Paul Revere Williams
Through Time
The Timeline illustrates how material history, society and the work of one person, Paul R. Williams, integrate and interact. Small changes in society, architecture or life may seem inconsequential, but when connected a powerful picture emerges. The Timeline illustrates how many forces shape our modern life. Williams’ life did not form in isolation but was a product of complex energies in society, his profession and within himself.
Timeline
Choose a Time Period
1870
First Skyscraper
When was the skyscraper built and what building can rightfully be called the first skyscraper?
Awarding the title of the first skyscraper is debated among architectural historians, architects and engineers. Just having height is not enough for the building to be called a skyscraper. It is equally important to make a building livable and useable (These were developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries). All elements were brought together in one building in 1870.
Engineer George B. Post completes the Equitable Life Assurance Building in New York and is credited with designing the first example of a skyscraper in the United States. Using a skeletal-iron-frame as the structural system, the building reaches a height of 7-1/2 stories. In addition to the building’s height the other elements designer Post includes are elevators to move visitors up and down, plumbing, heating and electrical that service the top floors. With these services, tall buildings are habitable and owners can charge premium rents. (image L)
The building is destroyed in 1912 by a fire (image R).
A Decade at a Glance
The U.S. population is 39,818,449.
The nation celebrates the centennial in 1876 by opening an International Exhibition in Philadelphia with exhibits of the latest American technology. (image)
Thomas Edison invents the phonograph and the light bulb. Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone. Barbed wire is invented. This wire is the first economical way to fence-in cattle in the western U.S. Charles Elmer Hires introduces the first commercial root beer.
The 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—guaranteeing the right to vote regardless “of race, color, or previous condition of servitude”— is adopted. California votes against ratification.
The Great Chicago Fire claims 250 lives, destroys 17,500 buildings and causes an economic panic that moves across the country..
Charley Brewster Ross, 4-years old, is the country’s first kidnapping for ransom. He is never found.
1871
Great Chicago Fire
On the evening of October 8 in 1871, Chicago is engulfed by fire. The windy and dry conditions blow sparks over the city of predominately wooden buildings and wood covered streets. With inadequate equipment and not enough men, fire fighters are not able to contain the fire. The conflagration burns for three days killing hundreds and destroying approximately 4 square miles of the city. Property loss is estimated at over $250 million and 90,000 people are homeless. The Great Chicago Fire is one of the largest U.S. disasters of the 19th century.
Architecture after the great chicago fire
Louis Sullivan and his partner Dankmar Adler are instrumental in rebuilding Chicago after the Great Fire in 1871. Adler is a civil engineer known for his expertise in acoustics especially for theaters and houses of worship. Sullivan’s architectural designs foreshadow the Modern Movement in architecture. Though he coins the phrase “form ever follows function,” a phrase the Modernist embrace as buildings without decoration, his use of decorative elements puts him outside of the Modernist Movement.
Before partnering with Adler, Sullivan works for William LeBaron Jenney, a pioneer in skeleton construction. Though the firm of Adler and Sullivan is considered a leader in the “Chicago School of Architecture” they design buildings in many other American cities including the Wainwright Building in St. Louis. Sullivan’s work and ideas influence Frank Lloyd Wright.
The rebuilding of Chicago after the Great Fire is one of Adler and Sullivan’s greatest accomplishments.The devastation caused by the fire provides them with a blank canvas to experiment with new building technologies and nonflammable materials. The Chicago Tribune wrote of the task of rebuilding the city, “In the midst of a calamity without parallel in the world’s history, looking upon the ashes of thirty years’ accomplishmnets, the people of this once beautiful city have resolved that CHICAGO SHALL RISE AGAIN!.”
1875
William Watts Sherman House, Rhode Island
The William Watts Sherman House in Rhode Island is the American prototype of the shingled Tudor manor house. With an exterior finish predominately shingled, the front façade does include the typical Tudor half-timbering detail. Henry Hobson Richardson (R) is the architect and Stanford White designs the interior. According to the Historic American Building Survey, this 1875 house popularizes this English architectural style in America. The Tudor style becomes popular for single family homes in the 1920s and 1930s and revived again in the 1970s and 1980s.
Trinity Episcopal Church, Boston
Trinity Episcopal Church in Boston, Massachusetts, is an example of Romanesque architecture in the United States according to the Historic American Building Survey. Designed by architect Henry Hobson Richardson, the church is considered his greatest work in this style.
