finally Pull Together After World War I, retailers grew impatient with lumber companies for failing to compete effectively with the manufacturers of sidelines and substitutes, automobiles and other consumer goods. The manufacturers were indeed slow to respond, but they were not oblivious to the new market conditions. Looking back in 1947, Nelson Brown suggested that for manufacturers 1918 had been a watershed. This was when National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA) began to fulfill its promise as a spokesman of the industry. In May, the association organized an event that one trade reporter claimed to be “the most remarkable meeting of a trade organization in any line of business which ever took place in America.” In reality, it was simply the most important to date in the lumber trade. The NLMA established the position of secretary-manager and appointed Wilson Compton to fill it. It began to levy serious dues to support a growing range of activities. Its first effort was to gather better data. At the time of the May meeting, only three associations were reporting production. Within a year, the tally had risen to eight out of eleven. Revenues grew steadily, from $75,000 in 1918 to $1,150,000 in 1929. Slowly, it made its presence felt.22 Almost immediately, the NLMA began to lobby municipalities to reduce the effects of building regulations on the demand for wood. Its building code department was expanded. In 1920, 274 municipalities were visited in person. Sixteen revised their codes, of which five accepted the association’s suggestions. It was a modest beginning, but over the next decade such work added up. In 1928, the association reckoned that over half of all construction was occurring in the 296 jurisdictions that were preparing or revising building laws. Its representatives kept “in closest touch” by visiting 286 of these, often more than once, for a total of 519 visits. Looking back over a decade, the NLMA estimated that 69 municipalities had adopted new or amended building codes, of which 39 had “embraced the Association’s recommendations” while 7 more were palpable “improvements,” in that they

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relaxed some injunctions against the use of wood. This campaign married lobbying with education. Others were largely defensive. In 1931, Homer Ballinger, vice president of the Ohio dealer’s association, was appointed to the Committee on Construction of the President’s Conference. It is unnecessary to read between the lines of the committee’s report to infer his role: the footnotes made this plain. Again and again, these record Ballinger’s dissent from the committee’s argument that fire safety should limit the use of wood. On the regulatory front, then, lumbermen’s efforts looked two ways: backwards to the era when other materials were criticized, and forwards to a time when wood would be actively sold.23 After 1922, the industry was prodded by the Department of Commerce, which encouraged manufacturers to simplify grading and to promote uniformity not only among soft- and hardwoods but between them too. In 1925, after “several years’ deliberation,” it persuaded the industry to adopt an American Lumber Standards of simplified grading. By 1931, Nelson Perkins, a construction engineer with the department’s Committee on Wood Utilization, claimed that 80 percent of all softwood was graded, though he was fuzzy about how much met the new national standards. The department also got manufacturers to standardize dimensions. By 1927, it claimed to have reduced the diversity in sizes of cut lumber by 60 percent, with estimated savings of $250 million annually. The estimate was selfserving and probably generous. But the industry was starting to make lumber more competitive. It was even thinking about the consumer. At a meeting of the Alabama-West Florida mill managers in March 1927, for example, their association’s president argued that “our future depends on our shipping lumber cut to size.” Instead of speaking about “short” pieces (which had connotations of ‘scraps’), he proposed the term “fabricated lumber.” Some dealers saw that cars could be a boon since, combined with “shorts,” it reduced delivery costs. “This car-thing is the greatest sales aid I know of,” one dealer observed. He probably had little idea how prescient that observation would prove to be.24 Large manufacturers based marketing campaigns on “trade marking,” that is, the grade marking of their own lumber. Long-Bell and Weyerhaeuser pioneered this practice before 1920. Weyerhaeuser’s efforts were promoted by George Lindsay from 1919. Among other things, the company helped sponsor publications of the Architects Small House Bureau, which was established in 1921. Supported by the American Institute of Architects, the bureau tried to raise the profile of architects for residential construction by selling architect-designed small-house plans. Presumably, Weyerhaeuser saw this as one way to raise its own profile with the consumer. But in the early

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1920s, the company’s marketing campaign bogged down when individual mills resisted the cost. It was revived in 1928, when George Hamilton, Lindsay’s assistant, devised a “4-Square” program that involved trade-marking lumber of exact dimensions with precisely squared ends. The goods were wrapped, shipped in specially cleaned railcars that “really did improve enormously the appearance of the lumber when it arrived.” The campaign was launched in spring 1928, with advertisements in AL, newspapers, and consumer magazines such as Saturday Evening Post. The company pointed out to dealers that 4-Square lumber was “your proof to the customer that he gets exactly what he pays for.” The product was well-received, though expensive, and the program was soon expanded. Initially, distribution was confined to only a few dealers, but in 1933 the number went from 1,339 to 2,100. Even if it reached only about 110 percent of retailers, here, in principle, was the sort of marketing campaign that dealers had been calling for. By then, other “progressive manufacturers” were pushing similar schemes “aggressively,” and Perkins reckoned that grade-marked lumber was now “obtainable in most species and grades,” although “not always in retail stock.” Progress was being made.25 Led by the Southern Pine Association (SPA), regional groups also took action. In 1924, the SPA was the first to agree on grade marking, and the following year it approved a 3¢/1,000 board foot levy to finance a promotional campaign. The association hoped that this would increase sales and, once mills saw the effect on sales, boost membership. By 1927, at its annual meeting, the chair of the grade marking committee reported that dealers and contractors had universally welcomed the campaign but that some manufacturers remained skeptical. Similar action was taken elsewhere. In 1926, western producers approved a $500,000 trade extension program and in 1927, for the first time in the twentieth century, the southerners’ share of the softwood market fell below 40 percent. Fortified by these considerations, an “overwhelming majority” of SPA members renewed the marketing campaign based on grade-marked lumber.26 The SPA was especially encouraged by the launch of the first national trade extension campaign. In 1922, the NLMA expanded its publicity department and in 1924 mounted a $100,000 trade extension campaign. To take better measure of its competitors, in 1925 it surveyed the demand for substitutes. The results “awoke the lumbermen to the urgency of renewing and increasing their efforts to prevent such materials from displacing lumber from its natural markets.” This was the “main” stimulus to a greatly expanded marketing program. Approved in 1926, this took effect in May 1927.

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Subscriptions were received from twenty-two of the twenty-six largest softwood organizations in the United States, an unprecedented level of cooperation. The scale was also unprecedented: $5 million over five years. Reaching out to the public as well as to retailers, the purpose was to “refut[e] many of the claims of competing materials” and to extol the virtues of wood.27 The new campaign was professionally run by J. Walter Thompson. JWT was known for being thorough. In 1928, it organized a “comprehensive merchandising survey of the lumber business,” the first of its kind, which guided its marketing. It commissioned two “dramas” for film. The first, Romance of Sleepy Valley, showed “the rehabilitation of a farm community through material improvements, lumber of course being the only building material included.” The second, The Transformation, made the case for rural modernization. By 1929, thirty-nine prints of the latter were on the road, and ten more supplied when the YMCA made an “insistent request” in response to “unexpected” demand. It is impossible to say how effective this campaign was, but it won favorable notice. In 1930, the American Trade Association offered its first annual award for the promotion of service to American industry by a trade association. Thirty-five entries were submitted. The automobile manufacturers won but, along with the Save the Surface effort of the Paint and Varnish Manufacturers’ Associations, the NLMA’s campaign received one of five honorable mentions.28 In 1929, the NLMA could survey “a decade of achievement.” There was the recent past: “Every lumberman knows that a few years ago the habit was common . . . of abusing and vilifying the lumber industry and lumbermen in general.” But then there was the present: “Today, the newspaper men of the country unquestionably have a new attitude toward the lumber industry.” According to the NLMA, change was due to the “relentless campaign of corrective publicity” that it had carried out.29 The NLMA had helped improve the public perception of lumber, but like all industry initiatives in the early decades of the twentieth century, its national campaign was a sign of weakness. Introducing it in May 1927, incoming president John Kaul conceded that the “momentous decision to undertake a huge and costly national trade extension campaign . . . is a solid symbol of the industry’s conviction that it faces a trial not paralleled in our past history.” Facing the same “trial,” the Canadian manufacturers did likewise. Wilson Compton rallied retailers to the cause, and he did secure their support. Why not? In so doing they would help boost sales. But the real question was whether, in so doing, they would be willing to spurn sidelines and substitutes. That was a different question entirely.30

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Dealers Go Their Own Way After 1914, lumber dealers had begun to think of themselves as retailers of building supplies. Their associations told them to do so. The regional groups “reshaped their policies” and began to provide a widening range of services to their members. They even encouraged yards to carry materials other than lumber. For example, in 1919 the newly reorganized Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association made space for the first manufacturers’ exhibition at its annual convention.31 But the significant tipping point came almost a decade later. By 1927, the dealer associations and the trade press had concluded that dealers must cut their special ties to the lumber industry. Of course, this had been argued since 1917 by the upstart Building Supply News. The established press took longer to come around. In the spring of 1926, the Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer unveiled its “advocacy of the retail lumberman as a merchandiser of everything that goes into the completed home” when introducing a new paint section, supposedly a first in trade journalism. The following year, the American Lumberman finally endorsed the same idea. Its “Realm of the Retailer” columnist used Rockford Lumber and Fuel, in Illinois, to illustrate a larger point. Rockford stocked bricks and “manufactured shingles,” defying the spirit of the NLMA’s national campaign. The Realm’s author defended the company. Building regulations, he pointed out, prohibited wood in certain districts. Consumer “wishes, or prejudices if you prefer that term” favored product diversity; then, too, the dealer “gets little practical encouragement or assistance from [lumber] manufacturers,” by comparison with the producers of substitutes.” Until 1927, tradition and shared interests had prevented AL from expressing this view, without hedging and qualifying the point, but the pressure of events had tipped the balance. Just when lumber manufacturers had finally, though not permanently, gotten their act together, retailers decided they should go their own way.32 The shift in attitudes was widely shared. Southwesterners, who met in January 1927, illustrate the point. Association president Hartley praised the southern pine and western manufacturers for their advertising campaigns but added, tartly, that they should have been started “ten or more years ago.” In contrast, he spoke about the “splendid and magnificent” efforts of the manufacturers of substitutes and also those of the manufacturers of “automobiles, radios, talking machines and other . . . luxuries” who promoted installment sales. He deplored the use of credit for short-lived luxuries, claiming that houses and therefore lumber were in a superior class of goods, but he knew that moral protestations would get them nowhere. And

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so he urged dealers to exert themselves “to make home-building contagious and to create an atmosphere that one’s social status is made more secure by owning a home before owning an automobile.” He was speaking the new common wisdom. At the same meeting, a discussion of sidelines was moderated by a dealer from Lawrence, Kansas, who argued that “anything that could be sold to the dealer’s profit and the customer’s satisfaction is a legitimate and proper side line for the lumber dealer.” Stating the obvious, he added that if the dealer didn’t carry these lines then “someone else in the town will.” The same arguments were echoed at the meeting of northeasterners, for example, as well as the state associations for Illinois and Pennsylvania.33 Everyone could see that the trade was at a turning point. In Pennsylvania in February, for example, a reporter for the American Lumberman (possibly editor Elmer Hole, who attended many conventions) reckoned that that year’s proceedings would prove a “forerunner of a new order of things.” Instead of “Polyanna generalities,” he found “real, honest-to-John facts” spoken by “practical men,” signs of the impact of the new competition. He also noted that convention organizers had arranged for speeches by W. J. Chandler, of Lehigh Portland Cement, and L. C. Hart, the new sales manager with Johns-Manville. Both said their companies were committed to distributing through local dealers. A week later, 900 Illinois dealers, their largest gathering ever, created what AL described as a “crackerjack convention.” J. M. Mackemer, a Peoria dealer who was also a director of the NRLDA, was reelected president. Although Mackemer was “a good, old-time Hoo Hoo,” he endorsed the consensus that the lumber dealer must become a “home store,” for which he would need “broader merchandising knowledge.” In a way now becoming common, such knowledge was imparted at the conference through a manufacturers’ exhibit. This, however, had been upgraded. Recognizing the exhibit’s importance, the Illinois association held its 1927 convention at the Edgewater Beach Hotel, away from the business center, where there would be room for 100 exhibits, the “best ever displayed.” Most were mounted by manufacturers of sidelines and substitutes. Thanking dealers for agreeing to relocate, the exhibitors hosted a complimentary dinner. “A unique event in association history,” it set the seal on a new era.34 There were still lingering doubts about whether dealers should stock lumber substitutes. At the Michigan convention, members listened to a debate about this between L. R. Putman, merchandising counsel for the Southern Pine Association, and O’Neill Ryan, speaking for Celotex. Putman tried to discredit Celotex. In contrast, Ryan spoke about what his company had done to promote home ownership, and hence the demand for building materials.

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AL’s account of the debate was scrupulously neutral, but that in itself was telling. The real debate was settled, not just for Celotex but for a wide range of other products. They were becoming retailer staples. E. F. Sellhorn, manager of the Republic Lumber Co. of Republic, Kansas, boasted that “farmer’s wagons used to carry home mail-order paint—but not now.”35 Attitudes had even changed about shingles. There was no more dramatic setting to see the shift in attitudes than Tacoma, Washington, home of Weyerhaeuser and center of the main region of cedar shingle production. At their annual meeting there in 1927, western retailers heard G. E. Churchill of Columbia Valley Lumber Co., Wenatchee, Washington, speak about “roofing.” Churchill reckoned that manufactured shingles accounted for 7 percent of his sales but 75 percent of the local market, the mirror image of a decade ago. He attributed the change to advertising. In that regard “prepared roofing manufacturers have done for the lumber dealer what the wood shingle manufacturers have never done and . . . are not doing now.” Cherington might have demurred about the independent power of advertising. Along those lines, in 1929 John Gries argued that dealers now “had to carry nationally advertised commodities and brands” so as to “meet the wishes of customers.” Others agreed with Churchill. Peter Stone, for example, conceded that by the 1930s consumer demand “compelled” dealers to carry lumber substitutes, but he argued that this was because manufacturers had persuaded them. And so the argument went around. For manufacturers, the issue mattered: if advertising could shape consumer preferences then it paid advertise. But from the retailer’s point of view the debate was academic. Either way, to fight the trend away from lumber was business suicide.36 Dealers got the message, whether communicated by their associations and trade press or by the market. Leading up to the 1927 convention season, AL distributed a questionnaire that asked dealers’ opinions on a range of issues. To the question “what side-line may the average lumber retailer profitably handle?” the “consensus” was “a wide range.” AL quoted comments. One or two in kit-company heartland acknowledged the pressure of mail-order competition; for example, F. J. Herrick, president of the Albion Lumber Company of Albion, Michigan, argued that dealers had to quote on whole houses. But most cited the new competition. Some embraced change. Charles Proebstel, president of Santa Fe Builders Supply, reckoned he would “put all of our sales effort behind every lumber substitute of merit, as we find that without exception these firms . . . are run by men who recognize business principles.” Others changed more reluctantly. O. S. Hitchner, president of Midland Lumber in Freeport, Illinois, suggested that dealers were “forced” to adopt the views expressed by Proebstel because “roofing

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manufacturers ‘sold’ their products to the public” so that dealers were “compelled to get what the public wanted.” The same, he suggested, was true for steel lath and stucco. But wherever they were based, whatever their past loyalties, and however reluctantly, by 1927 most lumber dealers had acknowledged the need to diversify. By the mid-1930s, they routinely stocked items that a decade earlier they had dismissed as substitutes. Gypsum board, for example, had become a staple. The battle for their loyalty had been won, and lost.37 The litmus test, and a catalyst, of change was Arthur A. Hood. Hood’s loyalties to the lumber trade were clear. During the 1927 convention season, as Grand Snark of the Hoo Hoo, he had spoken at most regional meetings, defending the interests of lumber. But he sensed the shift in opinion. He was impressed by how nonlumber manufacturers were helping the retailer. In March 1927, he estimated that at the twenty conventions he had attended in the previous six months, about 80 percent of all manufacturers’ exhibits had not been of lumber. As an author and industry spokesman he, too, had to make a choice: whether to continue to speak for the lumber trade or to articulate the particular, and subtly different, interests of the retailer.38 Hood plumped for the retailer. We can see, and date, the change in his views by comparing his two textbooks, which straddle the key period. In 1925, Hood published Scientific Lumber Retailing. The title was revealing. Although Hood probably never received formal training, his years at Thompson yards, and perhaps spare-time reading, gave him an abiding faith in the scientific approach to salesmanship that had become dominant by the 1910s. This emphasized the analysis of markets, competitors, and consumer psychology. Salesmen, of course, must be well-groomed and polite. This outlook pervades Hood’s first book. The opening chapters explain how retailers might undertake a “territorial analysis” of customers and competitors, and then a “consumer analysis” of “repeat buyers” (both contractors and industrial concerns), home buyers, and the occasional or specialty builder. The retailer’s first textbook, Scientific Lumber Retailing was soon praised in the trade press for having received “wider circulation [and] closer study” than any previous statement. Hood justified the work by noting that building had been suffering from the “keen competition” of other industries, and that lumber retailers needed to learn the methods pioneered by salesmen in other fields. He urged dealers to advertise; to drum up business through market analysis and canvassing; and to use manufacturers’ helps. Even so, he still spoke critically of substitutes. Modern in approach, the book was traditional in emphasis.39 Three years later, Hood published a new work, Profitable Lumber Retailing,

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written in 1927–1928, after his term with the Hoo Hoo had expired and he had begun his sales position with Cady. Hood again emphasized that he was importing methods pioneered in other industries. Now, however, he was pragmatic about substitutes. Urging readers to ask “Has the manufacturer created a consumer demand for his product?,” Hood argued that “the retailer should not object to handling hundreds or even thousands of items if they are profitable” (emphasis in original). Indeed, “the most successful merchandisers . . . appear to be those who are selling the most complete lines.” He had aligned himself with the new conventional wisdom.40 In one respect, Profitable Lumber Retailing was revolutionary in spirit. Working from the assumption that dealers should open up “the consumer front,” Hood leaped to the conclusion that dealers should become salesmen for the building industry. As he put it, “The lumber retailer should dominate the ‘shelter’ field.” For the moment, however, it was unclear how this project might be accomplished.41

Opportunity Knocks By the end of 1927, it was clear that lumber dealers must remake themselves, and there was broad agreement about how. But just as they began to find a new unity of purpose, their world began to turn upside down. The building industry was already faltering. Expenditures on new residential buildings had peaked in 1925. By 1929, house building was leading the economy into a free-fall. Not every town was affected as badly as Middletown, where housing starts dropped from 340 in 1928 to a low of 8 in 1934, and mortgage loans from an index value peak of 100 in 1928 to a low of 3.6 just four years later. But almost everywhere the news was awful. Between 1929 and 1933, retail sales of building materials fell 65 percent. Many businesses closed: in 1929, the census of business counted 26,377 lumber and hardware stores; four years later there were just 21,015, owned by 10,798 proprietors or companies. The survivors cut staff: employee numbers fell from 134,483 to 64,613. Since the building industry was one of the most seriously affected by the Depression, lumber dealers fared worse than other retailers. Among fifteen retail groups, the sales decline among lumberyards, hardware, and all-purpose building supply stores was the second greatest. lumberyards, in particular, did badly. Among thirty-nine specific types of retailer, yards ranked second in rate of decline. In 1929, they took in 4.1 percent of retail spending; four years later, 2.4 percent. The dealer’s position was that of lowest of the low.42

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17. Alterations and additions to the housing stock in North America, 1915–61. Although the available data consistently underestimate the relative importance of these improvements, they effectively demonstrate the cyclical significance of the Depression and mid-1940s. Calculated from Susan Carter, Historical Statistics of the United States, vol. 4: Economic Sectors (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), table Dc 256; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C.: USGPO, 1936), table 830; Statistics Canada, Historical Statistics of Canada (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1983), series S168-180, S1.

There was one small ray of hope. While new construction ground almost to a halt, property owners still spent on maintenance and home improvements. Not as much, perhaps, as in the booming 1920s, but enough to propel the improvement business into the forefront of the dealer’s attention. After 1925, imperfect evidence indicates that the share of all residential building going to improvements rose from 5 percent to reach 10 percent in 1929 (figure 4). It reached 16 percent in 1930, 33 percent in 1933, and nudged 35 percent in 1934. More inclusive data, that includes repairs, show an increase from a 9 percent share in 1925 to 64 percent in 1934 (figure 17). A similar trend occurred in Canada, where, by 1934, conversions and additions alone accounted for 28 percent of all residential construction; lumping all types of building activity together, by 1933–1934 as much was being spent on “repair construction” as on new buildings. All of these figures are underestimates, but they effectively demonstrate that across North America the Depression made the improvement business into a significant force. In 1927, the American Lumberman had worked hard to make the case that “remodeling” was a worthwhile “field for increased lumber sales.” By 1933, the point was stunningly obvious. In January of that year, the Philadelphia Federation of Construction Industries launched a forty-five-day campaign to generate business. It secured 24,700 pledges, which, if carried through,

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would have entailed expenditures of $21.5 million. Fully 91 percent of the total was to be for repairs, alterations, and additions.43 Home improvements can take many forms, so what was going on? In the upper segments of the market, owners continued to bring older homes into line with changing tastes. Catering to this, H. D. Eberlein wrote a series for magazines such as The Woman’s Home Companion and Architectural Forum that applied modern aesthetic sensibilities to the job of remodeling. More generally and more importantly, there was a need to install modern utilities. The Lynds suggest that in Middletown, electricity, running water, indoor bathrooms, and central heating had all come to be thought of as necessary for middle-class living, within a generation after 1900. To purchase the larger electrical appliances being sold by the late 1920s, households had upgraded wiring. Replacing coal furnaces with modern oil- or gas-fired equipment was desirable since it reduced labor and made basements cleaner, which in turn encouraged owners to refinish them for family use. More fundamentally, as piped water and sewer systems reached more dwellings, there was both the opportunity and the need to install and upgrade plumbing and bathroom fittings. This was a big market, as real property inventories showed in the 1930s. Using a local inventory, for example, the Lynds report that, as late as 1935, 53 percent of Middletown households lacked running hot water, and 13 percent had no piped water at all. Not surprisingly, 38 percent had no bath and only 81 percent had an indoor flush toilet. There was great room for improvement, or what was known as modernization.44 But unglamorous repairs were more important. H. P. Liversedge, speaking for the Philadelphia federation, reported that most planned expenditures were for repairs (77 percent of the total), not alterations (6 percent) or additions (8 percent). As the Depression wore on, the urgency of repairs grew. In March 1935, Fortune surveyed owners and renters. Owners were asked how they would spend a windfall. Although most had mortgages, only 14 percent said they would repay debt. Almost twice as many, 26 percent, wanted to do home repairs. Two years later, Fortune’s sister publication, Architectural Forum, asked owners what they least liked about their present homes. The overwhelming response was “needs general repairs.” Barely a third as many mentioned “not modern,” and one sixth as many suggested remodeling. There is some uncertainty about what these terms mean. To some, “repairs” might have encompassed more than its dictionary meaning. But although modernization was what contemporaries emphasized, the more pressing need was for basic maintenance.45

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Another urgent, and newer, need was to generate income. As households lost a wage earner they sought cheaper accommodation or, if they owned property, tenants. This trend began very quickly. In 1930, the Railroad Cooperative Building and Loan Association of New York City surveyed households that were interested in “home modernization.” (This survey excluded minor repairs.) It found that only 22 percent aimed to increase “living convenience within the same walls,” presumably by upgrading services. Onehalf intended to enlarge existing homes, while 27 percent wanted to divide “large places into small rentable units.” Enlargement could have included finishing basements and attics, with the goal of taking in tenants or lodgers. Certainly, the incidence of lodging went up during the Depression, as did dwelling conversions. From an aggregate analysis of national data, Leo Grebler and colleagues concluded that in the 1920s about 7 percent of growth in dwelling units was due to subdivision; in the 1930s the figure jumped to 40 percent. In the latter decade, the Lynds found a jump in the numbers of “light housekeeping” units, “a type of home unnatural to Middletown.” A study of Madison, Wisconsin, showed the trend at five-year intervals. There, the rate of dwelling conversions increased steadily and rapidly from the late 1910s to the late 1930s; in the latter decade, half of the local increase in families was accommodated in converted units. The same happened in Edmonton, Alberta, and indeed everywhere. In the first national review of home improvement, published in 1957, William Nash suggested that during the 1930s, the business was driven by “conversion to small, low-rent units,” coupled with “some remodeling by lending institutions, designed to improve the sale of foreclosed properties.” He was broadly correct. From the late 1920s onwards the home “improvement” trade was growing for unglamorous reasons: routine repairs, dwelling conversions, and distressedsale facelifts.46

Do-It-Yourself During the Depression, many owners felt pressured to do their own improvement work. Steven Gelber has suggested that it was “financial exigencies” that made do-it-yourself “a common component of middle-class male activity.” But the suddenness of this shift can be overstated.47 Some amateurs, of all classes, had been active during the 1920s. In 1927, a survey of professionals and managers found that almost a third did some of their own repair work even though they could surely have afforded to hire tradesmen. More telling is evidence from ten “typical” home owners in Buf-

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falo in 1931, whose experiences were probed in detail. No ten families can be wholly typical, but the group did include families whose male breadwinners worked in a range of common occupations: draftsman, canvasser, clerk, mechanic, teacher, truck driver, painter, mail carrier, works accountant, and inspector. In nine of the ten cases, Niles Carpenter, who summarized the results, discusses how each family maintained its home. In eight of nine cases, “the father does all this work himself,” “the father has done virtually all the work involved in altering and maintaining his home,” and so on. The inspector, for example, spent an “almost infinitesimal amount of money . . . on recreation and books and magazines” and did “all his own painting and decorating,” saving “about $60 a year,” or 3 percent of his gross income. The teacher saved $105 a year by “painting and paperhanging and the like.” Job skills mattered. The clerk was the person who did little, and Carpenter reckoned him to be “not so ‘handy’ ”; conversely, the painter had built a garage, “built” (finished?) the basement, “completely remodeled” the house, added screens and storm windows, and earned extra by painting some of his neighbors’ houses. But occupation was not an infallible guide. The teacher, inspector, and accountant did most of their own repair work, while the mail carrier’s family had been “practically building its home as it has gone along.” Moreover, such activity had been common ever since families bought their home, typically in the mid-1920s. Carpenter was surprised by his findings, suggesting that those surveyed might have enjoyed “special advantages” that encouraged home repairs. Perhaps. But it may be a sign that, unobtrusively, do-it-yourself had become common. After all, these families were supposed to be typical, and several were in occupations that left them vulnerable to an economic downturn. Their experience is surely indicative. By 1931, the Depression did force many to tighten their belts, but it alone had not made home owners into home handymen.48 If the downturn did not give birth to do-it-yourself, it did eventually encourage it, as writers and publishers noticed. At the beginning of the Depression, amateur home improvement was happening, but it was neither widespread nor a social norm. In 1933, authoritative surveys of American consumers and families, undertaken for a presidential committee, make no reference to the practice.49 Change came steadily during the 1930s. Gelber reports that sales of Delta’s tools increased every year of the Depression, a trend surely driven by demand from home handymen. The shift can also be seen in repair manuals. Those published from the late 1910s offered advice on minor repairs. During the Depression, authors put the amateur front and center. For several years, Roger Whitman had a column in the New York Sun. Letters from thousands of readers led him to conclude that there was

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18. The Depression and home improvement. The Depression encouraged many property owners to subdivide their homes, or to fix up existing homes instead of moving. A small spate of manuals gave them tips.

a market for a different type of book. In his preface to First Aid for the Ailing House, published in 1934, he insisted that owners must manage their homes and learn how to troubleshoot (figure 18). “It is for the owner to decide whether [deterioration] can be remedied and, if so, how to go about it.” Even this was not enough: “work cannot be left to the mechanic without risk of having a small job develop into a large one.” Whitman recognized

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that owners would contract some work, but he emphasizes that the amateur is in charge. The reason for the shift was obvious. Owners had always felt an incentive to save money by doing their own repair work, but for many this became a necessity after 1929. This was especially true since wage rates in the building trades remained high. Fortune reported that an index of building trades wages was still higher in 1933 (116) than in 1921 (100), while the commodity price index had fallen from 100 to 67. Building materials had not fallen quite as far—from 100 to 79—but the divergence with wages was striking. Owners might balk at employing someone, but they could still afford materials. And so, during the 1930s, a company like W. H. Clark, the oldest lumber company in Edmonton, Alberta (est. 1897), “survived by supplying materials for the repair of fifteen- to twenty-five-year-old Edmonton houses . . . Homeowners couldn’t afford carpenters but many of them bought their lumber from the Clark yard and did the work themselves.”50 Owners made a virtue out of necessity. More men were coming to view being handy as something that was rewarding in a nonfinancial sense. A significant step was the formation in December 1933, in Rockford, Illinois, of the National Home Workshop Guild. Its creation marks how far do-ityourself had come, and how far it still had to go. Gelber has perceptively commented, “That which is never done cannot be institutionalized and that which is ubiquitous does not have to be.” The purpose of the guild was to bring together people—mostly men—who wanted to do enough practical work at home that they were willing to create a dedicated workshop, usually in the garage or basement. The guild was promoted by Popular Science, and, within a year, five out of six members subscribed to this journal (and four out of six to Popular Mechanics). Formation of the guild might have owed something to the local dealership, Rockford Lumber and Fuel, that promoted itself as a store for all types of building materials. Certainly, DIY home repairs were a major incentive. In 1935, a member survey found that 74 percent of workshops had been established wholly, or in part, to carry out such repairs. Four years later, a broader survey of men who had done some home-based “constructional activity” found that 72 percent had fixed household furnishings or appliances, 60 percent had repaired their home, and 11 percent had undertaken more substantial remodeling. These percentages are especially significant since the survey included tenants as well as owners. As America began to emerge from the Depression, at least two repair manuals made no reference to financial exigency: Hawthorne Daniel’s The Householder’s Complete Handbook (1936) and A. C. Horth’s 101 Things for the Handyman to Do (1938). The title of Horth’s work implied that a man who was handy by inclination might need suggestions as to how to keep

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himself busy. Amateur repairs were becoming more common, even among those who could have afforded to employ a tradesman.51 Working on the home met psychological needs. Among the middle class, it expressed the rise of a companionate, masculine domesticity that had gathered momentum from the 1920s. This was acknowledged by consumer magazines. In 1934, Better Homes and Gardens published a guide to home modernization that recognized that many owners were doing their own remodeling. It offered some advice for amateurs—high-grade linoleum should be cemented to a lining of builder’s felt—while warning them off other tasks—such as the installation of a wall finish that involved lightweight canvas—that were easily botched. In general, their attitude was encouraging. The guide featured one amateur, who claimed “I feel confident that any amateur . . . can rebuild his home to new beauty, and value . . . even a chef like myself.” And in a tentative way, manufacturers began to target the amateur. The National Gypsum Company and Celotex, for example, both moved in this direction as, in a bigger way, did Johns-Manville.52 In the late 1930s, Ruth Cavan and Katherine Rank interviewed one hundred Chicago families to learn how they had handled the Depression. Many families had developed “substitute activities and interests,” while workingclass men had become more domestic-minded. Some turned to their homes to affirm their own worth. When Mr. Bacon’s work became irregular “he spent all his spare time . . . in making improvements on his house.” The family had bought a house on posts in 1923, and during the Depression he began to work on it, which “helped to prevent [him] from feeling depressed about his unemployment.” After being laid off, Mr. Wagner, too, “occupied himself with odd jobs around the house,” while Mr. Stevens “reorganized his life around the family responsibilities.” The Depression hurt families, but it also brought many closer together. Working-class men had often done home handiwork, but the Depression encouraged some to extend this in the direction of a more middle-class style of domestic masculinity.53 The hesitant emergence of a new attitude was suggested by R. B. Kentzler, general manager of the Goodfellow Lumber Co. of St. Louis in 1940. He had observed a young couple buy a modest house. The husband had “never handled tools in his life” but immediately began “to look for ways to improve” his property. He was not driven by necessity—the house was big enough for their needs—but by the pleasure and pride of working on his home. Significantly, Kentzler reported, “the same thing” was true of his wife, and of other young women who were bringing new business into his yard.54 Men and women alike were beginning to think about amateur home improvement as something to enjoy.

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The New Consumer Business The first person to detect the new interest in amateur home improvement was the local lumber dealer (figure 19). In Westfield, New Jersey, Tuttle Brothers found that the contractor business that had generated 90 percent of their business in the 1920s had dried up; by April 1933, 90 percent of a reduced trade came from consumers. One type of response was obvious. In Fitchberg, Massachusetts, in 1931 the Webber Lumber and Supply Company started a “modernizing service” in which a “House Doctor” made

19. Repairs become the name of the game. At a time when new construction was at a low-point, trade journals encouraged retailers to market repairs and improvement. American Builder promoted this template for local adaptation and use. Source: American Builder 54 (November 1933).

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house calls to provide estimates on improvement jobs. They based this on a new “large and attractive show-room” and a traveling home exhibit that featured branded products such as Celotex and Rock Lath. On a larger scale the Temple Lumber Company, a Houston-based line yard, organized a “Fixit Department” that could tackle almost any home improvement job.55 The most significant initiative was taken after 1932 by Hines of Chicago. Hines owned timber in the southern and western U.S., operated the nation’s largest wholesale yard, and ran twenty-two retail outlets that accounted for about a quarter of the retail business in Chicagoland. It was efficient and forward-looking but, at the beginning of the Depression, its yards still focused on the contractor trade: 90 percent, according to company president Charles Hines. It was hit by the business downturn. By 1932, the number of building permits filed in the City of Chicago had fallen to 1 percent of their 1926 peak. As Hines soon told its story to retailer conventions, it was in the fall of 1932 that the company realized that it would have to change its business model. Acknowledging that “in over 40 years we had done nothing to go to this [consumer] market direct,” they diversified to include brand-name products (even when those were not the cheapest available), and advertised, targeting women “because the housewife generally has a complete say as to the running of a home.” They were cautious. Initial newspaper advertising omitted to list five of their better-performing yards. Within six months, sales were up markedly everywhere—except at those five. Convinced, by spring 1934 they were promoting a remodeling service (figure 20).56 Charles Hines claimed that, in going after the consumer, his outlets were doing “little more than country yards have always done.” He was too modest. True, small-town dealers had always dealt with consumers, but many of these were farmers who had different needs and expectations that a home owner. The shift in which Hines participated was something new. By the mid-1930s, the trade press was full of reports about how dealers were catering to amateurs by offering new goods and services. In 1936, BSN reported that the number of dealers stocking paints and varnishes was increasing by “leaps and bounds.” More significantly, given the effort and expense, some were opening stores on major shopping streets downtown since “it brings them into closer touch with prospects.” Early that year, a survey of 221 dealers in thirty-seven states revealed that 42 percent of their business was for home improvements, and that this accounted for 60 percent of the urban residential trade.57 If there was some convergence between city and rural yards, local conditions still mattered. They still varied between rural and urban, city and suburb, and by neighborhood. In his study of Philadelphia, H. M. Mueller

20. Retail lumberyards owned by Edward Hines Lumber, Chicago area, 1942. Hines ran city and suburban yards that, after 1934, were reorganized to cater to the consumer. Source: Edward Hines Lumber Co., 50 Years (Chicago: Hines, 1942).

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showed that the city experienced the typical boom in dwelling conversions during the Depression, but also that there were great geographical variations. Dividing the city into ten districts, he found that the rate of conversions ranged from a high of 45 percent in Temple, through more moderate levels in South Philadelphia (8 percent), to a low of 2–3 percent in affluent Chestnut Hill and Overbrook. No surprise. Temple was home to low-income African-Americans who had to take whatever accommodation they could, while Chestnut Hill remained patrician. In the one, dwelling conversions took priority, and doubtless much work was done by the owners themselves. In terms of materials, needs were basic. In the other, home owners modernized and remodeled with the assistance of architects and contractors, while local dealers needed to carry a range of expensive and novel materials. In between, across the row terraces of South Philadelphia, owners did what home maintenance work they could afford, and waited for times to improve. In the industrial districts of Philadelphia, city and suburban, a company such as Elton Hardware, starting out in 1931, could fine tune its business to serve the workingman who did his own repairs. But in every area, dealers had to serve the particular needs and preferences of the local consumer.58 One thing that every consumer wanted was credit, but they did not usually get it. Elton Hardware demanded cash from consumers, and that was typical. The consumer who might get credit was the farmer, since he was known to local dealers and bankers, provided plenty of business, and wasn’t likely to move away. And the easiest type of improvement to finance was a remodeling job in a stable neighborhood: this predictably increased the value of the property. Even in those situations, however, cash dominated. In 1931, Frank F. Hill from Cornell University made a survey of farm finance for the President’s Conference.59 His assistants gathered information for 1,546 houses that had been built and 2,343 that had been remodeled across eighteen states since 1926. He noted that “considerable labor” had been expended by owners and their families on home improvements, though he made no attempt to measure this. Instead, he concentrated on the quantifiable expenditures and borrowings and the funds required for major improvement jobs. (The average cost of the new dwellings that he surveyed was $3,146 and of the remodeling jobs $1,031). Two-thirds of the cost of remodeling had been paid in cash. Among those who borrowed, 44 percent offered a first mortgage and 1 percent a second; most of the remainder gave a personal note. The lenders were local banks or individuals. Dealers apparently played little part in the process, beyond providing short-term credit during construction. Hill concluded that there was an urgent need for consumer credit for home improvements.60

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Dealers, including Arthur Hood, agreed that consumer credit was vital, but they could do nothing about it. The improvement story of the 1930s is of attempts by private, and then public, agencies to address the need for credit, and to help dealers handle consumer sales. These efforts laid the groundwork for the emergence of a home improvement business after 1945.

SEVEN

Manufacturers Save the Retailer

Janet Hutchison has claimed that “by 1928 the American building industries had turned their concentrated attention to home renovation as the source of profits.” Not so fast. In that year, the faltering market for new homes and apartments was still substantial. It was the next four years that brought real change. By 1932, everyone in the building industry was beginning to take home improvement seriously. It was their best, and for a time their only, hope.1 Improvement was a consumer business that at first nobody served. Contractors might have advertised, or canvassed house-to-house, but few did. This required sales skills that were unfamiliar, and too expensive to hire out. Retailers were in a better position, but they too lacked people skills, as well as the installment credit with which suppliers of other consumer goods were wooing the consumer. Fortunately, credit agencies and manufacturers stepped into the breach.

Promoting Home Improvement The promotion of home improvement gained momentum from the mid1920s. In 1924, the American Lumberman had pushed the idea, and by 1927 it had influenced the trade extension campaign of the National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA).2 At an organizational meeting, L. R. Putnam, merchandising counsel for the Southern Pine Association, observed that “new building is slipping . . . but . . . the remodeling idea will take hold if presented in the right manner,” while AL argued that “no dealer can afford to ignore the possibilities of profit in remodeling.”3 Prompted by the NLMA campaign, in 1928 Walter Kohler, president of the leading manu-

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facturer of bathroom fittings, helped establish a Home Modernization Bureau. This launched an in-house journal that, because of the “rapid growth of the modernizing movement,” was turned into a monthly in 1929.4 The Home Modernizer was the first consumer magazine dedicated to home improvement. Its first edition hit newsstands in June 1929. The timing was bad but, within twelve months, the bureau claimed that its efforts had generated $500 million of new business.5 Advertising was a start, but consumers needed credit. The first initiatives were taken by “Morris Plan” banks and credit agencies. The idea of making small loans to workingmen to cover exceptional expenses had originated in Norfolk, Virginia, in April 1910. A few small institutions signed on to the Morris Plan scheme, and then loan activity expanded during the 1920s, but slowly because these lenders were skeptical of luxuries, including cars. By decade’s end, most loans were used to refinance debts to loan sharks, to cover medical expenses, or provide business credits, but some financed furnishings and home remodeling. From 1929, some Morris Plan banks began to promote improvement loans, although at 17 percent the interest rate was a deterrent. By then, credit agencies had entered the field, notably the Merchants and Manufacturers Securities Co. of Chicago and the Commercial Credit Corporation of New York and Montreal. The former financed “real estate improvements of all kinds,” while the latter assisted the installation of furnaces and wiring; painting and roofing; and the purchase of stoves, fridges, and vacuums. By the mid-1920s, Commercial Credit was promoting its plans “vigorously,” often via contractors. A typical arrangement was 25 percent down with 10 percent interest over twelve months, this being slightly less generous than the prevailing terms for household appliances. This market gathered momentum. In 1923, only 1 percent of installment credit was for improvements; in two years the share had doubled.6 The increase (+ 96 percent) was greater than for any other type of business except washing machines (+215 percent) and fridges (+450 percent). Data for the latter half of the decade are not available, but the upward trend evidently continued. Manufacturers and retailers caught on. The pioneer was American Radiator, which, according to the Washington Post, felt aggrieved that the manufacturers of luxuries were offering installment credit while “really useful articles” such as furnaces had to bought with cash. Of course, by then credit agencies were in the picture, but American Radiator perceived that many property owners had a “prejudice” against them. In 1926, it established a subsidiary, Heating and Plumbing Finance Corporation, that offered credit

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to heating contractors and consumers. In September 1928, its capital stock was increased from $100,000 to $1 million, and by March 1929 it was enjoying a “rapidly growing business.” Later, the company vice president and treasurer, L. H. Goldbright, claimed that among manufacturers American Radiator had led the way with consumer credit for home improvements, and that “concerns like Johns-Manville, General Electric etc. came into the picture several years later.” This was, he asserted, a fact that “cannot be contradicted.”7 By 1930, these other companies had followed suit. Another building supplier, Johns-Manville (roof shingles), was offering credit on its own goods and soon others, including Libbey-Owens-Ford (glass), did the same. In 1932, led by Anaconda Copper, several formed a Rehabilitation Corporation that gave estimates and credit to upgrade income properties. Some retailers got involved. In May 1929, ten line yards, mostly midwestern, established the Lumbermen’s Finance Corporation to make first mortgages and installment credit. In 1930, Sears, Roebuck entered the business. They set aside $5 million for home modernizing loans of $100 or more, asking 10 percent down, 8 percent interest, and a two-year repayment schedule. Within a year they had reduced the minimum loan to $50 and extended repayments to five years. For major improvement jobs, the company encouraged consumers to send in an architect’s plan, on the basis of which they would submit a cost estimate and financing. As Harvey Harris, head of the Sears home construction division argued, home modernization offered excellent prospects for reducing unemployment.8 It also increased company business. Lenders tested the waters. In 1932, Pennsylvania Mutual Life Insurance Company began a Renovication Plan, which placed $17 million in loans within two years, while the Savings Bank Trust Company of New York soon started “a campaign for rehabilitation” that generated $1 million in under a year. By 1932, then, various credit agencies, manufacturers, and retailers had begun to offer consumers credit for home improvements.9 It was in the fall of 1932 that Johns-Manville began what became the most significant marketing campaign for home improvement of any private company. It was significant for its scale and breadth, for the way it involved and improved retailers, and also for its influence on federal policy. By 1935 it had broadened to include new construction, a national training program for retailers, and an ambitious attempt to reshape the building industry. Although it did not achieve this larger goal, it did have a major effect on the retailer’s ability to serve the consumer market and on the history of home improvement.

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Johns-Manville’s Home Improvement Program In the 1920s and 1930s, Johns-Manville (J-M) was a force to be reckoned with. By the 1920s, its advertising budget was consistently larger than that of any other manufacturer of building supplies. In 1922, a typical year, its advertising budget ranked forty-sixth among all U.S. corporations; by 1928, it was spending $668,000 a year, three times as much as its nearest rival, Celotex.10 Its account was handled by J. Walter Thompson, which, under Helen Resor, was making a name for targeting women.11 Not surprisingly, in 1923 Printers’ Ink, “the leading trade journal of the advertising business through the 1930s,” reported that J-M was trying a new type of advertising that assumed that “women are interested in the details of home building.” The company concluded that this approach made sense. By 1928, its promotion of asbestos roofing involved almost as much spending in women’s magazines ($138,000) as in general weeklies ($89,200) and monthlies ($69,000) combined. Other manufacturers of roofing and wallboard devoted barely a fifth of their budget to the woman’s market. At the same time, J-M nurtured its dealer network: in 1927, Laurence Hart, newly appointed general sales manager, insisted his company was committed to using retailers, not selling direct.12 He received a standing ovation. Although large, J-M mostly ran with the pack. A survey of advertising in the American Lumberman shows that, in 1927, six major competitors—Celotex, Masonite, Insulite, Lehigh Portland Cement, Flax-li-num, and MuleHide (roofing)—touted more assistance to retailers and their customers, with Celotex the most aggressive. By comparison with manufacturers of sidelines or lumber complements, J-M’s leading product competed head on with wood shingles. It was only after 1927, when the tide of dealer opinion finally turned in favor of selling all types of building products, that new marketing possibilities opened up. It was at this moment that the company’s ownership and direction changed. In 1927, J-M was purchased by J. P. Morgan and taken public; two years later, at the age of thirty-five, Lewis H. Brown was made president (figure 21). A company history later described Brown as “one of the most dynamic and innovative business leaders of his time.”13 More objective commentators noted that, starting in 1929, J-M embarked on an “aggressive diversification program” complemented by a “complex marketing operation” that trained dealers and helped consumers. Initially it focused on home improvement, but after three years tackled the whole building industry.14 Within a decade, J-M had made a mark and Brown was winning awards.

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21. Lewis Brown, president of Johns-Manville. Led by Brown, during the Depression Johns-Manville developed innovative marketing strategies that were widely praised. Source: Time 33, no. 14 (April 3, 1939).

On the production side, J-M diversified. In 1928, it produced one material widely used in house building: asbestos roof shingles. Even in a dwelling that used these, the company’s cost share of building materials was 3 percent, and since asbestos shingles were expensive its actual share was much less.15 By 1940, the company was producing nine lines, including insulating board and ceiling panels, Flexboard wall paneling, Steeltex mesh, Glaze-Coat interior finishes, as well as “Shake-textured” and “Cedargrain” siding shingles, and could claim a potential cost share of 26 percent. In the same period, J-M reorganized its marketing. Between 1927 and 1928, before Brown took over, the advertising budget doubled.16 In 1930, Brown established a single sales corporation for its nine operational divisions.17 The company geared up to expand its role in the residential building industry. Johns-Manville developed a groundbreaking marketing campaign based on installment finance.18 The initiative was brave. In winter 1931–1932, New York state Governor, Franklin Roosevelt, “urged local committees to organize home modernization drives,” but the credit market for improvement supplies was in danger of withering. J-M’s sales fell from $62 million in 1929 to $20 million in 1932, while an operating profit of 11.9 percent had become a small loss. Something dramatic was needed. In 1930, the company had begun a small program through some outlets and then, with guidance from its advertising agency, in 1932 it launched a national “Million Dollars to Lend” campaign (figure 22). J-M paid for full-page advertisements in American Builder and American Lumberman that touted the advantages for dealers and contractors, and impressed them by noting how consumers were being wowed on the radio and in print media.19

22. Trade advertising by Johns-Manville. J-M promoted home improvement to its suppliers, and made loans to consumers. Its Million Dollars to Lend campaign made extensive use of radio advertising and helped inspire the Title I program of the 1934 National Housing Act. Source: American Lumberman 3020 (April 28, 1934): 8.

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Johns-Manville’s use of radio was unusual in the building field. By the early 1930s, radio was helping to fashion a new “promiscuous mingling of high culture and mass culture.” Its commercial character was peculiarly American, making it popular among advertisers. In a context where “thirty percent of us are unable to read a newspaper,” it delivered a captive crosssection of the population: ownership of radio sets boomed from 32 percent in 1929 to 82 percent by 1938, when more than 40 percent of all households tuned in for evening broadcasts.20 It was favored by J. Walter Thompson (JWT), one of the first agencies to use the medium, which it valued for reaching women. In the 1940s, one of its executives coauthored a text that noted that daytime radio appealed to the emotions of women at home alone, or with young children: the 11 a.m. audience, for example, was two-thirds female.21 Some local dealers had begun to advertise on local radio by 1929, but experts believed that national radio was ineffective for building supplies. As late as 1939, a textbook contrasted consumer commodities such as food and automobiles with “building materials and equipment.”22 The latter, it suggested, should be marketed to contractors and architects via trade magazines. Most manufacturers agreed: in 1934, only three of the top nine used radio, and by 1935 just one. But in J-M’s expensive campaign, radio accounted for 69 percent of its total budget in 1934, dropping to 26 percent in 1935.23 Its marketing strategy was unique for the time. The use of radio made sense. Known for its thorough market research and for identifying “closely with the client’s plans and problems,” JWT told Johns-Manville to use radio as the “umbrella for the overall company advertising” because “J-M has so many messages to transmit” and “to so many different groups of people.”24 Airtime accounted for two-thirds of J-M’s radio budget but, at JWT’s advice, the manufacturer also spent on high-profile talent, notably as sponsor of the Floyd Gibbons show. Gibbons had been a war correspondent, being noted for his fast patter and a thrill-seeking lifestyle that probably contributed to a fatal heart attack in 1939. On May 13, 1934, Johns-Manville went further by renting the best talent available: Eleanor Roosevelt spoke for six minutes on the Floyd Gibbons show about “the American home,” in return for which J-M contributed $3,000 to the “rehabilitation” work of the American Friends Service Committee in the hard-hit mining communities of West Virginia. More than any other building supplier, then, J-M had made itself known to a broad consumer market. JWT should have been grateful. A company biography in Fortune pointed out that it was only after 1933 that JWT asserted its claim to be the “nonpareil” advertising agency, a position built on a roster of “indefatigable advertis-

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ers” that included Johns-Manville.25 With JWT’s help, by 1935 Brown had brought his company to the leading edge of consumer marketing. Not surprisingly, J-M required borrowers to use its own materials where possible, but most of the improvements it financed involved materials they did not provide, including lumber.26 The company claimed to be helping the building industry as a whole, and after two years suggested that it “has been universally voted by thousands of dealers and contractors throughout the country as the soundest sales plan ever offered the industry.” This could not have been the literal truth. Most dealers were not authorized to sell J-M products and did not participate. But the claim was not wholly absurd. Sales were up. In 1934, Johns-Manville’s sales were “outstanding among the building material producers”: an increase of 30 percent over 1933 bucked the industry trend and was mainly due to the improvement market. JohnsManville had connected with consumers. Three months after placing its first consumer ad in the fall of 1932, it had received inquiries from 2,000 home owners; the radio campaign in fall 1933 generated an extra 30,000 repair and improvement jobs, the spring 1934 campaign a further 50,000 prospects, and that fall a stunning 90,000 “interested home owners” phoned or mailed J-M with “requests for sales calls” from a local dealer. Gimmicky promotions may have helped, as did its presence at the Century of Progress Exposition in Chicago in 1933, where a dazzling display dramatized how asbestos roofs resisted fire. Not surprisingly, then, in his indictment of the construction industry in 1935, Arthur Pound exempted Lewis Brown, citing him as president of the only building company that spoke to the consumer.27 The sincerest flattery came from the federal government. In June 1934, the new Roosevelt Administration passed the National Housing Act (NHA), which created the nation’s first permanent housing agency, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The main purpose of the NHA was to revive the building industry. Home building and improvement, respectively, were encouraged by Titles II and I. The Title II scheme of insured mortgage loans eventually proved more important, but between 1934 and 1936 more funds were insured under the Title I program for home modernization: $500 million as opposed to $403 million. The Title I program was to play a vital role into the postwar era. Ronald Tobey has shown that in Riverside, California, early coverage of the NHA was couched “in terms exclusively of home modernization”; this was true everywhere. This emphasis was deliberate. Mrs. Roosevelt appeared on the radio when legislative details were still being debated. Alluding to this, she singled out the home improvement provisions as having particular significance. Once enacted, they were promoted

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by the FHA through a Better Homes program that included advertising and promotional activities by hundreds of local committees across the country.28 The Title I program was modeled on Johns-Manville’s scheme. Lewis Brown helped draft the legislation; he was the only building supplier to give evidence at the Senate hearings. He was questioned about J-M’s loan scheme; other speakers praised it and, exceptionally, details were included in an appendix to the proceedings. The key issue was whether installment finance for home financing was too risky under Depression conditions. Brown offered reassurance: his company’s program of unsecured loans was “substantially the same basic plan as that outlined in this bill” and losses to date had been only 2.07 percent. When the Durable Goods Industries Committee established a subcommittee on the Housing Act, he was made chair.29 He was also made a member of the Advisory Committee that was established to guide the new housing agency. In the New York area, he joined an industry-wide committee to help the FHA sell its Title I program.30 Not surprisingly, he declared the NHA to be “a sound act, any way you look at it.”31 Brown’s praise for the NHA reflected a victory of interests over principles. He was a staunch Republican and opponent of the New Deal. Speaking in June 1934, he described the New Deal as a form of state capitalism that ranked with regimes in Russia, Italy, and Germany. A year later, he spoke in the same vein to the American Bankers Association, damning the growth of federal expenditures. The financial editor of the New York World Telegram, commented that “few speeches have ever been made . . . which presented the position of the so-called big business so well,” adding that “the Republican party could build its entire campaign around this speech.” But, for all this, Brown was known and respected at the White House, not just on housing matters. For example, at a critical juncture in discussions with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in fall 1934, Roosevelt had called upon him (together with “pickler Howard Heinz”) for advice about industrial policy.32 Politically, as well as economically, Lewis Brown had already left a mark by the mid-1930s.

Arthur A. Hood and the Housing Guild Launched at a low point in the Depression, J-M’s Million Dollars campaign was impressive, but only a foretaste. In late fall 1933, Brown hired lumberman Arthur A. Hood to extend the company’s marketing strategy by cementing its relationship with dealers. A year earlier, its launch had “brought more . . . dealer inquiries than any other single advertisement that J-M ever ran in its 60 years of national advertising”; in addition to the 2,000 letters the company received from consumers, there were 1,300 from “prospective

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dealers.” Brown and his sales staff concluded that dealers could play a vital role in an expanded campaign.33 Hood was the obvious person to head a new department of dealer relations. He had wide experience in the lumber trade; he had made a name for himself as a spokesman for the retail supplier, arguing that retailers and manufacturers should cooperate.34 Like others, by 1928 he was urging dealers to diversify. Exceptionally, he had begun to argue that each lumber dealer should seek to “dominate the ‘shelter’ field.” He spoke of the retailer as the ‘Doctor of Construction,’ the agent who could solve the industry’s ills. He called for “thorough-going cooperation between the retailer and the producer of the material he sells,” noting that manufacturers of roofing shingles “have been unusually generous . . . in the preparation and distribution of dealer sales helps.”35 Manufacturers and dealers listened. In October 1930, the National Retail Lumber Dealers Association created a Merchandising Council to undertake research on merchandising practices and yard management and to promote better cost accounting, advertising, and industry coordination. Council members included progressive dealers such as Fred Ludwig. Significantly, in addition to several large lumber companies, it also saw representatives of Celotex, Johns-Manville, and Lehigh Portland Cement. Hood pressed manufacturers to pay attention to the retailer. Late in 1932, he observed that “manufacturers . . . are going to seek out, solicit and cater to sales outlets . . . because the selling factors are creators and directors of consumer sales.”36 He may have had in mind the new Million Dollars to Lend campaign. In any event, his thinking had converged with that of Lewis Brown. Hood and Brown, together with Laurence Hart, the vice president for sales, agreed that the home improvement market was now critical. Hood had realized this earlier than most. In his 1925 text, he described remodeling as the dealer’s fourth type of business, by no means the most important. By 1928, he claimed that it had been neglected: he now saw it as serviceintensive and profitable, a means of flattening the seasonality of new construction, and as being susceptible to advertising. It was, he reckoned, a “creatable market,” with the house-to-house salesmen acting as “missionary of progress.” He listed the types of improvements that a canvasser might sell. This list was a sales tool that he took to Johns-Manville. In 1935, the company published a consumer booklet, surely written by Hood, containing 101 Practical Suggestions for Home Improvement and, three years later, a Home Idea Book that elaborated on the idea. In the company’s literature for dealers, Hood elaborated the arguments of his second textbook. In some regions, he reported, winter sales normally fell by 70 percent, but this could

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be counterbalanced since 55 percent of home improvements were made to the interior. Selling such jobs meant that canvassers would have to do a thorough property survey, outside and in. Overall, his research suggested that the potential improvement market was 5 percent of local assessed property values. The same points were emphasized in literature addressed to salesmen, while trade journals described dealers whose actions had underlined their truth.37 Hood’s role with J-M was to strengthen the role of the dealer in the company’s marketing campaign. As the American Lumberman noted, he “represents the retailers’ interests in the Johns-Manville office.” He and Brown understood that this meant visibly serving the consumer better. From 1933 until mid-1935, Hood worked on the problem. At that time, few manufacturers did much market research, but Brown allowed Hood an extended period of “intensive study” that cost $100,000 and which yielded statistics on the seasonality of sales and home improvements. Introduction of the Title I program allowed the company to downplay its own financing, but consumer advertising was expanded. It pulled in customers, so dealers could concentrate on offering advice. A “before-and-after sales plan” was promoted to dealers, along with the 101 Suggestions booklet for local distribution. The booklet embodied the packaging of materials and services—for a new cupboard, a modernized kitchen, or a new home—as a company manager explained to the Sales Executives Club of New York.38 JWT had pushed the ‘package’ approach before Hood arrived. Their research indicated that “all J-M building materials” should be “sold together in the same copy” and that advertising should emphasize the “services of the products . . . instead of the products themselves.” Appliance manufacturers such as G. E. were also thinking about package selling, but J-M’s reach extended to the whole home. By fall 1935, the sales team were ready to present a pilot program at clinics for managers and salesmen in Chicago and New York, each attended by about three hundred dealers.39 At the end of the research phase, this offered a chance for fine-tuning. The company’s new plan was unveiled in January 1936. This coincided with the wave of dealer conventions during the flat period January–March, and anticipated a building season that promised to be the best in half a decade. It was launched at 11 a.m. EST on January 13, with a J-M sponsored national radio “event” that reached an audience of five million, including three million women. It brought together the administrator of the FHA, along with the presidents of the NRLDA, the American Institute of Architects, the American Bankers Association, and Lewis Brown. Heard on fiftyone stations coast to coast, it was billed as “the first national radio confer-

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ence of the entire building industry.” It launched J-M’s campaign to promote itself, its dealers, and, arguably, the building industry as a whole.40 The core of the new plan was “The Housing Guild.”41 Hood’s choice of “guild” may appear odd. Referring to Roosevelt’s recent National Recovery Administration (1933–1935), he justified it by claiming that its medieval origins implied control over “the vicious and demoralizing effects of unrestrained competition.”42 But consumers benefited from competition, and the term might have reinforced the widespread belief that the building industry was backward. Indeed, consumers might have suspected the guild’s method of “cooperating for mutual advantage.” But the term was widely used at the time, for example by the National Home Workshop Guild, and also by the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB). In the 1920s, community builders had organized themselves as the dominant division within the NAREB, making it a powerful real estate lobby group. En route to its later incarnation as the National Association of Home Builders, in 1937 a builders’ division reconstituted itself as the Home Builders’ Guild. NAREB’s secretary claimed the new group was “about as close as we can come in the home building field to the organization of the consumer.” NAREB was politically savvy, and if it echoed Hood’s language it must have reckoned that “guild” had consumer appeal.43 The Housing Guild grafted Hood’s vision, of the retailer as Doctor of Construction, onto J-M’s marketing campaign. He conceived it as a business network that brought together manufacturer, dealer, and contractor to sell packages to consumers. The largest package was of course the new home, but the majority would be improvement projects. The scheme was to be organized by, and based at, local dealerships. Hood must have briefed George LaPointe, president of the NRLDA before the radio conference on January 13. Speaking to the nation, LaPointe “urged dealers to make their offices the focal points for co-operation and integration among the local members of the building trade.” Recognizing that the building industry was local in nature—and assuming it would stay that way—there would have to be many housing guilds. As Hood put it, contrasting his vision with the auto industry’s model of mass production, we need “10,000 Detroits of Housing,” each with its own “retail factory organization.”44 The metaphor of retail factory was more appropriate than that of the guild. The local groups were to be systematized, factory-like in their efficiency and articulated division of labor. Each dealer was given four groups of forms (for sales, estimating, financing, and management) and an office “systematiser,” a steel cabinet with twenty-six drawers, each with a specific function. Each was offered an exclusive range of house plans, initially named “Triple Insulated”

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and then “Guildway,” all of which assumed the generous use of J-M materials. There were model forms to record information on customers, preferred contractors, architects, and lenders. The retailer was front and center, the agent who would found, run, and provide premises for regular guild meetings; the “one-stop” storefront; the “headquarters” of the local house building industry. In this manner, the dealer, not the contractor, could “control the sale,” and serve the customer better too. Dealers, after all, already had a storefront, and stayed in business much longer than most contractors.45 In one respect, however, “guild” was correct. Each local group was exclusive, “by invitation only.” The company selected a dealer in each district, usually from its existing network. The retailer was encouraged to invite the better contractors with good credit records; since Johns-Manville trademarked the phrase “Housing Guild,” it controlled which dealers might use the term and found local guilds. As the campaign grew, it used advertising to establish Triple Insulated and then Guildway as the brands associated with authorized Housing Guilds. Featured in the Home Idea Book, they were exclusive to dealers in the Guildway Small Homes Club. Such branding was a logical conclusion of the “package” idea. As H. M. Shackelford, the vice president for sales, observed in January 1939, J-M’s campaign of “advertising pre-packaged houses to consumers on a nation-wide scale” was “unique in the history of the building industry.” This was a matter of pride to the company’s ad agency as well as to J-M. J. Walter Thompson boasted in Printers’ Ink that it had helped J-M make the “ ‘built-to-order’ home . . . a piece of packaged merchandise . . . for the first time in history,” a claim with which BSN concurred, and with reason. When, in 1928, JWT’s director of research had published a survey of the past and potential effects of advertising, it did not occur to him to mention housing. Within a decade, J-M and JWT had together opened up a new field of possibilities.46 The branded package got a new sales treatment. Inevitably, it was promoted on network radio and in national magazines. In addition, the company produced advertising templates, a publicity guide, and a monthly news service with items for dealers to use in local newspaper articles. It also split the cost of “spot advertisements” in local newspapers. The company encouraged dealers to erect model Triple Insulated and Guildway homes: in 1936, sixty were built nationwide. By 1935, it had produced a “talking motion picture” for dealers that featured “Mr. Victor Hensel, well-known New Jersey contractor,” taking viewers through “the 1935 J-M Sales Plan.” In 1937 a trailer, Getting Down to Brass Tacks, and an ambitious fifty-minute movie, The House that Ann Built, were made for public screening. The House ”dramatize[d] home remodeling” and used Shackelford’s own house to illustrate the point. A cor-

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respondent for Printers’ Ink observed dryly that the movie was “not unadulterated entertainment,” but it received wide distribution.47 The marketing campaign reached its apogee at the New York World’s Fair in 1939–1940. This was a “monument to merchandising” where the consumer of the future was imagined: set #4 in the Community Interests Exhibit, for example, showed an animated figure of Mrs. Modern ordering by phone everything for her home, from basement to evening dinner. Meanwhile, the consumer of today was enticed: at the Town of Tomorrow Exhibit, fifteen model homes featured modern building materials and visitors received free booklets with information about materials, and where to get them. Johns-Manville was the only building supplier to have its own building. This occupied a “strategic location” near a major entrance and facing the Town of Tomorrow. This put it on a main route through the fair, one followed by King George VI.48 It drew hundreds of thousands of visitors. In every way, Johns-Manville had a high profile. Opening the Town of Tomorrow, and attended by 250 “leaders of the building industry,” Brown spoke for the industry and emphasized “the consumer’s demand” that it deliver “something tangible.” The company ensured that contractors and dealers were kept informed. An advertisement in American Lumberman pointed out that J-M’s exhibit included scale models of Guildway homes and that the information desk had a list of J-M dealers, so that interested visitors might find out where to get help in their home town. For ten cents, and a name and address, each visitor was sent a copy of the Home Idea Book, while the local dealer was alerted to their interest. To help dealers feel involved, the advertisement proclaimed “Here’s Your Exhibit at the New York World’s Fair.” Such attention to detail was typical: everything was professionally designed to convince dealers and consumers that J-M had their interests at heart.49

The Progress and Impact of the Housing Guild The guild scheme was promoted through a program of dealer education. To mount this, J-M recruited excellent staff. In addition to Hood, they hired people with experience in advertising, sales, and training. Hood’s assistant manager, G. Meissner, had worked as a contractor and in advertising. Paul Kendall, a lumber dealer hired to cover the farm market, had an especially impressive record that included Long-Bell, the Merchandising Council of the NRLDA, and a job as the FHA’s state director for Missouri.50 The need for dealer education was clear. Line yards had stopped growing and most retailers were small, poorly managed family-owned businesses. In 1940, one observer commented that “the average independent retailer is

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incompetent,” and lumber dealers were typical. A survey carried out under Hood’s direction found that 52 percent did not train their salesmen, while 44 percent did not advertise. Since this was probably a sample of J-M’s own dealers, a group selected for their competence, the overall picture must have been worse. Dealers, then, were unlikely managers of a “housing guild machine.” Hood’s solution was to offer training in all aspects of their business. Starting in February 1936, he mounted a series of national schools, intensive two-week courses that ran annually in major centers. Separate programs were run for owners/managers and salesmen. These were taught by J-M’s “faculty.” Apart from Hood, Meissner (cost estimating), and Kendall (farm sales), these included H. M. Shackelford (advertising); R. L. Johnson and A. D. Lierman (sales promotion and advertising), with H. D. Bates specializing in the small-town market; C. F. Ames, E. W. Smith, and H. F. Lotz (building materials); D. L. Pomerantz (postsale servicing); J. F. Schaffhausen (agricultural engineering); J. L. Wood and L. H. Morgan (credit and time payments); as well as pep talks from L. M. Cassidy, vice president for building materials (merchandising), L. C. Hart, vice president for sales; and very occasionally Brown himself.51 Owners learned basic accounting; pricing; inventory control; merchandising; display and showroom design; consumer market analysis; advertising strategy; interview techniques for salesmen and contractors; how the new, FHA-sponsored, amortizing mortgages worked; even how to answer the telephone. Salesmen got tips in dress and deportment, telephone etiquette, canvassing, and how to close.52 Instructors insisted that salesmen and managers must accept that “THE CONSUMER ,” however ignorant, fickle, and discriminating “IS KING .” Or queen, because modernization packages attracted women. Conventionally, J-M’s manual emphasized that 85 percent of purchases “are generated in the minds of a woman.” In the home improvement business, the trick was to “make a woman see the ‘wrinkles’ in her home as readily as she sees them in her face or clothes.” Salesmen were told not to make assumptions about who wore the pants, but to figure it out. “When somebody says ‘How much does it cost,’ or ‘What’s the best price you can give us,’ ” their manual advised, “then you know you are talking to the REAL boss.” If selling to women was important it was also, arguably, different. “Women believe 90% of what they see,” salesmen were told, “but believe 50% of what they hear.” Gender dynamics mattered. When a woman answers the door, the (male) canvasser must “step back, never forward.” Women would not tolerate a dusty counter, the whiff of cigar smoke, an inattentive salesman or, for that matter, one who threatened to become too attentive.53 As J-M acquired expertise, the guild machine was fine-tuned. At the pilot

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clinics in 1935, little written material was distributed. For the first schools in 1936, Hood put the main points into a booklet, Training for Profits. As the size and number of courses increased, more lecture material was incorporated into handbooks. From 1939, separate courses were held for city and small-town dealers, while manuals were rewritten. Eventually, these handbooks ran to hundreds of pages of single-spaced text, and content was continually upgraded. In winter 1937–1938, thirteen one-day clinics were run to gain dealer feedback. In 1940–1941, Hood’s staff mounted a dealer survey to discover which methods yielded above-average profits. Early on, J-M delegated some sales training to their more competent dealers. Yard managers could take a company-run exam that qualified them to run local schools for their own salesmen and those of neighboring dealers. This saved the company money and encouraged dealers to buy in to the program.54 The training program extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Gulf of Mexico to Hudson Bay. Although most national schools were held in the United States, at least one was held at Niagara Falls, Ontario, and J-M’s influence was as just as great in Canada. The company operated asbestos mines in Quebec and planned operations at the continental scale. Its impact in Canada was apparent from 1935: in the first group of three schools, held in New York, Chicago, and Cleveland, 7 percent of the dealers who enrolled were Canadian. This was almost exactly the Canadian share of all lumber dealers north of the Rio Grande (8 percent). Subsequent reports in the trade press sometimes mention the presence of Canadian dealers, as at the convention for salesmen in Chicago in January 1937, or note that a Canadian dealer had spoken about his experience in founding a Housing Guild, as Dennis F. Lloyd from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, did at a training school in 1939.55 Company representatives spoke freely at dealer conventions in Canada.56 By 1940, at least one dealer from every state (including Alaska) and from every Canadian province had attended one of the national schools, and Hood lumped the two countries together when he adjudged that the North American retailer was transforming himself into “a modern department store of building.”57 In every way, the training school program was huge.58 Just mounting the schools was a major undertaking. They started small: the first course in New York City in February 1936 involved just fifty managers, who heard Lewis Brown argue that the building industry needed an agency to coordinate its parts. They proved popular, however, and soon applicants were being turned away. In 1940, for example, 112 of the 512 applicants for the Chicago school had to be redirected to St. Louis.59 The Chicago schools were always the most popular. In 1938, for example, one of them brought

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together 265 owners and managers and, for the second week, an additional 122 salesmen, drawn from fourteen states and Manitoba, Canada. These heard eight hours of lectures a day, and were expected to tackle three hours of “room study at night.” A reporter for the American Lumberman reckoned this was equivalent to “a semester of work in college.” Geographical coverage was extended. By 1938, schools were held in Boston and Atlanta as well as Chicago, St. Louis, and New York; by 1939 Dallas, Cleveland, and Atlantic City, as well as Niagara Falls, were added; in 1940, west coast coverage included Oakland and Santa Monica.60 By December 1941, thirty-eight national schools were mounted, at a cost of $1 million. They were attended by 3,003 owner/managers and 3,689 salesmen from 2,566 different companies, while 352 local schools trained another 3,400 salesmen. All told, about one in eight lumber retailers in North America were trained, including about half of those who were authorized to sell J-M products. The training program soon acquired a high profile. In their first two years, the national schools were unfailingly mentioned, and frequently praised, in the trade press. Several of J-M’s senior executives, notably Hood, Shackelford, and Cassidy, spoke frequently at meetings of retail lumbermen. In 1938, for example, J. L. Wood, J-M’s credit manager, spoke to a one-day clinic for Iowa retailers; predictably, he pushed the company line about making dealers into the “Building Industry Headquarters”; two years later, he told Illinois retailers about “Making the Cash Register Register.”61 Many reports indicate that these spokesmen were well-received. Meissner, for example, earned a two-minute standing ovation at a Chicago school. Above all, Hood was superlatively effective, as when he made an “indelible impression” at a one-day meeting in Chicago in December 1937. He specialized in goofy dialogues and skits, such as the “10 Steps to 10% Net,” which he presented to the Middle Atlantic lumbermen in January 1941 with the help of a “Masked Prophet,” representing “the most successful dealer in America.” It was hokey but it worked. Most telling, many attendees returned the following year, and sometimes several times.62 Many retailers bought into the guild scheme: by 1940, about 700 of J-M’s 3,000 dealers had adopted it wholesale; 100,000 Guildway Homes were being built each year, and a similar number of Guildway improvement jobs were being undertaken. Trade journals gave many examples. In Gary, Indiana, the sales manager of a chain of six yards was converted at the first school in Chicago and had signed up twenty contractors by September 1936; in prosperous Worthington, Ohio, Potter Lumber brought in three architects and held sales meetings for guild members on Tuesday nights; in Shepherd, Michigan, F. J. Brattin built a model home that, in a community

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23. The weekly strategy meeting, Lieber Lumber, c. 1940. Lieber was often cited in the trade press as an exemplary leader of a local Housing Guild. Source: Otto Lieber, 22 Years of Hustling: A Story of Successful Retail Lumber Yard Management (Neenah, WI: Lieber, 1941).

of 927, was visited by 1,827 people; at Walworth Lumber, Wisconsin, the owner started a training course for twelve employees in the company’s small retail chain; in Waco, Texas, C. H. Olson declared “I believe in these schools so much I spend a good deal of money every year sending my men.” In London, Ontario, GHB Lumber wrote in to say that it was selling the package, while the editor commented that other “Canadian colleagues are taking up the package selling and Housing Guild idea.” Even those, like Clark Lumber of Springfield, Illinois, who had already worked out their own plan found themselves gravitating to the “more complete” guild scheme. Charles Stuck, for example, in Jonesboro, Arkansas, had been drawn into the home improvement field before J-M began to promote it. Finding it difficult to find competent estimators, however, he sent several to guild schools and then adopted J-M’s plan because “it is both extremely accurate and easy to use.”63 The model dealer was Otto Lieber of Neenah, Wisconsin. His activities were featured many times in the trade press, he spoke to lumbermen “the country over,” and he described them in a glossy self-published booklet. Converted to the guild idea by his sales manager, Lieber invited “a select few” architects, contractors, and local lenders to a meeting in his office (figure 23). He dedicated a new meeting room to his Neenah Builder’s

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24. Door-to-door canvassing for home improvement jobs, c. 1940. As Johns-Manville advised, Lieber Lumber worked hard and systematically to drum up business in its territory. Source: Otto Lieber, 22 Years of Hustling: A Story of Successful Retail Lumber Yard Management. (Neenah, WI: Lieber, 1941).

Guild meetings. He erected model homes, and sold modernization packages under the guild plan. His approach was systematic, hiring and training salesmen who undertook twice-yearly windshield surveys and then started canvassing (figure 24). By 1940, he estimated that 19 percent of house calls yielded prospects, and that 53 percent of prospects led to sales. Here was a sales manager after Arthur Hood’s heart.64 Although most of J-M’s dealers balked at starting a complete guild “selling package,” over half (1,800) offered it “in some part.” Many were located in larger metropolitan areas. The trade press provided fewer examples, since these were not models. Here, as Ben Johnston, manager of Madison Lumber of New Orleans, observed, the pressure for retailer specialization was strong, and exclusive contractor arrangements difficult to enforce. Even so, Johnston had been “impressed” by J-M’s plan and tried “package selling.” Many got the message about better displays. In Toledo, Ohio, for example, Hixon-Peterson Lumber improved its office with J-M Flexboard, ceiling tiles, and Rock Wool insulation, while M. H. Hussey in Waukegan, Illinois, also

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featured J-M wall and ceiling tiles. These were not guild organizers. HixonPeterson also featured insulation made by other manufacturers (Glass Wool and Balsam Wool), while Hussey sported rooms dedicated to the products of Celotex, Certain-teed, and U.S. Gypsum. For every J-M dealer who followed the whole company line, two or three were more selective. In some cases, they simply adapted their existing business plan. In Waco, for example, Olson reckoned that his company had been selling packages and offering installment credit since 1911. But this was the exception. In 1942, after the training schools program had wound down, Hood stated that “practically all of the retail lumber yard dealers are doing some package selling and the majority started this policy since the Guild training work began.” This claim was self-serving, but surely had substance. He spoke to a well-informed audience and knew his comments would be reported. He could bend the truth, but not invent. He, and the company, could reflect on a job well done.65 Indeed, J-M’s whole marketing campaign had worked brilliantly. J. Walter Thompson treated it as groundbreaking, touting it to insiders in Printers’ Ink. Managers at J-M were equally enthusiastic. Hart, the sales manager, later claimed it had greatly increased dealer loyalty and customer sales. He might have pointed out that the dealer program helped raise the company’s sales from $35m in 1935 to $93m in 1941, while operating profits jumped from 9.5 percent to 20.1 percent. Hart’s claims were complemented by a study undertaken for the Department of Commerce, which emphasized that since 1932 the company’s program had promoted “dealer development,” not just “aid.” As such, it brought Lewis Brown and Johns-Manville favorable publicity. In 1939, Printers’ Ink praised J-M for having mounted “the most intensive and productive retail training program ever sponsored by an American corporation.” Indeed, as late as 1951, one textbook noted that most retailer training programs offered by manufacturers had been “ineffective.” There were other accolades. In 1938, the Housing Guild received first honorable mention for the Ford Award of the National Federation of Sales Executives. In 1939, Brown received the first annual Vermilye Medal, offered by the Franklin Institute of Philadelphia, while in a cover-story Time proclaimed J-M “the outstanding public relations success of 1938,” a company where “public relations . . . is an operating philosophy rather than a promotional stunt.” Most telling of all, Joseph Mahoney, Chair of the Monopolies Commission, declared J-M to be the corporate exemplar of enlightened management.66 The praise that Hood himself would have valued most came from his peers in the retail trade. The idea of the one-stop building supply store had

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been born in 1914 and promoted since 1917 by Harold Rosenberg through Building Supply News. In an editorial in 1939, Rosenberg reasserted that vision, and praised the guild plan for extending it. The following year the Mid-Atlantic dealers awarded Brown—and by implication Hood—their first annual plaque for “services to the building industry.” Between them, Hood and Brown had helped to make the one-stop building retailer a reality.67

Broader Industry Initiatives Johns-Manville presented itself as champion and leader of the building industry. At the radio conference in 1936 and the World’s Fair in 1939, Brown claimed to speak for the industry as a whole. He knew that a display of selflessness might earn moral capital and increase sales, but he made genuine efforts to improve his competitors. In 1936, with the FHA and eleven other manufacturers, his company formed a short-lived Manufacturers Housing Promotion Council to coordinate the development of national and regional home shows. It lobbied the Producers’ Council, whose members included the major manufacturers of building supplies, to upgrade industry-wide marketing. In 1937, H. M. Shackelford pressed the council to advertise how producers were reducing housing costs, without success.68 Only $6,000 was subscribed, $5,000 of it by Johns-Manville. In 1938, however, the council gathered a larger sum to mount a national campaign. Marshall Adams, its managing director, touted it to agencies in Printers Ink and, together with American Builder, in 1938 the council ran a decentralized “More House for Your Money” campaign through its local clubs. Of the twenty-nine that participated, seven were headed by J-M representatives. Finally, in 1939 the campaign hit its stride when the NRLDA added its support. The New York Times reported that the new campaign, effectively run by JWT, exemplified the “package home” sales idea, and singled out J-M’s model homes as exemplars. The council formed a committee to coordinate efforts at the World’s Fair; it was chaired by F. P. Byington—perhaps inevitably, a representative of J-M.69 Prompted by Johns-Manville, other manufacturers developed campaigns in cooperation with dealers. Speaking to Illinois retailers in 1936, the vice president of Insulite claimed that “a number of manufacturers are already holding programmed educational meetings with dealer and distributor organizations.” Among these was Agasote Millboard, which since 1917 had manufactured Homasote, a newsprint fiberboard. Homasote was first used for army huts, but in 1934 the company hired F. Vaux Wilson to develop a method of prefabrication, and the company was renamed. Basing his sys-

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tem on the Bemis four-inch module, developed at MIT, Wilson rode the popular interest in prefabrication. Unusually, he developed a decentralized system of production that used jig tables in lumberyards, and Homasote marketed its Precision Built Homes exclusively through dealers. In 1939, Wilson ran a two-week “construction school” at the factory in Trenton, New Jersey. For a time, Homasote met with success. By June 1939, it claimed to have sold $3 million of housing, equivalent to 1,000–1,500 units. By 1943, it had sold twice that amount to private industry and six times to the federal government. Its most notable project was a 977-unit development for defense workers, completed in seventy-three days at Vallejo, California. The company then geared up for the postwar boom, announcing the establishment of Precision-Built Homes Corporation in March 1945, but it did not thrive.70 Celotex copied John-Manville more directly. In 1939, it established a dealers’ sales service department “to show dealers how to increase sales of company products.” Representatives hit the road and organized local meetings with dealers to advise on remodeling. The scale of these operations did not compare with those of J-M. In Illinois in 1940, for example, Celotex reps had spoken with only twenty-one dealers by mid-July. But this was part of a larger pattern. Manufacturers knew that dealers needed assistance. In consumer industries, “helps” were a standard marketing expense. A survey showed that, in 1935, building suppliers devoted a small part of their marketing budget for signs and displays. Almost certainly, this was because they spent more than average on dealer education.71 These marketing efforts were the result of deliberation. In 1939, the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce set out to discover what market research American companies were doing. Of the 556 manufacturers that responded, 34 percent claimed to do market research. The proportion among building suppliers was 40 percent. Of the companies that did research, three-fifths studied “methods and means,” that is, media and channels of distribution. Within this category, building suppliers (50 percent) were more likely than most (30 percent) to have debated which channels to use, a difference that reflected continuing uncertainty about how to distribute building supplies. But, led by Johns-Manville, manufacturers were reaching a consensus. One of the building suppliers that responded, probably J-M, reported that “as a result of an exhaustive study of consumer reactions to their customer [i.e. building] industry, they had formulated a successful program of selling that industry to the public.” They reckoned that this had led to a 30–70 percent increase in “that industry’s sales.” Most manufacturers had decided to work closely with the retailer.72

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Lumber dealers welcomed the trend. In the past, they had worried that manufacturers might sell direct; now that they carried a wider range of materials they fretted about competition from other retailers. In 1936, for example, Ontario dealers told their association to push manufacturers of insulation to “direct[] the sale of these products through the retail lumber trade, rather than through hardware stores and similar outlets.” Debates about whether to carry such lines were past. Instead, they showed their appreciation of manufacturers by featuring their products. In 1936, the American Lumberman reported that a wholesaler/retailer in Waukegan, Illinois, featured brand products. Its main display room boasted J-M wall and ceiling tiles; there was also a room with Celotex plank walls and ceiling tiles, and Masonite Presdwood baseboard. The Certain-teed room, had walls of Certain-teed fiber insulating board, “beveled to imitate pine planking,” and a ceiling of the company’s acoustical plaster. The U.S. Gypsum Company room featured Sheetrock walls “in imitation knotty pine.” Retailers and manufacturers were learning how to cooperate.73 Johns-Manville’s program also nudged the lumber trade into renewed action. In 1935, Weyerhaeuser began to promote the use of wood for modernization; its message was that the deterioration of houses, and neighborhoods, could be halted. The NRLDA set up a Merchandizing Institute in cooperation with lumber manufacturers and some building suppliers including Celotex, Masonite, and Insulite, but not J-M. A retailer, H. W. Wilbur, was made president. At first, like the Merchandizing Council of 1930, it lacked any idea what to do, but regional groups showed the way. In 1936, the northeastern and the northwestern associations ran short courses for dealers, and in 1938 the national institute mounted a training program for salesmen, while promoting home building and remodeling. Acknowledging J-M’s inspiration, Wilbur claimed the institute’s program was better because it depended on “our initiative” and is “for ourselves, based on our own experience and prepared entirely from our viewpoint.” By this he presumably meant that the institute’s program promoted all retail building materials, including lumber. The institute’s educational efforts paralleled those of the Housing Guild for a while, with no more than amicable rivalry. In March 1940, for example, Tennessee retailers were treated to a pair of presentations on “selling the customer,” one from J. L. Wood of Johns-Manville and one from the institute’s “Tested Selling Methods” course. But the institute had much less impact than the Housing Guild. It was weakly organized, less generously funded, and reached fewer dealers. Nonetheless in May, Wilbur was awarded a NRLDA plaque for “outstanding service to the retail lumber industry,” and the association claimed that “almost 4000 retail lumbermen

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have begun to follow” the institute’s sales program. Imitation had been the sincerest form of flattery; one way or another, dealers were being helped to retrain and reorganize.74 For the first time the lumber trade itself took leadership. In May 1935, the recently established Federal Housing Administration issued a booklet that outlined potential cost savings in house construction. Soon, the director of agency’s Division of Education could claim that “it is doubtful whether any bulletin issued by the FHA has inspired so much serious thought or so spontaneous a response.” The National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA) had accepted the FHA’s challenge, consulted with other suppliers, produced revised building specifications, and erected three houses in Bethesda, Maryland, as a “laboratory test for our own information.” These—a four-bedroom bungalow, a four-room colonial, and a six-room colonial—cost less than the FHA had suggested was possible. The NLMA arranged a preview for officials and “interested organizations,” an opening ceremony at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce with addresses from federal and industry representatives, and an inspection trip, preceded by a nationwide radio broadcast from the capital on September 25. With careful orchestration, the NLMA could claim that its ‘lab. test’ had attracted “surprisingly wide public interest.”75 This experiment led to a nationwide campaign, the Small Homes Demonstration Project, launched by Wilson Compton, secretary-manager of the NLMA, in Washington, D.C., on February 9, 1937. Robert Davison, ex-research director of the Architectural Record and a long-standing critic of the building industry, chaired the project’s technical committee. The objectives were to refine the building specifications for small houses, to establish their feasibility by building a home in each of a thousand communities nationwide, and hence to sell more houses and lumber. This was accomplished by “frankly subordinating the niceties of architecture” so that “even the dumbest builder” could produce adequate low-cost homes. The FHA announced that the project was to be the “mainspring of [its] promotional work” in 1937, and promoted it through its in-house publication, Insured Mortgage Portfolio. Together with the national dealers’ association, the NLMA established a National Small Homes Bureau in Washington, D.C. Its director, W. Wadsworth Wood, put together Small Homes, a million copies of which were distributed in spring 1937. Billed as “the first cooperative effort of the homebuilding industry to give home owners much needed information,” it included articles by Morton Bodfish, the president of the U.S. Savings and Loan League, and Herbert Nelson, president of NAREB, as well as advertising from leading manufacturers. By the time of the launch, 500 dealers

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had signed up, and by year’s end it involved 3,600 dealers and builders across the United States. Two-thirds of the demonstration houses cost less than those erected in Bethesda in 1935–1936, and still met FHA guidelines. Everyone—the FHA, the United States Chamber of Commerce, the NLMA, and the NRLDA, which from the beginning had worked closely with the manufacturers—regarded the project as a great success.76 The campaign was repeated in 1938, when Small Homes became the annual Small Home Builders’ Year Book, and again in 1939. It won further accolades and awards, including a “coveted” bronze medal from American Trade Association Executives for “the most outstanding achievement of a trade association . . . to industrial development at large and to the public.” By 1939, the project’s results were pondered by the federal Housing Advisory Committee. Convened by Commerce Secretary Harry L. Hopkins, this committee included agency representatives, including one bureaucrat, Robert Davison (having recently moved into Commerce’s industrial economics division); one academic, John E. Burchard from MIT; and an industry representative, Raymond Parsons, director of research at Johns-Manville. Most significantly, the NLMA’s project brought down the cost of housing and made home ownership more affordable. To a limited extent, it accomplished this by encouraging the trend, described in the next chapter, towards the production of shells, or incomplete homes. For example, Better Homes and Gardens described a demonstration home that contained an unfinished rear room and was designed to accommodate an extension. But the savings were genuine. Between 1936 and 1940, the median income of households that purchased FHA-insured homes fell from $2,814 to $2,381. The Demonstration Project played an uncertain, but nontrivial, role in making the purchases possible.77 The Small Homes Demonstration Project was a watershed. To be sure, like the trade extension campaign of the 1920s, it promoted the use of lumber, demand for which had continued to sag. By 1939, the Department of Commerce reckoned that the campaign had had some effect in that regard, though it had no way of measuring this, while in one respect the campaign was counterproductive. The quantity of lumber used in each new dwelling continued to fall through the 1930s, slipping from 15,387 board feet in 1930 to 13,898 in 1940, mostly because houses were smaller. Like the earlier campaign, too, it involved the cooperation of manufacturers and retailers. But whereas in 1927 the manufacturers’ support for cooperation had been largely rhetorical, it was now heartfelt. In 1937, Compton told the Chamber of Commerce that lumber dealers were “a local distribution system more complete and more comprehensive than is now available to any other major building product.” He then told lenders that “the spearhead” of

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the national project “is in the thousands of alert and progressive buildingmaterial dealers and builders” across the United States. Johns-Manville had showed the NLMA that dealers should be courted. Symbolizing the new spirit of cooperation, in May 1938 the national meetings of the NLMA and the NRLDA were held together for the first time. As they met in Washington, D.C., demonstration homes for the 1938 campaign were going up in nearby Montgomery County, demonstrating “the lumber industry’s solution to the low-cost housing problem.”78 But this unprecedented joint meeting did not mean that the lumber industry had finally joined ranks against all other interests. The national associations had learned that, even together, they could not solve what ailed them. Here, too, the Demonstration Project was a watershed. From the beginning, it involved a full range of suppliers in drawing up specifications. The 1938 campaign was backed by “35 leading groups in the building material, home equipment, and home furnishing field.” These included the usual suspects—Johns-Manville, General Electric, Crane, Masonite, Weyerhaeuser, American Radiator—as well as the Producers’ Council and the National Association of Furniture Manufacturers. The same happened in 1939. In July, the New York Times reported that the Brentpine Realty Co. was erecting the project’s first low-cost houses in the New York area. These had been designed by a “joint technical committee . . . representing all branches of the building industry” and used materials produced by “thirty-two leading material manufacturers.” The houses attracted much interest, being featured for example in The American Home. Lumber manufacturers had concluded that they needed to cooperate with the whole building industry. Like J-M, they had learned to value the local retailer. Although the project focused on reducing the cost of homes, by emphasizing the retailer it helped prepare the business infrastructure that eventually supported the postwar boom in home improvement.79

A War Intervenes Meanwhile, a war happened. Many initiatives, notably J-M’s Housing Guild and the Small Homes Demonstration Project, were put in abeyance from December 1941. (Canadian equivalents had been mothballed in 1939.) Even so, looking ahead, companies continued to advertise to retain the loyalty of their dealer network. Manufacturers gave “management guidance” to retailers, emphasizing the need to service and repair goods, and to provide intangible services. In 1944, a survey of manufacturers by the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce featured nineteen case studies of which

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three were of building suppliers: Crane, United States Gypsum, and JohnsManville. It turned out that this group remained especially attentive to their dealers.80 During the war, Crane confined itself to producing new sales materials and running dealer clinics, believing that this would be “of real assistance in planning its postwar products.” U.S. Gypsum and Johns-Manville did much more. Gypsum estimated that only 20–40 percent of its production would be for civilian use, and so pass through retailers. It also estimated a similar proportion for lumber. The company surveyed dealers and canvassed city neighborhoods to assess the market for remodeling. They collected case studies of successful dealers, and assembled a portfolio that salesmen could use. They published a full-color sixteen-page magazine, Popular Home, which dealers could distribute to home owners, with “editors of leading magazines” writing “many of the articles.” The company reckoned that this campaign maintained sales for “many dealers.” Johns-Manville acted similarly, emphasizing service, repairs, and maintenance. It uncovered “individual success cases,” bringing these to the attention of other dealers. It held conferences outside the war production areas and gave tips at management clinics. Supposedly, by 1944 these efforts had reduced dealer mortality from an anticipated level of 25–33 percent to only 10–15 percent. Marketing had also helped “the Company’s postwar planning,” because “it is accelerating the development of retailers capable of supplying the consumer with more and better building service for less money.”81 Few other building suppliers did as much, and lumber interests allowed their marketing to lapse. Initiatives were fragmentary. In 1942, the Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association brought in Raymond Parsons, who had left Johns-Manville to join an architectural and planning consultancy in Manhattan, to assemble a dealer group to produce prefabricated housing for the war effort. Two, Brosius & Smedley (Wilmington, Delaware) and Bogar Lumber (Lancaster, Pennsylvania), had erected some Homasote houses (about which both were “lukewarm”). Little came of this. More significant was a west-coast initiative in 1943, when building interests began to plan for postwar demand from veterans and their families. The two associations of west-coast retailers and manufacturers combined with the United States Savings and Loan League and local building trades, to form a Home Planners Institute. The idea was to encourage formation of a group in each urban center that would hold monthly lectures and encourage people to plan for postwar home building. Meeting with “immediate success,” it went nationwide. In August 1944, the NRLDA mounted a national campaign. It distributed a retailer handbook through the thirty-two state and regional associa-

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tions. This explained how to form a local institute and included drafts of forty-five lectures on topics that included site selection, house design, contracting, and finance. In part, its purpose was defensive. Armed with federal contracts, some builders were developing whole subdivisions, while experts were again becoming excited about prefabrication. The institute attempted “to counteract the unfounded dreams of push-button theorists who were leading the American people to expect postwar homes built of untried materials not yet in production.” Instead, it defended the tested methods and materials supported by the local dealer. The campaign was a modest success. By March 1945, only sixty local institutes had been formed, though more were started that summer as war’s end approached.82 Of greater value was the symbolism: the Institute campaign affirmed the role of the retailer. In such ways, manufacturers helped dealers make the transition from the Depression economy through wartime restrictions into what promised to be a postwar boom.

