Urban historical scholars have neglected smaller urban centers, including their residential environments and the forces that shaped them. For a time, one of these forces was the mail-order kit home. Kit manufacturers sold houses to families throughout the United States and Canada but enjoyed their greatest success in small towns where detached single-family homes were the norm. They worked to insert themselves into local building industries: They challenged lumber dealers and ignored architects but strove to mollify the contractors on whom they and their customers depended. They attracted considerable attention and met with initial success: Emerging rapidly after 1905, they had hit their stride by 1914 and enjoyed a heyday in the 1920s. They were stricken by, and failed to recover from, the Depression in large part because lumber dealers had learned how to compete with them.
R. G. Barrows, "Beyond the Tenement: Patterns of American Urban Housing, 1870-1930," Journal of Urban History 9, no. 4 (1983): 395-420; U.S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States: 1940, Housing Characteristics by Type and Structure (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1943); John A. Jakle, Robert W. Bastian, and Douglas K. Meyer, Common Houses in America’s Small Towns. The Atlantic Seaboard to the Mississippi Valley (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989).
2.
From a large literature, for this period see, especially, Marc Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987); William S. Worley, J.C. Nichols and the Shaping of Kansas City: Innovation in Planned Residential Communities (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1990); Carolyn Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular: Developers’ Subdivisions in the 1920s (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002).
3.
A similar point has recently been made by Neal Hitch, though his estimates of kit production for the major companies are low. 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, CT: Greenwood, 2008), 237-45. No one has reported precise annual or aggregate sales data for any company except Aladdin. One informed estimate is that 500,000-750,000 mail-order kits were sold 1900-1960. The lower figure is consistent with an aggregate figure of 350,000-400,000 by 1930. Sally L. Bund and Robert Schweitzer, "The House That Lewis Built," Michigan History 79 (1995): 24. Annual starts of single-family dwellings ranged between 166,000 (1917) and 573,000 (1925) in this period.
4.
Robert Schweitzer and Michael W. R. Davis, America’s Favorite Homes: Mail Order Catalogues as a Guide to Popular Early 20th Century Homes (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1990); David Schwartz, "When Home Sweet Home Was Just a Mailbox Away," Smithsonian 16, no. 8 (1985): 90-100. The most scholarly 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), 129-76. Also see Kay Halpin, "Sears, Roebuck’s Best Kept Secret," Historic Preservation 33, 5 (1981): 24-29; Katherine Cole Stevenson and H. Ward Jandl, Houses by Mail: A Guide to Houses from Sears, Roebuck and Company (Washington, DC: Preservation Press, 1986); Bund and Schweitzer, "House That Lewis Built," 18-25; 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," Washington Post, September 25, 1982, E61; Alan Murray, "Mail-Order Homes Sears Sold in 1909-37 Are Suddenly Chic," Wall Street Journal, February 11, 1985, 1, 15; "For Sears Houses, a Catalogue Like No Other," New York Times, February 7, 1993, 28. On Canadian kit homes see J. L. Henry, Catalogue 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, ON: National Parks Service, 1981); G. S. Mills and Deryck Holdsworth, "The B.C. Mills Prefabricated System: The Emergence of Ready-Made Buildings in Western Canada," Canadian Historic Sites 14 (1975): 128-170.
5.