Edison Invents the Light Bulb
In 1875 Thomas A. Edison establishes an experimental laboratory in Menlo Park, New Jersey. He envisions the laboratory as a facility dedicated to pure invention. Menlo Park is one of the first modern industrial research labs. An early interest is the incandescent light bulb.
Edison envisions economical/practical electrical lighting to improve the everyday lives of Americans. He believes the key is an efficient incandescent lamp. Incandescent lamps make light by heating a filament (thin strip of material) until it glows. From 1878 to 1880 Edison and his team conduct 3000 experiments to learn how to make this lamp. In 1879 Edison succeeds by inventing his first high resistance, incandescent electric light. Made of a thin platinum filament, mounted in a glass vacuum, the bulb produces light, but only for a short time. Edison continues to experiment with thousands of different substances until he finds a suitable, durable material to use for the filament. Patent number 223,898 is given to his successful electric lamp.
By the 1930s the U.S. Government purchases an average of 4,000,000 light bulbs a year for use in government buildings. In this photograph the National Bureau of Standards does a variety of quality tests to determine the amount of light lamps provide and how long they last.
Leiter I Building, Chicago
According to Historic American Building Survey, the first Leiter Building, built 1879, is a Chicago Architectural Landmark. William LeBaron Jenney is the architect. The building is a landmark because it contributed to the development of skeleton construction. Constructed of cast iron pilasters from the foundation to the roof, the building could be built taller. Jenney’s skeleton construction, replacing stone and brick, is an important engineering advance that leads to skyscrapers.
1880
Decade at a Glance
The 1880 Census counts 50,155,783 people living in the country.
More Americans leave the farm and work in factories. Over 300,000 workers demonstrate for an 8-hour work day. The American Federation of Labor, an organization of skilled workers, is founded.
The first building with a steel skeleton is constructed in Chicago and the Age of the Skyscraper begins.
Booker T. Washington opens the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
Railroads in the United States and Canada adopt a standard time.
The Johnstown Flood in Pennsylvania kills 2,295 people.
Edison power plant opens
On September 4, 1882, Thomas Edison’s (L) power plant in New York City generates and distributes electric power to 59 customers. It is viewed as a high tech wonder. The power plant and its transmission lines are financed by banker John Pierpont Morgan. (Morgan’s New York residence is the first private home in America to be illuminated by electricity.) By funding Edison’s power plant, this financier is instrumental in opening a new technological era in America.
Paul R. Williams writes about important developments in electric lighting in his 1945 book The Small Home of Tomorrow. “New methods of indirect lighting built into the design of the room with tiny concealed adjustable spot lights for reading areas will be one of the post war developments.”
1882
1883
Brooklyn Bridge
In 1883 the New York and Brooklyn Bridge opens connecting Manhattan with Brooklyn. Engineered by John A. Roebling’s Sons Co. This structure crossing the East River is one of the first steel cable suspension bridges completed in the U.S. Still in use today the bridge is one of the oldest surviving examples of a suspension bridge.
1884
Paul Williams’ father, Chester Stanley Williams, works at the original Peabody Hotel at the corner of Main and Monroe as a waiter from 1884 through 1893.
In the 1880s popular author Helen Hunt Jackson writes a historical novel to draw attention to the mistreatment of Native Americans by Anglo society. The novel is set in an exotic Southern California locale virtually unknown to the rest of the country. The real setting for Jackson’s best selling book Ramona is La Casa Del Rancho Camulos near Piru. (The actual rancho is owned by the socially prominent Del Valle family.) Her detailed descriptions of Rancho Camulos popularizes the California style of architecture and creates a romantic vision of the state’s Spanish past. From the 1880s through the 1920s the Spanish-revival and Mission style of architecture is one of the most popular in the United States for homes, businesses and public buildings. Paul R. Williams designs scores of buildings in this style.
Tourists come by train and automobile from across the country to visit the real Ramona house, wedding chapel and rancho. Eventually the Del Valle family sell their rancho due to the crush of thousands of uninvited visitors who disrupt their working ranch and citrus business. By the 1920s many Southern California towns and businesses seek to cash-in on the Ramona craze by naming parks, streets, gardens, and even hotels after Hunt’s heroine. (Annals of the Association of American Geographers. December, 2003) The novel Ramona, is reissued over 300 times and is in print today. In 1910 D.W. Griffith directs the first film based on the novel and shot on location at Rancho Camulos. Two other motion pictures and an opera are also based on the novel.