EIGHT

The State Makes Credit

With so few homes being built, the Depression raised a clamor for home improvement. Owners made do, by modernizing and improving instead of buying or building anew. This often meant doing their own repairs and conversions. Building suppliers realized that to survive they might have to forget about builders for a while, and instead reach out to the consumer and home handyman. With help from manufacturers, they diversified, advertised, and offered new service packages. By the end of the 1930s, the whole building supply industry was beginning to cooperate in marketing home improvements. The first initiatives came from the private sector, dealers like Hines and manufacturers like Johns-Manville. But even large national manufacturers, or metro-wide retailers, could only accomplish so much. Lacking cash, consumers needed credit, but no private company could satisfy that need. In the end the state, under the authority of Roosevelt’s National Housing Act (NHA) of 1934, stepped in, transforming a latent demand for home improvements into a market force. In 1938, it then unwittingly extended this program and encouraged owner-builders. By creating new forms of credit, the state transformed the whole improvement market. The story of these federal initiatives is largely untold. Most historians have argued, or assumed, that the NHA, which established the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), mattered because it promoted the construction of suburban single-family dwellings by large builder-developers. Under Title II of the act, the agency did indeed set out to accomplish this goal, especially by revolutionizing mortgage finance: it normalized the long-term, high-ratio, amortizing mortgage. It assumed that such policies facilitated a process by which houses vacated by new suburbanites would “filter down” to moderate- and then low-income households.1 Scholars have argued that

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FHA programs became self-validating: encouraging the neglect of older homes and neighborhoods, they made filtering inevitable, and with it innercity decline. There is some truth to this, but from the beginning, the FHA also sought to improve existing homes and neighborhoods. Under Title I, it helped businessmen modernize their stores and introduced “a new form of credit” for home improvements. Originally conceived as “a temporary economic recovery measure,” it aimed to create jobs. In the process, however, it encouraged home improvement and had long-term effects on the business. So too did “Class 3,” a later addition to the Title I program that financed the construction of small homes that were built by their first owners. During the 1930s, then, federal initiatives prepared the ground for an extraordinary boom in amateur building, and home improvement after 1945.2

Origins and Precedents The Depression drew the federal government into financing home improvement. The process began in 1932, when, prompted by NAREB and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, President Hoover established a National Committee on Reconditioning, Remodeling and Modernizing. Its job was to advise, but the administration soon had to play a more substantive role. As people failed to keep up their mortgage payments, lenders foreclosed but then could not sell; depositors lost confidence, withdrew savings, and banks folded. Between 1930 and 1932, more a fifth of the commercial banks in the United States failed. To restore stability, in 1933, the federal government created the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation. The HOLC refinanced mortgages in default, rescuing home owners and lenders.3 In order to do so, it made huge investments in upgrading and alterations. It offered cash loans to repay mortgage and tax arrears and for improvements. Initially it supported only “necessary repairs”; in 1934, however, guidelines were broadened to include “rehabilitation, modernization, rebuilding, and enlargement,” and by 1935 they permitted “the addition of income-producing features,” so that “large properties were frequently remodeled into smaller units.” This policy shift was a response to demand. Of the properties acquired by the HOLC, “most were in need of repair” and within a year it received 288,000 requests for assistance. The agency realized that improvements made sense. A study of 1,074 reconditioned properties showed that $337,000 spent on repairs, broadly defined, raised their estimated market value from $3,688,000 to $4,490,000, a return of over 100 percent.4 The HOLC was soon ready to finance just about anything. Owners were keen to borrow. The HOLC’s terms were attractive: owners

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could borrow half of the value of their property, paying 6 percent over fifteen years. As guidelines were relaxed, “something was spent [for improvements] on almost every property” that the HOLC refinanced, amounting to 12 percent of the selling price of about one-tenth of all mortgaged dwellings in the United States. The sums were huge. In its first five years, the HOLC “spent or directed the expenditure of approximately $120 million for the repair of more than 640,000 properties.” To approve bids and supervise upgrading, it developed “an entire reconditioning organization.” It soon realized that the security of loans for home improvement depended in large part on the character and prospects of surrounding neighborhoods, and in 1940 it began a pilot study of the Waverly district of Baltimore. This seeded a growing interest in what became known as neighborhood conservation. Chicago led the way in distinguishing between blighted areas, which required redevelopment, and the conservation areas that could still be rehabilitated. This line of thinking eventually bore fruit in postwar legislation, but in 1934 the HOLC was on the front line. When the administration made public its ideas for the Title I program, it was “overwhelmed” with requests from people who mistakenly believed that the program was up and running and that the corporation was responsible.5 John Fahey hastened to express support for the proposed legislation. The need, and the demand, was palpable. Together, the decline in new building, the growth of home improvement, and the HOLC’s recent experience with home repairs shaped Title I of the National Housing Act of 1934. Construction is labor-intensive and has multiplier effects on the demand for raw materials, furnishings, appliances, and other consumer goods. For Roosevelt’s administration, it was an obvious tool. When hearings were held for a draft housing bill in May 1934, apart from John Fahey, speaker after speaker emphasized the importance of extending installment credits for home improvement. Frank Walker, executive director of the National Emergency Council, declared, “I do not think there is any demand at the present time for new housing,” then added “but I do feel that there is an absolute demand for rehabilitation, modernization and repair.” His judgment was confirmed by the Philadelphia construction campaign of 1933, whose results were reported at the hearings: 91 percent of the pledges were for repairs, additions, and alterations; only 9 percent was for new construction. Modernization, Walker judged, would “start the wheels moving.” Picking up the argument, Winfield Riefler, economic adviser to the executive council, suggested that, for every dollar of insured loans, two would be spent in cash while, warming to the theme, Senator Barkley suggested that, wishing to “keep[] up with the Joneses,” neighbors would follow suit. Summing up the administration’s consensus, Secretary

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of Labor Francis Perkins emphasized that the proposed program was “one of the most essential features of the recovery program.” Not surprisingly, all of the industry leaders who spoke at the hearings, including Morton Bodfish from the U.S. Building and Loan League, Hugh Potter, president of NAREB, and Stephen Voorhees, who chaired the Construction Code Authority for the National Recovery Administration, agreed with Perkins.6 The only issue to be debated was whether the program would work. The Committee on Banking and Currency was reassured by two speakers, both of whom had been involved in drafting the bill. Albert Deane, president of GMAC, the GM finance company that pioneered installment sales of automobiles, claimed that households had grown accustomed to monthly payments. He also suggested that his company’s experience showed that even unsecured loans were safe. But there was a difference between automobiles, which could be repossessed, and home improvements. That is why Lewis Brown’s evidence was critical. Brown spoke of Johns-Manville’s program, which, he noted, was “substantially the same basic plan as that outlined in this bill.” He reported that, after three years of offering 12 percent loans, J-M had experienced losses of only 2.07 percent. Other speakers praised the J-M plan, and the proposed federal program. From then on, neither in principle nor in practice was a dissenting voice raised.7

Title I and the Better Housing Campaign The Title I program came into effect in August 1934, ran until April 1937, and was permanently revived in February 1938. Under its provisions, any property owner could apply for a modernization loan, but the program was primarily used by owner-occupiers.8 The terms were more generous than those offered by Johns-Manville. The limit was $2,000, although at first the average loan was much lower, $385, and the interest rate was 9.72 percent. Initially applicants needed a down payment of 12–20 percent, repaid over twelve months, but when losses turned out to be minimal these were relaxed to zero down payment and a thirty- to thirty-six-month term. In 1935, the program was temporarily extended to include major appliances.9 The FHA sold the program very aggressively. Even at the hearings, Frank Walker had spoken of a “campaign” rather than policy “implementation.” Asked whether he meant “high pressure salesmanship,” he backed down. But soon Marriner Eccles, executive secretary of the treasury, let slip a reference to “a national campaign” before hastily adding, “I do not mean high pressure selling.” In fact, that is exactly what was meant. About $1.3 million was spent on advertising in the first three months. An official history later

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boasted that when the FHA was established it “lifted bodily an advertising agency, a time payment crew, a legal department, and a banking and accounting division from the best known institutions in America.” Ward Canaday, who was experienced in promoting auto sales, became the agency’s Director of Public Relations, while Roger Steffan, a banker with rare experience in personal loans, was made director of modernization credits. Ray Smythe, a small-town reporter, happened to be hired onto the FHA’s staff, and his account of its first few months show that Canaday ran a sales campaign for “Better Housing.”10 Borrowers were offered a free consultation. To generate inquiries, there was a “publicity splurge” that included the preparation of Visomatic sound pictures (35 mm slides, accompanied by a sixteen-inch record), ‘Better Housing News Flashes,’ seen by forty million people on cinema screens by 1936, and extensive radio and magazine advertising.11 Because radio was so effective a medium, the Better Housing campaign was launched on air by FHA administrator James Moffatt on August 15, 1934. Within six months, 45,000 radio broadcasts on 609 stations had carried the message nationwide. An especially effective show, Master Builder, which featured a “carpenter” who acted as “friendly counselor to the one hundred and twenty millions of Americans,” aired every Saturday, 6:45– 7:00 EST. It was heard by men who were keen to save money by doing their own improvements. By 1935, the FHA also had a Wednesday lunchtime show on the Columbia network. Since it would have been heard mostly by women, they arranged for a female host, Miss Martha Holmes (the “Better Housing reporter”) to carry a “flying microphone” into the homes of “representative Americans who tell true, spontaneous stories of how they have modernized.” They had at least one other show “of special interest to women” on the American network. The emphasis on women reflected the prevailing assumption that it was best, as one text advised, to “ ‘sell’ the wife, and close with the husband.”12 At the FHA head office, a large staff, including Smythe, wrote a property owner’s booklet and responded to media enquiries, while preparing printers’ mats and advertising copy for contractors, dealers, manufacturers, and lenders who planned tie-in promotions. They also wrote the texts for speakers whose travels generated grass-roots support for local committees, 5,500 of which had formed by February 1, 1935, and 6,000 by March, in communities that included 65 percent of the U.S. population. In 2,000 of these places, house-to-house canvasses had already reached 5.6 million households. The head office wrote a manual on how to run such a committee. This scripted three “sales meetings”: the first kicked off with the visomatic

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show, “Dealer, Architect, and Contractor”; the second advised how to “appeal to the emotions of men and women”; the third gave a briefing on finance and mechanics liens. Soon, a revised edition told committees to canvass, and every page urged “Ask ’em to Buy.”13 Local committees responded. They organized cavalcades, rented storefronts that became “one-stop shopping center[s]” to pull in pedestrian traffic, and rounded up dozens of canvassers. In Riverside, California, the Chamber of Commerce helped mount a Better Housing Campaign that was piggy-backed onto a house-to-house property inventory. It attracted “enormous publicity,” as canvassers noted conditions, distributed information about Title I loans, and urged householders to complete “pledge cards” that were sent to a “clearinghouse” financed by local lumber and building companies. Nationally, in five hundred communities, separate women’s committees were formed to promote modernization and create jobs. When the national program was revived in 1938, the new campaign was less extensive but still vigorous. In his sole understatement, Smythe conceded that “sometimes we were merchandisers.” A more accurate description of the campaign was later offered by Richard Ratcliff: “flamboyant.”14 The easy half of the sales job was directed at suppliers and lenders. The agency argued, accurately enough, that “building supply dealers and contractors will profit.” After all, as a retailer on Seven Mile Road in Detroit put it, the FHA “is paying the advertising bills of our industry.” No wonder the first Title II–insured home, in Elyria, Ohio, was packaged and marketed by a local retailer, Charles J. Crehore of Elyria Lumber and Coal. The first Title I loan was probably also sold by a dealer. Most were staunch Republicans and hated New Deal talk of public housing. After all, housing projects used concrete and bricks, but little lumber. But with few exceptions, they took to the Better Housing Campaign and often led local committees; Crehore, for example, was chair of the Elyria committee (figure 25). Smythe reports that many dealers wrote to the FHA for advertising tips. A few hesitated, concerned they would get only a part of any business they created. As a case in point, BSN told of one dealer who had distributed a mail questionnaire to all three thousand households in his town, but had received only three hundred replies, for which he could supply only 8–10 percent of the materials. One answer was to diversify, but this would take time. BSN’s editor took a different tack, emphasizing that, if the dealer had followed up on all of the three hundred responses, he could have generated new business. In fact, the trade press was soon full of stories about dealers whose business had received a fillip from Title I. By August 1936, for example, the secretarytreasurer of a retailer in Earle, Arkansas, was waxing enthusiastic about what

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25. An exhortation to canvass. The Federal Housing Administration urged the formation of local committees that would promote home improvement. Illogically, the artist showed a canvasser visiting recently built homes. Source: United States, Federal Housing Administration, Selling Better Housing (Washington, D.C.: USFHA, 1935).

Titles I and II were doing for his business, while Indiana Lumber and Manufacturing, of South Bend, reported that it was exploiting Title I to the full. The sales manager was vice chair of the local Better Housing Committee, while the company had built a model kitchen in their store basement and invited women’s groups to hold meetings there. In two years, their kitchen remodeling business had boosted overall sales by 800 percent. This statistic was exceptional, but dealers everywhere seized on the new form of credit. The survey of dealers carried out by Johns-Manville in 1936 found almost unanimous agreement that installment finance was here to stay, and a vital sales tool. As BSN commented only six months after Title I took effect, the Depression had been awful, but the new financing meant that “in one fundamental [dealers] are better equipped than ever before in their business history.”15 Dealers generated most of the Title I business, 80 percent of loans in the first decade of the program. This put them in the driver’s seat in relation to lending institutions.16 Manufacturers signed on too, led by those that had already experimented with installment finance. Johns-Manville, American Radiator, Sears, and Weyerhaeuser, with its links to the Lumbermen’s Finance Corporation, set up financial agencies to handle Title I business. Others, such as Ruberoid, joined in later when they began to feel the competition. By January 1935, the largest Title I lender was American Radiator’s Heating and Plumbing Finance Corporation (6,453 loans), with J-M’s Credit Corporation (1,640) and Sears Finance (1,590) following in fifth and sixth place, respectively. The Producers’ Council reported that member surveys were showing great demand “such as can be financed under the better-housing program” and that companies were “putting before such prospects full information as to their products.”17 Indeed, the FHA felt so sure of manufacturers’ support that it appealed to them for help in the sales campaign by

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volunteering “their best men from sales and promotional departments to act as instructors in [FHA] sales schools.” These were scheduled to start on February 1, 1935. In New York State alone, they ran in Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, Elmira, Rochester, Schenectady, Syracuse, and Troy. Apart from J-M, several companies mounted their own campaigns for home improvement. Weyerhaeuser linked this to promotion of its 4-Square lumber. The building trade remained fully committed to the Title I program. By 1940, for example, Weyerhaeuser’s subsidiary Allied Building Credits (ABC), had acquired over $13.5 million in Title I notes. Finance companies, too, seized the program with both hands. By January 1935, First Bancredit (4,912 loans) was the third-ranked Title I lender. A few large banks had followed suit, notably Bank of America (5,982 loans), and National City Bank (3,870 loans). But placing second and fourth, respectively, in the Title I rankings, even these failed to do justice to their potential, while most banks at first needed to be cajoled into the consumer business.18 Commercial banks loaned to businesses. Until the Depression, the average banker made mortgage loans, but regarded unsecured consumer loans as risky, “irresponsible,” and “beneath his dignity.” When, during the 1920s, credit agencies entered this business, a few bankers began to wonder whether this was a field they should consider. On the initiative of vice president Roger Steffan, in May 1928 the National City Bank of New York opened the nation’s first personal loan department. At first this was more a good will gesture than a source of profits. As departmental director, Steffan reported to the head of public relations. To minimize the costs of handling such fiddly business, borrowers had to open a savings account and make repayments through monthly “deposits.” Few other institutions followed suit, but a staggering decline in their traditional business in the early 1930s, coupled with bank failures, forced the survivors to rethink. Then, when the FHA opened for business in 1934, National City “loaned” Steffan, who became director of the Title I program. Between them, Steffan and Albert Deane from GMAC had unparalleled experience in the nascent field of consumer loans and carried enormous credibility.19 The FHA bombarded the banks with advertising. Its staff distributed pamphlets that sketched the experience of the first lenders to buy in to the program. The first highlighted four lenders in cities that ranged in size from 14,000 (Mattoon, Illinois) to 270,000 (Atlanta, Georgia). Some reports were overeager, stretching credulity. Supposedly, when the National Bank of Mattoon received its first pamphlet, on a Sunday no less, the head cashier took it home to read, became enthusiastic, and walked it over to the bank president that afternoon. The next day, they placed advertisements in

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the local paper, with an immediate effect on business. Other banks were urged to follow suit. The American Bankers Association cooperated. Since bankers lacked experience with personal loans, the ABA appointed a liaison officer in every state to explain how they worked. At the grass roots, dealers also did what they could. In fall 1934, BSN announced a competition for the best promotional campaign to be directed at lenders. Finding that local bankers were “lukewarm,” one dealer “personally contacted” contractors to tell them how Title I worked, spoke on the local radio, and won over the banks by promising to screen and process applicants. Many retailers used the latter tactic. In Davenport, Iowa, Ben Mueller reckoned that borrowers liked it, because they anticipated a cold reception from their local bank. At first Mueller even guaranteed 20 percent of the Title I contracts that they generated. The bank couldn’t lose!20 At first, the FHA could offer only vague assurances about risk. No bank wanted to be seen to sue any customer for a bad debt. Instead, the FHA played up the multiplier and demonstration effects noted at the hearings in May. In its first pamphlet for bankers, the FHA reported how the neighborhood effect of early Title I loans in Newport News, Virginia, had generated new business. Copycat borrowing was driven by the self-interest of builder and dealer as much as the home owner’s spirit of emulation. In Elkhart, Indiana, Title I loans had revived one “contractor-dealer . . . whose business has been in the doldrums for years,” to the point that “he hustles out, makes a sale” and then—the key point—“brings the customer right to the bank for starting the loan in process.” Such evidence was anecdotal. As soon as possible, the FHA gathered and released more systematic data to back their claims. In Washington, D.C., the demand for uninsured loans was already exceeding that for Title I paper by November 1934, while reports from other cities indicated that both types of loans were leveraging much larger cash investments. In Boston, for example, households borrowed only a third of what they spent, paying in cash for the balance.21 Slowly but surely, the FHA brought traditional lenders on board. Paradoxically, the savings and loans, which had spoken for the program at the hearings, played a minor role. They were suspicious of FHA insurance and jealous of the banks. Officially, they approved of Title I loans, but their involvement was limited. Instead, by 1936 Fahey advocated extension of the HOLC’s “home reconditioning” activity into a separate program for the thrifts.22 The outcome, the Home Building Service Plan, never amounted to much. Meanwhile, the FHA’s campaign for the commercial banks soon had the desired effect. By the end of 1934, 11,945 financial institutions had signed up, including 10,029 being banks. Many then proceeded to moni-

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tor the program before plunging in. After the first three years, only 6,433 had made a loan. But soon, others were being won over. In New York City, Manufacturer’s Trust established a department for modernization loans and then, in 1935, established a personal loan service. By 1937, they had loaned $13 million on improvements and almost as much for other goods. Banks in smaller centers followed suit. In Rochester, by 1938, modernization loans drew the Lincoln-Alliance Bank and Trust Company into personal lending. It had followed the lead of the finance companies because demand for commercial loans had fallen, because they wanted to create “good will,” but above all because improvement loans “produce steady and excellent earnings.” This was key. At Manufacturer’s, John Paddi reported that his company’s experience with such loans had been “exceedingly satisfactory.” Borrowers brought their payments to the bank in person, which built loyalty. By the beginning of 1938, more than seven hundred banks had personal loan departments, mostly because Title I had shown them the way. The Wall Street Journal reported that banks were ceasing to view personal loans as a “necessary evil” but instead as integral to their business.23 There were hitches. More than four out of five dealers surveyed by J-M late in 1935 reported the presence of itinerant roofing companies, and half reckoned these were creating “serious competition.” The problem was that, believing vendors had FHA approval, some consumers assumed that itinerants could be trusted to do good work. In fact, there was little oversight. An unscrupulous roofer could take a deposit and then leave town. By the mid-1940s, demand for Title I loans had fostered a “bad class” of operators. One racket was to charge high prices by promising to pay a commission on subsequent sales; no such commissions were paid. Scams discredited the program, and so some banks continued to hold back. A survey in 1946 showed that 80 percent of banks were willing to make consumer loans, 63 percent installment loans for automobiles, and 53 percent for other consumer goods, but only 34 percent would participate in the federal modernization program. Even so, banks accounted for three-fifths of all Title I loans.24 They had come on board.

Immediate Effects Contemporaries believed that Title I had been a resounding success. Certain facts are clear. First: it soon caught on (figure 26). In its first ten months, from September 1934 to June 1935, the number of loans rose steadily and averaged 22,000 a month. Over the next ten months, they ballooned to 80,000 a month, before dropping back somewhat. When the program

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26. Loans insured by the F.H.A., 1934–44. Although the fact has been forgotten, the Title I program for home modernization dominated the first two years of FHA activity and remained significant through the 1950s. Source: Insured Mortgage Portfolio 9, no. 4 (1945): 11.

lapsed, the outcry was immediate and it was restored. Second: the scale was huge. About 1.5 million loans were made in 1934–1937, and the same again 1938–1940, even though, from 1939, borrowers had to pay the costs of insurance. After the United States entered World War II, the FHA tightened its regulations, but it loosened other requirements. Effective June 28, 1941, the maximum loan on multifamily dwellings was doubled, to promote dwelling conversions in defense areas, which would be “particularly appropriate to older cities.” Local campaigns encouraged owners to create new units. In Riverside, California, where 20 percent of owners had taken out modernization loans by 1941, others then converted single-family dwellings to create apartments during the emergency. Title I Loans dipped slightly for two years, then rose again. By 1946, the number had reached 6.2 million. By any standards, these were large numbers. Goldstein has claimed that by 1937, one in eight home owners in the United States had received an FHA-insured modernization loan. Her estimate is a little generous, in that some loans went to landlords and some borrowers double-dipped. Nevertheless, since the total doubled by 1940 and then doubled again by 1946, it

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is clear that a large minority of U.S. households received some benefit even before the beginning of the postwar boom.25 A third fact about the program is that it led to a rapid increase in the use of installment finance for home improvements. In 1929, 47 percent of consumer debt was for automobiles and only 0.91 percent for repair/modernization loans.26 By 1936, the gap had narrowed, the proportions being 42 percent and 11 percent, respectively. The Title I program must have been responsible for this shift. Given that improvement debt was associated with cash expenditures at least three times as great, a large multiplier effect was the fourth fact about the program. If $2.5 billion had been loaned by 1946, the new debt was probably associated with a total investment of at least $10 billion. It is impossible to know how much of this investment would have been made in the absence of Title I loans. The late 1920s and early 1930s saw a relative increase in improvement activity, and this would surely have continued through the early 1930s, and then the early 1940s, as new construction lagged. The need for dwelling conversions became pressing and much would have been undertaken even if the federal government had provided no encouragement at all. One assessment of the net effect of the program is suggested by the experience of the Weyerhaeuser Corporation. Weyerhaeuser was one of the companies that most actively supported home renovations in general, and the Title I program in particular, by setting up its ABC subsidiary. By 1937, its salesmen estimated that ABC increased the company’s sales of building materials and modernization projects by about 10 percent.27 There is no way of knowing whether this was a good estimate even for Weyerhaeuser’s experience, still less whether it may be generalized. But if it is at all accurate, the Title I program may be said to have increased investment in residential real estate by about $1 billion from 1934 to 1946. Although its net effect on property investment was probably very large, the more significant impact of the Title I program was in its effects on how a range of companies associated with the building industry did business. Lenders and lumber dealers, many of whom were encouraged to get into contracting, were the two key groups. Contemporaries “generally agreed,” and in 1947 an economist argued that the most significant direct effect of the Title I program was to bring the banks into the market for installment sales.28 Between 1934 and 1937 the amount of installment loan business generated by the banks jumped from $44 million to $258 million at a time when the economy was scarcely growing. This did not matter only for the housing business. In the first seven years of the Title I program—for almost one year of which the program was in abeyance—the banks’ share of all

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types of installment finance rose dramatically. Their share rose slowly from 1931 (5.4 percent) to 1934 (7.7 percent), and then took off from 1935 (9.7 percent) through 1937 (18.0 percent) to 1941 (33 percent). As Kenneth Wells, assistant vice president of the American National Bank and Trust Company of Chicago, noted in 1946, “many banks” that by then were offering consumer credit had been “initiated” into the business by Title I.29 Title I had an equally significant impact on the lumber dealer. Increasingly from the early 1900s, dealers had been forced to think about the consumer market; now the federal government had given them a sales tool that helped them tackle the issue. Morris Lumber, of Plymouth, Indiana, showed what a progressive dealer could do with it. The owner undertook a complete survey of the town, and discovered his yard stocked only a quarter of the materials that prospective customers would require. This was typical. A later national survey showed that Title I loans were used mostly to upgrade plumbing and heating (38 percent), for interior or exterior refinishing (24 percent), or for reroofing (14 percent). Dealers carried paint and shingles, but usually not plumbing supplies or heating equipment. Mr. Morris saw no reason to drum up business for other retailers, and by 1936 he had resolved to diversify. Other dealers were doing the same thing, and a J-M survey found that most of that company’s dealers recognized the importance of installment finance, but they were untypical. Despite the proselytizing of the trade journals, most were still slow to act. By 1940, only three out of ten dealers had originated a Title I loan. But these included the more progressive retailers, such as Hines, and also the larger and more durable. They set the pace for a trade that now had the necessary tools. In December 1936, Building Supply News looked back on what the Depression had done to, and for, its readers. It detected three developments, in order of importance: modernization, installment selling, and the ongoing transformation of the yard into a salesroom. It also spelt out a logic of causality. Home improvement and federal intervention had finally brought the consumer and the retailer together.30

The Canadian Home Improvement Plan Title I even had an effect in Canada, where building trends closely paralleled those in the United States. Kits and the new competition had produced a new mindset among dealers by the late 1920s. The Depression raised the profile of repairs and conversions, and created pressure for federal action (figure 27). The Canadian government was slow to act. When a Dominion Housing Act was passed in 1935, it made no provision for home modernization. The National Employment Commission [NEC] pressed for “a plan

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27. A typical home in need of repair, Windsor, Ontario, c. 1937. Canada modeled a federal Home Improvement Programme on the FHA’s Title I scheme. Source: Records of the Home Improvement Programme, National Archives of Canada.

similar to what is known as Title One of the Federal Housing Act [sic] of the United States,” which might have an “immediate and beneficial effect on the building trades.” Commissioner E. J. Young pointed out that “we have, on the one hand, thousands and thousands of houses needing repairs and, on the other, thousands and thousands of workmen willing and anxious to repair them.” In 1936, a new government passed legislation for a Home Improvement Plan (HIP), and Raymond Foley, administrator of the FHA, lauded its potential. The HIP was modeled on Title I, and was promoted and justified in a similar way. The Canadian government accepted FHA estimates of a 3:1 or 4:1 multiplier; neighborhood effects were anticipated; local committees were established, often with women’s subcommittees attached; lumber dealers supported it; once the program was up and running each applicant received on average $400–500; some building suppliers developed complementary plans.31 There were revealing nuances to the Canadian plan. At 6.32 percent simple interest, the terms were more generous than Title I; wartime restrictions were imposed earlier, and the pressure to favor conversions and “home extensions” took effect by 1942. Media coverage emphasized architects, indicating that HIP loans were socially more exclusive than Title I, and by 1940 only one in ten home owners had used the program, less than half

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the ratio in the United States. But the stream of promotional press releases issued by the NEC in the first year of the program spoke of a wide range of improvements that could be financed. These included many that were very modest, and which could have been undertaken by home owners for themselves. Press Release 76, for example, suggested that owners might refurbish furniture that would otherwise be discarded, or fit out a guest room in the attic. The latter, it pointed out, could be done with fiberboard that required only a “simple tool for beveling and grooving.” In November 1937, P.R.164 referred to “amateur decorators” who might construct bookcases; speaking of basement recreation rooms, P.R.77 noted that “the market is flooded with materials with which rooms of this type may be easily constructed.” Such references were doubly significant. Belying the political rhetoric, which emphasized how the HIP would create jobs, they show that Canadian bureaucrats knew that in part they were helping to finance do-it-yourself. And if this was true in a national program that was largely middle-class, it must have been more true of the U.S. program, which reached a wider social cross-section.32 One peculiarity of the Canadian program is of particular interest. After two years, the government tried to divest itself of responsibility for promotion. It had copied the FHA in using all media to tell its message, and had successfully won the support of manufacturers and finance companies. These included the Canadian operations of Johns-Manville and American Radiator, which functioned as Dominion Radiator. Indeed, Dominion Radiator (paired with Standard Sanitary Mfg. Co.) was keen to get started. Through its subsidiary, Heating and Plumbing Finance Ltd., it had its own finance plan and began to process HIP loans even before getting official approval. It was the first finance company to be approved, along with ten chartered banks. Since most operated nationally, and were to survive the Depression, the Canadian banks were in a better position than their U.S. counterparts, but they were no more eager to offer improvement loans. When, in 1936, the government hired a marketing consultant, it assumed that bankers would continue to display their “natural lack of initiative.” Administrators suggested the formation of a committee to act as “buffer” or court of appeal “between the banks and rejected applicants.” The need was apparent. In fall 1937, at a government-sponsored workshop, a leading issue was whether progress with the HIP had been “adversely affected” by the “attitude of banks and bank managers.” Reports varied, with the Province of Alberta being typical. One local committee reported that banks were uninterested in HIP loans; a contractor claimed he could have done four times the business if local lenders had cooperated; another reckoned that property owners would rather borrow from the retailer, since banks were

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inflexible about repayments. Set against these complaints, other reports indicated that many bank branches were cooperating. As in the United States, local experiences varied, and banks did eventually come around. Manufacturers and bankers in Canada, then, had responded to the HIP program much as their counterparts in the United States had dealt with Title I. That is why the Canadian government’s tactic in 1938 is so interesting.33 In the United States, the FHA remained the chief booster of Title I into the 1940s. In 1939, for example, it was still active, making “extensive use” of radio, producing a merchandising manual, preparing sample newspaper advertisements and window display cards, and distributing a technicolor motion picture (Miracles of Modernisation). Meanwhile, the Canadian government was extricating itself from selling its program. This reflected the parsimony of W. C. Clark, the deputy minister of finance, who shaped Canadian housing policy from 1935 into the 1950s. In February 1938, Clark tried to persuade the industry to take the marketing job. Together with the chairman of the NEC, Clark agreed that “ ‘the construction industry’ . . . is a very nebulous sort of affair,” but he believed that “the building material and equipment companies,” together with “financial men,” would pick up the slack. He was disappointed. Individual companies were making efforts, but collective endeavor was beyond them. By April, Clark complained to the general secretary of the National Construction Council that he had received “no encouragement from any quarter.” It is impossible to know what would have happened if the FHA, too, had tried to disentangle itself from the promotion of home improvement. The building industry in the United States was better organized than its Canadian counterpart and might have stepped into the breach. But contemporaries routinely damned the U.S. industry for its disorganization, and it is likely that enthusiasm for the Title I program would have fallen off if federal boosterism had flagged. Clark’s frustrations in the winter of 1938 indicate that, across North America, federal support was vital to the growth of home improvement.34 Both the Canadian and U.S. programs, then, accomplished more than their architects had expected. They revived construction and improved many homes; they successfully introduced banks to the business of consumer loans; and, they gave a fillip to do-it-yourself.

The Owner-Builder Redux An equally important, and similarly unwitting, assist to the handyman was provided by a new-home financing program introduced in 1938. In this case, however, the effects diverged more sharply from the policy makers’

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designs. Owner-building had revived during the Depression, taking various forms. There were Hoovervilles, of course. But when Richard Andrews surveyed the fringes of American cities in 1942, he found, in addition, both “shacktowns” and “low income areas.” Both consisted of owner-built dwellings. Even in the better low-income districts, for example, Andrews reckoned that “those prompted by the urge for home ownership often erect their own structures.” It was the beginning of a new wave of suburban development. In Bergen County, New Jersey, for example, which contained over seventy municipalities together with other unincorporated districts, Charles Ascher reported that much of the fringe development of the 1930s had been unprepossessing. Some communities, he suggested, “present the charm of an old, tree-lined village of fifty years ago for a few blocks at the core” but then “trail off to roadside slums in every direction.”35 The new exurban development was scattered, because uncontrolled: farmers carved out individual lots along rural roads when they needed cash. This suited buyers. As workers lost regular city jobs, they reckoned to supplement wages by buying a lot, building a home, and then raising vegetables and small livestock. This resurgent back-to-the-land sentiment was broader than that articulated by Bolton Hall, William Smythe, and John McMahon a generation earlier. The automobile brought exurban acreage within reach of millions. In Today and Tomorrow (1926), Henry Ford had argued that agriculture and industry could be married if factories decentralized and workers farmed part-time. The movement of the 1930s was also more desperate. McMahon chose a way of life; Depression homesteaders scrabbled to make a living. Still, the distinction was not quite that neat, for the new homestead movement crossed class lines and mixed motives. During the 1920s, Ralph Borsodi and his family had chosen to move to the country, where they built a home and a subsistence living. His move implied a rejection of urban life, and articulated this as a social commentary, thereby making a name as a critic of industrial civilization. As early as 1923, he argued that companies should sell generic merchandise, rather than waste money by marketing brands; he suggested that a business recession might push this along. He was wrong, but the Depression did encourage others to imitate him. In response to “hundreds” of requests, in 1933 Borsodi published Flight from the City, which described what his family had done, and linked it to his social philosophy. This inspired others who had some choice about where and how to live, but also many who did not. In 1935, for example, Maurice Kains, a crop culturalist for the USDA and lecturer at Columbia, wrote Five Acres and Independence, a practical guide for those who found themselves underemployed and who wished to establish a subsistence farm. As epi-

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graph, Kains used Henry Ford’s declaration that “no unemployment insurance can be compared to an alliance between man and a plot of land.” Five Acres went through five editions by 1940, and when his book was reprinted in 1973 Kains was touted as the “father of the Whole Earth Catalog.”36 The ideas of Borsodi, and the advice of Kains, framed a movement. In Dayton, Ohio, the Council of Social Agencies developed a homestead plan for the unemployed. As governor of New York, Franklin Roosevelt had endorsed homesteads as early as 1931. As president, encouraged by his wife Eleanor, he established a national program. Its head, M. L. Wilson, was a friend of Borsodi’s and shared his outlook. Projects were developed for, and by, unemployed miners in the eastern coalfields. Because of public pressure to employ relief labor, most homesteads were not owner-built. To many, including the assistant director Clarence Pickett, this seemed “abnormal” for a program that stressed self-reliance. In his other capacity as head of the American Friends Service Committee, Pickett initiated a project for miners at Penn-Craft in Pennsylvania in which owner-construction was emphasized. In Nova Scotia, Canada, in 1937, with assistance from the New York–based Cooperative League, and provincial funding, a self-help project for miners was developed. Although small, this project eventually seeded programs of assisted self-help across Canada. Meanwhile, until the United States entered the war, some writers and academics continued to advocate homesteads as a solution to unemployment and as an expression of an alternative way of life.37 Some homesteaders went back to the land, literally. Between 1905 and 1925, England had seen a minor fad for the use of earth in residential construction. In the United States, Popular Science and Scientific American picked up on the idea. At first, their coverage was patronizing but, by the 1930s, the merits of adobe, rammed earth, and pisé construction were more widely appreciated. Low cost, requiring limited skills, and using a cheap local material, they recommended themselves to amateurs. The Resettlement Administration adopted the method for a project near Birmingham, Alabama, and favorable accounts of individual initiatives were being published in Coronet, Popular Science, Rotarian, and American Home.38 On a much larger scale, part-time farming produced dispersed settlement around industrial towns and cities from coast to coast: from Worcester, Massachusetts; through Webster and Rochester, New York; from Pittsburgh and Milwaukee to Flint and other parts of industrial Michigan and northern Indiana; to Eugene, Oregon, and the city of Seattle. The pattern and process was the same everywhere—scattered owner-building, typically in stages, on large plots. A survey of the unincorporated parts of Cook County, beyond

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Chicago’s city limits, found examples in many places: at 79th and Cicero, for example, or 136th and Monticello. Eugene Christgau identified a range of options that he dismissed as shantytowns, “hovel communities” and “doghouses,” by which he meant “garden homesites” on large lots. Everywhere, as a rare study of the southern states showed, such development was fueled by the Depression economy and depended upon the (second- or third-hand) automobile.39 The new wave of owner-building again depended on lumber dealers and, sometimes, builders too. Not every dealer went along. In Pontiac, Michigan, many auto workers wanted to build but the local dealer, Lowrie and Webb Lumber, discouraged them by demanding they meet the same requirements as professionals. But this was unusual. From 1935, the trade press reported that more dealers were supporting amateurs. In Rockford, Illinois, for example, Home Lumber and Supply helped a stalled ownerbuild project by providing materials and finance; in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Palmetier and Abell Lumber offered a package deal that included financing; in Arkansas, the state dealers’ association teamed up with a university extension division to promote farm construction. The press also reported a resurgence of shell housing. This was largely confined to larger centers, where units were framed in large numbers, thereby multiplying the small margins. In Chicago, Percy Wilson and Co. attracted attention for building inexpensive “subsistence homes” on one-acre lots with plumbing connections but no fixtures. Many builders were dealers who tried to control sales through vertical integration. A classic case was Atlantic Lumber in the Los Angeles suburb of Bell, which sold “tiny” houses for $569, which families could build and extend. By 1939, Atlantic had sold “literally hundreds.” In other ways, boundaries between firms were blurred. In Hamilton, Ontario, Halliday’s, a local lumber company that had made kits during the 1920s, adapted to the Depression (figure 28). By 1936, its catalog advertised materials useful under Home Improvement Plan loans, while its kit service moved downmarket by offering owner-builders finance and limited contracting. Halliday merged the functions of builder, lumber dealer, and kit manufacturer. The best-known shell project of the late 1930s, however, was that of the Hoess brothers in Hammond, Indiana. They built garages on one-acre lots, expecting that buyers would occupy garages while building their home. It turned out that people lived in, and then extended, the garages. The brothers then built shells with no bath, furnace, or cellar. These proved popular, and attracted national attention from newspapers, Barron’s magazine, Reader’s Digest, and even the U.S. Senate.40 The demand for help-yourself housing supported subdivisions on lots

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28. Aerial view of Halliday’s Lumber, Burlington, Ontario, early 1950s. Halliday’s began as a lumber dealership and marketed kits from the 1920s through the 1950s. In the early postwar years its kits were frequently purchased by amateur builders. Source: Northway Photomap. Archives of Ontario C30-1 ES4-891.

too small for serious agriculture. This could occur as infill, as in Lincoln Heights, outside Cincinnati, or the Cleveland suburb of Euclid. In 1939, an HOLC survey reported that much of Euclid had developed in the 1920s with no restrictions. Owner-construction by Italian and Hungarian immigrants who grew vegetables and raised livestock persisted into the 1930s, and although the frame homes were small and in “fair to poor” condition, home ownership was the rule. Many new districts also sprang up. Examples included the Chavis Heights area in Raleigh, North Carolina; the Eight Mile Road/Wyoming area, as well as subdivisions near the Willow Run bomber plant, beyond Detroit’s city limits; the Larchmont Square district, west of Philadelphia; the Cleveland suburb of Parma; the Chicago suburbs of Stone Park and Robbins; and a series of subdivisions and suburbs in California, including Modesto’s “Little Oklahoma,” together with Bell Gardens and Compton south of Los Angeles (figure 29). Some accounts of these areas were evocative: Little Oklahoma was illustrated in the Dorothea Lange genre of photo realism. One of the most evocative was partly fictional. In 1935, Jessica MacDonald published Arden Acres, a novel set fifty miles southwest of Chicago. From this unserviced and unregulated community of ownerbuilt homes near the Rock Island Railroad, the main protagonists subsist on part-time work and relief. “The characters,” North tells us, “have been invented to suit the needs of the story and are not intended to resemble

29. Pioneer owner-builders in California, c. 1939. Low incomes and local housing shortages compelled migrant farm workers to build their own homes. Lillian Creisler, “ ‘Little Oklahoma’ or the Airport Community: A Study of the Social and Economic Adjustment of Self-Settled Agricultural Drought and Depression Refugees,” M.A. thesis, University of California Berkeley, 1940.

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my courageous friends in Arden Acres.” But “the location and some of the incidents are real.” Or, she might have said, only too real.41 There were variations on the theme of bootstrap development. Those in Modesto managed at first in tents, a rare strategy in northern states. A car was almost a necessity; in a suburb like Parma, two-thirds of employed residents commuted by car before World War II. But in districts serviced by transit or close to jobs, cars were unnecessary. In Eight Mile Road/Wyoming in 1939, only one-third of families owned a car, and in half of those cases it did not run. Those living further out raised crops—this was part of the point—while those in nearer subdivisions relied more on wages. Even so, 60 percent of the residents of Little Oklahoma grew vegetables, as did a similar proportion of those in Parma.42 In other respects, there was less variation. Everywhere, the desire to own was dominant. Of the Cleveland suburbs studied by Mary Schauffler, Parma was the poorest but had the highest level of home ownership. Residents continued the working-class tradition of acquiring homes whenever possible. They also continued the slum tradition of posing a risk to health. In Memphis, Tennessee, in the early 1930s, infant mortality rates were onethird higher in recently annexed fringe areas than in the older parts of the city. This pattern existed elsewhere, and persisted into the 1940s. The communities that sprang up around Willow Run were a striking example since, as sociologists noted, “inside the plant . . . technology went to town” but “outside, the ‘town’ more or less went to pot.” Many relied on wells and privies, which flooded at spring thaw and led to “digestive upsets aplenty,” or even dysentery. The more concentrated the settlement the worse the problem. The medical officer of health of Washtenaw County Health Department found an especially problematic subdivision: households relied on privies or septic tanks, and an unapproved private water supply and method of garbage collection, while a fifth drank unpasteurized milk. One official described it as “the worst mess in the whole United States.” In terms of scale he may have been correct, but similar risks were faced in all such communities (figure 30).43 Owner-built anarchy was enabled by spotty regulation. Those who settled beyond cities and incorporated suburbs were subject to rules that were irregularly enforced, and often nonexistent. For many, that was the point: they could build what, when, and how they wished. Outside Eugene, Oregon, more than a quarter of those who moved to the fringe wanted to evade regulation. Typically, this was a question of degrees, variations, and ambiguities, Flint, Michigan, being a case in point. Home to G.M. factories, Flint boomed during the 1920s and managed to keep hiring during

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30. Basement dwellers, Macomb County, Michigan, c. 1941. During World War II, women worked in factories, and sometimes started, finished, or built their homes. Source: Roland J. Thomas, Housing for Defense (Detroit: UAW-CIO, 1942).

the Depression. The population of the City of Flint stabilized, but settlement continued in the suburbs and an unincorporated fringe. The city itself was slow to control development. There was no city building code until 1924, nor an electrical code until 1936. Enforcement was lax. During the 1920s, many workers were allowed to build and occupy garages, this being formalized from 1925 by an amendment to Michigan’s housing law that permitted the temporary occupation of “garage houses” while owners built next door. Often, construction began before the municipality installed services. One example was the territory occupied by three subdivisions near the Fisher Body Plant. Platted in 1916, 1922, and 1923, annexed in 1920, these abutted the southern city limits. Here, a fifth of the lots had been built upon before sidewalks were installed in 1924; more than a quarter before water and sewer lines were dug in 1928–1929. Only in 1951 did the city finish paving sidewalks and streets, by which time the area was two-thirds

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built-up. Limited services meant low taxes, and with lax regulations lowincome workers built for themselves. Health was compromised. Levels of overcrowding were highest, and environmental conditions were worst, in those areas that lay closest to city limits.44 But the best opportunities for owner-building lay beyond, in the four townships of Genesee County that framed the quadrants of Flint’s exurban field: Mt. Morris (northwest), Genesee (northeast), Burton (southeast), and Flint (southwest). Here, the pattern of regulation was complex and largely absent. A state housing code had been passed in 1917 (amended 1939). In 1931, townships received the power to control building. In 1939, Genesee adopted a code for the urban part of its territory, and the state code was eventually adopted by Flint (1946) and Burton (1948) townships. Even then, the part-time inspectors did not enforce it because, “loose and simple,” it was unenforceable except against “tar paper shacks.” As one researcher observed, Flint Township had an inspector but “no building code to enforce.” The city eventually acquired the right to enforce the state code but as late as 1951 chose not to. By then, a state plumbing law had been framed, but there was only one state inspector for an extensive region, and alone he could do little. Again, the city could enforce this code in fringe areas beyond its limits; again, it preferred to save its money. There was no state electrical code, and hence none for townships. All in all, from the 1920s until the early 1950s, those who built beyond city limits did what they wanted, or could afford.45 The planning and servicing of this territory were similarly random. In 1931, Michigan had given cities the right to establish planning commissions to regulate land subdivision beyond city limits. Flint delayed until 1939 before establishing the Beecher Metropolitan District, which covered some urbanized territory just north of the city. This agency waited five years before establishing subdivision regulations, which it enforced only within city limits. The Beecher District also had the power to provide water. By 1947, piped water was available within its boundaries, another urbanized portion of Burton Township, and to 215 residences served by the city on streets that straddled the municipal boundary, but not in the extensively settled fringe areas beyond. Although Beecher District was empowered to provide sewers, it didn’t do so; thus—the 215 dwellings aside—there were no sewers beyond city limits. The health risks were obvious. Burton Township took untreated water from two wells, while children played in polluted Carmen Creek. Strikingly, the incidence of overcrowding was three times higher in the suburbs than in Flint itself. Professional builders avoided these areas; those who built on speculation confined their activities to the city, which was feasible since, even in 1951, one-third of the city’s building lots were

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still vacant. As a result, the urban fringe was left to the amateur.46 During the 1930s and 1940s, then, Flint, was ideal for what Ronald Edsforth has described as “individualistic” development. It was a mid-sized city where residents had ready access to cheap building land in all directions. It grew steadily, offering jobs to an industrial workforce that earned enough to afford cars, but not substantial homes. Exceptional as it was, Flint highlights the general resurgence of owner-building in this era. Exactly how common was owner-building in the late 1930s? There is no way of knowing exactly. The Bureau of Labor Statistics gathered buildingpermit data for 1938 for seventy-two cities. Being at the mercy of what information the municipalities chose to gather, the usefulness of these data is limited by the fact that most owner-building was happening beyond city limits. Even so, the results are indicative. The best indicator of ownerbuilding was the incidence of builders who erected only one dwelling in 1938. Although this included many professionals, the distribution is telling. In the seventy-two cities, 19 percent of all builders erected only one house. The proportion was highest (50 percent) among those who built very cheap dwellings (under $1,500) and in cities with a population of less than 100,000 (35 percent). Building homes cheaper than $1,500 was barely profitable, and the bureau suggested that “many owner-builders and general handy men” were active in this market segment. These data indicate that owner-builders were active even within city limits. Fortunately, for Cleveland, the bureau reported on major suburbs. It found in lower-income suburbs an exceptionally high proportion of one-house builders: the figure for Parma, where Schauffler says owner-building was common, was 65 percent; for Garfield Heights, 79 percent; and for East Cleveland, fully 100 percent. It is likely that in working-class suburbs over a third of new homes were being owner-built, and that in unincorporated areas the proportion was higher.47 Federal agencies did not gather data on owner-building because they did not care to acknowledge its importance. Township governments, controlled by farmers or lower-income workers, did little to limit its resurgence. Middleclass observers, city planners, and federal policy makers were another matter. They deplored unregulated development, averting their eyes or trying to stamp it out. G. S. Wehrwein deplored the multifarious problems of “unguided ‘settlement,’ ” while Clarence Perry developed a model proposal for the redevelopment of such an area in the Borough of Queens. The director in the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration, established in July 1933, sympathized. He argued that “jerry built and shanty town neighborhoods,” many owner-built, should be “proscribed.” Planners realized that clearance and redevelopment might simply displace the problem

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outwards. Between 1929 and 1938, the City of Milwaukee had demolished three thousand dwellings as unfit for habitation, but found that “an unfortunate outcome has been the mushroom growth of ‘shack’ neighborhoods outside the city limits.” They then supported the county board’s efforts to “take care of this threatening situation.” But, as owner-builders moved outwards, this was a losing battle. In 1935, a national survey of 2,579 incorporated places, many of them smaller than 5,000 in population, found that 37 percent had no building regulations and, as was the case around Flint, unregulated areas were mostly hopeless cases.48 The planners faced an uphill battle after 1941, when the War Production Board was compelled to justify a relaxation of such codes as did exist in order to channel matériel into the war effort. In 1942, the fifth provision of the board’s wartime construction guidelines suggested that, even for governmentsponsored housing, “all types of construction shall use a minimum of lumber” and that “the lowest grade which is practicable for the purpose . . . shall be specified.” The idea was to relax, not rigidly enforce, existing codes. The result was not always a slum, though it did tend to be small and cheap (figure 31).49

The FHA and the Owner-Builder While governments tried to eliminate the amateur, they promoted a particular alternative. From 1934, the FHA helped large builders develop wellregulated and serviced subdivisions. Under Title II of the National Housing Act, it insured mortgages only on properties that met its subdivision requirements, which included piped water and sewers.50 By making such development the norm, alternatives would be displaced. As a technical bulletin explained in 1936, the agency had rejected the idea of insuring loans on “garden homes” that supported “part-time gardening,” because they might present “grave problems” of isolation, while allowing for random resubdivision and threatening resale values. The agency’s underwriting manual, in effect its Bible, made no reference to the possibility of accommodating the owner-builder. The problem was that many households could not afford FHA-approved houses. In his second inaugural address, in January 1937, President Roosevelt deplored the fact that the bottom third of Americans were ill-housed (as well as ill-fed and ill-clothed). Public housers, who were just as dismissive of homesteading as was the FHA, wanted the federal government to help families directly. But there was a middle third of families who needed better housing but who could not afford Title II standards. By the late 1930s, the building industry tried to convince the FHA that they

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31. Wartime owner-building did not always produce a slum. To meet housing demand during World War II, the production of kits, such as those sold by Halliday’s Lumber, Ontario, was ramped up. Many kits were assembled by amateurs such as Mr. Senior. The company’s correspondence illustrated a typically modest kit home. Source: Personal records of H. Senior. Used by permission.

could satisfy this group, but only if standards were relaxed, and the administration did devise a program for more modest homes. Not sullying the showcase Title II program, this new loan insurance program was introduced via the Title I back door when it was revived in 1938.51 The new Title I, Class 3, program has been ignored by historians of housing.52 Unjustly so, because as long as it ran, in numerical terms it ranked with public housing. Between its inception in 1935 and the entry of the United States into World War II, 36,519 units were built under Section 207, the public housing program. Beginning three years later, almost as many (35,967) units were financed under Class 3 by the end of 1941. Annually, the level of activity ranged between 5 and 10 percent of Section 203, the main Title II program. Quantitatively, it was not trivial, and it had a substantial demonstration effect.53

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Class 3 was more lax than Title II. Neither piped water nor sewers were required. Such flexibility brought FHA insurance to fringe areas, the territory of the owner-builder, but the agency’s goal was to displace rather than to accommodate the amateur. The Small Homes Demonstration Project was showing that professional builders could produce inexpensive homes, and the FHA hoped that Class 3 would be used by operative builders willing to accept low margins by exploiting economies of scale. Just how oblivious the FHA was to the owner-builder is illustrated by the experience of Peoria, Illinois. Under Ernest Fisher, its director of economics and statistics, the FHA developed methods of housing market analysis to guide builders, lenders, and its own officials. It generated market data through its network of regional offices. By the beginning of 1936, it had dispatched agents to sixtytwo cities. They compiled data, guided the preparation of local risk-rating maps, and interviewed local informants that included the local Chamber of Commerce, city hall, bankers, the real estate board, and newspaper editors. By 1938, a systematic Economic Data System had been set up: the schedule of topics ran to sixteen pages and included several pertaining to the building industry, but none to amateurs. The FHA lobbied the census bureau to undertake (in 1940) the first national census of housing and, by 1941, the agency’s database was huge, filling 430 loose-leaf binders, each two inches thick. Initially, however, the FHA made do with available data that included real property inventories. Whether because Peoria was one of the first group of fifty-two cities to complete an inventory, because the city was regarded as a “litmus test for American taste and mentality,” or because Fisher himself was from nearby Macedonia, in 1934 the agency chose Peoria to test its methods of market analysis. In November 1934, Architectural Forum reported that the FHA viewed the city as “typical of the farm-commercialindustrial” city while Fisher claimed, more cautiously, that it was “subject to no unique influences sufficient to make it unrepresentative.” In 1935, Fisher’s report on Peoria exemplified, and shaped, agency thinking about housing market analysis.54 Fisher was right. A mid-sized city with a population of a quarter million by 1950, Peoria could stand for many places both smaller and larger. Typically, by the 1930s most development was occurring beyond city limits in incorporated suburbs such as Peoria Heights, industrial East Peoria, and residential Creve Coeur, or in unincorporated Peoria and Tazewell Counties. Typically, too, except for Peoria Heights, these districts lacked building regulations, and also piped water and sewers until the 1950s. Also, Peoria was at first devastated by the Depression. Manufacturing employment fell

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32. The Federal Housing Administration ignores the facts. In 1935, the new Federal Housing Administration treated Peoria’s housing market as typical, even though a sharp, exceptional upturn in the local economy had precipitated a housing boom. Source: U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Analysis of Real Property Inventory and Financial Survey of Housing for Peoria, Illinois (Washington, DC: USFHA, 1935), 13.

by one-third in 1930–1933, while the proportion of owner-occupiers with lodgers jumped from 8 to 12 percent. A fifth of households had no indoor toilet and a third lacked a bathtub or shower. But then the local economy rebounded (figure 32). With the effective end of Prohibition in December 1933, Hiram Walker built the world’s largest distillery while Caterpillar, the region’s main employer, won contracts from the U.S. and Soviet governments. From May to December 1933, manufacturing employment doubled, and in the next year the number of marriages jumped by a third. Growth was sustained. By 1937, employment exceeded the 1929 level by more than a half; after 1941 the Caterpillar factory in East Peoria adapted by building tanks. Jobs attracted people, who needed places to live. By 1935, rents for the “less adequate” class of housing in Peoria were the third highest of fifty-nine cities across the United States, trailing only New York City and Washington, D.C. In Peoria, then, a housing boom was happening when Fisher wrote his report.55 The boom took a form the FHA could not approve. Those arriving from the southern Illinois coalfields now had jobs, but no savings, and could not

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afford ready-built homes. Instead, they built their own. Amateurs erected two-thirds of the new homes built in the Peoria area between 1933 and 1939. Many were helped by family or coworkers; only a minority employed any tradesmen. Four-fifths of the population increase occurred in Creve Coeur, which became the fastest-growing municipality in the United States in 1931–1936, or in Peoria and Tazewell Counties, where any type of development was allowed, and which lenders and professional builders avoided. Most subdivisions were targeted at homesteaders. In Creve Coeur’s Homewood Heights, for example, lots were advertised for $129 for a dollar down and a dollar a week. Readers were urged to “buy extra lots and use your ground for berries and fruit . . . raise chickens and rabbits; keep a cow; enjoy while you live.” By the late 1930s, more than a dozen subdivisions were being promoted exclusively to amateur builders. Some, like Hilltop Manor, were in Creve Coeur, where H. C. Mead built and occupied a 20⬘ × 24⬘ garage home in 1936, using $300 credit from Wahlfeld lumber. Others, like Bellevue Acres and Norwood Park, were in county territory. Many amateurs did everything themselves, Geno Reck being a case in point. The son of Italian immigrants, Reck moved to Peoria and bought a lot in the El Vista subdivision in Peoria County, where, unaided, at age twenty-four, he built a three-room house in 1939. His daughter recalls that he bought materials from the Wahlfeld and Lauterbach yards, moving his family of three into the basement when he had covered it over. Peoria’s housing scene, then, was exceptional: a building boom that depended on the amateur builder.56 Lenders and suppliers realized that helping amateurs could be profitable. Savings and loans dominated the lending scene, accounting for two-thirds of first-mortgage lending in Peoria in the 1930s and 1940s. Preeminent was Peoples Loan and Homestead. In 1935, its direction fell to G. Hicks Fallin, fresh from Washington, D.C., where he had worked for the Federal Savings and Loan Division of the Home Loan Bank Board. Volatile but dynamic, Fallin pushed the company, renamed as Peoples Federal, to reorganize under a federal charter and embark on a rapid expansion. Between 1936 and 1938, it wrote one-quarter of the mortgages offered by S&Ls in the Peoria area, becoming the largest local lender. From 1938 it systematized a program for owner-builders, offering house plans and weekly site inspections. Between 1934 and 1940, Peoples made about a thousand loans to owner-builders. A random sample of one hundred of these, undertaken by George Zweifel, the company secretary, found that, with this guidance, owner-builders did excellent work and were safe bets. As Fallin commented, when interviewed for House Beautiful in 1946, owner-builders “are about the best moral risk a home financing institution can secure.” Building on this trade, Peoples went

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from strength to strength, and by 1949 held half the loan company assets in the area, three times as many as its nearest competitor. In the process, it forced competitors to go after the owner-builder business too.57 Zweifel argued that the lumber dealer was critical. He singled out Wahlfeld Mfg. Established by a German immigrant in 1891, Wahlfeld was a family-run millwork company that opened its first retail yard in 1929 with a “home builders service” that included free plans and building specifications. Ownership fell to the son in 1935. Otto Wahlfeld saw new opportunities. He remodeled the yard to include a display room; by 1937, he started a “home modernizing service” and sold from a catalog with sixty-three house plans, of which four were starter, three-room structures. By 1938, responding to demand, he had developed a complete house package—a kit—that included precut lumber, hardware, plumbing and heating equipment, which it soon promoted in half- and quarter-page newspaper ads. He worked with Peoples Federal, which hired one of his family. Wahlfeld’s inspectors guided amateurs, and could also contract, supervise, and pay subcontractors. In 1940, the company started a photo catalog of their customers’ homes, which they used for promotions. Although its package was unusually complete, Wahlfeld’s was neither the first nor the last Peoria dealer to revamp its yard, assist amateurs, and establish a relationship with a preferred lender. Since 1917, Mackemer Lumber (est. 1896) had targeted consumers by diversifying its lines and then, in 1926, by building a “modern” two-story showroom and sales office with a “library of home plans.” The Allen Lumber Company (est. 1915) had followed suit, building a showroom in 1928 with a “home lovers’ library” and samples of “all types of building materials.” These companies oriented themselves more to the consumer during the Depression. The J. C. Proctor Lumber Co., for example, latched onto the Title I program and by 1940 had undertaken a “complete renovation” of one retail store while opening a second downtown. By the late 1930s, then, the leading dealers and lenders in Peoria had tailored their business to the amateur builder and handyman. Responding to its readers and advertisers, the Peoria Journal-Transcript, the leading local newspaper, also catered to the amateur. It began a new Building Improvement Department. From 1939, it featured designs for modest homes from the Southern Pine Association catalog, and told readers to write away for plans ($3 each). That spring, it introduced a weekly Home Builders Question Box, and ran a series of articles on how to build a house. Several praised the lenders and dealers that were helping amateurs, and showed the results. In these ways it enabled, made visible, and validated the local culture of do-it-yourself.58 Somehow, official agencies managed to ignore these local developments.

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In 1935, in his report on Peoria, Fisher claimed that the filtering process was vital: “members of the lower income group probably more frequently purchase older houses and seldom undertake to build for themselves.” In part, he was misled by his data, which pertained only to the City of Peoria, but clearly he saw what he wanted to see. Official myopia persisted. In 1941, at the request of the Peoria Housing Authority, a second local property inventory was undertaken. This time it included territory in Peoria County beyond city limits. It found that one-quarter of recently built homes had no mortgage and that the incidence of mortgages was lowest not only among the most expensive homes, but also among the cheapest. These findings cried out for explanation but were ignored in the report. Similarly, through maps, it showed that many families in fringe areas such as El Vista were overcrowded and lacked services. Although these families were potential clients for a public housing agency, the report passed over the issue. It was not until 1949 that a local FHA report referred to owner-building, and then only as a throwaway line: noting that most building was occurring in unincorporated fringe areas, the report noted that, here, “77 percent of the new construction is being undertaken by owners themselves.” The implications of this extraordinary statistic for the building industry were ignored. The anonymous author then analyzed what, based on their income, Caterpillar workers could afford, but ignored sweat equity, which could reduce building costs by a third, while asserting the importance of filtering as a key market mechanism. A few officials knew what amateur builders were doing, and could see the limits of a narrow market analysis. By the late 1940s, this was especially true in Canada. In 1950, for example, an analyst at the Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation conceded that “the ingenuity of individuals can often succeed in building houses under conditions where a purely statistical approach would demonstrate the impossibility of success.” But, as I show in chapter 10, even in Canada this recognition was hard-won. During the 1930s, officials in both countries averted their gaze from a whole segment of the building activity, hoping that it would simply go away.59 Inadvertently, however, the FHA did help the temporary reemergence of owner-building, and for a while on a large scale. The Class 3 program, introduced in spring 1938, was pitched lower than Title II. Insurance was now made available in areas that lacked piped water or sewers, where land was cheap and taxes low. The maximum loan was set at $2,500. Junior financing was allowed and, remarkably, no down payments were required. For short-term loans (under five years, thirty-two days) no collateral was required. This financing was seen as complementary to Title II. It was administered separately, and the homes and subdivisions were segregated. As

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the agency explained, it did not want the cheaper homes to “intrude” on the better subdivisions. The notion was that Class 3 housing would be most appropriate in southern states, where basements were unnecessary, in smaller towns, and near larger centers whose fringe areas were near decentralizing factories.60 The program was popular, and in October 1939, when the program was running at its peak, the maximum loan period was extended from seven years and thirty-two days to fifteen years and five months, though a 5 percent down payment was now required. This brought Class 3 closer to Title II. Consistent with this change, the FHA now provided for operative (speculative) builders through preapproved financing. Later developments continued the trend. In 1938, the federal government had established the Federal National Mortgage Association to create a secondary mortgage market for Title II loans. By 1940, using the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, it tried to do the same for Title I, Class 3 paper. Investors were skeptical, and so the FHA tightened requirements: junior financing was prohibited, dwellings had to meet the same structural standards as under Title II, and they became subject to FHA inspections. Existing lenders began to process applications through the same “servicing machinery” as Title II, and others were encouraged to enter the field. In April 1940, Weyerhaeuser’s ABC company added Class 3 to its suite of FHA programs. Even so, because of differences in servicing requirements between the two loan programs, Class 3 loans still predominated in fringe areas. This fact was apparent from a survey undertaken by Bell Savings and Loan in about 1939. Among 600 borrowers in unincorporated fringe areas, 91 percent had incomes above the Chicago median, but because they could not afford Title II finance they relied “almost entirely” on the Class 3 program. This geographical pattern persisted into the early postwar period, when the gap between the two programs again widened. In 1947, the Class 3 program, suspended in 1943, was revived and ran for several more years. For well over a decade, then, Class 3 loans remained the FHA’s main foray into the urban fringe.61 Some builders did take advantage of the Class 3 program. One, the Brentpine Realty Co. on Long Island, adapted the program as its contribution to the National Small Homes Demonstration, and was featured in American Home. Another, Landvoigt, based in Annapolis, Maryland, opened up several subdivisions and hundreds of houses in and around Baltimore and Morgantown. Not surprisingly, since owner Albert Langvoigt had been chief underwriter for the FHA, his activities were covered in Insured Mortgage Portfolio. On the west coast, the Krandill Mortgage and Investment Company built Class 3 homes on speculation, and Title II to order. But the FHA had

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to concede that amateurs were involved. In 1939, IMP illustrated a range of Class 3 properties nationwide. In two of nine cases, amateurs had been active: a Chicago buyer, for example, had installed plumbing, wiring, fixtures, and interior finishing in a shell house. Dealers caught on. In West Allis, by the summer of 1940, Wilbur Lumber had supplied the materials for, and erected, ninety-six shell homes, leaving owners to finish attics, interiors, and basement floors as well as installing bathtubs and heating equipment. In Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin, by June 1940, Jacobson Lumber and Fuel had developed a subdivision of sixty-five shell homes using ABC finance and Class 3 insurance. Lenders soon learned to like the program. By the end of 1940, First Federal in Detroit had made 128 Class 3 loans and eventually had problems with only one. This gave vice president Hans Gehrke “faith in the ‘sweat equity’ of the borrower,” in part because DIY improvements raised property values. More significantly, the homes of amateurs acquired a particular “sentimental value . . . [that] proved to be better equity from the mortgage risk standpoint than a money equity.”62 One way or another, Title I programs underpinned the whole process of construction at the urban fringe. Soon, amateurs were combining Class 3 with modernization loans to finance the erection and completion of modest suburban homes. Class 3 covered the shell, Title I the improvements. In 1940, the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation surveyed metropolitan Chicago, noted a paucity of construction in the critical $2,000–$5,000 range, and reported that “efforts to reach this preponderant segment of new housing demand have been of two types: unfinished dwellings [i.e., shells], and smaller finished dwellings built through FHA Title I, Class 3.” The implication was that families were being housed in two different ways, but two years later Christgau’s field survey of unincorporated Cook County suggests a closer complementarity. He found that shells, such as those built in Northlake Village (which had a “builder-owner cooperative”), Walsh’s Miracle City in Markham, and Bartlett’s subdivision at Roosevelt and the county line, were financed under Class 3 while modernization loans were then used to complete them. Inadvertently, the FHA had provided amateur builders with a complete financing package.63

A Groundwork The FHA never wanted to help amateurs. Staffed by real estate professionals, its administrative culture favored the industry, and large builders in particular. Its Title I program had been justified, and marketed, as a way of putting tradesmen back to work. When Class 3 loans were introduced, every

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effort was made to involve professional builders. But under Depression conditions, many home owners wanted to save money by doing their own improvements, while aspiring owners soon realized that the Class 3 program could support sweat equity. Builders, desperate for business, obliged by framing shells. Skeptical at first, lenders were eased into the first program and then the second: they learned that amateurs were excellent risks. Unwittingly, and unwillingly, the FHA laid the groundwork for a postwar boom in amateur construction. No group within the building industry benefited more from the business of amateurs than the lumber dealers. The Depression taught dealers to reach out to consumers in whatever way they could. A growing number, such as Wilbur in West Allis or Kessler in Wichita, Kansas, concluded that they must become builders. In the process, they adapted techniques pioneered by the community builders in the 1920s. Miller Lumber of Seattle, for example, advertised widely and built a new “demonstration home” every year. Some, like Model Lumber of Tacoma, Washington, used radio as well as newspapers. Almost all exploited manufacturers’ brand names and dealer helps. In 1936, C. Starkweather and Son of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, told salesmen to hand out “literature on all the various kinds of insulation used” in its model home. Some, like Georgia Lumber of Bluefield, West Virginia, proudly explained how and why they had gone into construction. Others, such as Hawkeye Lumber and Coal of Cedar Rapids, handed off the job of contracting to a local builder, but retained control of the sale. A minority concentrated on new construction; many on home improvement; but most, like Rohlff Lumber and Supply of Casper, Wyoming, packaged both types of work. To that end, as Lounsberry and Harris, a Los Angeles dealer, put it, it was vital that “every employee is made sales conscious.” For the first time, a few dealers began to relocate, either downtown, as did the Mills Brothers Lumber and Hardware store in Chillicothe, Missouri, or out to an auto strip, like Tigard Lumber. Tigard’s decision to open on a new suburban highway outside Portland, Oregon, made room to erect sheds for lumber and other building supplies, an office, and an “attractive store in front” that attracted passing traffic. This was the business model of the future, but almost all companies were targeting the consumer. Manufacturers such as JohnsManville had shown them how to do this, while the federal government had underlined the power of advertising and given them a vital sales tool. In 1935, Harold Rosenberg editorialized in Building Supply News. “Maybe this depression has proved a blessing in disguise,” he suggested, “for undoubtedly it has sharpened the dealer’s selling ability.” Most of his readers would probably have greeted this with a guffaw, or a wry smile. But he was right.

33. Tips for amateur home repair. During World War II, advice was offered to the home owners who tackled their own home repairs. House and Garden recognized, and illustrated, the jobs appropriate for men, as opposed to women. Source: House and Garden’s Wartime Manual for the Home (Greenwich, CT: Condé Nast, 1943).

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Of course, for thousands of dealers the Depression was a disaster. But those that survived were stronger, and better able to respond to the challenges of wartime restrictions and the opportunities of the postwar boom.64 At the same time, during the 1930s, home owners were learning that doit-yourself was feasible. Thousands built their own homes, not just shacks but also decent, if modest, homes. Many were FHA-approved; many more, sponsored by dealers and lenders, were of equivalent character. Millions were improving their homes, repairing, rehabilitating, and modernizing older dwellings, or extending and finishing new ones. Mostly, this work fell to the man of the household. But, as both Carolyn Goldstein and Steven Gelber have pointed out, when husbands and tradesmen went to war women had to take charge: “every woman her own handyman,” as one magazine put it. In their Wartime Manual for the Home, the editors of House and Garden devoted one chapter to “home repairs any man can make” (doors/screens; roofs; windows) and another to those “any woman can make” (carpentry, wiring, plumbing) (figure 33). More women were shopping at hardware stores and lumberyards, which realized that it could be profitable to offer advice. A few stores even offered training. Central Hardware of St. Louis ran courses in home repairs while Re-Nu-Art Lumber Yards of Little River, Florida, showed women how to paint. Re-Nu-Art reported that, while her husband was on military service, one woman “painted her house from stem to stern, including the exterior.” Wouldn’t her husband have been surprised! Courses were offered by the YWCA and the American Women’s Volunteer Services.65 In the end, millions of women too learned that DIY was feasible, and even rewarding. Through Depression and war, consumers and dealers had brought themselves into closer contact. Consumers were learning how to ask; dealers, how to reply. The stage was set for the full flourishing of the home improvement phenomenon after 1945.

NINE

Mr. and Mrs. Builder

In spring 1948, a young family man from Manhattan decided to make a place for himself in the country. He found the ideal wooded site and framed a cabin. It was, he recalled, a rewarding experience. “When I closed in the roof it was a miracle,” he declared, “as though I had mastered the rain and cooled the sun.” He could have afforded a carpenter, but “for reasons I still do not understand it had to be my own hands that gave it form, on this ground, with a floor that I had made.” Then and there, while “the bag of nails were still stashed in a corner with my tools,” Arthur Miller began writing act 1 of Death of a Salesman.1 In Salesman, Miller told the story of a man, Willy Loman, who makes a living in sales, but who finds fulfillment tinkering with tools. As Biff, Willy’s son, declares wistfully, “There were a lot of nice days. When he’d come home from a trip; or on Sundays, making the stoop; finishing the cellar; putting on the new porch, when he built the extra bathroom; and put up the garage.” Speaking to Willy’s old friend, Biff concludes: “You know something, Charley, there’s more of him in that front stoop than in all the sales he ever made.” Charley agrees: “Yeah. He was a happy man with a batch of cement.” Willy knew it. He had already boasted that “all the cement, the lumber, the reconstruction I put in this house. There ain’t a crack to be found in it any more.” And this domestic labor was part of Willy’s vision for the future: “we’re gonna get a little place in the country, and I’ll raise some vegetables, a couple of chickens.” Once there, since “I got so many fine tools, all I’d need would be a little lumber and,” hopefully, “some peace of mind.” For Willy this was a social statement. “A man who can’t handle tools,” he insisted, “is not a man.”2 With less skill but greater effect than Arthur Miller, another writer had already expressed strong views on the man’s role in making and maintaining

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a home. Paul Corey grew up on an Iowa farm, and during the Depression built two homes in succession in rural Putnam County, New York State. He aligned himself with a homestead movement, which he refurbished for the postwar veteran. In Buy an Acre (1944), Corey told veterans that soon “the country around about our cities for a radius of from fifty to one hundred miles will become the New Frontier of America.” There, he predicted, “ten million tiny homesteads will spring up within commuting distance of factory and business.” On one-acre lots these would not support self-sufficient living. Instead, this “Second Frontier” would be “the average family’s way out of our looming postwar difficulties.” For Corey, this option was to be welcomed by the average American, “working at some routine job in order to enjoy your home and living.” For such men, “your real job is your home,” and this meant more than just buying a place and enjoying it. As Corey put it, in a detailed account published two years later, “If you haven’t that basic desire in life—the desire to build your own home, then there’s something wrong with you.” Here, again, was an assertion of masculine pride and resourcefulness.3 Arthur Miller and Paul Corey were articulating a new outlook. In part, it had anti-urban roots, of the kind articulated contemporaneously by Conrad Meinicke in Your Cabin in the Woods (1945). It also appealed to an American tradition of self-reliance, which had recently been reinforced by the Depression experience of self-provisioning. It had a strong individualistic element. For Corey, this meant flouting convention. Don’t be deterred by those who look down their noses at you for building from scratch, he insisted. Ignore “the good lady [who] always won the first prize at the local flower show” and who views “your little shack . . . as a monstrous blot on the landscape.” He was not conjuring a straw woman. From the better side of the tracks, the fumbling of builders like Corey raised concerns. In 1946, Eric Hodgins wrote a story, soon celebrated in film, about Mr. Blandings, a Madison Avenue executive who had a house built in exurban New York, with the benefit of contractor and architect. At one point, Mrs. Blandings becomes distressed when she discovers that a stonemason neighbor is building a “horrid, nasty little house with two rooms and a porch” just half a mile away, a “beastly little bungalow” with a “tarpaper roof” where his wife keeps goats. “I could simply weep,” she exclaims. Corey himself had dealt with neighbors like the Blandingses, and reports with a growl, “I brooded over their attitude for months—like hell I did.”4 Miller made Willy Loman, who so much wanted to be liked, embody a gentler and more urban version of the can-do spirit. His was not so much a rejection of the urban way of life as a coming to terms with it: being handy

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showed that the man had not been completely tamed. In the postwar suburbs, this more than anything became the dominant structure of feeling. In his collective biography of a postwar Jewish family, Donald Katz speaks about the way his father moved from the Bronx to buy a home on Long Island in 1952, where he immediately set about improving it. Soon, prospective buyers visiting the area stopped by: they “were regularly brought . . . to see what a homeowner could do with old-fashioned, all-American knowhow and the will to personalize a simple, straightforward structure through the agency of his own hands.” As an almost mandatory gesture of masculinity, being handy was not uniquely American. Speaking about Canada in the same period, Ian Brown has commented that “the shame of not being handy was a secret plague.”5 It was becoming an expectation that the suburban father should be able to prove himself by building, or at least improving, his home. Coupled with the housing shortage to which Corey referred, and encouraged by the media and building suppliers, this view informed an unprecedented boom in owner-building after 1945. In turn, it enabled a wave of do-it-yourself to lead the emergence of the modern home improvement phenomenon.

The Housing Shortage Paul Corey’s vision of a “Second Frontier” at the exurban fringe was prescient. By 1949, a third of all new houses, and a quarter of all dwellings of any kind, were being built by owners for their own use, often well beyond city limits. This boom varied from place to place, of course, and by region. The incidence of owner-building ranged from lows of 3 percent of new single-family homes around Dallas and Washington, D.C., and 8 percent in New York, to much higher levels around Pittsburgh (21 percent), Boston (24 percent), and Seattle (29 percent). It was twice as common in the west as in the south; three times more prevalent in nonmetropolitan (62 percent) than in metro areas (19 percent). Around Peoria it reached about 70 percent; in rural North Carolina perhaps 96 percent. No city, town, or suburb, and certainly no unincorporated district, was unaffected. The amateur builder was a national phenomenon.6 Indeed, the amateur boom was international. In Canada, contemporaries spoke of whole suburbs being developed by amateurs after 1945, including much of Montreal’s south shore and several suburbs to the northwest and northeast of Toronto. One writer claimed that all “owners of moderately-priced homes are essentially do-it-yourselfers.” Oral history interviews show that homesteading was happening from coast to coast, in

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clustered developments and scattered locations. Australian media and statistics show that, Down Under, thousand of Corey-style “battlers” created the same trend. There, the proportion of new homes that were owner-built rose from the late 1940s, peaking at about two-fifths in 1954.7 Hardly anyone saw the amateur boom coming, least of all those who were soon to make it. In late 1944 and early 1945, Architectural Forum carried out a national survey of American 8,052 men and women, the sample being weighted for “geographical, economic and cultural factors.” Over two-thirds of respondents reckoned that owning was better than renting, and of those deemed “good prospects” of becoming owners, two-thirds expected to build a custom house rather than to buy. Asked what they would do if rising costs made this impossible, most said they would lower their expectations, wait, borrow more, save more, or give up. None mentioned the possibility of building their own.8 Experts shared that mindset. During the 1920s, community builders had taken a growing share of the new home market, and from 1934, the federal government had encouraged them. Even so, most observers assumed that building on contract would remain significant. When building revived in the late 1930s, Better Homes and Gardens offered New Ideas for Building Your Home, while Frazier Peters advised prospective owners who planned to hire a contractor how they might manage Without Benefit of Architect (1937). After World War II, a series of guides offered similar advice. In 1945, a group of architects weighed whether it was better to build or buy (you can predict their preference). In 1946, Elizabeth Mock addressed those who had chosen to build; Howard Morris advised how they might do it better; and Harold Group offered a selection of options based on plans distributed by a House-of-the-Month Club. None suggested that prospective home owners might build their own, though Johnstone and associates did comment that “the great majority of contractors” are “skilled craftsmen who derive a sincere pleasure from doing work of good quality,” arguably damning with faint praise. By 1947, however, the owner-build option could not be ignored. Together with Douglas Tuomey, Kenneth Duncan, associate editor of the Savings Bank Journal, tackled it head on in a Primer for Home Builders. “The purpose of this book is not to teach the homeseeker how to build his own house with his own hands,” they cautioned, because “trades must be learned the hard way—by experience.”9 The building trade press agreed, though most writers reckoned that owner-builders expanded the market for homes rather than competing with professionals. In the Home Builders Monthly, James Pearson inveighed against publishers who were beginning to encourage owner-builders. Lend-

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ers, he pointed out, looked skeptically at the amateur, adding that “skilled builders know what types of materials to buy. Amateurs do not.” Amateurs would pay more for materials because they buy in small quantities; they lack experience in scheduling tasks and coordinating orders for materials; those employing subcontractors do not know how to handle bids. All in all, Pearson concluded, owner-building was a bad idea. The National Association of Home Builders had already made the same case, as was widely reported in both Canada and the United States. But early on, the trade journals of retail suppliers took a different line. By June 1946, the American Lumberman had detected the nascent boom in owner-building and urged “alert” dealers to support it, a view it soon repeated. Dealers were the one group that had little stake in who built, as long as building got done.10 Consumer publications such as Parents Magazine were also slow to see the amateur boom. Founded in 1926 with Rockefeller Foundation money, PM thrived, and by 1950 boasted a circulation of about a million, probably better-educated men and women. It had an educational mandate that included housing since the editor, Clara Littledale, believed this “affected children,” the ultimate concern. For those reasons, PM provides a litmus test of middle-class attitudes. Looking ahead to war’s end, in January 1945 it urged readers with “enough money” to “plan now” to hire an architect and build a home. As costs rose, a survey soon showed that readers were willing to make compromises, and PM commissioned and published designs for a series of “expandable homes” to be built in stages as finances and family size might dictate. For three more years, the editors assumed that interested readers would hire contractors. By 1949, this had become untenable (figure 34). Readers’ letters and editorial inquiries to those who had built one of the expandable homes made PM ”acutely conscious” of the problems home builders faced. In February it told about one family that had built, almost from scratch, its Second Expandable Home, including the wife’s comment that “it is simply beyond my literary ability to describe the heartaches and headaches that accompanied the fun during almost two years of building.” Here was a grudging concession to market trends. Then, in April it “broadened the scope of its home-building program” to include material on house construction as well as design, “with special emphasis on those [activities] in which the owner can help.” It appointed William Scheik, head of the Small Homes Council at the University of Illinois, as technical adviser. They felt their way carefully “Within a three-mile radius of my house I have seen four amateur-built homes that are monuments to failure,” one writer declared in the April issue, while Scheik himself expressed caution. But by the fall, the magazine ran a more upbeat article that estimated cost savings

34. Consumer magazines learn to cater to owner-builders. It took months, and sometimes years, for magazine editors to recognize the magnitude of the amateur building boom. Source: Parents’ Magazine 24, no. 4 (April 1949): 51.