An attempt was made to consult at least one catalogue from each of the major companies. Those consulted were Aladdin Company, Aladdin "Built in a Day" House Catalog, 1917 (Repr., New York: Dover, 1995); Aladdin Company, Aladdin Plan of Industrial Housing (Bay City, MI: Aladdin Co., 1919); Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes: Built in a Day (Bay City, MI: Aladdin Co., 1920); Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes: Sold by the Golden Rule (Bay City, MI: Aladdin Homes, 1925); Aladdin Company, Aladdin Readi-Cut Homes (Bay City, MI: Aladdin Co., 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: Better-Built 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 Co., c. 1919); Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details 1915 (Repr., Davenport, IA: Gordon-Van Tine, 1985); Gordon-Van 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 (Repr., 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 Building Co., 1920); International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty: Sterling System-Built Homes (Bay City, MI: International Mill, 1915); International Mill and Timber Company, Selecting Your Home: Sterling Favorites (Bay City, MI: International Mill, 1919); Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character (Bay City, MI: Lewis Mfg. Co, 1920); Lewis Manufacturing Company, The New Liberty Homes (Bay City, MI: Lewis Mfg. Co, 1941); Montgomery Ward and Co., Wardway Homes Bungalows and Cottages, 1925 (Repr., Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004); Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes: A Notable Exhibition of California Architecture (Los Angeles, 1925); Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sears Modern Homes (Repr. of 1913 ed., Mineola, NY: Dover, 2007); Sears, Roebuck and Co., Sears, Roebuck Catalog of Houses, 1926 (Repr., New York: Dover, 1991); Paul H. Tedesco and James B. Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses of the Thirties: The E.F. Hodgson Company 1935 and 1939 Catalogues (Repr., Dover, MA: JBT Publishing, 2007). The following trade journals were surveyed: American Lumberman (est. 1899, selected years from 1915), Building Supply News (est. 1917, 1917-1930), Canada Lumberman (est. 1921, 1921-1930), Mississippi Valley Lumberman (est. 1887, selected years, 1910-1919), Western Retail Lumberman (est. 1911, 1911-1915).
6.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Builders of 1-Family Houses in 72 Cities," Monthly Labor Review 51, no. 3 (1940): 735, 738-39; Miles Colean, American Housing: Problems and Prospects (New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1944), 117. On dealer contracting see "Control More Building Sales," BSN 92, 1 (1957): 134. On builders also see U.S. Temporary National Economic Committee, Investigation of Concentration of Economic Power, Toward More Housing. Monograph 8 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1940), 32. Small builders were those that erected fewer than ten units a year.
7.
Marc Weiss, "Richard T. Ely and the Contribution of Economic Research to National Housing Policy, 1920-1940," Urban Studies 26 (1989): 115-26; Jeffrey Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth Century American Middle Class (Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 128-51; Weiss, Community Builders, 28-44, 141-58.
8.
Richard T. Ely, "Foreword" to U.S. Department of Commerce, Mortgages on Homes: Census Monograph II (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1923), 12.
9.
Ring Lardner, Own Your OwnHome (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill , 1919).
10.
Blanche Halbert, ed., The Better Homes Manual (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1931), 161.
11.
Sam Bass Warner , Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1962), 131.
12.
Alan Gowans, The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture 1890-1930 (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1986), 57-59; Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular, 76-77; Arthur Holden, "Outside Business Factors as Competitors of the Architect," Journal of the American Institute of Architects 8 (1925): 309. Significantly, in 1910 Carpentry and Building, which had previously served a broad category of "practical architects," changed its name to Building Age and henceforth targeted builders. Jan Jennings, Cheap and Tasteful Dwellings: Design Competitions and the Convenient Interior, 1879-1909 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2005), xxxv. The builder’s robust attitude toward architects is nicely illustrated by Healy’s suggestion that they were valuable chiefly for adding "a deft touch to the plans before the work is started." Gerald F. Healy, "Sales Methods for Home Builders," in Home Building and Subdividing: Proceedings and Reports of the Home Builders and Subdividers Division (Chicago: National Association of Real Estate Boards, 1925), 107.
13.
Janet Hutchison , "Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal," Journal of Policy History9 (1997): 197.
14.
Thomas Harvey , "Mail Order Architecture in the Twenties," Landscape25, no. 3 (1981): 9.
15.
Holden, "Outside Business," 309. Also see Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular, 73; Gowans, Comfortable House, 63-67.
16.
U.S. Temporary National Economic Committee, Toward More Housing, 35.
17.
U.S. National Recovery Administration, Hearing on Code of Fair Practices and Competition Presented by the Land Development and Home Building Industries (Washington, DC: U.S. National Recovery Administration, 1934), 190. The composite summary in this paragraph is based on many reports and commentaries in building supply journals of the 1910s and 1920s. See, especially, "Realm of the Retailer," AL 2318 (October 17, 1919); Edward K. Cormack, "No Standardizing Here," BSN 1, 2 (June 12, 1917): 74. Also see 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): 560-87, and, on an earlier era, Donna Rilling, Making Houses, Crafting Capitalism. Builders in Philadelphia, 1790-1850 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).
