Between city and suburb: The near urban neighborhood, technology, and the commodification of the American house, 1914-1934

Between city and suburb: The near urban neighborhood, technology, and the commodification of the American house, 1914-1934

architecture, housing, consumer culture, neighborhood, community, technology, urban history, planning, New Urbanism

This work offers a new perspective on the standard interpretation of suburbanization in the United States and provides a historical model within the literature of New Urbanism. The work investigates aspects of both the community and commodity of the “modern” home and what I refer to as the near urban neighborhood. During the early decades of the twentieth century, there was a fundamental change in the nature of housing in the United States. This change resulted in a new residential streets developed to be both automobile- and pedestrian-friendly; a new floor plan, what I refer to as a box for technology; and the commodification of the American home, equated with items such as the radio and automobile. The house itself, as it exists today, is a record of this change. In this study, architectural archaeology and an in depth investigation of one street in Columbus, Ohio, were used to gain historical insight about why the house changed. This study of eight primary artifacts (houses) was augmented by trade journals, plan books, and ladies’ magazines to show how the new house plan of the 1920s became standardized across the United States. These investigations showed that by the 1920s: 1. The house sat on a street. The street connected the house to services, often technological. And the neighborhood connected the house to community; 2. The house was a box for technology holding the appliances and artifacts connected to the systems on the street; 3. The box consisted of a series of rooms, each with its own technological appliances and devices; 4. Emergent middle-class families bought these homes. Evidence suggested that changes in technology became the common thread in the development of the new house type. The technological change within the near urban home was not a slow, progressive transition. The change was fast and revolutionary. By purchasing a near urban home, the homeowner bought and embraced the entire package of twentieth-century technology and culture. The home had become “modern” in both its plan and conception. And, builders and owners tied the idea of the “modern” home directly to the technology within.

Hitch, Neal V.

Ohio State University

2005

Burnham, John C. Advisor

en

Dissertation

http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1127144350

http://lallier.msh-vdl.fr/theses/items/show/1097

http://lallier.msh-vdl.fr/theses/archive/files/bdc50dc191525cee3f6b3d9718bb3bfc.jpg