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from owner-construction of its featured Ninth Expandable Home. Over the next few years, it reported how resourceful readers handled the challenges of building their own homes.11 Others, supposedly better-attuned to housing trends, were equally taken by surprise. Disregarding market realities, in 1947 the Housing and Home Finance Agency had tried to help prospective home owners by distributing Planning Expansible Houses. Absurdly, it assumed that readers would hire an “experienced and competent architect.” Small Homes Guide was little better. Still edited by Wadsworth Wood, SHG was directed at those who wanted an affordable small home. Like most other observers, Wood assumed that this would mean mass production. Alternatively, recognizing that some prospective owners would want to build, he supposed they would hire a contractor. He also broached the possibility of hiring an architect, and mused that “your lumber dealer may act as contractor for the whole job.” By 1949, however, such experts were beginning to wake up. Kenneth Duncan changed his tune. In 1949, he wrote an upbeat commentary for bankers about the “surprisingly large number” of owner-builders, conceding that the subject might still occasion “some lifting of the eyebrows among those whose experience is mostly with cities and metropolitan areas.” At SHG, the letters column and a reader survey begun in 1948 forced Wood to change his tune. The survey showed that 55 percent of readers who had recently acquired a home had done at least some of their own work. (A later survey by Popular Mechanics reported that among that journal’s readers, 57 percent planned to do “most” of the work themselves.) In 1949, Wood launched a competition for stories of successful amateurs, and ran articles that offered tips. Late that year, a second survey revealed that 72 percent of buyers were now investing sweat equity, a finding reported by many local newspapers. Although government agencies still managed to ignore or downplay the owner-builder boom, consumer and trade magazines had finally woken up.12 If Corey’s prediction about homesteading was prescient, his comments about a looming housing shortage were common sense. For fifteen years, new construction had fallen behind the growth of housing need. During World War II, federal restrictions on materials had handcuffed the building industry. From 1940 and 1945 the GNP, and total personal incomes, had more than doubled, but the share going to residential construction had fallen from 3.2 percent to 0.6 percent. People had jobs, but nowhere to live. When veterans came home, the problem ballooned (figure 35).13 Governments geared up to deal with the problem. In Toronto, for example, the city established a reconstruction council to assess the problem and recommend solutions. It showed that the housing backlog had been growing

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35. The postwar housing shortage. Source: Bill Mauldin, Back Home, 1947.

since 1931. Since then, about 8,050 dwelling units had been constructed and another 5,281 were created through conversions, but these were barely adequate for families. In every year from 1931 to 1945, marriages had exceeded new homes built, sometimes by a factor of six. The ultimate measure of hardship and, recalling what had happened after World War I, potential unrest was the situation of veterans. In March 1946, the council surveyed five thousand army veterans who had been discharged locally. A third were already married, and of these a large minority needed a home. One-fifth of the wives were living with parents, while some lived with other families or in rented rooms. The problem grew. In Peoria in early 1947, a quarter of unmarried veterans were living in rooms or doubled up, and a fifth of married veterans were in accommodation that lacked some basic plumb-

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ing facilities. Later that year, a national census found that this situation was typical. Fully 27 percent of married veterans were doubled up, more in New England and the Middle Atlantic states, fewer in the West. And, of course, many single men were aiming to find a wife and start a family as soon as they could.14 The Canadian and U.S. governments helped to revive the building industry, though building materials were scarce. Wartime restrictions had limited the use of materials for private homes. The result was a thriving black market. As Building Supply News reported in May 1946, many retailers and their customers believed that this favored large builders, who had influence and who could afford higher prices. That month, the U.S. government tried to revive production with a new Veterans Emergency Housing Program. Its director, housing expediter Wilson Wyatt, worked with the FHA to give priority to veterans, but progress was slow. The shortage favored amateurs, who could take time to scrounge used or unwanted materials. In most cases, they did so through informal networks of friends, family, and neighbors, but occasionally they adopted a more systematic approach. In Yakima, Washington, a veterans group made headlines by starting a “swap shop.” Media appeals got people to search basements, garages, and attics, and this enabled some local veterans to start building. Veterans had a special moral claim, but as a Peoria survey found in 1947, they were only a minority of those in need. Recognizing this, on Christmas Eve 1946, VEHP approval was extended to nonveterans, but only those building for their own use: operative (speculative) builders were excepted. The new administrative policy only lasted until May 1947, when the approval system was thrown open, but it had a significant effect. “Building for their own use” included those who hired contractors and also owner-builders. In fall 1946, a third of the veterans with official approvals took this route. After Christmas they were swamped by nonveterans. Between December 24, 1946, and May 30, 1947, almost twice as many nonveterans as veterans obtained permits to ownerbuild, and subdividers paid heed. In Peoria, The Knolls, a new subdivision, was marketed from March 1947 as an area where nobody now needed federal permission to build. Unwittingly, the federal government had given a short but sharp fillip to the amateur.15 If shortages of materials nurtured the amateur builder, those of tradesmen force-fed him. The building industry had been largely moribund for a decade and a half. Some tradesmen had retired or been killed in the war; others had retrained, and few young men had been recruited. The industry needed labor. In 1946, a regional expediter considered how the labor shortage might be filled, suggesting apprenticeship programs and a public rela-

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tions campaign. Desperate, he entertained the idea of offering temporary permits (i.e., union cards) to veterans who have “learned sufficient skills in the armed services to be able to help build houses.” Some cities and unions cooperated. In Spokane, Washington, for example, the city allowed veterans to dig their own trenches for sewer and water connections, thereby saving municipal workers, and a mayor’s committee asked contractors to allow veterans to work on their own homes “along with regular construction crews.”16 Shortages translated into higher costs. Everyone associated with house building knew their services were in high demand. Some gouged, and a few sold at cost or volunteered their labor. In 1947, Edwin L. Jones, one of the nation’s largest builders (who helped develop Oak Ridge, Tennessee), donated his company’s services to build fifty homes for veterans in Charlotte, North Carolina. But most builders welcomed the opportunity to earn a better living, and so costs rose. In 1946, Howard Morris had urged his readers to build. Two years later he changed his tune. To a second, and largely unrevised, edition of his advice manual he added a footnote. “As this Guide goes to press,” he warned, “home building costs have . . . risen more than 85% above prewar costs.” As a result, “economists are . . . urging prospective home owners not to build or buy a house during this period of inflation.” It is a rare author who tells his reader, in effect, to set aside his book. More effectively than any statistic, Morris’s warning dramatizes the effect of cost inflation on house building after 1945.17 Morris ignored the sweat equity option, but others did not. In 1944, Paul Corey had claimed that savings could amount to 50–66 percent of total costs of construction. His estimate was generous. An analysis by the National Housing Agency found that site labor and contractor’s overheads accounted for 48 percent of the costs of the average small house, 45 percent counting site improvements, and 42 percent including the cost of land. It was a tall order for an amateur to do everything, but Corey was right to claim that the payoff was substantial. Five years later, when the amateur boom was peaking, those involved assumed that the desire to reduce costs was the main motive. When Time finally caught up with the trend in 1952, it agreed. Directly and indirectly, postwar shortages had given a boost to the amateur builder. Indeed, for many, they had left little alternative.18

The Promotion of Owner-Building Once they had caught on to the amateur’s market, the media aided and abetted it. Parents Magazine and Small Homes Guide were two of a dozen or

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more magazines that gave assistance in the form of plans and advice. Plan companies, newspapers, and publishers did the same. Collectively, they reassured consumers that, after all, building a home was no big deal. Plan services continued to offer basic help, though sometimes with a novel twist. A widening range of organizations, including the Southern Pine Association; magazines such as Small Homes Guide, Parents Magazine, and Successful Farming (originally a sister to Better Homes and Gardens); and specialized companies such as Standard Homes sold plans at very low prices. Standard had produced catalogs since the 1920s. After 1945, it produced a revised version of its Better Homes at Low Cost (1946), a booklet on Homes You Can Build Yourself (1949), and then a more substantial Standard Construction Details for Home Builders (1950), which contained isometric drawings together with estimating charts and tables. This was a consumer-friendly version of the technical manuals, such as Audel’s Carpenter and Builder’s Guide (1939), that professionals used. Construction Details included no text, but drawings showed consumers what to do, with estimating guidelines to help them bargain with local suppliers. The 1950 edition claimed that “more than a million live in homes constructed from our standardized plans,” which implied 200,000 houses. It is impossible to know what proportion of these were built by amateurs; perhaps half. In newspaper advertising, Standard claimed that “energetic men everywhere are now building this way.” Another, more novel approach was not strictly a plan at all. In 1936, Mr. Brann, a hobbyist in Pleasantville, New York, realized that one way to help amateurs make household items was to provide full-scale paper templates. His company, Easi-Bild Patterns, was soon doing a booming business, and during the building boom branched out into whole house templates. These were distributed in various ways, one being through “thousands of retail lumber dealers.” They became a phenomenon. As early as 1947, Brann drew the attention of the Washington Post, which reported his conviction that “anyone can build a house.” By 1950, several customers were featured in Readers Digest and the Ladies Home Journal. Two years later, Time reported that EasiBild had sold 250,000 house plans since 1945, of which Brann reckoned that 70,000 had been built. Nothing about house building is idiot-proof, but Brann had taken plan-making one step closer to that ideal.19 Magazines offered a different mixture of information, encouragement, and advice. At one end of a complex spectrum defined by class and gender, upmarket women’s magazines featured glossy photographs and plans. In 1950, for example, the Ladies Home Journal ran a series of three articles to show that “you can build your own home for half the price.” Its architectural editor emphasized he was promoting not the “minimum” but the

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“ ‘maximum house’ designed to be built for minimum money.” The third article reported that Jack and Virginia had erected a 1,400-square-foot home, now worth $18,000, for an outlay of $9,089.13”—plus 700 hours of work. Soon, Better Homes and Gardens also began to run features on amateurs, ranging from those who tackled funky garage remodelings in town and country to the case of Bill and Roma Maschal, who had not planned to build their own home but had been compelled to do so by the labor shortage. They took three years, during which time they “gave up on social activities.”20 Middlebrow magazines with a wider readership offered similar stories of more mundane projects. As early as 1945, American Home told about resourceful building by four “pioneers,” and soon House Beautiful, under the direction of Elizabeth Gordon, assembled a special issue about ownerbuilding that included a report on Peoria, Illinois. In 1949, American Magazine recounted how a factory foreman had built a modest home; the next year, under the heading “Build a House in Your Spare Time? Why Not?,” Readers Digest explained how an immigrant factory worker with no construction skills had erected a two-bedroom house in New Jersey. Going one better, Americas recounted how all sorts of people had built for themselves, including an editor, a whisky salesman, a novelist, and, remarkably, blind Ernie Price from Terre Haute, Indiana, who managed with a little help from his friends.21 And then there were a few magazines, read mostly by men, that offered plans, stories, and reassurance, mixed with practical advice about financing and construction. In June 1953, for example, Popular Science Monthly explained how many amateurs had been helped by a Cleveland Savings and Loan. But what men most needed was information about how to build. Popular Mechanics was the go-to source (figure 36). Specific topics were addressed in articles, but building a home also called for strategic decisions, about sites, designs, materials, and framing methods (figure 37). This called for a book; eventually, Popular Mechanics published four. Three featured specific methods of construction: wood frame, concrete block and, as more dealers and manufacturers began to sell prefabricated kits, the precut house. A fourth focused on the most popular house style, the ranch.22 The idea for the first book came from James Ward, craftsman editor of the journal. The editors decided that, to demonstrate that “any man of ordinary mechanical aptitude” could build a house, they would have to find and teach such a novice, and report the results. They did not yet have the courage of their convictions. They picked Jacques Brownson, a twenty-threeyear-old veteran and carpenter’s apprentice who had already bossed “a gang

36. An advice manual for owner-builders, 1947. Popular Mechanics published four such manuals in the late 1940s and early 1950s, leading the pack of publishers.

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37. An illustrated building dictionary. Amateur builders needed to know how to talk to building suppliers and subcontracting tradesmen. Source: Popular Mechanics, Three Low-Cost Homes You Can Build Yourself (Chicago: Popular Mechanics, 1954).

of coolies” on a wartime construction project. Brownson started work at a site thirty-eight miles west of Chicago on May 26, 1946, and completed the basic house by November 20. He received advice, together with some assistance from his wife (who did the painting), from an “inexperienced helper,” and from friends who helped dig the basement, but he finished the project mostly by himself in a single building season. The results, including an estimate that the whole job would have taken two men 2,000 hours, were written up and published in 1947. Readers responded enthusiastically, and the magazine soon produced similar accounts of a concrete-block and then a ranch house. By the time it described the assembly of a precut, it was persuaded that anyone could do the job. Richard Dempewolff, a staff writer with no special manual skills, built the house and wrote a first-person account. His precut needed 1,650 hours of work, including 500 carried out by professionals.23 Paul Corey and Popular Mechanics led the way in offering how-to manuals. While emergency restrictions were still in force, books were published on the use of adobe and rammed earth. Then, copying his coauthor Kenneth Duncan, Douglas Tuomey renounced his earlier reservations and of-

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fered his own tips on How to Build Your Own House (1949). In 1950, Publisher’s Weekly began a catalog of “How-To-Do-It” books, and the following year such manuals occupied three of the top five places on the nonfiction best-seller list, the fifth-ranked being the Handyman’s Book, published by Better Homes and Gardens. A widening range of improvement needs were being satisfied. As a variant on concrete blocks, Frazier Peters urged readers to Pour Yourself a House (1949); giving step-by-step guidance, and since there is no copyright on book titles, in How to Build Your Own House (1950) Hugh Laidman told readers what to do, weekend-by-weekend; for the ambitious, Lee Frankl led readers step-by-step in erecting The Masonry House (1950); for students, Deane Carter and Keith Hinchcliff offered a dispassionate guide to Family Housing (1949); and, for those who needed motivating, Paul Corey produced Homemade Houses, which mixed tips with dozens of inspirational examples. Most successful of all was Hubbard Cobb. By 1949, Cobb had become editor of American Home, was the “famous radio handyman” on a syndicated show that broadcast on Saturdays at 2:15 p.m. (a good time to catch a male audience), and wrote an advice column that appeared in Canadian as well as U.S. newspapers. In 1948, he had published a general work for handymen that had sold 500,000 copies and in 1950 he produced a specialized guide, Your Dream Home: How to Build it For Less than $3500, based on two years’ research. He then edited an Amateur Builder’s Handbook, with “over 1001 picturized new ideas” that “show how to save hundreds of dollars in home building and repair.” These books were crammed with practical tips, and dispensed with exhortations. The opening sentence of Cobb’s Handbook read in full: “The silt test is used to detect the presence of too much extremely fine material.” He was preaching to the converted.24 Newspapers performed a different function, operating as a clearing house for insights, tips, and motivational reports, as well as key local information. The Peoria Journal-Transcript, Peoria’s leading daily, was typical. In the late 1940s, it published general news about the owner-building boom: tales of pioneers working collectively or individually in Ypsilanti, Atlanta, Oklahoma, or rural Alabama, the latter being a scheme for AfricanAmericans run by the Tuskegee Institute. The PJT included advertising for the Standard Homes catalog; notices for how-to manuals such as Douglas Tuomey’s; notices about how to get free building information from Scheik’s Small Homes Council. It summarized the talk that Scheik gave at a local Home Planners Institute meeting sponsored by local dealers and lenders, and published a myriad other reports and tips. In 1945, it began a column about building and repairs, and noted changes in the priority system for veterans. In 1946, it alerted readers to a new Apprentice Training School

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38. A dealer-assisted owner-built home, Pekin, Illinois. In Pekin, for some years after 1945, Reinhard lumber provided a complete package of materials and services to amateur builders. Photo: author.

for veterans, along with an open house. In 1948, it noted that Central Illinois Light Co. was running demonstrations on home wiring and then, in 1949, that a free library for home planners was opening to coincide with the second annual postwar home show. The latter included “live” studies of home construction, including carpentry, roofing, brick laying, plastering, and sheet metal work. And of course it included advertising from realtors, subdividers, lumber dealers, and lenders, all of which was essential to the amateur builder. Among advertisers, Wahlfeld Lumber and First Federal Savings and Loan were again at the forefront, but others reinforced the message. The subdivider of Beverly Farms tried to pique interest with the blunt question “Are You a Handy Man?,” while in September 1945 Brown Brothers reminded readers that wartime priorities would soon be relaxed. Citizens Real Estate Co. pointed out that in their subdivision at Ravinwood Farm, buyers could hire contractors or build their own. In nearby towns, such as Pekin, other lumber dealers, notably Reinhardt, also developed service packages for amateurs (figure 38). And on and on; the examples could be multiplied scores, indeed hundreds, of times over.25 Unusually, the Journal-Transcript could report national coverage of local

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events. In 1948, the Institute of Life Insurance chose a Peoria family for “making the most of their opportunities and . . . getting ahead.” This was reported in 375 papers nationwide. The Journal-Transcript noted that the Hintons, who had both come from “broken homes,” had earned this honor in part because they had “built their own home with their own hands.” Local readers might have wondered how this made the Hintons exceptional. In most other cities, newspapers could not have stirred amateurs’ pride in the same way, but they routinely blended general reports with local news and advertising in a manner than encouraged owner-building. In Toronto, for example, a leading daily began a Homecraft page in 1950, and two years later estimated that 20,000 Toronto families had built their own homes since 1945. This was educated guesswork, and probably understated the trend. But here, as everywhere, newspapers were key facilitators and boosters of the amateur boom.26 After 1950, the pace of publication fell off. The change was most obvious among the manuals. In $500 . . . and a Home of Your Own (1952), Elsa Andrezen gave a personal account of how she and her husband had built in the vicinity of Washington, D.C., illustrating the process of building in stages (figure 39). She played up the story more than the technical details. George Daniels offered guidance on How to Build or Remodel (1953), Katherine Ford and Thomas Creighton considered Quality Budget Homes (1954), and then Larry Eisinger surveyed How to Build and Contract Your Own Home (1957). In each case, discussion of owner-building was mixed with related commentary, whether on remodeling, cooperatives, or the hiring of contractors. Indeed, by 1954 Ford and Creighton felt free to pooh-pooh the idea. Yes, they said, you may build yourself, “if you are an extremely clever person with infinite time on your hands, if your local building codes permit . . . , if you are willing to put up with some crudenesses . . . , and if you are willing to run the risk that in the long run (due to expensive mistakes) the house may cost you more.” There had always been mixed opinion about the whole idea but, after 1950, the balance had shifted back.27 The tide of amateur building had turned. The high point probably came in spring 1950, since U.S. entry into the Korean war in June meant that many men who had planned to build were called up. Small Homes Guide published a letter from a Mrs. A. J. Stefanick, who explained that when her husband had to go overseas they changed their plans and hired a contractor. The effect of the war was immediate. A running survey of six major metropolitan areas showed that rates of owner-building inched up from 13 percent of new single-family dwellings in the second half of 1949 to 14 percent in May–September 1950, but then dropped to 10 percent by the first quar-

39. Building in stages. Large lots made it easy for single-story dwellings to be expanded as family size required, and finances allowed. Sources: Elsa L. Andrezen, $500 . . . and a Home of Your Own (New York: Vantage, 1952).

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ter of 1951. Nationally, four years later, the incidence of owner-building (14 percent) was less than half its level in 1949. It then fluctuated around that figure for the next two decades.28

Attitudes If circumstances changed, there was also a new can-do attitude. During the Depression many men had tackled house repairs, or more substantial conversions. Then, as Corey said, war compelled them to do “so damned many things which ‘couldn’t be done,’ or which ‘you couldn’t do’ . . . that the building of a house would be a pushover by comparison.” Young women too had been challenged, and Corey evenhandedly addressed them as well: “You dames can build ships and bombers, tanks and cannon, then why in hell can’t you build your own homes from foundation to roof?” Frazier Peters echoed this spirit when he separated Americans into “those who holler for houses and those who go out and get them.” And indeed the war mattered. It was a veteran that Popular Mechanics asked to tackle the magazine’s first building project. More soberly, reporting his institution’s experience in making loans, Thomas Craig observed that “service in the armed forces taught a lot of GI’s to be resourceful.” Inconceivable became possible.29 Some writers claimed that amateur actually welcomed the challenge of building. Perhaps they were right. It is a cliché that after fifteen years of depression and war, young men and women embraced secure domesticity. By the 1950s that may have been true, but it skates over the awkward period of transition, when men adjusted to mundane routines while women had to redirect their energies into their homes. Is it mere coincidence that this transition period saw one of the greatest ever booms in owner-building? Corey reckoned not. He suggested that, after spending time in North Africa, Europe, or the Pacific, veterans would find home life dull, so that “building your own house would be just the sort of occupation to taper off to normal life on.” Just so. More obviously, as many argued, building a home offered challenge and fulfillment: Cobb spoke of “satisfaction,” while Daniels refers to “very real pleasure” to be shared by “every member of the family,” who could enjoy their ability to make a home as they wished.30 The point should not be overstated. These writers had a stake in encouraging people to build. Read carefully, their manuals show that authors knew that a fear of debt weighed at least as heavily as the possible pleasures of building. Reinforced by the Depression, thrift was still valued. Again, Corey put it pithily. Discounting the long-term mortgages promoted by the FHA, he pointedly asked: “Look back into the past. How long have you had a

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40. The imprint of the owner-builder. Areas where owner-builders were active evolved steadily, and in eccentric ways. Redrawn from Canadian Underwriters’ Association, Insurance Plan of the City of Longueuil, Quebec (Montreal: Canadian Underwriters’ Association, 1932 and 1953, with revisions).

steady uninterrupted income?” Indeed, “How many people do you know who have had an uninterrupted income for as long as twenty-five years?” The alternative was obvious. As George Daniels recognized, the advantage of starting small and building in stages was that you could “pay as you go,” thereby minimizing debt. The owner-builder took this to a logical conclusion. In the end, Corey exclaims, “it’s free and clear of debt. There lies security that can’t be beat.” As lenders soon realized, many families thought this way. By 1949, Kenneth Duncan had learned that, “as a rule,” the average homesteader “dislikes debts and correctly . . . looks upon a mortgage as a debt.” One such was Mrs. Clara Sanders from Elk, Washington. In a letter to Small Homes Guide in 1948, she explained that she and her husband were planning to take ten years to build because they were “determined to pay as we go.” The consequence, of course, was that where amateur building was common, blocks took on a provisional and higgledy-piggledy appearance (figure 40).31 Of course it is still possible to speak with those who built homes at that time. In the summers of 1995 and 1996, a student and I interviewed thirtyfour people who had built their homes in Peoria, Illinois, four before the war, and the remainder after. Six had erected two or three dwellings, in sequence. Looking back, all expressed pride, most claimed to have enjoyed at least part of the process, and several insisted on showing us innovative fea-

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tures or excellent work. For example, Mrs. Andrews claims that she and her husband found the building of their home in Peoria Heights in 1947 to be “pure enjoyment and satisfaction.” But when asked why they had chosen to build, almost all referred to their desire to avoid debt, or their lack of choice (figure 41). Even Mrs. Andrews, for example, spoke of “our saving habit” which encouraged them to “pay as we went.” Ed Schlaffer, who started construction in 1951, underlined a more basic fact. Schlaffer was one of several interviewees who took a strong interest in our project. He took it upon himself to make inquiries among friends and neighbors, and reported their consensus that families had built homes because of the housing shortage, and to save money or minimize debt. Enjoyment and pride were pure gravy.32 Thrift and financial caution were even more dominant in Canada. At that time (and to this day), Canadians did not rely as extensively on mortgage debt. Finance was especially scarce in the early postwar years because, until 1954, banks were prohibited from making mortgage loans. To explore their motives, and helped by another student, I interviewed forty-five ownerbuilders in Hamilton, Ontario. Hamilton is an industrial city, slightly larger than Peoria, located eighty kilometers west of Toronto. Those interviewed expressed great pride in their accomplishment. A large minority emphasized that their main motive was thrift, which not only shaped their method of acquiring a home but their very desire to own. Greg Fishhook, for example, a veteran who bought plans from an American magazine and started building in 1951, insisted that he had never borrowed anything: “That was the way I was brought up.” The Depression taught him that the “only security you have is in your hip pocket.” The Ambridges would have liked to buy—as a drill-press operator at Westinghouse, Bill had no construction skills—but they, too, recoiled from the idea of “buying on time.” As Bill nodded in assent, Vera commented that “we could have sold our souls and bought one of the houses they were peddling” but “I never have liked to owe money.” The Hiscoxes, who built in the neighboring suburb of Burlington in 1952, were just the same. Arthur, too, was a veteran, who returned from Europe with Enid, a war bride. She brought the conviction that “to be in debt was shameful.” Her neighbors had the same opinion. Following the Depression, she was “petrified” of taking on debt and recalls that this was “a common attitude at the time.”33 Strikingly, none of those interviewed in Hamilton or Peoria, or whose stories were reported in the media of the time, spoke of investment. They wanted something useful, and never considered their efforts were financially shrewd. This was typical of home buyers in general. Architectural Fo-

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41. Amateurs often adapted published house plans. In Peoria, the Barnevolts built in the 1950s and extended their home in 1962. Source: W. E. Barnevolt, communication with the author. Used by permission.

rum’s survey found that over a third of potential buyers saw ownership as “more economical” than renting—that is, in the long run it cost less—but none saw it as an investment, even those who were well-off. Another survey, of professionals who bought in Detroit, found that only a minority had considered it an investment; their concern was with savings. In 1946,

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when Howard Morris enumerated why families should buy, he emphasized the same thing. Some even argued that owners were bound to lose out. In 1945, part of John Dean’s reasoning against home ownership was that “the American family must get used to the idea that the house it buys will not retain its value over a span of time.” Like Corey, who assumed that income was unpredictable, Dean made inferences from recent history. As late as 1953, even George Daniels—obviously a believer in home ownership since he wrote about how to achieve it—echoed Dean. There are many reasons to own, Daniels suggested, but money is not one: “Your house will tend to decline in value as time goes on.” Moreover, since most home owners did not yet pay income tax, the advantage of mortgage debt that Americans now take for granted was not yet relevant. To be sure, by 1945, most Americans and Canadians were committed to the idea acquiring a home. They shared few of the reservations that had persisted into the 1920s. When, speaking to a room full of veterans, Nathan Straus enumerated the disadvantages of buying, his audience could barely muster polite applause. Buyers in general, and amateurs in particular, were driven by immediate needs.34

The Amateurs Their motives give a clue as to who the amateur builders were. They included anyone who was frustrated by the postwar housing shortage. The worst affected were the young, and those who had postponed home buying (or marriage and children) because of the Depression and the war. In other words, they were men and women with diverse backgrounds and skills. Once they caught on, the media delighted in claiming that “anyone can build a house.” So did those who catered to the amateur. Corey flaunted the fact that before tackling his first building project he had “never mixed cement or waved a mason’s trowel,” while Popular Mechanics claimed that “anyone who could saw a board, drive a nail and follow simple instructions was quite equal to the task.” They were right. To be sure, construction workers did make up a disproportionate number of homesteaders, 33 percent according to an authoritative study of the Bay Area. A number of the men featured in media accounts, such as those published by Time or House Beautiful, were associated with the building trades—architects were a favorite. Such men had relevant skills, and friends who could help out. Indeed, manual workers of all kinds were probably overrepresented among amateurs. Kenneth Duncan believed so, and, again, published accounts such as those in Readers Digest and Insured Mortgage Portfolio, bore this out. But a large

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minority had no relevant skills. Better Homes and Gardens featured a family where the husband was “aircraft company executive.” Another article, in Insured Mortgage Portfolio, told of a group of amateurs in Ypsilanti that consisted largely of men in white-collar occupations, including businessmen, professionals, junior executives, and instructors at a local college. And in all of the reported examples, women had no relevant expertise.35 The Peoria interviews fit this pattern. From those interviews that yielded relevant information, ten of twenty-two men had some useful experience. Five, including two electricians, a bricklayer, a carpenter, and a self-taught architect, were in the construction industry. The other five had accumulated skills in different ways. Mr. King and Dan McLeod, for example, both from rural backgrounds, were handymen who had picked up stuff “through necessity” or “trial and error”; Ed Schlaffer was an engineer, and had worked one summer as a laborer on building sites; Mel Schmidt, too, was an engineer, with a friend who took him up in his airplane to get a birds-eye view of the building site (figure 42). The remaining twelve men had no background in building. A number did manual work in local factories, including three machinists, and several had white-collar occupations, including a teacher, an engineer at Caterpillar, and a bookkeeper. Amateurs were not a social cross-section of the population, but they were people with a wide range of occupational skills.36 Some writers claimed that amateurs built better than professionals. In Canada, a lobbyist urged government to harness the homesteader’s energy. “To the consternation of professional builders and unions,” he insisted, “it has . . . been found that quite inexperienced home builders, clerks, bankers, postmen, bakers, with the help of a simple pamphlet of instructions will do a more careful and better job” than the professional, “even if slowly.” Several Hamiltonians took this to heart. Everett Englard, for example, who worked in a tool shop, built three homes for his family between 1952 and the late 1960s. This took almost two decades, but he expressed no regrets. “There was an awful lot of shoddy workmanship,” he explained. The same sentiment was apparent in the United States, as was indicated by evidence gathered by the Committee on Veterans’ Affairs. Under the terms of the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944 (and a later Veterans’ Rehabilitation Assistance Act of 1952), veterans were offered easy financing. To weigh the impact of this program, in 1956 the committee analyzed the 4,549,098 loans made to date. Their report noted much evidence of poor construction. The authors did not compare amateurs with professionals, but several comments are suggestive. They attributed some failures to ignorance, but many more to corruption, or the builder’s desire to save money by cutting

42. Views of the Schmidt home, Peoria, 1947. During construction, Mel Schmidt took the opportunity to photograph his home (circled) from a friend’s small plane. The couple sometimes brought their first child to the building site so that both could work on their home. Source: Schmidt family records. Used by permission.

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corners. All examples of poor construction referred to speculative builders. Of course, some cases had come to the committee’s attention because of complaints, and amateurs did not complain about themselves. But inspectors and lenders might have blown the whistle on amateurs, yet the report does not mention a single case.37 As the housing shortage receded, it is likely that the quality of professional work improved. William Shenkel studied shell houses that were built 1961–1962. He found that the finishing work done by contractors was superior to that of amateurs, especially on interior walls, painting, and flooring. Some owner-built homes were worth less after eighteen months than as mere shells. Shenkel suggests this was largely true in areas where buyers had to rely on installment loans rather than mortgages, and where they were unable to afford quality tools and materials. It seems, then, that those who felt compelled to invest sweat equity did poorer work than those who had some choice. As the quality of professional work improved, it surpassed the efforts of the marginal home owner.38 If amateurs built better than professionals, it was because they cared more and took their time. Corey used several stories in Homemade Houses to make the point. Of one house, built by an unskilled veteran of the merchant marine, he claimed that “there isn’t one out of a thousand contractor-built jobs built today that can equal it.” Another amateur, who had contracted some work, reckoned he could have done better himself. When conceding mistakes, Corey treated them as minor. Darrell Huff was a friend from New York who had moved with the Coreys to the Bay Area in 1946. With no formal training in the field, Huff soon made his name as the author of How to Lie With Statistics (1954), a best-selling textbook. With help from Corey, Huff also taught himself how to build (figures 43 and 44). Corey claimed that, despite “slight waves and irregularities,” Huff’s concrete block wall was basically solid. An especially rich story is contained in the lightly fictionalized autobiography of Antanas Sileika. The son of European immigrants, Sileika grew up in a Toronto suburb in the 1950s. He describes his father building a home, one of several on the street that were going up in stages. Only one family had bought a finished home, a British couple who looked down on everyone else, and especially the Sileikas for living in a basement home. This was ironic since, a generation earlier, a huge wave of British immigrants had transformed Toronto’s suburbs through owner-building. Within a couple of years, of course, Sileika suggests that it was the British couple whose basement developed a crack.39 Again, the Peoria interviews bear out this sort of comparison, the An-

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43. Paul Corey in action, 1951. Paul Corey wrote two manuals for amateurs and inspired thousands, including his friend, the writer Darrell Huff. Source: Darrell Huff, “They Build Their Own,” Americas 3, no. 2 (February 1951).

drewses being a case in point. Mr. Andrews learned construction from howto books. He and his wife had moved into the basement as soon as he had laid the concrete block walls, put rafters in place for the subfloor, and covered them with tar paper. Looking back, Mrs. Andrews claimed to know “every screw, nail, and bolt in this house” and declared that the structure was so sound that “if anyone ever wanted to tear it down they would have to dynamite it.” Is the statement true and, if true, is it typical? Who knows. Inevitably, amateurs look back on their labor with pride. Those who agreed to be interviewed must have included a disproportionate number of success stories. The only certain conclusion is that almost anyone could have done a good a job if they had the time and proper materials.40 In fact, few amateurs did everything. Today, major improvement projects usually combine the efforts of contractors and amateurs. The same was true in the early postwar years. In 1946, housing expert Miles Colean told read-

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44. The Huff home, c. 1948. Corey used this ground plan of the original Huff home to illustrate how amateurs could build in stages. A future bedroom at first served as the workshop. Source: Paul Corey, Homemade Houses (New York: William Sloane, 1950), 122.

ers of Small Homes Guide that owner-builders usually did from one-third to one-half of all their construction labor. Later surveys confirm this. In 1948, 12 percent of SHG’s readers who had recently acquired a home said they had done all the work, while 55 percent had done some. The best survey was undertaken in the 1960s by the Census Bureau. It found that a fifth of amateurs did everything, while a quarter simply acted as general contractor. About half completed 35–75 percent of the work. In 1951, SHG reported the variations by type. A small majority did their own framing (52 percent) and roofing (56 percent), while more did interior walls (59 percent), finishing (61 percent), and flooring (65 percent). A minority installed heating systems (40 percent), plumbing (32 percent), or wiring and glazing (31 percent). These statistics make sense: amateurs did the least skilled jobs, those where errors mattered least and where building regulations permitted. They are also consistent with the reports of those I interviewed in Peoria, Illinois, and those published at the time. For example, the factory worker whose story was told in Readers Digest did everything except plumbing, heating, and wiring. The Kenetters, in a letter to SHG, say they hired an electrician only because the municipality required them to do so. The factory foreman whose story was told in American Magazine employed an electrician and plumber for the same reason. Amateurs took charge, and did what they could, but most also relied to some extent on the building trades.41 Amateurs also used friends, family, coworkers, neighbors, and indeed anyone they could rope in. A study in rural North Carolina found that almost everyone received help: one-third from relatives, one-fifth from neigh-

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bors, and some from tenants. Among relatives, sons (22 percent), brothers (16 percent), and brothers-in-law (13 percent) did something. Many of Paul Corey’s “case histories” from suburbia and exurbia confirm this picture. In Cleveland, for example, Howard and Donna Whittakers were helped by Howard’s brother and father on weekends, Donna’s brother “practically every day for three months,” Donna’s cousin, and also her uncle, who came from Detroit on weekends. Media accounts, however, played down the role of family and friends in urban or suburban settings. This is true of the case studies and letters published in Small Homes Guide and Parents Magazine. The Simoniches, of Belmont, California, seemed unusual for exchanging labor with an acquaintance whom they later helped in turn, and so did the Sileikas in Toronto, Ontario, for relying on friends and on cousin Stan, who was paid in liquor. But my interviews in Peoria and Hamilton confirm that formally and informally traded labor was the norm.42 In Peoria, of the thirty-four households interviewed, sixteen recalled receiving help from extended family and fourteen mentioned friends, neighbors, or coworkers. Extended families often included tradesmen. Virginia Oedewalt recalls that her husband’s cousin, who owned a team of draft horses, helped dig the basement, while another cousin did the wiring. The Harrises received help from Jack’s father, a carpenter, and his brother, an electrician. When family members lacked specific skills, as in the case of the Andrewses and the Barnewolts, they still helped out by digging, carrying, sawing, hammering, or mixing cement. Similarly with friends. Boyd Harris received help in several ways: a friend returned a favor by doing some cement work; neighbors, “curious at first,” gave “volunteer help,” though “as I got going they were not so interested”; he also traded labor with coworkers, who held “roofing parties.” The same happened in Hamilton, Ontario. Mel Colling, for example, got the idea of building by first helping his brother. Glenn Gibson was helped by his father, brother-in-law, and a cousin “who came [to Hamilton] on a weekend and helped me install the subfloor and [later] the roof” (figure 45). Jack Graham went one better. His father pitched in, and he also cooperated with five coworkers at Otis Elevator: “They all worked on one house and then they’d work on the next, and the next.” Cooperation was almost inevitable on blocks such as the Gibsons’, where several were building at the same time, Friendships were both used, and forged. In remoter, exurban settings, such as those chosen by Paul Corey, homesteading was individualistic. In suburban and nearer fringe areas, it built communities as well as houses.43 Cooperation was usually informal. Nobody kept a tally of hours. But

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45. Block party of amateur builders, Hamilton, 1957. On many suburban blocks, cooperation among owner-builders built community too. Source: Glenn Gibson, personal records. Used by permission.

sometimes exact agreements covered labor, financing, and materials. Before the war, a few building coops had organized and attracted media attention. Most erected single-family dwellings that, when finished, became privately owned homes; some were inspired by Depression-era homesteaders. The postwar shortage gave them new impetus. In Canada, a prewar cooperative plan, eventually sponsored by the Province of Nova Scotia, was mothballed during the war but revived after 1945 (figure 46). Building coops became active in other provinces, notably Quebec, though only a minority used amateur labor. Building coops took a different course in the United States, where they briefly caught the public eye. In 1947, Newsweek reported that a Detroit vocational training instructor had assembled forty-seven veterans who bought lots just north of the city line and spent ten hours each weekend working on each others’ homes. Reports on the coops appeared in many publications, including Small Homes Guide, House and Garden, Parents Magazine, Christian Science Monitor, Commentary, The Survey, and the New York Times, as well as trade press such as Savings Bank Journal. Accounts of Canadian schemes appeared in comparable media, including Maclean’s, the major news weekly, papers such as the Toronto Star, and even U.S. publications such as Newsweek and Commonweal.44 Financing was the challenge, and “in response to a Nation-wide de-

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46. Consultations for a co-operative owner-build project, Nova Scotia, 1939. Organizational advice was offered by Mary Arnold, from the Co-operative League of the United States, headquartered in New York City. Source: Mary Arnold, The Story of Tompkinsville (New York, 1940).

mand by veterans groups for information and advice on cooperative and mutual housing enterprises,” the National Housing Agency and the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed how groups might proceed. The UAW-CIO, and other interest groups, pushed the idea. By 1949, a financing manual was published and, after much lobbying, revisions to the National Housing Act made provision for coop financing. Coinciding with the peak of amateur building, this stimulated a mini-boom in cooperative building as well as ownership. But federal support wavered, and even at its peak the quantitative contribution of coops never amounted to much. In 1951, an authoritative survey projected a total of 28,000 units and, after 1952, interest in coops waned even more rapidly than individual owner-building. Informal assistance was common, but formal cooperation was a minority taste. Among those interviewed in Peoria only one family, the Kathuses, had been involved in a building coop, which, typically, had conformed to no stereotype. It was formed by a Catholic priest who was concerned about the shortage of housing for large families. Sixteen families chipped in to buy land along an extended cul-de-sac. Contractors built shells, and families laid floors, finished sidewalks, painted, and landscaped. When the Kathuses moved in, there were already sixteen houses and ninety-six children. Two families eventually had fourteen each; Olga Kathus drew the line at six.45

Mrs. Builder For all the outside help that families received, their success depended on how well husbands and wives worked together. It was usually the woman

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who ran the household: who purchased and cooked the food; who shopped for other necessities; who tidied and cleaned; and who looked after any children. Most couples were young and wanted a home before having children, and so it was common for women to take on tasks usually reserved for men. These included the buying of materials, a challenge for the retailer. But many already had children and still pitched in. Occasionally, the media featured a woman who transgressed all stereotypes. American Home reported that, between them, a mother and daughter in Berkeley, California, had erected a small house. The Hamilton Spectator described how a Dutch immigrant had gone one better, building a substantial two-story house by herself. Many women who had done something like this were pleased to tell their story. For example, when Americas published a report on owner-builders, a staff photographer, Frances Adelhardt, alerted her own employer to the fact that she had built a two-room cottage just eighteen months earlier—helped by her father and half a dozen “good Samaritan” staff members. One of Corey’s case histories described a woman with two children who had built a home, in New Milford, Connecticut; he also claimed that Miss Anna Kaiser, sister of the west-coast industrialist, had built no less than three dwellings, in part, with her own hands. Such women were treated as examplars of resourcefulness, but they were obviously exceptional.46 The norm was that men took charge of building. After Don Wharton interviewed seven people for an article in Readers Digest, he wrote only of men. More typically, women were viewed—by themselves, by their husbands, and by reporters—as helpers. Miles Colean, for example, noted in passing that women might have some relevant skills. The most obvious pertained to the beginning and the end of the process: design and decoration. Symptomatically, accounts of the Popular Mechanics house projects refer to wives mostly as painters. Darrell Huff reported that his wife took the same role. Some reports show women being more actively involved. Photographs taken of the Coreys indicate that Paul’s wife helped out on the building site (figure 47). Not surprisingly, Elsa Andrezen’s book told how she did various tasks, including the laying of concrete blocks. More surprisingly, the Ladies Home Journal reported that Virginia Phillips “helped” dig and waterproof the foundation, and then plumb, wire, and paint, both inside and out. Corey tells how the Paveys built with adobe: while Bob earned, Phyllis dried the homemade blocks by turning them, laid the outside and partition walls, together with the fireplace, and then nailed the tongue-and-groove floor while carrying their first child. More commonly, women shopped. It was Phyllis who hunted down nails and sheetrock. Another LHJ story told that

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47. The Coreys working on their home. The photograph appears to be candid, although only Paul is dressed practically. Source: Papers of Paul Corey, MsC 585 (Iowa author), Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.

“Jack” invested 550 hours of “hard work,” while “Virginia” (not Virginia Phillips) spent 150 hours “running errands and keeping accounts” as well as “shopping for materials and equipment.” In Small Homes Guide, Maxine Livingstone noted that in the Simonich household “Mother acted as purchasing agent,” as well as “third-class helper.” Darrell Huff sent his wife out to buy materials, as did Paul Corey. Shopping for materials extended a role that women already knew, though it required new skills and knowledge. Livingstone reports that in the Mongold family, George worked on the house during his spare house while Nell occupied her free moments

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“in town searching for items we had listed the night before.” Nell added, “I found myself acquiring a contractor’s vocabulary.” Purchasing agents like Nell Mongold had to learn how to shop for new goods but, equally, lumber dealers had to figure out how to cope with a new type of customer.47 That women played an active as well as a supportive role in the building process is confirmed and amplified by those interviewed in Peoria and Hamilton. Support and thrift were taken for granted, as when Millie Wegner carried hot casseroles by bus from the couple’s apartment to the building site, where she met her husband after his day shift. Almost all wives helped select, or draft, a design, none more so than Rosemae Johnson, who had trained in home economics and worked in the Tasting-Test Kitchen of Better Homes and Gardens magazine before she and her husband, Lloyd, moved to Peoria from Des Moines. Lloyd, a self-taught architect, admits that “Rosemae taught me the fine points of room arrangement.” Vera Streits helped her husband design the house they built in Hamilton in 1950: Vilis was a civil engineer, but as a DP from Latvia he had little English, so Vera translated the technical vocabulary in the books she borrowed from the library. “You were my ears and my eyes,” Vilis recalled. About a third of the wives interviewed did substantial construction work, even those with children. In Peoria, recalling how her parents built their house, Marge King recalled that “mother would troop all the [six] kids to the site and work every day,” adding that “she was always working . . . no rest.” Dan Letizia remembers that his wife, “pregnant at the time, helped with nailing 1 × 8 roof sheathing,” while their “nine year old son helped by carrying materials and watching little brother and sister.” In Hamilton, Vera Butterworth recalled “hammering nails in the subfloor while a-hanging on to a kid,” to which her husband added, “and carting cement blocks when you were pregnant.” (“Yes,” Vera agreed, “we were desperate.”) Alec Barrett’s wife helped with “pretty near everything except the shingles—she didn’t like the height.” In each city, two couples switched breadwinner roles. In Peoria, Martha Grouper went out to work while her husband and father took leaves of absence to get a house finished quickly; in Hamilton, Mrs. Millard “went to work part-time to help because we were running out of money.” And at least a quarter of the wives took the major role in buying materials. Floreine Harris’s experience was typical. She drew the plans for their second house, in 1953. Her husband’s brother owned a truck and, as construction proceeded, Floreine used it “to haul supplies from Sheridan Lumber Company in Peoria. Their prices were the most reasonable.” To which she added, “I would take my daughter with me, of course.” All of this confirms Strong-Boag’s claim that on building sites women were “as active in all weathers as their husbands.”48

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The details depended on personal circumstances, skills, and values, but the constant theme was teamwork. Universally, women were responsible for housekeeping. Beyond that, few gave much thought to social norms. When Mrs. Millard was asked whether she felt pleasure, pride, or stigma in working on the family home, she simply replied, “I haven’t actually thought about that. It had to be done. He was trying to do everything on his own and he needed help.” This response was typical.49 What men and women did worry about was finance, technical details, and managing the building project, which entailed awkward problems of scheduling, not to mention the letting and supervision of subcontracts. Magazines and manuals could offer encouragement and general guidance, but every project posed unique problems. Amateurs needed specific help, above all from local lenders and suppliers. Paul Corey knew this. In 1944, he advised his readers to talk to “the local lumber dealer, a font of wisdom.” Later, he used Howard Whittaker’s experience as a caution: having dealt with twenty-five different businesses, Whittaker recommended that amateurs “find one place to buy your materials” since “a friendly dealer can show you many ways to save.” Corey also urged amateurs to pay cash to create a good impression, indicating that many retailers were still not reconciled to the consumer trade. Even for those suppliers who evolved during the 1930s, the owner-building boom tested their ability to satisfy the consumer, and on a greatly enlarged scale.50

TEN

Help for the Amateur

Amateurs who took the housing problem into their own hands needed help. Arthur Miller and Paul Corey were not typical: one could afford to make mistakes, while the other exuded a brash resourcefulness that could easily intimidate instead of inspire. The authors of how-to magazine articles and manuals offered useful tips, but what builders and improvers really needed was someone to show-how. And even those who abhorred debt were sometimes unable to pay cash on the nail. Who would help them?

The State The government did not prove to be very helpful. During the 1930s, federal governments in North America had transformed the systems of mortgage finance, while promoting large-scale land development. In the United States, although not until 1949 in Canada, they developed public housing for lower-income households. They even offered modest support to cooperatives. But European initiatives to use or help amateurs were largely ignored.1 During the 1920s, municipalities in Europe developed programs to assist amateurs. The most ambitious and influential was that of Stockholm, which persisted into the 1990s. The city sold lots and partially prefabricated materials to chosen families, gave advice, provided credit, and sold materials at cost. In the 1930s and 1940s, the program was widely praised in Canada and the United States, and won favorable mention in a Senate report. Many observers argued that it should be adopted here. In the mid1940s, the American planner Jacob Crane gave a name to this type of program: aided self-help housing. From 1947, in his role as head of the International Housing Office at the Housing and Home Finance Agency (HHFA), he advocated it with missionary zeal, primarily for the developing world but

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also for the United States. Veterans lobbied for it. In 1947, Baird Helfrich, chairman of the Peoria branch of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, urged the Joint Congressional Committee on Housing to help veterans build homes, perhaps cooperatively. Lumber dealers chimed in. For example, in 1948, the Mississippi Retail Lumber Dealers Association wrote to Mississippi state senator Joseph McCarthy urging that Class 3 loans be relaxed to promote amateur construction (which request McCarthy forwarded to the HHFA). Manufacturers of house kits and plans were also in a position to speak up. In 1949, Standard Homes, noting that “the records are very clear that the average small man is unable to get help from the FHA,” argued that “there should be some way to help the small man who wants to get a loan to build a home.” This, the company claimed, expresses the “real wants of the people as they are expressed to us in thousands of letters that come through our national advertising.”2 Such lobbying was to little avail. After 1945 some municipalities briefly made efforts to help veterans acquire homes however they could, and sometimes this included support to amateurs. The occasional lumber dealer advocated schemes that unconsciously echoed European models. A Wisconsin dealer suggested that municipalities should acquire land to sell at cost to owners or builders, install utilities, and provide assistance. The closest approximation to such a scheme was developed—where else?—in Peoria. A suburban lumber dealer, Wilbur Lauterbach, formed and led a county housing authority that bought a tract that it subdivided into eighty-four lots. Buyers were free to hire a contractor or build with their own hands; either way, Lauterbach offered materials and advice, while the housing authority loaned money. Once again, Peoria made news. But this was not the aided self-help that Crane and veterans had advocated: most of the homes built in Wil-Mar-Knoll—named after Lauterbach and his wife, Mary—were above average in size: the subdivision catered to the middle class. Partial help was given by other municipalities. Des Moines donated tax-delinquent lots to veterans. St. Cloud, Minnesota, built four-room basement houses, including utilities, that veterans could complete when materials became available. Vicksburg, Mississippi, sold lots and materials at cost. Yakima, Washington, established a “swap shop” to help veterans find materials. Also in Washington State, Spokane asked contractors to let home owners help dig the trenches for water and sewer connections. Many cities, including Waterbury (Connecticut), Ferndale (Michigan), Berkeley City (Missouri), and San Jose, modified or suspended building codes to allow “partially-completed,” “garage,” “temporary,” or “basic” dwellings, expecting that owner-builders would complete, extend, or replace these starter homes when they could.

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Most commonly, inspectors turned a blind eye. Permissiveness, not assistance, was the municipal norm.3 The idea of helping owner-builders barely registered in Washington. The terms of the policy debate, established in the 1930s, lay between private enterprise and public housing. In 1944, John Blandford, head of the National Housing Agency, crisscrossed the country speaking to home builders, assessors, lenders, housing officials, and mayors. Explaining what his agency was doing, he claimed: “we began by examining the whole need of the whole American nation . . . in this war emergency,” adding, “and to meet this need . . . we persevered . . . regardless of obstacles.” Underlining the government’s pragmatic approach, he pointed out that “if part of the job could not be done by private enterprise, we did it through public construction.” This sounded good, but embodied a binary way of thinking. On the one hand, the FHA strengthened the private sector. In 1949, for example, it ran a series of “industry meetings” through its local offices. Major stakeholders, including builders, lenders, building trades unions, and lumber dealers, were encouraged to make presentations. Predictably, the idea of helping amateurs did not come up. On the other hand, public housers and the advocates for low- to moderate-income households, such as Nathan Straus of the U.S. Housing Authority, did not acknowledge, because they could not see, the potential of aided self-help.4 The silence was not complete. In 1950, Richard Ratcliff, director of housing research at the HHFA, noted that “the advantages of owner participation in the construction of his home have certainly been suggested from many quarters.” The agency’s response was to support two pilot research projects that produced how-to manuals. But the HHFA did not take the idea seriously: the schemes were small, rural, and socially marginal; they were not copied. In one, the Alaska Housing Authority provided building materials at cost to rural Native Americans; in the other, the Tuskegee Institute, founded on Booker T. Washington’s philosophy of Working with the Hands (1904), helped African-American sharecroppers. While worthy enough, neither offered a plausible test or model for a nationwide scheme to help veterans settle the suburbs.5 More significant were broader financing initiatives that implied, but were not tied to, owner-construction. In 1947, the partial lifting of restrictions on building for nonveterans had encouraged amateurs. When controls were scrapped in June, Class 3 insurance was revived. As Small Homes Guide explained, the new version was more generous: borrowers could take an unsecured second mortgage; the FHA waived inspections; two-room dwellings as small as 360 square feet were permitted; loans could extend for twenty

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years and five months. With cost inflation, in 1948 loan limits were raised to $4,500. Balancing public pressure against the agency’s concern to minimize losses, the guidelines to local FHA offices were continually tweaked. In 1950, Class 3 was replaced by a similar Section 8 program, and in 1954 by Section 203(i) for construction in “outlying areas.” These variations on the theme of financing low-cost home ownership at first had less impact after 1947, when they were most needed, than they had had before the war. Class 3 loans had peaked at 10,783 in 1939, and averaged under 2,000 per annum in 1947–1949. Lenders were discouraged by the absence of a secondary market. Section 8 solved this problem, and annual approvals rose from 2,440 in 1950 to about 5,000 in 1951–1953 before spiking at 15,897 in 1954. The effect of institutional support, and resistance, is indicated by the presence of regional variations. Nationwide, in 1954 the ratio of Section 8 to Section 203 loans (the FHA’s mainstay) was 1:5. In a few states (Oklahoma, Colorado) it almost reached parity; in others it was wildly disproportionate (1:274 in California). Seven states, including Connecticut, Nevada, Oregon, and Alaska, together with the District of Columbia, had no Section 8 loans at all.6 In some states and regions, lenders and local officials remained wary. In 1949, a small utility company in Georgia complained to FHA Administrator Foley that it had tried to help six employees fill out loan applications for “low priced homes,” but that the local FHA office continually raised technical problems. This was common. The following year, in response to a reader’s inquiry, Small Homes Guide reported that “very few local FHA offices in the country have found it desirable” to accept Class 3 applications. Some did not even want to acknowledge the possibility. Between 1949 and 1952, the Chicago office surveyed housing markets in small towns across Minnesota and North Dakota. In and around places like Fargo, Minot, and Bismarck, owner-building must have been almost the norm. Yet the Chicago reports make only passing reference to the practice, and only to condemn it. “Basement houses have been built extensively . . . in the past few years,” it observes of Moorehead, Minnesota, and Fargo, North Dakota, and continues: “In addition to providing poor housing for the occupants, they constitute a source of blight which is likely to have adverse effects on surrounding property values.” The notion that the FHA might mitigate these conditions by offering assistance was not mentioned. No wonder Darrell Huff stated in 1951 that owner-builders should expect no help from the FHA.7 In time, the FHA’s head office did come around, somewhat. The Journal of Housing and the FHA’s own Insured Mortgage Portfolio began to feature lenders who did Class 3 business. In Detroit, First Federal continued

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to make such loans; in Elmira, New York, the Cheming Valley Savings and Loan considered them because of their prior involvement in modernization loans; in Cleveland, Second Federal, led by Ernest J. Bohn, who also directed the local public housing authority, financed 150 Class 3 houses by 1951. Dealers played their part. Speaking to the middle-Atlantic dealers in 1953, Arthur Hood, who had left Johns-Manville in 1949 to become editor of the American Lumberman, urged listeners to support the Section 8 “sweat equity housing program.” He cited a dealer in the northwest who had used it to shut out competition from prefabricators. Dealers were still drawing lenders into this business. The First National Bank of Jackson, Tennessee, had been persuaded by Five Points Lumber, which had sold consumers on its own designs. First National’s assistant cashier pointed out that a Class 3 borrower could then take a modernization loan to extend what might be a very modest structure.8 Such logic applied equally to Section 8, and was eventually promoted by the FHA. Speaking to the middle-Atlantic dealers in 1955, the director of the Title I program noted that the FHA’s construction and improvement loans had always been complementary, and were now being encouraged. Owners no longer had to occupy a dwelling before seeking an improvement loan. This flexibility helped give Section 8 a fillip in 1954. In principle, the FHA was how trying to help the amateur, but in practice this was not always so. In 1957, a dealer in Flint, Michigan, had had to devise a way of financing the owner-builder since the local FHA office dragged its feet. By then, anyway, owner-building was on the wane. The 1954 peak, significant in its own right, offers a glimpse at the larger role the FHA might have played in assisting the amateur builder after 1945. It also provides a look at a possible future that did not transpire. By 1966, the boom was history, but amateurs still accounted for 15 percent of housing starts. No thanks to the FHA. In that year, while 14 percent of conventional loans went to owner-builders, that was true of only 3 percent of FHA loans. In a year when 54 percent of owner-builders had obtained mortgage finance, a mere 2 percent were helped by the FHA. In the United States, amateur builders found it difficult to insert themselves between the building industry and the state.9 A Canadian agency proved to be more supportive. During the 1930s, the Canadian government did less in the housing field than its U.S. counterpart. No public housing was built. Canada’s program of mortgage insurance had less effect than the FHA’s Section 203, while there was no equivalent to Class 3. Low- and moderate-income households therefore received no assistance. Nevertheless, after 1945 an improvised program for veterans proved to be significant and successful. Under the Veterans Land Act (1942), the

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Canadian government helped returning veterans acquire full- or part-time farms. At first, assistance was usually denied those who acquired less than two acres, though this provision was slowly relaxed. When Canadian veterans came home, they began to use this program to buy land and build homes on small, exurban acreages, from which they commuted to city jobs. Most ended up doing much of the construction work. At first, the Veterans Land Administration resisted this, but demand forced their hand. By 1949, over half of VLA-financed homes were being owner-built. The administration developed a flexible Build Your Own Home program, which included finance, evening classes, and on-site guidance from the agency’s building inspectors. The personal touch was vital, as Glen Gibson, a veteran who built in the Hamilton area, soon discovered. His application was approved by an agency inspector, Don McFarlane, in October 1951. Its itemization of materials was simplified by the fact that Gibson, like other local amateurs, bought a shell package from Halliday’s. Borrowing costs were reduced since Gibson was allowed to invest his own labor, and of course that of his wife, for assembly, plumbing, wiring, and installation of a septic tank and field (figure 48). Forwarding the application to the regional office, McFarlane offered this endorsement. “This veteran has several friends relations etc., who have volunteered to help on the erection of this home also the veteran has had some experience and he seems quite ambitious and I do feel he can complete this contract as stated above and would recommend this be approved.”10 The grammar didn’t matter; the assistance did. The Build Your Own Home program proved to be popular and effective: by the time it was wound up in 1975, it had helped 30,000 veterans build homes. Proportionate to population, ten times as many Canadians were helped by the VLA as Americans who received Class 3 or Section 8 financing. U.S. agencies knew about this Canadian program, but did not copy it. Even in Canada most veterans, and the great majority of families that built a home, received little or no help from the state. Here was a market that the building industry had not anticipated, but which it could serve.11

Manufacturers Meet Amateurs Halfway Manufacturers were keen to serve the amateur: what did they care who did the building, as long as goods were bought? Since the 1920s, there had been a steady evolution in new materials. Rawlplugs, a British invention, had made hanging or fixing items on walls much easier (figure 49). Celotex had developed Cemesto panels for the walls themselves, both exterior and interior, while from 1934 the use of a new glue improved the durability

48. Wives of Canadian veterans also worked on their homes. This photograph, posed for the National Film Board, represents a truth about the building process. Source: Walter Woods, Rehabilitation (A Combined Operation) (Ottawa: Edmond Clouthier, 1953), opp. p. 113.

49. Consumer information through advertising. Although Rawlplugs hade been developed in the 1920s, a new generation of postwar amateurs still needed instruction in their use. Source: Small Homes (Toronto: Arthurs Publications, 1953), 129.

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and widened the uses of plywood. Production doubled in the late 1930s, reaching 1,620 million feet in 1941, sagged until 1945, and then tripled to 3,670 million feet in 1953, by which time both Long-Bell and Weyerhaeuser were in this business in a big way. A widening array of tools were brought onto the market, along with “one of the essential power tools for an amateur project”—the pickup truck. Even a car helped, ideally a convertible. In 1949, amateur builder George Mongold reported that “most of the time our Ford convertible was fairly dragging the ground.”12 The newer materials and tools, and some that had been around for a while, were seized eagerly by the amateur. Each builder had his, or her, own favorite. The factory foreman featured in American Magazine claimed that “it is almost child’s play building walls with cinder blocks.” Tom Riley, author of the third Popular Mechanics manual, idealized plywood as “the handyman’s material.” Ward argued that concrete blocks made sense, and showed how builders could make their own. Corey’s favorite was Cemesto board (“the greatest development in building materials this century”), and he devoted a chapter to the subject, though for roofing he was partial to corrugated aluminum, challenging its critics for being victims of aesthetic “conditioning.” Even earth, the oldest material, found new advocates, although the FHA refused to insure it. Building with adobe, the Allers insisted, was “comparatively straightforward,” even “fun,” and also “dirt cheap,” because appropriate soils exist “just about everywhere.” Earth made reporters playful, especially in American Home. Alfred Bailey told how every member of the Arnold family in Phoenix had “pitched in.” Another story told how, among the Schonemans of Escondido, California, while father was “earning the bread and butter . . . granddad and grandson shovell[ed] the dirt and mixed the mud” and then granddad laid the bricks while “mother pointed them with a trowel.” Except for earth construction, manufacturers were pleased to meet the demands of any of these amateurs.13 The results may be seen in the statistics on postwar house building. Onestory dwellings, of the sort easily built by amateurs, made up 67 percent of new dwellings in 1940 but 86 percent by 1950. Those erected on concrete slabs, a technology that hardly existed in 1940, had jumped to 17 percent. In the same decade, the proportion sheathed in plywood rose from 1 percent in 1940, to 4 percent (1950), and then 7 percent (1956). The use of insulation board (including Cemesto) for that purpose changed more slowly but from a much higher base, growing from 14 percent to 32 percent over the same period. Interiors changed more. The use of drywall for interior walls shot from 10 percent to 50 percent during the 1940s. Asphalt tiles, unavailable in 1940, were used in three out of ten bathrooms by 1950. The

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trends went furthest in the smaller towns, where owner-building was most common. By 1956, for example, drywall was used more widely in nonmetropolitan (72 percent) than in major metro areas (51 percent), and most commonly of all (86 percent) in the bottom decile of new homes, worth less than $10,000. These patterns and trends are the spoor of the ownerbuilder, confirming anecdotes about how amateurs preferred to build.14 These trends also speak of the continuing decline in lumber. At first, neither concrete blocks nor earth construction made many inroads on frame, whose share of new homes held steady during the 1940s before dropping in the 1950s. But other materials whittled away at lumber’s share in finish and trim. The share of wood shingles on new homes dropped from a third to a tenth between 1940 and 1950; that of wood-framed windows slipped from nine to seven out of ten, as steel and aluminum gained momentum; the use of wood lath for plaster virtually disappeared. The net effect was obvious: the quantity of board feet used in the average dwelling, which had fallen from 18,902 to 15,347 during the 1920s, reached 11,717 in 1950 and continued to fall until average dwelling size began to pick up in the mid-1950s. Some critics blamed the lumber industry. In the early 1960s, Zaremba’s comprehensive assessment of the industry noted marketing failures: the industry cooperation of the late 1930s had lapsed and, with it, any coordinated attempt to advertise; grade marking had become the norm, initially because the FHA encouraged it and then, after 1960, required it; but branding remained rare, which limited the effect of advertising; grades remained confusing; consumer education was rudimentary. The marketing scene was not all gloomy. Manufacturers had become better at using waste wood for fiber boards or linoleum, and simplified grades did help. But the depletion of forest resources meant that the price of lumber continued to rise by comparison with other materials, while quality seems to have declined. As amateurs were drawn away from lumber, they provided a rapidly growing demand for new materials. Manufacturers of building materials were happy to meet the demand, although until the early 1950s they did not do much to anticipate or shape it.15 Amateurs reawakened another type of manufacturer. Producers of kit homes had been devastated by the Depression. Those, like Aladdin and Halliday’s, that had survived saw their fortunes revive. More impressive growth was experienced by a younger sibling, the so-called prefabricator. During the 1930s, many observers concluded that factory fabrication of whole dwellings was the future of the industry. Dozens of companies sprang up. Established in 1932, General Housing, the most prominent, styled itself the “General Motors of the new industry of shelter.” This sounded impres-

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sive. During and immediately after the war, the federal government offered several companies large contracts and/or financial support. Homasote, for example, erected 5,000 units for the navy at Portsmouth, Virginia. Peaking in 1942, prefabs briefly accounted for 16 percent of (a low level of) housing starts. Several companies tried innovative technologies. In Peoria, for example, Le Tourneau developed a Tournalayer, a huge wheeled contraption that laid fully formed concrete houses. Such experiments failed, sometimes spectacularly. In 1946, the housing expediter forecast that 250,000 prefabs would be built that year, and 600,000 in 1947. Actual numbers were 37,200 and 37,400, respectively, or 5–7 percent of new detached dwellings. Companies were hampered by local building codes, lender skepticism, and opposition from tradesmen and dealers—shades of 1911! Many also neglected distribution and marketing. Those that survived, and thrived, relied on the proven technology of panel or wood framing. In most cases, “prefabrication” was a misnomer: some did prefabricate components, such as roof trusses and wall panels, but hardly any shipped whole dwellings. The most successful was National Homes. Started in 1940, within a decade this company had become a national force on the basis of its popular Thrift House. In fiscal 1952–1953, it sold 12,738 dwellings and by 1953 its offerings ranged from the expensive $12,500 Ranger to the cheap $4,700 Cadet, which qualified for Class 3 finance. National led a growing pack. In 1954, a census undertaken by House and Home, Henry Luce’s popular new magazine for the building industry, found eighty-three prefabricators in the United States that sold through local distributors, and three in Canada. (Two dozen, including Aladdin, sold direct to the consumer.) By 1952, prefabs accounted for 8 percent of housing starts, rising to 10 percent by 1956.16 A key difference between the kit companies and the precutters was their method of distribution. Kits were ordered by mail and shipped by rail. Prefabs were ordered through and delivered by local distributor-dealers, who shared the burden of advertising. In Peoria, it was Franklin Sales and Service that advertised Raleigh’s Mastercraft line of prefabricated homes; Thos. S. Hayden, “operative builder,” informed newspaper readers that he erected homes made by P&H of Chillicothe, Illinois; Service Realty boasted about National’s 1950 Thrift Home; while Russel Hepperly placed ads for Adirondack Homes and basked in shared glory when Look magazine chose an Adirondack precut that he had erected as its “1948 Look House.” Manufacturers even used distributors in their home town. Peoria was home to one of the top ten prefabricators in the early 1950s. W. G. Best had built locally since the 1920s, but in 1943 went to work for the federal government supervising the assembly of prefabs. Returning to Peoria in 1946, he spent three years

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50. The possibilities of partial prefabrication: local and regional agencies. Homes in Hamilton Park, Peoria, were versions of a standard unit produced locally after 1949 by Best Manufacturing, which also distributed through local agents across the Midwest. Photo by the author.

experimenting with “partial factory-built” methods. In 1949, he began marketing a “Security Home” that was four-fifths factory built, “rolling from assembly lines as if they were canned goods or automobiles.” Within two years, he had sold a thousand within a 350 mile radius, mostly through distributors such as his Peoria agent, Traders Realty. By the summer of 1951, Traders had erected about 1,500 Best homes in the Peoria area, including a whole subdivision named Hamilton Park (figure 50). In some cases, manufacturers sold through builders such as Hayden or developers such as Traders, who found it convenient to erect a prefab rather than employing skilled tradesmen, who were for some years in short supply. In 1949, for example, the imposingly named Cosmopolitan Housing Corporation erected forty of National’s Thrift Houses in Youngstown, Pennsylvania. A more common arrangement was for the local distributor to sell directly to the home buyer, who might pay for erection, but who often did the work himself.17 Not surprisingly, owner-building and prefabrication grew in tandem. In 1949, an article in the trade press noted that many of the units sold by Sears during its brief reentry into the kit business were being “erected by the

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consumers themselves.” Sears made this pitch in local newspapers, such as the Peoria Journal-Transcript. Distributors often pointed out the cost savings of an easily assembled precut. Universal Sales and Service (Peoria) made this point about the Factory Bilt homes produced by Strathmoor of Detroit, just as Best and Traders did. From 1947, Best advertised the cost of his prefabs when erected ($3,462) or not ($2,732). By 1951, a national survey identified nineteen companies who sold kits to owner-builders, and one specialized in this field. The latter might have been Techbuilt, which was founded by architect Carl Koch. Techbuilt used plywood to produce stressed-skin panels that were designed for ease of use. Given this business trend, it made sense that the final Popular Mechanics manual for ownerbuilders dealt with a precut.18

Lenders Wavered No matter how they built, amateurs needed credit. The point was repeatedly noted in magazines and how-to manuals.19 Paul Corey urged amateurs to pay cash, building slowly as savings allowed, but this required fortitude and might stretch the building process over several years. Typically, the absence of construction finance deterred families from starting; or, if credit dried up midstream, this caused problems. Lumber dealers might provide thirty- or even sixty-day credit, often unsecured, but sometimes as a lien. In 1950, an HHFA-sponsored study of Jacksonville, Florida, found that dealers provided 43 percent of all construction loans, and their importance for owner-builders was undoubtedly more. Most dealers fixed a credit ceiling, but this was on open account so that as families repaid debt they could buy more on credit. Many dealers would raise the ceiling, if the homesteader was making progress. This arrangement enabled many people to build, but it did not solve the long-term problem. If a family wished to complete a modest structure within a single building season—and there were obvious reasons why they might—they would inevitably fall deep into debt with the retailer. The dealer would accept this only if he knew that, at the end of the process, the owner could obtain a mortgage and settle his construction account. Unfortunately, many lenders were wary of writing a mortgage on an owner-built home, and especially at making a prior commitment. But without this, why would the dealer offer open-account credit? And so how could the homesteader get started? Catch-22. As Ruth Fonseca put it in a letter to Small Homes Guide, “How do you connect with a mortgage when your home is still in your head?”20 Fortunately, some lenders would loan to homesteaders. Some, like First

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Federal of Detroit and Second Federal of Cleveland, were drawn in by the FHA through its Class 3 or Section 8 programs. Others had learned to accept this type of business because in their local market it had become common. The prime example was Peoria. Even before the war, First Federal had led the way in lending to amateurs, and it continued to do so after 1945. By the early 1950s, Peoria was not unique. In 1949, the federal building survey had found that Seattle had a very high rate of owner-building. Significantly, another HHFA-funded study, this time of the Pacific Northwest, found that several regional lenders had concluded that homesteaders were a safe bet. But this was not the norm. The only HHFA study to explore the attitudes of lenders to amateurs found that four-fifths of midwestern lenders refused this business, and none preferred it. James W. Pearson waxed sarcastic in Home Builders Monthly: “Lending officers have been known to hesitate before letting amateurs experiment with someone else’s money.” He was a hostile witness, but he spoke for many others.21 The problems of getting credit were even greater in Canada. There the problem was compounded twice over. First, because there was a shortage of mortgage funds. Until 1954, commercial banks were not allowed to make loans secured on real estate. Insurance and trust companies were the main institutional sources of mortgage funds, but after 1945 they could not meet the demand. In 1954, revisions to the National Housing Act and the Bank Act brought banks into the picture. But until then, mortgage credit was in short supply and lenders could pick and choose. Second, as a result, whole suburbs and towns, together with extensive rural areas, simply had no lenders. The institutional lenders operated at the provincial or national scales, and were based in major urban centers. They were not easily able to serve more remote areas, including the less desirable suburbs of those urban centers. In Canada, owner-builders who were veterans could turn to the Veterans Land Administration, but others had to fend for themselves. Somehow they managed. How?

The Dealer as Savior In a patchwork way, lenders, prefabricators, and municipalities, as well as Canadian and U.S. federal agencies, helping homesteaders, but the most consistently important source of assistance was the local lumber dealer. It was typically the dealer that provided the materials and tools; who offered, or arranged, credit; and who could help solve the day-to-day problems that no manual could address. For owner-builders, as Paul Corey recognized, the dealer was a savior. What Corey might also have pointed out was that

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it was demand from the amateur, multiplied a millionfold, that forced the final transformation of the lumber dealer into the modern home improvement store. The dealer’s basic service was to provide a wide choice of materials and tools. Looking back from the 1960s, some observers suggested that retail diversification, and the demise of the “traditional lumberyard,” was a postwar phenomenon. This showed a lack of historical perspective that was typical. Twenty years earlier, the marketing counsel for a New York ad agency suggested that changes had started during the Depression, but in earlier chapters I have shown that the key shift in attitudes towards substitutes had happened a decade earlier. Consumer pressure for repairs and conversions during the Depression and the war reinforced the trend. But it is true that diversification had still not proceeded very far by 1945. For fifteen years, business had been slow and uncertain, and dealers had been reluctant to make major investments in new stock or showroom facilities. They were willing to make marginal changes, for example substituting asphalt or asbestos shingles for wood, which a 1945 Building Supply News survey showed many had done. The same survey showed that dealers were now comfortable stocking wallboard. A transatlantic technical assistance mission soon reported that U.S. lumber dealers were much more likely to “combine their business with the sale of other articles” than their European counterparts. And they were more diversified than their Australian cousins, because timber merchants Down Under still had business ties to local mills. But BSN went too far in claiming, as it did in the same year, that “lumber and building material dealer” had become “a misnomer” as the retailer transformed himself into the “one stop retail outlet for almost everything used to build and equip a home.” In 1948, “lumberyards”—a major category used by the census—still derived 69 percent of their revenues from lumber and millwork. Recent conditions had not encouraged wholesale diversification.22 But, after building restrictions were lifted in spring 1947, those conditions were now a-changing. In 1945, the one-stop retail outlet was still a vision of the future, but it was a near future. Contemporaries claimed that the first store of this kind opened in Atlanta in 1952, or perhaps St. Louis in 1956. The historian of Wickes, which by the 1960s had grown rapidly to become America’s first national building supply chain, has suggested that this company’s cash-andcarry store in Bay City, Michigan, was the first of its kind when it opened in 1952. Its stripped-down business model and exurban location were pathbreaking, but at first it targeted only contractors. An alternative claim might

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be implied by Lowe’s, which had picked up Wickes’ mantle by the 1980s. Beginning as a small-town, main-street hardware operation, Lowe’s had opened its second store in a suburban location by 1949, and a third in 1952. But at that time it still thought of itself as selling hardware, and did not stock bulkier building supplies.23 In truth, others had already pioneered the diversified home improvement store. The idea had been promoted since 1917 by Harold Rosenberg at Building Supply News. From the late 1920s, lumber dealers had been shedding their loyalty to lumber and by the 1940s the circulation of BSN, “The Dealer’s Own Paper,” was approaching that of the American Lumberman, which still spoke for the whole lumber trade. In 1946, manufacturers still made up 22 percent of the Lumberman’s readership, but none of BSN’s. Rosenberg’s upstart had just overtaken its senior competitor, with a higher circulation that commanded richer advertising, and it then stretched its lead among retailers. Rosenberg cajoled and argued: “Are you ready to compete?,” he asked them in 1945, and allayed their fears of spreading themselves too thin. Using Sears as a point of reference, he listed 163 items that “any dealer can push today,” from nails to disappearing stairs. Almost every month he and, following his example, the American Lumberman featured dealers who had diversified. In February 1945, it was Highland Lumber and Coal of Indiana that now claimed to sell “everything to build anything”; in June 1946, it was National Lumber of St. Paul that had thoroughly diversified and built a showroom; in December 1947, it was Chambers Lumber, which used generous advertising to pitch a one-stop operation.24 By 1950, Rosenberg used Hankins-Paulson Lumber, of Uniontown, Pennsylvania, to illustrate “the trend that has accelerated with great vigor since the last World War,” namely diversification. Hankins-Paulson had drawn the line at housewares, but carried everything else. Rosenberg even encouraged dealers to advertise “traffic builders,” popular items that brought in buyers even though they had no connection to the building trade. This was a retailing strategy par excellence. In 1947, he reported that the GroganRobinson Lumber Co. of Great Falls, Montana, was claiming that selling insect repellent in June and July had raised paint sales more than 225 percent over the same period in 1946. (The building boom might have played a part.) Of course, as dealers diversified, it became difficult to find salesmen who could offer expert advice on all of the goods sold. One way to handle the problem that had already been learned in 1946 by the Hill-Behan Lumber Co. of St. Louis, after it had built a 20,000-square-foot supermarketstyle showroom, was to divide the store into departments, each with trained

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staff. This, of course, was what department stores were already doing. In the Sears paint department, for example, clerks were soon required to take a tenweek course that concluded with a 2½-hour examination.25 The case studies and exhortations in Building Supply News gave the impression of a retail trade that was transforming overnight. Change was happening more rapidly than ever, and some retailers were completely retooling, but the pattern was complex. Steady change, established in the late 1940s, probably did not pick up pace during the 1950s. Even in 1961, Clark Row’s survey of 1,500 dealers in the southern and central states reported that “lumber is still the mainstay” of their business, accounting for half of retail sales, the same as in Canada. Retailers in larger urban centers were still the most specialized. Lumber comprised 53 percent of the sales of metropolitan dealers, as opposed to 45 percent in smaller centers. In both types of place, gypsum wallboard, composition roofing and insulation, and plywood, were “universally sold”; paint (85/96 percent) nearly so; hardware and tools (86/87 percent) very commonly; while brick or concrete blocks (37/68 percent), together with linoleum (22/52 percent), rather more rarely. The trend was continuing. Another survey, this time carried out by Reavis Cox and colleagues on a national scale, compared 1957 with 1962. Of the 346 dealers reporting in the latter year, 178 claimed to be carrying more lines than five years earlier; only 18 reported less. Similarly, 129 said that they stocked more items per line, and only 16 less. If, during the Depression, retail change had flowed at the rate of tar sands, by the 1950s it had become heavy crude. There was momentum, but scarcely a tidal wave.26 But metaphors based on averages were becoming misleading. Diversification made sense for retailers who wished to serve consumers, but not all did. Why? After all, the appeal of the consumer trade seemed obvious. Relatively and absolutely, demand from that source was growing rapidly. In 1950 the American Lumberman, which Arthur Hood had renamed American Lumberman and Building Products Merchandiser when he took over as editor in 1949, had undertaken a dealer survey. It found that 30 percent of sales were cash-and-carry, a minimum indicator of the consumer trade. (Hardly any contractors paid cash, and many consumers had revolving credit.). Better still, consumers paid top dollar: they were not as well-informed as contractors about prices and, individually, they lacked bargaining strength. As BSN put it, the sweat equity business was “non-competitive . . . you get your full price.” Against this, of course, the business was fiddly: small sales, lots of paperwork, and time-consuming demands for assistance and service. Lathrop Leishman of Crown City Lumber, Pasadena, dramatized this to a dealer meeting with the help of Maudia Pickett, “a stage and TV actress.” (Only in

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Pasadena!) As Leishman began his talk, Maudia flounced in through the stage door and coyly asked for “a piece of wood as long as this string.” The audience rolled its eyes. The trick, Leishman suggested, was that when faced with such challenges the dealer had to “sell value and get your price.” Customers took work, but they offered plenty of opportunity for profits.27 Moreover, especially in the larger metropolitan centers, demand from builders was starting to erode. Assisted by the federal government, from the 1940s, large builders gained market share, a trend that persisted through the 1950s. As Sherman Maisel showed, in the Bay Area in the early 1950s, even medium-sized builders found it advantageous to buy at wholesale, and the single greatest price advantage of the largest builders was their ability to buy from the mills: although the smallest builders purchased four-fifths of their lumber from retailers, nine out of ten large builders bought direct. For retailers, the situation grew worse during the 1950s. In some markets, dealers lost much of their traditional business. Jacksonville, Florida, offered a cautionary example, recounted in one of the rare critical articles in the retailer trade press. After 1948, a group of speculative builders had grown rapidly. Initially they had bought from local dealers who, typically, had carried their credit. But as they grew they insisted on discounts, and when dealers resisted the builders moved their business to wholesalers, or opened their own distribution agencies. By 1960, local dealers were left with a diverse rump of customers: “sales to home improvement contractors, consumers, and half a dozen custom builders.” Nationwide, as Row suggested, “supplying more than supplemental material to large developers is beyond the capacity of the average yard.” Sticks as well as carrots were bringing retailers closer to the consumer.28 But not all retailers went that route, and for good reasons. Some resisted, or dithered, for the same reasons that they, and their predecessors, had held back in earlier decades. There was the attraction of a business they knew, and the uncertainties of the unknown. Missteps were probable. For example, Hill-Behan had faced consumer resistance until they learned to divide their supermarket-style store into departments. Other retailers made mistakes and floundered. In Media, Pennsylvania, C. H. Marshall was a case in point. In 1959, Marshall tried to transform itself from an “old-fashioned lumber yard” into a “modern, consumer-conscious retail merchandising center.” They had kept their own mill, however, and failed to inject zip into their signage and displays. As a result, overheads rose more rapidly than their sales. Fortunately, a new consulting division of the regional dealers’ association was able to set them on the right path. Considering the odds of making mistakes, many retailers decided to stand pat.29

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The main problem was that the new business and the old were not just different; in some ways they were incompatible. The point was dissected by Paul Hollenbeck in 1957. He knew what he was talking about. He had worked as a sales manager for a California line yard before establishing his own consulting business in 1950. Since then he had run management schools for dealers that focused on the issue of pricing. As he argued in Building Supply News, dealers faced (at least) two types of business, and two types of competition. Contractors wanted low prices, and for that business retailers had to meet competition from wholesalers and mills. Consumers wanted choice, and service, and for their business dealers must compete with department and hardware stores. Such differences implied a tiered price structure. Because the overhead expenses associated with consumer sales were so much higher—Hollenbeck suggested a figure of 35 percent as opposed to 8 percent for sales to project builders—it was proper to impose a much higher markup—perhaps 82 percent as opposed to 12 percent. The dealer who wished to satisfy both types of customer in effect had to run two types of operation. One involved the efficient handling of bulk quantities; the other required small sales and courteous service for choosy but uncertain shoppers. Careful diplomacy was needed if a consumer found out that she was paying more for wallboard than the contractor who had given her an estimate that included a price for materials. More than diplomacy might be at stake. In 1948, the Federal Trade Commission became interested in the question as to whether, and under what circumstances, retailers were justified in offering bulk discounts. In principle, these could be justified in terms of differential overhead costs, but hardly any dealers kept sufficiently detailed books to make a case. Moving into the consumer trade called for a careful balancing act.30 Maintaining a balance was possible, and some dealers managed it. A notable example was Chicago’s Edward Hines (figure 51). After 1945, it built suburban showrooms that were, as the company recalled in 1992, “forerunners of today’s home centers,” but they also opened their own millwork facility that supplied pre-hung doors and pre-glazed windows to area builders. Similarly, in Kansas City, Long-Bell opened a “model store” in 1950 that included sports and cycle equipment as well as home supplies, but they advertised that contractors were welcome too. The scale of Hines and LongBell, and their prominence in local markets, helped a lot. (In the late 1940s, Hines sold 40–45 percent of the lumber for house building in the Chicago.) They could satisfy contractors, and had the capital to build showrooms and to hire skilled marketers. Although the NRLDA claimed that helping the amateur was “a ‘must’ for every alert building material merchant,” smaller

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51. Edward Hines display at a Chicago Home Show, c. 1945. Women and men, equally, were interested in plans and materials. Source: Edward Hines Lumber Co.

dealers had to consider carefully whether it might not be better to specialize. By the late 1950s, many were beginning to conclude that it was. In their national survey, Cox and associates found continuing fluidity in the building trade: dealers went into contracting for a while and then drew back; large builders, such as the Levitt brothers, set up their own supply companies; wholesalers established retail operations; and so forth. But they did detect an emerging bifurcation between the “home centers” that served consumers and the traditional dealers that were becoming “assembler-fabricators for their builder accounts.” Except in small towns, remaining traditional was no longer a matter of simple inertia. It became a business strategy. In Alberta, for example, David Enman set up business in 1948 to cater primarily to contractors (70 percent), or commercial businesses (20 percent), and only incidentally (10 percent) to the retail consumer. Self-consciously, they “cultivated the image of an old style . . . lumber yard.” They were not alone. Cox and associates found that, by the early 1960s, four out of five dealers sold primarily to builders or to consumers; only one in five mixed it up. If there was pressure to diversify, then, there were also growing incentives to become, or remain, specialized, even more by type of customer than by type

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of product, although the two often went together. Some companies tried to be all things to all people, but more were concluding that they had to make a choice.31