18.
"Realm of the Retailer," AL 2644 (January 16, 1929): 54.
19.
Theodore J. Kreps, "Building Materials and the Cost of Housing," in National Resources Committee, Land, Materials, and Labor Costs (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1939), 56. The breakdown was 6-11 percent for unfinished lumber, 15-21 percent for millwork, and 19-23 percent for finished lumber, including floors and siding.
20.
Malcolm L. Merriam, Retail Credit Survey, 1937, U.S. Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Domestic Commerce Series no. 103 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1938), 110.
21.
"Distinctive California Yards,"AL2721 (July 9, 1927): 45.
22.
"The Contractor’s Credit,"BSN1, no. 3 (July 10, 1917 ): 111. On contractors’ business methods see Cormack, "No Standardizing Here," 74.
23.
Ovid Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber in the Middle West: Retail Distribution, Studies of the Lumber Industry, part 9, USDA report 166 ( Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1918), 49.
24.
"Contractor’s Credit," 111.
25.
Butler, Distribution . . . Retail, 19.
26.
E. Clark and P. Ashley, "The Merchant Prince of Cornville," Chicago History21 (1992): 4-19.
27.
Weiss, Community Builders; Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular.
28.
See Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular, 55-87, and the comments of Joe King in 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), 184-86.
29.
Healy, "Sales Methods"; Edward A. Lovely, "Fundamental Principles: Developing High-Grade Subdivisions," in Home Building and Subdividing, 64-75; George R. Morris, "Practical Methods for Building Moderate Priced Homes," in Home Building and Subdividing, 56-61; J. C. Nichols, "Suburban Subdivisions with Community Features," in Homebuilding and Subdividing, 10-20.
30.
John M. Gries, "Construction," in President’s Conference on Unemployment, Recent Economic Changes in the United States, I (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1929), 239. Gries was a leading housing expert who coedited the proceedings of the President’s Committee on Housing and Home Ownership in 1931-1932. See John M. Gries and James S. Taylor’s influential booklet, How to Own Your Own Home: A Handbook for Prospective Home Owners (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1923), and John M. Gries and Ford, Housing Objectives and Programs (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1932).
31.
A quarter is probably more accurate, but conjectural. The census distinguished contractors from "operative" builders-the new, polite word for "speculative"-but subcategorized only the contractors by type of business (residential, commercial, etc.). Most but not all operative builders were residential. Assuming all operative builders were residential, the census indicates that they accounted for 38 percent of residential construction, by value. Calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930, Construction Industry (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1933), Table 1. A similar estimate may be derived from building permit data, which distinguish one-family houses, erected singly, from those in "projects" of two or more. Virtually all of those erected singly would have been built on contract; a lower, but still high, proportion of "projects" would have been speculative. Those erected in projects accounted for 36 percent of all new, single-family homes in 1929. Estimated from data reported in Arthur C. Holden, "New Methods of Construction in the Building Industry," Report of the Committee on Construction of the President’s Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership, appendix, part (d), Washington, DC, December 3, 1931, typescript, 8. Both estimates significantly overstate the share of speculative building: the census because some operative builders were nonresidential and because the census missed some (many?) of the smallest contractors, the permit data because a nontrivial number of projects were built on contract and because many one-off homes were erected in unincorporated areas without permits and so were omitted from the reported data. Presumably from census data Kreps, chief statistician for the National Recovery Administration, stated that operative builders accounted for 2 percent of homes built in 1929. This is surely absurd and may be a typographic error (for 20 percent?). Kreps, "Building Materials," 75.
32.
U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Builders of 1-Family Houses"; Colean, American Housing, 117. Butler, Distribution . . . Retail, 13; "Lumber: Retail Volume and Profits," AL 2727 (August 13, 1927): 45. Cf. John M. Gries, "Line Yards (The Chain Store in the Lumber Trade)," AL 2289 (March 29, 1919): 38G. On dealer contracting see "Control More Building Sales," 134. On builders also see U.S. Temporary National Economic Committee, Toward More Housing, 32. Small builders erected fewer than ten units a year.
