NOTES

CHAPTER ONE

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Ronald Savitt, “Looking Back to See Ahead: Writing the History of American Retailing,” Journal of Retailing 65, no. 3 (1989): 351.

5. 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. 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/publications_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).

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 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).

20. 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.

21. 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.”

22. 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.

23. Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing.

24. Arthur D. Little, Home Improvement Financing, 6.

25. 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.

26. 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 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).

27. 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.

28. Philip Cornish, “F.H.A. and Urban Decentralization,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio, fourth quarter (1941): 23–25, 45–47.

29. 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.

30. 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).

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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).

34. 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).

35. 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.

36. Kenneth Lipartito, “Culture and the Practice of Business History,” Business and Economic History 24, no. 2 (1995): 5.

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.

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.

CHAPTER TWO

1. 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.

2. On Los Angeles, see Becky Nicolaides, My Blue Heaven: Life and Politics in the Working-Class 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.

3. 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.

4. Charles F. Weller, Neglected Neighbors (Philadelphia: J. C. Winston, 1909), 209.

5. 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.

6. 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 (Washington, 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.

7. 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.

8. “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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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).

15. Edith Elmer Wood, Slums and Blighted Areas in the United States (Washington, DC: US-GPO, 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. 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.

16. See, notably, Doucet and Weaver, Housing the North American City, 163–200.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. Marion Talbot and Sophonisba Breckenridge, The Modern Household (Boston: Whitcomb and Barrows, 1912), 25.

22. 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.

23. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 87; Garb, City of American Dreams, 160, 167, 171; Harris, Unplanned Suburbs, 86–98.

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 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).

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors, 128; Hutchison, “The Cure for Domestic Neglect,” 173.

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. 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.

38. 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.

39. 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.

40. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 147.

41. 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.

42. 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-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.”

43. 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.

44. Richard Harris, “Working-Class Home Ownership and Housing Affordability Across Canada in 1931,” Histoire Sociale/Social History 19, no. 37 (1986): 124–125.

45. Harris, “Working-Class Home Ownership,” 51.

46. 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.

47. Marsh, Suburban Lives, 133.

48. 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.

49. 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.

50. Halbert, Better Homes in America, 51.

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).

52. Kyrk, Economic Problems of the Family, 417, 418

53. 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,” Architectural 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.

54. 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.

55. 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.

56. Allen L. Churchill and Leonard Wickenden, The House-Owner’s Book (New York: Funk and Wagnall’s, 1922), vi, v, 2, 3.

57. 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.

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. 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.

2. 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).

3. “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.

4. Weaver, “Beaver Board and Upson Board,” 72, 73; Beaver Board Companies, Beaver Board and Its Uses, 21, 26.

5. 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.

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.

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 Regulation: Charles Francis Adams, Louis D: Brandeis, James M: Landis, Alfred E: Kahn (Cambridge, MA: Belknap, 1984), 115.

24. 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.

25. 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.

26. Tate, Modern Trends in Lumber Selling, 13.

27. 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.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. 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, Economics 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. Regina L. Blaszczyk, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000), 222, 227.

34. 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. “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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. “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 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.

6. Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 14–15, 19.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. “Lumber: Retail Volume and Profits,” AL 2727 (August 13, 1927): 45.

14. “Selling Small Lots of Lumber in a City,” AL 2328 (December 27, 1919): 58.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

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 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.

28. “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.

29. “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.

30. 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.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. “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).

34. “To Confer on National Trade Extension,” AL 2732 (September 24, 1927): 41; “Manufacturer Wants to Know,” 88.

35. “Lumber Industry Makes Plans for ‘New Deal,’ AL 2999 (July 8, 1933): 34, 35, 36; 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. Joseph C. Palamountain, The Politics of Distribution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1955), 33, 45n51; Butler, The Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 7.

2. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 187–188, 190. Searce is quoted in Bryant, Lumber, 319, and see318, 327–336.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 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: 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, 1920); Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details 1915 (reprint) (Davenport, IA: American Life Foundation, 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 (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 System-Built 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,” 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).

12. Thornton, The Houses That Sears Built, 131; Butler, Distribution of Softwood Lumber, 1918, 8.

13. “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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. “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.

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.

18. 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.

19. “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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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 1931. On other companies see Pacific Ready-Cut Homes, Pacific’s Book of Homes, 14; Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details, 58.

23. Flynn, Pacific Ready-Cut, 15; Henry, Catalog Houses, 2; Lewis Manufacturing, The New Liberty, 3.

24. “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.

25. 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.’

26. Mills, Buying Wood; Tedesco and Tedesco, Portable and Prefabricated Houses, 30.

27. 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.

28. Boorstin, Americans, 128–129; Aladdin Company, Aladdin “Built in a Day”; Gordon-Van 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.