The New Era of Service Those retailers who chose to help amateurs discovered, if they did not already know, that they had to do more than stock a lot of stuff. They needed to provide information, assistance with home planning, and advice not just in the selection of materials and tools but also in their use. Owner-builders needed service. The first service was help with home design. Many amateurs were content to buy blueprints from a magazine or plan service, but they might need to make alterations, whether to suit their own needs or because of peculiarities of the site. Architects were perceived to be expensive, and a smart dealer could step into the breach. Since the 1920s, of course, many dealers had stocked their own plan books, and after 1945 these expanded their offerings. In 1953, for example, the Shaw Lumber Company of St. Paul had packaged the plan books produced by companies such as Weyerhaeuser and loaned them to customers through an in-store lending library. By the early 1960s, even in Mississippi—not noted for being at the cutting edge of retail innovation—86 percent of dealers offered plan books and related forms of home planning assistance.32 A significant minority of retailers developed a home planning service. They adapted sketches or plans provided by the customer, or designed from scratch. The line yards, which made up a declining proportion of dealerships during the 1940s and 1950s, were especially good at this. In Utah, for example, the Anderson company developed a plan service for their chain of twenty-one showrooms. Such line yards had the advantage of scale. With thirty-six outlets, for example, in 1944 the Eclipse Lumber Co. based in Clinton, Iowa, set up a single home planning department that was available to all, but used only by some. Their “home consultant,” John Banker—one imagines the puns—supervised a full-time draftsman as well as a loan manager and construction supervisor. By the mid-1960s, a quarter of dealers offered design services of this sort. By then, these would have been used mostly by customers who were having a home built, rather than doing it themselves, and this was always an option. Eclipse, for example, was willing to sell to homesteaders, to act as a general contractor, or to build on speculation. But in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the dealer’s as-

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sistance with home planning was an important resource for many ownerbuilders.33 Amateurs also needed information. After 1945, manufacturers introduced a slew of new materials and tools. In such situations, as William Leiss has argued, customers rely on manufacturers—or their agents—for information and advice. Contractors turned to dealers and, as Reavis Cox found, this was doubly true of consumers. That is why a supermarket-style store needed departments with knowledgeable staff. But telling was not enough: owner-builders preferred to be shown how to build. Dealers soon caught on: in summer, 1946, the American Lumberman reported that “alert dealers” were offering practical help and, by 1950, BSN viewed this as an established “trend.” Ed Mathieu in Blue Island, a Chicago suburb, was a leading example. His father had been helping amateur builders since 1941, and found them “the best risks in the world.” By 1950, the company was helping twenty-five homesteaders a year, including a schoolteacher, a welder, a lab inspector, a small businessman, and a telephone technician. According to Mathieu, the key was “teaching the basic construction techniques,” which meant hosting evening classes taught by manufacturers reps or by his own staff. Many retailers did the same. By 1955, Sawyers of Worcester, Massachusetts, was offering short courses—three hours on five successive Monday evenings—to school handymen in house building. The need was obvious. They had 150 spaces but, even at $5 a head, the course was oversubscribed.34 Evening classes were not usually hands-on: there wasn’t the room (or equipment) for 150 people to practice the use of a miter box in the dealer’s showroom. The teaching that counted most happened on site. Dealers began to employ people, like the building inspectors with the Canadian Veterans Land Administration, whose job descriptions combined instructor with building supervisor. The largest companies offered the cost advantage of prefabrication, but less advice. In Washington, D.C., Barber and Ross produced their own roof trusses, windows, doors, and wall panels, while distributing an instruction booklet for amateurs. They employed two full-time building inspectors, who visited each site about three times. This system compared with that of the City of Stockholm, and operated on a similar scale: in 1956, the company sold more than 750 house packages, 560 being bought by “do-it-yourselfers in the lower income brackets.” Smaller companies, like United Lumber and Millwork, of Cleveland, Ohio, gave “continuous assistance,” with a more personal touch. The demands on staff could be considerable. In Jackson, Michigan, Schaffer Lumber asked salesmen to be available on evenings and weekends. They had raised the consumer share of

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their business to 70 percent, but this meant going the extra mile—literally, to the building site. The payoffs could be large. In Jasper, Alabama, North Alabama Lumber set up a three-man “outside sales and technical team.” One of the men, Tom Dillard, visited sites within a forty-mile radius of the dealership once a week, helping amateurs to read blueprints, suggesting shortcuts, correcting errors, and controlling the flow of materials. Because Dillard spent so much time on the road, he kept an eye out for new prospects, noting sites that had recently sold or were being prepped for construction, while encouraging his customers to suggest leads. Some dealers, such as Whiting-Mead of San Diego, reckoned that the key to selling “thrift cottages” was not just continuous assistance but “constant supervision.” Some offered a backup plan. By 1953, Clairton Commercial, in Pennsylvania, had helped 1,500 families build a home. Of these, ten had failed to finish, so the dealer hired contractors to complete the job and save the company’s investment.35 Supervision, and guaranteed completion, was vital if dealers were to win the cooperation of lenders. Clairton Commercial had arranged for a local lender to pick up a mortgage as each dwelling was completed. Their job was to provide the materials, construction finance, and site supervision. A classic case, featured several times in the trade press, was Dolan’s of Sacramento, California. Like Schaffer, 70 percent of Dolan’s business was with the consumer, and in nine out of ten of their home packages—marketed from a model dwelling in their parking lot—buyers did “a major part of the work.” Their salesmen visited each site every two weeks. After 120 days, owners began mortgage payments to a cooperating lender. In the early stages of such a program, to secure the lender’s cooperation, retailers had to guarantee completion, as Eglund Lumber of Bakersfield, California, did from 1951. That year, a BSN survey found that a large minority of the dealers who did this business offered guarantees. Others, such as Mathieu, did the same thing informally, carrying amateurs on open account for up to eight months and then finding a savings and loan that was “more than happy to pick up the paper on completion.” This meant that dealers had to be selective. Choosy did not mean inflexible. In Manchester, New Hampshire, J. J. Moreau and Sons judged borrowers in part on the basis of how many friends and family members they could call upon; Cleveland’s Forest City Materials Co. did the same. Indeed, one way or another, many amateurs probably received credit for having what Bourdieu has referred to as social capital. At the very least, the proper caution of the lender compelled dealers to undertake careful screening and close supervision as well as offering practical supports.36

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Of course, the amateur’s demand for building services varied greatly from place to place. It was concentrated in and around small towns, or lower-income suburbs, while being largely absent from inner city neighborhoods and affluent suburbs. The social class of a suburb was not necessarily decisive since, for a time, a wide range of people tried their hand at building. More critical were local building regulations. The point was discussed in a BSN feature in 1954, which identified three markets for do-it-yourself sales: home improvement, home hobbyist, and sweat equity. Located in a prosperous Chicago suburb, Northbrook Lumber was ignoring the third market, not because locals were too affluent but because regulations made it almost impossible for amateurs to build.37 The most complete service that the dealer could offer was one that combined seamless financing and on-site support with the simplest building technology. That is what some distributors of prefabs set out to do. Manufacturers were pleased to market prefab units through any reliable distributor, but it made sense to use agents such as contractors or retailers who knew the trade. By 1946, General Houses had learned this lesson from bitter experience, and when in the same year a “leading home prefabricating company” advertised in a Peoria newspaper for a franchise dealer, it specified “5 years construction experience, good reputation as a builder” and “$10,000 working capital.” Later, National too built a network of experienced associates. Several prefab companies advertised in the retailers’ trade press, especially Building Supply News. In 1947, for example, Adirondack tried to sell itself to dealers by using a testimonial from a satisfied veteran in Trenton, New Jersey, who had built his own home. For retailers, the problem was that the commission on a prefab was less than the profit on a conventionally built home. Each manufacturer required only one distributor in a given market region, and there were many fewer distributors than retailers. In short, most dealers viewed prefabricators with as much suspicion as they had once treated the kit companies. Significantly, in the Peoria area, none of the distributors of prefabs were lumber dealers; all were builders or, most commonly, realtor/developers. The retailer trade journals did attempt a conciliatory line. In 1945, for example, BSN interviews with three large prefabricators indicated that all were keen to use lumber dealers. But the companies conceded that they had met with dealer resistance. This persisted, and some dealers penalized jobbers who helped to site and erect local prefabs.38 The alternative was for dealers to make their own kits. A few, such as Crosby Lumber of Crosby, Mississippi, had done this before the war, and

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many others began to do this after 1945. Making precuts was encouraged by the national leadership. In 1947, the NRLDA joined with the Producers’ Council to launch the Industry Engineered Housing Program, which promoted the standardization of building dimensions in a way that favored precutting and the local production of kits. And so, for example, by 1950 Sidney Cohen’s Sons in a small town south of Cleveland, Ohio, was using IE principles to produce a range of six kits that amateurs could easily assemble. They were selling enough—fifty units in 1949 and another fifty sales expected for spring 1950—that they had erected a model home. For educational purposes, in certain sections “construction is left exposed to show just how the house is put together.” Cohen’s also loaned customers trailers to take material home. A larger step was taken by the NRLDA in 1954. After field testing by the University of Illinois Small Homes Council, and working with the Lumber Dealers Research Council, the NRLDA developed and marketed Lu-Re-Co, a modular system of four-foot panels for sheathed stud walls that met FHA standards and cut labor by 25–30 percent. This scheme was picked up by builders, including Martin Bartling, who helped found the Research Institute of the National Association of Home Builders. It was welcomed even more by lumber dealers, who deployed it in various ways. At one extreme, a few dealers, such as Coronet Homes, a building subsidiary in Katonah, New York, used Lu-Re-Co technology to produce both custom and spec-built housing. A quarter of each dwelling was prefabricated in the company’s own shop. Alternatively, the Lu-Re-Co system offered by many dealers helped small builders compete with their larger counterparts. Clarence Thompson, chair of the Lumber Dealers Research Council, was a case in point. With four yards in central Illinois, Thompson did almost threequarters of his business with the five- to twenty-five-house-a year builders who bought his panelized walls. And, of course, Lu-Re-Co could also help amateurs. In Philadelphia, for example, the Hog Island Lumber Company, operating as Hilco, started in 1950 by selling precuts to owner-builders, and later adopted a version of Lu-Re-Co technology. In Blue Island, Ed Mathieu became passionate about the idea. “Lu-Re-Co,” he argued in 1954, “is a Natural for Sweat Equity,” reckoning that it was “the best thing that ever hit the sweat equity market.” Soon, consumer magazines such as Small Homes Guide featured its potential for this market.39 Most dealers did not wait for, or use, the new technology. As mail-order companies had proven long before, kits could be produced by precutting, and many dealers moved in that direction after the war. By the fall of 1953, House and Home reported that the NRLDA was pinning its hopes on precutting, which “would in effect put every well-equipped lumberyard in a

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position to set itself up as a local prefabricator.” A typical operation was that of Benton Lefton, who had begun making precuts for local builders in Cleveland in 1947. Melfort Finkbiner, a dealer in Calgary, Alberta, soon provided a more ambitious example. In 1951, he went into business with a local builder, and then started a precutting service for other builders and buyers. By 1954 he was producing 400 kits a year. Initially he sold mostly to builders, or for company towns, but he soon ran clinics to offer home owner tips. A comparable operation was started by R. L. Sweet in Kansas City, which had moved into prefabrication by making roof trusses for a local builder. Soon, the building superintendent for J. C. Nichols, the grandfather of community builders, concluded that “what Sweet is doing is the biggest new change in the building industry to benefit the small builder.”40 Precuts helped amateurs too. In the early 1950s, for example, the Lumbermen’s Association of Texas developed a version for speculative builders in tract developments, but it came with instructions and attracted interest from amateurs, not to mention Senator Lyndon Johnson, who was “amazed and thrilled” at its potential. The strength of the demand for precuts from amateurs often surprised dealers. In Denver, Barr Lumber had intended marketing its house and garage kits to contractors but soon realized that consumers were a safer bet. The point soon became obvious. In Ottumwa, Iowa, Wormhoudt Lumber competed with prefab manufacturers by exploiting the FHA’s Title II, Class 3, and then Section 8 financing. But the leading example of a dealer who used kits to sell to amateurs was Grossman’s of Quincy, Massachusetts. Starting in 1948, Grossman’s produced a ten-houseplan catalog, launched an advertising campaign using radio, newspapers, and direct mail, and ran clinics in neighboring towns. It trained a “crew of field service men” to offer on-site advice and sold “hundreds” of units within two years. Crucially, Mount Vernon Cooperative Bank helped with the financing since owner-built homes are “probably the most secure kinds of mortgages available to cooperative banks and savings and loan associations.” With lender cooperation, Grossman’s won an NRLDA award for service to the industry two years running.41 As had happened in the 1920s, local dealers were being threatened by competition from regional or national manufacturers. This time, however, the battle lines were less clear-cut. The new manufacturers were willing to use local retailers as agents, while dealers were in a better position to adopt some of the manufacturers’ methods: if not kits, then perhaps the precutting of wall modules or roof trusses. The two business models had converged. By the early 1960s, the sale of “prefinished” building components was common, though still not ubiquitous. In 1963, 31 percent of dealers

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precut trusses, 17 percent made exterior wall panels, 11 percent sold prefabs, and 9 percent actually made them. Precutting had become important for small contractors, but not for the new consumer market, especially after the owner-building balloon began to deflate in the 1950s.42 What was essential for the consumer market was a new retail presence.

The Home Improvement Store Dealers who were serious about the consumer business had to make their premises much more attractive. Some retailers had built showrooms in the 1920s, and this became a minor trend when home building revived in the late 1930s. The postwar boom made them a necessity. After 1945, the trade press published dozens of examples of how dealers across Canada and the United States were giving their premises a complete facelift. Building Supply News helped them to do so by publishing booklets in 1952 and 1953, and then a series of layouts sketched by a design consultant. In May 1957, it featured the Trotwood Lumber Co., of Dayton, Ohio, which had been inspired by one of these (figure 52). Trotwood had grown after 1945 by selling to contractors but then, realizing that “business is changing,” had decided to make “a definite pitch for the consumer trade,” which meant “handyman merchandizing.” By 1956, half of their house sales were to consumers and farmers, and so they hired the consultant to do a market survey. They followed his recommendations about how to adjust their merchandizing mix, and how to display stock in a new showroom. This was no longer an adjunct to the lumberyard, a place to display a few sidelines such as paint. Instead, it had become the heart of retail operations, showcasing materials and services, and drawing customers into the home planning center and office, where financing might be arranged.43 This type of infrastructure was new enough that the trade didn’t quite know what to call it. “Store” or “showroom” distinguished it from the older “yard,” but seemed inadequate, as was demonstrated by a report on the Valley Lumber Yards of New Westminster, a mill community that was becoming a suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. Valley Lumber was a small line yard that was modernizing in the late 1940s. To supplement a small “sampler showroom,” in 1949 it opened a “ ‘man and wife’ shopping centre for building materials.” “Shopping center” was used in many contemporary accounts, as when BSN featured the facilities of Detroit’s C. M. Lumber and Supply in 1947. “Supermarket,” too, was sometimes used to emphasize self-service. Thus the Canadian Lumberman, comparable to its U.S. coun-

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terpart, described Belton’s Lumber in London, Ontario, where “everything required in the building of a home is laid out before the customer.” But perhaps because most customers needed assistance and “super market service” sounded passive, the term did not catch on (figure 53). Slowly, “home center” gathered momentum, being used to describe the retail stores that Long-Bell was building by 1948. Now, this may seem an inevitable choice. But through the early 1950s, the terminology, as well as the reality, of the home improvement store was still taking shape.44 Whatever the name, putting the home center where most lumberyards were still located made no sense. Until World War II, most yards sat beside a freight yard. A small minority had risked opening a store on a pedestrian shopping street. After 1945, many existing businesses, and almost all new ones, reached out to the consumer in new ways. BSN talked a lot about location. In February 1946, it hosted a debate on the subject. Its report ran under the heading “Main Street versus the Tracks,” but there was no contest. Everyone who spoke agreed that a new, consumer-friendly location was necessary. The only question was where. The consensus was that in small towns a central location was best: inexpensive land allowed the building retailer to acquire enough space on an established shopping street. That November, the journal featured a good example. After seventy-seven years in operation, J. P. Burroughs of Flint, Michigan, had opened a new store six blocks from downtown. In larger centers, however, retailers agreed that a more peripheral location on an arterial was best. Indeed, it had become common. In June 1946, among a large expert panel that BSN assembled, 45 percent reported that they were operating away from a railroad siding. The new location raised handling costs, but to attract consumers they had no choice. BSN’s panel was weighted towards the new retailer. Half reported that cash sales made up three quarters of their business, double the figure for all building retailers. But change was already happening. Even in Canada, where per capita ownership of automobiles was only two-thirds that in the United States, “ ‘highway’ lumber yards” were “already familiar.” Highways were the new lifelines, whether coming or going. By the mid-1960s, nine out of ten Mississippi retailers preferred lumber shipments by truck, not by rail. Trucks allowed building retailers to place smaller orders and to locate where customers preferred.45 Stores were now being designed around the automobile. In the new suburbs, almost every family owned a car. Storefronts had to catch the attention of motorists traveling at thirty miles an hour rather than pedestrians walking at three. And so BSN offered tips from the Union Pier (Michigan)

52. The shift from yard to showroom. Trotwood Lumber, of Dayton, Ohio, diversified its lines and reorganized displays to cater to the consumer business of the 1950s. Source: “Makes Most of Compact Design,” Building Supply News 92, no. 5 (May 1957): 108.

53. Checkout at Von Tobel’s, Las Vegas, 1952. Self-service was cutting-edge in 1952, but “super mart” never caught on as the label for what we now know as “home centers.” Source: “Self-Service Super Mart,” American Lumberman and Building Products Merchandiser (July 28, 1952): 44.

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Lumber Co. about what a highway store should do about “getting noticed.” Prominent signs played a big part. Lucky, or shrewd, businesses like AdamsHamnett of Shreveport, Louisiana, found themselves near a stop light. Good parking was no less basic. In October 1946, BSN featured an excellent illustration. Three miles from downtown Madison, Wisconsin, C. C. Collins ran a “spotless,” departmentalized display center. It was a “shopping paradise for Mr. and Mrs. Homeowner,” boasting one hundred parking spaces. The importance of the car was underlined by a BSN reporter who visited an anonymous eastern dealer the same year. With a main and a branch yard, this retailer catered in every way to the amateur: the home plan center featured its own catalog; it priced lumber in linear not board feet; it arranged financing, and ran a training school for its staff. The reporter was “amazed” by the cash-and-carry business, with “lumber and millwork items tied to fenders and door handles plus a back seat full of less bulky merchandise.” Dealers did not want to deliver small quantities, and if they expected customers to carry material away then they had to accommodate the automobile.46 Convenience had a temporal aspect. Contractors liked five-day weeks. Even when working weekends, they could pick up materials, or receive deliveries, during regular working hours. The same was not true of homesteaders. Sometimes women shopped while their husbands worked, but most households owned only one car and men needed it to commute. To serve amateurs, lumber dealers stayed open evenings—especially Fridays—and weekends. In Madison, Wisconsin, Collings stayed open Fridays until 9 p.m. and all day Saturday. In Van Nuys, California, Neiman-Reed Lumber went one better by 1953, opening its new showroom for five hours on Sundays. So had the anonymous eastern dealer, to serve the “working man who wants to repair his own property during his ‘off’ time.” A professional was better able to predict on Friday what materials he might need for the weekend. Owner-builders might be caught short. The smart dealer made available everything the amateur might need, where he could easily get to it, and whenever it might suit him.47 Many amateurs, including those who helped out and shopped, were women (figure 54). Since the 1920s, some retailers had tried to appeal to the woman of the household, but progress had been slow. In 1949, the Prairie Lumberman reported that “less than 15 percent of today’s lumber yards appeal to women buyers.” That may have represented an advance of 14 percentage points over the situation in the mid-1920s, but it still left room for improvement. That same year John Cole, coproprietor of the Peoples

54. The discriminating female customer. Women were the most important customers for many building supplies, especially for home improvements. Source: Building Supply News 68, no. 2 (February 1945).

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Planing Mill of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, drew the obvious lesson. Since “the woman shopper . . . makes or dictates most of the purchases for the home today, so it is high time that lumber yards spruced up their stores.” A familiar refrain—copy the department stores: make attractive displays, stock lines (especially paint) that would bring women into the store, use front windows, make sure that showrooms, counters, and toilets (if any!) were kept clean, and train staff to be courteous and well-groomed. In Brantford, Ontario, Summerhayes Lumber took this thinking as far as they could: they encouraged customers to use their washroom in order to “bring home” the quality of what they stocked.48 The novel element after 1945 was the emphasis placed on training female staff. In the 1920s, very few retailers had entertained this possibility. Now it was promoted as almost a necessity. One reason was the shortage of manpower. During the 1930s, dealers had dismissed salesmen, and allowed others to retire. During the war, some joined the armed forces and never returned to their previous line of work. As early as 1943, a labor shortage loomed. The Indiana retailer’s association was running sessions to help dealers recruit and train staff. By 1945, BSN reported that “many dealers are thinking in terms of ways to stimulate vocational training.” At first, shortages meant that building materials sold themselves but, by 1949, Arthur Hood was warning that a buyer’s market was emerging. The new need was for better staff. The same year, the president of a wholesale-retail operation in South Bend, Indiana, grumbled that “it is nearly impossible to get some [staff] sales-minded again.” For that reason, some retailers preferred to hire from outside the trade. In 1950, the manager of the Hill-Behan chain, which owned seventeen stores in the Chicago area, pointed out that newcomers were more malleable. But problems of recruitment grew. By 1954, the president of the NRLDA was claiming that 63 percent of lost sales were due to “untrained personnel.” It is unclear where this number came from, but clearly retailers were convinced there was a shortage of good staff. Since many dealers had found that “woman power” worked during the war, they were willing to continue the experiment.49 Above all, a woman employee made a store more attractive to female customers. This could be managed in different ways. BSN reckoned that one way for a retailer to get a jump on the competition was to employ a “hostess” to visit new residents in the area. But of course the female employee’s main place was behind the counter (figure 55). The journal convened retailer panels to weigh the merits of hiring women. Here, again, there was unanimity. One dealer reported that four out five of his customers were women,

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55. Female customers liked female staff. Although posed, this photograph of Kaufman Lumber, Salina, Kansas, underlined the advantages of employing female sales clerks. Source: Building Supply News 71, no. 4 (April 1946).

and that he needed a woman to serve them. All agreed that even without training, a female employee would keep the store cleaner, and eliminate some of the “barnyard conversation” too. She would be a “moderator . . . of manners,” while acting as a “swell tonic, morale booster and all-round good influence.” Better than a mere male, she could offer “practical ideas for design and home arrangement.” Noting how influential women were in family decisions about home decoration, the trade press told dealers that the woman customer “is actually your best salesman.” The same should be doubly true of the female employee. Once again, however, change came slowly. One dealer suggested that, of the ten dealers in his town, he was the only one to employ a woman. But he was convinced that this gave him a competitive edge. He was almost certainly right, up to a point. Those retailers who continued to sell mainly to contractors could afford to ignore his advice. It was in the showrooms of the new home improvement store that women were an asset. There, however, they made steady inroads as the amateur building boom reached, and passed, its peak.50

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The Retailer and the Consumer North American dealers had responded to the needs of the postwar ownerbuilder because they were primed to do so. It was not inevitable that they would act so promptly. Comparison with the Australian experience shows that a key event had been the divorce of retailers from manufacturers, which occurred in North America during the 1920s. After 1945, Australia experienced an amateur boom that was at least as large as that in North America, but timber merchants there were slower to diversify, build showrooms, or develop consumer service. By the late 1950s, this reluctance was frustrating Con Lembke, editor of the Australian Timber Journal, who was convinced that other retailers, including hardware and department stores, were cashing in. Because of shared British connections, Lembke noted the contrasts between Australia and Canada, but the comparison had a broader validity. He reported that Canadian suppliers were well in advance of their Australian counterparts. In 1957, for example, he reported that Seaboard Lumber Sales of British Columbia was putting the “accent on service.” Then, in 1959, Lembke brought over Arthur Hood to run dealer workshops in Canberra and Brisbane. He followed this up with a two-month tour of North America, during which he gathered evidence. He reported that, as in Australia, retailers had been pressured to look to consumers because “project builders are . . . by passing the merchant.” He noted that some had stuck with contractors, but that others were providing one-stop service. Using Valley Lumber of New Westminster as an illustration, he talked about how the business models of North American and Australian retailers had diverged. The North Americans had diversified, built showrooms, and offered easier credit; for the most part the Australians, still part of the timber trade, did not. The contrast underlines the importance of the break that had occurred between manufacturers and retailers during the 1920s, coupled with the development of new types of improvement finance from the 1930s onwards. North American retailers were positioned to benefit from, and contribute to, the amateur’s building boom after 1945.51 By the early 1950s, no North American retailer could ignore the consumer market. Despite some of the blandishments in the trade press, this did not mean that all retailers had to chase the new business. They could stick with their contractor customers. But this business was changing too, and inertia was not possible. A series of decisions had to be made. Among those who went after consumers, the boom in owner-building accelerated, and added new twists, to trends that had been affecting retailers for decades.

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It increased the pace of diversification; it extended the need for service; it compelled retailers to present a new face, in a new location; it also encouraged them to think about women as customers, and as employees. Home centers were being built across Canada and the United States. This was especially true in the suburbs, where the building action was concentrated and where auto-based consumers were the norm. Retail change reflected, but it also changed, demand. As building suppliers began to specialize in the consumer trade they became dependent on it, and learned to foster it however they could. This might mean offering exceptional service, including Sunday opening, evening classes, and on-call site instruction on weekday evenings. It probably meant costly investments in new premises in new locations. And so, as the owner-building boom began to fade in the 1950s, these new retail operations cast around for another type of business. They did not invent home improvement and do-it-yourself; they didn’t need to. But they did seize it quickly, and promote it with exceptional vigor. So did manufacturers, when they came to realize that the home handyman, and woman, was here to stay. From early in the century, the emergence of the home improvement business had been slow as one, and then another, agent took initiative: the manufacturer of kits, and then of building supplies; the new middle-class home owner; the beleaguered property owner of the Depression; the federal government as guarantor of credit. Now, as owner-building segued into DIY, and as a distinctive market for home improvement emerged, the interplay among these agents became rapid and intense. This symbiosis marks the final chapter in the emergence of the modern home improvement business.

ELEVEN

The Improvement Business Coalesces

People had always maintained their homes, but home improvement became a recognized industry only in the early 1950s. It got the attention of retailers, advertisers, consumer magazines, and, through the media, a wider public. Although contractors and tradesmen had a large piece of the business, a substantial and growing amount of the work was now done by home owners themselves. In so doing, they saved money and embodied their commitment to family life. Do-it-yourself, a term popularized between 1952 and 1954, became chic, and then a social expectation. Manufacturers and retailers responded aggressively to this cultural shift, and in so doing fostered it. By 1960, home improvement had become a self-propelling phenomenon.

Improvement through Peace and War and Peace It is no coincidence that the first serious attempt to measure home improvement came in 1954. Until then, estimates had cobbled together building permit data with the impressions of building suppliers and contractors. But permit data were incomplete, minor repairs and alterations were hard to count, and plenty of work left no paper trail. It was obvious that investments in this area counted for a lot: the U.S. Department of Commerce had calculated it was worth $6.5 billion annually, about half the investment in new construction, but because the accuracy of this figure was doubtful the census bureau tackled the issue in detail. Surveying two thousand home owners in eighty-six places, and following up with field checks, they estimated $8 billion was spent on owner-occupied homes, $4 billion on rental properties, for a total of $12 billion. This meant that work done on the existing housing stock was as important as new construction. This conclu-

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sion was consistent with the results of surveys carried out by the NRLDA and the American Lumberman in 1950, which found that in urban areas home improvement accounted for 46–47 percent of the retailer’s trade. Home improvement was big business.1 The term embraced a subtly different mix of possibilities. The census bureau made broad distinctions: “alterations and improvements” made up the largest share (47 percent), followed by “repairs and replacements” (42 percent), with “additions” (11 percent) trailing. The terms speak for themselves and in principle were distinct, though reality blurred lines. A recent survey in Britain indicates that household members do not make such sharp distinctions. When they “repair” or “maintain” they also often “improve.” It helped contractors, retailers, and manufacturers to have a rough idea of the types of construction being done, since they required a different mix of tools, materials, and services, but they knew these were a continuum.2 More important was the trend. The census study underlined how inadequate the existing data were. These suggested that, in 1954, expenditures on additions and alterations accounted for 16.5 percent of total residential construction; including repairs, this suggests a total figure for improvement of barely 25 percent, about half what the census study shows. But the imperfect annual data do indicate the trend. (Figures in parentheses have been adjusted to include repairs, and then doubled.) The share of improvements fell in the second half of the 1940s, reaching a postwar low of 13.4 (c. 38) percent in 1950. It then rose in waves, first peaking at 17.9 (c. 50) percent in 1954, 20.4 (c. 58) percent in 1957, and then 22.6 (c. 64) percent in 1960 (figure 17). Each peak was associated with a lull in new construction. The most significant was triggered by the outbreak of the Korean War on June 25, 1950, which trimmed production. Under Regulation X, the federal government limited funds for building; the cost of materials rose; and warinduced inflation raised interest and mortgage rates, which cut demand. By fall 1953, House and Home, the new self-appointed spokesman for the building industry, was arguing that “good housing for low income families can be provided much faster and cheaper by modernizing and rehabilitating existing homes than by new construction.” And, of course, men who had planned to settle down instead found themselves shipped overseas. In 1952, Mrs. Stefanick told Small Homes Guide that she and her husband had intended to build but that they had postponed their plans when he was called up. Meanwhile, like so many others, they made do with what they had.3 The Korean War affected Canada too. The Canadian government did not join this conflict immediately, and proportionately fewer Canadians fought

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there, but markets for money and materials were continental. Interest rates and building costs rose, and new construction dipped. As a result, after falling from 19 percent in 1944 to 9 percent in 1950, conversions and additions as a proportion of all new residential construction jumped to 12 percent in 1951 and stayed high for a couple of years. Even more than in America, these data underestimate the scale of improvement activity, including maintenance and repairs as well as the contribution of amateurs. But the subsequent peaks, in 1957 and 1960, and the longer-run trend were much the same. The Korean conflict brought the improvement peak forward, helping to raise its profile.4 A revival of home improvement was inevitable. Predictable stimuli include an increase in household size, especially when the original dwelling is small, and rising incomes. Both considerations were in play by the 1950s. New houses had been getting smaller for a generation. Those built in the 1920s and still standing in 1950 had, on average, 4.8 rooms, not counting the bath. Those from the 1930s had 4.6 rooms; falling to 4.4 between 1940–1944 and just 4.3 from 1945–1949. The typical postwar house had two bedrooms. The nadir was reached in 1949. In the second half of that year almost a third of all new single-family homes contained less than 800 square feet, and one in ten under 700. By 1951, the proportion of such small houses had halved, to 15 percent, and by 1955 had dropped to 7 percent. Responding to the shift, in 1956 the publishers of Small Homes Guide replaced “Small” with “New.” By previous or later standards, houses built in the first postwar decade were very small. As young couples moved in and started families, the need to remodel became pressing.5 Much of this activity was spontaneous. Maxine Livingstone at Parents Magazine gave an example. In suburban Chicago, the Newmans bought an older home that eventually proved too small, and so they modernized and built an addition. Families had always done this sort of thing. The new element was that many families were building or buying new homes that they knew would be insufficient. Parents Magazine featured “expandable homes” on the principle that “half a house is better than none.” Other publications, including Small Homes Guide (“Rags to Riches House—Expands Five Ways”) and Women’s Home Companion (“Small House Grows Up”), offered the same promise. This sort of promotion peaked in 1949, when new houses had never been smaller.6 Expandable homes were possible because cars enabled families to buy larger lots in distant suburbs where single-story dwellings were the norm. It was easy to add a room at the rear, or side. But there was a more familiar type of expansion that involved finishing a space within the existing shell,

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usually in the attic or basement. In older homes, space might be created when a dirty, coal-burning furnace was converted to oil or gas. In newer twostory homes, such expansions could be planned, as many builders knew. In Youngstown, Pennsylvania, for example, apart from erecting some National Homes “Thrift Houses,” the Cosmopolitan Housing Corporation produced conventional dwellings with unfinished attic space. The best-known, and best-documented, example of a builder who catered to this market was William Levitt. The houses that his company built in three U.S. Levittowns grew larger, rising from 750 square feet in 1947, to 800 in 1949, to 893 in 1953, and by the following year he was selling homes that ranged up to 2,000 square feet. Commonly, he left the “expansion attic” unfinished to keep prices low. As House and Home commented, “Bill Levitt isn’t even trying to guess how his buyers will use the second floor.” By then, Parents Magazine had already discussed the attic job that one family had undertaken in their Levittown Cape Cod. In a groundbreaking study of home improvement, Barbara Kelly has shown that this process—call it refinishing, expansion, or improvement—continued for decades, and began when families moved in. She notes that, as early as 1957, the New York Times reported that there was scarcely an unaltered Levitt house. Improvement was planned from day one and, with or without a wartime economy, would not be long delayed.7 Some builders produced a core house, with undefined potential. Others erected the sort of shell that had become popular during the 1930s, where it was not just the attic or basement that needed work. Buyers saved by delaying the installation of closets and cupboards, interior doors and partitions, and even plumbing. The potential of shells was recognized before the war ended. In March 1945, BSN reported that a Wisconsin dealer was erecting units that the buyer could “finish . . . as he wants over a period of years.” The retailer reckoned to “keep selling him the wallboard for his ceilings and sidings and his inside walls.” One such arrangement was promoted by H. R. Templeton, vice president of Cleveland Trust, and briefly head of the mortgage and savings division of the American Bankers Association. The scheme using Class 3 finance, had housed 500 families by 1950. An advantage of the shell was its flexibility. It attracted attention from Time, which noted that there might be “nothing inside but bare studding,” which also minimized upfront costs. At the other extreme, shells merged into Levitt-style cores. Some companies offered both, and everything in between. In Akron, Ohio, two dealers joined forces to start Skill-Craft Homes Inc., which offered eight versions of a 672 square foot (exterior dimensions) precut. Type A was a “roughed-in house including siding”; type B added interior trim, hardwood floor, and hardware; C added cupboards; D, rough plumbing; E, finished

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plumbing; F, heating; G, painting; H, spouting; and I, light fixtures. An extra room and porch were available as “accessories.” Precuts appealed to various buyers. In Maryland, the Prince Georges’ Development Corporation of Bladensburg erected them for large, speculative builders, small contractors, and amateurs. Design flexibility was shown by builder F. W. Stockton in Massachusetts. Working with the Beverly Co-operative Bank, he built shells as small as one-bedroom using a design that encouraged extension. Business flexibility was shown by Clarence Thompson, a dealer with four yards in central Illinois, who chaired the Lumber Dealers Research Council. He built conventional houses, usually on contract; marketed Lu-Re-Co preassembled walls to commercial builders; sold “finish-it-yourself” kits to owner-builders; and erected shell houses of various kinds. Precutting allowed many variations.8 Shells were produced at almost any scale. Towards the modest end of the spectrum, BSN reported that in Lisle, Illinois, a town of 2,500 located twenty-five miles west of Chicago, over a period of two years Hankinson Lumber supplied precut lumber and other material for seventeen shells to a local contractor. The dealer reckoned on supplying additional goods and services to the buyers, who would predictably make immediate improvements. At the other end, the largest operator may have been a truck driver in Florida who bought a shell house in 1946. Recognizing the business potential, he went into business with the builder, whom he bought out in 1948. By 1955, he had grown his business into the James Walter Corporation and was soon offering forty-five styles. At its peak, JWC employed 25,000 and acquired Celotex. From a business standpoint, the shell house clearly had potential.9 Whether as shells, or expandable cores, “customer-finished houses” were built in huge numbers for two decades after 1945. By 1961, in a survey of selected southern and midwestern states, William Shenkel found that shells alone accounted for 8 percent of housing starts. They invited, even compelled, improvement.10

A Nascent Improvement Industry For a time after 1945, improvement was overshadowed by new construction. The imbalance was dramatized by Eric Hodgins, who in 1946 gave Mr. Blandings the choice of renovating an older home or building anew. The renovation failed, and so building from scratch dominated the story. Even so, publications such as Parents Magazine did run features on renovations and remodeling. Many focused on the challenges posed by homes

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dating from the 1920s, or before. The same was true of early improvement manuals such as William Crouse’s Home Guide to Repair, Upkeep, and Remodeling (1947), and Reginald Hawkins and C. H. Abbe’s New Houses from Old (1948). In tone, and in their assumption that owners would rely on contractors, these are similar to works published in the early 1930s. But, as soon as the downward share of improvement was reversed, the narrative changed.11 From 1950, trade journals jumped on the bandwagon. In 1951, Arthur Hood announced a quarterly supplement, Home Maintenance and Improvement, for readers of the American Lumberman. By 1954, BSN was relentless on the subject. That spring, it featured Annandale (Virginia) Millwork, which hired two “trouble shooters” to help owners with improvement projects. One had just finished building for himself. The manager claimed that “we sell more materials and make more money on home improvements to 10 homeowners than we do on materials sold to a builder for 50 houses.” The reason was the “the home owner sees the enormous possibilities in making his home more livable.” That fall, BSN surveyed three types of consumer business—home improvement, hobby, and sweat equity (i.e., ownerbuild)—and concluded that it was the first that had “greatest potential.” It was not simply a question of meeting demand. “More and more,” BSN claimed, “dealers are acquiring the knack of creating desire among their homeowners for the better ‘things’.” And they were the logical agents to take on this sort of marketing job. One survey showed that, when home owners thought about home remodeling, 70 percent turned first to the local retailer. Housing experts also acknowledged the fact. In 1955, Harvey Perloff, director of the planning program at the University of Chicago, offered advice as to how the adjacent Hyde Park–Kenwood neighborhood might take advantage of federal urban renewal funds in order to promote upgrading. He recommended that the community association help establish “well-equipped do-it-yourself stores in the area which would sell lumber, cement, paint and similar items . . . , rent out certain types of equipment and provide instructions.” For the good of the local community, as well as for himself, the local retailer was a useful agent of improvement.12 If retailers were important to home improvers, the reverse also became true. In 1957, BSN featured a “broad editorial program” called Operation Home Improvement. This consolidated what it was already doing, including the publication of hot tips, and underlined the fact the retailers were becoming dependent on this business. The point was soon made explicit. In an authoritative survey, Burnham Kelly suggested that “repair, rehabilitation, and modernization” had become “an extremely large market” and that “for many dealers this . . . provides the bulk of their sales.” His comments

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were echoed by others, notably Clark Row and Martin Meyerson. By 1962, Meyerson and associates reckoned that for “many suppliers . . . the modernization, maintenance and repair of the 58 million existing dwellings” was bigger business than their part in “the erection of the million or so new ones.” Ideally, the two markets were complementary: indoor improvements were tackled during the winter, when new construction flagged so that the former “helps to keep volume more or less steady.” By the standards of the building industry, home improvement was dependable, and soon had many retailers hooked.13 The same trend happened in Canada, but gathered momentum only after 1956. Lower real incomes probably account for the difference. Significantly, 1957 saw a flurry of activity. In early spring, speaking to the fortieth annual meeting of the Ontario Retail Lumber Dealer’s Association, president Tom Homewood (excellent name!) predicted that new construction might sag but that the improvement business would be “simply fantastic,” with a sales potential double that of new construction. Maclean-Hunter, the leading publisher of consumer and trade magazines, agreed. They launched a new journal for Canadian retailers, Building Supply Dealer, that was modeled on BSN. In the first issue, the editor noted the rapid rise since 1945 of all-purpose building retailers, while early articles emphasized direct selling to consumers for home remodeling.14 In the United States, the most important new trade journal was House and Home, which rapidly established itself as the spokesman for a building industry that was beginning to see real potential in the new market. As its first issue announced in January 1952, H&H was “conceived, written, and edited for professionals” by Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Life. It was an immediate hit. By May, subscriptions hit 100,000. That fall, the journal hosted the first of three round table conferences that were attended by representatives of all building industry groups, including the NRLDA and Producers’ Council. The resulting report, published in October, stated that “we do not believe the construction of cheap new houses is the best . . . answer to the need for better housing for low income families.” It rebutted public housing, an industry bugaboo, and argued that the “FHA should give property owners more help in financing improvement and rehabilitation costs.” It won widespread industry support, as indicated by letters it soon published. These included a response from FHA administrator Foley, who pointed to the successes of the Title I program—13 million loans to date—while conceding that more could be done. The National Association of Home Builders threw its hat into the ring, arguing that citizens and municipalities should promote rehabilitation to stem neighborhood decline,

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thereby creating “a new face for America.” Under industry pressure, in 1953 President Eisenhower appointed a twenty-three-person advisory committee that included thirteen who had attended one of the round tables. During its deliberations, H&H held its third round table, this time on property rehabilitation. It produced an action program that opened by declaring that “perhaps the most pressing challenge to private enterprise and the profit system in America today is the challenge to conserve and improve the 50 million homes in which we live.”15 Eisenhower’s committee submitted its report in December 1953. Summarizing it, in January 1954, H&H considered that it had “urged only one really sharp change of direction for federal housing.” This involved “rehabilitation and conservation,” now “the big new horizon of the housing market.” Those associated with the building industry threw their weight behind this idea. Notably, in the spring, NAREB established a Build America Better campaign, which soon included contests, run by local real estate boards, for “best improvement.” Eventually, after much wrangling, the Housing Act of 1954 delivered on this promise.16 The 1954 act included several provisions to limit scams, which had become a problem. Two decades earlier, the Title I program had given birth to itinerant entrepreneurs, especially roofers, with dubious business practices. The problem was that the FHA lacked staff. In the San Francisco office, one part-timer monitored contractors in a twenty-one-county area. He shuffled paper. The postwar boom expanded the problem. In spring 1946, BSN deplored the reappearance of high-pressure fly-by-nighters. By the 1950s a Consumer Reports exposé indicated the Title I program was “big enough to attract underworld talent.” Rackets became a scandal and, in fall 1953, the FHA cracked down by requiring new guarantees and paperwork. This did not eliminate the problem, and the 1954 Housing Act tackled it at its source. Henceforth, only approved lenders could make Title I loans, while luxury items such as pools and patios were excluded. More important, instead of insuring 90 percent of each lender’s portfolio the agency now restricted coverage to 90 percent of each loan. This encouraged lenders to exercise due diligence, rather than assume that on the average their funds were adequately covered. This set the program on a sounder footing, but reduced its appeal. Loans and funds insured under Title I declined rapidly from 1954.17 Even more importantly, the 1954 act recognized the open-end mortgage. In 1934, Title I financing had been cheaper than the alternatives; expandable homes and shells made it appear anachronistic and expensive. A Levitt home qualified for an FHA mortgage and so did some shells. Both

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loans were repayable at 5 percent over twenty years. But when the owner finished the interior, the best available rate was 9.6 percent, with repayment over two years. The difference in total monthly costs was considerable. And both were disadvantaged in comparison with the buyer of a larger, finished house, where the livable attic was financed by a mortgage, not a consumer loan. The executive vice president of the NRLDA illustrated the contrast. He estimated that a kitchen job costing $2,000 would add $21.22 to a mortgage that still had ten years to run but $63.80 if financed under Title I. This was arguably an inequity. Inarguably, the demand for home improvements was being inhibited. The prevalence of expandable and shell homes underlined how much business was being lost. And so pressure mounted for add-on mortgages that would allowed property owners to fund improvements by enlarging an existing loan. As one prominent lender put it, the open-end would be “singularly adaptable to the modernization of two-bedroom economy houses built in ’47 and ’48, many of which need repairs or additions.” And it promised to create business, for it would “allow the dealer to clinch a sale to a customer who otherwise would not modernize.”18 Outside the system of FHA insurance, the use of open-ended mortgages had grown rapidly from the late 1940s in response to demand. The amounts involved had risen from about $100 million in 1948 to $500 million in 1953, becoming comparable to sums insured under Title I. The open-end was recommended by magazines such as Small Homes Guide, home owners liked it, and savings and loans offered it, even before the U.S. Savings and Loan League gave its approval in summer 1952. An important step was taken early in 1953, when the Bank of America began to write mortgages with open-end provisions, but only because the Title Insurance and Trust Company insured them. This key development had great potential. As the executive vice president of Glendale (California) Federal Savings and Loan observed, “the open-end may well become the major consumer credit instrument of the next generation” because “it will establish the local mortgage lender as a permanent credit counselor to the small homeowner.” Endorsing this idea, Ernest Loebbecke, executive vice president of Title Insurance and Trust, pointed out that “there are no limitations on what the advances can be made for,” including “personal loans, durable goods, etc.” In effect, it merged various consumer loans and secured them on real estate. After the financial crisis of 2008–2009, we can see that this could open a can of worms, but in 1953 the building industry saw it as a great leap forward.19 House and Home made the open-end mortgage central to its campaign for property improvement. In summer 1952, it began a column on the “modern mortgage,” which corralled support for the savings and loans, the

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NAHB, the NRLDA, and Johns-Manville, a father of improvement finance. It allayed legal uncertainties by obtaining favorable opinion from previous counsel to the FHA and the HOLC. It argued that “the most frequently cited cause of home mortgage defaults since World War II has been the overextension of burdensome short-term debt,” a small problem that the open-end could address. Most tellingly, it pointed out that it would limit scams, since open-end arrangements would rely on lenders who routinely exercised due diligence. Consumer magazines added their voice, and when the president’s committee endorsed the open-end, H&H opened the champagne. This, it declared, “would have a significant effect on the economy of the nation.”20 In fact the effects of open-end mortgages were more modest. It did not eliminate rackets. A decade later, A. M. Watkins, the author of a manual on home remodeling, still perceived the need to include a cautionary chapter on the subject. Its effect on improvement financing was also limited. In 1963, House Beautiful published a special issue on remodeling that included an article on finance. In it, Miles Colean indicated six options, of which the open-end was only one, and not necessarily the most available. Many lenders still balked. One issue was how to accommodate changes in interest rates: how to add to a 5 percent mortgage when rates had risen to 7 percent? The problem was hardly insuperable, but it was messy and some lenders preferred to avoid it. Even so, Colean indicated that the open-end was probably the ideal, where available, and Watkins agreed.21 One of the least significant effects of the open-end mortgage, at least in the short run, attracted the most attention. The industry hoped that the 1954 act would nurture a larger and more reputable type of entrepreneur. In October, H&H declared that “the new Housing Act aims to underwrite a whole new market for modernisation,” and featured a rehabber and a builder (Fritz Burns) who were fixing up houses for resale. This belief drew inspiration from a civic initiative launched by the City of Baltimore in 1941. A housing bureau had been established in the city’s health department to promote code enforcement, slum clearance, and also rehabilitation. It worked well and attracted praise. In 1953, the city’s code inspector was made head of a new rehabilitation department at the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). The same year, due to policy differences, several people resigned from the city’s bureau, including James Rouse, the chair, and Guy Hollyday, ex-president of the Mortgage Bankers’ Association, who was soon appointed FHA commissioner. Both Rouse and Hollyday served on Eisenhower’s housing committee, with Rouse chairing the subcommittee on rehabilitation. These Baltimore connections helped shape national policy.22

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Indeed, efforts were made to corral municipalities with “big industry,” and to line both up behind the new federal housing program. In November 1954, President Eisenhower endorsed “a new, national, nonpartisan, nonprofit organization” to promote neighborhood improvement. The board of the American Council to Improve our Neighborhoods (ACTION) included fifty-three men and women from manufacturing, labor, banking, building, religion, and women’s associations. General Electric, American Radiator, and Sears, Roebuck were prominent. Rouse soon took over as its president, while Albert Cole, HHFA administrator, attended its first meeting. The NRLDA was keen. The Advertising Council agreed to run a public service advertising campaign, which received pro bono cooperation from Young and Rubicam, while newspapers, magazines, and radio stations donated space or airtime. ACTION was soon sponsoring research into the improvement industry and the ways in which municipalities might help out.23 Prompted by its sponsors, ACTION threw its weight behind the goal, chimerical in the 1950s, of speculative rehabilitation. To some observers the idea of rehabilitating homes en masse made sense, and several companies supported it. In 1956, for example, U.S. Gypsum published Operative Remodeling jointly with the NAHB, proclaiming this to be “the new profit frontier for builders” and suggesting that speculative rehabilitation “has begun to step across the threshold of experimentation into the reality of grassroots practice.” A year later, ACTION supported and published William Nash’s Residential Rehabilitation. Private Profits and Public Purposes (1957), the first book-length work on the subject. It was groundbreaking, but its narrow focus limited its relevance. Focusing on speculative ventures in inner cities, it ignored the most typical sorts of improvements: small in scale, initiated by owners for their own benefit, and often carried out by them too. In business and cultural terms, it missed most of the action. In 1960, the authors of a careful survey of the field reported, in a careful understatement, that “the . . . feasibility of planned rehabilitation on a large scale basis has yet to be demonstrated.”24 Federal monies, coupled with the campaigns of NAREB and ACTION, persuaded many cities to act. To qualify for federal funding, each had to develop a “workable program” of urban renewal. In later years, this label became synonymous with slum clearance, but money was available for “conservation,” and cities were expected to identify which neighborhoods qualified for each type of assistance. In anticipation, in 1953 Detroit had initiated a conservation program for fifty-five middle-aged neighborhoods, which together housed a third of the city’s population. The following year, prompted by the Chicago Daily News, Chicago mounted a similar program

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and experimental scheme. By 1957, the New York Times reported that, in connection with NAREB’s campaign alone, 582 cities were addressing the slum problem by promoting neighborhood conservation.25 By then, manufacturers were vying for leadership of what had become a national movement. In 1955, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce conceived the idea of a promotional campaign named Operation Home Improvement. This brought together 500 businessmen, who spoke for 40 manufacturers in the home equipment field, and 27 from the building trades and financing. Their dual purpose was to promote business and prevent “unnecessary further expansion of the Government’s role in housing.” The group persuaded the HHFA to declare 1956 “Home Improvement Year,” and launched its campaign in January. It produced 25,000 advertising and display kits, and a forty-page handbook for local organizers. These proved to be spectacularly effective: within six months, groups had formed in more than one thousand cities. These comprised lumber dealers, contractors, lenders, and municipal officials. Taking a leaf from NAREB’s book, many planned model demonstration improvement projects, coupled with “considerable publicity.” The original idea had been for an eighteen-month campaign, but by February 1954, the group made the campaign “semi-permanent” and then, in July, established a permanent national council.26 Perhaps the timing of the OHI campaign was lucky, or perhaps the combined involvement of national manufacturers, together with local dealers and contractors, tipped the balance. Either way, 1956 was the year when a coherent, self-conscious home improvement industry was born. As a Times reporter observed about a group of Long Island improvement contractors that formed in that year, local industry groups were now doing “what many other business and professional associations have done when they realized that theirs was a major field of endeavor.” Having realized the improvement business was large, permanent, and distinctive, they had organized. It happened everywhere. Taking stock of the campaign’s first year, in February 1957, the national group met at the first National Improvement Congress in Tucson, Arizona. A reporter detected two main themes. First, that the “remodeling industry” had become a permanent and “independent entity,” one that was “not to be confused with ‘a substitute when new building drops off.’ ” Second, that “home betterment” was not just “a matter of property maintenance or a salvage operation[] to rescue aging houses from complete deterioration.” Repairs and, in specific neighborhoods, conservation were part of the picture, but improvement was a ubiquitous, and more ambitious, social practice. Many within the industry were pleasantly surprised to discover this. Those who organized the OHI campaign had not

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anticipated its success. In a sometimes fumbling way, a home improvement industry had finally been born.27

The Age of Do-It-Yourself Paradoxically, the new home improvement industry depended on do-ityourself. There is no way of knowing what proportion of improvement jobs in the 1940s and 1950s were being carried out by owners themselves, but surveys indicate it was substantial. In 1952, Popular Homecraft Magazine reported that among those readers who were undertaking home improvements, 85 percent did their own work. But what did this mean? That 85 percent were doing all of their own work, or just some? If just some, how much? And how typical were the magazine’s readers of home owners, or households, in general? A larger and more representative survey by the GeorgiaPacific Plywood Co. found that, depending on household income, 62–73 percent “are engaging in build-it-themselves additions or improvements.” But again, were these families doing all the work themselves? Surely not. Recent studies show that improvement jobs routinely combine paid with amateur labor. Perhaps the best we can do is echo Clark Row, who, from a close study of retailers in the early 1960s, concluded that do-it-yourself accounted for “probably over half” of all home improvement work.28 In any event, observers assumed that do-it-yourself was common, shells being a case in point. When Time discussed the subject in 1952, it entitled its article “Finish It Yourself.” In principle, of course, “finishing” could involve the use of hired labor, and occasionally this option was mentioned. In 1948, for example, BSN reported that Ham Lumber of Bradford, Massachusetts, was erecting shells that owners could finish themselves or employ contract labor. But most reports in the trade press show that the trade expected that owners would do most of the work themselves. Why else would the Johnson-Campbell Lumber Company of Fort Worth, Texas, emphasize that their two subdivisions of shell homes lay beyond city limits, where regulations did not mandate the use of accredited plumbers or electricians? Or why would an article on United Lumber of Cleveland in 1951 show Marion Potts finishing her shell home—moreover, one she had built herself? Or why would a Detroit shell builder give away a De Walt power saw to each buyer? Sometimes, as with Walker Brothers of Longview, Texas, the builders of shells reported that customers did their own finishing. Mostly they found it unnecessary. In the early 1960s, when William Shenkel carried out the first national survey of shells, he entitled his report to the HHFA “The Unfinished but Habitable Home.” When he published

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his results, however, he proclaimed the subject as “Self-Help Housing in the United States.”29 Do-it-yourself improvement was an extension of owner-building. For some individuals, such as Marion Potts, it was the next stage in the building process. In the aggregate, too, it gathered momentum as owner-building waned. Given that the two phenomena were so intimately related—requiring the same materials, tools, and skills; being undertaken by many of the same people; and being applied to many of the same structures—it is remarkable how consistently they have been treated as separate. Those, including myself in earlier work, who have written about owner-building have ignored improvement. Conversely, Carolyn Goldstein and Stephen Gelber, historians of do-it-yourself, have ignored the postwar boom in ownerbuilding. They exaggerate a distinction that contemporaries made. Building suppliers and the trade press knew that amateur builders and improvers were, often literally, the same people. But the wider media ignored that fact. That is why it is important to trace not only the growth of amateur home improvement but also its social construction as do-it-yourself.30 The emergence of do-it-yourself had just happened. Since the 1920s, a growing number of property owners had been doing their own home repairs and maintenance. Such activity had always been most common among blue-collar workers, but its increase was fastest among the middle class. It was this group that, from the 1920s, had learned to value home ownership and then, during the Depression, found it necessary to do their own home repairs. Such work had been done mostly by the men, but the war compelled many women to learn repair skills too. By 1945, most Americans had come to assume that amateur improvement went with the territory of being a home owner. Building suppliers had learned how to cater to this business, and continued to do so as it grew. One guesstimate claimed that lumberyard sales to home owners for all purposes increased 260 percent between 1939 and 1948. Trade journals continued to encourage the business. In 1947, for example, an American Lumberman survey alerted retailers to the fact that home owners were doing their own decorating and, in 1948, BSN featured a House Doctor service started by Restrick Lumber of Detroit to advise owners on improvement jobs. By 1950, such services were becoming common. In Chicago, for example, Edward Hines sponsored a weekly half-hour show on do-it-yourself. Running on Friday evenings, in preparation for the weekend, it claimed an audience of a quarter-million. By the following year, according to a later analysis in Printer’s Ink, do-it-yourself had become sufficiently large and coherent to be a “conscious market.” It went from strength to strength.

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By 1952, Dolan’s in Sacramento reckoned that for every 1,000 kits they sold, at least 3,000 materials orders came in for remodeling jobs. That fall, American Lumberman assembled a DIY advertising package for its retailer subscribers and enthused that “everything indicates that the do-it-yourself trend will increase indefinitely.” The next year brought proof. “Everywhere you go,” BSN declared in January 1953, “businessmen are talking about the amazing increase in do-it-yourself marketing.” Two years later, noting that do-it-yourself had grown by “leaps and bounds,” the NRLDA concluded that “it looks like a permanent business.” Home handymen had tracked the boom in home improvement after 1950—not surprisingly, since they had helped sustain it.31

Handy Men and Women In fact do-it-yourselfers led the boom. They were driven by a slightly different mix of motives than homesteaders, for whom cost considerations were dominant. Only one published study considered what drove the amateur improver in the 1950s. Viron Hukill found that their main, if illdefined, goal was “to add to the utility, worth and enjoyment of home.” Monetary considerations—including the attempt to avoid the high cost of building labor and to reduce the cost of living—mattered, but did not rank at the top.32 But were the same mix of motives present in all handymen? Arguably not. Writing in 1958, Albert Roland suggested that there were three types of handymen, distinguished more by purpose than income. The first and least common was the craftsman-hobbyist, the mainstay of local home workshop guilds in the 1930s. The second was the traditional handyman, typically a worker with a limited income, imbued with the “virtues of thrift and economic self-reliance.” Third was a newer and more affluent breed, who was not so much trying to save money as to stretch what he had as far it could go in order to “enhance living comfort and the looks of the home.” If the second type had to work on his home, the third chose to do so, a distinction recently made again by Colin Williams in his work on DIY in Britain. But Roland’s argument went further. Those driven by thrift could have afforded tradesmen if they had been willing to go into debt; conversely, those who chose to work on their homes did so because it was the only way “to upgrade their living standards” in a “consumption-oriented culture.” The difference, for Roland, was that they were aiming at luxury, not basic needs. Of course, what counted as a luxury in the 1950s—a bedroom for every family member! a second bathroom!—soon became an American

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norm. From that point of view, all do-it-yourselfers were simply trying to improve their standard of living. But for his time, Roland made the useful point that different people had different expectations but that both now saw do-it-yourself as a way of improving their living standards. This was new.33 Roland assumed that handymen treated do-it-yourself as a means to an end. What neither he nor Hukill discussed was the possibility that some men found the work intrinsically rewarding. Others, however, were convinced this was so. Some reckoned that the white-collar prejudice against manual labor was waning. A number, including Betty Pepis in the New York Times, attributed this to the war, when men from diverse backgrounds learned to enjoy physical labor. Others, including a writer in Harper’s (perhaps Frederick Allen, the editor) suggested that growing affluence and shorter work weeks were key. Distanced from an industrial past in a secure suburban prosperity, the modern white-collar worker felt free to labor, and enjoyed the leisure to do so. Home improvement then became a useful hobby. Indeed, Phil Creden, the advertising director for Edward Hines Lumber, suggested that by 1953 it had even “become smart to be handy.”34 But why? New social experiences allowed the stigma of labor to wane, but what made do-it-yourself happen? Two explanations were proposed, one appealing to the changing nature of work and the other to men’s changing family role. Both drew on pop psychology, and neither was grounded on much hard evidence; nevertheless, they should not be dismissed. They articulated wideheld beliefs. The first noted that much white-collar work had become bureaucratic and anonymous. The average employee was a cog; at the end of the working day he could not point with pride to anything distinctive that he had accomplished. Many factory workers had the same experience. As Paul Taylor put it, echoing Marx, workers had become alienated from the products of their own labor. They were way stations on an assembly line, or men in gray flannel suits. Then too, neither worker nor employee could choose when or how to work, or which tasks to tackle. Improvement projects were the opposite: an amateur could get tangible rewards from tasks he himself had set. As Taylor and others pointed out, handymen could take pride in their work, they could enjoy a “sense of accomplishment” (Time), “the feeling of creating something useful” (American Lumberman) or, as Hubbard Cobb told readers of his popular guide, “you can enjoy . . . the satisfaction derived from doing a job yourself—and doing it well.” Do-it-yourself was therapeutic, a term that many employed.35 If the modern workplace pushed men to find solace in home improvement, they were also pulled in this direction by the conviction that they could thereby contribute to family life. It was not just a question of saving

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money and raising living standards. The notion that work around the home had moral worth was not wholly new: improvement manuals published since the late 1920s had alluded to this possibility. But after 1945, it was articulated more forcefully and with greater conviction. In 1947, William Crouse wrote that “one of the joys as well as one of the obligations of being a householder lies in the performance of those services that a house must have to keep it in prime condition.” This still implied that the joys were separate from, and balanced by, responsibilities, but it soon gave way to a heartier endorsement. By 1952, J. E. Ratner, editor of Better Homes and Gardens, commented that “the home itself . . . is more of a hobby [for men] than it used to be.” In the Washington Post, Andrew Lang went so far as to claim that “[male] office workers in a huddle are more likely to be discussing the proper way to mix concrete than the curves of . . . Marilyn Monroe.” Possibly. But there was a point to be made. In The Big Change (1952), Frederick Allen at Harper’s connected the rise of do-it-yourself to a new informality in dress, manners, and, especially, relations between the sexes. One way of expressing this was to say, with H. M. Mueller, that his willingness to tackle odd jobs indicated how “domesticated” the American male had become, and some disapproved of the trend. Novelist John McPartland got a female character to declare that “all this do-it-yourself stuff, that’s like housework for men.” Disparaging the housewife as well as the domesticated man, it accurately expressed the concern, shared by many, that at home as well as at work men were being emasculated.36 But the dominant view of do-it-yourself was that it was acceptable to construction workers and morally good for family members, especially men. The most telling indicator is the fact that it received union support. One reason why some retailers were wary of chasing the consumer market was that they feared alienating their contractor customers (figure 56). To allay their concerns, the trade press often claimed that the two types of business were compatible. In 1952, for example, the American Lumberman argued that amateurs did the small jobs that tradesmen did not want, or took on projects that would not otherwise have happened. Similar arguments were widely expressed, for example in Printer’s Ink. The truth was more complex. Many building tradesmen were indeed concerned. In 1953, for example, the Painting and Decorating Contractors of America, who had been especially hard-hit by the rise of do-it-yourself, urged members to fight the trend by promoting the use of consumer loans. The campaign went local the following year. In Minneapolis, contractors and craftsmen joined a promotional effort to convince home owners that “the men with the professional knowhow can be counted on for superior work.” But in many localities, when the

56. Contractors versus consumers. Many lumber dealers went after the new consumer business, but most continued to cater to contractors, often through a side entrance. Source: “Store Idea File,” Building Supply News 92, no. 4 (April 1957): 320.

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building trades asked industrial unions for their support they were rebuffed. As Ed Townsend reported in the Christian Science Monitor, ”their [union] members . . . are enthusiastic ‘do-it-yourself’ devotees.” Support for do-ityourself, then, crossed class boundaries. Indeed, by the mid-1950s it went beyond mere support. By 1957, being handy was coming to be expected, as David Dempsey suggested in the New York Times Magazine. Looking back, Steven Gelber has put it well: “By the 1950s,” he argued, “being handy had become, like sobriety and fidelity, an expected quality in a good husband.”37 For a time, the majority bought in to this view. Of course there was the stereotype of the harried husband, who had to be nagged to fix a leaky faucet, let alone remodel the bathroom. This image hovered over Life’s report about how well Don Brann’s Easi-Bild patterns were selling: it seems that 80 percent were bought by women, “partly because they believe their husbands can build something if they can’t afford to buy it.” Was it “can build” or “can be persuaded to build”? As Gelber puts it, capturing the spirit of a half-century of humorous birthday cards, “Handling heavy tools was man’s work; the woman’s job was to tell him what to do.” But there were plenty of men who welcomed domestic projects, especially if they got to choose which ones and if it allowed them to escape into their own workshop. After the early postwar fad for cheap, concrete slab construction, in 1954 Small Homes Guide noted that basements were “coming back,” in part because they accommodated a work bench. Having a workroom became important for many men. In 1964, the National Association of Home Builders hired a consultant to find out what features women wanted in their homes. In focus groups, many said they wanted a basement for their husband “do-ityourselfer who now had a place for tools and a workshop.” Revealingly, a woman in Cincinnati observed, “I myself, wouldn’t want a basement, but my husband would, because men like to have a work shop and enjoy doing things.” The preference crossed class lines. An affluent woman in Los Angeles commented: “There is nothing better for the do-it-yourselfer. He can keep all his tools down there, and it’s locked. It’s not like a garage.” In many households, it was the man who most vigorously promoted do-it-yourself.38 But not all men joined the party. In 1954, Horace Greeley claimed that “94 percent of men are Mr. Fixits,” but the cliché of the harried husband had a basis in fact, surely more than 6 percent. The klutz had reason to balk. In 1954 alone, DIY’ers reported 600,000 injuries, not all minor. Even for professionals, construction could be risky, and power tools ratcheted up the risks. And there were plenty of men who enjoyed an evening or weekend of rest. As W. P. Patterson, director of the United States Bureau of Apprenticeship, growled in 1954: “It’s getting to the point with the ‘do-it-yourself’

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57. A professional improvement service. Dealers were pleased to cater to amateurs, but also to those who simply wanted to sign a check. Source: Edward Hines Lumber Co.

business where you think a guy is a bum if he doesn’t come home after a day’s work and put in another six or eight hours fixing the house.” And perhaps most importantly, there had always been plenty of men, and women too, who were simply not very interested in their homes. Perhaps they had interesting jobs and did not need DIY therapy. Perhaps they looked for recreation and stimulation elsewhere. In 1959, Burnham Kelly reckoned this diverse group would remain large. “It is doubtful,” he suggested, “whether there will ever be a sizable market for housing to which a large amount of owner labor must be added, for the typical buyer wants his house as complete as possible.” It was partly for this reason, he suggested, that the postwar years had seen a growth in the large speculative builder. In the past, prospective owners had engaged contractors because they wanted a say in the design of the home. The modern consumer was content with an off-theshelf unit. Kelly was overstating the point, but clearly there was a market for homes and improvements that did not involve the owner’s labor (figure 57). In 1964, for example, A. M. Watkins’ manual was explicitly directed at “the owner who wants to do it right—but not do it himself.” He argued that

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“it’s usually best to stick to your own profession,” and his publisher must have believed that many potential readers would agree. Men, then, were at least as diverse as retailers. Many lumber dealers chased the consumer trade, but not all. So it was with men. Most invested in do-it-yourself, but many found other ways to occupy their time.39 Overall, it is clear that after 1945 the motives for do-it-yourself were strong and growing. Virtually every contemporary discussion assumed that financial considerations were dominant. A good example was Enno Haan, former homecraft and technical editor of Popular Mechanics. His 1954 guide for remodelers listed three developments that had enabled men to become handy—war experience, educational manuals and magazines, and technical assistance from the industry—and two that were pushing them in that direction—a shortage a skilled labor and the cost of the labor that was available. As he put it, “a $75-per-week wage earner cannot afford to hire a $130-per-week professional.” For Haan, these considerations had brought about “a major revolution . . . among American homeowners.”40 And then there were the various intangible shifts in attitudes. None were well-documented, but certain facts seem clear. The stigma associated with manual work was on the decline, at least when undertaken voluntarily at home. There was a growing feeling among men that being handy provided some recompense for a routine jobs. And at least within the white-collar middle class, it was being recognized as a significant contribution to family life. Changing views about do-it-yourself helped shape the postwar home improvement industry. Whatever the mix of motives, DIY did become increasingly common. Steven Gelber has suggested that, before World War II, less than a third of home owners did their own painting and wallpapering but that by the 1950s the ratio had risen to four in five. He may be correct, with most of the change happening after 1945. Telling information pertains to the period 1948–1952, when surveys showed that the proportion of householders who hung their own wallpaper had jumped from 28 percent to 60 percent. By the latter year, consumers were buying 60 percent of the wallpaper and 75 percent of the paint that retailers sold. Do-it-yourself was not making such rapid inroads into other lines of work. The Small Homes Guide survey of owner-builders found that, even by 1951, barely a third did plumbing, wiring, or glazing. But other indicators also hint at a disproportionate increase in handyman activity. Between 1946 and 1953, sales of power tools, increasingly targeted at the amateur, increased fifteen-fold. The growth of home improvement depended on the labors of a new generation of home owners.41

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A Media Phenomenon Consumer magazines and the general business press took a while to catch on to the trend. The first to do so was Better Homes and Gardens, which published its first Remodeling Ideas guide in 1949. Although the 1951 edition included an example of do-it-yourself, it did not use the phrase (figure 58). It was not until 1952 that Parents Magazine responded to the shift from building to modernizing. That summer, Small Homes Guide ran its first “special features on remodeling,” which focused on the needs of the amateur, and in 1953 it published its first survey of the materials and tools that he, or she, might need. The business press was just as slow. Printer’s Ink ran its first feature on the subject in March 1952, when it noted that “Mr. and Mrs. Fixit have become an important sales objective”; in June, Business Week analyzed the trend for a wider audience. Over the next two years, Ink published a series of articles that boosted and dissected what advertisers now realized

58. Do-it-yourself crossed the boundaries of class and gender. But Better Homes and Gardens spoke to a class of female home owner who might have had second thoughts about heavy labor. Source: “The New Do-It-Yourself Business,” Business Week, June 14, 1952, 70.

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59. Do-it-yourself and home improvement in the headlines, 1927–60. Do-it-yourself took off suddenly in 1953, triggering a home improvement boom that had simmered for decades. Source: New York Times (historic online edition).

was serious business. By 1953 Robert Bond at the Department of Commerce spoke of a distinct “do-it-yourself market,” to my knowledge the first time this phrase was used in print.42 It was in 1953 that DIY caught the attention of the mass print media, this being triggered by the first trade show on March 16, 1953. Paradoxically, given the city’s low home ownership rate, and the restricted opportunities for amateur handiwork, this was held in New York. Featuring fifty-five manufacturers, it drew 65,000 visitors. Five months later, a show in Los Angeles ran twice as long and attracted four times as many, and that fall another was held in Chicago.43 Reporting on the New York show for Independent Woman, Lenore Hailparn reckoned it necessary to explain that DIY was “an industry which provides the tools and materials for those who want to do their own home decorating and repairing.” Soon, reporters realized that they could dispense with the gloss. In May, the Washington Post assured readers that the “urge to swing a hammer isn’t a passing fancy”; without explanation, in September, Life offered their portrait of Don Brann as “the do-it-yourself man”; a month later Harper’s Magazine proclaimed that DIY was “now fashionable”; and in December the Christian Science Monitor described how companies were cashing in on the trend. From nowhere, do-ityourself had become a fad. The first story in the New York Times to mention “do-it-yourself” in the title or first paragraph ran in 1952. There was just one. In 1953, there were seventeen (figure 59).44

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60. Do-it-yourself arrives. Time’s cover for August 2, 1954, set the seal of approval on a fad-cum-social-norm that had arrived on the scene the previous year.

The story was now feeding on itself. In the early 1950s, on the first Sunday of each year, the New York Times ran stories on topics that had “brought the greatest number of inquiries during the past twelve months.” On January 3, 1954, it noted that father’s workbench was replacing the ping-pong table in the basement. “Possibly the most noticeable tendency of the American public,” it commented, “and one developing at an increasing pace, was the intense interest in anything related to the ‘do-it-yourself’ fad.” Except, the writer went on to say, it was “more than a fad . . . America’s latest recreation.” Media coverage was ramped up. Newspapers such as the Christian Science Monitor covered New York’s second DIY show, which was bigger and better than the first; the Times saw fit to print the thoughts about DIY of Paul Collyer, executive vice president of the Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, when he spoke to regional delegates. By the summer, hardware stores were planning a fall do-it-yourself month, and in August 1954, Time put do-it-yourself on its cover and proclaimed it “the new billion-dollar hobby” (figure 60). It had become mainstream, with 475 newspapers nationwide carrying regular DIY sections by 1957.45 Carolyn Goldstein has commented that DIY happened “seemingly overnight.” “Seeming” is right. In the mass media it happened in the second half of 1953; in consumer magazines and the business press it had happened in 1952; but in the trade press and on the ground it had been happening for

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some time, arguably as long ago as the Depression years, and as far back as the 1920s if you pushed the argument. As Harold Rosenberg grumbled in August 1954, in response to Time’s cover, BSN had been pushing do-ityourself for “years before anybody but lumber merchants knew such activity was important.” Like most overnight sensations, do-it-yourself had been years in the making. In only one sense did things happen suddenly, and it was important. Until the fall of 1953, amateurs did not know they were engaged in do-it-yourself. The media did not create the trend, but they fashioned the phenomenon that made a market.46 We may speculate that, after 1953, as home owners learned to think of themselves as handymen, they became more inclined to fill that role. Social expectations come from many sources, but the media are important. After reading a newspaper story that millions of other Americans were improving their standard of living, and that of their loved ones, by finishing basements and building extensions, a man might yawn and turn on the TV. But, equally, the story might firm up his vague resolve to build the closet, or repair the screen door, that his wife had been going on about for several weeks. What we loosely refer to as consumer demand was reinforced, and shaped, by being reflected back upon itself.

Manufacturing the Change Demand was also molded more actively by those companies that had a stake. The boom in owner-building and do-it-yourself took manufacturers by surprise. This was even true of Delta, which had marketed tools for children in the 1920s and prided itself on being consumer savvy. But they and their competitors soon learned, if only by serendipity. Reynolds Metals provides an interesting example. When its vice president of sales development noticed a carpenter using a crosscut saw on some of his company’s aluminum trim molding he was surprised to learn that this did not damage the saw. He began advertising this fact in a sales campaign directed at home handymen: you don’t even need to buy a new tool to use our product. The boom in owner-building had given companies like Reynolds a heads up, and by the time DIY hit its stride, Printer’s Ink reported that manufacturers had learned to shape the market. They were advertising, certainly, but also designing products and changing methods of distribution to satisfy a new class of buyer.47 At an increasing pace after 1945, manufacturers brought new materials to market, and packaged them in new ways too. Prime examples were the manufacturers of paint and wallpaper. Companies developed resin (1942),

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and then latex emulsion (1949) paints that dried quickly and were easier to clean up after. Rollers, previously used by professionals, made painting wall surfaces much quicker and were eagerly adopted by amateurs. Prepasted wallpaper was introduced in the early 1940s and improved with slow-drying preparations that waited while amateurs fumbled. Some clever innovations did not catch on. Wall-Dec introduced 14⬙ squares of wallpaper that were easier to install, but which flopped, probably because they left too many tell-tale joins. But innovative materials clearly stimulated some of the increase in amateur home decoration in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The manufacturers of plywood, previously sold in unwieldy 4⬘ × 8⬘ sheets, brought out smaller “handy panels” that were an instant success. Other companies introduced ranges of linoleum, vinyl, and asphalt floor tiles. David Kennedy, president of Kentile, claimed to have pioneered sales to do-it-yourselfers, and by 1954 reckoned that this business had become “a permanent part of the American economy.” He was right: by 1957, half of all floor tiles were being sold to amateurs. His company felt so sure of the user-friendliness of its product that it advertised to “Mrs. Fixit.” Manufacturers were transferring knowledge from the installer to the product. A paperhanger or tile-setter would once have learned how to quickly spread a thin, even layer of adhesive. Self-adhesive wallpaper and tiles did the same thing. And so Hachmeister, another manufacturer of floor coverings, could boast: “We guarantee your work.”48 The most influential products designed for the amateur were hand and power tools. The most impressive was the Shopsmith, a multipurpose bench tool. Although expensive, and initially intended for professionals, its early sales were encouraging. The manufacturer, Magna Engineering, adapted it for consumers by “making it look more like a clean, functional home appliance than a gray-iron power tool” (figure 61). It changed speed control labels from rpm’s to “saw,” “rout,” and “drill,” and covered moving parts to make it safer. This allayed the apprehensions of wives, skeptical of the abilities of their ten-thumbed husbands. Within six years, Magna had sold 150,000 units. The Shopsmith was the adaptable workhorse of a home workshop; the Black and Decker drill and a variety of power saws were the more nimble assistants of handyman, from Paul Corey downwards (figure 62). Black and Decker made an unusually early pitch for the consumer, bringing out a line of portable tools in 1946. Their Home-Utility ¼⬙ drill was the first to be designed for consumers. A million were bought within five years, making it the leading symbol of the handyman craze. Stanley were only a step behind. Their tool division, established in 1937, was expanded in 1950 to produce a new line of Handyman tools, including the

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61. The do-it-yourselfer’s state-of-the-art. The versatile Shopsmith, adapted for amateurs, became the definitive home workshop tool in the early 1950s. Source: “Power Tools: The Newest Home Appliance,” Industrial Design 1, no. 1 (February 1954): 34; “Do It and You,” Industrial Design 1, no. 4 (August 1954): 88.

Steelmaster hammer and Surform shaper. The latter, a company history later declared, was a new product “ideal for Do-It-Yourselfers since it could be used to file, trim and cut a wide variety of materials, including wood, asphalt tiles, brass and even mild steel.” More generally, in 1953, Stanley’s annual report declared that “promotion of our hardware and tools sales has sought to take full advantage of the current ‘Do-It-Yourself’ vogue and the growing importance of the ‘Home Workshop’ idea.”49 Marketing became more sophisticated. An early example was the Formica Company, of Cincinnati. Established in the 1910s, Formica had expertise in producing decorative plastic laminates. Installation in stores and then dwellings was done by professionals. Observing the new consumer market, in 1948 Formica began advertising in home service magazines, such as Small Homes Guide, and when one of its early ads produced 16,000 in-

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62. Paul Corey using a power saw in building a Cemesto house. Saws could be used not only on wood but also, as here, on wallboard. Source: Papers of Paul Corey. MsC 585 (Iowa author), Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries.

quiries the company was “rocked back on its heels.” It developed a new adhesive, sold as Formica Bond Cement, that enabled “anyone with reasonable skill and armed with simple woodworking tools” to install Formica with “an ordinary rolling pin.” Sales soared. Soon the process of product development became seamless. At Stanley, Ken Freedell, general manager of the tools division, played a key role. At his instigation, in 1956 a marketing department was established “to guide the Sales Department,” and changed the company’s game plan. Instead of promoting the products that its engineers had developed, it began to research “what customers wanted” and then told “new-product engineers [to] fill those needs.”50 Some new products required new methods of distribution. This might involve no more than careful tweaking. Freedell introduced a Profitool dis-

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play program to its existing network of retailers. It showed hand tools in a standard format that “encourag[ed] browsing and impulse purchases.” In 1962, this was updated to a Uni-Rack display, installed in traveling vans to showcase the product line to the dealer. But sometimes the manufacturer had to rethink its whole distribution system. Having one outlet in each major market made sense when you sold to contractors, but it was inconvenient for consumers. And so, for example, Sherwin-Williams abandoned its network of exclusive dealerships and distributed more widely. This type of switch had to be managed so as not to alienate contractors. When Formica changed to a wider pattern of retail distribution in the late 1940s, it nurtured its image among retailers by advertising in the key trade journals, Flooring, BSN, and American Lumberman. It argued that Formica was a product worth carrying. At the same time, it placated commercial fabricators. The challenge was to retain a group of professionals on whose loyalty the company still depended. It argued that the new do-it-yourself campaign was “directed to a market they cannot serve anyway.” In a rapidly growing market, companies could finesse resistance.51 Manufacturers learned to work more closely with retailers. Of course, they continued to speak directly to consumers through mass advertising. Formica increased its advertising budget fourfold in five years; by 1953 the Douglas Fir Plywood Association was advertising in 1,626 newspapers, in addition to specialized and popular magazines such as Popular Mechanics and Life. But companies also fostered retailers. In 1954, Black and Decker designed a display package that enabled retailers to provide a Do-It-Yourself Headquarters. To sell the idea, company salesmen did “one night stands at dealer meetings in towns coast to coast.” Along with other tool manufacturers, it offered a rental program that included agreement forms and instruction books to accompany displays and promotional material. Three years later, Carr, Adams and Collier, makers of BILT-WELL Woodwork, told dealers that it had developed “a powerful 8 phase integrated merchandising plan designed to substantially increase your sales.” This included national and local (cooperative) advertising, displays, direct mailings, “calculating devices,” a data book, illuminated signs, and a cabinet training program for dealer salesmen. Except for the rental scheme, none of this was original: Johns-Manville had pioneered training and education in the 1930s, and dealer “helps had been around since the 1920s. But now all companies were doing something along these lines. Kaiser Aluminum helped retailers sell the company’s roll-on roofing and flashing with a direct mail program, advertising mats, building plans, a free booklet, and display racks. The Philip Carey Mfg. Co., makers of Carey Spun Rock Wool insulation,

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offered a “complete sales promotion kit” to “the builder and ‘do-it-yourself’ markets,” which included radio spots as well as the usual paraphernalia. The exceptional had become the norm.52 The most original element in the marketing schemes of manufacturers after 1945 was their willingness to learn from the retailer. Before the war, marketing was top-down. Arthur Hood had assumed that Johns-Manville should guide and instruct its dealers. This made sense, because most dealers were lagging behind consumer demand. But the owner-building boom had changed the dynamic. Being on the front line, retailers had responded to the sweat equity market just as quickly than the manufacturers. In particular, they had grasped the fact that amateurs needed hands-on help. On this matter, for the first time in the irregular ascent of amateur home improvement, retailers showed the way.