33.
Warner, StreetcarSuburbs, 127; Sherman Maisel, Housebuilding in Transition (Berkeley, 1953), 350. The building industry is still localized. See Michael Buzzelli and Richard Harris, "Cities as the Industrial Districts of Housebuilding," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research30, no. 4 (2006): 898-901.
34.
Calculated from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Construction Industry, table 3.
35.
Ibid., tables 3, VI. The latter figure pertains to all contractors. The rate among residential contractors would almost certainly have been lower.
36.
On financing arrangements see Alexander M. Bing, "Financing Working Class and Middle Class Housing in the United States of America," in International Housing and Town Planning Congress, Financing Working Class and Middle Class Housing (Rome: The Congress, 1929), 128-37; John Gries and Thomas M. Curran, "Choosing a Home Financing Agency," in Halbert, ed., Better Homes Manual, 23-36.
37.
For general discussion and recent evidence see Buzzelli and Harris, "Cities as Industrial Districts."
National Lumber Manufacturers’ Association, Highlights of a Decade of Achievement (Washington, DC: The Association, 1929), 59-63.
41.
N.C. Brown, American Lumber Industry (New York: John Wiley, 1923), 114; Ovid M. Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber in the Middle West: Wholesale Distribution, Studies of the Lumber Industry, part 8, USDA report no. 115 (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1917), 25.
42.
Ralph C.Bryant, Lumber: Its Manufacture and Distribution (New York : John Wiley, 1922), 319.
43.
Boorstin notes that production runs of the Sears catalogue 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, 1974), 128, 132. On Canada see 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.
44.
Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 82-83.
45.
Mills and Holdsworth, "B.C. Mills Prefabricated System," 133.
46.
See, e.g., "Catalog House Owner Objects to Truth Telling," MVL45, no. 19 (May 8, 1914): 30.
47.
Hines, in fact, also owned mills and forests. Edward Hines Lumber Co., 50 Years (Chicago: Edward Hines Lumber Co., 1947).
48.
"Policy of the Welles-Thompson Lumber Company,"MVL45, no. 13 (March 27, 1914): 33.
Bennett Lumber Co., Building Material, 7; Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Bargain Book, 56. Also see Harris Brothers Co., The Price Wrecker, Chicago House Wrecking Company: Lumber, Building material, Machinery, Supplies, Household Goods (Chicago: The Company, 1915).
51.
"Blackmailing Retailers."
52.
Ben C. Mueller, "The Mail Order Lumber Business,"AL2170 (December 16, 1916): 47.
53.
Ibid.; "Catalog House Owner."
54.
"Winds Up a Catalog House Career,"MVL45, no. 22 (May 29, 1914): 33.
55.
Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 131.
56.
Butler, Distribution . . . Retail, 8.
57.
"Not the Retailers’ Friends,"MVL45, no. 13 (March 27, 1914): 33. The listing was incomplete. In the same year, another report indicated the presence of at least twenty catalogue houses based on the West Coast alone. "Blackmailing Retailers."
58.
Boorstin, Americans, 124.
59.
Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, viii.
60.
Ben C. Mueller , "The Mail Order Lumber Business,"AL2168 (December 2, 1916): 42; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, n.p.
61.
Carolyn Flynn, "Pacific Ready-Cut Homes: Mass-Produced Bungalows in Los Angeles, 1908-1942 " (master’s thesis, University of California, Los Angeles, 1986); Boris Emmet and John E. Jenck, Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950), 226; Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 65-66.
62.
Platt B. Walker, "How Can I Get a Raise in My Salary?" WRL3, no. 11 (January 21, 1915): 4.
63.
Doucet and Weaver, "Material Culture," 572; Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 38.
64.
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, Famous Fifty; Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character.
65.
"Stick By Your Friends," MVL45, no. 15 (April 10, 1914): 33.