29. 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.

30. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2316 (October 4, 1919): 43; Mueller, “The Mail Order,” AL 2170 (December 16, 1916): 46.

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. Mills, Buying Wood, 20.

35. 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 (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 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.

36. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 22; International Mill and Timber Company, The Famous Fifty, 4 (orig. emph.).

37. 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.

38. 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.

39. Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 52; Canadian Aladdin Company, Aladdin Homes, 97; Halliday Company Ltd, “Comfortested Homes”; Gordon-Van Tine, Architectural Details, 53, 83, 96.

40. 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.

41. 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.

42. “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.

43. 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.

44. “Arkansas Dealers Gird for Active Future,” AL 2710 (April 23, 1927): 66–67; Stevenson and Jandl, Houses by Mail, 22.

45. 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.

46. “How One Woman Figured on Discharging Her Husband,” WRL 3, no. 9 (November 19, 1914): 15.

47. 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.

48. “Some Interesting Experiences,” MVL 45, no. 10 (May 15, 1914): 33; “Contraband Shipments,” MVL 45, no. 34 (August 21, 1914): 33.

49. “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 Michigan scheme levied a 10 percent penalty on manufacturers and wholesalers who did not sell to members of the state association.

50. Bryant, Lumber, 335.

51. 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.

52. Platt B. Walker, “How Can I Get a Raise in My Salary?” WRL 3, no. 11 (January 21, 1915): 4.

53. 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.

54. 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.

55. 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.

56. 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.

57. 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.

58. 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.

59. W. Wadsworth Wood, “Grade Marking Retail Lumber Ads,” Lumber Manufacturer and Dealer, 78, no. 4 (August 20, 1926): 30.

60. 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.

61. Ludwig, Retail Lumber Dealer, 17.

62. 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.

63. “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).

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 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.

77. Brightbill, “Modern Merchandizing,” 43; “The Fighting Lumberman.”

78. “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.

79. “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.

80. “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2325, 43; “Realm of the Retailer,” AL 2587, 42. See also “Arkansas Dealers Gird,” 67.

81. “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.”

82. “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. Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis, 153; Stone, Economic Problems of the Lumber and Timber Products Industry, 219.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. Brown, Timber Products and Industries, 128; “Hoosier Hardwood Men in Twenty-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.

6. “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.

7. “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.

8. “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).

9. “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.”

10. “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.

11. Gries and Ford, Home Ownership, Income and Types of Dwelling, 99.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. Dewhurst and Associates, America’s Needs and Resources, Table 239.

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 Grade-Marking 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 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.

29. National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights, 30, 32.

30. “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.

31. Bryant, Lumber, 320, 322; George W. Franz, A Centennial History: Eastern Building Materials Dealers Association, 1892–1992 (Virginia Beach: Donning Company, 1992), 64, 122.

32. 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.

33. “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.

34. “Pennsylvania Lumbermen’s Annual,” 60; “Illinois Retailers,” 66, 68.

35. “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.

36. “Western Retailers, Gathered in ‘Lumber Capital,’ Analyze Their Problems,” AL 2703 (March 5, 1927): 74; Gries, “Construction,” 233; Stone, Economic Problems, 217.

37. “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.

38. “Western Retailers,” 74.

39. 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 Johns-Manville. On scientific sales, see Walter A. Friedman, Birth of a Salesman: The Transformation of Selling in America (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004).

40. 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.”

41. 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.

42. 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 Distribution: 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.

43. 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.

44. 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.

45. 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.

46. “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.

47. Gelber, Hobbies, Leisure, and the Culture of Work, 251

48. 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.

49. 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.

50. 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.

51. 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).

52. 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.

53. 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.

54. “Good Lumber Key to Sound Construction,” AL 3187 (September 21, 1940): 33.

55. “Consumer Selling Here To Stay,” BSN 44, no. 4 (April 1933): 124, 130; John J. Coffey, “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.

56. 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.”

57. 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).

58. Mueller, Urban Home Ownership, 121, 127; Learned, Problems in Marketing, 49.

59. Learned, Problems in Marketing, 51.

60. 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. Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 201.

2. 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.

3. 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.

4. Editorial, The Home Modernizer 1, no. 1 (June 1929): n.p.

5. “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.

6. 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.

7. “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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

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), 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].

24. 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.

25. 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.”

26. At first, J-M required that company materials account for one quarter of the loan’s value, but this rule was later scrapped.

27. “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.

28. “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.

29. 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.

30. Ray Smythe, Memo to F.D.R. (Washington, DC: Columbia Publishers, 1935), 140; “Leaders to Study Housing Program,” NYT October 15, 1934.

31. 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.

32. “Brown for Business,” Time 26, no. 22 (November 25, 1935): 63–64; “Star Chamber,” 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.