House Doctors In the late 1940s, retailers had learned how to serve the owner-builder. They had diversified, built showrooms, and relocated to well-trafficked streets. When the sweat equity business waned, they used their new facilities to promote the home handyman business. In 1954, BSN offered a now-familiar checklist of “basic tips”: price by the package, or a unit of measurement that consumers would understand, not the board foot; encourage cashand-carry or a monthly plan, such as Title I, rather than the open account; rent tools, as well as car-top carriers; on large orders, offer a discount for “self-delivery”; but, “first and foremost,” extend your business hours. It went without saying that dealers should advertise. As John Egan, Hoo Hoo’s Grand Snark, observed with lumberman’s humor to the middle-Atlantic dealers in 1954, “doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark. You know what you’re doing but nobody else does.” It also went without saying that dealers had to be prepared to handle the car as well as the consumer, since “most of business is self pickup on weekends.” This meant ample parking, and Neiman-Reed of Van Nuys, California, was praised for rearranging its yard to accommodate drive-in service. Such companies were large enough to use TV (for its “prestige value”—those were the days!), as well as innovative ways of bringing materials to the consumer’s attention. One employee, for example, “created a lucrative sideline in the form of a mobile demonstration unit for Shopsmith equipment,” deployed on evenings and weekends. These were the sorts of methods that dealers had already adopted to serve the owner-builder.53 Familiar too was the attention lavished on the female customer. Women

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played an even larger role in home improvements than in owner-building since many of these affected the interior, woman’s domain. Indeed, many projects were devised by the woman of the household. Manufacturers learned to make tools safer, and also more visually appealing, especially when they realized that many were bought by wives as presents. Retailers were even more alert. As Frank Tutt, general manager of Prescott Lumber of Prescott, Arizona, commented in 1950, “Every woman is a good paint prospect.” Not just paint. In 1954, a survey of U.S. Plywood customers found “a large population of husbands and wives together” and “a significant proportion of women alone.” In contrast, “only a minority of men were solely responsible for the buying decisions.” And the woman would spread the word better than the man. As Gates Ferguson, director of promotion and advertising for Celotex, observed in 1954, “If she doesn’t get the kind of service she is entitled to, all the girls know about it before the sun sets that night.” As he put it, “The three fastest methods of communications are still telephone, telegraph, and tella woman.” But that principle had an upside for a store that gave good service.54 And so dealers went further to appeal to women. In Tulsa, Oklahoma, Foster Lumber designed an eighty-foot display room with women in mind, offering instruction in the use of tools so that women could complete jobs their husbands had “promised to do but [had] overlooked.” By 1955, Neiman-Reed was offering what BSN reckoned to be “the first known power tool and woodwork school for women.” Thirty had signed up, and another thirty were on the waiting list for a second class. This was linked to a fashion show staged in a boxcar that demonstrated “what the well-dressed handywoman will wear.” TV was brought into play. During Gates Ferguson’s illustrated talk in 1955, he challenged the advertising caption “Ladies Do It Yourself.” He suggested that at best it might encourage the wife to get the husband to help fix something. Retailers knew better. Chairman Art Hood noted that in Oklahoma City a new Here’s How daytime TV show was directed exclusively at women. He reported that too many listeners’ letters complained about the service women received in local stores. That may be, but retailers now knew who they had to satisfy in order to succeed in the DIY market.55 By the early 1950s, retailers were becoming involved in publisher tie-ins that indicate that the DIY market was becoming coherent. As they had done for owner-builders, publishers produced manuals for the handyman improver. Popular Mechanics produced a general Handyman’s Guide (1951) and another that offered suggestions for Planning Your Home Workshop (1949) and Getting Started with Power Tools (1957). Family Handyman, begun in

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1950, published suggestions about How to Double the Living Space in Your Home (1955) as well as 400 Quick Answers to Home Repair and Improvement Problems (1955). Many other guides were produced. Better Homes and Gardens published two editions of Remodeling Ideas (1949, 1951), Samuel Paul prepared The Complete Book of Home Modernizing (1953) just as DIY was going viral while a laggard, American Builder, suggested How to Remodel Your Home (1958). But the best-seller was BHG’s Handyman’s Book (1951), intended for “the average man who putters around.” (“Handyman projects” could be “a whale of a lot of fun . . . you are your own boss.”) The key feature was that retailers and the publisher developed a joint promotional program. Dealers carried the book and used it to sell materials and packages. In 1953, BSN reported that the manager of Iltis Lumber of Des Moines had noticed that, after buying BHG’s book, many customers would return to buy materials or set up a home workshop. Like other consumer magazines, including Small Homes Guide and Parents Magazine, BHG used its letters page and surveys to learn about its readers. It asked what projects they were doing, and then taught them how to do it. It developed a similarly close relationship with retailers. It produced sales helps, a promotional package that included newspaper mats and banners, and gave notice of upcoming features and advertising so that retailers could arrange tie-in promotions. Dealers and other publishers nurtured a relationship, for example at dealer conventions. These had long been attended by editors of trade journals, but now also by those with consumer magazines. In 1950, for example, Joseph Mason from Good Housekeeping told members of the Mid-Atlantic Lumber Dealers’ Association that he received about 150,000 letters a year about building and improvement, almost all answerable by a dealer. Five years later, advertising manager Lee Adams reassured the same audience that “we at Popular Science feel a close kinship with the building supply dealer”: both were educating DIY’ers. Dealers had learned to cooperate with manufacturers, and now with publishers.56 The BHG tie-in was untypical, but not unique. In 1955, McCall’s launched a promotional campaign that included the distribution of woodworking patterns and contacted retail distributors. In the Pittsburgh area, these included a department store and a hardware store. The idea was that these would run demonstrations, but it turned out that neither was wellequipped. Mark Lumber stepped in, offering to do demos and also supply the other retailers with the packages of wood that customers would need. Such arrangements may not have been the norm, but they were probably common.57 Retailers also developed new ways of cooperating with manufacturers

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of tools and materials. An especially effective service for owner-builders had been to provide hands-on instruction, and this was a natural for the improvement market too. The reason that Mark Lumber got the McCall’s job was that they had run do-it-yourself classes the previous year. Attendances had reached 400 one evening, 45 percent of whom were women. Similarly, Neiman-Reed employed a high school industrial arts teacher to host its weekly TV show and ran six-week classes on basic home repairs. In 1954, Time enthused about a hardware store that was holding this type of clinic, but lumber dealers had been doing it for years. In Blue Island, Illinois, for example, Mathieu Lumber graduated from owner-builder to handyman classes, and by 1954 Blue Island Lumber was doing the same. Some again employed “field instructors,” “counselors,” or “outside salesmen”—job titles varied. In Iowa City, Schoeneman Lumber started a Handy Andy service, in which an instructor made house visits to show how to do remodeling work. If the owner ran into difficulties, the dealer had a roster of contractors that it could call upon. As Charlottesville (Virginia) Lumber discovered, in combination with in-store classes, such services “paid off handsomely.” By 1954, dealers were reporting “enormous interest” in them.58 Manufacturers were pulled into helping the retailers with the in-store classes. It was difficult for dealers to keep track of the new materials and tools, and how to use them. Then, too, running classes cost money. Some retailers charged a nominal amount, but it made more sense to host manufacturers who provided their own instructors. An early example was provided by Coutu Lumber of West Warwick, Rhode Island. By the fall–winter of 1952–1953 it was running a series of twenty-one Friday-evening demonstrations from 7:00 to 9:30 p.m. The first, on drywall installation, was hosted by U.S. Gypsum and attracted 125 people. In the second, Sherwin-Williams showed the new latex paints and paint rollers, “the product of tomorrow.” Other sessions dealt with window units, plastic tile, insulation, and kitchen cabinets, all demonstrated by manufacturer representatives. These sessions helped amateurs and boosted sales. Coutu estimated that the drywall event increased sales by 40–50 percent the following week. The cause-effect connection was complex. Doubtless, many attended the class because they had already decided they needed to install drywall. But both retailers and manufacturers concluded that cooperation made sense.59 And so cooperation became more common. By the mid-1950s, many manufacturers employed regional staff that made the rounds of local retailers in order to lead classes for handymen. In spring 1955, for example, BSN reported that “the success of ‘do-it-yourself’ classes in lumber and material stores and yards is startling.” They presented as typical Austin Lumber of

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Erie, Pennsylvania, which had planned seven two-hour classes; even with seating for 150, the demand had been so great that they had had to repeat. Their “curriculum” emphasized construction and power tools. The class was free, since the dealer drew on salesmen-instructors from Celotex, Reynolds Metal, the Douglas Fir Plywood Association, Lucas Paints, Black and Decker, and Congoleum-Nairn, makers of floor tiles.60 It is difficult to say how much of the initiative for such cooperative arrangements came from the retailers. At any rate, there was a meeting of minds and interests, and a shared willingness to learn. Huntington Materials, in Huntington Station, New York, provides an illuminating example. In 1951, the retailer hired Joseph H. Tiedemann from Johns-Manville to direct their advertising and promotion. He introduced J-M-style training classes for employees, and worked at creating brand-name recognition for the products that the retailer carried. This was a version of J-M’s Depression era program, generalized for a range of manufacturers and materials. But Tiedemann also presided over a series of Instruct-O-Matic clinics for home remodelers. Most retailers did not hire staff with his sort of pedigree.61 But, together, store managers and manufacturers’ representatives were now evolving ideas for cooperation that sales and marketing directors then endorsed and funded. Between them, and with help from publishers and home handymen, they had fashioned a coherent do-it-yourself market by 1954. It was on this basis, with a nudge from the federal government and cooperation from lenders and contractors, that a larger home improvement industry soon took shape.

T W E LV E

A Zelig of the American Cultural Economy

In the movie Zelig, Woody Allen tells a fanciful story about a social nonentity who, strangely unnoticed, was present at key events in the twentieth century. In the realm of fact as opposed to fiction, home improvement played an important but similarly unobtrusive role in several developments. In the long run, it could not have flourished without the collective prosperity that brought more people into the middle class, broadly defined. Most property owners had always tried to maintain their homes in decent repair, but now they could afford to steadily improve them, whether through modernization, alterations, or additions. As the ranks of the middle classes expanded, their desire to own their own homes also grew. This mattered because, for all sorts of reasons, home owners are more interested than landlords or tenants in home improvement. The shift in outlook involved much more than a matter of money. In turn-of-the-century cities, most professionals could have afforded to own, but many chose not to. After World War I, to a degree that is not widely appreciated, tastes changed. By the 1940s, owning one’s home was not just the goal of immigrants and workers; it had become the American dream. On this foundation, and as domestic prosperity resumed, the level of urban home ownership jumped to unprecedented heights, and a home improvement industry emerged. And this in turn contributed in no small way to a rise in the standard of living. In the housing business, as more generally, higher standards were made possible by the expansion of consumer finance. Even those who did their own repairs and alterations often found it necessary to borrow. For several decades, most had to rely on short-term credit from retailers, which limited how many were able to take on improvement projects and how large those projects could be. Starting in the late 1920s, some lenders and manufacturers began to offer their customers easier terms, but in this field as in

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others, it was the federal government that changed the rules of the game in the 1930s. Federal legislation not only helped families to buy homes but also to modernize and enlarge them. Soon, owners could roll improvement finance into first mortgages. In the process, commercial banks were drawn into the new business of consumer loans. It turns out, then, that the rise of home improvement leveraged a general expansion of consumer debt. Little did we know. The rise of home improvement also played a key, but overlooked, role in one of the major cultural shifts of the twentieth century: the domestication of men and the associated emancipation of women. Neither change was completed by 1960, nor even today; they may never be. But both were perceptibly bound up with housing developments from the early 1900s. The key change was the emergence of the newly favorable view of home ownership. By the 1920s, it was acceptable for men to show an interest in home maintenance; during the 1930s it became necessary; by the early 1950s it was expected. Changes in the domestic role of women were more subtle, but they contradict our stereotype of the 1950s. As early as the 1920s, women were buying paint, wallpaper, and floor coverings, and many did their own home decoration. After 1945, tens of millions invaded lumberyards, worked on their own building sites, and tackled major renovation jobs. They measured, sawed, hammered, glued, and probably cussed too. As they built and improved homes together, husbands and wives had to negotiate new domestic divisions of labor, and so new cultural expectations emerged. At first, the handywoman was news, but by the mid-1950s she was an accepted part of the domestic and business scene. If the 1950s saw most women back in the home, this did not simply involve a turning back of the clock. By then, home improvement guaranteed that, on the domestic front, times were already a-changing. These cultural and economic changes were the outcome of what Americans think of as their perennially pragmatic can-do spirit. Women took on “men’s work” because they had to, and on that basis were praised. The media treated all amateurs in this way, even those who stole jobs from professionals. New circumstances called for new measures. The same outlook informed and shaped the building industry, though it did meet with resistance. As consumers began to patronize lumber dealers, the trade press soon told retailers to diversify, thereby cutting some of their established ties with the lumber trade. In time, most retailers got the message. They were encouraged to do so by the manufacturers of other building materials, as well as of tools, who did not care overmuch whether their goods were sold to professionals or amateurs, as long as they were sold. Indeed, recognizing

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new opportunities, manufacturers got into marketing. Instead of trying to sell what they produced, they learned to produce what diverse, and increasingly fickle, consumers seemed to want. In the business world, even more than in the home, tradition counted for little. And in both arenas, nothing advertised America’s can-do spirit better than the DIY fad and improvement boom. Apart from expressing broadly American trends, the rise of home improvement was given a boost by three periods that themselves were formative of the national experience. The 1910s and 1920s were the era when the automobile became an American icon, building a major industry, and soon reshaping whole metropolitan areas. Obviously, families began to spend more on cars; less obviously, they spent less on housing. This caused consternation in the building industry and, by the late 1920s, was pushing suppliers to think about new ways of creating business. Home modernization seemed to be the solution, and indeed by the early 1930s came to be seen as the industry’s salvation. In a backhanded way, then, the automobile gave a boost to the improvement trend. The Depression not only raised the profile of home modernization and repairs but also goaded the federal government into action. Federal policy makers soon came to agree with building suppliers that pumping money into home upgrading was the best way of reviving the building industry, and hence the wider economy. Historians of housing policy have emphasized the extent to which, from 1934, federal policy makers promoted new home building by offering to insure the long-term amortizing mortgage. In fact, it was Depression-era home improvement that kick started not only the revolution in consumer finance but also the permanent involvement of the federal government in the market for home finance. Once again, improvement participated in a crucial historical moment. And so it was after 1945. It was the Second World War, particularly its domestic aftermath, that finally made home improvement an everyday presence. The housing shortage compelled many to build or complete their own homes. Unwittingly, they demonstrated just what amateurs could accomplish. Publishers and suppliers got the message and began to publish manuals and to market new products that made handiwork easier. As young families grew, and as prosperity enabled millions to enlarge the modest homes that they had originally built or bought, a do-it-yourself boom helped to propel home improvement into the zeitgeist. Coupled with popular resourcefulness and rising prosperity, then, it was the postwar housing shortage that finally tipped the balance. One major issue—race—has not been broached in this story, and it is important to consider why. For most of the twentieth century, the racializa-

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tion of housing markets in the United States has been profound. Its most obvious expression has been segregation, and the difficulties that AfricanAmericans have typically faced in moving to the suburbs. Most of those who lived in urban areas were tenants, and managed on low incomes, so their opportunities to make home alterations were limited. But as Andrew Wiese has shown, some did find their way into the suburbs, perhaps disproportionately by building their own homes.1 Many house-proud city-dwellers must have invested their money and labor in repairs and improvements. Such families were part of the historical growth of home improvement, and deserve a place in the story that I have told here. Unfortunately, the sources on which I relied, notably the trade press, leading newspapers, and mass-market magazines, say effectively nothing about whether, and how, African-Americans improved their homes. They are silent about whether, and how, specific building suppliers served that specific market; how manufacturers and then banks handled improvement loan requests from AfricanAmericans; and whether FHA offices discriminated in this field, as they did in the mortgage market for new homes. To document this experience it would be necessary to explore the experience of specific families and businesses in particular neighborhoods. Such research lay beyond my resources and remit. I can only express the hope that, by showing how important home improvement was in so many ways, this book encourages others to fill one of the more important gaps that it has left. It would be easy to think of improvement as a peculiarly American story. Certainly, the same story could not be written about Britain, or indeed most Western European countries. Until at least the 1960s, apart from any other consideration, standards of living and levels of home ownership there were much lower. But similar circumstances did exist, and similar developments did occur, in Canada and Australia. In most respects, the parallels are very close. Home improvement emerged slowly until the 1950s, and then in a rush. One difference was the unique willingness of one Canadian federal agency to tap, and support, the energies of the amateur. This illustrated a more cautious approach to the promotion of credit, one that, generalized, has served Canadians well in the recent financial crisis. Another difference was the long reluctance of Australian timber merchants to change their ways in order to meet the needs of the new consumer. Their continuing allegiance to the timber trade did not prevent the postwar boom in ownerbuilding and do-it-yourself Down Under, though for a few years it surely hampered them. The emergence of home improvement by 1960, then, is not a uniquely American story, although in that country it did take an especially wholehearted commercial form.

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Culture and Economy The emergence of home improvement also illustrates some important truths about markets. One of the most important of these is that they are shaped not only, as many have supposed, by consumers, industry, and the state, but also by the media. It would of course be possible to place the consumer at the center of this story. As they responded to new circumstances, millions of men and women in families drove change. In the 1920s the white-collar middle class stopped debating whether home ownership made sense and concluded that it was necessary to family life. On this foundation they built a popular interest in home improvement and amateur handiwork. At the same time, as they began to spend more money on cars and less on houses they compelled suppliers to respond by diversifying their lines and sprucing up their yards. Through Depression and war, men and women repaired and converted dwellings. After 1945 they took matters into their own hands by building and fixing. How could home owners, as agents, not be a large part of the story? But manufacturers were always vital. From 1905, entrepreneurs founded companies that built kit houses. They were not responding to demand: until kits were produced, nobody asked for them, but, once offered, they proved popular. Arguably, they contributed to the widening interest in owneroccupation after World War I by making it more affordable. Unquestionably, they gave a wake-up call to the retailer and gave birth to the idea, if not at first the reality, of the local all-purpose home building and improvement store. Manufacturers such as Masonite and Black and Decker developed new materials and tools that made improvement cheaper, and more amenable to the amateur. Others, such as American Radiator and Johns-Manville offered the first finance for home modernization, and pushed retailers to promote this business. Manufacturers not only made the products that improvers needed, they nurtured the idea and created the wider circumstances that helped make it real. They were hardly less important than the consumer. By comparison, it may seem that retailers are the poor cousins of the story. In the 1920s, even sympathetic insiders criticized them for being stickin-the-muds. During the 1930s, manufacturers, notably Johns-Manville, worked hard to change their thinking and upgrade their skills, but criticisms persisted into the early postwar years. But even when they dragged their heels, retailers were indispensable. Their ability to meet the competition of kit companies and, after 1945, of so-called prefabricators, shows that they were resilient. They were crucial in providing goods and services to the amateur, playing an unobtrusive but essential role in the reemergence

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of owner-building after 1945 and the subsequent do-it-yourself boom. By then, many retailers had caught up with, and overtaken, the trend. Running evening classes, and sometimes on-site help, they were no longer agents of the manufacturer, or servants of the consumer, but had become players in their own right. And the state was crucial. It always mattered unobtrusively, guaranteeing contracts and so forth. In addition, and more dramatically, it changed history. In 1913, the Supreme Court landed a death blow to the lumber dealers’ efforts to sabotage the kit business. This, as much as the kits themselves, compelled dealers to consider the more constructive option of serving the consumer. Then, in 1934, the National Housing Act took the manufacturers’ idea of financing improvements and backed it with the resources and legitimacy that only the state could provide. Marketed vigorously, Title I of the NHA shaped consumer decisions and the building industry alike, not to mention the commercial banks. Without those two specific interventions of the federal state, a home improvement and do-it-yourself boom would surely have happened, but later and on a more limited scale. The least obvious players in the making of the improvement market were the mass media, which during the period in question meant the publishers of newspapers, magazines, and manuals, and to a lesser extent the radio. All, of course, carried advertising, but this was not their only significance. From the late 1910s, manuals and magazine articles offered information and advice that, in a modest way, gave extra momentum to the improvement trend. The pace picked up after 1945: there were more manuals and articles. By the early 1950s these reached, and contributed to the making of, a tipping point. Relative to their expenditures on housing as a whole, households invested about twice as much in improvements during the prosperous 1950s as they had in the prosperous 1920s. Perhaps this alone was enough to bring the improvement trade into the foreground, but newspapers suggest otherwise. Do-it-yourself had been waxing and waning for decades, and after 1945 grew steadily for some years, but it was made a media event rather suddenly in 1953–54. Its naming as a fad in newspapers and magazines acknowledged the real cultural and economic significance that it had already acquired, but such coverage also enlarged that significance. Men and women who had previously tackled a domestic project now saw themselves as part of a trend. This may have validated what they were doing; it surely helped to make it into a social expectation, while giving suppliers the message that here was a coherent market. Within two years, do-it-yourself had helped to make the wider improvement trend into a recognized force, not just in the media and in the minds of Americans, but for those in the in-

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dustry that made it possible. In an established line of business, the importance of the media may sometimes be limited. But the experience of home improvement in the mid-1950s suggests that mass media are critical to the formation of a new market. One reason why it is so difficult to assess which agency played the greatest overall role in the story is that the balance shifted. Kit manufacturers and the state, in the form of the Supreme Court, were critical at the beginning; consumers drove change in the 1920s; manufacturers of building materials and then the federal government took the initiative from the late 1920s and through the Depression; the media, and then consumers again, played a larger role after 1945. By the 1950s, retailers were also beginning to shape events, although by then the rapidity of change makes it impossible, and perhaps meaningless, to assign causality. Once the market had been established, it functioned as a self-propelling entity in which all agents played a part. This shifting interplay between households, industry, media, and the state in the rise of home improvement serves to underline the most basic fact about markets: in a modern capitalist society, and perhaps in any society, culture and the economy are so interpenetrated that they cannot be separated. New consumer preferences for cars, owner-occupied homes, and home modernization entailed new patterns of expenditure that reshaped a building industry that included manufacturers, retailers, contractors, and lenders. They also entailed new cultural assumptions about how families should live, how various domestic tasks should be divided between men and women, and about the very meaning of masculinity and femininity in America. Such assumptions were enacted privately, but also produced and reproduced publicly. And, of course, these cultural assumptions were in turn shaped by industry and state initiatives in the “political economy.” To speak of the home improvement “industry” apart from the cultural assumptions that enabled it would be absurd.

What’s in a Market? This study also illustrates just how complex and unstable markets are. One of the great merits of considering the whole product chain, from manufacturer through retailer and lender to the consumer’s home, and then back through market researcher and buyer behavior, is that it enables us see how influence flows in both directions. Watching the historical formation of a market underlines just how contingent, incomplete, and impermanent that process can be.

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The great mistake would be to see the market as unitary, or established once and for all. There were those who made this mistake as early as 1955. In that year, Bob Jones, executive vice-president of the Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association, devised a wake-up call for his members. He employed Jean Schloss, a retail consultant with ten years’ experience at Gimbel’s in Philadelphia and six years as a teacher at Drexel Institute, to conduct a field survey of a sample of members. Incognito, posing as a housewife who needed advice on a kitchen remodeling job, she visited twenty-eight lumber dealers in towns and suburbs across Pennsylvania. When her road trip was over, Jones brought her to speak to the group at the association’s annual convention. He told her to “really lay it on the line” and, without naming names, she did. As a woman, Schloss typified the modern home improver and yet, as she declared, “You don’t want me . . . I am just a necessary evil.” Elaborating, she conceded that “in practically every case I was handled politely,” but, she went on “I can think of [only] one of the 28 yards or stores visited in which I was treated with any enthusiasm at all.” (At this point the transcriber parenthetically reports “laughter,” probably nervous.) Over the next hour or so, she described the dealers’ various inadequacies: poor lighting, dusty displays, and so forth. Only the rare retailer offered DIY classes. On no point was she more eloquent, or critical, than the indifferent quality of sales staff. “I went there because I needed advice from you. You didn’t give it to me. You couldn’t be bothered with me.” Salesmen, she claimed, were even ineffective at selling their stock. “If I insisted on buying I could have it, but no one tried to sell me anything.”2 It would be easy to conclude from Schloss’s presentation that building retailers were no further advanced in meeting the needs of the amateur home improver than they had been thirty years earlier, but that was not so. Jones and Schloss had a specific and singular notion of the market that dealers were now supposed to be serving. He had asked her to make a case, and she had done so, but they had chosen their sample carefully. Most of the businesses Schloss visited were small-town yards rather than newer suburban stores. Her background gave her expectations that, when applied to building retailers, were unusual. She deplored the fact that staff were casual, reporting that in only five stores were they turned out in “well tailored, well-laundered linen jackets.” Most clerks lacked ties or hats, or had rolled up their sleeves. Would this really have bothered most customers, even women? And her insistence that salesmen introduce themselves to each customer may also have been unreasonable. Many might have preferred to browse, think, and then ask. Indeed, by then self-service was becoming possible. As the manager at Von Tobel’s in Las Vegas explained, a

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paint customer might need immediate help the first time she went shopping, but not necessarily the second or third. Since 1952, Wickes had been doing a thriving cash-and-carry business that treated customers in a very rough-and-ready way. In other words, the average retailer was much betterequipped to serve consumers than Schloss implied. But most important of all, and increasingly, there was no such thing as the average building supplier. Schloss had conceded the point at the beginning of her talk. She found “great discrepancies” that, on closer study, resolved themselves into “two groups—the lumber yard and the people who were really retailing.” She implied that the former were heading the way of the dodo, and that a pure consumer business was the way of the future. She was wrong. Plenty of yards thrived by serving contractors, because no single method of building or renovating became ubiquitous.3 Only those dealers who wanted to participate in one version of the new improvement market needed to listen to Schloss’s advice. In truth, by the latter half of the 1950s there were plenty who had already heeded it, especially those suburban stores that she ignored. But even they did not all have to do exactly the same things: customers’ preferences and needs varied by region and place, as they had always done. In towns and smaller cities, the personal touch was often expected. And so in Charlotte, North Carolina, the salesman at H&S Lumber, Hall Gillham, assiduously followed up his larger sales for improvement jobs with site visits. He did this for contractors as well as consumers. Many other small stores offered a “house doctor” service that included house calls. Others thrived by going large and impersonal. In the Washington, D.C., area the prime example was Hechinger. It had opened its first branch operation in 1941 and then expanded steadily through the 1950s, opening showroom-style stores in Alexandria (1954), in Rockville (1957), and on Wisconsin Avenue (1958). By 1960, their newest suburban operation was based in the Prince Georges Plaza Shopping Center. It was everything that Schloss would have approved of. Hechinger’s grabbed the consumer, devoting 2 percent of its annual sales to advertising. The new store opened Saturdays as well as three evenings a week. It carried 14,000 items in fifteen departments in a bright, 28,180-square-foot space. Lumber accounted for only 35 percent by value of its sales; two-thirds of its customers paid cash, and other sales were financed under the FHA’s Title I program.4 Home centers like Hechingers offered a model of the future that has become widespread, even dominant, but not ubiquitous. Small stores offering personal service worked better in some markets and for some purposes, then as now. A final example illustrates the point. The arrival of Home De-

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pot had had a devastating effect on lumber stores in east-end Toronto, Ontario, by the mid-1990s, but Danforth Lumber survived. It did so in part by catering to contractors—who constituted half of its business—and also by offering excellent personal service. On closer examination, even the big-box behemoth has been less than monolithic. Home Depot has set itself apart by taking warehouse operations to a logical conclusion by incorporating all on-site storage space into its retail operation and by eliminating almost all distribution centers. It began by targeting customers, but as Chris Roush, its biographer, has noted, at various times and in some markets the company has experimented with serving contractors. In some places it got into trouble for attracting day laborers; in 2004, contractors accounted for 30 percent of its Canadian sales. Trying to differentiate itself Rona, a Canadian big-box competitor, has tried to make a niche as the quintessential consumer store, experimenting with various retail formats, ranging from huge to small, and pursuing the female consumer. Plus ça change! Another competitor, Home Hardware, has survived as a dealer-owned cooperative that supported smaller operations such as Danforth Lumber. Today, each jostles for position and weighs its options (contractor/consumer; men/women; volume/service), just as retailers did in the 1950s, or indeed the 1920s. Looking for the business model, it is easy to oversimplify this fluid complexity. Just as William Levitt monopolized attention in the 1950s as the wave-of-the-future suburban builder, so for a time the suburban big-box home improvement store might seem to be the end point in the evolution of home improvement retailing. It turned out that Levitt was not the future of his industry: complete vertical integration made sense only at a particular place and time, and his company eventually went bankrupt. Home Depot’s big box is not the acme and apotheosis of its business either. We should not read the history of home improvement as if it were.5 The same cautionary comments apply to consumers. When the do-ityourself craze swept the continent in the mid-1950s, the media made it seem that everyone was jumping on board. But tenants had only limited incentives and opportunities to improve their homes, and plenty of home owners chose not to. Neither husband nor wife in Richard Yates’s Revolutionary Road (1958), a novel recently made into a popular movie, showed the faintest interest in home remodeling. To be sure, for several decades, amateur improvement did gain momentum. The baby boom created pressure to extend and improve homes. The postwar rise in home ownership leveled off, but retailers and manufacturers were primed to sell improvement to millions of new suburban property owners, and they helped grow the market. But inevitably, some of the early excitement faded. In 1960,

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a by-then-rare article about owner-building in House Beautiful treated this option as perfectly reasonable, weighing pros and cons, but by comparison with the breathless tone of popular accounts a decade earlier, it was measured, passionless.6 And then, in 1963, a manual was published for those home improvers who specifically did not wish to do their own work. For a time it had seemed that everyone—or at least every married male—was expected to be handy. Then, the social pressures had dropped a notch. Being handy was recognized as what it had always been, an option, albeit one that had now become very common. Do-it-yourself has remained common, and has helped drive a continuing growth in the home improvement business down to the present. But here, as with the growth of Home Depot and in the level of home ownership, we should be careful about simple extrapolations. Recently, we have learned the hard way that not everyone can, or should be encouraged to, become a home owner. As levels of home ownership in America have dipped, the opportunities and incentives for do-it-yourself have waned too. And indeed a growing proportion of households are redefining the meaning of urban home ownership to exclude, or at least limit, the amount of handiwork that may be required. As I write this, an article in the Toronto Globe and Mail reports on a local survey that found that 67 percent of potential buyers want a home that is “move-in ready.” A real estate agent is quoted as saying that “men especially do not want a house where they will immediately need to do a lot of work.” Research suggests that male professionals may be willing to take on some domestic chores, including cooking, but that they would prefer to hire others, including male immigrants, to do gardening and home repairs. The most effective way of minimizing improvement jobs is to buy into a condominium development, and it is surely no coincidence that many cities, including Toronto, have recently seen a condo boom.7 This reflects high land prices in some inner-city housing markets, but it also suits the needs of young, or retired, couples and singles who have no interest in knocking out walls or refinishing the attic. So, even more obviously, do the low-rise common-interest developments that have spread in recent decades. The do-it-yourself boom of the early postwar decades may be no more than an extended segue into a home improvement market that is dominated by contractors, tradesmen, and other professionals. Regardless of who does the work, the improvement of dwellings will remain a major element in the housing market, and indeed of the wider cultural economy. Currently, because so much energy is required to heat, or cool, the average North American home, retrofitting and upgrading is an important part of our efforts to limit carbon emissions and global warm-

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ing. As such, it brings into play some of our deepest cultural assumptions: about economic growth, the environment, and indeed our place on earth. It now engages an array of novel technologies and industries; it has become the object of new federal programs and regulations; and, once again, it is in the media’s gaze. It is difficult to foresee a time when the home improvement market will fade into unimportance. In that sense, its emergence by the 1950s was a once-and-for-all event. But if that is true, this book has only told the beginning of the story.

NOTES

CHAPTER ONE

1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

See chapter 11, and “The New Do-It-Yourself Market,” Business Week June 14, 1952: 60–62, 64, 66, 69–70, 72, 74, 76; “The Shoulder Trade,” Time August 2, 1954: 62–66; “Home Improvers Hail Year’s Gains,” NYT February 2, 1957. Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing: HUD Report H 2511 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, 1977), 27; M. Davidson and P. Leather, “Choice or Necessity? A Review of the Role of DIY in Tackling House Repair and Maintenance,” Construction Management and Economics 18, no. 7 (2000): 747–756; Clark Row, Changing Role of Retail Dealers in Lumber Marketing, U.S. Forest Service Research Paper SO-7, Southern Forest Experiment Station, New Orleans, La., U.S. Forest Service, 1964, 6. Susan P. Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American Department Stores 1890–1940 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986). On how small-town retailers differ, see Vicki Howard, “ ‘The Biggest Small-Town Store in America’: Independent Retailers and the Rise of Consumer Culture,” Enterprise and Society 9, no. 3 (2008): 457–486. On consumer anonymity, see Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon, 1989); James Carrier, “Abstraction in Western Economic Practice,” in James Carrier and Daniel Miller, eds., Virtualism: A New Political Economy (Oxford: Berg, 1998), 33–38. Ronald Savitt, “Looking Back to See Ahead: Writing the History of American Retailing,” Journal of Retailing 65, no. 3 (1989): 351. Michael Schudson, Advertising: The Uneasy Persuasion (New York: Basic Books, 1984), 29; Theodore Levitt, “Marketing Myopia,” Harvard Business Review 38 (1960): 50; Franck Cochoy, “Another Discipline for the Market: Marketing as Performative Knowledge and Know-How for Capitalism,” in Michel Callon, ed., The Laws of Markets (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 194–221. On the influence of this view of marketing, see Robert Bartels, The Development of Marketing Thought (Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1962), 100–101; D. Maynard Phelps, Sales Management: Policies and Procedures (Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1951), v, 1–2; Susan Strasser, Charles McGovern, and Matthias Judt, eds., Getting and Spending: European and American Consumer Societies in the Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 4; H. R.

348 / Notes to pp. 4–6 Tosdal, “Background and Principles of Sales Organization,” in Charles F. Phillips, ed., Marketing by Manufacturers (Chicago: Richard D. Irwin, 1951), 339–342. 6. Regina L. Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). 7. Neil Borden, Problems in Advertising (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), 242; D. J. Duncan, “Distribution Channels,” in Charles F. Phillips, ed., Marketing by Manufacturers (Chicago, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1951), 233; H. B. Killough, Economics of Marketing (New York: Harper and Row, 1933), 205–211. 8. Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers, ix; Roy Church, “New Perspectives on the History of Products, Firms, Marketing, and Consumers in Britain and the United States since the Mid-Nineteenth Century,” Economic History Review 52, no. 3 (1999): 405–406; Sally Clarke, “Consumer Negotiations,” Business and Economic History 26 (1997): 75– 92; Ben Fine, “From Political Economy to Consumption,” in Daniel Miller, ed., Acknowledging Consumption (London: Routledge, 1995), 127–164; Ben Fine and Ellen Leopold, The World of Consumption (New York: Routledge, 1993), 95. Cf. Susan Strasser, “Making Consumption Conspicuous: Transgressive Topics Go Mainstream,” Technology and Culture 43 (2002): 761. 9. Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers; Church, “New Perspectives,” 412–417; Philip Scranton, “Manufacturing Diversity: Production Systems, Markets, and an American Consumer Society, 1870–1930,” Technology and Culture 35 (1994): 476–505. 10. Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing, 42. 11. “New Census Figures Suggest Fix Up Market Is Billions Bigger than Official Estimates,” H&H 6, no. 4 (October 1954): 49; Kermit Baker and Bulbal Kaul, “Using Multiperiod Variables in the Analysis of Home Improvement Decisions by Homeowners,” Real Estate Economics 30, no. 4 (2002): 551–552; Stewart Brand, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They Are Built (Harmondsworth Middlesex: Penguin, 1994). A recent estimate suggests that in Ontario cash payments account for 56 percent of expenditures on alterations and improvements, and 67 percent on repairs. John O’Grady, Greg Lampert, and Bill Empey, The Underground Economy in Ontario’s Construction Industry (Toronto: Ontario Construction Secretariat, 1998), 1. For updated reports on the state of the remodeling industry see the website of the Joint Center for Housing Studies: http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/publications/publi cations_by_year.htm, accessed June 12, 2011. 12. But see Claire Montgomery, “Explaining Home Improvement in the Context of Household Investment in Residential Housing,” Journal of Urban Economics 32 (1992): 326–350; Davidson and Leather, “Choice or Necessity?”; Moira Munro and P. Leather, “Nest-Building or Investing in the Future?” Policy and Politics 28, no. 4 (2000): 511–526; Ray Pahl, Divisions of Labour (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984); Elizabeth Shove, Matthew Watson, Martin Hand, and Jack Ingram, The Design of Everyday Life (Oxford: Berg, 2007), 41–67. 13. Bruno Latour, Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987); Ruth S. Cowan, “The Consumption Junction: A Proposal for Research Strategies in the Sociology of Technology,” in Wiebe E. Bijker, Trevor Pinch, and Thomas P. Hughes, eds., The Social Construction of Technological Systems (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1987), 278; Steven Lubar, “Men/ Women/Production/ Consumption,” in Roger Horowitz and Arwen Mohun, eds, His and Hers: Consumption and Technology (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998), 7–37; Ruth Cowan, A Social History of American Technology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997).

Notes to pp. 6–7 / 349 14. Grant McCracken, Culture and Consumption: New Approaches to the Symbolism of Consumer Goods and Activities (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987), 132. For commentary see Russell Belk, “Possessions and the Extended Self,” Journal of Consumer Research 15 (1988): 152–153; Richard Harris and Nadine Dostrovsky, “The Suburban Culture of Building and the Reassuring Revival of Historicist Architecture since 1970,” Home Cultures 5, no. 2 (2008): 167–196; Daniel Miller, Material Culture and Mass Consumption (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987), 159–161; E. K. Sadalla, B. Verschure, and J. Burroughs, “Identity Symbolism and Housing,” Environment and Behavior 19 (1987): 569–587. For exceptions see Elizabeth Cromley, “Modernizing; Or, ‘You Never See a Screen Door on Affluent Homes,” Journal of American Culture 5 (1982): 71–79; Nadine Dostrovsky and Richard Harris, “Style for the Zeitgeist: The Stealthy Revival of Historicist Housing Since the Late 1960s,” Professional Geographer 60, no. 3 (2008): 314–332. 15. Mary Douglas and Baron Isherwood, The World of Goods (New York: Basic Books, 1979); Lizabeth Cohen, Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919–1939 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); John Fiske, Understanding Popular Culture (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989), 35. 16. Strasser, “Making Consumption,” 759 n.6, 767; Peter Jackson, “Commodity Cultures: The Traffic in Things,” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 24, no. 1 (1999): 95–108; Tim Edwards, Contradictions of Consumption: Concepts, Practices, and Politics in Consumer Society (Philadelphia: Open University Press, 2000); James Kneale and Claire Dwyer, “Consumption,” in James S. Duncan, Nuala C. Johnson, and Richard H. Schein, eds., A Companion to Cultural Geography (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 298–315; Eric J. Arnould and Craig J. Thompson, “Consumer Culture Theory (CCT): Twenty Years of Research,” Journal of Consumer Research 31, no. 4 (2005): 868–882; Sharon Zukin and J. S. Maguire, “Consumers and Consumption,” Annual Review of Sociology 30 (2004): 173–197. On do-it-yourself car maintenance see Kathleen Franz, Tinkering: Consumers Invent the Early Automobile (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005). 17. Richard R. John, “Elaborations, Revisions, Dissents” Alfred Chandler, Jr’s, The Visible Hand after Twenty Years,” Business History Review 71, no. 2 (1997): 151–200; Richard Harris and Michael Buzzelli, “House Building in the Machine Age, 1920s–1970s: Realities and Perceptions of Modernisation in North America and Australia,” Business History 47, no. 1 (2005): 59–85. 18. Paul Cherington, The Consumer Looks at Advertising (New York: Harper and Row, 1928). Contemporary texts include Phelps, Sales Management; R. S. Alexander, W. Anderson, F. Surface, and R. F. Elder, Marketing (Boston: Ginn, 1944); Bartels, The Development of Marketing Thought. On the marketing of homes see David Freund, “Marketing the Free Market: State Intervention and the Politics of Prosperity,” in Kevin Kruse and Thomas Sugrue, eds., The New Suburban History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), 11–32; Jeffrey Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth Century American Middle Class (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 2005); Marc Weiss, “Marketing and Financing Home Ownership: Mortgage Lending and Public Policy in the United States, 1918–1989,” Business and Economic History 2, no. 18 (1989): 109–118. For a comparable study of Britain, see Peter Scott, “Marketing Mass Home Ownership and the Creation of the Modern Working-Class Consumer in Interwar Britain,” Business History 50, no. 1 (2008): 4–25. 19. Philip Scranton, “Diversity in Diversity: Flexible Production and American Industrialization, 1880–1930,” Business History Review 65 (1991): 28; Charles Sabel and

350 / Notes to pp. 7–8

20.

21.

22.

23. 24. 25.

26.

Jonathan Zeitlin, “Historical Alternatives to Mass Production: Politics, Markets and Technology in 19th Century Industrialization,” Past and Present 108 (1985): 133– 176; Michael Piore and Charles F. Sabel, The Second Industrial Divide (New York: Basic Books, 1984). Savitt, “Looking Back”; Nicholas Alexander and Gary Akehurst, “Introduction: The Emergence of Modern Retailing, 1750–1950,” Business History 40 (1998): 1–15. See also Carrier, “Abstraction,” 33–38. Mansel G. Blackford, A History of Small Business in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 88–89; Stanley C. Hollander, “The Effects of Industrialization on Small Retailing in the United States in the Twentieth Century,” in Stuart Bruchey, ed., Small Business in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 212–239. Cf. Church, “New Perspectives”; Clarke, “Consumer Negotiations.” Stanley C. Hollander, “The Effects of Industrialization on Small Retailing in the United States in the Twentieth Century,” in Stuart W. Bruchey, ed., Small Business in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1980), 212–239. Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing. Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing, 6. For a notable exception see P. J. Smith and L. D. McCann, “Residential Land Use Change in Inner Edmonton,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 71, no. 4 (1981): 536–551. Marc A. Weiss, “Real Estate History: An Overview and Research Agenda,” Business History Review 63 (1989): 241–282; Barbara Kelly, Expanding the American Dream: Building and Rebuilding Levittown (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 89–118. Cf. Denise Dipasquale, “Why Don’t We Know More About Housing Supply?” Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics 18, no. 1 (1999): 9–23; William Nash, Residential Rehabilitation: Private Profits and Public Purposes (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1957). See also Gertrude S. Fish, The Story of Housing (New York: Macmillan, 1979), 204–205; Milton Semer, Julian H. Zimmerman, Ashley Foord, and John M. Frantz, “Evolution of Federal Legislative Policy in Housing: Housing Credits,” in J. Paul Mitchell, ed., Federal Housing Policy and Programs: Past and Present (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Center for Urban Policy and Research, 1985), 103; Carter McFarland, “An Economic Evaluation of FHA’s Property Improvement Program,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 23, no. 4 (1947): 399–416; “New Law Gives Housing New Directions,” House and Home 6, no. 2 (Aug. 1954): 124–126. Studies of new construction include Michael Doucet and John Weaver, Housing the North American City (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1991); Douglas Knerr, Suburban Steel: The Magnificent Failure of the Lustron Corporation, 1945–1951 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2004); Donna J. Rilling, Making Houses, Crafting Capitalism: Builders in Philadelphia 1790– 1850 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001; Sam B. Warner, Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston 1870–1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962), 117–152. On Levitt, see Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, Picture Windows: How the Suburbs Happened (New York: Basic Books, 2000). Many also consider land development, including Greg Hise, Magnetic Los Angeles: Planning the Twentieth-Century Metropolis (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Carolyn Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular: Developers’ Subdivisions in the 1920s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001); Marc Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Use Planning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); William S. Worley, J. C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City: Innovation in Planning Residential Communities (Columbia: University

Notes to pp. 8–11 / 351

27.

28. 29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

of Missouri Press, 1990). Still the best case study of the house building industry is Sherman Maisel, Housebuilding in Transition (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1953). Calvin Bradford, “Financing Home Ownership: The Federal Role in Neighborhood Decline,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 14, no. 3 (1979): 313–335; Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 203–218. Philip Cornish, “F.H.A. and Urban Decentralization,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio, fourth quarter (1941): 23–25, 45–47. Steven Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself: Constructing, Repairing and Maintaining Domestic Masculinity,” American Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1997): 66–112; Carolyn Goldstein, Do It Yourself: Home Improvement in Twentieth Century America (Washington, DC: National Building Museum, 1998). See also Steven Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure and the Culture of Work in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999). David Owen has written two entertaining surveys, The Walls Around Us: The Thinking Person’s Guide to How a House Works (New York: Random House, 1991), and Sheetrock and Shellac: A Thinking Person’s Guide to the Art and Science of Home Improvement (New York: Simon and Shuster, 2006). Both focus on the materials and tools used by amateurs, and The Walls contains historical material. Neither considers the improvement industry or is framed as a narrative. Margaret Garb, City of American Dreams: A History of Home Ownership and Housing Reform in Chicago, 1871–1919 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005); LeeAnn Lands, “Be a Patriot, Buy a Home: Re-imagining Home Owners and Home Ownership in Early Twentieth-Century Atlanta,” Journal of Social History 41, no. 4 (2008): 943–965; Margaret Marsh, Suburban Lives (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1990). Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing, 35–37; George Galster, “Empirical Evidence on Cross-Tenure Differences in Home Maintenance and Conditions,” Land Economics 59 (1983): 107–113. Richard Harris, Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto’s American Tragedy, 1900–1950 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996); Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002); Richard Harris, “The Making of American Suburbs, 1900–1950s: A Reconstruction,” in Richard Harris and Peter Larkham, eds., Changing Suburbs: Foundation, Form, and Function (London: E&FN Spon, 1999), 91–110. Neil Fligstein, “Markets and Politics: A Political-Cultural Approach to Market Institutions,” American Sociological Review 61 (1996): 656–673; Neil Fligstein, The Architecture of Markets (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2001). J. Frederick Dewhurst and Associates, America’s Needs and Resources: A New Survey (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1955), table 239; Freund, “Marketing the Free Market”; David Freund, Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). See for example Michel Callon, ed., The Laws of Markets (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998); Greta Krippen, “The Elusive Market. Embeddedness and the Paradigm of Economic Sociology,” Theory and Society 30, no. 6 (2001): 775–810; Harrison C. White, “Where Do Markets Come From?” American Journal of Sociology 87 (1988): 517–547. C.f. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1944), 57. Kenneth Lipartito, “Culture and the Practice of Business History,” Business and Economic History 24, no. 2 (1995): 5.

352 / Notes to pp. 11–14 37. Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1984); Pierre Bourdieu, The Social Structures of the Economy (Cambridge: Polity, 2005); Don Slater, Consumer Culture and Modernity (Cambridge, Mass.: Polity, 1997), 162; Susan Smith, Moira Munro, and H. Christie, “Performing (Housing) Markets,” Urban Studies 43, no. 1 (2006): 81–98. 38. Victoria de Grazia, “Changing Consumption Regimes in Europe, 1930–1970: Comparative Perspectives on the Distribution Problem,” in Strasser, McGovern, and Judt, eds., Getting and Spending, 65; Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 88; Carrier, “Abstraction,” 33–38. 39. Joseph A. Schumpeter, “The Creative Response in Economic History,” Journal of Economic History 7, no. 2 (1947): 149–159; Thomas McCraw, Prophet of Innovation: Joseph Schumpeter and Creative Destruction (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007), 474; William Lazonick, Business Organization and the Myth of the Market Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 66–67. 40. Richard S. Tedlow, New and Improved: The Story of Mass Marketing in America (New York: Basic Books, 1990), 375. 41. Henry Mintzberg, “Strategy Formulation as a Historical Process,” International Studies of Management and Organization 7 (1977): 28; Martha Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 127–128, 160; K. Davies, “Applying Evolutionary Models to the Retail Sector,” International Review of Retail, Distribution, and Consumer Research 8, no. 2 (1998): 173. 42. Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D. Brandeis, James M. Landis, Alfred E. Kahn (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1984), 115. 43. For discussion see Fine, “From Political Economy”; Kneale and Dwyer, “Consumption,” 299–303; Edwards, Contradictions of Consumption, 188. 44. Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers. 45. Dewhurst and Associates, America’s Needs, 206. 46. Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Distribution in the United States (Washington, DC: Chamber of Commerce of the United States, 1931), 25; Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink, Your Money’s Worth: A Study in the Waste of the Consumer’s Dollar (New York: Macmillan, 1927); L. Urwick and F.-P. Valentine, Europe–United States of America, vol. 5: Trends in the Organization and Methods of Distribution in the Two Areas (Paris: International Chamber of Commerce, 1931), 51. 47. Pamela W. Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998); Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), 12; Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later. 48. Michael Schudson, “Delectable Materialism: Second Thoughts on Consumer Culture,” in Lawrence B. Glickman, ed., Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1999), 341–355; Richard Wilk, “Towards an Archaeology of Needs,” in Michael B. Schiffer, ed., Anthropological Perspectives on Technology (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2001), 107–122. 49. Ronald Inglehart, Culture Shift in Advanced Industrial Society (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990); Robert Lusch, Stephen W. Brown, and Gary J. Brunswick, “A General Framework for Explaining Internal versus External Exchange,” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science 20 (1992): 125. 50. Michael A. Bernstein, The Great Depression: Delayed Recovery and Economic Change in America 1929–1939 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 28.

Notes to pp. 15–26 / 353 51. Lyndon O. Brown, Market Research and Analysis (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1937), 8–9; Killough, Economics of Marketing, 86; Harold H. Maynard, Walter C. Weidler, and Theodore N. Beckman, Principles of Marketing, 2nd ed. (New York: Ronald Press Co., 1932), 13; Cochoy, “Another Discipline,” 207; Timothy Wolters, “Carry Your Credit in Your Pocket: The Early History of the Credit Card at Bank of America and Chase Manhattan,” Enterprise and Society 1 (2000): 315–354. 52. Louis Galambos and Joseph Pratt, The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth: U.S. Business and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1988), 105. 53. J. Denegri-Knott, D. Zwick, and J. E. Schroeder, “Mapping Consumer Power: An Integrative Framework for Marketing and Consumer Research,” European Journal of Marketing 40, 9–10 (2006): 950–971; Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers; Clarke, “Consumer Negotiations,” 102; Fine and Leopold, World of Consumption, 95; Zukin and Maguire, “Consumers and Consumption,” 192; Gary Gereffi, Miguel Korzeniewicz, and Roberto P. Korzeniewicz, eds., Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 1994); Donica Belisle, “Towards a Canadian Consumer History,” Labour/Le Travail 52 (2003): 204–205; Deborah Leslie and Suzanne Reimer, “Spatializing Commodity Chains,” Progress in Human Geography 23, no. 3 (1999): 401–420. C H A P T E R T WO

1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

Richard Harris and Chris Hamnett, “The Myth of the Promised Land: The Social Diffusion of Home Ownership in Britain and North America,” Annals, Association of American Geographers 77 (1987): 177. Canadian data pertain to the previous year. On Los Angeles, see Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the WorkingClass Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002), 3, 20–21, 28–32; on Chicago, see Richard Harris, “Chicago’s Other Suburbs,” Geographical Review 84 (1994): 394–410; on Detroit see Olivier Zunz, The Changing Face of Inequality: Urbanization, Industrial Development, and Immigration in Detroit, 1880–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 170–176; on Toronto, see Richard Harris, “Self-Building in the Urban Housing Market,” Economic Geography 67 (1991): 1–21; and Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto’s American Tragedy, 1900–1950 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996), 145, 225–228. Frederick W. Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1911), 44; Charles D. Wrege and Amadeo G. Perroni, “Taylor’s Pig-Tale: A Historical Analysis of Frederick W. Taylor’s Pig-Iron Experiments,” Academy of Management Journal 17 (March 1974): 10, 15; George L. Townsend, “Special Study Project: Sociology 269: Under direct supervision of Dr. E. W. Burgess: Case of ‘O’,” Spring 1930, 6, Burgess Papers, box 185, folder 6, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago. Wrege and Perroni argue that Noll may have worked on his home on Sundays. Charles F. Weller, Neglected Neighbors (Philadelphia: J. C. Winston, 1909), 209. A. G. Dalzell, “Should Shack-Towns Be Encouraged?” Canadian Engineer 50 (1926): 411–415, and Town Planning 5, no. 2 (1926): 23–29; Jacob L. Crane, “Planning Suburban Towns,” City Planning 3 (1927): 269; Robert H. Whitten and Thomas Adams, Neighborhoods of Small Homes: Harvard City Planning Series III (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1929), 18–19, 25. Andrew Wiese, Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in the Twentieth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 85–93; John M. Gries and James Ford, eds., Negro Housing: Report of the Committee on Negro Housing (Washing-

354 / Notes to pp. 27–30

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

ton, DC: PCHH, 1932), 89–91; Chris Lukinbeal, Daniel D. Arreola, and D. Drew Lucio, “Mexican Urban Colonias in the Salt River Valley of Arizona,” Geographical Review 100 (2010): 12–34. Robert Crone, “Housing in Montreal,” Social Welfare 3 (1920): 41; Robert S. Lynd and Helen M. Lynd, Middletown: A Study in American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929), 105; “Home That Baby Built,” AL 2690 (December 4, 1926): 49. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2646 (January 30, 1926): 42–43; John Hurst, “Financing Purchasers of Small Homes,” in Home Building and Subdividing: Proceedings and Reports of the Home Builders and Subdividers Division (Chicago: National Association of Real Estate Boards, 1925), 185–187. Louis Walter, “Conference of Sales Managers,” in Home Building and Subdividing, 282–283; Carolyn Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular: Developers’ Subdivisions in the 1920s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001), 61–87. Catherine Bishir, Charlotte V. Brown, Carl R. Lounsbury, and Ernest H. Wood III, Architects and Builders in South Carolina: A History of the Practice of Building (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990), 307; John M. Gries, “Construction,” in President’s Conference on Unemployment, Recent Economic Changes in the United States, I (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1929), 226; Ernest M. Fisher and Raymond F. Smith, “Land Subdividing and the Rate of Utilization,” Michigan Business Studies, 4, no. 5, Bureau of Business Research, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, 1932, 52, 58; David Rozman, “Part-Time Farming in Massachusetts,” Bulletin 266, Massachusetts (Amherst) Agricultural Experiment Station, Amherst, Mass., 1930, 141. Lynd and Lynd, Middletown, 94. An early use of “filtering” appears in the work of Homer Hoyt. Qualifying his “sector” theory of urban growth, Hoyt noted that “occupants of houses in the low rent categories tend to move out in bands from the center of the city mainly by filtering up into houses left behind by the high income groups,” although he then added, “or by erecting shacks on the periphery of the city.” Hoyt, The Structure and Growth of Residential Neighborhoods in American Cities (Washington, DC.: Federal Housing Administration, 1939), 120. Christine M. Rosen, The Limits of Power: Great Fires and the Process of City Growth in America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 17; Richard Harris, “The Impact of Building Controls on Residential Development in Toronto, 1900–1940,” Planning Perspectives 6 (1991): 269–296; Harris, Unplanned Suburbs, 104, 152, 162; Gail Radford, Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 11. R. Clipston Sturges, “The Evils of our Wooden Suburbs,” New England Magazine 18 (1898): 739; J. H. Gundlach, “A City’s Control of Outlying Districts,” American City 4 (May 1911): 226. U.S. Department of Commerce, Report on the Building Code Committee, Recommended Minimum Requirements for Small Dwelling Construction (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1923); U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of Standards, Recommended Minimum Requirements for Small Dwelling Construction (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1932), 1, 2; “Brief History of Federal Housing Activities including Housing Work Done at the National Bureau of Standards,” typescript, c. 1948 (file F, box 8, RG 167, NA). Edith Elmer Wood, Slums and Blighted Areas in the United States (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1935), 16; N. D. Wilson, Report of the Committee on Town Planning (Toronto: Association of Ontario Land Surveyors, 1936), 14–15; Richard U. Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949), 500; Harris, Unplanned Suburbs, 45; Carol A.

Notes to pp. 30–33 / 355

16. 17.

18.

19.

20.

21. 22.

23.

O’Connor, A Sort of Utopia: Scarsdale, 1891–1981 (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983); Marsh, Suburban Lives, 170–171; Robert M. Fogelson, Bourgeois Nightmares: Suburbia, 1870– 1930 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005). On owner-building, see also Roger Barnett, “The Libertarian Suburb: Deliberate Disorder,” Landscape 22, no. 3 (1978): 47; Nathan Straus, The Seven Myths of Housing (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1944), 11. See, notably, Doucet and Weaver, Housing the North American City, 163–200. Kerner Commission quoted in Constance Perin, Everything in Its Place: Social Order and Land Use in America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977), 61; Whitman quoted in Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 50; Herbert Hoover, foreword to John M. Gries and James S. Taylor, How to Own Your Own Home: A Handbook for Prospective Home Owners (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1923), n.p.; president’s conference quoted by Perin, Everything in Its Place, 72. Nathan Straus, Two Thirds of a Nation: A Housing Program (New York: Knopf, 1952), 71; John F. Bauman, “Introduction: The Eternal War on the Slums,” in Bauman, Biles, and Szylvian, From Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 2–3. A rare skeptical treatment of home ownership fails to note changes in how it was justified. See Matthew Edel, Elliott D. Sclar, and Daniel Luria, Shaky Palaces: Homeownership and Social Mobility in Boston’s Suburbanization (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984), esp. 170–186. Richard Dennis, Cities in Modernity: Representations and Productions of Metropolitan Space, 1840–1930 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 215; Garb, City of American Dreams, 206; Olivier Zunz, The Changing Face of Inequality: Urbanization, Industrial Development, and Immigrants in Detroit, 1880–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 153–158, 161; John Bodnar, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber, Lives of Their Own: Blacks, Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh, 1900–1960 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 153–183); Harris, Unplanned Suburbs, 130–139; Michael Katz, Michael Doucet, and Mark J. Stern, The Social Organization of Early Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 134–148. For surveys see Harris and Hamnett, “The Myth of the Promised Land”; Richard Harris, “Working-Class Home Ownership in the American Metropolis,” Journal of Urban History 17 (1990): 46–69; Carolyn T. Kirk and Gordon W. Kirk, “The Impact of the City on Home Ownership: A Comparison of Immigrants and Native Whites at the Turn of the Century,” Journal of Urban History 7 (1981): 471–487; Ewan Clague and Webster Powell, Ten Thousand Out of Work (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1933), 55. Catherine Beecher and Harriett Beecher Stowe, The American Woman’s Home (New York: J. B. Ford and Co., 1870); Katz, Doucet, and Stern, The Social Organization, 141; Martin Daunton, Coal Metropolis: Cardiff 1870–1914 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1977), 113; Dennis, Cities in Modernity, 185, 208–209; Mark Swenarton and S. Taylor, “The Scale and Nature of the Growth of Owner-Occupation in Britain between the Wars,” Economic History Review 38 (1985): 373–392. Marion Talbot and Sophonisba Breckenridge, The Modern Household (Boston: Whitcomb and Barrows, 1912), 25. Charles White, Successful Houses and How to Build Them (New York: Macmillan, 1914; originally published 1912), 1–2, 5–6; Charles White, What You Should Know When Building a Little House (Philadelphia: Ladies Home Journal, 1914), 3 (emphasis in original); Edward T. Devine, The Normal Life (New York: Survey Associates, 1924). Devine’s book was based on lectures given in 1915. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 87; Garb, City of American Dreams, 160, 167, 171; Harris, Unplanned Suburbs, 86–98.

356 / Notes to pp. 33–37 24. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 108; David Contosta, Suburb in the City: Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia, 1850–1990 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1992), 94, 112; Garb, City of American Dreams, 18, 20; Richard Sennett, Families Against the City: Middle Class Homes of Industrial Chicago, 1872–1890 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), 25–39; LeeAnn Lands, “Be a Patriot, Buy a Home: Re-imagining Home Owners and Home Ownership in Early 20th Century Atlanta,” Journal of Social History 41, no. 4 (2008): 944, 949. See also LeeAnn Lands, The Culture of Property: Race, Class, and Housing Landscapes in Atlanta, 1880–1950 (Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 108. For a debate about working-class home ownership before 1914 see Edel, Sclar, and Luria, Shaky Palaces, 171–173. 25. Janet Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal,” Journal of Policy History 9, no. 2 (1997): 190. On these campaigns see also Karen Dunn-Haley, “The House that Uncle Sam Built: The Political Culture of Federal Housing Policy, 1919–1932,” Ph.D. diss., Stanford University, 1995, 94–129; Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular, 154–155; Jeffrey Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth Century American Middle Class (Durham, N. C.: Duke University Press, 2005), 120–127; Lands, The Culture of Property, 107–134. 26. Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 24; Hornstein, Nation of Realtors, 75–76, 120; “ ‘Own Your Own’ Home Campaign Abandoned by Developers for Duration of War,” NYT August 11, 1918; “Portland’s ‘Own Your Home’ Plan Adopted For National Campaign,” AL 2283 (February 15, 1919): 40–41; Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 188; Neal V. Hitch, “Homes in the Depression and World War II Era, 1921–1945,” in Thomas Paradis, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Homes Through American History, vol. 3 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2008), 266–267. Hornstein (120) claims that broker campaigns began in 1914 and that cooperation with government agencies began in “about” 1915. He also suggests, incorrectly, that wartime restrictions forced suspension of such campaigns at the end of 1916. 27. Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders, 28; Dunn-Haley, “The House that Uncle Sam Built,” 106, 107, 112, 116; “Owning versus Renting,” NYT April 27, 1919; Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 189; Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors, 121, 123, 126, 135; “20 Cities Join ‘Home’ Campaign,” WP March 12, 1919; “City in ‘Home Hungry’,” WP April 20, 1919; “U.S. to Have Dollar School,” WP May 27, 1919; “For Federal Home Loans,” NYT June 7, 1919; “Cities Would Meet Need of New Homes,” WP June 8, 1919; “Try Many Plans to Aid Home Building,” NYT July 5, 1919. 28. This fact has not previously been noted; but see Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular, 154. 29. “ ‘Own Your Home’ Show,” NYT May 18, 1919; “Own Your Home Exposition,” NYT August 31, 1919; “Own Your Home Show,” NYT February 1, 1920; “Lumber Men’s Exhibit,” NYT February 15, 1920; “Home Ownership Shows at Palace,” NYT May 2, 1920; “Own-Your-Own-Home Show,” NYT November 12, 1922; ‘Own-Your-Home’ Drive Put on National Scale,” WP November 18, 1923. 30. “Society Founded”; “Urges Home Building,” WP March 16, 1919; “National Thrift Week Designated,” WP October 28, 1919; “Draw Up Decalogue as Frugality Guide,” NYT October 19 1919. Straus’s argument that wartime thrift should find a peacetime outlet was well-received. See, for example, “Make Thrift Permanent,” NYT December 22, 1919. 31. Hornstein, Nation of Realtors, 30, 50, 100; “YMCA to Urge Homes for All,” WP November 17, 1919; “Own Your Home Day,” NYT November 16, 1919; “National Thrift Week,” NYT January 15, 1920; “Arrange for Thrift Week,” WP January 2, 1920; “Thrift Week,” NYT January 16, 1921. For an indication of materials covered at the Y’s real

Notes to pp. 37–42 / 357

32.

33.

34. 35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40. 41.

42.

estate courses, see Harry Hall, Charles G. Edwards, Argyle R. Parsons, and A. C. McNulty, eds., Real Estate Manual for Brokers, Owners and Operators (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1925). Hornstein, Nation of Realtors, 35; “For Own Homes Idea,” WP January 11, 1920; National Lumber Manufacturers Association, Own Your Own Home: Campaign Handbook. (Chicago: National Lumber Manufacturers Association, 1919), 3. Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 192, 195. See also Janet Hutchison, “The Cure for Domestic Neglect. Better Homes in America, 1922–1935,” in Camille Wells, ed., Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture II (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1986), 168–178; Dunn-Haley, “The House that Uncle Sam Built,” 130–166; Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors, 128–132. Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors, 128; Hutchison, “The Cure for Domestic Neglect,” 173. Hutchison, “Shaping Housing and Enhancing Consumption. Hoover’s Interwar Housing Policy,” in Bauman, Biles, and Szylvian, eds., From Tenements to the Taylor Homes, 81; Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors, 132. White, Successful Houses and How to Build Them, 1, 2; Woodbury, Apartment House Increases, 70–71; Hazel Kyrk, Economic Problems of the Family (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1929; reprinted with no changes, 1933), 417, 418; Hoover, foreword, n.p.; Benjamen R. Andrews, The Economics of the Household (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 202. White, Successful Houses, 2; Steven Mintz and Susan Kellogg, Domestic Revolutions: A Social History of Family Life (New York: Free Press, 1989), 107; Kyrk, Economic Problems of the Family, 417, 418; Hoover, foreword, n.p. White, Successful Houses, 5; Hoover, foreword, n.p.; Regina Blaszczyk, “No Place Like Home: Herbert Hoover and the American Standard of Living,” in Timothy Walch, ed., Uncommon Americans: The Lives and Legacies of Herbert and Lou Henry Hoover (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003), 114. See also Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors, 121; Lands, “Be a Patriot, Buy a Home,” 943; Marsh, Suburban Lives, 134. Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors, 127; Charles F. McGovern, Sold American: Consumption and Citizenship, 1890–1945 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 118; Lands, “Be a Patriot, Buy a Home”; Lands, Culture of Property, 126; “Urges Ownership of Homes as Duty,” WP June 15, 1919; “Urges Home Building”; Marina Moskowitz, The Standard of Living: The Measure of the Middle Class in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 141; Blaszczyk, “No Place Like Home,” 134. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 147. Christine Frederick, Household Engineering: Scientific Management in the Home (Chicago: American School of Home Economics, 1923), 280; Andrews, The Economics of the Household, 207; Mildred W. Wood, Ruth Lindquist, and Lucy A. Studley, Managing the Home (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932), 161, 147. On Frederick, see Marsh, Suburban Lives, 148–149; Dennis, Cities in Modernity, 181. Bolton Hall, Three Acres and Liberty (New York: Macmillan, 1907), 364–366, and A Little Land and a Living (New York: Arcadia Press, 1908); William E. Smythe, Homelanders of America (Washington, DC, 1921), and City Homes on Country Lanes (New York: Macmillan, 1921); John R. McMahon, The House That Junk Built (New York: Duffield, 1915), 100; John R. McMahon, Success in the Suburbs (New York: Putnam, 1917), viii, 36–37; F. J. De Luce, “How We Built Our Bungalow for $450,” Country Life in America 21 (February 1912): 53–54. The genteel tradition of suburban owner-

358 / Notes to pp. 43–47

43.

44. 45. 46.

47. 48.

49.

50. 51.

52. 53.

building is older. See Gervase Wheeler’s comment in Homes for the People in Suburb and Country (New York: Scribner, 1855; reprinted by Arno Press, 1972), 358, that “a man of tolerable skill, with a little assistance from a country carpenter, could erect such a cottage for his own dwelling at but little outlay.” Harry Irving Shumway, “We Build a House Ourselves: Chapter II—We Call on a Cooperative Bank,” HB 42, no. 7 (December 1917): 19; Ernest Flagg, Small Houses: Their Economic Design and Construction (New York: Scribner’s Sons, 1922); Harold Cary, Build a Home—Save a Third (New York: Reynolds, 1924), 3, 11; Harold V. Walsh, The Construction of the Small House (New York: Scribner’s, 1923), 1; William Arthur, The Home Builder’s Guide (New York: David Williams, 1914), 6; Gilbert Murtagh, Small Houses (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page, 1924). The series in The House Beautiful ran November 1917–August 1918. Richard Harris, “Working-Class Home Ownership and Housing Affordability Across Canada in 1931,” Histoire Sociale/Social History 19, no. 37 (1986): 124–125. Harris, “Working-Class Home Ownership,” 51. Coleman Woodbury, Apartment House Increases and Attitudes Toward Home Ownership (Chicago: Institute for Economic Research, 1931), 74; G. S. Wehrwein and Coleman Woodbury, “Tenancy versus Ownership in Urban Land Utilization,” Annals of the Academy of Political and Social Science 148 (March 1930): 193, 194, 195; Albert G. Hinman, “An Inventory of Housing in a Suburban City,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 7 (1931): 169–180. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 133. Robert S. and Helen M. Lynd, Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1929), 103, 106, 107; Kyrk, Economic Problems of the Family, 420. John Dean, Home Ownership: Is It Sound? (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1945), viii, x. Class differences have persisted, but eroded since 1945. Gavin MacKenzie, The Aristocracy of Labor: The Position of Skilled Craftsmen in the American Class Structure (London: Cambridge University Press, 1973), 77; G. Handel and L. Rainwater, “Persistence and Change in Working-Class Life Style,” in Arthur B. Shostak and William Gomberg, eds., Blue Collar World: Studies of the American Worker (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1964); David Halle, America’s Working Man: Work, Home and Politics among Blue Collar Property Owners (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 3–33. Many, though not all, immigrant groups still have strong ownership aspirations. Cf. John Dean, “The Ghosts of Home Ownership,” Journal of Social Issues 7 (1951): 62. Halbert, Better Homes in America, 51. Gries and Ford, Home Ownership, Income and Types of Dwelling, 29; Charles L. Knight, Negro Housing in Certain Virginia Cities (Richmond: William Byrd Press, 1927), 48. Controlling for age, size, location, and the social class of occupants, Galster shows the effect of tenure on property maintenance. George Galster, “Empirical Evidence on Cross-Tenure Differences in Home Maintenance and Conditions,” Land Economics 59 (1983): 107–113. The same is less true for resident landlords. See Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing, 35–37. On gardens, see Christopher Grampp, From Yard to Garden: The Domestication of America’s Home Grounds. (Chicago: Center for American Places at Columbia College, 2008). Kyrk, Economic Problems of the Family, 417, 418 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Building Permits in the Principal Cities of the United States, 1920 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1922), 6; “Hard-to-Get Statistics,” Archi-

Notes to pp. 47–50 / 359

54.

55.

56. 57.

tectural Forum 106, no. 6 (1957): 133; M. C. Urquhart and K. A. H. Buckley, Historical Statistics of Canada (Toronto: Macmillan, 1965), 500. In 1940, Keyes noted that dwelling conversions were “subject to little control by the city” because owners didn’t apply for a permit, and Colean comments that “municipal inspection is apt to be most lax in this field.” Scott Keyes, “Converted Residences and the Supply of Housing,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 16 (1940): 47; Miles Colean, Housing for Defense: A Review of the Role of Housing in Relation to America’s Defense and a Program for Action (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1940), 64. In 1935, permit data indicated that additions and alterations accounted for 26 percent of housing expenditures, while census data, themselves biased against repairs, put the figure near 60 percent. Susan B. Carter et al., Historical Statistics of the United States: vol. 4, Economic Sectors (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), table Dc 256-271; U.S. Department of the Treasury. Bureau of Statistics, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, DC: USGPO), Table 853, 834. See also U.S. Bureau of the Census, Census of Business: 1935: Construction Industry (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, 1937), vol. 3, table 9A. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, DC USGPO, 1936), table 830; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2316 (October 4, 1919): 42. Canadian data begin in 1926 and pertain to conversions and additions as a proportion of all residential construction. Statistics Canada, Historical Statistics of Canada (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1983), series S168-180. Steven Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself: Constructing, Repairing and Maintaining Domestic Masculinity,” American Quarterly 49 (1997): 81, 94; Steven Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure, and the Culture of Work in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 208, 211, 215; Garrett Winslow, “Practical Decoration for the Home Interior,” Suburban Life 15 (1912): 187; Carolyn Goldstein, Do It Yourself: Home Improvement in Twentieth Century America (Washington, DC: National Building Museum, 1998), 17– 18; Charles E. Hooper, Reclaiming the Old House (New York: McBride, Nast and Co., 1913); Mae S. Croy, 1000 Shorter Ways around the House (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1916), 17; McMahon, Success in the Suburbs, 130–140; Archie F. Collins, The Home Handy Book (New York: Appleton, 1917). Collins’s book was reprinted in 1920. Allen L. Churchill and Leonard Wickenden, The House-Owner’s Book (New York: Funk and Wagnall’s, 1922), vi, v, 2, 3. Amelia L. Hill, Redeeming Old Homes: Country Homes for Modest Purposes (New York: Henry Holt, 1923), 6, 149; Austin C. Lescarboura, Home Owners’ Handbook (New York: Scientific American Publishing, 1924); John R. McMahon, Your House: How to Finance, Plan, Build, Remodel and Keep Up a House (New York: Minton, Balch and Co., 1925); Henry H. Saylor, Tinkering with Tools (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1924); Chelsea Fraser, The Practical Book of Home Repairs (New York: Crowell, 1925); Arthur Wakeling, Fix It Yourself (New York: Popular Science Publishing, 1929); Dorothy and Julian Olney, The Home Owner’s Manual (New York: Century Co., 1930); Vincent Phelan, The Care and Repair of the House, Building and Housing Publication BH15, U.S. Department of Commerce (Washington, DC, USGPO, 1931); Blanche Halbert, ed., The Better Homes Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931), 483–510; C. T. Schaefer, The Handy Man’s Handbook (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1931); John M. Gries and James Ford, Housing and the Community—Home Repair and Remodeling (Washington, DC: PCHH, 1931), 236. Gelber incorrectly suggests that Schaefer’s was the first home repair book.

360 / Notes to pp. 50–58 58. Phelan, Care and Repair, 1; Olney and Olney, Home Owner’s Manual, 6, 18, 37; Saylor, Tinkering with Tools, 9; Collins, The Home Handy Book, viii; Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself.” Pahl has shown that in Britain in recent years, DIY increased with income. Affluent households are better able to buy a home, and the tools that handywork requires. R. E. Pahl, Divisions of Labour (Oxford: Blackwell, 1984), 321. 59. Collins, The Home Handy Book, vii; Martha van Rensselar, Flora Rose, and Helen Canon, A Manual for Home Making (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 124–125; Fraser, The Practical Book, vii; Gries and Ford, Housing and the Community, 237–238; Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure, 218; Olney and Olney, Home-Owner’s Manual, 6. 60. Joan Seidl, “Consumers’ Choices: A Study of Household Furnishings, 1880–1920,” Minnesota History 48 (1983): 189; Winona L. Morgan, The Family Meets the Depression. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1939), 35. 61. Ruth S. Cowan, More Work for Mother: The Ironies of Household Technology from the Open Hearth to the Microwave (New York: Basic Books, 1983), 180–181, 197–198. 62. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 35–36, 74–83, 138–139, 179–180; Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself”; Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure, 204–217; Wood, Lindquist, and Studley, Managing the Home, 6, 16. 63. Hutchison, “The Cure for Domestic Neglect,” 177; James Ford, “Better Homes in America,” in Halbert, The Better Homes Manual, 744, 747. CHAPTER THREE

1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

Carol S. Gould, Kimberly A. Konrad, Kathleen C. Milley, and Rebecca Gallagher, “Fiber-board,” in Thomas Jester, ed., Twentieth-Century Building Materials: History and Conservation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), 120, 122; Shelley Weaver, “Beaver Board and Upson Board: History and Conservation of Early Wallboard,” APT Bulletin 28, nos. 2–3 (1997): 75; Beaver Board Companies, Beaver Board and Its Uses (Buffalo, NY: Beaver Board Companies, 1920); Carol Gould, “Masonite: Versatile Material for Baths, Basements, Bus Stations, and Beyond,” APT Bulletin 28, 2–3 (1997): 65; Robert Cour, The Plywood Age: A History of the Fir Plywood Industry’s First Fifty Years (Portland, OR: Douglas Fir Plywood Association, 1955); Stanford Research Institute, America’s Demand for Wood, 1929–1975 (Tacoma, WA: Weyerhaeuser, 1954), table 7, 40; Owen, Walls Around Us, 61. Pamela H. Simpson, Cheap, Quick, and Easy: Imitative Architectural Materials, 1870– 1930 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1999); Elizabeth S. Sasser, Dugout to Deco: Building in West Texas, 1880–1920 (Lubbock, Tx: Texas Tech. University Press, 1993), 69; Saylor, Tinkering with Tools, 227; Richard Derby, “For the Man Who Builds a Wooden House,” HB 42, no. 4 (September 1917): 199; C. Yeager and John T. Rutherford, “Defence of Defendant Yeager,” Supreme Court of the North West Territories, Northern Alberta Judicial District, typescript, January 20, 1903 (in the possession of Peigi and Geoffrey Rockwell, and used by permission). “Power Tools: The Newest Home Appliance,” Industrial Design 1 (February 1954): 32; Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself,” 97; Vince Staten, Did Monkeys Invent the Monkey Wrench? Hardware Stores and Hardware Stories (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1996), 49. Weaver, “Beaver Board and Upson Board,” 72, 73; Beaver Board Companies, Beaver Board and Its Uses, 21, 26. Gerald F. Healy, “Sales Methods for Home Builders,” in Home Building and Subdividing: Proceedings and Reports of the Home Builders and Subdividers Division (Chicago: NAREB, 1925), 112–113.

Notes to pp. 58–62 / 361 6.

Neil Borden, Problems in Advertising (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1937), 242 (reported data are interquartile averages); Simpson, Cheap, Quick, and Easy, 93. 7. Mike Jackson, “Asphalt Shingles,” in Thomas Jester, ed., Twentieth-Century Building Materials: History and Conservation (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995), 248–253; Pamela Simpson, Harry H. Hunderman and Deborah Slaton, “Concrete Blocks,” in Jester, Twentieth-Century Building Materials, 80–85, 80; Michael A. Tomlan, “Building Modern America,” in Jester, Twentieth-Century Building Materials, 38; Joseph Bell, From Carriage Age to Space Age: The Birth and Growth of the Concrete Masonry Industry (Herndon, Va: National Concrete Masonry Association, 1969), 30; Periodical Publishers’ Association of America, Experiences of Associations in National Advertising (New York: Periodical Publishers’ Association of America, 1928), 23; Borden, Problems in Advertising, 34. On the paint campaign see Printer’s Ink: A Journal for Advertisers, Fifty Years: 1888–1938 (New York: Printer’s Ink Publishing, 1938), 387. 8. Churchill and Wickenden, House-Owner’s Book; Nelson C. Brown, American Lumber Industry (New York: Wiley, 1923), 118. 9. Organization for European Economic Cooperation, The Timber Industries in the U.S.A., Technical Assistance Mission no. 59A (Paris: OEEC, 1953), 61; Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, Handbook for Lumber and Building Material Merchants (Rochester, NY: Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 1929), 4–13, 15–18; Nelson C. Brown, Lumber: Manufacture, Conditioning, Grading, Distribution, and Use (New York: Wiley, 1947), 178–184, 193. 10. I. N. Tate, Modern Trends in Lumber Selling, Lumber Industry Series no. 6 (New Haven, CT: School of Forestry, Yale University, 1925), 13. Yale maintained its preeminence, figuring prominently in the itinerary of European research teams in the United States. See Organization for European Economic Co-operation, Timber Industries in the U.S.A., 13–17. This report noted (27) that in 1953, even after standardization, there were four grades of select and five of common lumber. 11. William Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York: Norton, 1991), 176–177; Peter A. Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, NRA Work Materials no. 79. (Washington, DC: National Recovery Administration, 1936), 20; Charles N. Perrin, The Grading of Hardwoods (New Haven: Yale University, 1923), 10–11; Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, Handbook, 48–49; Brown, Lumber, 180–184; Fred H. Ludwig, The Retail Lumber Dealer and How He Functions, Lumber Industry Series 7 (New Haven: School of Forestry, Yale University, 1927). In Gulliver’s Travels, Swift lampooned nit-pickers by describing a disagreement as to whether boiled eggs should be eaten from the narrow end or the broad. For a recent discussion of grading see Owen, Walls Around Us, 54–56. 12. Ovid Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber in the Middle West: Wholesale Distribution, Studies of the Lumber Industry, part 8, U.S. Department of Agriculture Report no. 115 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1917), 27; Brown, Lumber, 201, 202; Brown, Timber Products and Industries: The Harvesting, Conversion, and Marketing of Materials Other than Lumber, Including the Principal Derivatives and Extractives (New York: Wiley, 1937), 79; Charles Hill, The Merchandising of Lumber, Lumber Industry Series no. 2, (New Haven: School of Forestry, Yale University, 1922), 19. 13. U.S. National Committee on Wood Utilization, Grade Marking of Lumber for the Consumer’s Protection (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1928), cover page; Brown, Lumber, 191; “Grade-Marking as Viewed by Retailers,” AL 2702 (February 26, 1927): 47; Stone, Economic Problems, 20.

362 / Notes to pp. 63–68 14. W. B. Greeley, “The Relation of Geography to Timber Supply,” Economic Geography 1 (March 1925), reprinted in Smithsonian Institution, 1925 Annual Report (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1925), 539; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 196–197, 198, 202; Robert W. Vinnedge, The Pacific Northwest Lumber Industry and Its Development, Lumber Industry Series no. 4 (New Haven: School of Forestry, Yale University, 1923), 16; Ovid M. Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber in the Middle West: Retail Distribution, Studies of the Lumber Industry part 9, U.S. Department of Agriculture Report no. 116 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1918), 4, 5; Ralph Hidy, Frank E. Hill, and Allan Nevins, Timber and Men: The Weyerhaeuser Story (New York: Macmillan, 1963), 284; W. E. Yost, The Retail Lumber Industry, Evidence Series no. 32 (Washington, DC: Division of Review, National Recovery Administration, 1935), 3. See also Charles Hidy, The Merchandising of Lumber, Lumber Industry Series no. 2 (New Haven: School of Forestry, Yale University, 1922), 9. 15. U.S. National Committee on Wood Utilization, Grade Marking of Lumber, 2; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 201; James E. Fickle, The New South and the “New Competition”: Trade Association Development in the Southern Pine Industry (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), 182; Brown, Lumber, 264; “Catalog House Experience,” ML 45, no. 27 (July 3, 1914): 33. 16. Brown, Lumber, 251; Fickle, The New South, 186. 17. Ralph C. Bryant, Lumber: Its Manufacture and Distribution (New York: Wiley, 1922), 387; Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 95; “Southern Mill Managers in Joint Meeting,” AL 2705 (March 26, 1927): 65; “Short Lengths and the Flivver,” AL 2704 (March 19, 1927): 53. 18. Brown, American Lumber Industry, 145; Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 355–357. 19. Bryant, Lumber, 387; National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights of a Decade of Achievement (Washington, DC: National Lumber Manufacturers Association, 1929), 59; Fickle, The New South, 197–198, 201–202. See also Ovid M. Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber in the Middle West: Retail Distribution. Studies of the Lumber Industry Part IX, U.S. Department of Agriculture Report No. 116, Washington, DC, USGPO, 1918, 95–97; Brown, American Lumber Industry, 239. 20. Fickle, The New South, 187; Julius Seidel, “Lumber Merchandising—A Chart Without a Compass,” AL 2543 (February 9, 1924): 52–53; “Manufacturer Wants to Know What the Retailer Thinks,” AL 2698 (January 29, 1927): 88. 21. Fickle, The New South, 57, 58, 63, 129. On the impact of small mills see Carl Bahr, “Lumber and Timber Products Industries,” in George B. Galloway and Associates, ed., Industrial Planning under Codes (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1935), 213. 22. Ralph Breyer, Commodity Marketing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931), 4; Arthur C. Pack, Forestry: A Economic Challenge (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 46; Organization for European Economic Cooperation, Timber Industries in the U.S.A., 25; National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights of a Decade of Achievement (Washington, DC: National Lumber Manufacturers Association, 1929), 9; Bryant, Lumber, 313; Stone, Economic Problems, 211. 23. Bryant, Lumber, 327–344; G. E. Mills, Buying Wood and Building Farms: Marketing Lumber and Farm Building Designs on the Canadian Prairies 1880 to 1920 (Ottawa: National Parks Service, 1991), 20; Fickle, The New South, 161; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Corporation, The Lumber Industry, part 4: Conditions in Production and Wholesale Distribution Including Wholesale Prices, April 21, 1914 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1914). On antitrust regulation see Thomas K. McCraw, Prophets of

Notes to pp. 68–72 / 363

24.

25.

26. 27.

28.

29.

30.

Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D: Brandeis, James M: Landis, Alfred E: Kahn (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1984), 115. Hill, The Merchandising of Lumber, 9; Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 93; Theodore J. Kreps, “Building Materials and the Cost of Housing,” in National Resources Committee, Land, Materials, and Labor Costs (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1939), 62. Smith is quoted in Louis Galambos’s influential study of the Cotton Textile Institute in this era, Competition and Cooperation: The Emergence of a National Trade Association (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 5–6. Fickle, The New South, 42, 48, 158, 159; National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights, 18; Fickle, The New South, 118–119, 122–141, 167; Murray Morgan, The Mill on the Boot: The Story of the St: Paul and Tacoma Lumber Company (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1982), 245. Tate, Modern Trends in Lumber Selling, 13. Kreps, “Building Materials,” 70; Reavis Cox and Charles S. Goodman, “Marketing of Housebuilding Materials,” Journal of Marketing 21 (July 1956): 47, 50; Reavis Cox and Charles Goodman, Channels and Flows in the Marketing of Housebuilding Materials, vol. 3 (Washington, DC: Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1954), 55; Reavis Cox, Charles S. Goodman, and Franklin R. Root, Adaptation to Markets in the Distribution of Building Materials: A Critical Survey with Recommendations: vol. 1, Introduction and Recommendations for Management (Washington, DC: Producers’ Council, 1963), 18, 331. See also Cox, Goodman, and Root’s The Supply-Support Requirements of Homebuilders (Washington, DC: Producers’ Council, 1962), and Adaptation to Markets in the Distribution of Building Materials: vol. 5, Broad-Line Distributive Agencies (Washington, DC: Producers’ Council, 1963). See also Warren Hayes, “A Study of the Distribution of Building Materials,” MBA thesis, Harvard University, 1950, 46. Yost, Retail Lumber Industry, 5; Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1917, 25; Stone, Economic Problems, 214; Brown, Lumber, 263, 266, 267. Figures are approximate, because the lines between retailer, wholesaler, and manufacturer were blurred. To police them, the National Wholesale Lumber Dealers’ Association was formed in 1893. In 1920, membership of the newly formed American Wholesale Lumbermans’ Association was restricted to those whose business was more than 60 percent wholesale. Bryant, Lumber, 323, 326. Brown, Lumber, 267; Tate, Modern Trends, 18; MacLea Lumber Company, Hewing to the Line (Baltimore, 1943); Fickle, The New South, 183; Edward Hines Lumber Company, 50 Years (Chicago: Edward Hines, 1942); Edward Hines Lumber, Building a Tradition in Chicagoland for 100 Years (Chicago: Edward Hines, 1992), 7; Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, Handbook, 96; Bryant, Lumber, 383; Clark Row, Changing Role of Retail Dealers in Lumber Marketing, U.S. Forest Service Research Paper SO-7 (New Orleans: Southern Forest Experiment Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1964), 14; Brown, American Lumber Industry, 127. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 185; Brown, American Lumber Industry, 117; Ludwig, The Retail Lumber Dealer, 6, 59, 60; Harold H. Maynard, Walter C. Weidler, and Theodore N. Beckman, Principles of Marketing (New York: Ronald Press, 1932), 376; Fred W. Taylor and Warren S. Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices in Mississippi, Research Report no. 1, part 1, Role of Building Supply Dealers (State College: Forest Products Utilization Laboratory, Mississippi State University, 1966), 28; Cox, Goodman, and Root, Adaptation to Markets, vol. 5, 234. The share of lumber used for residential construction rose from 56 percent in 1929 to 72 percent in 1960. Joseph Zaremba, Eco-

364 / Notes to pp. 72–77

31.

32.

33. 34.

nomics of the American Lumber Industry (New York: Robert Speller, 1963), 95. In the 1940s, the proportions going for general construction, as opposed to millwork and planed products, were 40 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Brown, Lumber, 283. Great Britain, Ministry of Works, “Appendix IX: The Distribution of Building Materials in the United States and Canada,” in The Distribution of Building Materials and Components (London: HMSO, 1948), 124, 129, 135; Cox and Goodman, “Marketing of Housebuilding Materials,” 47; editors of Architectural Forum, Building U.S.A. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1957), 74. Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 16; Harold Barger, Distribution’s Place in the American Economy since 1869 (Princeton, NJ: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1955), 81; Kreps, Building Materials, 71; Richard U. Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949), 188–189; “0.3% to 2.8% Net Profit Is All Supply, Lumber Dealers Make,” BSN 30, no. 1 (October 4, 1927): 26–28; John Scoville and Noel Sargent, Fact and Fancy in the TNEC Monographs (New York: National Association of Manufacturers of the U.S.A., 1942), 589, 591. On profits see Ludwig, The Retail Lumber Dealer, 15. Regina L. Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 222, 227. Kreps, Building Materials, 56; United States Bureau of the Census, U.S.: Census of Business—1948: Trade Series: The Lumber Trade (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1950), table 31. Lumber’s share of the cost of materials, and the dealer’s share of retail lumber, were probably higher in the 1920s. CHAPTER FOUR

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

“Of Special Interest to Advertisers,” AL 1912 (January 6, 1912): 1; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2289 (March 29, 1919): 38H–38I; American Lumberman, Old Homes Made New (Chicago: American Lumberman, 1924); “A Field for Increased Lumber Sales,” AL 2720 (July 2, 1927): 28. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Corporations, The Lumber Industry: Part IV, 31, 32; Met Lawston Saley, Realm of the Retailer (Chicago: American Lumberman, 1902), 80. For a favorable judgment on the American Lumberman see Brown, American Lumber Industry, 256. This journal was formed in 1899 from the merger of the North-Western Lumberman and The Timberman. Saley’s column continued one with the same name begun by J. Newton in 1894. Saley, Realm of the Retailer, 89; Stanley Lebergott, Pursuing Happiness: American Consumers in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 107; John M. Gries, “Line Yards (The Chain Store in the Lumber Trade): Part I,” AL 2287 (March 15, 1919): 50; “The Doings and Thoughts of Some Progressive Illinois Retail Lumbermen,” AL 2317 (October 11, 1919): 44–45; W. Clement Moore, “How Retailer May Increase Winter Sales,” AL 2680 (September 25, 1926): 44. Beaver Board Companies, Beaver Board and Its Uses, 31; “Wallboard an Important Retail Adjunct,” AL 2294 (May 3, 1919): 53; Ludwig, The Retail Lumber Dealer, 6; “The Doings and Thoughts,” 44. In 1929 the census counted 26,377 lumber and building supply dealers. The number fell to 25,067 by 1939, and recovered to 26,111 by 1948. U.S. Bureau of the Census, United States Census of Business, 1948, vol. 2: Retail Trade— General Statistics Part 2 and Merchandise Line Statistics (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1952), 1.04–1.05. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2646 (January 30, 1926): 42; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2587 (December 13, 1924): 40, 41; “Realm of the Retailer in the Metropolis of New

Notes to pp. 77–85 / 365

6. 7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13. 14. 15. 16.