Ibid. Aladdin published a special catalogue for the industrial market. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Plan.
69.
A.W. Shaw Co., A Report on the Profitable Management of a Retail Lumber Business (Chicago: A.W. Shaw, 1918), 10-20. Shaw had helped establish Harvard’s case method approach in the Business School. Melvin Copeland, And Mark an Era: The Story of the Harvard Business School (Boston: Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration, 1958), 43-44.
70.
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, Famous Fifty, 14.
71.
"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, Famous Fifty, 14.
72.
Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 143; Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 160; Harris Brothers, A Plan Book, 2.
73.
Mueller, "The Mail Order Lumber Business," AL 2170 (December 16, 1916): 46; International Mill and Timber Company, Famous Fifty, 14; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 144.
Clifford E. Clark, The American Family Home, 1800-1960 ( Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), 175.
81.
The estimate for Sears is disputed; that for Aladdin is fairly firm. Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 14, 65, 72; Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 63. Thornton estimates a final tally of about 75,000 for Sears, after it had shipped an unspecified but evidently small number of units, using a different technology, in the late 1930s and 1940s. Printer’s Ink reports sales of 56,000 by 1931. Mail Order Points Way to the Lumber Dealer,’ Printer’s Ink (October 15, 1931), 130.
82.
Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 14; Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details, 58. Mr. Bardwell, their Cuban customer, was so pleased that he had recommended Van Tine to the Guantanamo Sugar Co.
Except for Evansville, these companies were included in a list of kit manufacturers compiled by the Federal Housing Administration, but their operations must have been limited since the lumber trade records I have consulted make no reference to them. U.S. Federal Housing Administration, Recent Developments in Dwelling Construction, Technical Bulletin 1 (Washington, DC: U.S. Federal Housing Administration, 1936), 12.
86.
"Wm. Johann Goes in for Ready-Cut Homes,"BSN28, no. 5 (May 3, 1927): 289.
Irwin M. Heine, "The Influence of Geographic Factors in the Development of the Mail Order Business,"American Marketing Journal3 (April): 129.
91.
Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Bargain Book, 3.
92.
Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 11.
93.
Halliday Company, "Comfortested Homes."
94.
Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes: Sold by the Golden Rule, n.p.
95.
Mills, Buying Wood; Henry, Catalogue Houses, 2.
96.
Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, 30.
97.
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.
98.
Curtis Publishing Company, "Selling Houses."
99.
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), 251-71; Moskowitz, Standard of Living, 133-41.
100.
Boorstin, Americans, 128-29.
101.
Aladdin Company, Aladdin "Built in a Day"; Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details; Montgomery Ward and Co., Wardway Homes; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs. For discussion of the way Aladdin combined catalogue design with advertising and news-letters see Moskowitz, Standard of Living, 155-67.
102.
Charles W. Fish, "Meeting Mail-Order Homes Competition,"National Lumberman86, no. 9 (September 1931): 29.
103.
"Make Your Strong Appeal to the Woman,"WRL3, no. 6 (August 20, 1914): 17.
104.
"Women and Lumber Retailing,"AL2291 (April 12, 1919): 50.
105.
"Realm of the Retailer,"AL2316 (October 4, 1919): 43.
106.
Mueller, "The Mail Order Lumber Business," AL 2170 (December 16, 1916): 46.
107.
Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 47; Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Homes, 72; International Mill and Timber Company, Famous Fifty, 9; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck.
108.
Bennett Lumber Co., Bennett Homes, 5, 7; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 4-5; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 14-16. Also see Montgomery Ward, Wardway Homes, 9.
109.
Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 21. For interpretation of Aladdin’s production strategy see Moskowitz, Standard of Living, 141-55.
110.
Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 2. Also see Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 23; Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 7, 12.
111.
Fred Ludwig, The Retail Lumber Dealer and How He Functions, Lumber Industry Series 7 (Yale University, School of Forestry, 1927), 15. But see "0.3% to 2.8% Net Profit Is All Supply, Lumber Dealers Make," BSN 30, no. 1 (October 4, 1927): 26-28; Butler, Distribution . . . Retail, 16.
112.
Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 22.
113.