33. “Would the Public Borrow?,” n.p.

34. 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.

35. 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.

36. “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.

37. 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.

38. “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.

39. “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.

40. “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.

41. 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 Johns-Manville Sales Corp., Management Handbook. The latter is Hood’s work, while briefer 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.

42. 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.

43. 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.

44. “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.

45. Johns-Manville Sales Corporation, Management Handbook, 47–48. Elsewhere in the handbook (79) the systematiser was described as the “chassis” of the guild “machine.”

46. 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.

47. 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.

48. 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.

49. “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).

50. 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.

51. 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.

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 (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).

65. 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.”

66. 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.

67. 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.

68. “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.

69. 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.

70. “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.

71. “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.

72. 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.

73. “Ontario Retailers Hold Annual,” AL 3087 (November 21, 1936): 40; “Office Strikes New Note in Appeal to Consumer,” AL 3082 (September 12, 1936): 40.

74. 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 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.

75. 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.

76. “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.

77. “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.

78. “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.

79. “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.

80. Sevin and Crowder, Wartime Dealer-Aid Programs, 1, 2, 16.

81. Sevin and Crowder, Wartime Dealer-Aid Programs, 38–41, 63–65.

82. 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. 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.

2. 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, 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.

3. “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.

4. “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.

5. 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.

6. U.S. Congress, National Housing Act, 23, 320, 24, 61, 171.

7. 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.

8. Ernest P. Jones, “Title I Lending: Past and Future,” IMP 9, no. 1 (1944): 12; “Owners Spending Cash for Repairs,” NYT November 11, 1934.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. “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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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.

15. 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.

16. Kenneth R. Wells, “Building Bank Business with Title I,” IMP 10, no. 4 (1946): 6.

17. 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, 1935 [file 203-6A, vol. 712, RG 19, LAC]; “Finds Great Need for Home Repairs,” NYT September 16, 1934.

18. “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.”

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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.

24. “Merchandising Practices,” 25; Bushman, “Dealer Business Under Title I,” 28–29; Cox, The Economics of Instalment Credit Buying, 345; Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 265.

25. 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.

26. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 22.

27. Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 476.

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. “Sales Resistance Overcome by Complete Job Quotation,” AL 3083 (September 26, 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.

31. 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].

32. 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].

33. 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].

34. “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].

35. 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.

36. 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 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 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 Working-Class 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.

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 Municipal Building Codes,” letter circular LC 377, National Bureau of Standards, Department of Commerce, Washington, DC [box 12, RG 167, NA].

49. 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.

50. 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.

51. 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.

52. Typical are Fish, “Housing Policy During the Great Depression,” and Semer et al.’s otherwise exhaustive and penetrating survey, “Evolution of Federal Legislative Policy.”

53. HHFA, Fourth Annual Report: Part 3: Federal Housing Administration (Washington, DC: USGPO, 1950), table 2.

54. 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 Research and Statistics, FHA, Washington, DC Mimeo [box 1, “Economic Data System,” 1936, 1941, 1943, RG 207, NA].

55. 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.

56. “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 owner-built. 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 owner-building 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.

57. 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.

58. 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 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 Owner-Built Home,” PJT April 21, 1940.

59. 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].

60. “New-structure Loans Under Title I,” IMP 2, no. 11 (May 1938): 12–13, 20–21.

61. “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.

62. “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.

63. 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.

64. “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 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. Arthur Miller, Timebends (New York: Grove Press, 1987), 183.

2. Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman (New York: Viking, 1958), 72, 74, 138.

3. Paul Corey, Buy an Acre (New York: Dial, 1944), vii, 199; Paul Corey, Build a Home (New York: Dial, 1946), 72.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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 small-scale 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”].

7. 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”” Maclean’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: McGraw-Hill, 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.

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, 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.

22. 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).

23. Leckey, Your Home, foreword; Dempewolff, Precut House, 18.

24. 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.

25. “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.

26. “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.

27. 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 York: Reinhold, 1954), 181; Larry Eisinger, How to Build and Contract Your Own Home (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett Publications, 1957).

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. Corey, Buy an Acre, 89, 200; Cobb, Your Dream Home, 5; Daniels, How to Build, 1.

31. 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.

32. 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 owner-builders. 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.

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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, 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 owner-builders. See Maisel, Housebuilding in Transition.

36. 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).

37. “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.

38. 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.

39. Corey, Homemade Houses, 67, 125, 247; Antanas Sileika, Buying on Time (Erin, ON: Porcupine’s Quill, 1997), 10, 22.

40. Interview with Mrs. Andrews, June 24, 1996. On British owner-builders see Harris, Unplanned Suburbs.

41. 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.”

42. 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.

43. 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.

44. 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): 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.

45. 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.

46. 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.”

47. 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.