17.

Mexico,” AL 3078 (July 18, 1936): 22; “Realm of the Retailer: Pacific Dealers Spruce Up,” AL 3080 (August 15, 1936): 22. Internal evidence indicates the writer was male. By the 1920s, he was more opinionated than Saley, perhaps indicating the economic pressures on dealers. He argued that dealers should became one-stop merchandisers of building materials, which was also editorial policy. Consistency in style suggest that the same person, possibly editor Elmer Hole, wrote the column throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 14–15, 19. Mansel G. Blackford, A History of Small Business in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 88–89; United States Bureau of the Census, U.S.: Census of Business—1948, table 35. Long-Bell Lumber Company, Manual of Instructions: For Long-Bell Retail Yards (Kansas City, Missouri: Long-Bell, 1927), 7; Brown, Lumber, 266; Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 282, 283; John N. Vogel, Great Lakes Lumber on the Great Plains: The Laird, Norton Lumber Company in South Dakota (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1992), 11; Robert S. Maxwell and Robert D. Baker, Sawdust Empire: The Texas Lumber Industry 1830–1940 (College Station, Tx.: Texas A&M University Press, 1983), 91–95; “State and Regional Groups Hold Key,” AL 2702 (February 26, 1927): 64–65; Melvin Copeland, Problems in Marketing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1931), 70. Saley, Realm of the Retailer, 189; John M. Gries, “Line Yards (The Chain Store in the Lumber Trade),” AL 2287 (March 15, 1919): 50; Archibald O. MacRae, History of the Province of Alberta (Calgary: Western Canada History Company, 1912); J. D. Francis and Associates, Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association (Winnipeg: Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 1965), 3; Roger Newman, A Century of Success (Winnipeg: Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 1990), 37–40; Mills, Buying Wood and Building Farms, 21. For other articles in Gries’s series see AL 2288 (March 22, 1919): 40; 2289 (March 29, 1919): 38G. On the geography of line yards by the 1950s see Cox, Goodman, and Root, Adaptation to Markets, vol. 5, 261. Gries, “Line Yards,” 2288, 40; Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 3, 13; Cox, Goodman, and Root, Adaptation to Markets, vol. 5, 263. The bias of lumber dealers towards small urban centers made them unusual among retailers. Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed, 233; Saley, Realm of the Retailer, 49; Eugene Milener, Oneonta: The Development of a Railroad Town (Oneonta, NY: Hartwick College, 1997), 393; Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 16, 18; Ludwig, The Retail Lumber Dealer, 15; Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, Handbook, 230; Long-Bell, Manual of Instructions, 15, 46–61. Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 17, 18, 19; Maxwell and Baker, Sawdust Empire, 97; Long-Bell Lumber Company, Manual of Instructions, 24–25; Copeland, Problems in Marketing, 71–72. “Lumber: Retail Volume and Profits,” AL 2727 (August 13, 1927): 45. “Selling Small Lots of Lumber in a City,” AL 2328 (December 27, 1919): 58. Ross W. Beatty, “Surveying the Retail Yard’s Territory,” AL 2715 (May 28, 1927): 49–50; Edmund P. Learned, Problems in Marketing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936), 48–49. Robert Y. Kerr, Retail Lumber Sheds and Sales Equipment (Chicago: American Lumberman, 1917), 7, 9, 11; “Taking the Lumber Store to the People,” AL 2712 (May 7, 1927): 49. Ludwig, Retail Lumber Dealer, 10; “An Exceptional Retail Yard and Shed Layout,” AL 2688 (November 20, 1926): 47; Henry A. C. Hellyer, Yard Planning and Shed Design (Rochester, NY: Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association Inc., 1939), 42, 49.

366 / Notes to pp. 85–92 18. Robert A. Jones and Ray E. Latshaw, Management Check List for Retail Lumber Dealers (Gloucester, NJ: J. R. Quigley, 1945), 41. 19. Mirra Komarovsky, Blue Collar Marriage (New York: Random House, 1962), 54; Owen, The Walls Around Us, 48. Owen suggests that, “for complex cultural reasons,” women feel freer to ask na’ve questions in building supply stores, but in the 1920s they were daunted by lumberyards. 20. Charles McGovern, “Consumption,” in Stephen J. Whitfield, ed., A Companion to 20th-Century America (Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), 339; Carolyn M. Goldstein, “From Service to Sales: Home Economics in Light and Power, 1920–1940,” Technology and Culture 38 (1997): 130; Estelle O’Neel, “Selling the Woman and Keeping Her Sold,” American Building Association News (April 1932): 155; Ludwig, The Retail Lumber, 14; Wood, “Grade Marking”; “Taking the Lumber Store,” 50; J. Earl Brightbill, “Modern Merchandising in the Lumber Industry,” AL 2776 (July 28, 1928): 43. 21. Ludwig, Retail Lumber Dealer, 9; Charles Hill, The Merchandizing of Lumber, Lumber Industry Series no. 2 (New Haven: School of Forestry, Yale University, 1922), 6; “Exit, Men—Enter ‘Yard-Women,” BSN 1, no. 5 (September 4, 1917): 243; “Woman Dealer Alert to Modern Merchandising Methods,” AL 3074 (May 23, 1936): 26; “St. Louis Woman Buys for Five Yards,” Lumber [Dealer’s Edition] 62, no. 14 (September 9, 1918): 18B. For a supportive view of women in the lumber trade, see “Women in the Lumbering Industry,” Lumber [Dealer’s Edition] 62, no. 6 (July 15, 1918): 9–10. On hardware stores, see Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers, 227. 22. Saley, Realm of the Retailer, 160; “Realm of the Retailer,” 2309, 49; Agnes M. Olson, “Building Homes Out of Houses,” AL 2327 (December 20, 1919): 1, 42; Benson, Counter Cultures, 3. See also “The Lumber Retailer’s Strongest Ally in Selling Homes,” AL 2325 (December 6, 1919): 1. 23. “Women and Lumber Retailing,” parts 1, 2, and 3. AL 2290 (April 5, 1919): 47; 2291 (April 12, 1919): 50–51; 2293 (April 26, 1919): 54. See also Agnes M. Olson, “Building Homes Out of Houses,” AL 2327 (December 20, 1919), 42; and Adeline Spruce Hemlock, “Our Women’s Department,” WRL 3, no. 1 (March 19, 1914): 18. 24. “Make Your Strong Appeal to the Woman,” WRL 3, no. 6 (August 20, 1914): 17; W. Wadsworth Wood, “Grade Marking Retail Lumber Ads,” Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer 77, no. 3 (February 5, 1926): 49. Wood went on to found and edit Small Homes Guide. 25. Phil Creden, “America Rediscovers Its Hands,” American Magazine 156 (1953): 21. 26. Butler, The Distribution . . . Retail, 1918, 49; Saley, Realm of the Retailer, 140; C. H. Ketridge, “Realm of the Retailer,” MVL 50, no. 42 (October 17, 1919): 23–24; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2326 (December 13, 1919): 56; Ring W. Lardner, Own Your Own Home (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1919); “The Contractor’s Credit,” BSN 1, no. 3 (July 10, 1917): 111. On credits, see also Charles E. Whitehead, “Organizing Credits,” BSN 1, no. 5 (September 4, 1917): 237–239. The retailer’s poor management of credit is still an issue. See J. Nicholas, G. D. Holt, and P. T. Harris, “Suppliers Debt Collection and Contractor Unworthiness Evaluation,” Building Research and Information 28 (2000): 268–279. Dealers liked to criticize contractors for their poor business methods, notably underbidding. Edward K. Cormack, “No Standardizing Here,” BSN 1, no. 2 (June 12, 1917): 73–74. 27. Indiana University School of Business, “Financing the Construction of Single Family Homes in the East Central States: Part 1: Cases Which Formed the Basis for the Report,” Report to the U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1950, n.p., case 5600, typescript [NA, RG 207, box 22, O-F-1]; Michael Buzzelli and Richard Harris, “Small

Notes to pp. 92–96 / 367

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34. 35.

in Transient: Housebuilding Firms in Ontario, Canada, 1978–1998,” Housing Studies 18 (2003): 375; “Milwaukeeans Form Credit Bureau,” AL 2719 (June 12, 1927): 55. For a higher estimate of contractor numbers, see Warren Hayes, “A Study of the Distribution of Building Materials,” MBA thesis, Harvard University, 1950, 35. “Retailers Discuss Financing Home Building,” AL 2290 (April 5, 1919): 59; Gries and Ford, Home Ownership, Income and Types of Dwelling, 86, 103; “Simple and Flexible House Financing Plan,” AL 2543 (February 9, 1924): 3; “Making Home Owning Easy,” AL 2304 (July 12, 1919). On dealers and junior loans, see John Gries and Thomas M. Curran, “Choosing a Home Financing Agency,” in Halbert, ed., The Better Homes Manual, 33. “Home Financing in Southern California,” AL 2716 (June 4, 1927): 46; “Simple and Flexible,” 3; J. B. Douglas, “ ‘Building and Loan’ the Retailer’s Best Bet,” AL 2544 (February 16, 1924): 62; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2656 (April 10, 1926): 110–112; “Organizes Home Owners’ Club and Second Mortgage Association,” AL 2552 (April 12, 1924): 46. On savings clubs, see “Deposit Monthly for a Home, Is Dealer’s Suggestion,” AL 2561 (June 14, 1924): 44–45. Louis Hyman, “Debtor Nation: Changing Credit Practices in 20th Century America,” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 2008, 116, 148; John B. Paddi, “The Personal Loan Department of a Large Commercial Bank,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 196 (March 1938): 137; “Kriegshaber Reroofs 500 Homes in 18 Months,” BSN 27, no. 3 (January 18, 1927): 151, 153–155. The ten-times estimate is based on data for commercial banks in the late 1940s and 1950s. The differential declined after 1945, as banks realized economies of scale in servicing consumer loans and grew more efficient. Sidney M. Robbins and Nestor E. Terleckyj, Money Metropolis: A Locational Study of Financial Activities in the New York Region (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960), 72. Edward Hines Lumber, 50 Years, 11 (orig. emph.); Long-Bell Lumber Company, Manual of Instructions, 7; Morgan, Mill on the Boot, 224, 226; Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 282–283. On vertical integration in the lumber trade, see also Brown, Market Research, 221; Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1917, 25; Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 7. Tate, Modern Trends in Lumber Selling, 23; Brown, Lumber, 264; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2680 (September 25, 1926): 42–44; “Michigan Considers Housing and Merchandizing Problems,” AL 3067 (February 15, 1936): 40–41; “Wood Is the Cheapest Material for Residence Construction,” AL 2301 (June 21, 1919): 1, 41; M. P. McNair and H. L. Hansen, Problems in Marketing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1949); Morgan, Mill on the Boot, 224, 226. Lumber was created by the amalgamation of the St: Louis Lumberman and the Pioneer Western Lumberman. “Becomes Assistant to President,” AL, 2714 (May 21, 1927): 46; “Western Retailers, Gathered in ‘Lumber Capital,’ Analyze Their Problems,” AL 2703 (March 5, 1927): 73; “Two Thousand Lumber Merchants Attend Texas Association Annual 1927,” AL 2709 (April 16, 1927): 59; “Arizona-New Mexico Mills form Sales Organization,” AL 2727 (August 20, 1927): 50–52; “Chicago Secretaries Guests of Hoo Hoo,” AL 2696 (January 15, 1927): 82. The two texts written by Hood were Scientific Lumber Retailing (Mount Morris, IL: National Retail Lumber Dealer, 1925) and Profitable Lumber Retailing (Mount Morris, IL: Kable Brothers, 1928). “To Confer on National Trade Extension,” AL 2732 (September 24, 1927): 41; “Manufacturer Wants to Know,” 88. “Lumber Industry Makes Plans for ‘New Deal,’ AL 2999 (July 8, 1933): 34, 35, 36;

368 / Notes to pp. 96–100 Leverett S. Lyon et al., The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal (Washington, DC: Brookings Institute, 1935), 143. See also Bahr, “Lumber and Timber Products Industries.” 36. Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 60; A. W. Shaw Co., A Report on the Profitable Management of a Retail Lumber Business (Chicago: A. W. Shaw, 1918), 47. On Shaw’s role at Harvard, see Melvin Copeland, And Mark an Era: The Story of the Harvard Business School (Boston: Little, Brown, 1958), 43–44. CHAPTER FIVE

1. 2. 3.

4.

5.

6.

Joseph C. Palamountain, The Politics of Distribution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), 33, 45n51; Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 7. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 187–188, 190. Searce is quoted in Bryant, Lumber, 319, and see318, 327–336. Peter A. Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, NRA Work Materials no. 79 (Washington, DC: National Recovery Administration, 1936), 243–259. Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, 211, 215, 222; George W. Franz, A Centennial History: Eastern Building Materials Dealers’ Association 1892–1992 (Virginia Beach, VA: Donning Company, 1992), 74; Brown, Lumber, 268. Circulation of the Sears catalog soared from one million in spring 1904, to two million in spring 1905, to three million in fall 1907. Daniel J. Boorstin, The Americans: The Democratic Experience (New York: Random House, 1973), 128, 132. The same timing was apparent in Canada, where rural delivery was introduced after 1908. Brian Osborne and Robert Pike, “The Postal Revolution in Central Canada, 1851– 1911,” in Lorne Tepperman and James Curtis, eds., Readings in Sociology: An Introduction (Toronto: McGraw-Hill Ryerson, 1988), 242. The best study of a kit company is Marina Moskowitz’s analysis of Aladdin in The Standard of Living: The Measure of the Middle Class in America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004), 129–176. See also Sally L. Bund and Robert Schweitzer, “The House that Lewis Built,” Michigan History 79, no. 2 (1995): 18–25; Carolyn Flynn, “Pacific Ready-Cut Homes: Mass-Produced Bungalows in Los Angeles, 1908– 1942,” M.A. thesis, UCLA, 1986; Alan Gowans, The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture 1890–1930 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987), 41–67; Kay Halpin, “Sears, Roebuck’s Best Kept Secret,” Historic Preservation 33, no. 5 (1981): 24–29; David Schwartz, “When Home Sweet Home Was Just a Mailbox Away,” Smithsonian 16, no. 8 (1985): 90–100; Robert Schweitzer and Michael W. R. Davis, America’s Favorite Homes: Mail Order Catalogs as a Guide to Popular Early 20th Century Homes (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990); Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl, Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses from Sears, Roebuck and Company (Washington, DC: Preservation Press, 1986); Rosemary Thornton, The Houses That Sears Built (Alton, IL: Gentle Beam Publications, 2004). For more popular coverage, see Lea Hausner, “Sears Houses From Kits Scattered Across Nation,” WP September 15, 1982; Alan Murray, “Mail-Order Homes Sears Sold in 1909–37 Are Suddenly Chic,” WSJ February 11, 1985; “For Sears Houses, a Catalog Like No Other,” NYT February 7, 1993. On Canadian kit homes, see J. L. Henry, Catalog Houses: Eatons’ and Others (Saskatoon, SK: Henry Perspectives, 2000); G. E. Mills, Buying Wood and Building Farms: Marketing Lumber and Farm Building Designs on the Canadian Prairies 1880 to 1920 (Ottawa: Environment Canada, Parks Service, 1991); G. S. Mills and Deryck

Notes to pp. 100–101 / 369 Holdsworth, “The B. C. Mills Prefabricated System. The Emergence of Ready-Made Buildings in Western Canada,” Canadian Historic Sites 14 (1975): 128–170. 7. Nobody has reported annual or aggregate sales data for any company except Aladdin. One estimate suggests that 500,000–750,000 mail-order kits were sold 1900– 1960, which is consistent with the lower figure by 1930. Bund and Schweitzer, “The House that Lewis Built,” 24. Before the Depression, annual starts of single-family dwellings ranged between 166,000 (1917) and 573,000 (1925). 8. The following account is based on a survey of the following catalogs. Aladdin Company, Aladdin ‘Built in a Day’ House Catalog, 1917 (reprint) (New York: Dover, 1995); Aladdin Company, Aladdin Plan of Industrial Housing (Bay City, MI: Aladdin, 1919); Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes: Built in a Day (Bay City, MI: Aladdin, 1920), Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes: Sold by the Golden Rule (Bay City, MI: Aladdin, 1925); Aladdin Company, Aladdin Readi-Cut Homes (Bay City, MI: Aladdin, 1950); Ray H. Bennett Lumber Co., Building Material: Your Book of Lumber Bargains (North Tonawanda, NY: Bennett, 1917); Ray H. Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Homes: BetterBuilt Ready Cut (North Tonawanda, NY: Bennett, 1920); Ray H. Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Bargain Book of Lumber, Mill Work and Building Materials (North Tonawanda, NY: Bennett, 1924); Canadian Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes: Complete Cities or Single Homes (Toronto: Canadian Aladdin, 1920); Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details 1915 (reprint) (Davenport, IA: American Life Foundation, 1985); GordonVan Tine Co., Housing Labor: A Book Written by Business Men and Dealing with Housing as a Means for Getting and Holding Labor to Meet Today’s Need for Increased Production (Davenport, IA: Gordon-Van Tine, 1918); Gordon-Van Tine Co., 117 House Designs of the Twenties (reprint) (New York: Dover 1992); Halliday Company Ltd., “Comfortested Homes” Homes of “All-Weather Comfort”’ (Hamilton, ON: Hallidays, 1932); Halliday Company Ltd, Halliday’s Catalog of Builders’ Bargains (Hamilton, ON: Hallidays, 1936); Harris Brothers Co., A Plan Book of Harris Homes (Chicago: Harris Brothers, 1920); International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty: Sterling SystemBuilt Homes (Bay City, MI: International Mill and Timber Company, 1915); Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character (Bay City, MI: Lewis Mfg, 1920); Lewis Manufacturing Company, The New Liberty Homes (Bay City, MI: Lewis Mfg., 1941); Montgomery Ward and Co., Wardway Homes Bungalows and Cottages, 1925 (reprint) (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004); Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, California’s Kit Homes: A Reprint of the 1925 Pacific Ready-Cut Homes Catalog (reprint) (Alton, IL: Gentle Beam Publications, 2004); Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sears Modern Homes (reprint of 1913 edition) (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2007); Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sears, Roebuck Catalog of Houses, 1926 (reprint) (New York: Dover, 1991); Standard Homes Co., Best Homes of the 1920s (reprint) (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2008); Paul H. Tedesco and James B. Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses of the Thirties: The E. F: Hodgson Company 1935 and 1939 Catalogs (reprint) (Dover, MA: JBT Publishing, 2007). The following trade journals were surveyed: AL (est. 1899: selected years from 1915), BSN (est. 1917: 1917–1930), Canada Lumberman (est. 1921: 1921–1930), MVL (est. 1887: selected years, 1910–1919), WRL (est. 1911: 1911–1915). 9. See, for example, “Catalog House Owner Objects to Truth Telling,” MVL 45, no. 19 (May 8, 1914): 30. 10. “Policy of the Welles-Thompson Lumber Company,” MVL 45, no. 13 (March 27, 1914): 33; “Blackmailing Retailers,” MVL 45, no. 28 (July 10, 1914): 33. 11. Bennett Lumber Co., Building Material, 7; Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Bargain Book, 56; “Blackmailing Retailers”; Ben C. Mueller, “The Mail Order Lumber Business,”

370 / Notes to pp. 101–4

12. 13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

AL 2170 (December 16, 1916): 47; “Catalog House Owner”; “Winds Up a Catalog House Career,” MVL, 45, no. 22 (May 29, 1914): 33. Another example of cut-price advertising was Harris Brothers Co., The Price Wrecker, Chicago House Wrecking Company: Lumber, Building Material, Machinery, Supplies, Household Goods (Chicago: Harris House Wrecking Co., 1915). Thornton, The Houses That Sears Built, 131; Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 8. “Not the Retailers’ Friends,” MVL 45, no. 13 (March 27, 1914): 33. The listing was incomplete. Another report indicated the presence of at least twenty catalog houses based on the west coast alone. “Blackmailing Retailers”; Boorstin, Americans, 124. Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, viii; Ben C. Mueller, “The Mail Order Lumber Business,” AL 2168 (December 2, 1916): 42; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, n.p.; Flynn, Pacific Ready-Cut Homes; Boris Emmet and John E. Jenck, Catalogs and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 226; Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 65–66; Platt B. Walker, “How Can I Get a Raise in My Salary?,” WRL 3, no. 11 (January 21, 1915): 4; Michael J. Doucet and John Weaver, “Material Culture and the North American House: The Era of the Common Man, 1870–1920,” Journal of American History 72, no. 3 (1985): 572; Thornton, The Houses That Sears Built, 38. Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 70–74; “Local Lumber Company,” MVL 45, no. 40 (October 2, 1914): 33. For early catalogs see Harris Brothers, A Plan Book; International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty; Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character. “Stick by Your Friends,” MVL 45, no. 15 (April 10, 1914): 33; C. H. Ketridge, “The Coming Revolution,” WRL 3, no. 10 (December 17, 1914): 17. Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 86; Shaw, Report on the Profitable Management, 10–20. Aladdin published a special catalog for the industrial market. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Plan. Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, n.p.; Harris Brothers, A Plan Book, 2. In 1915, International Mill offered a 5 percent discount. International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty, 14. “A Chance for Retailers,” MVL 45, no. 18 (May 1, 1914): 33; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, n.p.; Harris Brothers, A Plan Book, 2; International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty, 14; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 143–144; Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes: A Notable Exhibition of California Architecture (Los Angeles: Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, 1925), 160; Mueller, “The Mail Order Lumber Business,” AL 2170 (December 16, 1916): 46. Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite Homes, 86; Thornton, The Houses that Sears Built, 63; Henry, Catalog Houses, 30; Montgomery Ward, Wardway Homes; Flynn, Pacific Ready-Cut, 54. Gowans, Comfortable House, 50; Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 85, 239; Canadian Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes; Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 239; Aladdin, Aladdin Homes, n.p.; Clifford E. Clark, The American Family Home, 1800–1960 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 175. The estimate for Sears is disputed; that for Aladdin is firm. Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 14, 65, 72; Thornton, The Houses that Sears Built, 63. Thornton estimates a final tally of 75,000 for Sears, after it had shipped a few units, using different technology, in the late 1930s and 1940s. Printer’s Ink reports sales of 56,000 by

Notes to pp. 104–9 / 371

23. 24.

25.

26. 27.

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

33.

34. 35.

1931. On other companies see Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 14; Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details, 58. Flynn, Pacific Ready-Cut, 15; Henry, Catalog Houses, 2; Lewis Manufacturing, The New Liberty, 3. “Wm. Johann Goes in for Ready-Cut Homes,” BSN 28, no. 5 (May 3, 1927): 289. Except for Evansville, the other subregional companies were included in a list compiled by the FHA, but their operations must have been limited since trade records make no reference to them. FHA, Recent Developments in Dwelling Construction, Technical Bulletin no. 1 (Washington, DC: FHA, 1936), 12. Irwin M. Heine, “The Influence of Geographic Factors in the Development of the Mail Order Business,” American Marketing Journal 3 (April): 129; Ray Bennett Co., Bennett Bargain Book, 3; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 11; Halliday Company, ‘Comfortested Homes.’ Mills, Buying Wood; Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, 30. Curtis Publishing Company, “Selling Houses by Mail” (full-page advertisement), WRL 4, no. 3 (May 20, 1915): 3 [Reproduced from Philadelphia Public Ledger]; Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 89–90; Flynn, Pacific Ready-Cut, 6; Martha Banta, Taylored Lives: Narrative Productions in the Age of Taylor, Veblen, and Ford (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 251–271; Moskowitz, Standard of Living, 133–141. Boorstin, Americans, 128–129; Aladdin Company, Aladdin “Built in a Day”; GordonVan Tine, Architectural Details 1915; Montgomery Ward and Co., Wardway Homes; Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sears, Roebuck; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs. Regarding how Aladdin combined catalog design with advertising and newsletters, see Moskowitz, Standard of Living, 155–167. Charles W. Fish, “Meeting Mail-Order Homes Competition,” National Lumberman 86, no. 9 (September 1931): 29; “Make Your Strong Appeal to the Woman,” WRL 3, no. 6 (August 20, 1914): 17; “Women and Lumber Retailing,” AL 2291 (April 12, 1919): 50. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2316 (October 4, 1919): 43; Mueller, “The Mail Order,” AL 2170 (December 16, 1916): 46. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 47; Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Homes, 72; International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty, 9; Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sears, Roebuck. Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Homes, 5, 7; Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 4–5; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 14–16; Montgomery Ward, Wardway Homes, 9; Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 21. For interpretation of Aladdin’s production strategy, see Moskowitz, Standard of Living, 141–155. Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 2; Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 22, 23. See also Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 7, 12. On the grange, see Boorstin, The Americans, 118–129; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 187. Mills, Buying Wood, 20. Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon, 1989), 216; Boorstin, Americans, 127; Ben C. Mueller, “The MailOrder Lumber Business,” AL 2172 (30 December, 1916): 43; Paul Voisey, “Boosting the Small Prairie Town, 1904–1931: An Example from Southern Alberta,” in A. F. J. Artibise, ed., Town and City: Aspects of Western Canadian Urban Development (Regina, Saskatchewan: Canadian Plains Research Centre, 1981), 147–176; “After Mail-Order

372 / Notes to pp. 109–14

36. 37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

42.

43.

44. 45.

46. 47.

48. 49.

Houses,” WP July 18, 1907; Millrose Lumber Company, “Ten Reasons Why We Should Buy in Springfield,” c. 1917 (advertisement), reproduced in Shaw, A Report, 61; Wayne Fuller, RFD: The Changing Face of Rural America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), 256; Franz, A Centennial History, 58. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 22; International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty, 4 (orig. emph.). Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 6–7; Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 21; Montgomery Ward, Wardway Homes, 8; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 10–11; Aladdin Company, Aladdin Plan, 35. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 22; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 8; Halliday Company, ‘Comfortested Homes,’ 3; Harris Brothers, A Plan Book, 8; International Mill and Timber, The Famous Fifty, 38; Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character, 81; Montgomery Ward, Wardway Homes, 91; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 6, 7, 19. Owner-building was also noted in post–World War II catalogs, but these placed more emphasis on the involvement of friends, relatives, and women. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Readi-Cut, 36; Lewis Manufacturing Company, New Liberty Homes, 45; “Comfortested Homes,” 3. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 52; Canadian Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 97; Halliday Company Ltd, “Comfortested Homes”; Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details, 53, 83, 96. Bryant, Lumber, 386; Mueller, “The Mail Order Lumber Business,” AL 2172 (December 30, 1916): 43; Flynn, Pacific Ready-Cut, 15; Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 17; Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, 49. Thornton, The Houses that Sears Built; International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty, 15; Harris Brothers, A Plan Book, 9, 8; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 112. Thornton’s survey suggests such advertising peaked 1912–1915. “A Chance for Retailers”; “Activities of Western Catalog Houses,” MVL 45, no. 35 (August 28, 1914): 33; “The Klipsum Lumber Company,” MVL 45, no. 6 (September 4, 1914): 33. Emmet and Jenck, Catalogs and Counters, 520–527; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, n.p.; Thornton, The Houses that Sears Built, 103. Montgomery Ward considered sales centers, but it is not clear whether they carried this through. “Mail Order Houses Eye Supply and Lumber Business,” BSN 28, no. 1 (April 5, 1927): 19. “Arkansas Dealers Gird for Active Future,” AL 2710 (April 23, 1927): 66–67; Stevenson and Jandl, Houses by Mail, 22. Promotional material included with Lewis Manufacturing Company, The New Liberty, n.p.; International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty, 15 (emphasis in original). See also Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 19; Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character, 6. “How One Woman Figured on Discharging Her Husband,” WRL 3, no. 9 (November 19, 1914): 15. Palamountain, The Politics, 45 n51; “A New Retail Prize Contest” AL 1920 (March 2, 1912): 40; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2327 (December 20, 1919): 40; “A Tissue of Lies,” MVL 45, no. 33 (August 28, 1914): 33. “Some Interesting Experiences,” MVL 45, no. 10 (May 15, 1914): 33; “Contraband Shipments,” MVL 45, no. 34 (August 21, 1914): 33. “Lumber Men Indicted,” NYT June 24, 1911; “New Lumber Trust Suit,” WP September 1, 1911; “Fourth Suit Against the Lumber Trust,” NYT September 28, 1911. The

Notes to pp. 114–19 / 373

50. 51. 52. 53.

54.

55.

56.

57.

58.

59. 60.

61. 62.

63.

Michigan scheme levied a 10 percent penalty on manufacturers and wholesalers who did not sell to members of the state association. Bryant, Lumber, 335. Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details, 13; U.S. Department of Commerce, The Lumber Industry, xx; “Of Vital Interest,” MVL 45, no. 37 (September 11, 1914): 33. Platt B. Walker, “How Can I Get a Raise in My Salary?” WRL 3, no. 11 (January 21, 1915): 4. The phrase became ubiquitous. “Modern Merchandizing Methods,” WRL 3, no. 11 (January 21, 1915): 1 (editorial); “The Catalog House Problem,” MVL 45, no. 30 (July 24, 1914): 33; “Stick by Your Friends,” MVL 45, no. 15 (April 10, 1914): 33. C. H. Ketridge, “Retail Lumber Associations are Giving Valuable Service to Their Members,” MVL 45, no. 22 (May 29, 1914): 34; “Campaigning for Members,” MVL 45, no. 40 (October 20, 1914): 33; “The Fighting Lumberman,” WRL 3, no. 10 (December 17, 1914): 1 (editorial). Lien law affected dealers’ ability to claim on contractor’s bad debts, a common problem. Harold Rosenberg, “They Laughed at Me When I Sat Down” (editorial), BSN 72, no. 5 (May 1947): 13: “Industry Leaders Salute BSN’s 40th Anniversary,” BSN 92, no. 5 (May 1957): 122; “Hardware Store Is Perfect Supplement to Scarsdale’s Thriving Supply Yard,” BSN 28, no. 12 (June 21, 1927): 717. James R. Moorehead, “The Mail-Order House from the Lumberman’s Standpoint,” WRL 1, no. 1 (November 1, 1911): 22–23, 26–28; Brown, American Lumber Industry, 254; “Architects Aiding the Small Builder,” NYT November 2, 1924; U.S. Temporary National Economic Committee, Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power, Towards More Housing, Monograph 8 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1940): 103. C. H. Ketridge, “Evolution Is Bringing Many Changes in Methods and Materials in Common Use,” MVL 45, no. 20 (March 15, 1914): 35; Charles W. Fish, “Meeting Mail-Order Homes Competition,” National Lumberman 86, no. 9 (September 1931): 29; “Activities of Western Catalog Houses,” MVL 45, no. 35 (August 28, 1914): 33. For different opinions see “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2325 (December 6, 1919): 42; 2326 (December 13, 1919): 56; 2664 (June 5, 1926): 45; C. H. Ketridge, “The Realm of the Retailer,” MVL 56, no. 42 (October 16, 1925): 31. W. Wadsworth Wood, “Grade Marking Retail Lumber Ads,” Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer, 78, no. 4 (August 20, 1926): 30. Shaw Co., A Report, 27; “Meeting Mail Order Competition,” AL 2700 (February 12, 1927): 47. For another report on this meeting see “Ontario Dealers Discuss Selling Methods,” AL 2700 (February 12, 1927) 65. See also “Ontarioans [sic] Confer Upon Retail Methods,” AL 2295 (May 10, 1919): 55. On better advertising see Hill, The Merchandising, 17; Brown, American Lumber Industry, 119–120; Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 95–97. Ludwig, Retail Lumber Dealer, 17. Ketridge, “Retail Lumber Associations,” 34; Wood, “Grade Marking”; “A Lumber Cooperative.” The bureau did not last, but Wood built a marketing career. In the late 1930s he directed the National Small Homes Bureau, an agency of the NLMA and the NRLDA, and in the 1940s founded and edited Small Homes Guide, a magazine targeted at families who wished to build a home. On Canadian advertising, see Mills, Buying Wood, 29. “You Can Beat This—Easy,” WRL 4, no. 3 (May 20, 1915): 2 (editorial). See also “Home Advertising—Real Advertising,” WRL 3, no. 12 (February 18, 1915): 8 (editorial).

374 / Notes to pp. 119–22 64. “What You Will Get for that Fifty Dollars,” WRL 3, no. 1 (March 19, 1914): 4; “ ‘57’ Best Reasons Why the Lumberman’s Own Plan Book,” WRL 3, no. 1 (March 19, 1914): 12–13; “Just Figures,” WRL 4, no. 4 (June 17, 1915): 7; Mills, Buying Wood, 34, 37. 65. Ketridge, “The Realm of the Retailer,” MVL, 50, no. 30 (July 25, 1919): 25; Mills, Buying Wood, 34; Henry, Catalog Houses, 26–27. 66. Michigan Retail Lumber Dealers Association, Better Homes: A Select Collection of Practical Designs for Moderately Priced Homes (Grand Rapids, MI: Michigan Retail Lumber Dealers Association, 1921); “Announcing a New Series of American Lumberman House Plans,” AL 2660 (May 8, 1926): 41; “Home Service Department Sells 460 Homes, While 2000 Persons Have Used It,” BSN 28, no. 5 (May 3, 1927): 290–292; “No Dull Winter Days for ‘Bilt-Well’ Dealers,” AL 2322 (November 22, 1919): 25 (advertisement); Aymar Embury, Not a House but a Home (Little Rock: Arkansas Soft Pine Bureau, 1916); Southern Pine Sales Association, “You Can Sell Complete Homes,” AL 2308 (August 9, 1919): 9 (advertisement); Brandywine Lumber Company, Eastern Homes (Wilmington, DE, 1932). 67. Gowans, Comfortable House, 63–67. Some towns required licensed architects for expensive domestic buildings. In Davenport, Ia., in 1924 the cutoff was $10,000. The most expensive house in the 1926 Sears, Roebuck catalog cost $4,909. Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck. Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular, 73, reports an estimate that architects designed 10 percent of all types of buildings in this period; the proportion for single-family dwellings was much less. 68. Hood, Profitable Lumber Retailing, 129; “No Fixed Policy,” MVL 45, no. 23 (June 5, 1914): 33. 69. “A Modern Retail Building Material Store,” WRL 4, no. 10 (December 16, 1915): 8–9; “Mail Order Houses Eye Supply and Lumber Business,” BSN 28, no. 1 (April 5, 1927): 19; “Erecting a Modern Building Material Store,” AL 2321 (November 15, 1919): 46; “Make Your Strong Appeal,” 16–17; “A ‘Dolled-Up’ Yard Makes Cheerful Buyers,” AL 2317 (October 11, 1919): 49. 70. Walker, “How Can I Get,” 5; Ketridge, “Realm of the Retailer,” MVL 50, no 19 (May 9, 1919): 25. 71. “Easy to Meet,” MVL 45, no. 25 (June 19, 1914): 33; “The Catalog House Problem,” MVL 45, no. 30 (July 24, 1914): 33; “Will This Mail Order House Sell Any Lumber?” AL 2321 (November 15, 1919): 44. See also “What This Man Did You Can Also Do,” WRL 3, no. 7 (September 17, 1914): 10–11. 72. The point was made many times. See, notably, Fish, “Meeting Mail-Order.” 73. See, for example, “East to Meet”; “Must be Alive,” MVL 45, no. 34 (August 21, 1914): 33. 74. “Home Service Department”; “Meeting Mail Order Competition”; Wilson and Greene Lumber Company, Homes: How to Plan, Finance and Build (Syracuse: Wilson and Greene, 1926), 92; Hood, Scientific Lumber Retailing; Profitable Lumber Retailing; “More Money to Build Homes,” ABBA 51 (January 1931): 64–65. 75. “The Doings and Thoughts”; “Lumbermen not Handling Supplies is a Back Number,” BSN 26, no. 7 (November 16, 1926): 375, 377–378, 412; B. C. Reber, “In 3½ Years Their Annual Sales Reach $500,000,” BSN 24, no. 14 (April 6, 1926): 17, 19– 21; “Selling Small Lots”; Seidel, “Lumber Merchandising,” 52; MacRae, History, 567; Long-Bell Lumber Company, Manual, 14, 24–25; “Lumber: Retail Volume and Profits,” AL 2727 (August 13, 1927): 45; Ludwig, Retail Lumber Dealer, 9. 76. “A Live Oregon Firm,” WRL 3, no. 11 (January 21, 1915): 13; “Lumbermen ‘Carry

Notes to pp. 123–31 / 375

77. 78.

79.

80. 81.

82.

On’ in ‘Own Your Home’ Campaign,” AL 2283 (February 15, 1919): 42; “Dealer’s Financing Plan Sells 500 Modern Homes,” AL 2581 (November 1, 1924): 44–45; “Ed. Steves’ Pioneer Spirit Still Rules Great Firm,” BSN 25, no. 7 (August 17, 1926): 337, 339–341; Hood, Profitable, 302; “Is the Time Coming When Retailer Must Sell the Complete Home?” AL 2696 (January 15, 1927): 54–55; “Women Go ‘Shopping’ for Materials at Smith-Green’s Ground Floor Home Lovers’ Paradise,” BSN 27, no. 13 (March 29, 1927): 831, 833–835. Brightbill, “Modern Merchandizing,” 43; “The Fighting Lumberman.” “Realm of the Retailer” AL, 2303 (July 15, 1919): 48; “Ladies Give Lumber Yard the ‘Once Over,’ ” AL 2709 (April 16, 2709): 45; “Over Two Thousand Women Visit Lumber Yard,” AL 2723 (July 23, 1927): 38, 62; “The Future (?) of the Small Town Yard,” AL 2994 (April 29, 1933): 23. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2325, 42; Ketridge, “The Realm of the Retailer” MVL 50, no. 44 (October 31, 1919): 25. See also “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2309 (August 16, 1919): 48–49. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2325, 43; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2587, 42. See also “Arkansas Dealers Gird,” 67. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2672 (July 31, 1926): 42; “Center Sales Attention on Home Building,” BSN 23, no. 9 (March 2, 1926): 425, 427; “Mail Order Houses Eye Supply”; Roy L. Vickrey, “Mail-Order Competition is Growing Rapidly,” BSN 24, no. 8 (May 25, 1926): 405; “Mail-Order Competition Helped Him Sell 7 Homes,” BSN 28, no. 1 (April 5, 1927): 17, 49; “Wm. Johann.” “Five Hundred Retailers Suggest Convention Topics,” AL 2690 (December 4, 1926): 46–47; “Mail Order Points Way to the Lumber Dealer,” PI (October 15, 1931): 130, 132. CHAPTER SIX

1. 2.

3.

4.

5.

Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 153; Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, 219. Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, 219, 197, 203, 204; Stanford Research Institute, America’s Demand for Wood, 1929–1975 (Tacoma, WA: Weyerhaeuser Timber Company, 1954), 35, table 4: Stanley Lebergott, Pursuing Happiness: American Consumers in the Twentieth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 107. See also Michael A. Bernstein, The Great Depression: Delayed Recovery and Economic Change in America 1929–1931 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 86; Mario G. Carbone, Economic Difficulties of the Lumber Industry of the United States, 1850–1932, Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1937, 39; Joseph Zaremba, Economics of the American Lumber Industry (New York: Robert Speller, 1963), 100. Stone, Economic Problems, 76; Woodbury, Apartment House Increases, 30–35; John Gries and James Ford, Farm and Village Housing: Report of the Committee on Farm and Village Housing (Washington, DC: PCHH, 1932), 63; Bernstein, The Great Depression, 86; “Lumber Industry Makes Plans,” 36. The proportion of Americans living in urban centers larger than 5,000 was 47.1 percent in 1920 and 52.3 percent in 1930. Canada became urban in the 1940s. White, Successful Houses, 238, 240; Frederick, Household Engineering, 456; Brown, American Lumber Industry, 119; Southern Pine Association, Homes for Workmen (New Orleans: Southern Pine Association, 1919), 209, 211. Brown, Timber Products and Industries, 128; “Hoosier Hardwood Men in Twenty-

376 / Notes to pp. 131–37

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11. 12. 13.

14.

15.

16.

Eighth Annual,” AL 2697 (January 22, 1927): 54; “Better Grading, More Advertising Principal Themes of Canadian Lumbermen’s Annual,” AL 2700 (February 12, 1927): 73. “Two Thousand Lumber Merchants attend Texas Association Annual,” AL 2709 (April 16, 1927): 63; Arthur C. Pack, Forestry: An Economic Challenge (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 45. “National Lumber Retailers Face Future with Courage and Optimism,” AL 2841 (October 26, 1929): 54; W. H. Upson, “Every worth-while product has its rightful use,” AL 2701 (February 19, 1927): 87. “Why Lumber Dealers Welcomed Insulite,” AL 2702 (February 26, 1927): 8 (advertisement); “Here Is the Logical Insulation for Lumber Dealers to Sell,” AL 2695 (January 8, 1927): 8 (advertisement). “It Pays to Develop Celotex Business,” AL 2711 (April 30, 1927): 5 (advertisement); Simpson, Cheap, Quick, and Easy, 93; “1927 is Already a Big Reroof Year,” AL 2709 (April 16, 1927): 28 (advertisement); “National Lumber Retailers.” “Bigger Profits with Structural Insulation,” AL 2700 (February 12, 1927): 17 (advertisement); “Celotex Dealers Must Make a Profit,” AL 2699 (February 5, 1927): 10– 11 (advertisement); “Southwestern Shows Substantial Progress in Developing Retail Yard Efficiency,” AL 2698 (January 29, 1927), 66. Gries and Ford, Home Ownership, Income and Types of Dwelling, 99. Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink, Your Money’s Worth: A Study in the Waste of the Consumer’s Dollar (New York: Macmillan, 1927), 31, 34, 56. Periodicals Publishers’ Association, Experiences of Associations in National Advertising (New York: Periodicals Publishers’ Association, 1928), 23; Printer’s Ink, Fifty Years: 1888–1938 (New York: Printer’s Ink, 1938), 387. John M. Gries and James Ford, Household Management and Kitchens (Washington, DC: PCHH, 1931), 119, 120, 133; John M. Gries and James Ford, Home Ownership, Income and Types of Dwellings (Washington, DC: PCHH, 1932), 67, 113; U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Financial Survey of Urban Housing: Statistics on Financial Aspects of Urban Housing (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1937), tables 20, 21. On the relationship between income and housing expenditures see also Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 116, 118, 120. On boarding and lodging, see Richard Harris, “The Flexible House: The Housing Backlog and the Persistence of Lodging, 1891– 1951,” Social Science History 18 (1994): 31–53; Richard Harris, “The End Justified the Means: Boarding and Rooming in a City of Homes, 1890–1951,” Journal of Social History 26 (1992): 331–358; John Modell and Tamara Hareven, “Urbanisation and the Malleable Household,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 35 (1973): 467–479. Louis Winnick, “Housing: Has There Been a Downward Shift in Consumers’ Preferences? Residential Housing Since 1890,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 69 (1955): 86; J. Frederick Dewhurst and Associates, America’s Needs and Resources: A New Survey (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1955), 206, table 81. For an extension of these data see U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, How American Buying Habits Change (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Labor, 1959), 226–227, table 26. For related discussion see Editors of Fortune, Housing America (New York: Harcourt Brace and Company, 1932), 54–56; Leo Grebler, David M. Blank, and Louis Winnick, Capital Formation in Residential Real Estate (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956), 131–133; Martin Meyerson, B. Terrett, and W. L. C. Wheaton, Housing, People, and Cities (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962), 63. Dewhurst and Associates, America’s Needs and Resources, Table 239.

Notes to pp. 137–43 / 377 17. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, How American Buying Habits Change, table 26. 18. Wehrwein and Woodbury, Tenancy versus Ownership, 194; McDonnell, Baxter and Eastman (Advertising) Ltd., Canada’s Home Building Requirements (Toronto: McDonnell, Baxter and Eastman, c. 1936), n.p. (RG 19, vol. 708, file 203-1A, LAC); Richard T. Ely, foreword to U.S. Department of Commerce, Mortgages on Homes: Census Monograph II (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1923), 14; Lynd and Lynd, Middletown, 254; “No Automobile ‘Materials’ Shown,” AL 2699 (February 5, 1927): 41 (editorial). 19. Robert L. Davison, “New Construction Methods,” Architectural Record 66 (October 1929): 363. On the criticisms leveled at the building industry, see Harris and Buzzelli, “House Building in the Machine Age.” 20. Paul Cherington, The Consumer Looks at Advertising (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1928), 38, 39; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2277 (January 4, 1919): 50. Cherington ignored the building industry, probably considering it a lost cause. 21. Lendol Calder, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999), 17, 251; Martha Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit and Consumer Durables in the 1920s (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 92, 93, 160; Edwin Seligman, The Economics of Instalment Credit (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1927), 12; Hines, “On Our Retail Way,” 36. Seligman commented that mortgages were “by far the most important and the most complicated” type of installment credit but excluded them from his survey because real estate was not “an article of consumption.” Later writers have examined mortgages or installment credit, but rarely both. 22. Brown, Lumber, 332; National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights, 9, 15, 18. 23. National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights, 35, 39–40; John M. Gries and James Ford, eds., House Design Construction and Equipment (Washington, DC: PCHH, 1932), 75n5, 79n8, 80n9. 24. Brown, Lumber, 133; Nelson Perkins, “Use of Wood in House Construction,” in Halbert, ed., Better Homes Manual, 211–212; Chase and Schlink, Your Money’s Worth, 176; “Southern Mill Managers in Joint Meeting,” AL 2705 (March 26, 1927): 65; “Short Lengths and the Flivver,” AL 2704 (March 19, 1927): 53. 25. Long-Bell Lumber Co., From Tree to Trade (Kansas City, Mo: Long-Bell, 1920), 29; Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 357, 366–368, 474; Architects Small House Service Bureau, Your Future Home (Saint Paul: Weyerhaeuser Forest Products, 1923); Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, Handbook, 18; Weyerhaeuser Sales Corp., Good Homes Never Grow Old: A Manual for Homeowners on the Economic Maintenance of Homes (St. Paul: Weyerhaeuser Sales Corp., 1935), 30–31. See also Tate, Modern Trends in Lumber Selling, 28; Perkins, “Use of Wood,” 213, 214. The bureau had limited impact: Harvey has estimated that about 5,000 homes were built using its plans over a period when eight million dwellings were built in the United States. Thomas Harvey, “Mail Order Architecture in the Twenties,” Landscape 25, no. 3 (1981): 9; See also Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 196–198. 26. Fickle, The New South, 189, 201–202; “Reports on Progress of Grade-Marking Program,” AL 2705 (March 26, 1927): 64; “Southern Pine Association Reaffirms GradeMarking Program,” AL 2705 (March 26, 1927): 58, 59. 27. Fickle, The New South, 201–202; National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights, 24, 62, 63. 28. National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights, 27, 28, 29; “Association

378 / Notes to pp. 143–48

29. 30.

31.

32.

33.

34. 35.

36. 37.

38. 39.

40.

41. 42.

Work Shown by Contest,” NYT May 4, 1930. See also Simon N. Whitney, Trade Associations and Industrial Control (New York: Central Book Company, 1938), 35–37. National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights, 30, 32. “Lumber Industry’s Trade Extension Campaign Getting Under Way,” AL 2712 (May 7, 1927), 67; “Canadians Plan Trade Extension,” AL 2745 (December 24, 1927): 54; “To Confer on National Trade Extension,” AL 2732 (September 24, 1927): 41. Bryant, Lumber, 320, 322; George W. Franz, A Centennial History: Eastern Building Materials Dealers Association, 1892–1992 (Virginia Beach: Donning Company, 1992), 64, 122. Ralph T. McQuinn, “Special Spring Paint Section,” Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer 77, no. 11 (May 28, 1926): 31; “Diversified Industries Stabilize Sales,” AL 2702 (February 26, 1927): 44–45. “Southwestern Shows Substantial Progress,” 66, 67; “Merchandising Theme at Northeastern Annual,” AL 2698 (January 29, 1927): 1, 68–72; “Pennsylvania Lumbermen’s Annual Forum on Merchandising Ideas,” AL 2699 (February 5, 1927): 60–62; “Illinois Retailers in Greatest Annual Read the Signs of the Times,” AL 2700 (February 12, 1927): 66–68. “Pennsylvania Lumbermen’s Annual,” 60; “Illinois Retailers,” 66, 68. “Michigan Dealers Discuss Window Displays and Building Shows,” AL 2700 (February 12, 1927): 74; E. F. Sellhorn, “Farmers’ Wagons Used to Carry Home Mail-Order Paint—But Not Now,” Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer 77, no. 11 (May 28, 1926): 39. On paint, for example, see “Why Retail Company Handles Paint,” AL 2303 (July 5, 1919): 47; “Tendency of the Times Is Towards Side Lines for Retail Lumbermen,” AL 2309 (August 16, 1919): 46–47; “Why Retail Lumbermen Handle Paint,” AL 2326 (December 13, 1919): 57; “What Do You Sell?” BSN 7, no. 1 (January 1920): 27; J. R. Moorehead, “A Paint Stock Brings Women into Your Material Store,” Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer 77, no. 11 (May 28, 1926): 37. “Western Retailers, Gathered in ‘Lumber Capital,’ Analyze Their Problems,” AL 2703 (March 5, 1927): 74; Gries, “Construction,” 233; Stone, Economic Problems, 217. “What Side-Lines May the Average Lumber Retailer Profitably Handle,” AL 2697 (January 22, 1927): 42–43; Kimberley A. Konrad and Michael A. Tomlan, “Gypsum Board,” in Jester, Twentieth-Century Building Materials, 269. “Western Retailers,” 74. Hood, Scientific Lumber Retailing, vii–viii, 109, 157, 185. Hood probably read management texts, but did not cite them. An influential work published during Hood’s early career was Charles W. Hoyt, Scientific Sales Management (New York: George B. Woolson, 1912). This includes sections on conventions (89–94) and scientific retailing (191–198) that recommend practices Hood later carried through with JohnsManville. On scientific sales, see Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004). Hood, Profitable Lumber Retailing, 71, 120, 302. Hood was slower to recognize the inevitable than some other industry spokesmen. See Ludwig, Retail Lumber Dealer, 9; Seidel, “Lumber Merchandising.” Arthur A. Hood, “Let’s Adopt a New Plan of Battle,” ABBA 53 (December 1932): 12, 46; Hood, Profitable Lumber Retailing, xxv, 125, 129, 251, 382. United States Department of Labor. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Building Expenditures 1921–1927 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1928), 1; Lynd and Lynd, Middletown in Transition:a A Study in Cultural Conflicts (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1937), 551, 554; United States Bureau of the Census, Census of Business: 1935 Retail Distribu-

Notes to pp. 150–57 / 379

43.

44.

45.

46.

47. 48.

49.

50.

51.

52.

53. 54. 55.

tion: Vol I: United States Summary (Washington, DC: USGPO), 9, 15; Yost, Retail Lumber Industry, 1; E. P. Learned, Problems in Marketing (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1936), 649; Carter, Historical Statistics of the United States, table DE110–146. Carter, Historical Statistics of the United States, table Dc 256; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1936), table 830; Statistics Canada, Historical Statistics of Canada (Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1983), series S168-180, S1; “A Field for Increased Lumber Sales,” AL 2720 (July 2, 1927): 28–29; National Housing Act, Hearings Before the Committee on Banking and Currency of the U.S.: Senate, May 16 to 24, 1934, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session on the National Housing Act (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1934), 320. H. D. Eberlein, Remodeling and Adapting the Small House (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1933); Lynd and Lynd, Middletown, 98; Lynd and Lynd, Middletown in Transition, 557, 558, 559, 560. National Housing Act, Hearings, 320; “Only Once Every 142 Years,” Fortune 11, no. 6 (1935): 168; “The Urge to Own,” Architectural Forum 67, no. 5 (November 1937): 376; National Housing Act, Hearings, 320. “Modernizing Trend,” NYT October 26, 1930; Grebler, Blank, and Winnick, Capital Formation in Residential Real Estate, 329; Lynd and Lynd, Middletown in Transition, 193; Scott Keyes, “Converted Residences and the Supply of Housing,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 16, no. 1 (February 1940): 47, 48; Peter J. Smith and L. D. McCann, “Residential Land Use Change in Inner Edmonton,” Annals, Association of American Geographers 71 (1981): 543–544; Nash, Residential Rehabilitation, 4. Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure, and the Culture of Work, 251 Niles Carpenter, “A Case Study of Ten Home Purchasing Families in the Buffalo Area,” in Gries and Ford, Home Ownership and Types of Dwellings, 126–134. The survey was supervised by Thomas Neill at the University of Buffalo. Robert Lynd, “The People as Consumers,” in Recent Social Trends in the United States: Report of the President’s Research Committee on Social Trends (New York: Macmillan, 1933), 857–911; William F. Ogburn, “The Family and Its Functions,” in Recent Social Trends, 661–709. Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure and the Culture of Work, 251; Roger B. Whitman, First Aid for the Ailing House (New York: Whittlesey, 1934), vii, viii; “Only Once Every 142 Years,” 79; Roger Newman, A Century of Success (Winnipeg, MB: Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 1990), 223. Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself,” 89; Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure and the Culture of Work, 237, 250; Marvin A. Powell, “A Survey of the National Home Workshop Guild,” M.A. thesis, Colorado State College of Education, 1935, 65, 79; William V. Nestrick, “Constructional Activities of Adult Males,” Columbia University Teachers College, 1939, 27–28; Hawthorne Daniel, The Householder’s Complete Handbook (Boston: Little Brown, 1936); A. C. Horth, 101 Things for the Handyman to Do (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1938). Better Homes and Gardens, New Ideas for Modernizing Your Home: Remodeling, Refurnishing, Redecorating, Renewing (Des Moines: Better Homes and Gardens, 1934), 55; Tomlan, “Building Modern America,” 39. Ruth Cavan and Katherine H. Rank, The Family and the Depression: A Study of One Hundred Chicago Families (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1938), 86, 87, 89. “Good Lumber Key to Sound Construction,” AL 3187 (September 21, 1940): 33. “Consumer Selling Here To Stay,” BSN 44, no. 4 (April 1933): 124, 130; John J. Cof-

380 / Notes to pp. 157–63

56.

57.

58. 59. 60.

fey, “How ‘Idea Selling’ Built Business for Webber Lumber and Supply Co.,” BSN 51, no. 1 (July 1936): 13–17; “Texas Dealer Finds That General Contracting Pays,” BSN 45, no. 2 (August 1933): 47–48. Ralph J. Hines, “On Our Retail Way to Greater Prosperity,” AL 3071 (April 11, 1936): 36–37, 55; Charles M. Hines, “There’s Salvation in Selling,” BSN 50, no. 5 (May 1936): 38–40. See also Creden, “America Rediscovers.” Hines, “On Our Retail Way,” 36; “Paints and Varnishes,” BSN 50, no. 2 (February 1936): 25–26; “Merchandising Practices of 221 Dealers in 37 States,” AL 3112 (November 6, 1937): 25. Their business also included industrial customers (17 percent) and farmers (13 percent). Mueller, Urban Home Ownership, 121, 127; Learned, Problems in Marketing, 49. Learned, Problems in Marketing, 51. Bruce L. Melvin, Farm and Village Housing: Report of the Committee on Farm and Village Housing (Washington, DC: PCHH, 1932), 148, 156, 157, 160, 161–162. CHAPTER SEVEN

1. 2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 201. American Lumberman, Old Homes Made New (Chicago: American Lumberman, 1924); National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights of a Decade of Achievement (Washington, DC: National Lumber Manufacturers Association, 1929), 59–63. American Lumberman, Old Homes Made New; National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights of a Decade of Achievement, 59–63; “National Trade Extension Staff Holds Conference,” AL 2735 (October 15, 1927): 67; “Exemplifying Remodeling Possibilities,” AL 2713 (May 14, 1927): 38. Editorial, The Home Modernizer 1, no. 1 (June 1929): n.p. “Association Work Shown by Contest,” NYT May 4, 1930; Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 199–200; Regina Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 200 ff. Peter W. Herzog, The Morris Plan of Industrial Banking (Chicago: A. W. Shaw, 1928), 38–39; 82, 83, 91; Morris Plan Bank of New Haven, How You Can Modernize and Finance Your Home (New Haven, CT: Morris Plan Bank of New Haven, c. 1932); “New Morris Plan,” Time 22, 20 (November 13, 1933); Seligman, The Economics of Instalment Credit, 52–53, 101; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 402; Ayres, Installment Selling, 26; Reavis Cox, The Economics of Instalment Credit Buying (New York: Ronald Press, 1948), 211–212. “Instalment Plan Upheld as Sound If Home Is Aided,” WP August 1, 1926; “American Radiator Earns $12,413,742,” NYT March 15, 1929; L. H. Goldbright to Dean F. Fenn, October 27, 1936 [file 203-6A, vol. 712, RG 19, LAC], 2, 3. McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 402; “Announces New Modernization Budget Plan,” AL 3065 (January 18, 1936): 29; “Big Companies Join in Rehabilitation,” NYT October 2, 1932; Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men: The Weyerhaeuser Story, 474–475; Emmett and Jenck, Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company, 524–526; “Asks Government Aid on Home Construction,” NYT December 27, 1931; “Mail Order Points Way to the Lumber Dealer,” PI 157, no. 3 (October 15, 1931): 130. U.S. Congress, National Housing Act, Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Currency of the U.S.: Senate, May 16 to 24, 1934, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session, on the National Housing Act (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1934), 295, 302.

Notes to pp. 164–68 / 381 10. Crowell Publishing Company, National Markets and National Advertising (New York: Crowell, 1930), 12–13; “The 150 Leading Magazine Advertisers of 1928,” PI 146, no. 4 (January 24, 1929): 65–68. 11. Stephen Fox, The Mirror Makers: A History of American Advertising and Its Creators (New York: William Morrow, 1984), 79–85; Pamela W. Laird, Advertising Progress: American Business and the Rise of Consumer Marketing (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 170. 12. Laird, Advertising Progress, 163; “Johns-Manville Tests Out an Appeal to Women,” PI 124, no. 12 (September 20, 1923): 57–58; Crowell, National Markets, 91; “Pennsylvania Lumbermen’s Annual Forum of Merchandising Ideas,” AL 2699 (February 5, 1927): 60–62. 13. Richard Goodwin, The Johns-Manville Story (New York: Newcomen Society, 1972), 9. 14. Martin V. Marshall, “Case 2: Johns-Manville Corporation,” in Neil Borden and Martin V. Marshall, Advertising Management and Cases (Homewood, IL: Irwin, 1959), 421, 422; “Corporate Soul,” Time 33, no. 14 (April 3, 1939): 57–58. 15. Arthur A. Hood, A Working Formula for Integrating the Building Industry (New York: Johns-Manville Corporation, 1940.) The percentage indicates J-M’s potential market share; its actual share was of course lower. 16. Crowell, National Markets, 16. 17. Dun and Bradstreet, “Johns-Manville Sales Corporation. Analytical Report 863,” October 4, typescript, New York City, JMR. 18. The most complete account of this campaign is in “Would the Public Borrow?,” unpaginated, 1939 (JMR). Its progress may be traced in the trade journal advertising placed by J. Walter Thompson for J-M. See, for example, “A Million Dollars to Lend,” AL 2991 (March 18, 1933): 5; “The Finest Business-Getting Plan Ever Devised for the Industry,” ABBA 56 (July 1934): 45. 19. “Asks Government Aid in Home Construction,” NYT December 27, 1931, 132; Moody’s Investor’s Services, Moody’s Manual of Industrial Securities (New York: Moody’s, 1933), 550; Ken R. Dyke, “Building Industry Is Fast Learning How to Sell,” PI 163, no. 1 (April 6, 1933): 26–27; “A Million Dollars to Lend,” PI 161, no. 3 (October 20, 1932): 720; “Johns-Manville $1,000,000-to-lend-plan,” ABBA 54 (June 1933): 8–9; “Johns-Manville Stays on the Air Until Late Fall,” AL 3007 (October 28, 1933): 6–7; “Johns-Manville Goes Back on the Air to Help You Crack the Remodeling Market Wide Open,” AL 3020 (April 28, 1934): 8–9 (advertisement); “If I Can’t Land Jobs With This J-M Plan . . . I’m Ready to Close Up Shop,” ABBA 57 (March 1935): 4–5 (advertisement). 20. Alice Marquis, Hopes and Ashes: The Birth of Modern Times, 1929–1939 (New York: Free Press, 1986), 7; D. A. Laird, What Makes People Buy? (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1935), 110; Neil H. Borden, Advertising: Text and Cases (Chicago: Irwin, 1949), 577; Margaret G. Reid, Consumers and the Market, 3rd ed. (New York: F. S. Crofts, 1946), 330; Gary Cross, Time and Money: The Making of Consumer Culture (London: Routledge, 1993), 173; Ben Durry, Advertising Media and Markets (New York: Prentice Hall, 1939), 200. 21. Fox, The Mirror Makers, 156–157; G. F. Selhafer and J. W. Laemmar, Successful Radio and Television Advertising (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 114–115, 106–107. 22. “ ‘Associated Leaders’ Hold Enthusiastic ‘Get Together,’ ” AL 2841 (October 26, 1929): 50–51; Durry, Advertising Media, 54–56. 23. Calculated from Association of National Advertisers, A Survey of 299 National Advertising Budgets, 1934–1935 (New York: Association of National Advertisers, 1936),

382 / Notes to pp. 168–70

24.

25.

26. 27.

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

103, 135; “Magazine Advertising,” PI 174, no. 3 (January 16, 1936): 69–72, 76; “Radio Figures,” PI 174, no. 3 (January 16, 1936): 93, 96–97. J-M’s use of radio declined in the late 1930s, but revived in the 1940s. In 1942, it sponsored Elmer Davis and the News on CBS, a “well-established radio program” broadcast on fifty-six stations at 8:55 EST. “Building Materials Manufacturer Sponsors News Broadcast,” AL 3221 (January 10, 1942): 66. By 1948, it relied on the Bill Henry program, which aired five nights a week and which JWT claimed had the “largest cumulative audience of any show on the air.” “JWT Campaign of the Week: Johns Manville,” Newsletter June 30, 1947, 3 [JWT Archives]. James P. Wood, The Story of Advertising (New York: Ronald Press, 1958), 458; “JWT Camp of the Week,” Newsletter, November 28, 1948, 3 [JWT Archives]. These observations were made in 1948 but fit J-M’s strategy from 1933. Floyd P. Gibbons, War Reporter, 52,” NYT September 25, 1939; Selhafer and Laemmar, Successful Radio, 472; “Honor to Mothers to be Paid Today,” NYT May 13, 1934; “Mrs. Roosevelt to Get Radio Pay,” NYT May 15, 1934; “J. Walter Thompson Company,” Fortune 36, 5 (November 1947): 95, 96, 206. Selhafer and Laemmar emphasized that radio programs were most effective with “an unusually fine guest star.” At first, J-M required that company materials account for one quarter of the loan’s value, but this rule was later scrapped. “The Finest Business-Getting Plan”; “Companies Lend to Aid FHA Plan,” WSJ October 23, 1934; “Would the Public Borrow?” n.p.; Dyke, “Building Industry,” 28; “Coming to the World’s Fair? A Warm Welcome Awaits You at the Johns-Manville Building,” ABBA 55 (August 1933): 6; Arthur Pound, Industrial America: Its Way of Thought and Work (Boston: Little, Brown, 1936), 187. “FHA Insurance 1934–1944,” IMP 9, no. 4 (1945): 11; Ronald C. Tobey, Technology as Freedom: The New Deal and Electrical Modernization of the American Home (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996), 137; Gabrielle Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street: Architecture and Consumer Culture in the New Deal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 58–82; FHA, Complete Program: Better Selling of Better Housing: FHA Form 165 (Revised) (Washington, DC: FHA, 1935); FHA, The Modernization Credit Plan (Washington, DC: FHA, 1936). Reported data for Title II include Section 203 and exclude Section 207 rental projects. After a decade, the FHA had insured 1.1 million loans worth $4.7 billion under Title II and 4.8 million loans worth $1.9 billion under Title I. FHA, The F.H.A.: Story in Summary, 1934–1959 (Washington, DC: FHA, 1959), 6; National Housing Act. Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Currency of the U.S. Senate, May 16 to 24, 1934, 73rd Congress, 2nd Session, on the National Housing Act. (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1934), 293–294; 374–380; 431–435; “Emergency Over, Says L. H. Brown,” WSJ June 21, 1934, 2. Ray Smythe, Memo to F.D.R. (Washington, DC: Columbia Publishers, 1935), 140; “Leaders to Study Housing Program,” NYT October 15, 1934. McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 403; “Companies to Aid FHA Plan,” 1; “J-M To Make FHA Loans,” ABBA 56 (October 1934): 58; “Johns-Manville Forms Lending Subsidiary,” WSJ October 4, 1934. Following FHA guidelines, J-M’s new plan extended the twenty-four-month term to thirty-six months. This was returned to twenty-four months in 1937. “Johns-Manville Reduces Maximum Term in Deferred Payment Plan,” ABBA 59 (November 1937): 94, 96. “Brown for Business,” Time 26, no. 22 (November 25, 1935): 63–64; “Star Cham-

Notes to pp. 171–73 / 383

33. 34.

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40.

41.

ber,” Time 24, no. 22 (November 26, 1934). See also “Capital Business Parley Today Expected to Speed Support of the New Deal,” NYT November 16, 1934. “Would the Public Borrow?,” n.p. On Hood’s early career see Hugh Taylor’s foreword to Hood’s Profitable Lumber Retailing, xvii–xxii. His other text was Scientific Lumber Retailing. His later activities were traced in the trade press and then Johns-Manville records. See “Western Retailers, Gathered in ‘Lumber Capital,’ Analyze their Problems,” AL 2703 (March 5, 1927): 72–76; “ ‘Associated Leaders’ Hold Enthusiastic ‘Get Together’,” AL 2841 (October 26, 1929): 50–51; “Associated Leaders Plan for Profit,” AL 2900 (December 13, 1930): 42–43. Hood, Profitable Lumber Retailing, xxv, 76, 287. On dealer helps see D. J. Duncan, “Distribution Channels,” in Charles F. Phillips, ed., Marketing by Manufacturers (Chicago: Irwin, 1951), 240–243. “Better Merchandising Is Goal of Newly Formed Joint Council,” AL 2852 (January 11, 1930): 52. “More Money to Build Homes,” ABBA 51 (January 1931): 65; Arthur A. Hood, “Let’s Adopt a New Plan of Battle,” ABBA 53 (December 1932): 12. Hood, Scientific Lumber Retailing, 202; Hood, Profitable Lumber Retailing, 251, 252, 253, 260–261, 265; Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, 101 Practical Suggestions for Home Improvement (New York: J-M, 1935); Johns-Manville Corporation, The Home Idea Book (New York: J-M, 1938); Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook and Sales Manager’s Guide for Retail Building Material Executives (New York: J-M, 1940), 199, 390, 391, 392; Johns-Manville Sales Corp., Consumer Selling Manual and Personal Selling Guide for Housing Guild Salesmen (New York: J-M, 1940), 18; “What Modernizing Can Do for a Plain, Old Home,” AL 3084 (October 10, 1936): 32. Hood wrote most of the J-M training literature. “Midwest Dealers to Study Selling,” AL 3069 (March 14, 1936): 70; Laurence Hart, “Essentials of Successful Marketing: A Case History in Manufacturer-Distributor Collaboration,” Journal of Marketing 13, no. 2 (1948): 196; “Hold Clinic on Retail Marketing and Management,” AL 3067 (February 15, 1936): 50; “Here’s a Complete, Tested Plan We Know Will get You Business,” (advertisement) AL 3018 (March 31, 1934, 6–7; “I’ll Sell Jobs for You This Spring,” BSN 48, no. 4 (April 1935): 138–139 (advertisement); “Better Merchandising Needed to Stimulate Building,” AL 3047 (May 11, 1935): 31. Bartels has suggested that packaging of goods and services was a postwar development. Robert Bartels, The Development of Marketing Thought (Homewood, Ill.: Richard D. Irwin, 1962), 142. On market research by manufacturers see Wilford L. White, “Marketing Research,” Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science 209 (1940): 185–186. “Would the Public Borrow?,” n.p.; “Advertising News,” NYT April 23, 1937; “J-M Completes 1936 Guild Plans,” ABBA 57 (October 1935): 102. That J-M was unique is implied by “The Art of Retail Lumber Selling Enters Upon a New Era,” AL 3067 (February 15, 1936): 22. “Edwin C. Hill Invites you to Attend the First National Radio Conference of the Entire Building Industry” (advertisement), AL 3064 (January 4, 1936): 8–9; “Radio Conference of Building Industry Will Be National Event,” AL 3064 (January 4, 1936): 21, 65. The summary in the following paragraphs is drawn from Arthur A. Hood, A Working Formula for Integrating the Building Industry (New York: J-M, 1940), and JohnsManville Sales Corp., Management Handbook. The latter is Hood’s work, while briefer

384 / Notes to pp. 173–76

42.

43.

44.

45.

46.

47.

48.

49.

50.

51.

accounts are based on summaries that he provided. See Hart, “Essentials of Successful Marketing”; C. B. Larrabee, “10,000 Retail Salesmen Trained in 5 Years,” PI 196, no. 5 (August 1, 1941): 9–12, 74–75. Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 30. Cf. Alan Brinkley, “The New Deal and the Idea of the State,” in The Rise and Fall of the New Deal Order, 1930–1980 ed. Steve Fraser and Gary Gerstle (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), 88. G. B. Hotchkiss, Milestones of Marketing (New York: Macmillan, 1938), 35, 37; Herbert U. Nelson, “Realty Notes,” WP June 13, 1937. See also “Says Nation Needs Enduring Homes,” NYT May 16, 1937. “Nation Hears Radio Building Forum,” AL 3065 (January 18, 1936): 37; Arthur A. Hood, “Career Opportunities in Housing,” American Savings and Loan News June 1942, 272–276; Johns-Manville Sales Corp, Management Handbook, 17, 38. Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 47–48. Elsewhere in the handbook (79) the systematiser was described as the “chassis” of the guild “machine.” Hood, A Working Formula, 50; “Sales Will Be Up in 1939,” AL 3141 (December 17, 1938): 62; “Dealers Learning Latest Data on Packaged Selling,” AL 3143 (January 14, 1939): 68; J. Walter Thompson, “We’ll Take This One,” PI 163, no. 1 (April 6, 1939): 8–9; Harold H. Rosenberg, “Which Way, Mr. Dealer?” BSN 56, no. 2 (February 1939): 21 (editorial); Cherington, The Consumer. Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 354; “To Promote Home Insulation,” NYT October 17, 1936; “Triple Insulated Modern Model Home,” ABBA 58 (December 1936): 38–39; “If I Can’t” (advertisement). Dealers were told to ask J-M salesmen to arrange a showing. The company also prepared a sound-slide show entitled How We Can Make the Building Industry a Selling Industry. Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 339; “The Little Schoolmaster’s Classroom,” PI (April 8, 1937), 106. Helen Harrison, “Introduction,” and Joseph P. Cusker, “The World of Tomorrow,” in Helen Harrison and Joseph P. Cusker, eds., Dawn of a New Day: The New York World’s Fair (New York: Queen’s Museum, 1980), 1, 8; Frank Monaghan, Official Guide Book of the New York World’s Fair (New York: Exposition Publications, 1939), 84, 100, 101; “Today’s Program at the Fair,” NYT August 3, 1940; Russell B. Porter, “The Fair Prepared to Receive their Majesties in a Setting of Royal Pomp,” NYT June 4, 1939. “Gains in U.S. Housing Activity Hailed at Opening of Model Homes Exhibit,” NYT May 19, 1939; “Here’s Your Exhibit at the New York World’s Fair,” AL 3153 (June 3, 1939): 25 (advertisement). Arthur H. Hood, “J-M Training Schools Are Teaching Building Men to Sell a Package,” PI (April 21, 1938): 13; “Well-Known to Retailers is New Member of J-M Staff,” AL 3083 (September 26, 1936): 26. The council was established in 1930 to promote cooperation between manufacturers and dealers. Johns-Manville was a member. “Better Merchandising Is Goal of Newly-Formed Joint Council,” AL 2852 (January 11, 1930): 52. On the Southern Pine Association, see Fickle, The New South. Malcolm D. Taylor, “Progressive Retail Management,” Annals, American Academy of Political and Social Science 209 (May 1940): 47; “Merchandising Practices of 221 Dealers in 37 States,” AL 3112 (November 6, 1937): 24–25. Those named were the guild’s main staff, 1939–1941. See “422 Men Learn”; “Guild Management Institutes Announced”; Hood, “J-M Training Schools,” 90–91. On Brown’s appearance, see “J-M Salesmen and Dealers Hold Meet in Chicago,” AL 3091 (January 16, 1937): 70.

Notes to pp. 176–80 / 385 52. Detailed instructions are in Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 135 ff.; Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Consumer Selling Manual, 89–195. 53. Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Consumer Selling Manual, 6, 60, 119, 195, 219. 54. “Sales Will Be Up,” 62; Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook; Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Consumer Selling Manual; “New England Dealers Profit at J-M Clinic Held in Boston,” AL 3116 (January 1, 1938): 42.“Johns-Manville Holds Guild Management Institutes,” ABBA 63 (April 1941): 141; Larrabee, “10,000 Retail Salesmen,” 75. 55. “J-M Training Schools for Building Material Dealers Continued in 1939!” AL 3143 (January 14, 1939): 9; “Over 1,000 Complete J-M Sales Course,” ABBA 59 (March 1937): 110; “J-M Salesmen and Dealers Hold Meet,” 70; “422 Men Learn Modern Way to Sell,” AL 3147 (March 11, 1939): 61. 56. See, for example, “Southwestern Ontario Dealers Hold Spring Meeting,” AL 3074 (May 23, 1936): 37. 57. “Reports on Guild Achievement Since Inception of Program,” AL 3178 (May 18, 1940); Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 34, 35. 58. The figures reported in this paragraph are drawn from Hart, “Essentials of Successful Marketing”; C. H. Sevin and Walter F. Crowder, Wartime Dealer-Aid Programs, Economic Series no. 32 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 1944), 35–36; “Reports on Guild Achievement Since Inception of Program,” AL 3178 (May 18, 1940): 61. Inconsistencies are minor. 59. “Hold Clinic on Retail Marketing,” 50; “Building Industry’s Future is in Dealer’s Hands, States Housing Guild Head,” AL 3145 (February 10, 1940): 75. For media coverage see “Johns-Manville Charts Predict Housing Gains,” WSJ February 1, 1936. 60. “375 in J-M Chicago Guild School,” AL 3117 (January 15, 1938): 45; “Your Problems Are the Industry’s Problems,” AL 3139 (November 19, 1938): 17 (advertisement); “J-M Training Schools for Building Material Dealers” (advertisement); “Six Housing Guild Schools to Be Conducted in 1940,” AL 3166 (December 16, 1939): 58. Few schools were held on the west coast. 61. “Prescription for Retailers: Take Large Doses for More Sales,” AL 3138 (November 5, 1938): 29; “At Tennessee Annual, Selling and Housing Prospects Were Keynotes,” AL 3173 (March 9, 1940): 51. 62. “375 in J-M Chicago Guild School,” AL 3117 (January 15, 1938): 45; “430 Dealers,” 37; “Large Attendance at Middle Atlantic,” AL 3196 (January 25, 1941): 46. 63. Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 36; “Indiana Lumber Firm Forms Own Housing Guild to Push Building,” AL 3082 (September 12, 1936): 29, 67; “Get Customer’s Whole Story, Is Basic Rule,” AL 3180 (June 15, 1940): 40– 41; “Demonstrates Quality in Home Construction,” AL 3177 (May 4, 1940); “From This . . . to This,” AL 3179 (June 1, 1940): 35; “Ideas Are This Texas Yard’s Leading Sales Item,” AL 3178 (May 18, 1940): 39; “Canadian Dealer Is Strong for Package Selling of Homes,” AL 3169 (January 13, 1940): 39; “Has Progressive Selling Program,” AL 3076 (June 20, 1936): 19; Charles A. Stuck, “Why Dealers Go Into Contracting—By a Dealer Who Did,” BSN 59, no. 2 (August 1940): 36. For other examples see “Direct Contracting by Two Mid-West Dealers,” AL 3160 (September 9, 1939): 54–55; George P. Macatee, “How to Contract and Keep Your Contractor Customers,” BSN 51, no. 5 (November 1936): 20, 22. 64. “ ‘Package System’ of Selling Works Well,” AL 3080 (August 15, 1936): 30, 33; “What Modernizing Can Do for a Plain, Old Home”; “Architect Added to Dealer’s Staff,” AL 3169 (January 13, 1940): 44–45; “Needles Open Door to Lumber Sales,” AL 3171

386 / Notes to pp. 181–85

65.

66.

67.

68.

69.

70.

71.

72.

73. 74.

(February 24, 1940): 30–31; “Selling ‘Complete Packages’ Only Road to Profit and Increased Sales,” BSN 56, no. 6 (June 1939): 34, 36; Otto Lieber, 22 Years of Hustling: A Story of Successful Retail Lumber Yard Management (Neenah, WI: Lieber, 1941). Sevin and Crowder, Wartime Dealer-Aid Programs, 37; “In the South, More Yards are Taking Control of Jobs by Means of Unit Selling,” AL 3184 (August 10, 1940): 35; “Toledo Company Practices What it Preaches,” AL 3071 (April 11, 1936): 38–39; “Office Strikes New Note in Appeal to Consumer,” AL 3082 (September 12, 1936): 40; “Reports on Guild Achievement.” J. Walter Thompson, “Would the Public Borrow?”; Hart, “Essentials of Successful Marketing,” 198, 199; Moody’s Investor’s Services, Moody’s Manual (New York: Moody’s, 1943), 1595; Sevin and Crowder, Wartime Dealer-Aid Programs, 35; Larrabee, “10,000 Retail Salesmen . . . ,” 9; H. E. Agnew and D. Houghton, Marketing Policies (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1951), 148; Duncan, “Distribution Channels,” 246; “J-M Guild Wins Recognition as Sales Plan,” ABBA 60 (June 1938): 98, 100; “Medalist,” Time 34, no. 19 (November 6, 1939): 67; “Corporate Soul,” 55. Agnew and Houghton’s view was echoed by William H. Whyte in “What’s Wrong with Retail Salesmanship?” in Fortune, Why Do People Buy? (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1953), 77. Harold H. Rosenberg, “Which Way, Mr. Dealer?” BSN 56, no. 2 (February 1939): 21 (editorial); “Small Homes, Lumber Quality Are Middle Atlantic Subjects,” AL 3171 (February 10, 1940): 72. “Launch Plans to Make 1937 ‘Biggest Home Show’ Year,” AL 3087 (December 19, 1936): 35; “Producers’ Council Pledges Support to Retailers’ Aims,” AL 3162 (October 7, 1939): 51. Joseph B. Mason, “How Much Is ‘High Cost’ Building?” ABBA 60 (June 1938): 40, 108; Marshall Adams, “Building Giant Mobilizes,” PI 184, no. 7 (August 18, 1938): 25–27; Marshall Adams, “ ‘Home Value’ Drive Sweeps Ahead,” ABBA 60 (July 1938): 30–31, 84; “All Groups Behind Package Home Idea,” NYT January 29, 1939; “Two Groups Urge Home Building,” AL 3152 (May 20, 1939): 37. “Urges Unified Selling Program for Building Business,” AL 3087 (November 21, 1936): 46; Kathleen C. Milley, “Homasote. The ‘Greatest Advance in 300 Years of Building Construction,” APT Bulletin 28, 2–3 (1997): 58; Mason, History of Housing in the U.S., 26; “System of Home Construction Shown to Dealers,” AL 3153 (June 3, 1939): 47; “Four Reasons Why,” AL 3153 (June 3, 1939): 24 (advertisement); “Homasote News Letter,” ABBA 65 (January 1943): 17 (advertisement); “Homasote Proved Good Fire Protection,” ABBA 64 (May 1942); “Announcing the Formation of Precision-Built Homes Corporation,” ABBA 67 (March 1945): 60. “Celotex Creates Dealers’ Sales Service,” ABBA 61 (April 1939): 126; “Merchandising Methods Taught to Illinois Dealers,” AL 3182 (July 13, 1940): 66–67; Association of National Advertisers, A Survey of 299 National Advertising Budgets, 128. Elma S. Moulton, Marketing Research Activities of Manufacturers, Marketing Research Series no. 21 (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 1939), 1, 7, 23, 38–39, 43. “Ontario Retailers Hold Annual,” AL 3087 (November 21, 1936): 40; “Office Strikes New Note in Appeal to Consumer,” AL 3082 (September 12, 1936): 40. Weyerhaeuser Sales Corp., Good Homes Never Grow Old: A Manual for Homeowners on the Economical Maintenance of Homes (St. Paul: Weyerhaeuser Sales Corp., 1935), 3; H. W. Wilbur, “Three Questions for Retailers,” AL 3135 (September 24, 1938): 32–34; “National Manufacturers’ Executive Considers Numerous Developments Affecting Welfare of Industry,” AL 3067 (February 15, 1936): 47; “Get Together, Urges

Notes to pp. 185–91 / 387

75.

76.

77.

78.

79.

80. 81. 82.

Northwestern,” AL 3066 (February 1, 1936): 46–47; “Plan Home Building Campaign,” NYT August 15, 1938; “At Tennessee Annual, Selling and Housing Prospects Were Keynotes,” AL 3173 (March 9, 1940): 51; “Merchandise Institute Head Presented Plaque,” AL 3178 (May 18, 1940): 31. Bruce Wilson, “Pioneering the Low-Priced House,” IMP 1, no. 3 (September 1936): 9; Wilson Compton, “Plans to Stimulate and Widen the Market for Small House Construction: Address to the Conference on Local Residential Construction, Chamber of Commerce of the United States, Washington, DC, November 18, 1937, typescript, 5, 6 [“Housing,” Federal Home Building Service Plan, box 8, RG 195, NARA]; “Lumber Houses Ready for Preview,” AL 3083 (September 26, 1936): 36; Wilson Compton, “Better Small Homes at Lower Cost,” IMP 2, no. 8 (February 1938): 20. “Builders Map Low-Cost Home Program in U.S.,” WP February 9, 1937; “Advertising News and Notes,” NYT April 13, 1937; W. Wadsworth Wood, “A Challenge . . . ,” Small Homes (Washington, DC: National Small Homes Bureau, 1937), n.p. See also S. N. Schafer, “Bringing Small Homes to a Small Town,” IMP 2, no. 12 (June 1938): 7, 18. “Leaders Look for a Revival in Building,” WP February 13, 1938; “Lumber Group to Press Small Homes Project,” WP October 31, 1938; Walter Adams, “Lumbermen Whittle Costs,” BHG 17, no. 1 (1939): 18–19, 61; “Plans for Low-Cost Housing Pushed,” AL 3161 (September 23, 1939): 31; Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 106. “New Lumber Orders Up since Mid-January,” NYT February 25, 1938; Stanford Research Institute, America’s Demand for Wood, 30; Compton, “Plans to Stimulate,” 5; Compton, “Better Small Homes,” 16; “Lumbermen to Meet,” NYT May 1, 1938. “35 Building Groups Back Homes Drive,” WP February 2, 1938; “First Home Finished in Brentwood Tests,” NYT July 30, 1939; “12 Pages of Good Little Houses,” American Home 23, no. 5 (April 1940): 28, 97, 101. Sevin and Crowder, Wartime Dealer-Aid Programs, 1, 2, 16. Sevin and Crowder, Wartime Dealer-Aid Programs, 38–41, 63–65. Raymond V. Parsons to the Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association, March 30, 1942, typescript, 3 pp. [Records of the Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association, Hagley Museum and Library]. Mary Roche, “Institutes Advise on Post-war Homes,” NYT March 14, 1945; National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, Here’s a Better Way to Build (Washington, DC: National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, 1947), 6; “Chelsea Attracts Industrial Firms,” NYT January 3, 1940. CHAPTER EIGHT

1.

2.

Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics; Nathan Straus, Two Thirds of a Nation: A Housing Program (New York: Knopf, 1952), 17; Chester Rapkin, Louis Winnick, and David M. Blank, Housing Market Analysis (Washington, DC : HHFA, 1953); Burnham Kelly, Design and the Production of Houses (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), 39; William G. Grigsby, Housing Markets and Public Policy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963), 85. Calvin Bradford, “Financing Home Ownership: The Federal Role in Neighborhood Decline,” Urban Affairs Quarterly 14 (1979): 313–335; Milton P. Semer, Julian H. Zimmerman, Ashley Foord, and John M. Frantz, “Evolution of Federal Legislative Policy in Housing: Housing Credits,” in J. Paul Mitchell, ed., Federal Housing Policy and Programs: Past and Present (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Center for Urban Policy Research, 1985), 69–105; Ken Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 203–218; Marc Weiss,

388 / Notes to pp. 191–93

3.

4.

5.

6. 7.

8.