These photographs, courtesy of the Historic American Building Survey (HABS), document La Casa Del Rancho Camulos and are held in the Library of Congress.
1886
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is dedicated in 1886 on Liberty Island in New York Harbor. The colossal neoclassical sculpture is a gift to the United States from the people of France. Frederic Auguste Bartholdi designs the statute to represent the Roman goddess of freedom who holds a torch and tablet inscribed with the date of the American Independence. The pedestal and base are designed by American Richard Morris Hunt and 120,000 contributors donate funds to complete the project. The pedestal design contains classical elements and is made of poured concrete faced with granite blocks. In 1886 the pedestal is the largest poured concrete project in the country. Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of New York’s Central Park, designs the landscape around the statue.
Chester S. Williams, Paul R. Williams’ father, opens a confectionary shop with John Brame at 163 Beale Street in Memphis, Tennessee. A confectionary store sells sweet foods including candy, cakes, pastries, candy fruits and ice cream.
Today Abe Schwab’s, a dry goods store, is located at 163 Beale Street.
Cotton Consumed
Costly fire destroys bales of cotton in Memphis. Cotton from West Tennessee is transported to the Mississippi River where it is loaded and shipped to textile plants to make cloth.
William G. Low House, Rhode Island
The William G. Low House in Rhode Island designed by McKim, Mead and White is a key example of Shingle-style architecture. Built in 1887, this one-and-a-half story summer house continues the area’s long tradition of wood construction. The massive and low-pitched overall gable form is covered with shingles. The shingle covering is the source for the name of this architectural style.
The principles in the architectural firm McKim, Mead and White are known for their Beaux Arts designs at the turn of the 20th century. Charles Follen McKim, William Rutherford Mead and Stanford White are powerful arbiters of elegance for the wealthy.
The Old Missions
The Times (Los Angeles), January 26, 1889
“Kate Field has written a pleasant letter…in which she discourses of the winter resorts of California, and also refers to those old monuments of a past civilization still remaining in our midst. She says: ‘There appeared in the New York Critic a communication to the effect that the much vaunted missions of California were architecturally beneath contempt, and that Helen Hunt Jackson was indebted to her fancy for her praise of these ruins….If there be churches elsewhere as picturesque as the restored mission at Santa Barbara or the (alas!) unrestored San Luis Rey… I know not there existence.’ “
Casa de Rancho Camulos, pictured here, is an example of a California mission immortalized in Helen Hunt Jackson’s novel Ramona.
1887
1889
Leiter II Building, Chicago
In 1889 William LeBaron Jenney constructs the second Leiter Building in Chicago, one of the largest commercial structures in the world. This building refines skeletal construction. The Historic American Building Survey describes the design of this building as clear, confident and distinctive.
1890
1893
1892
1891
Decade at a Glance
The U.S. population expands to 62,947,714.
The financial panic of 1893 causes the worst economic depression in American history at that time. Jacob Coxey leads his army of 6000 unemployed men on a march on Washington, D.C. Williams Jennings Bryan electrifies the Democratic Presidential Convention with his “Cross of Gold” speech and wins the nomination.
The boll weevil arrives in the Texas cotton fields.
The battleship Main blows up and sinks in Cuba triggering the Spanish-American War.
Biddy Mason Dies
At the time of her death Biddy Mason, a former slave born in 1818, is one of the largest real estate holders in Los Angeles. She helps found the First AME Church in the city and contributes to many charitable causes.
In 1964 Williams, a member of the First AME Church, contributes plans for the new building pictured.
Wainwright Building, St. Louis
The U-shaped Wainwright Building, a ten-story office building in downtown St. Louis, is constructed using a steel skeleton. The exterior is finished with elaborate red brick and terracotta. This embellished exterior is similar to Paul R. Williams’ treatment of the Edwin Building in 1928. The Wainwright Building is designed by the Chicago firm Sullivan and Adler.
Monadnock Block
Monadnock Block in Chicago is one of the tallest and last buildings constructed of solid masonry. This wall-bearing building with cast iron columns did not use steel framing, which would become a standard for tall building construction.