48. 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.

49. Interview with Millard.

50. Corey, Buy an Acre, 181, 187; Homemade Homes, 119.

CHAPTER TEN

1. 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.

2. 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 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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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).

6. “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 How Cost Housing for Small Towns and Outlying Areas, FHA no. 492 (Washington, DC: FHA, 1963).

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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’: State-Assisted Self-Help Housing in Canada,” Planning Perspectives 17 (2002): 346, 349, 350, 351.

12. Cour, The Plywood Age, 91–93; Corey, Homemade Houses, 177; Livingstone, “The George Mongolds,” 104.

13. 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].

14. 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.

15. Murphy, New Housing, 28–29; Stanford Research Institute, America’s Demand for Wood, 35; Joseph Zaremba, Economics of the American Lumber Industry (New York: 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).

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. “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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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-It-Yourself Books’ Are Sucker Bait,” Home Builders Monthly 7, no. 6 (June 1950): 13.

22. Taylor and Thompson, Lumber Marketing Practices . . . No. 1, 1; Taylor and Thompson, 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.

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. “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.

26. 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.

27. “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.

28. 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.

29. 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].

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.

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 Pre-fabber,” 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.

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. “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.

2. “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.

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Maxine Livingstone, “Now It’s Nicer Than Ever,” PM 22, no. 2 (February 1947): 42–43, 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.

7. “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.

8. “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.

9. “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.

10. “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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. “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.

14. “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.

15. “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 Vast a Problem There Can Be No Quick, No Cheap, No Easy Solution,” H&H 4, no. 4 (October 1953): 103.

16. “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.

17. “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.

18. 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.

19. “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 Open-End Mortgage,” H&H 3, no. 1 (January 1953): 95; “Finance and Insurance,” SHG 25 (Winter 1950–Spring 1951): 101–103, 148, 202–205.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. “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.

23. “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.

24. United States Gypsum Co., Operative Remodeling: The New Profit Frontier for Builders (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.

25. 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.

26. “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.

27. “Home Rebuilders Form Unit on Long Island,” NYT October 6, 1957; “Home Improvers Hail Year’s Gains,” NYT February 2, 1957.

28. “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.

29. “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.”

30. Harris, Unplanned Suburbs; Goldstein, Do It Yourself; Gelber, “Do-It-Yourself.”

31. 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.

32. 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.

33. 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.

34. Betty Pepis, “Householders Get a Self-Help Show,” NYT March 17, 1953; “Personal and Otherwise,” Harper’s Magazine 207 (October 1953): 6, 8; Phil Creden, “America Rediscovers Its Hands,” American Magazine 156 (December 1953): 113.

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. “‘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-It-Yourself’ 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.

38. “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.

39. 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.

40. Enno R. Haan, How to Remodel Your Home (Chicago: Popular Mechanics Press, 1954), 8.

41. 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.

42. 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-Billion-Dollar 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 248 (23 July 1954): 21; “Do-It-Yourself Is Tamed for the Timid,” Business Week March 20, 1954: 150–151.

43. 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.

44. 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.

45. 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.”

46. Goldstein, Do It Yourself, 41; “Your Resilient Flooring Business,” BSN 92, no. 4 (May 1957): 117.

47. “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.”

48. “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.

49. “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.

50. 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.

51. Rodengen, The Legend, 96, 102; Goldstein, Do It Yourself, 54; Green, “Trade Promotion,” 28.

52. 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).

53. “Basic Policies”; MALA, Proceedings, 1954, 18 [Hagley]; “Handyman Sales Tips,” BSN 88, no. 3 (March 1955): 148.

54. “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].

55. “‘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.

56. 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 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).

57. “Mark Lumber Shows How to Promote ‘Do-It-Yourself,” BSN 88, no. 3 (March 1955): 157–160.

58. Ibid.; “Handyman Sales Tips”; “The Shoulder Trade”; “How To Conduct a Do-It-Yourself 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.

59. “‘Show ’Em How’ Boosts Handyman Sales; Contractors Benefit Too,” BSN 84, no. 1 (January 1953): 89, 90.

60. “Crowds Demand ‘Doubling Up’ of Dealer ‘How To’ School,” BSN 88, no. 5 (May 1955): 196.

61. “Built a Million Dollar Volume From the ‘Little Fellow,’” BSN 84, no. 4 (April 1952): 50–55.

CHAPTER TWELVE

1. Wiese, Places of Their Own.

2. MALA, Proceedings, 1955, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122, 126.

3. Ibid., 118, 122; “Self-Service Super Mart,” ALBPM 28 July 1952: 44–46, 94.

4. “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.

5. “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:

6. Marion Gough, “The High Hopes and the Hazards of Building With Your Own Hands,” House Beautiful 102 (July 1960): 72–73.

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).