The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987), 145–158; Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumer’s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (New York: Knopf, 2003), 199, 204–205; Jon Teaford, The Metropolitan Revolution: The Rise of Post-urban America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 72–76; Robert A. Beauregard, When America Became Suburban (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006), 83–84; Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street; Carter McFarland, “Economic Evaluation of FHA’s Property Improvement Program,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 23 (November 1947): 399; Abner Ferguson, “A Decade of FHA’s Mortgage Insurance Experience,” IMP 8, no. 4 (1944): 3. See also Semer et al., “Evolution of Federal,” 103. “National Drive is Pressed for Repair Work to Produce $3.5 million Wages,” NYT August 17, 1932; V. Chandler, America’s Greatest Depression, 1929–1941 (New York: Harper and Row, 1970), 83; C. Lowell Harriss, History and Policies of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1951); Carey Winston, “Home Owner’s Loan Corporation,” in Gertrude S. Fish, ed., The Story of Housing (New York: Macmillan, 1979), 193–194. “Home-Loan Groups Plan Building Aid,” NYT January 30, 1934, 33; Harry R. Stringer, Save Your Home (Washington, DC: Fassett Publishing, 1933), 18; Harriss, History and Policies, 107, 108, 127, 128; “288,000 Aided In Repairs On Homes by U.S.,” WP July 9, 1934; “Finds Home Repairs Give Higher Values,” NYT February 27, 1938. Harriss, History and Policies, 108n14; L. Elden Smith, “Measuring the Neighborhood Risk,” IMP 2, no. 8 (1938): 9–11, 22–23; Arthur Goodwillie, Waverly: A Study of Neighborhood Conservation (Washington, DC: Home Loan Bank Board, 1940), 6; National Resources Planning Board, Federal Aids to Local Planning (Washington, DC: National Resources Planning Board, 1940), 94–95; Arthur Goodwillie, “Rehabilitation of Blighted Areas as a War Housing Measure,” American City 57, no. 3 (1942): 37; Chicago Plan Commission, Master Plan of Residential Land Use of Chicago (Chicago: Chicago Plan Commission, 1943), 67; Chicago Plan Commission, A Program for Community Conservation in Chicago and an Example: The Woodlawn Plan (Chicago: Chicago Plan Commission, 1946), 4; “288,000 Aided in Repairs,” 2; “Favors Repair Loans for Home,” WSJ May 22, 1934. McFarland considered the Waverly project to be “ahead of its time,” while Light has discussed the evolution of thinking about conservation. M. Carter McFarland, “Residential Rehabilitation: An Overview,” in M. C. McFarland and Walter K. Vivrett, eds., Residential Rehabilitation. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1966), 5; Jennifer S. Light, The Nature of Cities: Ecological Visions and American Urban Professions, 1920–1960 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009), 60–68, 85, 99. U.S. Congress, National Housing Act, 23, 320, 24, 61, 171. FHA, The F.H.A.: Story in Summary, 1934–1959 (Washington, DC: FHA, 1959), 6; U.S. Congress, National Housing Act, 32, 38, 294, 374–380, 431–435. McFarland estimated that the effective rate of interest on J-M’s loans was 24 percent. McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 405. The calculation of interest on installment loans was complex. Cox, The Economics of Instalment Credit Buying, 200 ff.; Robert H. Cole and Robert S. Hancock, Consumer and Commercial Credit Management. (Homewood, IL: Richard D. Irwin, 1968), 114–115, 118–123. Ernest P. Jones, “Title I Lending: Past and Future,” IMP 9, no. 1 (1944): 12; “Owners Spending Cash for Repairs,” NYT November 11, 1934.

Notes to pp. 193–96 / 389 9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16. 17.

Program details are reported in McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 405–409; J. D. Coppock, The Government Agencies of Consumer Instalment Credit (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1940), 157; Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 108, 115. United States, National Housing Act, 24, 25, 158; Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 58; FHA, F.H.A.: Story, 7; Ray Smythe, Memo to F.D.R. (Washington, DC: Columbia, 1935), 8–9, 11, 12. “FHA Will Conduct Clinics in Queen’s,” NYT November 24, 1935; Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 58–74; Elisha Hanson, “Official Propaganda and the New Deal,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 179 (1935): 182; Freund, Colored Property, 165. Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 110, 171; “Tune In on FHA,” 110; American Builder (January 1935): 58J; Freund, Colored Property, 170; D. A. Laird, What Makes People Buy? (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1935), 79. Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 53, 66, 98, 103; Freund, Colored Property, 166; FHA, Selling Better Housing (Washington, DC: FHA, 1935), 6. Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 202; FHA, Complete Program: Better Selling of Better Housing, FHA form 165 (revised) (Washington, DC: FHA, 1935), 1, 7, 24, 26; FHA, Selling Better Housing. Esperdy suggests that the FHA took charge because they had been disappointed by the initial failure of building interests to do an effective sales job. Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 80. Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 67, 69; Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 137, 138; “Giving 800,000 Jobs Credited to Women,” NYT May 28, 1935; “Revival of Title I Insured Lending,” IMP 2, no. 8 (1938): 12–13, 27–28; “FHA Fall Modernization Campaign,” AL 3182 (July 13, 1940): 37, 61; Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 263. FHA, The Modernization Credit Plan (Washington, DC: FHA, 1936), 4; R. W. Nowels, “A Proven Plan for Producing Prospects,” BSN 50, no. 4 (April 1936): 12; “Dealers Oppose Government Competition in Housing,” AL 3171 (February 10, 1940): 62– 63; “Supply Dealer Sells First New Home Under Title II,” BSN 48, no. 1 (January 1935): 14, 16; “Lumber Sellers Oppose FHA Low-Cost Plan,” WP November 13, 1938; Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 98; “Does Good Job of Modernizing,” AL 3081 (August 29, 1936): 33; Hugh K. Taylor, “Campaign Is Gaining Speed!” BSN 47, no. 5 (November 1934): 161–164; Arthur F. Reasor, “How Kitchen Remodelling Boosted Sales 800%” BSN 50, no. 1 (January 1936): 10–12; “Merchandising Practices,” 25; Hugh K. Taylor, “Dealer Is Equipped to Make 1935 a Good Business Year,” BSN 48, no. 1 (January 1935): 20. On dealer opposition to public housing see also Nathaniel S. Keith, Politics and the Housing Crisis since 1930 (New York: Universe Books, 1973), 37, 70. The date of J-M’s survey was probably between September 1935 and February 1936. It found that 91 percent of dealers had arranged finance on some of their improvement business. Almost all (87 percent of the grand total) used local banks; 68 percent had used manufacturers’ finance plans; 27 percent, independent finance companies; and 25 percent their own funds. This survey included many progressive dealers and overestimated the use of installment finance among dealers as a whole. Kenneth R. Wells, “Building Bank Business with Title I,” IMP 10, no. 4 (1946): 6. McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 401, 404; Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 475; “Companies Lend,” 1; “J-M To Make FHA Loans,” ABBA 56 (October 1934): 58; “Modernization Credit Offered by Roofing Manufacturer,” AL 3066 (February 1, 1936): 38; FHA, “Confidential Report—For Information of Finance Institutions Only: Summary of Insured Modernization Loans,” typescript, January 30,

390 / Notes to pp. 197–202

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26. 27. 28.

29. 30.

1935 [file 203-6A, vol. 712, RG 19, LAC]; “Finds Great Need for Home Repairs,” NYT September 16, 1934. “Leaders to Study Housing program,” NYT October 15, 1934; “Plan Housing Schools,” NYT January 28, 1935; Weyerhaeuser Sales Corp., Good Homes Never Grow Old. A Manual for Homeowners on the Economic Maintenance of Homes (St. Paul, Minnesota: Weyerhaeuser Sales Corp, 1935); Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 476; FHA, “Confidential Report.” Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 76; Louis Hyman, “Debtor Nation: Changing Credit Practices in 20th Century America,” Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2008, 127, 129, 132, 139. FHA, How Banks Are Making Modernization Loans, FHE 18A (Washington, DC, 1934), 4–5; C. I. Cheyney, “This 14-Point Sales Plan,” BSN 49, no. 5 (November 1935): 180–182; Ben C. Mueller, “A Sale a Day With FHA,” BSN 49, no. 4 (October 1935): 152–154. For other dealer promotions, see Glen R. Newton, “Remodeling Contest Sells 19 Title I Jobs,” BSN 49, no. 5 (November 1935): 187–188; Thomas J. Dye, “A Certified Selling Plan for Modernization,” BSN 49, 5 (November 1935): 196–198, 200. Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 56–58, 112; FHA, How Banks are Making, 6; FHA, How and Why Banks are Making Modernization Loans FHE 18C, supplement C (Washington, DC: FHA, 1934), 14; “Owners Spending Cash for Repairs,” NYT November 11, 1934. A. D. Theobold, Forty-Five Years on the Up Escalator [privately published, 1979], 71; “Proposal for a Home-Building Service Plan,” Federal Home Loan Bank Review 2, no. 4 (1936): 118. Theobold was director of education and research for the Savings and Loan Institute. McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 403; Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 107; John B. Paddi, “The Personal Loan Department of a Large Commercial Bank,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 196 (March 1938): 135, 136, 137; David C. Barry, “Consumer Financing and Its Relation to the Commercial Bank,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 33, no. 201 (March 1938): 51, 53, quoted in Hyman, “Debtor Nation,” 145. “Merchandising Practices,” 25; Bushman, “Dealer Business Under Title I,” 28–29; Cox, The Economics of Instalment Credit Buying, 345; Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 265. Statistics in this paragraph are reported in Coppock, The Government Agencies, 28, 157; Goldstein, Do It Yourself, 26; “FHA Fall Modernization Campaign”; Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 164; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 401. On wartime amendments see “The New Amendments to the National Housing Act,” IMP 5, no. 4 (1941): 3–4, 42–44; Ferguson, “A Decade,” 31. On wartime measures see Miles Colean, Housing for Defense: A Review of the Role of Housing in Relation to America’s Defense and a Program for Action (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1940), 130. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 22. Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 476. E. A. Dauer, Comparative Operating Experience of Consumer Instalment Financing Agencies and Commercial Banks, 1929–1941 (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1944), 34n11; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 404. See also Jones, “Title I Lending,” 11. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 107; Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later, 108; Kenneth R. Wells, “Building Bank Business with Title I,” IMP 10, no. 4 (1946): 6. “Sales Resistance Overcome by Complete Job Quotation,” AL 3083 (September 26,

Notes to pp. 203–7 / 391

31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

36.

1936): 29, 46; Jones, “Title I Lending,” 13; “Dealers Can Learn Much of Value From Study of This Survey,” AL 3112 (November 6, 1937): 22 (editorial); “Dealers Oppose Government,” 62; “Metamorphosis,” BSN 51, no. 6 (December 1936): 16. Margaret Hobbs and Ruth R. Pierson, “ ‘A Kitchen that Wastes No Steps’: Gender, Class, and the Home Improvement Plan, 1936–1940,” Histoire Sociale/Social History 21 (1988): 10, 12, 13, 18, 19; Gordon Sturrock, “Money to Loan,” Chatelaine, November 1936, 82; “Dominion Home Financing Explained to Southwest Ontario,” AL 3089 (December 19, 1936): 45; “Memorandum for Submission to Arthur B. Purvis, Esq., Chairman of the National Employment Commission of Canada,” typescript, July 23, 1936, 4 [file 11, vol. 3357, RG 27, LAC]; E. J. Young, “Speech . . . at opening of the Home Improvement Exhibition, Toronto, Ontario, Tuesday, May 4, 1937,” typescript, 2 [file 10, vol. 3354, RG 27, LAC]; Proceedings of the Nineteenth Annual Convention of the Canadian Construction Association, Chateau Laurier Hotel, Ottawa, January 11, 12, 13, 1937 (Ottawa: Daily Commercial News, 1937), 4, 6–7 [file 203-1A, vol. 708, RG 19, LAC]. See also National Employment Commission, Profit for You from the Home Improvement Plan (Ottawa: NEC, 1936) [file 3, vol. 3355, RG 27, LAC]. Arthur B. Purvis, “Speech . . . over a National Network, March 25, 1937,” typescript, 3 [file 10, vol. 3354, RG 27, LAC]; “Home Extension Regulations,” P.C. 7388 (Order in Council) [files 7-4 and 7-5, vol. 61, RG 56, LAC]; Hobbs and Pierson, “ ‘A Kitchen that Wastes No Steps,’ ” 13, 16; “How to Borrow the Sum You Need,” Chatelaine (April 1937): 22–23; Richard Fisher, “Before/After,” Chatelaine (March 1937): 20–21; National Employment Commission, Press Releases re Home Improvement Program, 1936–1937, nos. 76, 77, and 164 [file 10, vol. 3354, RG 27, LAC]. Dean F. Fenn, treasurer, Heating and Plumbing Finance Ltd., to National Employment Commission, October 13, 1936 [file 203-6A, vol. 712, RG 19, LAC]; Dean F. Fenn, “Dominion Standard Announce a Non-recourse Time Payment Plan,” Canadian Plumbing and Heating 4, no. 3 (April 1936): 7, 21; Cockfield, Brown and Company, “Outline of Plan for Promoting and Popularizing the Home Improvement Plan,” typescript, 1 [file 3, vol. 3355, RG 27, LAC]; Mr. McLarty, “Memorandum for Consideration of Mr. Harry Mero,” typescript, 1 [file 3, vol. 3355, RG 27, LAC]; “H.I.P. in Alberta: Report by Provincial Chairman,” typescript, Edmonton, Alberta, November 8, 1937, 2 [file 3, vol. 3355, RG 27, RG 27, LAC]. “The New Title I Terms,” IMP 3, no. 12 (June 1939), 22; W. C. Clark to Dunning, “Re. Continuing Organization to Promote the Home Improvement Plan and the Dominion Housing Act,” typescript, January 20, 1938, 4 pp.; Purvis to Clark, February 18, 1938; Clark to Purvis, February 21, 1938; I. Markus, general secretary, National Construction Council of Canada, to Clark, March 12, 1938; Clark to Markus, April 12, 1936 [file 203-1A, vol. 706, RG 19, LAC]. Richard Andrews, “Elements in the Urban Fringe Pattern,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 18 (1942): 169–183; Charles Ascher, “The Suburb,” in The Library in the Community, eds. Leon Carnovsky and Lowell Martin (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944), 67. On Hoovervilles, see Stuart A. Queen and Lewis F. Thomas, The City: A Study of Urbanism in the United States (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1939), 303–305. Henry Ford, Today and Tomorrow (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, Page and Co., 1926), 141–142; Ralph Borsodi, National Advertising vs. Prosperity (New York: Arcadia Press, 1923), 301–302; Ralph Borsodi, Flight from the City: The Story of a New Way to Family Security (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1933); Maurice G. Kains, Five

392 / Notes to pp. 207–8 Acres and Independence (New York: Greenberg, 1935; and New York: New American Library, 1973), back cover. See also Ralph Borsodi, The Distribution Age (New York: Appleton, 1927) and This Ugly Civilization (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1929). 37. Borsodi, Flight from the City, 151–171; R. Lord and P. H. Johnstone, eds., A Place on Earth: A Critical Appraisal of Subsistence Homesteads (Washington, DC: USDA, 1942), 21–22; Alison K. Hoagland and Margaret M. Mulrooney, Norvelt and Penn-Craft, Pennsylvania (Washington, DC: Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 1991), 8, 49–78; M. L. Wilson, “The Place of Subsistence Homesteads in Our National Economy,” Journal of Farm Economics 16 (1934): 73–87; Oliver E. Baker, Ralph Borsodi, and M. L. Wilson, Agriculture in Modern Life (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1939), 269–283; Richard Harris, “Slipping through the Cracks: The Origins of Aided Self-Help Housing, 1918–1953,” Housing Studies 14, no. 3 (1999): 293–297; Clarence Pickett, For More than Bread (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1952), 64; George H. Maxwell, The End of Unemployment. (Phoenix, AZ: the author, 1940); Franz Oppenheimer, “Planning for Resettlement,” Free America 5, no. 7 (July 1941): 15–17. For contemporary assessments see also Leland Tate, “Possibilities and Limitations of Subsistence Homesteads,” Journal of Farm Economics 16 (1934): 530–533; C. C. Taylor, “Social and Economic Significance of the Subsistence Homesteads Program: From the Point of View of a Sociologist,” Journal of Farm Economics 17 (1935): 720–731; Paul W. Wager, One Foot on the Soil: A Study of Subsistence Homesteads in Alabama (Birmingham: University of Alabama Bureau of Public Administration, 1945). 38. Mark Swenarton, Building the New Jerusalem: Architecture, Housing and Politics 1900– 1930 (Garston, England: BRE Press, 2008), 133–153; J. W. Porter, “Houses of Mud,” Scientific American 130 (April 1924): 233; G. H. Dacy, “Rammed Earth Lowers House Cost,” Popular Mechanics 42 (November 1924): 838–840; A. H. Verrill, “Built of Mud,” Scientific American 143 (1930): 110–111; “Houses Built of Earth, Birmingham, Alabama,” Architectural Record 80, no. 10 (1936): 323–324; Annabel Lee, “Houses of Earth,” Coronet (June 1937): 35–39; “The Mud House Comes Back,” Popular Science 130 (June 1937): 30; S. Robinson, “Houses Are Dirt Cheap: Rammed Earth Building,” Rotarian 55 (Aug. 1939): 24–27; Louise C. Rutz, “The House that Ben Built in Mesilla Park, New Mexico,” American Home 23, no. 6 (May 1940): 95–96; “Gumption Story No. 6—This $1,020 Home Took ‘Git Up and Git,’ ” American Home 25, no. 6 (May 1941): 42–47. 39. Rozman, “Part-time farming in Massachusetts”; Earl L. Koos and Edmund de S. Bunner, Suburbanization in Webster, New York, Department of Sociology, University of Rochester, 1945; Leland B. Tate, The Rural Homes of City Workers and the Urban-Rural Migration, bulletin 595 (Ithaca: Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station, 1934); FHA, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: Current Housing Situations as of June 1941 (Washington, DC: Division of Research and Statistics, FHA, 1941); Milwaukee Regional Planning Department, Residential Development in the Unincorporated Areas of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin (Milwaukee: Milwaukee Regional Planning Department, 1946); Walter Firey, Social Aspects to Land-Use Planning in the Country-City Fringe: The Case of Flint, Michigan, special bulletin 339 (East Lansing: Michigan State Agricultural Experiment Station, 1946); Fisher and Smith, “Land Subdividing”; Harold L. Hawley, Small Agricultural Holdings in Two Industrial Areas in Indiana (Lafayette: Purdue University Agricultural Experiment Station, 1940); Walter T. Martin, The Rural-Urban Fringe (Eugene: University of Oregon Press, 1953); FHA, Seattle, Washington: Housing Market Analysis (Washington, DC: Division of Research and Statistics, FHA, January

Notes to pp. 208–11 / 393 1, 1941) (mimeo); E. F. Christgau, “Unincorporated Communities in Cook County,” M. A. thesis, University of Chicago, 1942, 25–27; Rutillus H. Allen, L. S. Cottrell, W. W. Troxell, Harriett L. Herring, and A. D. Edwards, Part-time Farming in the Southeast, research monograph 9 (Washington, DC: Division of Social Research, Works Progress Administration, 1937), xv-xviii. Christgau’s survey is an exception in that it includes (96–98) a partial inventory of the settlements that he describes. 40. “Consumer Selling Program,” AL 3204 (May 17, 1941): 28–29; A. M. Fisher, “A Sales Plan in Pictures,” BSN 50, no. 6 (June 1936): 12–15; “Sidestepping Ruinous ‘Auction Bidding,’ ” AL 3076 (June 20, 1936): 16–17; “Low Cost Homes Aim of Arkansas,” AL 3108 (September 11, 1937): 47; “Texas Dealer Builds and Finances Small Houses,” AL 3084 (October 10, 1936): 37; “Garden Homes for $2475,” National Real Estate Journal 35, no. 1 (1934): 30; “Home Building as Viewed by Realtor—Constructor Factors of Industry,” AL 3079 (August 1, 1936): 22; “You Finish This $2,450 Chicago House,” American Home 23, no. 5 (April 1940): 25; “Homes are Started Small—Then Expanded,” AL 3143 (January 14, 1939): 47; Halliday Company, Halliday’s Catalog of Builders’ Bargains (Hamilton: Halliday’s, 1936) [file 203-1A, vol. 708, LAC]; Arthur Van Vlissingen, “A Home and an Acre—$2600,” Reader’s Digest 35, no. 210 (October 1939): 7–11; “Senate to Hear of Homestead Plan in Indiana,” Chicago Tribune June 27, 1939; Dorothy Thompson, “On the Record,” WP May 12, 1939. 41. Henry Louis Taylor, “The Building of a Black Industrial Suburb: The Lincoln Heights, Ohio, Story,” Ph.D. diss., SUNY Buffalo, 1979; United States Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, HOLC Area Description, Area No. D-28, c.1939 [RG 195, box 87, Cuyahoga County]; “Slum Clearance: Before and After,” Public Housing 2, no. 32 (March 1, 1941): 2; Marvel Daines, Be It Ever So Tumbled: The Story of a Suburban Slum (Detroit: Citizen’s Housing and Planning Commission for Detroit, 1940); A. M. Smith, “The Facts About Detroit’s Slums III: Blight Distribution,” Detroit News January 8, 1941; Otto Engelke, J. Robert Cameron, and Joseph F. O’Brien, “A Description of Health Problems in the Area of the Willow Run Plant of the Ford Motor Company, Washtenaw County, Michigan, as of February 27, 1943,” typescript [“Willow Run Michigan,” box 12, RG 215, NA]; Roland J. Thomas, Housing for Defense (Detroit: UAW-CIO, 1942), 16–17; Larry F. Diehl, “Major Aspects of Urbanization in the Philadelphia Metropolitan Area,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 19 (1943): 321–322; Mary Schauffler, “The Suburbs of Cleveland,” Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1941; Christgau, “Unincorporated Communities,” 25; Lillian Creisler, “ ‘Little Oklahoma’ or the Airport Community: A Study of the Social and Economic Adjustment of Self-Settled Agricultural Drought and Depression Refugees,” M.A. thesis, University of California Berkeley, 1940; Charles B. Spaulding, “The Development of Organization and Disorganization in the Social Life of a Rapidly-Growing WorkingClass Suburb Within a Metropolitan District,” Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1939; George Gleason, “The Fifth Migration: A Report on the California Migratory Agricultural Workers Situation,” reprinted in Hearings, House Select Committee to Investigate the Interstate Migration of Destitute Citizens [Tolan Committee], part 7 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1941), 3006; Jessica N. N. MacDonald, Arden Acres (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co., 1935). For later treatments of some of these communities, see Lowell J. Carr and James E. Stermer, Willow Run: A Study of Industrialization and Cultural Inadequacy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1952); James N. Gregory, American Exodus: The Dust Bowl Migration and Okie Culture in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1989); Richard Harris, “Chicago’s Other Suburbs,” Geographical Review 84 (1994): 394–410; Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven.

394 / Notes to pp. 211–15 42. Creisler, “ ‘Little Oklahoma,’ ” 21; Schauffler, Suburbs of Cleveland, 140, 212; Daines, Be It Ever So Tumbled, 19. 43. Schauffler, Suburbs of Cleveland, 200; Ella Oppenheimer, “Infant Mortality in Memphis,” United States Department of Labor Children’s Bureau Publication No. 233 (Washington, DC, 1937), 39; Carr and Stermer, Willow Run, 9, 85, 86; Engelke, Cameron, and O’Brien, “A Description,” 21, 64, 115, 161, 184. On Memphis, see also L. M. Graves and Alfred H. Fletcher, “Housing Problem in a Southern City,” American Journal of Public Health 25 (1935): 21–26, and “Developing a Housing Program in a Southern City,” American Journal of Public Health 27 (1937): 645–654. On Detroit see also Maternal Health League of Michigan, Detroit Chapter, “A Study of Detroit’s Defense Area, Dec. 1941,” mimeo [box 134, RG 215, NARA]. On suburban health in 1930s and 1940s, see James Ford, Slums and Housing (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1936), 350–374; U.S. Office of the Housing Expediter, Land and Public Utilities Advisory Service, “Report on Land and Public Services Activities under the Veterans’ Emergency Housing Program, 1946–1947,” Washington, DC, July 1947, 47, typescript. [U.S. National Archives, RG 252, OHE, LPUAS, box 4]. For a survey see Richard Harris and Michael Mercier, “How Healthy Were the Suburbs?” Journal of Urban History 31 (2005): 767–798. 44. Lloyd M. Faust, “The Eugene, Oregon, Rural-Urban Fringe,” in The Rural-Urban Fringe, Proceedings of the Commonwealth Conference, University of Oregon, Eugene, Oregon, 15; Walter Firey, Social Aspects to Land-Use Planning in the Country-City Fringe: The Case of Flint, Michigan, special bulletin 339 (East Lansing: Michigan State Agricultural Experiment Station, 1946), 11; Tom Dinell, The Influences of Federal, State and Local Legislation on Residential Building in the Flint Metropolitan Area, no. 13, Social Science Research Project (Ann Arbor: Institute for Human Adjustment, University of Michigan, 1952), 48; J. Douglas Carroll, Urban Land Vacancy: A Study of Factors Affecting Residential Building on Improved Vacant Lots in Flint, Michigan, no. 14, Social Science Research Project (Ann Arbor: Institute for Human Adjustment, University of Michigan, 1952), 16; A. C. Findlay, “The Housing Situation in Flint, Michigan,” Flint Institute of Research and Planning, Flint, Michigan, February 1938, 4 (cyclostyled); Leonard M. Board and Herbert J. Dunsmore, “Environmental Health Problems Related to Urban Decentralization,” American Journal of Public Health 43 (1948): 986– 996; Harris and Mercier, “How Healthy,” 789. 45. Dinell, The Influences, 38–49, 62–64; I. Harding Hughes, Local Government in the Fringe Area of Flint, Michigan (Ann Arbor: Institute for Human Adjustment, University of Michigan, 1947), 40. 46. Hughes, Local Government, 35–37, 48; Board and Dunsmore, “Environmental Health Problems,” 990–991; Dinell, The Influences, 7. 47. U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Builders of 1-Family Houses in 72 Cities,” Monthly Labor Review 51, no. 3 (September 1940): 732. 48. G. S. Wehrwein, “The Rural-Urban Fringe,” Economic Geography 18 (1942): 217; Clarence A. Perry, The Rebuilding of Blighted Areas: A Study of the Neighborhood Unit in Replanning and Plot Assemblage (New York: Regional Plan Association, 1933); A. R. Clas, “Housing and Its Relation to City Planning,” address to the American City Planning Institute Convention, Washington, DC, January 18, 1936, 4 [Nolen Papers, box 61, “PWA-Housing Division—Misc.,” Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, Kroch Library, Cornell University]; “Review of the Month,” Building Standards Monthly 7, no. 2 (February 1938): 3; National Bureau of Standards, “Status of Mu-

Notes to pp. 215–17 / 395

49.

50.

51.

52.

53. 54.

nicipal Building Codes,” letter circular LC 377, National Bureau of Standards, Department of Commerce, Washington, DC [box 12, RG 167, NA]. U.S. War Production Board, “War Housing Construction Standards,” Press Release, 28 October 1942, Washington, DC. See also “Emergency Building Code Restrictions,” IMP 6, no. 4 (1942): 21–23, 45. The FHA was always frank about these goals. See Architectural Forum, Home Building under Titles II and III of the National Housing Act (New York: Architectural Forum, 1934), 10; USFHA, The FHA Story in Summary, 1934–1959 (Washington, DC: FHA, 1959), 10. For later commentary, see Kevin F. Gotham, “Racialization and the State: The Housing Act of 1934 and the Creation of the Federal Housing Administration,” Sociological Perspectives 43 (2000): 308; Leo Grebler, Production of New Housing (New York: Social Science Research Council, 1950), 61; Hornstein, Nation of Realtors, 149; Burnham Kelly, Design and the Production of Houses (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), 41; Joseph B. Mason, History of Housing in the U.S. 1930–1980 (Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1982), 30; Semer et al., “Evolution of Federal Legislative Policyin Housing,” 102; Weiss, Community Builders, 141–148; Marc Weiss, “Richard T. Ely and the Contribution of Economic Research to National Housing Policy,” Urban Studies 26 (1989): 124. USFHA, “Planning Neighborhoods for Small Homes,” FHA Technical Bulletin no. 5 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1936); FHA, Underwriting Manual (Washington, DC: FHA, 1938). The closest the FHA came to helping owner-builders was in Fort Wayne, Indiana. It helped a public housing agency to employ WPA workers to build dwellings that, in some cases, the workers themselves went on to occupy. See “Financing of the Fort Wayne Project,” IMP 3, no. 7 (January 1939): 5–8; Iwan Morgan, “The Fort Wayne Plan: The FHA and Prefabricated Municipal Housing in the 1930s,” Historian 47, no. 4 (1985): 538–559. Catherine Bauer, the leading advocate of public housing, dismissed homesteads as a backward step that condemned workers to poor housing in isolated settings. Catherine Bauer, Modern Housing (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1934), 210, 247–252. Typical are Fish, “Housing Policy During the Great Depression,” and Semer et al.’s otherwise exhaustive and penetrating survey, “Evolution of Federal Legislative Policy.” HHFA, Fourth Annual Report: Part 3: Federal Housing Administration (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1950), table 2. Division of Economics and Statistics, FHA, “Program for the Study of Sixty-Two Cities,” Washington, DC, mimeo [1936] [box 1, RG 207, NA]; Kenneth C. Beede, “Description of Economic Data System,” Division of Research and Statistics, FHA, Washington, DC, mimeo [box 1, RG 207, NA]; Jon Teaford, Cities of the Heartland: The Rise and Fall of the Industrial Midwest (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1993), 253; Frederick M. Babcock to Albert Landvoigt, October 7, 1936 [“Frederick M. Babcock, box 3, RG 207, NA]; Weiss, “Richard T. Ely,” 124; “Housing Market Analysis in the F.H.A.,” IMP 13, no. 1 (1948): 9–11, 36; Howard G. Brunsman, “The Housing Census of 1940,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 36 (September 1941): 393–400; Peyton Stapp, Urban Housing. A Summary of Real Property Inventories Conducted as Works Projects 1934–1936 (Washington, DC: Division of Social Research, Works Projects Administration, 1938); “U.S. Real Property Inventory II. Peoria,” Architectural Forum 61, no. 5 (1934): 331; USFHA, Analysis of Real Property Inventory and Financial Survey of Housing for Peoria, Illinois (Washington, DC: USFHA, 1935), v; Kenneth C. Beede, “Description of Economic Data System,” Division of Re-

396 / Notes to pp. 218–20

55.

56.

57.

58.

search and Statistics, FHA, Washington, DC Mimeo [box 1, “Economic Data System,” 1936, 1941, 1943, RG 207, NA]. USFHA, Analysis of Real Property Inventory, 1, 13, 17, 60; H. C. Hatch, “How Hiram Walker Came to Peoria,” PJT June 18, 1939; “Caterpillar Is Helping to Re-Shape the World,” PJT May 28, 1939; Dana G. Dalrymple, “American Tractors and Early Soviet Agriculture,” Smithsonian Journal of History (summer 1967): 53–62; U.S. Works Progress Administration, “Real Property Survey and Low Income Housing Area Survey for Peoria, Illinois” (Washington, DC: WPA, 1941), 47. “Fastest Growing Town in the Country,” PJT December 13, 1936; “Boom Town With a Future Mushrooms From Meadow Atop Bluff at Peoria’s Front Door,” Peoria Star March 28, 1937; Jim Mansfield, “Our Fiftieth Year,” Creve Coeur June 18–20, 1971; interview with H. C. Mead, Morton, Illinois, June 1996; interviews with Geno Reck and Carole Hoffman, El Vista, March 21 and 22, 1995. The estimate of owner-building is rough, but consistent with local reports. In December 1939, a reporter for BSN estimated that since 1933 three thousand homes in the Peoria area had been ownerbuilt. The population increase in the same period was about 13,000. If the average household size was three persons, and if none of the population increase was housed in existing dwellings, an extra 4,333 homes would have been required. “Building Costs Too Much in Peoria, So 3,000 Owners Build Own Homes,” BSN 57, no. 6 (December 1939): 20–21; USFHA, Division of Research and Statistics, “Memorandum Report on the Current Housing Situation in Peoria, Illinois, as of October 7, 1941,” typescript, table A1 [box 6, RG 31, NA]. For other national media coverage of ownerbuilding in Peoria see “How 4,000 Peoria Families Built Their Own Homes,” HB 88, no. 3 (March 1946): 112–113, 179; “Dealers Co-operate With Owner-Builders to Establish Profitable New Markets,” AL (June 8, 1946): 50–51. George Zweifel, “ ‘Sweat-Equity’ Lending—A Profitable Service,” M.A. thesis, Indiana University, 1955, ii, iii, 1, 7, 9, 10, 11; “Hicks Fallin, Realty Firm Head, Dies,” Peoria Journal June 26, 1954; “People’s Federal Reports Issued at Dinner Meet,” PJT January 8, 1939; “Peoples Federal Offers New Home Building Service Plan,” PJT April 16, 1939; “How 4,000 Peoria Families,” 179; “Farmers Savings Home Finance Plan Attracting Interest,” PJT February 26, 1939. In Washington, D.C., Fallin had helped write the legislation for federally chartered savings and loans. After coming to Peoria, he retained national connections and in 1939 was elected president of the Society of Residential Appraisers, which had recently been established by the Savings and Loan League. Zweifel reports that Fallin was ousted in 1946 when he “got into trouble.” Letter by George Zweifel to author, September 10, 1996. Zweifel was hired by Peoples Federal in 1939 and rehired in 1946 after his war service. He became chief appraiser, secretary, and then vice president. Interview with George Zweifel, Peoria, June 23, 1996. A copy of Zweifel’s thesis is in the possession of the author. His analysis revealed that arrears among owner-builder loans were not trivial: 15 percent had been delinquent for three months or more within the first three years of the loan. The rate for standard mortgage loans was 12 percent, but none in either category resulted in foreclosure. Zweifel, “ ‘Sweat-Equity’ Lending,” 21. Zweifel, “ ‘Sweat-Equity’ Lending,” 2–3; Charles M. Thompson, “Otto William Henry Wahlfeld,” in Library of American Lives: Illinois Edition: vol. 2 (Champaign, Ill.: Historical Record Association, 1950), 652, 657; Sheri Schneider, [History of Wahlfeld Mfg. Co.], typescript, c.1991, 6 [in possession of Wahlfeld Mfg. Co.]; Works Progress Administration, “Wahlfeld Manufacturing Co. Founded 1891,” typescript, 1937, 3 [“Building Industries” file, Peoria Public Library]; Wahlfeld Manufacturing Co., Small

Notes to pp. 221–26 / 397

59.

60. 61.

62.

63.

64.

Homes (Peoria: Wahlfeld, c. 1937); “Dealers Co-operate”; “Peoria Organizes,” BSN 1, no. 3 (July 1917): 135; Works Progress Administration, “The Mackemer Lumber Company,” typescript, c. 1938, 1 [“Building Industries” file, Peoria Public Library]; “Allen Lumber Co. Has Home Lovers’ Library,” PJT June 23, 1929; Works Progress Administration, “The Allen Lumber Co.,” typescript, c. 1938, 2 [“Building Industries” file, Peoria Public Library]; R. Kenneth Evans, “J. C. Proctor Lumber Co. With Its Characteristic Aggressiveness Advocates FHA Aid This Spring,” Peoria Star April 24, 1935 [“Building Industries” file, Peoria Public Library]; “John Proctor Lee Opens Own Lumber Firm Downtown,” PJT July 28, 1940. On Proctor see also “26 Product Displays in Medium-Sized Are Key to Proctor’s Post-war Plan,” BSN 69, no. 3 (September 1945): 72–75. For examples of the Journal-Transcript’s building service, see “Inexpensive Convenience,” PJT January 29, 1939; “Correct Construction,” PJT March 19, 1939; “Home Builders Question box,” PJT April 9, 1939. Wahlfeld included photos with the stories about owner-builders that it supplied to the newspaper. See, for example, “Williams Home in Sunnyland,” PJT May 19, 1940. Its advertising of the owner-build program began in July 1939 with “That’s MY New Home I’ve Just Built and I Earn Less Than $30 Per Week,” PJT July 9, 1939. By spring 1940, it was advertising at least weekly. See, for example, “Know the Joy of Owning and Building Your Own Home,” PJT March 3, 1940; “It’s Easy to Own a Wahlfeld OwnerBuilt Home,” PJT April 21, 1940. USFHA, “Analysis of the Real Property Inventory,” 64; U.S. Works Progress Administration, “Real Property Survey,” 87, 90; “Report on the Current Housing Situation in Peoria, Illinois,” January 1949, 8. See also FHA Division of Research and Statistics, “Memorandum Report on the Current Housing Situation in Peoria, Illinois, as of October 7, 1941,” typescript, Washington, DC, 1941 [“Current Housing Situation Reports,” box 6, RG 31, NA]; J. E. Coyne, “Mortgage Lending by CMHC,” December 27, 1950, typescript, 4 [vol. 3439 “Housing,” RG 19, LAC]. “New-structure Loans Under Title I,” IMP 2, no. 11 (May 1938): 12–13, 20–21. “The New Title I Home-Financing Terms,” IMP 4, no. 4 (October 1939): 3–4, 23–24; “The New Title I Loan Regulations,” IMP 4, no. 7 (January 1940): 3–4, 26–28; “Title I New-Home Financing Questions,” IMP 4, no. 9 (March 1940): 15–16, 23–24; Arthur T. Roth, “Lender Looks at Title I Home Loans,” IMP 4, no. 8 (February 1940): 6; “Payment Plan Covers Class 3, Title I, Loans,” AL 3175 (April 6, 1940): 49; Christgau, “Unincorporated Communities,” 53; “Small Homes Built Under Title I,” IMP 12, no. 2 (1947): 20–21, 33–34. “12 Pages of Good Little Houses,” American Home 23, no. 5 (April 1940): 28, 97, 101; Albert E. Landvoigt, “Launching a Title I Home Business,” IMP 4, no. 10 (April 1940): 7–9, 21–22; “It’s ‘Sell or Sink’ for Building Stores on Main Street,” BSN 58, no. 3 (March 1940): 44; “Dwellings Costing $2500 or Under Financed Through Title I Loans,” IMP 4, no. 5 (November 1939): 11; “Dealer Shows How to House Workers the American Way,” BSN 59, no. 1 (July 1940): 26–28; “They Built a Suburb,” AL 3179 (June 1, 1940): 48–49; Hans Gehrke, “Why We Support the Class 3 Program,” IMP 12, no. 3 (1948): 11, 30. Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, Division of Research and Statistics, “Confidential Report of a Re-survey of Metropolitan Chicago, Illinois,” Washington, DC, June 1, 1940, 63. typescript [“Chicago’s Re-survey Report no. 2, vol I (5), box 85, RG 195, NA]; Christgau, “Unincorporated Communities,” 29, 55, 56. “How Title II Helped This Dealer Build and Sell Fifteen Homes,” BSN 51, no. 3 (September 1936): 24, 26; “Complete Building Service Pulls Miller Lumber Co. Out of

398 / Notes to pp. 226–32 Sales Slump,” BSN 59, no. 6 (December 1940): 37, 40; “Selling Low-Cost Homes ‘By Sample,’ ” AL 3078 (July 18, 1936): 1, 25; “How Live Dealer Got Over 300 Active Prospects for Homes,” AL 3075 (June 6, 1936): 40–41; “Makes it Easy to Buy a Home,” AL 3156 (July 15, 1939): 42–43, 59; “Gain Housing Publicity for Lumber Company,” AL 3146 (February 25, 1939): 20–21; “Company Controls Job From Sale to Finish,” AL 3145 (February 11, 1939): 1, 34–35; “A Sales Analysis and Follow-Up System That Helped This Yard Double Volume,” BSN 51, no. 4 (October 1936): 18– 19; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 3198 (February 22, 1941): 36–37; “New Store Location Builds Trade,” AL 3219 (December 13, 1941): 47; Harold H. Rosenberg, “My Hobby—The Building Material Dealer,” BSN 49, no. 3 (September 1935): 91. 65. Goldstein, Do It Yourself, 32–34; Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself,” 91; Gelber, Hobbies, 256– 257; House and Garden’s Wartime Manual for the Home (Greenwich, CT: Condé Nast, 1943), 17–26; “St. Louis Homeowners Learn to Do Own Repairs in Central Hardware Co. Classes,” BSN 68, no. 6 (June 1945): 111; “Make Painters Out of Housewives,” BSN 75, no. 4 (October 1948): 66. CHAPTER NINE

1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

7.

Arthur Miller, Timebends (New York: Grove Press, 1987), 183. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (New York: Viking, 1958), 72, 74, 138. Paul Corey, Buy an Acre (New York: Dial, 1944), vii, 199; Paul Corey, Build a Home (New York: Dial, 1946), 72. Conrad Meinicke, Your Cabin in the Woods: A Compilation of Cabin Plans and Philosophy for Discovering Life in the Great Outdoors (Buffalo: Foster and Stewart, 1945); Corey, Buy an Acre, 120, 188; Eric Hodgins, Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1946), 94, 95. Donald Katz, Home Fires: An Intimate Portrait of One Middle-Class Family in Postwar America (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 71; Ian Brown, Freewheeling: The Feuds, Broods, and Outrageous Fortunes of the Billes Family and Canada’s Favourite Company (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1989), 108. Kathryn Murphy, “Builders of New One-Family Houses, 1955–56,” Construction Review 4, nos. 8–9 (August–September 1958): 7, 10; United States Department of Labor, Structure of the Residential Building Industry in 1949, bulletin no. 1170 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics), 33; James W. Green, House Building by Farm Owners in North Carolina (Raleigh: North Carolina State College, 1954), 83. All BLS statistics reported here are underestimates. The 1949 survey was extensive, and thorough in locating small professional and owner-builders. In 1951, H. E. Riley, the chief of its division of construction statistics, defended the survey as being “more complete . . . because we included house building in representative areas where building permits are not required.” He added, “It is in these areas that the owner-builders and smallscale contractors are most common.” Researchers contacted lumber dealers and others who might know of local building. Even so, an internal memo had indicated that “it would be quite impossible to include owner-builders . . . in a manner at all similar to that for builders and contractors.” Letter from H. E. Riley to P. I. Prentice, October 12, 1951; memo from A. C. Findlay to H. E. Riley, September 11, 1950, 3 [NA, RG 207, box 28, 0-E-74 “Documentary”]. Tony Dingle, “Self-Help Housing and Co-operation in Post-war Australia,” Housing Studies 14 (1999): 341–354; Graham Holland, Emoh Ruo: Owner-Building in Sydney (Sydney: Hale and Ironmonger, 1988); John Gray, “Why Live in the Suburbs”” Mac-

Notes to pp. 232–35 / 399 lean’s September 1, 1954, 7–11, 50–52; Harris, Unplanned Suburbs, 256–263; W. B. McCutcheon, “Beyond the Serviced Suburbs,” Residential Appraiser xx (September 1956): 22; Veronica Strong-Boag, “Home Dreams: Women and the Suburban Experiment in Canada, 1945–1960,” Canadian Historical Review 72 (1991): 484–485, 486, 487, 491. 8. Architectural Forum, The Forum Study of the Housing Market (New York: Architectural Forum, 1945), 16, 23. If any respondents mentioned the owner-build option, they were too few to be counted or mentioned. 9. Better Homes and Gardens, New Ideas for Building Your Home (Des Moines: BHG, 1940); Frazier Norman Peters, Without Benefit of Architect (New York: Putnam, 1937); Burton K. Johnstone and Associates, Building or Buying a House (New York: McGrawHill, 1945), 124; Elizabeth B. Mock, If You Want to Build a House (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1946); Howard H. Morris, How to Build a Better Home (Richmond, VA: Better Homes Publishing Co., 1946); Harold Group, House-of-the-Month Book of Small Houses (Garden City, NY: Garden City Publishing Co., 1946); Kenneth Duncan and Douglas Tuomey, Funk and Wagnall’s Standard Primer for Home Builders and Home Buyers (New York: Funk and Wagnall’s, 1947), vii. 10. “What About Owner-Built Houses,” ABBA 74, no. 8 (1952): 5 (editorial); James W. Pearson, “Most ‘Build-It-Yourself Books’ Are Sucker Bait,” Home Builders Monthly 7, no. 6 (1950): 13–14, 21; “Dealers Cooperate with Owner-Builders,” AL (June 8, 1946): 50; John H. Ryder, “Dealers Say: Yes, We Are Building Homes,” ALBPM (December 20, 1947): 72–73, 112, 114; For a local report of the NAHB publication see Alex Henderson, “Real Estate,” TS September 11, 1945. 11. Theodore Peterson, Magazines in the Twentieth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964), 388; Tyler S. Rogers, “You Can Have a ‘Miracle’ House,” PM 20, no. 1 (1945): 31, 89–92; “What Kind of Postwar Home Do You Want?” PM 21, no. 3 (1946): 45, 99; Maxine Livingstone, “The George Mongolds Build Parents Magazine’s 2nd Expandable Home,” PM 24, no. 2 (1949): 103; Maxine Livingstone, “Brass Tacks About Building,” PM 24, no. 4 (1949): 51; Tyler S. Rogers, “Should You Build It Yourself?” PM 24, no. 4 (1949): 138; William H. Scheik, “Build It Yourself—But Be Wary,” PM 24, no. 4 (1949): 54, 122, 141–144; Maxine Livingstone, “Parents Magazine’s Ninth Expandable House,” PM 24, no. 10 (1949): 136. For later examples see Maxine Livingstone, “Come Visit Three Families Who Built Parents Magazine’s Expandable Home #5,” PM 25, no. 6 (1950): 49–54; “Self-Built,” PM 27, no. 11 (1952): 62–65, 129–132. 12. U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency, Planning Expansible House (Washington, DC: HHFA, 1947), 7; “Points for Postwar Living,” SHG 10 (1943): 75; “Here Are Five Steps to Your Home of No Regrets,” SHG 14 (1945): 20–23; Mr. and Mrs. Fred Kenetter, “We Built It Ourselves,” SHG 22 (Summer–Fall 1949): 33, 34, 39–40, 42; “Kenneth Duncan, “Owner-Labor on Small Houses Offers Sound Advantages to Home Owner and Mortgagee,” Savings Bank Journal 30, no. 7 (September 1949): 19; What SHG Readers are Doing about Finance and Insurance on Their Homes,” SHG 21 (Winter–Spring 1949): 86; “Newsreel,” PI 249 (November 1954): 9. For examples of newspaper coverage of the Guide’s second survey see “Survey Shows One-Storey House Leads,” PJT February 19, 1950; David G. Bareather, “Two-Bedroom Bungalow Rated Tops,” WP February 12, 1950. 13. See, for example, Joseph C. Goulden, The Best Years, 1945–1950 (New York: Atheneum, 1976), 132–142.

400 / Notes to pp. 237–40 14. Humphrey Carver, How Much Housing Does Greater Toronto Need? (Toronto: Toronto Metropolitan Housing Research Project, 1946), 9, 18–19, table IX; “Survey Shows Housing Needs of Veterans,” PJT February 26, 1947; United States Housing and Home Finance Agency, Veterans’ Housing Plans and Living Arrangements in 1946 for 108 Survey Areas, by Geographic Region and Division, and by Population Size of Central City (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1948), 6. 15. “Washington, Here It Is—Dealers Say Bluntly: ‘Stop Fumbling on the Goal Line,’” BSN 70, no. 5 (May 1946): 40; Nat Rogg, A History of the Veterans Emergency Housing Program (Washington, DC: Office of the Housing Expediter Administrative Division, 1948), 44, 89, 90; U.S. National Housing Agency, “Homes Can Be Built Now Through Community Action,” VEHP Community Action Bulletin 9 (March 1947): 12; “16,653 Families Need Housing, Survey Shows,” PJT March 23, 1947; U.S. Office of the Housing Expediter, Housing: Veterans Emergency Housing Program 1, no. 8 (January 1947): 7; “The Knolls,” PJT March 2, 1947. 16. “Memo by Charles J. Horan to All Locality Expediters, Reg. III, re Local Program Planning Requirements for the VEHP,” [1946], 5 [NA, RG 252, box 5, “Region III— Corres.]; U.S. National Housing Agency, VEHP Community Action Report, 1, no. 5 (July 15, 1946): 1. 17. Nathaniel G. Sims, “Homes for Veterans by Veterans,” IMP 12, no. 2 (1947): 17; Howard H. Morris, How to Build a Better Home (Richmond, Va.: Better Homes Publishing Co., 1948), 13n2. 18. Corey, Buy an Acre, 84; U.S. National Housing, Agency Technical Bulletin No. 34 (Washington, DC: NHA, 1944), 5; Douglas Tuomey, How to Build Your Own House (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1949), 14; Hubbard Cobb, Your Dream Home: How to Build It for Less Than $3,500 (New York: W. H. Wise, 1950), 5; “Do It Yourself,” Time 59, 26 (June 30, 1952). 19. “This Family Found the Perfect Plan,” SHG 28 (Summer–Fall 1952): 40; Hugh Curtis and William Raufer, Home Building and Remodeling (Des Moines: Successful Farming, 1949); Standard Homes Company, Best Homes: Better Homes at Lower Cost (Washington, DC Standard Homes Company, 1946); Homes You Can Build Yourself (Washington, DC: Standard Homes Company, 1949); Standard Construction Details for Home Builders (Washington, DC: Standard Homes Company, 1950); Frank D. Graham and Thomas J. Emery, Audel’s Carpenter and Builder’s Guide (New York: Theo Audel and Co., 1939); “The Do-It-Yourself Man,” Life 17 (September 22, 1953): 113– 116; “Building a Home with the Help of a Pattern,” ALBPM (October 11, 1947): 77; “Build an Ideal Home Like This for $6,900,” PJT October 16, 1949; Harriett Morrison, “Built It Yourself,” WP August 17, 1947; Don Wharton, “Build a House in Your Spare Time? Why Not?” Readers Digest 56, no. 335 (April 1950): 43–46; Pratt, “You Can Build”; “The Shoulder Trade,” Time 64, no. 5 (August 2, 1954): 62. In the 1975 edition, Standard Homes claimed to have housed four million people. 20. Richard Pratt, “You Can Build Your Own Home for Half the Price,” Ladies Home Journal 67, no. 4 (April 1950): 47; Warren and Sylvia Putnam, “Garage, into Home, into Garage,” BHG 30, no. 4 (April 1952): 269–270; Lin Gander, “Life in a Garage,” BHG 30, no. 4 (April 1952): 232; “Here’s a ‘We Done It’ Triumph,” BHG 30, no. 6 (June 1952): 178. 21. Roger Sturtevant, “Meet Four American Pioneers,” American Home 34, no. 4 (September 1945): 17–22; Will Mehlhorn, “Is There Such a Thing as a Low Cost Home?” HB 88, no. 3 (March 1946): 105–114, 136–138, 146–147, 150, 155–156, 179, 183; Miles Colean, “You Get More for Your Money by Owning,” HB 88, no. 3 (1946): 114,

Notes to pp. 240–45 / 401

22.

23. 24.

25.

26.

27.

150, 155–156; Benedict Gunnar, “Anyone Can Build a House,” American Magazine 147, no. 5 (May 1949): 50–51, 82, 84, 86; Wharton, “Build a House”; Darrell Huff, “They Build Their Own,” Americas 3, no. 2 (February 1951): 13–16, 41. Wesley S. Griswold, “Anybody Can Build a House,” Popular Science Monthly 162, no. 6 (June 1953): 115–119, 244. The four houses are described in Wayne C. Leckey, Your Home and How to Build It Yourself (Chicago: Popular Mechanics, 1947); James R. Ward, Popular Mechanics Famous Concrete Block House (Chicago: Popular Mechanics, 1949); Tom Riley, Build-It-Yourself: Ranch-Type House (Chicago: Popular Mechanics, 1951); Richard Dempewolff, Precut House You Can Assemble Yourself (Chicago: Popular Mechanics, 1955). See also Three Low-Cost Homes You Can Build Yourself (Chicago: Popular Mechanics, 1954). Leckey, Your Home, foreword; Dempewolff, Precut House, 18. Paul and Doris Aller, Build Your Own Adobe (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1946); Anthony F. Merrill, The Rammed-Earth House (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1947); Douglas Tuomey, How to Build Your Own House (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1949); “The New Do-It-Yourself Market,” Business Week June 14, 1952, 70; Better Homes and Gardens, Handyman’s Book (Des Moines: Meredith Publishing, 1951); Darrell Huff, “We’ve Found a Substitute for Income,” Harper’s Magazine 207 (October 1953): 30; Frazier N. Peters, Pour Yourself a House: Low Cost Building with Concrete and Stone (New York: Whittlesey, 1949); Hugh Laidman, How to Build Your Own House (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1950); Lee Frankl, The Masonry House: Step by Step Construction in Tile and Brick (New York: Duell, 1950); Deane G. Carter and Keith H. Hinchcliff, Family Housing (New York: Wiley, 1949); Paul Corey, Homemade Homes (New York: William Sloane, 1950); Hubbard Cobb, Your Dream Home: How to Build It for Less Than $3,500 (New York: W. H. Wise, 1950) (quotations are from the dustcover); Hubbard Cobb, ed., Amateur Builder’s Handbook (New York: W. H. Wise, 1950). For a Canadian sample see Hubbard Cobb, “Fix It Yourself,” Hamilton Spectator February 13, 1954, 28. “A Handy Low Cost Housing Formula—Coop Group Pools Skills and Muscles,” PJT June 6, 1948; “Mother of 23 Builds Own House,” PJT June 15, 1948; “Homes for Americans,” PJT October 21, 1945; “Low Cost Home Built in Negro School Program,” PJT February 22, 1948; “Now You Can Build This Ideal Home for $5900,” PJT October 21, 1945; “Build New House? Do It Yourself Says New Book,” PJT June 19, 1949; “Free Circular on Fireplaces and Chimneys,” PJT January 13, 1946; “Home of Future May Be Packaged,” PJT May 22, 1945; Roger Whitman, “First Aid to Ailing House,” PJT May 6, 1945; “Home Building Activity Noted,” PJT July 29, 1945; “Veterans Learn Secrets of Painting and Decorating,” PJT November 3, 1946; “Home Wiring Exhibit in Peoria Loop,” PJT August 8, 1948; “Library for Home Planners Announced; To be Opened Soon,” PJT March 20, 1949; “Home Show to Feature Builders at Work,” PJT March 27, 1949; Brown Brothers, classified advertisement, PJT September 22, 1945; “Announce Suburban Homes for Veterans in New Subdivision,” PJT September 15, 1946; “Are You a Handy Man?” PJT June 17, 1945. “East Peoria Family’s Story Told to Nation—The Hintons Work as a Family Unit,” PJT January 9, 1949; “Hudson’s Home Proof Star’s Weekly Plan Ideal for Families,” TS November 28, 1950; Paul Fox, “Prefabricated Houses Built to Meet Laws of Toronto Suburbs,” TS June 7, 1952. Elsa L. Andrezen, $500 . . . and a Home of Your Own (New York: Vantage, 1952); George Daniels, How to Build or Remodel Your House (New York: Greystone Press, 1953); Katherine M. Ford and Thomas H. Creighton, Quality Budget Houses (New

402 / Notes to pp. 247–52

28.

29.

30. 31.

32.

33.

34.

35.

York: Reinhold, 1954), 181; Larry Eisinger, How to Build and Contract Your Own Home (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1957). Mrs. A. J. Stefanick, “A Real Bargain,” SHG 29 (Winter 1952–Spring 1953): 25; “Features and Costs of New 1-Family Houses,” Monthly Labor Review 73, no. 1 (July 1951): 14; Murphy, “Builders of New,” 7; Organization for Social and Technical Innovation Inc., Self-Help in Housing: Report #8: Owner-Built Housing in the United States, report to HUD (contract # H1057A), Washington, DC, 1970, 50; HUD, Sales of New One-Family Homes, Annual Statistics, 1966 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1969), 1; Jack McLaughlin, The House-Building Experience (New York: Van Nostrand, 1981), 2. It is unclear whether the running survey was accurate, but it gives a fair impression of short-run change. Corey, Build a Home, 72; Corey, Buy an Acre, 88; Peters, Pour Yourself, 1; Leckey, Your Home; Thomas S. Craig, “Class 3 Financing in Elmira, N.Y.,” IMP 13, no. 3 (1949): 12. Corey, Buy an Acre, 89, 200; Cobb, Your Dream Home, 5; Daniels, How to Build, 1. Corey, Build a Home, 6, 232; Daniels, How to Build, 3; Duncan, “Owner-Labor,” 34; Clara C. Sanders, “Ten Year Plan for Building,” SHG 19 (1948): 44. See also Peters, Pour Yourself a House, 4. Letter from Mrs. Andrews, Peoria Heights, June 24, 1996; letter from Ed Schlaffer, Peoria, May 9, 1995. Interviews were undertaken by myself in March 1995 and by Sarah Hardy in July 1996. Contact with ex-builders was made by encouraging them to call our hotel on the respective dates of our arrival in town. This number was shown at the end of a feature article in the Peoria Journal Star about Peoria’s ownerbuilders. Point-form summaries of the interviews were later confirmed by interviewees, and many responded with annotations, letters, documentary material, and/or photographs. I would like to thank Nancy Trueblood, the paper’s features editor, for her cooperation. See T. J. Kenyon, “Owner-Builders Part of Peoria’s Past; Professor Seeking Information,” Peoria Journal Star March 20, 1995; Richard Harris, “Editor Finds Peoria Rich in Facts on Owner-Builders,” Peoria Journal Star June 23, 1996. Interviews with Greg Fishhook, Hamilton, June 5, 1996; Bill and Vera Ambridge, Hamilton, June 15, 1996; Enid Hiscox, Burlington, Ont., June 4, 1996. Hamilton’s owner-builders were contacted in a similar manner to those in Peoria (preceding note). See Rick Hughes, “The Suburban Dream Home. Working classes had it first, says Mac Professor,” Hamilton Spectator May 30, 1996. A second wave of interviews was undertaken by Tricia Shulist in 1997 with those assisted under the Veterans Land Act. See “Local Student Looking for Help in Research of Veterans Land Act,” Ancaster News August 20, 1997. Architectural Forum, The Forum Study, 6; Irving Rosow, “Home Ownership Motives,” American Sociological Review 13(1948): 753; Morris, How to Build, v; Dean, Home Ownership, 94; Daniels, How to Build, 179–180; Nathan Straus, Two Thirds of a Nation. A Housing Program (New York: Knopf, 1952), 74. See also Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 109. The earliest reference I have seen to the tax incentive to mortgage debt is in Leo Grebler, The Role of Federal Credit Aids in Residential Construction (New York: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1953), 28. Corey, Buy an Acre, 91; Sherman Maisel, “Housebuilding in the San Francisco Bay Area,” typescript, Table I, 8 [NA, RG 207, box 17, O-E-50]; Leckey, Your Home, n.p. (Foreword); Laura Tanner, “Some people build their own houses with their own hands,” HB 98, 11 (1956): 237, 326; “Do It Yourself,” Time 59, no. 26 (June 30,

Notes to pp. 252–58 / 403

36. 37.

38.

39. 40. 41.

42.

43.

44.

1952); Duncan, “Owner-Labor,” 33; Wharton, “Build a House”; Craig, “Class 3 Financing,” 10–11; “Here’s a ‘We Done It’ Triumph”; Harry M. Steffey, “In Ypsilanti They Build Their Own,” IMP 13, no. 2 (1948): 22. Maisel’s purpose was to study the building industry. The published version contains little information about ownerbuilders. See Maisel, Housebuilding in Transition. Interviews with Lloyd Johnson (June 23, 1996), Marge King (June 25, 1996), Joyce and Dan McLeod (June 21, 1996), and Ed Schlaffer (March 21, 1995). “The National Housing Act,” typescript, April 1944, 2 [LAC, RG 19, vol. 706, 203-1A]; interview with Everett Englard, Hamilton, June 18, 1996; U.S. Congress, Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, Report of the Subcommittee on Housing on the Veterans Loan Guaranty Program (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1956), 35 ff. William L. Shenkel, The Unfinished but Habitable Home (Washington, DC: U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1965), 52; William L. Shenkel, “Self-Help Housing in the United States,” Land Economics 43 (1967): 195. Corey, Homemade Houses, 67, 125, 247; Antanas Sileika, Buying on Time (Erin, ON: Porcupine’s Quill, 1997), 10, 22. Interview with Mrs. Andrews, June 24, 1996. On British owner-builders see Harris, Unplanned Suburbs. M. Davidson and P. Leather, “Choice or Necessity? A Review of the Role of DIY in Tackling Housig Repair and Maintenance,” Construction Management and Economics 18 (2000): 749; Colean, “You Get More,” 155; “What SHG Readers Are Doing about Finance and Insurance on their Homes,” SHG 21 (Winter 1948–Spring 1949): 86; Organization for Social and Technical Innovation, Inc., Self-Help in Housing, 56–57; “Families Are Helping to Build Their Own—and SAVING Money,” SHG 26 (1951): 100; Wharton, “Build a House”; Kenetter, “We Built it Ourselves”; Gunnar, “Anyone Can Build.” Green, House Building, 70; Corey, Homemade Homes, 112; Sileika, Buying on Time, 26; Maxine Livingstone, “Self Built,” PM, 27, no. 11 (1952): 131. See also Corey, Homemade Homes, 39, 40, 82, 100, 176, 249. Interviews in Peoria, Illinois, with Virginia Oedewalt, June 22, 1996; Mrs. John Harris, June 20, 1996; Mrs. Andrews, June 24, 1996; Walter E. Barnewolt, June 24, 1996; Boyd Harris, June 21, 1996. Interviews in Hamilton, Ontario, with Glenn Gibson, September 5, 1997; Mel and Kit Colling, August 13, 1997; Jack and Joyce Graham, June 23, 1997. E. Jerome Ellison, “Homes That Self-Help Built,” Forum 101, no. 4 (1939): 204– 207; “Self-help Cooperative Housing,” Monthly Labor Review 49 (1939): 566–577; Florence Parker, “Cooperation in the Building of Homes,” Monthly Labor Review 52 (1941): 292–321; “Under Their Own Roofs,” Newsweek October 13, 1947, 68; Carl Ziegler, “How 21 Families Got Good Houses . . . and Saved Money,” SHG 21 (Winter 1948–Spring 1949): 50–55, 150, 152, 154; “Snake Hill,” House and Garden 90, no. 5 (1946): 178–1885, 237–238; Darrell Huff, “We Made Our Own Neighborhood,” PM 24, no. 8 (August 1949): 39, 90–92; Franz Serdaley, “Experiment in Living: Family Groups Abandon City to Establish Own Country Community,” Christian Science Monitor December 13, 1947, 7; Morton M. Hunt, “The Battle of Abington Township: A Case History in Cooperative Housing,” Commentary 9, no. 3 (1950): 234–243; Charles Abrams, “Another String to the Bow,” The Survey 85, no. 10 (1949): 543–546; Kenneth Duncan, “Sparkman Bill Seen as Opening Wedge to Put Government in Direct Competition with Banks,” Savings Bank Journal 30, no. 6 (1949):

404 / Notes to pp. 259–65

45.

46.

47.

48.

49. 50.

17, 26–27; William M. Farrell, “Veterans Building 25 Dream Houses,” NYT October 19, 1949; Frederick Edwards, “Farthest East,” Maclean’s November 1, 1941, 18–19; Beland Honderich, “Co-op Housing Is One Way a Working Man Can Buy His Own Home,” TS November 11, 1949; “Father Jimmy’s Library,” Newsweek November 7, 1949, 42; Edward Skillin, “Co-operative Saga,” Commonweal August 23, 1940, 371. U.S. National Housing Agency, Mutual Housing: A Veterans’ Guide (Washington, DC: NHA, 1946), 1; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Nonprofit Housing Projects in the United States. Bureau of Labor Statistics Bulletin No. 896 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1947); Roland J. Thomas, Co-op Housing Do’s and Don’ts: A Practical Guide to the Organization and Development of Union Sponsored Non-profit Housing (Detroit: UAW-CIO Housing Department, 1947); Elsie Danenberg, Get Your Own Home the Co-operative Way (New York: Greenberg, 1949); “Co-ops Full Steam Ahead,” Architectural Forum 90, no. 1 (1949): 12, 14; U.S. Housing and Home Finance Agency, “Housing Co-operatives in the United States, 1949–1950,” Housing Research Paper No. 24 (Washington, DC: Housing Research Division, Housing and Home Finance Agency, 1951), 3; FHA, The Financing and Development of Cooperative Housing Projects under FHA Mortgage Insurance (Washington, DC: FHA, 1949). See also “Self-Help in Housing,” Journal of Housing 10, 9 (special issue); Charles M. Haar, “Middle Income Housing: The Cooperative Snare?” Land Economics 29 (1953): 289–294; Jacqueline Leavitt, “The Interrelated History of Cooperatives and Public Housing from the Thirties to the Fifties,” in Allan Heskin and Jacqueline Leavitt, The Hidden History of Cooperatives (Davis, CA: Center for Cooperatives, 1995), 79–104; interview with Olga Kathus, March 21, 1995. Sturtevant, “Meet Four American Pioneers,” 17; Frances Adelhardt, “She Built Her Own,” Americas 3, no. 5 (1951): 48 (letter); Corey, Homemade Homes, 56. Adelhardt was responding to Huff, “They Build.” Wharton, “Build a House”; Colean, “You Get More,” 150; Leckey, Your Home; Dempewolff, Precut House, 19; Huff, “We’ve Found,” 28; Andrezen, $500; Richard Pratt, “They Built It Themselves for $3,400,” LHJ 67, no. 5 (1950): 180; Richard Pratt, “Worth at Least $18,000 but Cost Only $9,089.13,” LHJ 67, no. 10 (1950): 59; Livingstone, “Self Built,” 131; Corey, Homemade Homes, 73–74, 132–134, 297; Livingstone, “The George Mongolds,” 104. For other stories of women reported by Corey, see Homemade Homes, 33, 38. Interviews in Peoria with Millie Wegner, July 1, 1996; Lloyd Johnson, June 23, 1996; Marge King, June 25, 1996; Dan Letizia, March 20, 1995; Martha Grouper, March 22, 1995; Mrs. John Harris, June 20, 1996. Letter from Lloyd Johnson, August 15, 1996; letter from Millie Wegner, August 11, 1996. Interviews in Hamilton with Vilis and Vera Streits, June 5, 1996; William and Vera Butterworth, August 28, 1997; Alec Barrett, May 30, 1996; Mrs. Howard Millard, August 25, 1997; Strong-Boag, “Home Dreams,” 488. Interview with Millard. Corey, Buy an Acre, 181, 187; Homemade Homes, 119. CHAPTER TEN

1.

2.

On Canada, see Bacher, Keeping to the Marketplace; Richard Harris, “More American Than the United States: Housing in Urban Canada in the Twentieth Century,” Journal of Urban History 26 (2000): 468. Richard Harris, “Slipping Through the Cracks: The Origins of Aided Self-Help Housing,” Housing Studies 14 (1999): 289–290, 297–300; Jacob L. Crane, “Consideration of ‘Self-Help Housing,” memo to Raymond M. Foley, 21 December 1948 [NARA, RG

Notes to pp. 266–67 / 405

3.

4.

5.

6.

207, box 18, file 632]; E. B. Lemmons, secretary, MRLDA, to Senator Joseph A. McCarthy, August 23, 1948; U.S. Congress, Study and Investigation of Housing: Hearings before the Joint Committee on Housing, no. 6 and 7 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1947), 2263; A. G. Johnson, Standard Homes, to Lawrence M. Condon, HHFA, September 13, 1949 [NARA, RG 207, box 27, “421: FHA Requirements”]. On Crane, see Richard Harris, “ ‘A Burp in Church’: Jacob L. Crane’s Vision of Aided Self-Help Housing,” Planning History Studies 11 (1997): 3–16. Those who praised the Stockholm plan include: in Canada, D. A. MacDonald, “Co-operative Housing in Sweden,” Canadian Forum 26, no. 306 (1946): 47; in the United States, D. and A. Monson, “Ideas from Sweden for an American Co-operative Housing Program,” American City 69, no. 3 (1949): 84–86; 4, 110–111; no. 5, 140–142; L. Silk, Sweden Plans for Better Housing (Durham, NC. Duke University Press, 1948), 126–133; United States Senate. Committee on Banking and Currency, Cooperative Housing in Europe (Washington, DC: USGPO), 9, 33. Letter to editor from “A Wisconsin Dealer,” BSN 70, no. 2 (February 1946): 101; “Bartonville, Illinois Has State Aided Owner Builder Program,” Journal of Housing 9, no. 12 (1952): 434; “Million Dollar Home Development in Wooded Area,” Peoria Journal Star November 16, 1952; interview with Mrs. Griffin, Peoria, March 21, 1995; U.S. National Housing Agency, VEHP Community Action Report to the Mayors’ Housing Committees 1, 3 (June 15, 1946): 1; 1, 4 (July 1, 1946): 1; 1, 5 (July 15, 1946): 1; 1, 9 (September 16, 1946): 2; 1, 12 (November 1, 1946): 1; 1, 14 (December 2, 1946): 1. John B. Blandford, “Housing Principles for America,” Paper presented to the National Committee on Housing, Inc., Chicago, Illinois, March 9, 1944. typescript, Washington, DC [NARA, NHA, 1.10: B61]; FHA, “Plan of Action. Economy Housing Program,” Mimeo, Washington DC [NARA, RG 207, box 5, “Economy Housing Program 3 of 3”]; Straus, Two Thirds of a Nation. Richard Ratcliff to A. C. Shire, chief, Housing Technology Branch, HHFA, March 3, 1950 (NARA, RG 207, box 13, O-T-42); “Alaska Aided Self-Help,” Ideas and Methods Exchange 14, item A (Washington, DC: HHFA, 1954); University of Minnesota. Cooperative Research Program, “Layman’s Manual for Self-Help Housing Construction in Alaska,” project no. 1-T-100, typescript [NARA, RG 207, box 40]; Tuskegee Institute, Low Cash Cost Housing, Rural Life Information Series, bulletin no. 2 (Tuskegee: Tuskegee Institute, 1950); Tuskegee Institute, “Low Cash Cost Housing: Organization and Direction of Family Labor for Self-Help House Construction,” research project O-T-42, October 1, 1952, typescript [NARA, RG 207, box 13); Booker T. Washington, Working with the Hands (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1904). “3 Ways to the Get the Money You Need,” SHG 20 (1948): 78–81, 143; Craig, “Class 3 Financing in Elmira,” 9; Edith P. Lapish, “The Money You Need—How to Get It—Insuring Your Investment,” SHG 27 (1951–1952), 77; Stanley L. McMichael and Paul T. O’Keefe, How to Finance Real Estate (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1949), 95; HHFA, Fourth Annual Report, 223; Sixth Annual Report, 219; Eighth Annual Report, 116, 138; “Title 1, No. 3 Question,” in “Housing Act of 1950, Questions and Answers,” typescript, Washington, DC, 1950 [NARA, RG 207, box 570, “Housing Act 1950”]. For a summary of changes in legislation see U.S. Congress, Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, A Chronology of Housing Legislation and Selected Executive Actions 1892–1992 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1993), 24, 36, 52–53. For changes in the administration of Class 3 loans, see FHA Chief Underwriter Letters no. 729 (August 28, 1947): 953 (December 1, 1949): 981 (April 24, 1950), and 1046 (August 15, 1950) [NARA, RG 207, boxes 83, 84]. On 203(i) see FHA, FHA

406 / Notes to pp. 267–73

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

How Cost Housing for Small Towns and Outlying Areas, FHA no. 492 (Washington, DC: FHA, 1963). FHA, “The Housing Market in Fargo, N. D., and Moorehead, Minn.,” Office of the Housing Analyst, FHA, Chicago, Illinois, August 1949, typescript, 14–15; Huff, “They Build Their Own,” 16, 41. J. R. Chambliss to Raymond Foley, December 23, 1949 [NARA, RG 207, box 27]; “Self-Help Home Builders Look at Finance and Insurance,” SHG 24 (1950): 86; Hans Gehrke, “Why We Support the Class 3 Program,” IMP 12, no. 3 (1948): 10–11, 29–30; Craig, “Class 3 Financing,” 12; “ ‘Build Your Own’ Housing Going up in Cleveland,” Journal of Housing 8, no. 9 (September 1951): 307; MALA, Proceedings, Sixty-First Annual Convention, Atlantic City, NJ, February 4, 5, 6, 1953, typescript, 133–134 [Records of the Eastern Building Materials Dealers Association, Hagley]; Claribel Key, “Class 3 Homes in Jackson, Tenn.,” IMP 12, no. 4 (1948): 12–13, 27–28. MALA, Proceedings, Sixty-Third Annual Convention, 60 [Hagley]; “Dealer’s Own Financing Brings 100 CONTROLLED House Sales a Year,” BSN 92, no. 3 (April 1957): 121; HUD, Sales of New One-Family Homes, 9. Veterans’ Land Act Administration, “Part A, Qualifications, Estimates, and Subcontract Sheet OL/8281B” (Glen Gibson), October 6, 1951. Typescript in possession of Glen Gibson. Used with permission. Richard Harris and Tricia Shulist, “Canada’s Reluctant Housing Program: The Veterans’ Land Act, 1942–1975,” Canadian Historical Review 82 (2001): 258, 260, 262– 263, 272–275; Tricia Shulist and Richard Harris, “ ‘Build Your Own Home’: StateAssisted Self-Help Housing in Canada,” Planning Perspectives 17 (2002): 346, 349, 350, 351. Cour, The Plywood Age, 91–93; Corey, Homemade Houses, 177; Livingstone, “The George Mongolds,” 104. Gunnar, “Anyone Can Build,” 84; Three Low-Cost Homes, 29; Ward, Popular Mechanics Famous; Corey, Homemade Houses, 175, 232–236, 264; Aller and Aller, Build Your Own Adobe, 110; R. L. Holman, “Dirt Cheap Houses,” Colliers 115 (February 3, 1945): 45; Marie D. Nelson and Mat Kauten, “Our Dream Home Gets Down to Earth,” American Home 32, no. 2 (July 1944): 36; Alfred D. Bailey, “Meet More Modern Pioneers,” American Home 34, no. 5 (October 1945): 41; “Out of the Good Earth Will Come Our Dream Home: Rammed Earth Houses,” American Home 30, no. 4 (September 1943): 26. For discussion of financing on earth homes, see Robert C. Cook, “Houses of Earth,” New Republic 109 (September 6, 1943): 329; E. Kirmser, “Why Not Dirt Houses,” American Mercury 65 (July 1947): 90. For general discussion, see Merrill, Rammed-Earth House; John O. McMeekin, “Want a $15,000 Home—For Only $6,000,” Coronet 28, no. 1 (May 1950): 140–145; Mat Kauten and Marie Kauten, “We’ll Build It of Rammed Earth,” Woman’s Home Companion 76 (February 1949): 62–63; “Mansions from Mud,” Popular Mechanics 88, no. 5 (November 1947): 107; HHFA, “A Partial Bibliography on Earth Construction,” typescript, Washington, DC, 1951 [NARA, RG 207, box 46]. Kathryn Murphy, New Housing and Its Materials, 1940–1956, bulletin no. 1231 (Washington, DC: Bureau of Labor Statistics, 1958), 27, 28–29, 51–52, 53, 54, 56; HHFA, The Materials Use Survey: A Study of the National and Regional Characteristics of One-Family Dwellings Built in the United States in the First Half of 1950 (Washington, DC: HHFA Division of Housing Research, 1953), 11. Murphy, New Housing, 28–29; Stanford Research Institute, America’s Demand for Wood, 35; Joseph Zaremba, Economics of the American Lumber Industry (New York:

Notes to pp. 274–78 / 407

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

Robert Speller, 1963), 7, 63, 90, 100, 146–147, 187, 203, 212, 216; Nelson Brown, Lumber: Manufacture, Conditioning, Grading, Distribution, and Use (New York: Wiley, 1947), 133–135, 157, 165. On contractor’s perceptions of quality, see Fred W. Taylor and Warren S. Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices in Mississippi, research report no. 1, part 1: Role of Building Contractors (State College: Forest Products Utilization Laboratory, Mississippi State University, 1966), 35, 41. On lumber retailing in Mississippi, see Fred W. Taylor and Warren S. Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices in Mississippi, research report no. 2, part 2: Role of Building Supply Dealers (State College: Forest Products Utilization Laboratory, Mississippi State University, 1966). Brian Horrigan, “The Homes of Tomorrow, 1927–1945,” in Joseph C. Corn, ed., Imagining Tomorrow: History, Technology and the American Future (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1986), 150; Straus, Two Thirds of a Nation, 55, 57, 59, 65–58; “Le Tourneau ‘Hen’ Lays Concrete House in 24 Hours,” PJT February 17, 1946; “The Thrift House,” Savings and Loan News 68, no. 2 (February 1949): 9–10; “Here are the New Prefabs Whose Values Every Builder Must Meet,” H&H 4, no. 5 (1953): 103; “Prefabricated and Packaged House Manufacturers Directory,” H&H 6, no. 6 (1954): 153; Burnham Kelly, Design and the Production of Houses (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1959), 160. Kelly, Design and the Production, 172; “We Are Now Accepting Orders for Immediate Delivery of Raleigh Pre-fabricated Homes,” PJT June 9, 1946; “Yes You Can Move In—In 30–45 Days,” PJT July 20, 1947; “Presenting the New 1950 ‘National Thrift Home,’ ” PJT October 2, 1949; “Pre Cut Homes $2450,” PJT October 12, 1947; “Home Chosen by Magazine Built in West Peoria,” PJT April 11, 1948; “Best Homes for Nationwide Sale in Exhibit Here,” PJT June 29, 1952; “Peorian Still Sold on Factory Built Housing Idea,” PJT February 18, 1950; “The Security Home,” PJT August 21, 1949 (advertisement); “Two More Home Projects Announced,” PJT July 8, 1951 (advertisement);“Low-Priced Home Financing in Youngstown,” Savings and Loan News 69, no. 9 (1949): 19. “Sears Semi-prefab Homes Gain Headway; Service is Stressed Rather than Price,” BSN 77, no. 6 (December 1949): 120–122; “Sears—Immediate Delivery to Your Lot,” PJT May 25, 1947 (advertisement); “1 and 2 Bedroom Homes for Veterans—‘Factory Bilt’ by Strathmoor of Detroit,” PJT November 3, 1946 (advertisement); “Build Your Own Best-Built-House,” PJT April 27, 1947 (advertisement); Burnham Kelly, The Prefabrication of Houses (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1951), 373; Carl Koch, At Home with Tomorrow (New York: Rinehart, 1958), 151, 154, 164; Dempewolff, Precut House. Cobb, Your Dream Home, 26; Tuomey, How to Build, 200; “Where Are We Going to Get the Money?” SHG 29 (Winter 1952–Spring 1953): 78, 80; Duncan, “Owner-Labor,” 33. Neal MacGiehen, Construction Financing for Home Builders (Washington, DC: HHFA, 1953), 12, 29; George B. Hurff, Wylie Kilpatrick, Felix Muehlner, and Carter C. Osterbind, Residential Mortgage Financing: Jacksonville, Florida, First Six Months of 1950, Housing Research Paper no. 23 (Washington, DC: HHFA, 1952), 95; Indiana University School of Business, “Financing the Construction of Single Family Homes in the East Central States,” report to HHFA, typescript, n.p., 1950; Ruth D. Fonseca, “Finance and Other Problems,” SHG 21 (Winter 1948–Spring 1949): 33. Steffey, “In Ypsilanti”; Craig, “Class 3 Financing”; Bayard Wheeler, Financing House Construction in the Northwest (Washington, DC: HHFA, 1951), 27; Indiana University School of Business, Financing the Construction; James W. Pearson, “Most ‘Build-ItYourself Books’ Are Sucker Bait,” Home Builders Monthly 7, no. 6 (June 1950): 13. Taylor and Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices . . . No. 1, 1; Taylor and Thompson,

408 / Notes to pp. 279–81

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

Lumber Marketing Practices . . . No. 2, 37; Clark Row, Changing Role of Retail Dealers in Lumber Marketing, U.S. Forest Service Research Paper SO-7 (New Orleans: Southern Forest Experiment Station, U.S. Department of Agriculture, 1964), foreword; John A. Murphy, “Builders’ Hardware Now an Important Lumber Yard Department,” AL (May 25, 1946): 28–29; “Products 25,000 Lumber and Building Materials Dealers Handle . . .” BSN 68, no. 1 (January 1945): 170–176; Organization for European Economic Cooperation, The Timber Industries in the U.S.A., Technical Assistance Mission no. 59A (Paris: OEEC, 1953), 48; Richard Harris, “To Market! To Market! The Changing Role of the Australian Timber Merchant, 1945–c.1965,” Australian Economic History Review 40 (2000): 22–50; “Home Builders Store Will Be Appliance, Plumbing, Heating Headquarters for Large Trading Area,” BSN 69, no. 5 (November 1945): 37; U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Business, 1948, vol. 2: Retail Trade—General Statistics, Part 2 (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1952), table 22A. Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure and the Culture of Work, 285; “Hardware Store Takes to Supermarket Way,” Business Week September 8, 1956: 76–78; George Bush, The Wide World of Wickes (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976); Deni McIntyre, No Place like Lowe’s: 50 Years of Retailing for the North American Home (North Wilkesboro, NC: Lowe’s, 1996), 17. McNair and Hansen, Problems in Marketing, 455–461; Harold H. Rosenberg, “Are You Ready?,” BSN 68, no. 6 (June 1945): 53; “Will I be Spreading Myself Too Thinly?” BSN 69, no. 1 (August 1945): 56–58; “How You Can Beat Sears at Their Own Game” BSN 71, no. 4 (October 1945): 81, 113; “How an Indiana Dealer Increased Sales 12-Fold in 10 Years,” BSN 68, no. 2 (February 1945): 52–53; “New Store Emphasizes Over-Counter Sales, Major Appliances,” AL (June 8, 1946): 45–49; “From Scratch to $1 Million Annual Sales by Cash Lumber Yard in 8 Years,” BSN 73, no. 6 (December 1947): 18–19. “Homeowner Dollars Attract Uniontown’s Big Volume Material Dealer,” BSN 79, no. 6 (December 1950): 54–55; “Traffic Builders,” BSN 72, no. 2 (February 1947): 65–68; Brooks Robinson, “We Really Stumbled On to Something in Traffic Builders,” BSN 74, no. 3 (March 1948): 226; “The Story of 6 Mistakes: How Dealer Licked Them—How You Can Avoid Them,” BSN 71, no. 2 (August 1946): 70–71, 101; “The New Do-It-Yourself Market,” Business Week June 14, 1952, 74. Row, Changing Role of Retail Dealers, 9; J. D. Francis and Associates, Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association (Winnipeg, MB: Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 1965), 15; Reavis Cox, Charles S. Goodman, and Franklin R. Root, Adaptation to Markets in the Distribution of Building Materials,vol. 5: Broad-Line Distributive Agencies (Washington, DC: Producers’ Council, 1963), 299. “Results—1950 Survey of Retail Dealer Selling Practices,” ALBPM (September 9, 1950): 104; “ ‘Sweat Equity Can Be Big Business for You,” BSN 81, no. 5 (November 1951): 49; “Don’t ‘Lose Your Shirt’ on Handyman Sales,” in William R. Davidson and Kenneth Hutchison, Retail Management Procedures (Chicago: Industrial Publications, 1956), 21. Maisel, Housebuilding in Transition, 57, 87, 120, 353; “The New Home Market Which Veteran Lumbermen Lost,” ALBPM 3697 (April 11, 1960): 64–65; Row, Changing Role of Retail Dealers, 7. See also Taylor and Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices . . . No. 2, 23. Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association, Management Consulting Division, “Confidential Report on Current Operational Problems of C. H. Marshall, Inc., Media, Pennsylvania, typescript, June 6, 1960, n.p. [Hagley, Mss, MALA].