Ida B Wells
Ida B. Wells, editor of the Memphis African American newspaper Free Speech and Headlight, uses journalism as a weapon against lynching and racial bigotry. In her 1892 pamphlet Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in All Its Phases she writes, “Nothing is more definitely settled than he must act for himself … The gods help those who help themselves.”
Frisco Bridge across Mississippi River at Memphis
On May 12, 1892, the Frisco Bridge in Memphis, Tennessee opens one year before Chester and Lila Williams move to Los Angeles. It is the first bridge to span the lower Mississippi River and the crowning achievement for chief engineer George S. Morison. Hundreds attend the opening ceremonies to watch the first locomotive cross the bridge. The railroad bridge links commerce from eastern markets to the west.
When constructed, steel is a new material for large projects. The cantilevered bridge features a 790-foot span with two smaller 600-foot spans. At 65 feet above the river, the Frisco Bridge has the highest clearance of any bridge in the United States. The piers are 100 feet below the surface of the river.
US Post Office, Washington, D.C.
The U. S. Post Office Building is constructed in Washington, D.C. from 1892 through 1899 under the supervision of architect Willoughby J. Edbrooke. The building is the first of ten planned governmental buildings built in the Federal Triangle formed by 15th Street NW, Constitution Avenue NW, Pennsylvania Avenue NW, and E Street NW. Many of these buildings are architecturally important and the Post Office building is one of the few examples of Richardson Romanesque in the U.S. Capital and the only govenment building in this style.
Built of Maine granite, the building’s most prominante architectural feature is a chateau roof with a 315 foot high clock tower centered in the main facade. The building’s turretted corners, fenestration treatment and ornamnetal dormers are typical of the Romanesque style. The nine story open central court is covered by ornamental iron trusses and houses a bank of open cage elevators. The large glass skylight floods the interior with light.
Paul R. Williams’ parents, Chester and Lila, move to Los Angeles with Paul’s older brother, Chester Stanley Williams, Jr. His parents open a fruit stand on Olvera Street. (LA Times, February 28, 1993) Olvera Street is one of the oldest sections of downtown Los Angeles.
Coming to California
Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1893
John S. Lovell arranges to bring African Americans to California from the South in the belief that “there are too many colored people in the South and they need to go to newer States and Territories to get homes.”
Plentiful and inexpensive land provides opportunities for African American emigrants moving to Los Angeles.
Hale Woodruff and Charles Alston paint murals illustrating African American contributions to California history. The 1949 murals depict these early California emigrants in Paul R. Williams’ designed Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building.
Coming to California
Los Angeles Times, June 5, 1893
John S. Lovell arranges to bring African Americans to California from the South in the belief that “there are too many colored people in the South and they need to go to newer States and Territories to get homes.”
Plentiful and inexpensive land provides opportunities for African American emigrants moving to Los Angeles.
Hale Woodruff and Charles Alston paint murals illustrating African American contributions to California history. The 1949 murals depict these early California emigrants in Paul R. Williams’ designed Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Building.
1900s
`The American Negro At Paris As Reported by W.E. Du Bois
The American Monthly Review of Reviews, Vol. XXII, 1900
“On the banks of the Seine … stands a large, plain white building, where the promoters of the Paris Exposition have housed the world’s ideas of sociology. As a matter of fact, any one … would be rather disappointed at the exhibit … The United States section of this building is small, and not, at first glance particularly striking … In the right-hand corner, however is an exhibit which, more than others in the building is sociological in the larger sense of the term … This is the exhibit of American Negroes, planned and executed by Negroes … We have thus … an honest, straightforward exhibit of a small nation of people, picturing their life and development without apology or gloss, and above all made by themselves.”The American Monthly Review of Reviews, Vol. XXII, 1900
“On the banks of the Seine … stands a large, plain white building, where the promoters of the Paris Exposition have housed the world’s ideas of sociology. As a matter of fact, any one … would be rather disappointed at the exhibit … The United States section of this building is small, and not, at first glance particularly striking … In the right-hand corner, however is an exhibit which, more than others in the building is sociological in the larger sense of the term … This is the exhibit of American Negroes, planned and executed by Negroes … We have thus … an honest, straightforward exhibit of a small nation of people, picturing their life and development without apology or gloss, and above all made by themselves.”
When he is 6-years-old, Williams attends Sentous Avenue Grammer School on Pico Boulevard. He writes about this school later in his life and says that he is the only African American student in his class.