Mills, Buying Wood, 20.
114.
Bryant, Lumber, 327-44.
115.
Susan Strasser, Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market (New York: Pantheon, 1989), 216; Boorstin, Americans, 127; Ben C. Mueller, "The Mail-Order Lumber Business," AL 2172 (December 30, 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, SK: University of Regina, Canadian Plains Research Center, 1981), 147-76.
116.
"After Mail-Order Houses," Washington Post, July 18, 1907, 2.
117.
Millrose Lumber Company, "Ten Reasons Why We Should Buy in Springfield," c. 1917 (advertisement), reproduced in A.W. Shaw Co., A Report, 61.
118.
Wayne Fuller, RFD: The Changing Face of Rural America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1964), 256.
119.
George W. Franz, A Centennial History: Eastern Building Materials Dealers’ Association 1892-1992 (Virginia Beach, VA: The Association, 1992), 58. On the Better Homes campaign see 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), 168-78; Loeb, Entrepreneurial Vernacular, 157.
120.
Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 22.
121.
International Mill and Timber Company, Famous Fifty, 4, original emphasis.
"Home That a Baby Built," AL 2690 (December 4, 1926): 49; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, 8; Harris Brothers, A Plan Book, 8; International Mill and Timber, 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 noted in the catalogues of those companies that survived the Depression, where more emphasis was placed on the help of friends, relatives, and women. See, e.g., Aladdin Company, Aladdin Readi-Cut, 36; Lewis Manufacturing Company, New Liberty, 45.
Bryant, Lumber, 386; Mueller, "The Mail Order Lumber Business," AL 2172 (December 30, 1916): 43.
129.
Flynn, "Pacific Ready-Cut," 15; Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 17.
130.
Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, 49.
131.
Thornton, Houses That Sears Built. If Thornton’s survey of the trade journals was systematic, it indicates that such advertising peaked 1912-1915.
132.
International Mill and Timber Company, Famous Fifty, 15.
133.
Harris Brothers, A Plan Book, 9, 8.
134.
Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 112.
135.
"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.
136.
Emmet and Jenck, Catalogues and Counters, 520-27; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, n.p.; Thornton, Houses That Sears Built, 103. Montgomery Ward thought about creating sales centers, but it is not clear how far they carried this plan through. "Mail Order Houses Eye Supply and Lumber Business," BSN 28, no. 1 (April 5, 1927): 19.
137.
"Arkansas Dealers Gird for Active Future,"AL2710 (April 23, 1927): 66-67.
138.
Stevenson and Jandl, Houses by Mail, 22
139.
Promotional material included with Lewis Manufacturing Company, New Liberty, n.p.; Sears, Roebuck, Sears, Roebuck, 19; Lewis Manufacturing Company, Homes of Character, 6.
140.
International Mill and Timber Company, Famous Fifty, 15, original emphasis.
141.
Emmet and Jenck, Catalogues and Counters, 528-29; Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 66, 68. In 1935 Sears, Roebuck began a new housing program using prefabricated panels and steel framing, but this lasted only until 1940 and seems to have had little impact. Stevenson and Jandl, Houses by Mail, 22; "News of the Month," BSN 57, no. 3 (September 1939): 26.
142.
Flynn, "Pacific Ready-Cut," 82; Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 69; Gordon-Van Tine, 117 House Designs, n.p.; Henry, Catalogue Houses, 8.
143.
Schweitzer and Davis, America’s Favorite, 70-72, 74; Bund and Schweitzer, "House That Lewis Built." Hodgson appears to have fared well during the 1930s, in part because its affluent customers continued to buy summer cottages and guest houses, but it too faded after 1945. Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, viii.
144.
Kathryn R. Murphy , "Builders of New One-Family Houses, 1955-56 ," Construction Review4, no. 8-9 (1958), 7; Richard Harris, "The Birth of the North American Home Improvement Store, 1905-1929," Enterprise and Society 10, 4 (2009): 687-728. Of dwellings, 9 percent were erected by builders who sometimes operated as contractors and sometimes as spec builders. The estimate reported here assumes that half of these were erected on contract.