Notes to pp. 282–87 / 409 30. Paul Hollenbeck, “Price to Fit the Sale,” BSN 92, no. 1 (January 1957): 120; “Handle the Volume Builder with Kid Gloves,” BSN 74, no. 1 (July 1948): 98. Hollenbeck’s figures were hypothetical but indicative. 31. Edward Hines, Building a Tradition in Chicagoland for 100 Years (Chicago: Edward Hines, 1992), 11; “Consumer Is King and Long-Bell’s Model Store,” ALBPM (July 1, 1950): 38; “Housing Investigations May Hit ‘Pay Dirt,’ But Hardly Touch It Yet,” BSN 73, no. 6 (December 1947): 27; National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, Retail Store Merchandising: Lumber and Building Materials (Washington, DC: NRLDA, 1955), 29; Reavis Cox, Charles Goodman, and Franklin R. Root, Adaptation to Markets in the Distribution of Building Materials: A Critical Survey With Recommendations, vol. 1: Introduction and Recommendations for Management (Washington, DC: Producers’ Council, 1963), 330; Cox, Goodman, and Root, Adaptation to Markets . . . vol. 5, 314; Newman, A Century of Success, 149, 262, 264. 32. “ ‘Take-Home Plan Units’ Sell New Homes,” BSN 85, no. 5 (November 1953): 260; Taylor and Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices . . . No. 1, 23. 33. “Home Planning Service Boosts Sales,” ALBPM (May 19, 1952): 42–44; “Eclipse Controls Sale With Home Planning Department Plus Trade-In House Plan,” BSN 92, no. 1 (January 1959): 138–139, 142; National Lumber and Building Material Dealers’ Association, Dealer Profile Study (Washington, DC: National Lumber and Building Material Dealers’ Association, 1969), 15. 34. William Leiss, The Limits to Satisfaction: An Essay on the Problem of Needs and Commodities (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1976), 88 ff; Cox, Goodman, and Root, Adaptation to Markets . . . vol. 5, 289; “Dealers Cooperate with Owner-Builders,” AL (June 8, 1946): 50–51; “ ‘Sweat Equity’ House Market Is Your Golden Opportunity,” BSN 78, no. 3 (March 1950): 128; Edward Mathieu, “Help the Amateur Builder— He’ll Boost Your Business,” BSN 83, no. 1 (July 1952): 194; “These People Sweat Their Housing Costs Down a Third, Gave Dealers Handsome Profit,” BSN 81, no. 5 (November 1951): 51; “Sell Out Crowd for ‘How to Build’ Lu-Re-Co House—$5 Tuition,” BSN 88, no. 4 (April 1955): 166, 168. 35. “Package Homes Hike Sales 30% on Building Materials,” BSN 92, no. 5 (June 1957): 111; “Nice Profit Margin in Build-It-Yourself Business,” ALBPM (March 10, 1951): 98; “Master Merchant Schaffer Sells Service, Quality,” ALBPM (March 25, 1950): 37; “Step-by-Step Guidance for ‘Sweat Equity’ Customers Increases Material Sales 40%,” BSN 80, no. 4 (April 1951): 80; “Expansive but Not Expensive,” ALBPM (July 30, 1949): 28; “ ‘Specialists’ Have Helped 1,500 Amateurs,” BSN 85, no. 2 (August 1953): 122–124. 36. “Practical ‘Package Home’ Plan Protects Dealer, Lender, Homeowner,” BSN 82, no. 6 (June 1952): 103; “This Is How Dolan’s Does It,” ALBPM (May 21, 1949): 44–46, 48; “Sell Financing—And Forget the Price,” BSN 88, no. 1 (January 1955): 146; “9 Sales and Profit Plans for 1951,” BSN 80, no. 1 (January 1951): 82; “ ‘Sweat Equity’ House Market”; “Practical Program Against Socialized Housing,” ALBPM (January 27, 1951): 44–45; “ ‘Build-It-Yourself’ Idea Catches On,” BSN 76, no. 5 (May 1949): 38. 37. “The Three Markets for Do-It-Yourself Sales,” BSN 87, no. 4 (October 1954): 165. 38. “This Prefab Is Your Baby,” BSN 70, no. 4 (April 1946): 38–39; classified advertisement, PJT July 14, 1946; “Adirondack Conventionally Built Homes . . . Shipped in Sections,” BSN 72, no. 2 (February 1947): 33 (advertisement); Paul J. Mathew, “Prefabricated Homes: How Will They Affect Your Business?” BSN 68, no. 2 (February 1945): 69–70, 73, 88; Straus, Two Thirds of a Nation, 68.

410 / Notes to pp. 288–91 39. “Prefabricated Small Homes of Wood,” AL 3072 (April 25, 1936): 51; Miles Colean, Organizing the Construction Industry for Mass Markets (Washington, DC: Producers’ Council, 1949), 6; Joseph B. Mason, History of Housing in the U.S. 1930–1980 (Houston: Gulf Publishing, 1982), 83, 89; “How to Sell Materials for Low-Cost ‘Sweat Equity’ Houses,” BSN 78, no. 6 (June 1950): 44; Kelly, Design and the Production, 225; “Pre-assembles Custom Houses at Project Prices,” BSN 92, no. 6 (June 1957): 114, 118; “Lumber Dealer Coordinates Products and Services to Cut Small Builder’s Costs,” H&H 6, no. 1 (July 1954): 128–133; “Prefab Panels in Lumbering Are Big Help to Small Builder,” Washington Post and Herald Tribune June 6, 1954; “Dealer Sells 1000 House Packages in Year,” BSN 92, no. 5 (June 1957): 108–109; “Lu-Re-Co in Action,” BSN 87, no. 5 (November 1954): 111–116; “Prefabrication Economy for Custom Built Houses,” SHG 33 (1955): 128, 130, 281. 40. “Lumber Dealers Ponder How to Stop Falling Sales; Consider Package, House Doctor Plans,” H&H 4, no. 4 (October 1953): 46; “One Stop Service for Builders,” ALBPM (March 29, 1947): 32–33; Roger Newman, A Century of Success (Winnipeg: Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 1990), 174–175; “Lumber Dealer Is Turning Prefabber,” H&H 6, no. 2 (August 1954): 144. 41. “Budget House With Seven Star Features,” ALBPM (February 11, 1952): 70, 72; “36 Build-It-Yourself Garages Sold from Five Newspaper Ads,” BSN 78, no. 2 (February 1950): 64–65; “The Prize Package of All-Low Cost House That Competes with the Prefabbers,” BSN 85, no. 1 (July 1953): 94–95; “Grossman’s Use Ads and Field Service to Corral the ‘Build-It-Yourself’ Trade,” BSN 79, no. 2 (August 1950): 60–62; “Dealer Home Program Clicks,” ALBPM (November 19, 1949): 40–42; S. Philip Gopen, “Loans on Owner-Built Homes,” Savings and Loan News 69, no. 12 (December 1949): 16–17. For examples of early dealer prefab initiatives after 1945 see “Dealer Tells How He Will Handle Prefabs,” BSN 68, no. 3 (March 1945): 66, 78; E. E. Homstad, “Old Ideas Can’t Build New Business,” BSN 70, no. 3 (March 1946): 127; “Two Dealers Set Up Their Own Prefab House Factory,” BSN 72, no. 2 (February 1947): 19. 42. “Lu-Re-Co: Four-Way Relief for Competitive Ills,” BSN 98, no. 3 (March 1960): 146– 150; Row, Changing Role, 20; Cox, Goodman, and Root, Adaptation to Markets . . . : Vol.V, 274–275. 43. Building Supply News, How to Sell the “Sweat Equity” or Owner-Built Home Market (Chicago: Industrial Publications, 1952); Display for Profit: Display and Store Layout Guide for Lumber and Material Merchants (Chicago: Industrial Publications, 1953); “Makes Most of Compact Design,” BSN 92, no. 5 (May 1957): 108. 44. Front cover, PL 30, no. 1 (July 1949): 31; “Dealer Gives 4-Way Supply and Building Service Today—Aims at Complete Shopping Center Tomorrow,” BSN 73, no. 3 (September 1947): 98–99; “Belton’s Super Market Service Great Help to Customers,” Canadian Lumberman 71, no. 7 (July 1951): 51; “Long-Bell of Tulsa Changes from a Yard to Home Center,” BSN 74, no. 5 (May 1948): 24–25. For contemporary accounts of change see “Evolution of Lumber Yard Merchandising,” AL (January 19, 1946): 40–42; Arthur A. Hood, “The Consumer Comes to the Lumber Yard,” AL (April 13, 1946): 228–237. 45. “Location—Main Street versus the Tracks,” BSN 70, no. 2 (February 1946): 68–70; “ ‘Everything to Build Anything’—At Burroughs Building Center,” BSN 73, no. 5 (November 1947): 14–15; “B.S.N. Panel of Dealer Experts Answer 14 of Your Questions,” BSN 68, no. 6 (June 1945): 69; “Decentralized Retailing,” PL 27, no. 1 (July 1946): 5 (editorial); Taylor and Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices . . . No. 1, 26; Row, Changing Role of Retail Dealers, 14–15.

Notes to pp. 295–303 / 411 46. “New Hi-Way Home Supply Center Doubles Previous Sales,” BSN 71, no. 4 (October 1946): 74; “Motorists Like This Store,” ALBPM (June 3, 1950): 64; “MAIN STREET Is Where Your Store Is—If You Have a Store Like Collins,” BSN 71, no. 4 (October 1946): 78–80; “ ‘Chain Store’ Merchandising in a Building Material Yard,” BSN 70, no. 3 (March 1946): 57–58, 60. 47. “MAIN STREET,” 78; “Sales Boom as California Firm Cashes In On ‘Build-It-Yourself,’ ” BSN 85, no. 4 (October 1953): 173–175; “ ‘Chain Store’ Merchandising,” 58. 48. “Sell the Woman and You Sell All,” PL 30, no. 5 (November 1949): 7, 9; “Dealer Flirts with Housewife Trade; Has No ‘Warehouse Shopping’ At His Yard,” BSN 77, no. 1 (July 1949): 40–41; “Self-Service Selling,” PL 28, no. 4 (October 1947): 15; “Can a Dealer Go Too Far With Sidelines?” BSN 69, no. 1 (July 1945): 70; “How to Get the Housewife to Shop in Your Yard,” BSN 77, no. 6 (December 1949): 40; “Everything to Build Anything,” ALBPM (November 5, 1949): 84. 49. Jacob Smuts, The Work of the Building Products Salesman (Chicago: American Lumberman, 1945), 5; “The Bull Pen,” BSN 68, no. 5 (May 1945): 73; Arthur A. Hood, “Sellers Market Gives Way As Buyers Take Over,” PL 29, no. 8 (February 1949): 6–7, 10–13, 16–20; “New Store Plus New Products Equals New Customers,” ALBPM (August 26, 1950): 31; “Lumbermen Told of a Lush Market,” NYT January 26, 1954. 50. W. M. Hass, “Sparks Strike ‘Sparks,’ ” BSN 77, no. 3 (September 1949): 196; “The Consumer Sales Clincher,” ALBPM (September 10, 1949): 84; “7 Sales Ideas Built This Store,” BSN 75, no. 5 (December 1948): 40; “Women Have One More Place in the Lumber Material Yard,” BSN 70, no. 6 (June 1946): 39; “The Bull Pen,” BSN 68, no. 6 (June 1945): 70. 51. Seaboard Lumber Sales Co., “Put Wood on a Pedestal,” Australian Timber Journal 23, no. 6 (July 1957): 66–72; Con A. Lembke, “The Self-Service Timber Store,” ATJBPM 26, no. 6 (July 1960): 82, 85, 87–88, 90–91, 94; Harris, “To Market! To Market!,” 40– 47. See also Canadian Western Lumber Co., “The Retail Timber Merchant in Today’s Economy,” ATJBPM 28, no. 1 (February 1962): 20, 22–23; R. C. McMillan, “Retail Merchandising in Canada,” ATJBPM 31, no. 6 (July 1965): 71–77. CHAPTER ELEVEN

1.

2.

3.

4. 5.

6.

“New Census Figures Suggest Fix Up Market Is Billions Bigger than Official Estimates,” H&H 6, no. 4 (October 1954): 49; Hayes, A Study of the Distribution, “Results—1950 Survey,” 101. The NRLDA statistics exclude information for farm and nonresidential business. “New Census Figures”; Moira Munro and Philip Leather, “Nest-Building or Investing in the Future? Owner-Occupiers’ Home Improvement Behaviour,” Policy and Politics 28 (2000): 515. Carter, Historical Statistics, table Dc 250; “President Eisenhower on the Tightrope,” H&H 4, no. 3 (September 1953): 115 (editorial); A. J. Stefanick, “A Real Bargain,” SHG 29 (Winter 1952–Spring 1953): 25. J. E. Coyne, “Mortgage Lending by C. M. H. C.,” typescript, December 27, 1950 [LAC, RG19, vol. 3439, “Housing”]; Statistics Canada, Historical Statistics, series S168-180. Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University, Remodelling Houses for Changing Households (Cambridge, Mass.: The Joint Center, 2001); Grebler, Blank, and Winnick, Capital Formation in Residential Real Estate, 120, 121; U.S. Department of Labor, New Housing in Metropolitan Areas, 1949–1951, Table 1; Murphy, “Builders of New One-Family Houses, 1955–1956, Table 3. Maxine Livingstone, “Now It’s Nicer Than Ever,” PM 22, no. 2 (February 1947): 42–

412 / Notes to pp. 304–8

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

43, 113–115; Richard M. Bennett, “Half a House Is Better Than None,” PM 21, no. 8 (August 1946): 38–41, 125–128; Maxine Livingstone, “Half a House Is Better Than None,” PM 24, no. 9 (September 1949): 62–63, 138–140; “Rags to Riches House— Expands Five Ways,” SHG 22 (Summer–Fall 1949): 63; “Small House Grows Up,” Women’s Home Companion (September 1949): 26–27. “Low-priced Home Financing”; “Redesigned: Levitt Keeps Experimenting With the Expansion Attic,” H&H 5, no. 2 (February 1954): 122; “Planning Principles and the Whys of Expansion,” PM 27, no. 4 (April 1952): 63–68, 139–141, 157; Barbara Kelly, Expanding the American Dream: Building and Rebuilding Levittown (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 100–101, 114–116. “Dealer Tells How He Will Handle Prefab,” BSN 68, no. 3 (March 1945): 66, 78; “The Templeton System,” Time 48, no. 3 (July 15, 1946); H. R. Templeton, “What Is This Country Worth to Us . . . ?” Mortgage Banker 10, no. 1 (October 1949): 6–9, 12–13; “Finish It Yourself,” Time 55, no. 15 (October 13, 1952); “Two Dealers Set Up Their Own Prefab House Factory,” BSN 72, no. 2 (February 1947): 19; “Erection of House ‘Shells’ a New Innovation Here,” Home Builders Monthly 7, no. 8 (August 1950): 20– 21; “More Low-Priced Homes Financed by Savings Associations,” Savings and Loan News 69, no. 9 (September 1949): 18–19; “Lumber Dealer Coordinates Products and Services to Cut Small Builder’s Costs,” H&H 6, no. 1 (July 1954): 133. “Hankinson Finds There’s Extra Profits Inside the Shell,” BSN 84, no. 3 (March 1953): 118–120; William Honan, “James Walter, 77, Believer in Do-It-Yourself Homes, Dies,” NYT January 9, 2000, 31. “Customer-Finished Houses,” ALBPM 3713 (November 21, 1960): 68–71, 74; William Shenkel, “Self-Help Housing in the United States,” Land Economics 43 (1967): 190. Hodgins, Mr. Blandings; William Crouse, Home Guide to Repair, Upkeep, and Remodeling (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947); Reginald Hawkins and C. H. Abbe, New Houses from Old: Your Guide to Home Remodeling (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1948). For examples of magazine coverage, see Maxine Livingstone, “Now It’s Nicer Than Ever,” PM 22, no. 2 (February 1947): 42–43, 113–115; Tyler S. Rogers, “Let’s Face the Facts About Remodeling Old Houses,” PM 22, no. 5 (May 1947): 44–45, 135–137; “4 Ways to Make More Room,” PM 23, no. 5 (May 1948): 40–41. Arthur A. Hood, “A New Link in the Marketing Chain,” ALBPM (July 28, 1951): 27 (editorial); “Expert Advice to Do-It-Yourselfers,” BSN 86, no. 4 (April 1954): 99; “The Three Markets,” 164; “Results,” 103; Harvey Perloff, Urban Renewal in a Chicago Neighborhood (Chicago: Hyde Park Herald, 1955), 32. “Big Sales Potential in ‘New Home’ and Old Remodeling Markets,” BSN 92, no. 1 (January 1957): 148; Kelly, Design and Production, 223; Martin Meyerson, B. Terrett, and William L. C. Wheaton, Housing People and Cities (Toronto: McGraw-Hill, 1962), 109; Row, Changing Role, 6. “57 Won’t Be As Bad as Some Expect,” Toronto Star March 20, 1957; “Untapped Market in Improvements, Lumbermen Told,” Globe and Mail (Toronto) March 23, 1957; Alex Watson, “Why We Are Here—Canada’s Newest Merchandisers,” Building Supply Dealer 1, no. 1 (1957): 78. “Cornerstone for a New Magazine,” H&H 1, no. 1 (January 1952): 107; “The Low Income Family and the Too Cheap House,” H&H 2, no. 4 (October 1952): 106; “Some of the Things They Said,” H&H 2, no. 4 (October 1952): 111–113, 142–146; “Round Table Letters,” H&H 2, no. 5 (November 1952): n.p; National Association of Home Builders, A New Face for America (Washington, DC: NAHB, 1953); “For So

Notes to pp. 308–11 / 413

16.

17.

18.

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

Vast a Problem There Can Be No Quick, No Cheap, No Easy Solution,” H&H 4, no. 4 (October 1953): 103. “Housing Policy Report: An Analysis of the Findings of the President’s Advisory Committee on Government Housing Policies and Programs plus Excerpts from the Official Report,” H&H 5, no. 1 (January 1954): 3 (supplement); Jack Siegel and C. William Brooks, Slum Prevention through Neighborhood Conservation and Rehabilitation. (Washington, DC: U.S. Presidential Advisory Committee on Government Housing Policies and Programs, 1953); Nathaniel S. Keith, Politics and the Housing Crisis since 1930 (New York: Universe Books, 1973), 113–116; NAREB, Build America Better Council, Blueprint for Neighborhood Conservation (Washington, DC: NAREB, 1954); “Realtors Aid Plan to Improve Slums,” NYT May 2, 1954; “Realtors Sponsor Remodeling Work,” NYT October 10, 1954. “FHA Field Offices Report Problems of Policing Title I, Say They Need More Money and Men,” H&H 5, no. 5 (May 1954): I-M; “Home Improvement Companies Get the Gravy—Why Doesn’t the Dealer?” BSN 70, no. 3 (March 1946): 89; “Beware of Dynamiters,” H&H 4, no. 4 (October 1953): 168, 182, 184; “F.H.A. Cracks Down in Title I Repair Rackets; Orders Lenders to Investigate, Certify Dealers,” H&H 4, no. 5 (November 1953): 137; “New Law Gives Housing New Directions,” H&H 6, no. 2 (August 1954): 125; Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing, 13–15. H. R. Northrup, “Open-end: Boon to Modernization Market,” H&H 3, no. 4 (April 1953): 87; “President’s Housing Committee Recommends FHA Adopt Open-End Mortgage,” H&H 5, no. 2 (February 1954): 99. “Open-end Mortgage System Would Balk Repair Loan Frauds by ‘Dynamiters,’ ” H&H 6, no. 2 (August 1954): 93; “U.S. Savings and Loan League Backs Flexible Mortgage,” H&H 2, no. 2 (August 1952): 59; Ernest J. Loebbecke, “Open Sesame of the OpenEnd Mortgage,” H&H 3, no. 1 (January 1953): 95; “Finance and Insurance,” SHG 25 (Winter 1950–Spring 1951): 101–103, 148, 202–205. Richard G. Hughes, “NAHB Lenders Give 100% Backing to the Open-End Mortgage,” H&H 3, no. 3 (March 1953): 100; Northrup, “Open-End”; Richard G. Hughes, “Open-end Mortgage: Good Business Bet, Not a Legal Problem,” H&H 4, no. 3 (September 1953): 52; “Can FHA Insure Open-end Mortgages?” H&H 4, no. 1 (July 1953): 87; “Open-end Mortgage System”; “The Home Financing Picture for 1954,” SHG 32 (Summer–Fall 1954): 249; “President’s Housing Committee,” 99. A. M. Watkins, The Complete Book of Home Remodeling, Improvement and Repair: A Handbook for the Owner Who Wants to Do It Right—But Not Do It Himself (New York: Dolphin, 1964), 313, 319–324; Miles Colean, “The Truth About the Cost of Money for Remodeling,” House Beautiful 105 (September 1963): 190. “But What About Houses Like These?” H&H 6, no. 4 (October 1954): 110; “NAHB Hires Chief of Baltimore Slum Plan,” H&H 3, no. 3 (March 1953): 45; “How U.S. Cities Are Meeting the Challenge of Rehabilitation,” H&H 4, no. 4 (October 1953): 130–135. On the Baltimore program and federal policy, see Alexander von Hoffman, “Enter the Housing Industry, Stage Right: A Working Paper on the History of Housing Policy,” unpubl. ms., Joint Center for Housing Studies, Harvard-MIT, Cambridge, Mass., 2007. “Eisenhower Backs New Slum Battle,” NYT November 16, 1954; “Lumber Dealers to Aid in Housing,” NYT May 22, 1955; “Crusade Against the Slums,” NYT September 22, 1955; John P. Callaghan, “Industry Enters War on U.S. Slums,” NYT September 30, 1956. United States Gypsum Co., Operative Remodeling: The New Profit Frontier for Builders

414 / Notes to pp. 312–16

25.

26.

27. 28.

29.

30. 31.

32. 33.

34.

(Chicago: United States Gypsum Co., 1956), 7; Nash, Residential Rehabilitation; H. N. Osgood and A. H. Zwerner, “Rehabilitation and Conservation,” Law and Contemporary Problems 25 (1960): 726. Cf. Jane Busch, “Homes in the Suburban Era, 1946– 1970,” in Thomas W. Paradis, ed., The Greenwood Encyclopedia of Homes Through American History, vol. 3 (Westport, CT: Greenwood), 75–76. USHHFA and U.S. Urban Renewal Administration, Replacing Blight with Good Homes (Washington, DC: FHA, 1955); USHHFA, How Localities Can Develop a Workable Program for Urban Renewal (Washington, DC: HHFA); Maurice F. Parkins, Neighborhood Conservation: A Pilot Study (Detroit: Detroit City Planning Commission, 1958), 2; “Chicago Starts a Pilot Block Rehabilitation Project,” H&H 5, no. 2 (February 1954): 39, 41; “582 Cities Taking Action on Slums,” NYT January 20, 1957. “Anti-slum Drive Spreading in U.S.” NYT June 17, 1956; Walter H. Stern, “Home Improvement Drive Finds Itself in a 15-Billion Business,” NYT February 24, 1957; “New Group to Spur Home Improvement,” NYT July 14, 1957. “Home Rebuilders Form Unit on Long Island,” NYT October 6, 1957; “Home Improvers Hail Year’s Gains,” NYT February 2, 1957. “The New Do-It-Yourself Market,” Business Week June 14, 1952, 64; “Build It Yourself,” H&H 6, no. 2 (Aug. 1954), 43; “Just What Are Your Handyman Customers Doing?” BSN 87, no. 3 (September 1954): 118; Row, Changing Role, 6. “Finish It Yourself”; “Slashes House Costs to the Bone,” BSN 74, no. 5 (May 1948): 29; “How I Help People Own a Home of Their Own,” ALBPM (June 30, 1951): 28; “Nice Profit Margin in Build-It-Yourself Business,” ALBPM (March 10, 1951): 99 (advertisement); “What’s News . . . and Why,” PI 251 (April 8, 1955): 24; “TV Spots Sell ‘Finish It Yourself’ Houses,” BSN 87, no. 3 (September 1954): 100; William Shenkel, “The Unfinished but Habitable Home” (Washington, DC: USHHFA, 1965); Shenkel, “Self-Help Housing.” Harris, Unplanned Suburbs; Goldstein, Do It Yourself; Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself.” Andrew Lang, “Urge to Swing Hammer Isn’t a Passing Fancy,” WP May 23, 1953; “Survey Indicates Homeowners Are Active in Decorating Own Homes,” ALBPM (May 24, 1947): 45; John Spiegel, “When a Customer Needs a Friend,” BSN 75, no. 5 (November 1948): 204 (guest editorial); “Walt’s Workshop Makes Friends—and Customers,” ALBPM (July 29, 1950): 32; Horace W. Greeley, “Do-It-Yourself Urge Takes Hold, Builds New Home Market,” PI 247 (May 21, 1954): 37; “Practical ‘Package Home’ Plan Protects Dealer, Lender, Homeowner,” BSN 82, no. 6 (June 1952): 103; “New ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Campaign Your First Sales Tool,” ALBPM (October 20, 1952): 56–57, 101; “How You Can Get the Homeowner Business,” ALBPM (September 8, 1952): 72; “If You Promote ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Will You BITE THE HAND THAT FEEDS YOU?” BSN 84, no. 1 (January 1953): 82; National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, Retail Store Merchandising, 29. Viron N. Hukill, “The Do-It-Yourself Movement in Pulaski County, Arkansas, and Its Implications for the Industrial Arts,” Ed.D. diss., University of Missouri, 1958, 80. Albert Roland, “Do-It-Yourself: A Walden for the Millions,” American Quarterly 10 (Spring 1958): 160, 161; Colin Williams, “A Lifestyle Choice? Evaluating the Motives of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Consumers,” International Journal of Retail and Distribution Management 32, no. 5 (2004): 270–278; Colin Williams, “Re-thinking the Motives of Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Customers,” International Review of Retail Distribution and Consumer Research 18 (2008): 311–323. Betty Pepis, “Householders Get a Self-Help Show,” NYT March 17, 1953; “Personal

Notes to pp. 316–23 / 415

35.

36.

37.

38.

39.

40. 41.

42.

and Otherwise,” Harper’s Magazine 207 (October 1953): 6, 8; Phil Creden, “America Rediscovers Its Hands,” American Magazine 156 (December 1953): 113. Paul Taylor, “4 Do-It-Yourself Trends . . . That Mean Extra Profits to Advertisers,” PI 245 (October 2, 1953): 28–29; “The Shoulder Trade,” Time 64, no. 5 (August 2, 1954): 62, 63; “How You Can Get the Homeowner Business,” 72; Hubbard Cobb, The Complete Home Handyman’s Guide (New York: W. H. Wise, 1949), vi; Lang, “Urge to Swing,” 9; Karal A. Marling, As Seen on TV: The Visual Culture of Everyday Life in the 1950s (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 56. William H. Crouse, Home Guide to Repair, Upkeep, and Remodeling (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1947), vii; “The New Do-It-Yourself Market,” 61; Lang, “Urge to Swing Hammer,” 9; Frederick L. Allen, The Big Change (New York: Harper, 1952), 231; H. M. Muller, Urban Home Ownership: A Socio-economic Analysis with Emphasis on Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1947), 51; John McPartland, No Down Payment (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1957), 88. “ ‘Do-It-Yourself’—A Profitable New Market,” ALBPM (October 6, 1952): 43–44 (editorial); Taylor, “4 Do-It-Yourself Trends,” 29; “Millwork Institute Formed; Painters Fight for Market,” H&H 4, no. 5 (November 1953): 47; Ed Townsend, “ ‘Do-ItYourself’ Trend Stirs Unions,” Christian Science Monitor September 25, 1954; David Dempsey, “Home, Sweet (Homemade) Home,” New York Times Magazine March 31, 1957, 71; Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure and the Culture of Work, 286. “The Do-It-Yourself Man,” Life 17 (September 22, 1953): 113–116; Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure and the Culture of Work, 287; “Basements Are Coming Back,” SHG 33 (Winter 1954–Spring 1955): 123; Mark Clements Research Inc., Housing Design and the American Family (Washington, DC: NAHB Journal of Homebuilding, 1964), 41, 125, 127. Bill Mauldin, “How Do-It-Yourself Amateurs are Clobbering Themselves,” Life July 25, 1955, 96; Greeley, “Do-It-Yourself Urge,” 37; Kelly, Design and the Production of Houses, 41; Watkins, The Complete Book of Home Remodeling, 11. Enno R. Haan, How to Remodel Your Home (Chicago: Popular Mechanics Press, 1954), 8. Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure and the Culture of Work, 276, 278; Land, “Urge to Swing”; “The Shoulder Trade,” 62. See also National Retail Lumber Dealers Association, Retail Store Merchandising, 29; Greeley, “Do-It-Yourself Urge”; “Families Are Helping,” 100. Better Homes and Gardens, Remodeling Ideas (Des Moines: Meredith Publishing Company, 1951), 130–135; Leonard G. Haeger, “Facts You Should Know About Building, Buying, Modernizing in 1952,” PM 27, no. 1 (January 1952): 47–48, 50, 75–76; “Inside Guide,” SHG 28 (Summer–Fall 1952): 3; “Better Values With Modern Methods,” SHG 30 (1953): 105–108, 110, 112, 114–115; “Do-It-Yourself Market Advertisers’ New Goal,” PI 238 (March 28, 1952), 8; “The New Do-It-Yourself Market”; Robert J. Bond, “The Do-It-Yourself Market,” in Eric Larrabee and Rolf Meyersohn, eds., Mass Leisure (Glencoe, IL: Free Press, 1953), 276. For articles in Printer’s Ink see J. Paul Taylor, “4 Do-It-Yourself Trends . . . That Mean Extra Profits to Advertisers,” PI 245 (October 2, 1953): 27–30; Nathan Kelne, “Is Your Product Ripe for the 4-BillionDollar Do-It-Yourself Market?” PI 245 (November 12, 1953): 46–48; “Do-It-Yourself Gets Play,” PI 247 (May 7, 1954): 16; Greeley, “Do-It-Yourself Urge”; Harold E. Green, “Trade Promotion . . . Do It Yourself . . . Dealer Support Create Dual Market,” PI 248 (September 10, 1954): 26–28; “Retailers See Do-It-Yourself Passing Peak,” PI

416 / Notes to pp. 323–32

43.

44.

45.

46. 47. 48.

49.

50. 51. 52.

53. 54.

55.

56.

248 (23 July 1954): 21; “Do-It-Yourself Is Tamed for the Timid,” Business Week March 20, 1954: 150–151. Pepis, “Householders”; Kimmis Hendrick, “Show Shows How Many Do,” Christian Science Monitor 12 Aug. 1953; Kelne, “Is Your Product Ripe,” 46; “Newsreel,” PI 247 2 April 1954, 11. Lenore Hailparn, “She Did It Herself,” Independent Woman 32 (1953): 202; Lang, “Urge to Swing Hammer,” 9; “The Do-It-Yourself Man”; “Personal and Otherwise,” Harper’s Magazine 207 (October 1953): 6, 8; W. Clifford Harvey, “ ‘Do-It-Yourself’ Firms Boom as Homeowners Turn ‘Builder for a Season,” Christian Science Monitor December 11, 1953, 11. Betty Pepis, “The People’s Choice,” NYT January 3, 1954; Everett Smith, “Thousands Jam ‘Glorified Hardware Store,’ ” Christian Science Monitor March 2, 1954, 10; “Lumbermen Told of Lush Market,” NYT January 26, 1954; “Retailers See Do-It-Yourself Passing Peak,” July 23, 1954; “The Shoulder Trade.” Goldstein, Do It Yourself, 41; “Your Resilient Flooring Business,” BSN 92, no. 4 (May 1957): 117. “Power Tools: The Newest Home Appliance,” Industrial Design 1, no. 1 (February 1954): 32; Kelne, “Is Your Product Ripe,” 47; Taylor, “4 Do-It-Yourself Trends.” “The New Do-It-Yourself Market,” 62; Goldstein, Do It Yourself, 51, 57; “Do-It-Yourself Market Advertisers’ New Goal,” 8; “The Shoulder Trade,” 66; Greeley, “Do-It-Yourself Urge,” 37; “Your Resilient Flooring Business,” 166. “Do-It-Yourself Market Is Tamed,” 150–151; Bond, “The Do-It-Yourself Market,” 276; Vince Staten, Did Monkeys Invent the Monkey Wrench? Hardware Stores and Hardware Stories (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996), 50–51. Green, “Trade Promotion,” 27–28; Jeffrey L. Rodengen, The Legend of Stanley: 150 Years of the Stanlley Works (Fort Lauderdale, FL: Write Stuff Syndicate, 1996), 96, 102. Rodengen, The Legend, 96, 102; Goldstein, Do It Yourself, 54; Green, “Trade Promotion,” 28. Green, “Trade Promotion,” 28; Taylor, “4 Do-It-Yourself,” 27; “Do-It-Yourself Gets Play”; “Basic Policies for Do-It-Yourself Trade,” BSN 87, no. 4 (October 1954): 168– 169; “In 1957 Progressive Lumber Dealers Will Cash-In-On Bilt-Well ‘Operation Profits’ ” BSN 92, no. 2 (March 1957): 84–85 (advertisement); “Win Two Glorious Weeks in Hawaii,” BSN 92, no. 2 (March 1957): between 86 and 87 (advertisement); “Here’s a Whirlwind Seller for Your Insulation Market,” BSN 92, no. 5 (June 1957): 42–43 (advertisement). “Basic Policies”; MALA, Proceedings, 1954, 18 [Hagley]; “Handyman Sales Tips,” BSN 88, no. 3 (March 1955): 148. “Power Tools: The Newest Home Appliance,” 36; “Every Woman Is a Good Paint Prospect,” ALBPM (July 15, 1950): 62; “Do-It and You,” Industrial Design 1, no. 4 (August 1954): 87; MALA, Proceedings, 1954, 189 [Hagley]. “ ‘How-To-Do-It’ Advisory Services for Handy Housewives Sells Tools, Materials,” BSN 81, no. 3 (September 1951): 159; “Woodwork School for Women—and Fashion Show at Lumber Yard,” BSN 88, no. 5 (May 1955): 190; MALA, Proceedings, 1954, 116, 120–121. Popular Mechanics, The Handyman’s Guide to Home Repairs (Chicago: Popular Mechanics Press, 1951); Sam Brown, ed., Planning Your Home Workshop (Chicago: Popular Mechanics Press, 1949); Popular Mechanics, Getting Started with Power Tools (Chicago: Popular Mechanics Press, 1957); Family Handyman, How to Double the

Notes to pp. 332–45 / 417

57. 58.

59. 60. 61.

Living Space in Your Home (New York: Harper, 1955); Family Handyman Magazine, 400 Quick Answers to Home Repair and Improvement Problems (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1955); Better Homes and Gardens, Remodeling Ideas; Samuel Paul, The Complete Book of Home Modernizing (New York: H. S. Stuttman, 1953); American Builder, How to Remodel Your Home (New York: Simmons-Boardman, 1958); Better Homes and Gardens, Handyman’s Book; “Better Homes and Gardens Helps You Sell Their Readers,” BSN 84, no. 1 (January 1953): 85; “The New Do-It-Yourself Market,” 70; MALA, Proceedings, 1950, 108 and 1955, 94 [Hagley]; Other guides included Walter J. Coppock, Make Your Home Your Hobby (Yellow Springs, OH: Antioch Press, 1945); Crouse, Home Guide to Repair; Hawkins and Abbe, New Houses from Old; Cobb, Complete Home Handyman’s Guide; Lee Frankl, How to Expand and Improve Your Home (New York: Simmons-Boardman, 1951); Haan, How to Remodel Your Home; J. Ralph Dalzell, Remodeling Guide for Home Interiors: Planning, Materials, Methods (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1956). “Mark Lumber Shows How to Promote ‘Do-It-Yourself,” BSN 88, no. 3 (March 1955): 157–160. Ibid.; “Handyman Sales Tips”; “The Shoulder Trade”; “How To Conduct a Do-ItYourself School,” BSN 86, no. 4 (April 1954): 138; “New Teamwork Boosts Sales at Blue Island,” BSN 86, no. 3 (March 1954): 110; “Expert Advice to Do-It-Yourselfers,” BSN 86, no. 4 (April 1954): 96; “Handy Andy Shows Amateurs; . . . Rescues Them in Tight Spots,” BSN 84, no. 6 (June 1953): 102–105; “Do-It-Yourself Class Pays Off for Dealer,” BSN 92, no. 5 (June 1957): 297; “Retail Lumber Dealers Move Into Big-Scale Promotion With Ten-Day New York Show,” H&H 6, no. 5 (November 1954): 43. “ ‘Show ’Em How’ Boosts Handyman Sales; Contractors Benefit Too,” BSN 84, no. 1 (January 1953): 89, 90. “Crowds Demand ‘Doubling Up’ of Dealer ‘How To’ School,” BSN 88, no. 5 (May 1955): 196. “Built a Million Dollar Volume From the ‘Little Fellow,’ ” BSN 84, no. 4 (April 1952): 50–55. C H A P T E R T W E LV E

1. 2. 3. 4.

5.

6.

Wiese, Places of Their Own. MALA, Proceedings, 1955, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 126. Ibid., 118, 122; “Self-Service Super Mart,” ALBPM 28 July 1952: 44–46, 94. “Dealer Puts ‘Sell’ in Remodeling,” BSN 92, no. 1 (January 1957): 152; “Lumber Dealers Ponder How to Stop Falling Sales; Consider Package, House Doctor Plans,” H&H 4, no. 4 (October 1953): 46; “Shopping Center Sales Margin,” ALBPM 3698 (April 25, 1960): 39. “Home Depot Builds Tough Competition,” Globe and Mail (Toronto), September 2, 1996; Sara Stevens, “Home Depot’s Warehouse Retailing: Globalizing Loading Docks and Logistics,” in Tanfer E. Tunc and Annessa A. Babic, eds., The Globetrotting Shopaholic: Consumer Spaces, Products and Their Cultural Places (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008), 222, 231; Chris Roush, Inside Home Depot: How One Company Revolutionized an Industry Through the Relentless Pursuit of Growth (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999), 210; Konrad Yakabuski, “Bob the Builder,” Report on Business (Toronto), October 2004, 89: Marion Gough, “The High Hopes and the Hazards of Building With Your Own Hands,” House Beautiful 102 (July 1960): 72–73.

418 / Notes to p. 345 7.

Terrence Belford, “Real Estate’s Drama Queens,” Globe and Mail March 26, 2010; Diane Perrons and Majella Kilkey, “Gendered Divisions in Domestic-Work-Time: The Rise of the (Migrant) Handyman Phenomenon,” Time and Society 19, no. 2 (2010): 239–264; Leslie Kern, Sex and the Revitalized City: Gender, Condominium Development and Urban Citizenship (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2010).

INDEX

Italic page numbers indicate a figure. Adams, Thomas, 25, 28 Addams, Jane, 33 Adirondack Homes, 287 advertising, 3, 58–59, 124, 135–40, 164, 168; of building materials, 54, 65, 67, 146, 164, 171, 172, 195; of home improvement, 157, 161–62, 170, 193, 194, 195, 197, 205, 208, 220; of housing, 7, 37, 174; and markets, 3, 12, 14, 15, 146–47. See also American Lumberman; Building Supply News; housing programs (United States); J. Walter Thompson; radios. See also under automobiles; consumer magazines; Johns-Manville; kit manufacturers; lumber dealers; lumber manufacturers; manufacturers of building materials; newspapers; paint; trade journals African-Americans, 40, 159, 337–38; homeownership and, 31, 46; ownerbuilding and, 26, 243 Aladdin (company), 100, 102–5, 106, 108, 109, 111, 273, 274 alterations. See home improvement amateur builders. See do- it- yourself (DIY); men; owner- building; women American Bankers Association, 170, 172, 198, 304 American Builder, 18, 156, 165, 182, 332 American Council to Improve Our Neighborhoods (ACTION), 311

American Friends Service Committee, 168, 207 American Hardwood Manufacturers’ Association, 68 American Home, 187, 207, 222, 240, 243, 260 American Institute of Architects, 141, 172 American Lumberman, 27, 65, 83, 88, 94, 113, 116, 119, 120, 123–24, 131, 132, 145, 146, 164, 165, 166, 172, 175, 178, 184, 268, 279, 280, 302, 306, 314, 315, 316; character of, 17, 26, 75, 94, 113, 119; home improvement and, 149, 161; surveys by, 62, 124, 146; views of, 47, 66, 75–76, 88, 116, 138, 139, 144, 149, 161, 233, 268, 279, 285, 315, 317, 318, 365n5 American Radiator, 6, 54, 162–63, 187, 196, 204, 311, 339 Americas, 240, 260 apartment buildings, 32, 43, 44–45, 128, 129, 262 appliances, 6, 116, 137, 150, 154, 162, 192, 193 architects, 91, 113, 119, 141–42, 178, 179, 232, 235, 251, 184, 374n67 Architectural Forum, 72, 150, 217, 232, 249– 50 Armstrong (company), 58, 132 asbestos, 54, 129, 130, 132, 134, 164, 165, 169, 177, 278, 280. See also JohnsManville asphalt shingles, 54, 55–56, 129, 132, 146, 272, 278, 280

420 / Index Atlanta, 33, 93, 178, 197, 243, 278 Australia, x, 2, 17, 18, 103, 119, 338; owner- building in, 232, 338; retailers in, 278, 299 Australian Timber Journal, 299 automobiles: advertising of, 36; competitor to housing, 2, 14, 137–39, 337; complement to housing, 141, 206, 211, 272, 303; financing of, 193, 197; popularity of, 134, 137–39, 145, 291, 339, 341 Baltimore, 70, 223; home improvement in, 192, 310 banks, 36, 40, 92–93, 103, 120, 159, 191, 194, 197, 217; home improvement and, 197–202, 204–5, 224, 309, 340; Morris Plan, 162; owner- building and, 276–77. See also American Bankers Association; mortgages batch production, 4 Bauer, Catherine, 395n5 Bauman, John, 31 BC Mills, 105 Beaver Lumber, 79–80 Beaver Mfg., 54, 56, 57, 76, 132 Beecher, Harriet, 31 Bennett’s, 101, 104, 108 Best Homes, 274–75, 276 Better Homes and Gardens, 18, 155, 186, 232, 240, 243, 252, 262, 317, 322, 332 Better Homes in America campaign, 37–38, 44, 52–53, 109 Better Homes program (FHA), 170 Better Housing campaign, 193–96 BILT-WELL Woodwork, 329 Black and Decker, 57, 326, 327, 329, 334 Blaszczyk, Regina, 14, 40, 73 Bodfish, Morton, 185, 193 Boorstin, Daniel, 100, 106 Borsodi, Ralph, 206 Brand, Stewart, 5 bricks, 54, 56, 59, 70, 77, 83, 128, 130, 134, 144, 195, 243, 244, 272, 280 Brown, Ian, 231 Brown, Lewis H., 164, 165, 169, 170, 171, 172, 175, 177, 193 Buffalo, 57, 92, 134, 135, 151–52, 197 Build America Better campaign, 308 builders, 25, 28, 185, 213, 214; 57–58, 61, 64–65, 91, 93, 111–13, 120, 142, 232; campaigns of, 33, 182, 186,

217; custom, 7, 147, 281–82; home improvement and, 156, 178, 179, 305, 311, 320; large, 15, 27, 57, 72, 80, 173, 190, 215, 222, 223–24, 237, 238, 254, 281–83; retailers and, 190, 198, 208, 233, 275, 281–83, 287, 299; technological change, 288–89, 305; trade journals of, 18, 112, 156. See also building industry; National Association of Home Builders; owner- building; prefabricators of houses; shell houses. See also under lumber dealers building industry: efficiency of, 138; gender composition, 2; home improvement and, 148–51, 173–82, 336; organization of, 4, 6, 10, 73, 185; views about, 215–16. See also builders; building tradesmen; lumber dealers building materials, 54–59, 69–70, 128– 33; amateur builders and, 56–59, 204, 207, 242–44, 269–73, 325–26; innovations in, 27–28, 55–58, 182, 269–73, 271, 325–26; shortages of, 237–38; significance of, 6. See also specific materials; building regulations; Johns-Manville; kit manufacturers; lumber manufacturers; manufacturers of building materials; retailers of building supplies; tools building regulations, 28–29, 44; amateur builders and, 28–30, 44, 211–13, 215, 217, 219, 238, 245, 265–66, 287, 331; effect on building materials, 129–30, 140–41, 144; enforcement of, 28, 47, 211–15, 359n53 Building Supply Dealer, 307 Building Supply News (BSN), 89, 120, 121, 174, 331, 333; character of, 17, 91, 116–17, 119; home improvement in, 122, 157, 196, 198, 202; views of, 91, 116, 122, 144, 182, 195, 202, 224, 279, 280, 282 building tradesmen, 52, 55, 83, 111–12, 154, 188, 203, 223, 237–38, 274, 275, 295, 312, 319; home improvement and, 50, 156, 161, 255–56. See also under builders; do- it- yourself (DIY); kit manufacturers; lumber dealers Build Your Own Home program, 269 Burgess, Ernest W., 25 Burns, Fritz, 310

Index / 421 Business Week, 322 Butler, Ovid, 61, 63, 65, 72, 77, 80, 91, 96, 98 Calder, Lendol, 139 Canada, x, 17, 63, 138, 33; building industry, 30, 91, 100, 119; home improvement in, 47, 203, 231, 302– 3, 338; housing in, 23, 24, 25, 41, 43, 149, 151, 243, 274; housing programs of, 202– 3, 205, 237, 264, 268– 69; manufacturers of building materials in, 57, 67, 70, 86, 103, 104, 105, 109, 111, 131, 143, 177, 178; owner- building in, 111, 207, 221, 231– 32, 243, 248, 249, 252, 257, 258, 277, 259, 270; retailers in, 76, 79, 118, 119, 121, 154, 177, 179, 184, 283, 289, 290– 91, 297, 299, 307, 344. See also specific cities; Home Improvement Plan (Canada); Veterans Land Act (Canada) Canadian Lumberman, 290 Carrier, James, 11 catalogs, 9, 100–102, 109; kit manufacturers’, 42, 103, 104–6, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114, 119; lumber dealers’, 90, 102. See also under lumber dealers Celotex: amateurs and, 155, 269; company and marketing, 54, 56, 132–33, 164, 305, 331, 334; material, 58, 130, 146; retailer relations, 132–33, 145, 157, 171, 181, 183, 184 chain stores, building industry. See lumber dealers, organization of: line yards Chandler, Alfred, 6 Chase, Stuart, 134 Chicago, 6, 25, 33, 36, 40, 65, 72, 91, 95, 96, 102, 104, 109, 114, 116, 169, 177, 178, 192, 202, 323; home improvement in, 155, 303, 311–12, 323; ownerbuilders in, 24, 207–8, 209–11, 222, 223, 242, 267; retailers in, 70, 77, 83, 84, 90, 91, 93–94, 121, 122, 131, 157, 158, 208, 282, 283, 285, 287, 288, 297, 314, 320; wholesalers in, 60, 63, 70, 99. See also Hines (Edward) Lumber; Sears, Roebuck Chicago World’s Fair, 102 Christian Science Monitor, 258, 319, 323, 324 cities: building in, 9, 16, 213–14; retailers

in, 3, 12, 77, 80, 83, 91, 112, 118, 157–59, 180–81, 280. See also specific cities Cleveland, 105, 135, 240, 267, 277, 285, 288; home improvement in, 313; owner- building in, 209, 211, 214, 240, 268, 285, 286, 313; retailers in, 177, 178, 289, 304 coal: chute and basement, 58, 304; domestic heating, 52, 136, 150; lumbers dealers stock, 76–77, 82, 88, 129, 150 Cobb, Hubbard, 243, 247, 316 Cohen, Liz, 6 Cole, Albert, 311 Colean, Miles, 255, 260, 310 commodity chains, 14–16 comparative research, 16–17 Compton, Wilson, 35, 95, 99, 100, 131, 140, 143, 185, 186. See also National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA) concrete blocks: amateurs use, 42, 56, 240, 242, 254, 255, 260–61, 262, 272, 280; as a material, 55, 58, 130, 273 consumer finance, 14–15, 93, 139, 162, 194, 197–99, 201–2, 205, 309, 335– 36. See also under home improvement; lumber dealers; mortgages; ownerbuilding consumer magazines, 49, 188; advertising in, 58, 88, 105, 135, 142, 164, 174; and amateur builders, 42, 49, 150, 155, 234, 238–43, 255, 258, 301, 311, 322, 324, 332, 340; as a source, x, 18–19. See also specific magazines; mass media Consumer Reports, 308 consumers: affluence of, 2, 134–40; ignorance of, 55, 58–62, 73–74, 226; interpretations of, 2, 6–7, 10, 11–14, 339; power of, 3–4, 6, 10, 13, 15, 134, 136. See also under lumber dealers contractors. See builders; building industry; building tradesmen Cooperative League, The, 207 Corey, Paul, 230, 231, 238, 242, 251, 254, 255, 257, 260, 261, 262, 263, 277, 326, 328 Country Life in America, 42, 50 Cowan, Ruth, 5, 6, 52 Cox, Reavis, 69 Crane (company), 54, 187, 188

422 / Index Crane, Jacob, 25, 26, 264–65 Cronon, William, 60, 99 culture: economy and, 6, 11, 13–14, 16; home improvement and, 2–3 data. See statistics Daunton, Martin, 32 Davison, Robert, 138, 185 Dean, John, 45–46, 251 Deane, Albert, 193 De Grazia, Victoria, 11 Delta, 57, 152, 325 Dennis, Richard, 31, 32 Department of Commerce, 29, 35, 61, 64, 114, 129, 141, 149, 181, 186, 301, 323 Department of Labor, 34, 35–36 department stores: building supplies in, 65, 73, 280, 282, 297, 299, 332, 342; importance of, 10, 148–51; interpretations of, 6–7, 10, 12 Depression, the: effects, 14–15, 249, 251; effects on home improvement, 2, 14– 15, 19, 148–51, 153, 190–91, 202, 220, 247, 278, 314, 337, 341; effects on lumber trade, 95–96, 148–51, 232, 337, 341; effects on owner- building, 206–15, 210, 217–23, 230, 258. See also under home improvement stores Detroit, 43, 250, 267, 276; home improvement in, 311, 313, 314; owner- building in, 24, 27, 209, 211, 212, 257, 258, 267– 68; retailers in, 195, 223, 290 developers, 15, 27, 33, 53, 72, 189, 190, 215, 224, 232, 275, 281, 287–89. See also builders; National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB) do- it- yourself (DIY): advice and information for, 53, 245, 285–87, 289, 340; building tradesmen and, 3, 4, 47, 49, 83, 151, 155, 219, 226, 232, 237, 251, 256, 301, 313, 315, 345; concept of, 48–53, 301; emergence of, 9, 12, 49–53, 151–61, 204, 205, 226, 231, 301, 313– 14, 323, 337, 340, 344–45; gender and, 50–52, 225, 241, 319; interpretations of, 6, 9; market for, 287, 307, 323–25, 323, 330, 333–34, 340–41; ownerbuilding and, 313–14, 321; reasons for, 50–51, 154–55, 315–19, 321; resistance to, 319–21, 344–45; social norm of, 48–53, 151–55, 231, 301, 314–21, 324,

325, 340. See also home improvement; lumber dealers. See also under manuals; men; owner- building; women Dominion Radiator, 204 Douglas, Mary, 6 Douglas Fir Plywood Association, 329, 334 earth, as a building material, 207, 242, 272, 273 Easi-Bild, 239, 319 Eastern States Lumber Dealers Association, 114 Eaton’s, 103, 104, 109 Eisenhower, Dwight D., 308, 311 Ely, Richard, 44, 138 Fahey, John, 192 families: division of labor in, 2, 3, 5, 10, 50–52, 341; labor while ownerbuilding, 260–63, 261, 270. See also housework; men; owner- building; women farmers, as customers, 67, 77, 88, 92, 105, 108, 109, 117, 129, 138, 146, 157 Federal Housing Administration (FHA), 8–9, 15, 16, 117, 169, 170, 172, 215– 17, 218, 237; and home improvement, 19, 169, 185, 190, 191–205, 196, 200; and owner- builders, 215–26, 266–68, 308. See also housing programs (United States) Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA), 222 filtering, 28–29, 190–91, 221. See also housing programs (United States) Fisher, Ernest, 28, 217, 218, 220–21 Fiske, John, 6 Flax- li- num, 130, 131, 132, 164 Flint (MI), 207, 211–14, 215, 268, 291 floor tiles, 326, 334 Foley, Raymond, 203 Ford, James, 38, 46, 48, 51, 53 Forest Products Laboratory, 63 Formica, 327–28, 329 Fortune, 150, 154, 168 Frederick, Christine, 41, 129 Freedell, 328–29 Fresno (CA), 27 Gelber, Steven, 9, 48, 51, 52, 151, 152, 154, 226, 314, 319, 321

Index / 423 gender: building industry and, 2, 3; home improvement and, 2, 3, 9, 239, 319, 322. See also do- it- yourself (DIY); families; home improvement; lumber dealers; men; owner- building; women General Electric, 187, 311, 163 General Housing, 273, 287 Gereffi, Gary, 18 Gimbel’s, 342 Goldstein, Carolyn, 9, 49, 200, 216, 314, 324 Good Housekeeping, 332 Gordon-Van Tine, 101–2, 103, 104, 108, 109, 111, 112, 114, 120 Gries, John, 28, 46, 50, 51, 53, 79, 80, 146 Halbert, Blanche, 46, 50 Halliday’s, 104–5, 109, 111, 208, 209, 216, 269, 273 Hamilton (ON), 249; case study of, xii, 18, 249; owner- building in, 249–52, 257, 258, 260, 262, 269; retailers in, 104–5, 208. See also Halliday’s Hamilton Spectator, xii, 260 hardboard, 56, 273, 280 hardware stores, 7, 73, 83–84, 116–17, 159, 226, 279, 282, 299, 324, 332, 333 Harper’s Magazine, 316, 317, 323 Hart, L. C., 145, 164, 171, 176, 181 Harvard Business School, case studies, 18, 73, 79, 83–84, 96 Hechinger, 343 Hines (Edward) Lumber, 70, 77, 90, 93–94, 139, 157, 158, 190, 202, 282, 283, 314, 316, 320 Hodgins, Eric, 230, 305 Hodgson, 102, 105, 111 Hole, Elmer, 116 Homasote, 56, 182–83, 188, 274 Home Builders’ Guild, 173 Home Builders Monthly, 232, 299 Home Building Service Plan, 198–99 home centers. See home improvement stores Home Depot, 54, 343–45 home improvement, x, 47, 161, 302, 310–12. See also do- it- yourself (DIY); home improvement industry; home improvement stores; neighborhoods; owner- building; shell houses —extent of, 7–8, 10, 47, 48, 75, 148–55,

159, 172, 231, 281, 287, 300, 301–5, 309, 314, 323, 335, 345–46; data on, 47, 149, 301–2, 306–7, 323; research on, 172, 183 —finance for, 92–93, 159–60, 162–63, 165, 166–67, 169–70, 190–205, 200, 308–11, 335, 339, 340 (see also under housing programs [United States]) —homeownership and, 2, 9, 18–19, 23, 39–40, 46, 52–53, 134–35, 148–55, 191–92, 314–21, 335, 345 —neglect of, 1, 5–9, 337 —promotion: campaigns, 37–38, 44, 52– 53, 109, 162, 170, 188–89, 193–96, 243, 306, 311, 312 (see also manuals); by governments, 8–9, 52–53, 190, 193–205, 203, 208, 307, 312, 334, 336, 337, 340; by kit manufacturers, 106; by lumber dealers, 300, 315, 320, 330–34 (see also lumber dealers); by manufacturers of building materials, 161–89, 190, 325–39 —significance of, x, 1–3, 4–10, 335–41 —social norms and, 1–3, 19, 23, 41, 46– 47, 49, 55, 69, 127, 155, 300–301, 303–4, 306, 314, 316 —types of, 47, 48, 148–55, 149, 302, 306, 311, 312 home improvement industry: definition of, 1, 5; emergence of, 1–2, 12–13, 15, 19, 52–53, 190, 205, 300, 301–13, 321, 334, 339–41; importance of, 5; neglect of, 5–9, 337; organization of, 10–11, 205, 312–13; prism on society, 4; uniqueness, 4. See also building materials; home improvement; home improvement stores; lumber dealers; lumber manufacturers; manufacturers of building materials; retailers of building supplies home improvement market. See do- ityourself (DIY); home improvement industry; housing market Home Improvement Plan (Canada), 202–5, 203, 208 home improvement stores: idea of, 98, 116, 122, 139; in 1920s, 144–48, 339; in 1930s, 156–60, 178–81; in 1940s, 277–79; in 1950s, 278–84, 290–300, 292–93, 294, 306, 314–15, 330–34. See also lumber dealers

424 / Index Home Improvement Year (1956), 312 Home Modernization Bureau, 162 Home Modernizer, The, 162 homeownership: advantages of, 30–33, 38–41, 249–51; disadvantages of, 45–46, 251; effects of, 40–41, 46–47; levels of, 1, 23–24, 24, 33, 43–44, 345; promotion of, 33–38; social norm of, 9, 14, 19, 23–24, 30–33, 38–46, 52, 211, 232, 314, 335–36, 339. See also under do- it- yourself (DIY); home improvement; middle class; ownerbuilding; working class Home Owners’ Loan Corporation, 191; and home improvement, 191–92, 223 Home Planners Institute, 188–89, 243 homes: cultural significance of, 6; sizes of, 303–4 home shows, 36–38, 182, 244, 283 homesteads, 42, 206–7, 208, 215, 230, 257 Hood, Arthur, 94–95, 119–20, 121, 122, 147–48, 160, 170–82, 268, 280, 297, 299, 306, 330, 331 Hoo Hoo (Concatenated Order of), 95, 145, 147, 148, 330 Hoover, Herbert, 26, 29, 30, 37, 38, 39, 44, 46, 61, 66, 68–69, 79, 129, 191 Hornstein, Jeffrey, 34, 37, 38 House and Garden, 49, 225, 226, 258 House and Home, 18, 274, 288, 302, 304, 307–8, 309–10 House Beautiful, The, 42, 49, 219, 240, 251, 310, 319, 345 house plans, 87, 102, 106, 113, 141, 163, 173, 220, 232, 239, 240, 249, 250, 256, 262, 265, 283 housework, 2, 5, 52, 317. See also under women housing: as a consumer priority, 134– 38, 136; costs, 138, 154. See also homeownership; homes Housing and Home Finance Agency, 235, 264, 266, 311, 312 housing finance. See mortgages. See under home improvement; housing programs (United States) housing market, 2, 9, 16, 27, 28, 40, 46, 134, 217, 267, 308 housing policy, federal: in Canada, 202–3, 205, 268–69, 270, 277, 285; in United States, 8, 11, 17, 19, 31, 33, 266, 307–8,

310. See also housing programs (United States); National Housing Acts; Veterans Land Act (Canada) housing programs (United States). See also Federal Housing Administration (FHA); Federal National Mortgage Association (FNMA); Home Owners’ Loan Corporation; Housing and Home Finance Agency —co- ops, 259 —home improvement (Title I), 166, 169– 70, 191–205, 343, 268; impact of, 199– 204, 200, 307, 340; promotion of, 194–99; scams, 199, 308, 310; terms of, 193, 308 —insured mortgages (Title II), 195, 200, 215, 216–17, 221, 222, 289 —public housing, 31, 195, 215, 216, 221, 264, 266, 268, 307, 395n51 —small homes: Class 3, 216–17, 221–26, 265–67, 269, 274, 277, 289; Section 8, 267–68, 269, 278, 289 —veterans, 237 Huff, Darrell, 254, 260–62, 255, 256, 267 Hutchison, Janet, 33, 37, 161 immigrants, 6, 33, 40, 220; homeownership and, 9, 23, 24–26, 31, 40, 46, 49, 159, 211; owner- building and, 30, 47, 49, 209, 219, 240, 254, 260, 266 Industry Engineered Housing Program, 288 Inglehart, Ronald, 14 insulation, 54, 56, 57, 58, 74, 130, 132, 180, 181, 184, 224, 269–72, 280, 329, 333 Insulite, 130, 132, 164, 182, 184 Insured Mortgage Portfolio, 185, 200, 222, 223, 252, 267 Johns-Manville, 6, 54, 132, 134, 145, 155, 163, 165, 186; advertising by, 132, 164–69, 166–67; case study, 18, 164– 84; effect on federal policy, 193; home improvement finance, 163, 165–70, 190, 196–97, 204, 310; marketing by, 164–82, 187, 188, 329, 330, 334, 339; products of, 164–65; relation with lumber dealers, 170–82, 179, 196 J. Walter Thompson, 7, 138, 143, 168; campaign for Johns-Manville, 18, 164, 168–69, 172, 174–75, 182

Index / 425 Kains, Maurice, 206–7 Kaiser Aluminum, 329 Kansas City, 63, 79, 83, 282, 289 Katz, Michael, 31 Kelly, Barbara, 8, 304 Kelly, Burnham, 306, 320 Kentile, 326 Ketridge, C. H., 115, 117, 124 kit manufacturers, 12, 107, 209, 274. See also specific companies. See also under catalogs; lumber dealers —advertising by, 101, 104, 105, 109, 112, 114, 119, 120 —growth of, 19, 100–103, 273 —impact of, 19, 101–4, 300, 339, 340, 341 —relations with: building trades, 108– 13, 287; consumers, 105–7, 108, 269; lumber industry, 64, 79, 103, 108, 113– 21, 124, 208, 209, 287, 289–90, 339, 340; owner- builders, 111, 208, 240, 265, 275–76, 288–90, 305 Kohler, 54, 58, 161–62 Kyrk, Hazel, 38, 45, 46, 47, 50 Ladies Home Journal, 32, 58, 239, 260 Lands, LeeAnn, 33, 40 Lardner, Ring, 91 Lehigh Portland Cement, 131, 133, 145, 164, 171 Lembke, Con, 299 lenders. See banks; consumer finance; mortgages; savings and loans. See also under home improvement; lumber dealers Levitt’s, 48, 283, 304, 308, 344 Lewis Mfg., 2, 104, 107, 113 Lieber, Otto, 179 Life, 319, 323, 329 linoleum, 55, 56, 58, 132, 155, 273, 280, 326 Lipartito, Kenneth, 11 Loeb, Carolyn, 27 lodgers, 33, 135, 151, 218 Long-Bell, 79, 81, 82, 94, 122, 141, 175, 272, 282 Look, 274 Los Angeles, 30, 41, 102, 111, 319, 323; owner- building in, 24, 208, 209, 211, 286; retailers in, 208, 224 Lowe’s, 54, 279 Ludwig, Fred, 60–61, 85, 86, 118, 122, 133, 171

lumber: character of, as a commodity, 59– 65; dimensions, 60–65, 121, 141, 288; distribution of, 62–65, 69–74; grading of, 60–65, 62, 96, 121, 141–43, 273; importance declining, 74, 127–29, 128, 130, 136–37, 186, 271; species, 59–60, 62–64, 67, 71, 101, 142; uses of, 59, 273. See also building materials; lumber dealers; lumber manufacturers lumber dealers, 8. See also home improvement; home improvement stores; lumber; retailers of building supplies —activities of, 108, 115, 119–21, 156–60, 175–81, 190, 219–20, 223, 226, 277, 284–90, 295–300, 306, 320, 330–34, 342, 343; advertising, 3, 85, 87, 90, 109, 110, 115, 117–21, 124, 147, 157, 162, 171, 174, 176, 190, 195, 224, 244, 274, 279, 282, 306, 315, 330, 332, 343; advice and instruction, 285–87, 289, 331–33, 340, 342; building, 27, 208, 224, 235, 284, 284, 288, 288, 304–5, 320; credit, 3, 7, 10, 26, 27, 55, 61, 75, 81, 90–93, 102, 103, 108, 121, 139, 159, 160, 161, 219, 276, 277, 280, 281, 286, 299, 366n26; kit- making and precutting, 287–89, 305, 315, 339; plan services, 119, 121, 122, 219, 220, 284– 85, 289, 290, 295 —character of: location, 55, 74, 84–88, 224, 291–92; materials sold, 75–84, 96, 120, 121–22, 145–48, 157–59, 184, 190, 202, 220, 278–84, 283, 290, 292– 93, 298, 300; showrooms, 2, 17, 55, 90, 120, 176, 202–3, 203, 204, 220, 224, 278, 279–80, 281, 282, 284, 290–95, 292, 293, 294, 297, 298, 299, 318, 330, 331; staff, 2, 88, 120–21, 176, 280, 285, 294, 295, 297–98, 298, 342, 334; yards, 17, 55, 71, 78, 82, 87–90, 89, 120, 123, 209, 278, 283, 290, 292, 295, 297, 330 —home improvement and, 19, 47, 53, 156–60, 175–81, 190–202, 224, 301–2, 305–6, 315, 339–40 —importance of, 19, 53, 72, 74, 186 —neglect of, 7 —organization of: business operations, 80, 87, 173–74, 175–76, 179, 282; line yards, 63, 70, 75, 78–83, 82, 87, 95, 119, 120, 121, 157, 163, 175, 282, 284, 288, 290

426 / Index lumber dealers (continued) —relationships with: amateur builders, 26–27, 121, 208, 220, 223, 224, 233, 244, 263, 265, 268, 277–300, 330 (see also do- it- yourself [DIY]; men; ownerbuilding); builders and contractors, 55, 73, 83, 90–91, 123, 174, 224, 281–84, 288–89, 299–300, 318, 343, 344 (see also builders; building tradesmen); consumers, 54, 55, 64–65, 73–74, 83, 84–93, 96, 115–24, 131, 145–48, 156– 60, 190, 226, 277–300, 283, 292–93, 330–34, 339, 342–43; manufacturers, 62, 66, 93–97, 132–33, 141–48, 164–89, 179, 180, 329–30, 331–34, 339 (see also lumber manufacturers; manufacturers of building materials); women customers, 3, 54, 55, 83, 85, 86–90, 123, 124, 155, 157, 176, 226, 260, 261–62, 283, 295–97, 296, 298, 300, 330–31, 333, 342 (see also under women) —threats to, 113, 117, 121, 124, 127–48 —women as, 86–87 lumber industry, 53, 336; challenges to, 113, 114–15, 143; organization of, 7, 54–55, 67–74, 93–100, 140, 141–43, 185–89, 299. See also specific organizations; kit manufacturers; lumber dealers; lumber manufacturers; lumber wholesalers lumber manufacturers: advertising by, 54, 62, 65–66, 67, 94, 116, 131, 131, 140– 43, 146, 184–88, 273, 329; associations of, 65–69, 140–45; attitudes of, 61, 336; marketing by, 7, 9, 10, 59, 63, 65– 69, 70, 95–96, 141–43, 184–86, 188, 273–74; types of, 66–67. See also specific organizations; lumber; lumber industry; National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA) lumber retailers. See lumber dealers Lumber Secretaries’ Bureau of Information, 114 lumber “substitutes,” 19, 55, 89, 96, 130, 132–33, 145–48, 278 Lumber Trust, the, 11, 13, 67–69, 98–99, 108, 114 lumber wholesalers, 35, 59, 60, 63, 70–74, 71, 80, 81, 94, 96, 98–100, 101, 114, 184, 281, 282, 283

Lu-Re-Co, 288, 305 Lynd, Robert, 26, 28, 44, 45, 138, 150, 151 Magna Engineering, 326 manuals: for do- it- yourself, 19, 49, 152– 55, 305–6, 331–32, 337; for home improvement, 19, 49–51, 152–55, 153, 340; for home owners, 19, 31–33, 41– 43, 50, 232; for household managers, 41–43, 52; for lumber trade, 59–60, 81, 85, 95, 147, 171; for owner- builders, 42–43, 49–51, 232, 239–43, 241, 245, 246, 255. See also catalogs manufacturers of building materials, 10, 11, 18, 54, 55–69, 131–33, 196–97, 312, 325–34, 336; advertising by, 18, 54, 58–59, 65–66, 66–67, 76, 89, 130, 132–33, 166–67, 174, 175, 182–88, 271, 325, 327–28, 329, 331; marketing by, 2, 57–65, 105–7, 164–81, 327, 328–30, 336–37; market research of, 183; organizations of, 58–59, 70, 135. See also specific companies; building industry; building materials; lumber manufacturers; Producers’ Council. See also under lumber dealers manufacturers of tools, 57, 152, 325. See also specific companies; Producers’ Council marketing, x, 3–4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 14–15, 16, 54, 58, 67, 96, 143, 163, 165, 183, 188, 278. See also Johns-Manville; lumber manufacturers; manufacturers of building materials market research, 3, 7, 15, 105, 168, 172, 183, 341. See also Johns-Manville; statistics markets, construction of, 10–13, 339–46. See also do- it- yourself (DIY); home improvement; mass media Marsh, Margaret, 14, 32–33, 40–45, 52 masculinity, 9, 52, 155, 229–31, 317–19, 324, 336, 341 Mason, Norman, 117 Mason Fibre Company (Masonite), 54, 56, 131, 133, 164, 184, 187, 339 mass media: agents of change, 115, 116, 119, 120, 121, 122, 125, 144, 156, 172, 178, 202, 231, 237, 238, 251, 301, 314; markets and, 1, 5, 11, 12, 165, 183, 194, 203, 204, 233, 287, 306, 314, 322–25;

Index / 427 340–41. See also consumer magazines; newspapers; radios; television mass production, 4, 6, 11, 93, 108, 109–11, 173–74 McCall’s Magazine, 332 McCracken, Grant, 6 McMahon, 42, 49, 206 media. See mass media Meloney, Marie, 37–38, 58 men: as buyers of building supplies, 3, 176, 283; as do- it- yourselfers, 2, 35, 39, 48, 51–52, 151–55, 225, 226, 314, 316– 21, 324, 336; as owner- builders, 25, 26, 42, 229, 255, 259, 260–63, 261; as shoppers, 3, 295. See also do- it- yourself (DIY); families; gender; lumber dealers; masculinity Middle Atlantic Lumbermen’s Association, 85, 99, 144, 178, 186, 268, 330, 342, 382 middle class, 14, 84, 134, 139, 150; home improvement and, 51–53, 134–36, 151, 155, 159, 204, 233, 314, 319, 321; homeownership and, 2, 9, 19, 23–24, 30–33, 41–46, 88, 92, 105–6, 233, 239–40, 335, 339; lumber dealers and, 83, 86, 265, 300; owner- building by, 287. See also men; women Middletown (Muncie, IN), 26, 44–45, 148, 150, 151 Miller, Arthur, 229, 230, 269 Mintzberg, Henry, 12 Mississippi Valley Lumberman, The, 64, 94, 101, 102, 114, 115, 120, 124 Mississippi Valley Lumbermen’s Association, 67 modernization. See home improvement Moffatt, James, 194 Montgomery Ward, 102, 103, 104, 109, 113, 120 Montreal, 26, 131, 162, 231, 248 Mortgage Bankers’ Association, 310 mortgages, 38, 92, 148, 150, 163, 169, 176, 192, 221, 247–48, 276, 308–10, 336; attitudes towards, 139, 377n21; construction, 27, 92, 103, 159, 254, 276; open- end, 308–10; remortgaging, 138; second (junior), 1, 5, 92, 93, 159, 221; secondary market, 222; sources, 159, 192, 197, 219 (see also banks; savings and loans); terms, 11, 15, 92,

176, 190, 221–22, 249, 252–54. See also consumer finance Moskowitz, Marina, 40 Murphy, Paul, 34 National Association of Home Builders, 173, 233, 307, 310, 311, 319 National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB), 33–38, 44, 53, 58, 173, 185, 187, 191, 193, 308, 311, 312 National Bureau of Standards, 58 National Committee on Reconditioning, Remodeling and Modernizing, 191 National Gypsum, 155 National Hardwood Lumber Association, 60 National Home Workshop Guild, 154, 173, 315 National Housing Acts: (1934), 166, 169, 170, 190, 192, 215, 340; (1949), 259; (1954), 9, 277 National Housing Association, 35 National Lumber Manufacturers Association (NLMA), 34, 35, 37, 48, 62, 65, 67, 68, 94, 95, 99, 131, 134, 140– 43, 161, 185–87 National Recovery Administration, 62, 67, 69, 99, 128, 130, 173, 193 National Retail Lumber Dealers Association (NRLDA), 8, establishment of, 117; and home improvement, 172, 173, 175, 182, 184–87, 282, 302, 309, 310, 311; promotes change, 80–81, 145, 171, 184, 186, 187, 188, 288, 289 National Thrift Week, 36–37 neighborhoods: character of, 7, 10, 33, 45, 50; city, 8, 83, 84, 188, 191, 287, 306; conservation and improvement, 157, 159, 192, 198, 203, 184, 188, 307; middle class, 86. See also shacks and shacktowns; suburbs Nelson, Herbert, 185 New Competition, the, 14, 133–40, 145, 146 newspapers: advertising in, 142, 157, 205, 220, 239, 274, 276, 287, 289, 329, 332; amateur builders and, 220, 224, 235, 239, 243–45, 258, 260, 314, 324; home improvement and, 168, 174, 205, 208, 220, 243, 301, 311, 323, 324, 340; influence of, 118, 143, 168,

428 / Index newspapers (continued) 325; retailers and, 120, 157, 174, 220, 224, 276, 287, 332. See also Hamilton Spectator; mass media; New York Times, as a source; Peoria Journal-Transcript New York (City), 30, 34, 118, 138, 151, 162, 163, 170, 172, 177, 178, 187, 197, 199, 207, 218, 278; home improvement in, 312, owner- building near, 42, 230, 231; trade shows in, 35, 36, 65, 323, 324 New York Times, as a source, 18, 323 New York World’s Fair, 175, 182 1920s, the, 133–34; and building industry, 9, 19, 127–51, 232, 337, 341. See also under home improvement stores Northeastern Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 59, 85, 184, 324 Northwestern Lumberman, 99 Northwest Lumbermen’s Association, 99, 115, 118, 184 Olney, Martha, 139 Ontario Retail Lumberman’s (later, Dealer’s) Association, 118, 307 Operation Home Improvement, 306, 312 Owen, David, 86 owner- building, 244. See also do- it- yourself (DIY); shacks and shacktowns; shell houses; Veterans Land Act (Canada). See also under building regulations; kit manufacturers; manuals —impact on do- it- yourself trend, 250, 313–15 —incidence, 19, 24–30, 205–15, 229–63, 300, 340, 344–45 —outcomes: health, 211, 212, 213–14; landscapes, 248, 253; quality of construction, 252–55 —process of: cooperatives, 257–59, 259, 264; descriptions, 25, 26–28, 207–8, 211–13, 219, 240–42, 246, 250, 253, 255, 256, 261, 247–63; family and friends help, 256–57, 258, 286; men, x, 25, 26, 42, 229, 233, 240–43, 247, 249–63, 255, 259, 261, 270; occupations of owner- builders, 251–54, 257–63, 285; tradesmen used, 255–56; women, x, 18, 25, 210, 212, 233, 240, 242, 247, 249–63, 253, 261, 270, 313 —resources for: advice, 3, 7, 12, 19, 32,

41, 49, 220, 242, 271 (see also under manuals); commercial services, 213, 217, 244, 284–90; finance, 190–91, 215–23, 276–77, 286–87; government assistance, 190–91, 215–23, 237, 264– 69; kits, 111–12, 209, 212, 288–90. See also under lumber dealers —views about: attitudes of contemporaries, 232–38, 245, 247–63; motives of owner- builders, 248–63, 315; neglect by scholars, 9 Own Your Own Home campaign, 34–38, 35, 41, 49, 117 Pacific Ready-Cut, 102, 103, 104, 105, 108, 111 paint: advertising of, 143; amateurs use, 39, 49, 51, 152, 162, 226, 242, 254, 260, 321, 331; manufacturers of, 54, 59, 143, 325, 333, 334; retailers stock, 55, 73, 78, 81, 82, 84, 116, 144, 146, 157, 202, 279, 280, 290, 297, 306, 321, 331 Parents Magazine, 18, 233, 234, 238–39, 257, 303, 304, 305, 322, 332 Peoria (IL), 16, 18, 112, 236–37, 218, 265, 274–76, 275, 287; case study of, xii, 16, 18, 217; Federal Housing Administration studies, 217–18, 220– 21; owner- building in, 217–21, 231, 240, 243–45, 248–57, 250, 259, 262– 63; retailers in, 145, 219–20, 244 Peoria Journal-Transcript, xii, 220, 243, 244, 245, 274, 276, 287 Perin, Constance, 30, 43 Perloff, Harvey, 306 Perry, Clarence, 214 Philadelphia, 31, 33, 34, 104, 105, 159, 181, 192, 288; home improvement in, 149, 150, 159; retailers in, 84, 159, 288 plan books, 26, 42, 105, 119, 173, 239, 284. See also catalogs plywood: amateurs use, 272, 313, 326, 331, 334; as a material, 56, 272, 276; retailers stock, 74, 280, 329, 334 Popular Homecraft Magazine, 313 Popular Mechanics, 49, 154, 240–42, 241, 242, 251, 260, 272, 276, 321, 329, 331 Popular Science, 49, 50, 154, 207, 240, 332 Porter, A. L., 90, 115–16, 119, 122, 123 postwar boom, the, 235–38, 236; effects on home improvement, 301–5, 337, 341;

Index / 429 effects on owner- building, 235–47, 251, 275. See also under home improvement stores prefabricators of houses, 12, 182, 188, 189, 268, 273–76, 275, 277, 287. See also under lumber dealers President’s Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, 26, 29, 30, 52, 53, 135, 141, 159 Printer’s Ink, 124, 135, 164, 314, 317, 322, 325 Producer’s Council, 70, 182, 187, 196, 288, 307 Progressive Era, 2 public housing. See under housing programs (United States) Radford, Gail, 29 radios: consumer good, 44, 116, 137, 139, 144; home improvement and, 165, 166–67, 168, 169, 172–73, 174, 182, 185, 194, 198, 205, 224, 243, 289, 311, 314, 330. See also mass media railroads, 100; locational influence on lumber dealers, 71, 78, 79, 84, 85, 100, 101, 291; shipments by, 63, 72, 84, 101, 274, 291 Ratcliff, Richard, 30, 195, 266 Readers Digest, 208, 239, 240, 251, 256, 260 repairs. See home improvement retailers: function, 10, 15, 98; interpretations of, 7, 13, 339; operations, 80 retailers of building supplies, 7, 54–55, 70–74; role of, 3–4, 10, 11, 13, 53, 70, 108, 339. See also department stores; hardware stores; home improvement stores; lumber dealers Reynolds Metals, 325, 334 Roosevelt, Eleanor, 168, 207 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 15, 31, 96, 165, 170, 173, 192, 207, 215 Rosenberg, Harold, 116 Rouse, James, 310, 311 Row, Clark, 306, 313 Rural Free Delivery, 100, 109 Saley, Met, 75–76, 79, 80, 88, 91, 96 Saturday Evening Post, 58, 105, 142 savings and loans, 92–93, 120, 151, 188, 198; home improvement and, 309;

owner- building and, 219–20, 222, 277, 286. See also lenders; U.S. Savings and Loan League Schumpeter, Joseph, 17 Scientific American, 50, 207 Sears, Roebuck, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 112–13, 122, 124, 275–76, 279–80; and home improvement, 112, 163, 196, 311 Seidel, Julius, 66, 96, 121 Serviceman’s Readjustment Act (1944), 252 shacks and shacktowns, 24–30, 33, 135, 206, 213, 215, 226, 230, 354n11. See also neighborhoods; owner- building; suburbs Shaw, A. W., 78, 82, 96, 103, 110, 118 shell houses, 27, 186, 208, 223, 224, 226, 254, 304–5, 308–9, 313. See also under home improvement Shenkel, William, 305, 313–14 Sherman Act, 11, 13, 67, 98 Sherwin-Williams, 54, 329, 333 Shopsmith, the, 326, 327, 330 Small Homes Council, University of Illinois, 233, 243, 288 Small Homes Demonstration Project, 185– 86, 217, 222 Small Homes Guide, 18, 235, 238–39, 245, 248, 256, 257, 261, 266, 276, 288, 303, 319, 321, 322, 327, 332 small towns: building in, 9, 16, 104–5, 112, 277; owner- building in, 25, 26, 27, 28, 244, 267, 272–73, 287; retailers in, 3, 12, 71, 76, 77, 80, 82–83, 91, 110, 118, 157, 279, 280, 283, 288, 289, 291, 298, 305, 342, 343 Southern Pine Association (SPA), 63, 64, 68–69, 239; and do- it- yourself, 220; and home improvement, 161; marketing by, 65, 66–67, 119, 129, 142, 144, 145 Southwestern Lumbermen’s Association, 133 Standard Homes, 239, 243, 265 Stanley, 327–27 statistics, 2, 68, 218; on building materials, 68, 69, 94, 128–29, 128, 130, 140, 272, 280; on construction, 5, 47; on credit, 162, 198, 200; on do- it- yourself, 47, 256; on home improvement, 46– 47, 48, 148–49; 301–3, 306–7; on homeownership, 24, 43; on housing,

430 / Index statistics (continued) 5, 15, 135, 151, 217, 221, 254, 259; on kits, 102–3; on lumber dealers, 78, 172 (see also under lumber dealers); on owner- building, 214, 232, 398n6 Steffan, Roger, 197 St. Louis, 177, 178; retailers in, 66, 95, 121, 155, 226, 278, 279 Stockholm, assisted owner- building, 264, 285 Strasser, Susan, 6, 12, 80 Straus, Nathan, 31, 251, 266 Straus, S. W., 36, 40 Strong-Boag, Veronica, 263 “substitutes” (for lumber), 19, 55, 89, 96, 130, 132–33, 145–48, 278 suburbs, 32, 33, 44, 45, 53, 104, 105, 138, 190, 231, 266, 277, 291, 303, 316; developers of, 8–9, 53; owner- building in, 25–26, 29–30, 33, 42, 47, 49, 206–15, 217–21, 222–23, 230, 231, 248, 249, 254, 257, 258; retailers in, 3, 77, 83–84, 91, 92, 157–59, 158, 265, 279, 282, 285, 287, 290, 291, 300, 342, 343

trade journals, 88, 94, 102, 114, 131, 306, 314, 324–25, 332; advertising in, 4, 112, 131, 164; as a source, x, 17–18, 75. See also specific journals trusts, the, 2, 13, 67

Tate, I. N., 60, 69 Taylor, B. E., 27 Taylor, Frederick W., 25 technology: interpretations of, 5, 9–10; markets and, 12. See also building materials; tools Tedlow, Richard, 12, 13 television, 331 Thompson Yards, 63, 79, 95, 118, 147 Time, 18, 165, 181, 182, 238, 239, 307, 313, 316, 324, 325 Title I. See under housing programs (United States) Title II. See under housing programs (United States) tools: amateur builders and, 57, 152, 229, 241, 254, 255, 277, 321, 322, 326–27, 329, 331, 333; new, 57, 272, 285, 319, 325–27; power, 272, 319, 321, 326–27, 334, 327, 328 Toronto, 28, 29, 30, 33, 103, 104, 235, 245, 343, 345; home improvement in, 149, 150, 159; owner- building in, 24, 254, 257; retailers in, 84, 159, 288 trade- at- home movement, 108–9, 110, 113, 122

Wahlfeld Lumber, xii, 219–20, 244 Walker, Platt, 102, 115, 119, 120 wallboard, 55, 56, 57, 76, 132, 272–73, 278, 280, 282, 304, 328, 333 Washington, D.C., 42, 101, 185, 187, 218, 219, 285, 343; home improvement in, 198; owner- building in, 25, 231, 245 Wehrwein, G. S., 214 Weiss, Marc, 8 West Coast Lumbermen’s Association, 64, 69 Western Retail Lumberman, 90, 115, 116, 119, 120 Western Retail Lumbermen’s Association, 80, 87, 115 Weyerhaeuser, 60, 79, 94, 95, 119, 146, 222, 272, 284; marketing by, 65, 77, 141, 184, 187, 196, 197, 201 Whitman, Walt, 30 Whitten, Robert, 25, 26, 28 Wickes, 278, 279, 343 Wiese, Andrew, 338 Wilson, M. L., 207 women, 2, 5, 87, 168, 194, 212, 336, 341; as buyers of building supplies, 2, 83, 86–93, 89, 106, 123–24, 157, 164, 176,

United Kingdom, 32 United States Gypsum, 6, 54, 55, 56, 181, 184, 188, 311, 333 United States Housing Corporation, 34 U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 37, 170, 185, 186, 191, 312 U.S. Plywood, 331 U.S. Savings and Loan League, 185, 188, 193, 309 veterans: as amateur builders, 23, 230, 237–38, 243–44, 247, 253, 268–69, 270, 277; housing needs of, 188, 235– 38, 236, 240, 243, 249, 252–54, 258– 59, 265 Veterans Emergency Housing Program, 237 Veterans Land Act (Canada), 268–69, 270, 277, 285

Index / 431 194, 226, 260, 261–64, 283, 295–96, 296, 298, 319, 330–31, 333, 342–43; as do- it- yourselfers, 2, 48–52, 155, 225, 225, 226, 247, 251, 295–98, 313, 314, 319, 326, 333, 336; as homemakers, 5, 31, 37, 44, 49–52, 175, 260, 263, 322; 336; as shoppers, 3, 86, 164, 176, 195; as store clerks, 297–98. See also under do- it- yourself (DIY); families; housework; lumber dealers; manuals; owner- building Women’s Home Companion, 303 women’s organizations, 34, 37–38, 195, 196, 203, 226, 311 wood. See lumber

Wood, Edith E., 30 Woodbury, Coleman, 38, 44, 45, 138 working class, 316; home improvement and, 152, 155, 159, 314, 317; homeownership and, 24–30, 31, 43–44, 211, 259 Yale School of Forestry, 60, 61, 69, 118, 122 YMCA, 25, 36, 37, 38, 143 YWCA, 227 zoning, 30 Zunz, Olivier, 43 Zweifel, George, 396n57

HISTORICAL STUDIES OF URBA N A MERICA

Edited by Timothy J. Gilfoyle, James R. Grossman, and Becky M. Nicolaides SERIES TITLES, CONTINUED FROM FRONTM AT TER

City Of American Dreams: A History Of Home Ownership And Housing Reform In Chicago, 1871–1919 by Margaret Garb

My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class Suburbs of Los Angeles, 1920–1965 by Becky M. Nicolaides

Chicagoland: City and Suburbs in The Railroad Age by Ann Durkin Keating

Brownsville, Brooklyn: Blacks, Jews, and the Changing Face of the Ghetto by Wendell Pritchett

The Elusive Ideal: Equal Educational Opportunity and the Federal Role in Boston’s Public Schools, 1950–1985 by Adam R. Nelson

The Creative Destruction of Manhattan, 1900– 1940 by Max Page

Block By Block: Neighborhoods and Public Policy on Chicago’s West Side by Amanda I. Seligman Downtown America: A History of the Place and the People Who Made It by Alison Isenberg Places of Their Own: African American Suburbanization in The Twentieth Century by Andrew Wiese Building the South Side: Urban Space and Civic Culture in Chicago, 1890–1919 by Robin F. Bachin In the Shadow of Slavery: African Americans in New York City, 1626–1863 by Leslie M. Harris

Streets, Railroads, and the Great Strike of 1877 by David O. Stowell Faces along the Bar: Lore and Order in the Workingman’s Saloon, 1870–1920 by Madelon Powers Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940–1960 by Arnold R. Hirsch Smoldering City: Chicagoans and the Great Fire, 1871–1874 by Karen Sawislak Modern Housing for America: Policy Struggles in the New Deal Era by Gail Radford Parish Boundaries: The Catholic Encounter with Race in the Twentieth-Century Urban North by John T. McGreevy