In the 1900 U.S. Census Los Angeles is ranked 36th in the nation based on population. Slightly more than 102,000 residents live in Los Angeles and of that number only 3,131 are Negroes.
As a comparison, Neyland Stadium at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, seats 102,000.
Troy Orphan Asylum, chapel, Troy NY
Herbert Langford Warren, an MIT educated architect, designs the Troy Orphan Asylum chapel in Troy, NY—an example of Gothic revival-style architecture.
As a young man, Warren travels in Europe and England studying, sketching and measuring country churches. Many of these churches are destroyed during World War I. Warren wants to recreate this style of church in America. Warren is described by his contemporaries as a “Goth at heart” eventhough he works in H. H. Richardson’s office, an architectural firm known for Romanesque style. (Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Science, 1933)
Warren helps develop the Architectural School at Harvard.
Decade at a Glance
Only 76,000,000 Americans live in 46 states. The average life expectancy for white men and women is 47. African Americans live an average of 33 years.
The horse and buggy is slowly replaced by the automobile. Nationally there are 8000 automobiles traveling on 10 miles of paved roads. Ninety-six people die in car-related accidents. Fifteen states impose speed limits of 20 miles per hour.
In 1904 there are only three automobiles in Hollywood, California and most residents still travel via real horse power. With an improved paved infrastructure and a new rail system, horses are replaced in Hollywood by cars and a Trackless Trolley. (Dangcil. Hollywood 1900-1950, 2000)
American workers make $12.98 per week for 59-hours work
1901
Washington Invited to White House for dinner with President
Los Angeles Times October 21, 1901, “Southerners Are Not All Superheated”
Booker Washington Incident Greatly Magnified. President Did Not Invite Him in Order to Establish Rare Equality–Many White People in the South Congratulate Him.
Los Angeles Times October 28, 1901, “The Memphian ‘Storm Center’”
According to the Memphis Commercial Appeal, that city is “the storm of indignation” on account of the acceptance by Booker T. Washington of an inviation to dine with the President.
Washington’s Up from Slavery is published and he is invited to the White House for dinner by President Theodore Roosevelt resulting in both positive and negative news reports across the country.
Washington, a founder of the Tuskegee Institute in Georgia, is considered the most important African American educator of the 19th century. Paul R. Williams acknowledges the importance of this African American hero by including a bust of Booker T. Washington on the facade of his 28th Street YMCA designed in 1926.
1902
Novel Plans For Building. Modern Acropolis for Los Angeles?
Los Angeles Times, July 13, 1902
“Plans have been prepared for the erection of an apartment building in Los Angeles upon a scale so much larger than any yet attempted to be almost monumental…The proposition is to build an eight-story, steel frame, concrete and glass fire proof structure with a basement and glass canopied roof…Those desiring to secure apartments must first be admitted into membership in a club… to be named ‘The Twentieth Century Club.’ Requirements for membership will be that the person is of good moral character, subject to no contagious or infectious diseases, not of negro or Chinese blood or descent… in case the person shall have children, he may deposit not less than $10 with the superintendent, which money may be available to make any repairs necessitated by the occupancy of apartment by children. The architects are Associated Architects and Engineers.”
Flatiron or Fuller Building in New York
The Fuller Building at 175 Fifth Avenue in New York is completed in 1902. The Chicago architectural firm of Daniel H. Burnham & Company designs the 22-floor building as a speculative project. Burnham uses a steel frame, covered in a non-load-bearing limestone and terra cotta facade with a mixture of French and Italian Renaissance ornamentation. The building of copper-clad windows and pale-colored bricks is topped by a series of arches and columns with a heavy projected cornice and flat balustraded roof. The unusual design creates the illusion of a freestanding colossal column. The design and extensive use of steel in the construction causes a general “buzz” in New York.
Though officially called the Fuller Building, the building is renamed the Flatiron by the public because of its unusual shape. Burnham’s triangular shaped building is his solution to an awkward building site.
1904
Negroes Sue For Lost Rights
Los Angeles Times, January 7, 1904
“Judge Richmond Waddill of the United States Circuit Court has transferred from this city from Norfolk three suits at common law entered by colored residents of this State who ask damages of $5,000 each from the Governor, members of the recent constitutional convention and election officers for the alleged deprivation of rights under the new constitution.”
Richard Waddill is one of the men seen in this group photograph of the United State Circuit Court Judges from the 1900s. The Library of Congress is an excellent source for images of America’s history.
Howard B. Gates House, San Jose
The Gates House in San Jose, California is designed by architect Bernard Maybeck for physicians Howard and Amelia Gates in 1904. The chalet form of the house with historical details is inspired by the large stand of trees on the site. Though Maybeck’s 3-story design is larger than other residences in the area, he crafts the exterior of the home to appear smaller and fit with the character of the upper middle-class neighborhood. The architect’s open living design for the interior includes an oversized fireplace and dramatic staircase—radical for turn-of-the-century San Jose, but popular in many mid-century California homes.
Bernard Maybeck is an Ecole des Beaux-Arts trained architect who becomes the first professor of architecture at the University of California at Berkeley (1898-1903). He opens an office in San Francisco specializing in homes and large public buildings incorporating innovative building materials such as native woods, over-sized windows and handcrafted details in an eclectic and personal style.
1905
Discrediting the Auto
Los Angeles Times, February 2, 1905
“The automobile is a useful vehicle and its usefulness will probably grow as time passes…The automobile is still in an infantile stage of development. Clumsy, crude and costly as they are…there is an extensive field for self-propelling vehicles…”
At the turn of the 20th century the automobile is used primarily for recreation by wealthy Americans. The fuel or gasoline is sold to car owners at drugstores. In 1905 the first business (or filling station) dedicated to dispensing gas or oil directly to the motorist opens at 412 S. Theresa Avenue in St. Louis, Missouri.
Automobile ownership increases after Henry Ford mass produces an affordable vehicle for the American middle class. With middle class ownership the demand for filling stations increases and more Americans can “motor” anywhere there are roads.
Access to gas stations allows the average person to build his home anywhere the car can take him. In The Small Home of Tomorrow (1945), Paul R. Williams writes about the importance of the car to Americans … including designated space for the car in their homes. “In a house of more extreme modern lines the carporte, or automobile shelter, has been made a feature of the exterior design.”
1906
Angel City Second in Number of Buildings
Los Angeles Examiner, March 11, 1906
“It certainly is a remarkable fact that the average building in Los Angeles costs $1,000 less than in the city having the next lowest average (Brooklyn). This is not because there is a lack of fine buildings in this city, but it is due solely to the fact that this is a city in which each family has its own cottage out in the open. A building in most other cities means a tenement in which many families are herded together, but in Los Angeles it means the addition of another home for a single family on a 50 foot lot, with plenty of sunshine and fresh air.”
In 1906 the Los Angeles city “boosters” tout the advantages of Southern California living in this newspaper article. This photograph from the Library of Congress shows an example of a Brooklyn tenement the article describes.
Unity Church, Oak Park
The Unity Church is built for the Unitarian-Universalist congregation in Oak Park, Illinois. Designed by architect Frank Lloyd Wright in the temple form, his intent is to create a space primarily for the worship and service of God but with the flexiblity to serve man.
This church, Wright’s earliest experiment in the use of reinforced concrete and steel, is considered the first large scale example using these materials in the United States. Because of the church’s limited financial resources, the architect pursuades his clients of the economy and appropriateness of the reinforced concrete and steel for their project. To counteract the material’s “dead surfaces” Wright washes the exterior exposing the pebble aggregate for a tactile affect and then paints the exterior. Wright continues to be interested in concrete as an economical building medium for residential and commercial buildings.
1908
Master Paul R. Williams graduates
The Freeman July 18, 1908 (Indianapolis, Indiana)
“Master Paul R. Williams, the adopted son of Mr. and Mrs. C. I. Clarkson, of Los Angeles, Cal., graduated with honor from the Sentons Street School of that city. He was the only colored pupil…”
Automobiles brought to the masses
The Ford Model T (Tin Lizzie) rolls off the assembly line in 1908. This affordable automobile opens travel to middle-class America.
The Gamble House, Pasadena
The Gamble House in Pasadena, California is the finest surviving example of the architectural work by Greene & Greene. The firm’s California Bungalow-style residence is a summer home for David Gamble (Proctor & Gamble soap company) completed in 1908 for $50,000. The three-story vacation retreat is pegged and doweled, wood framed construction covered with olive green cedar shingle siding. Typical of the bungalow-style, the interior is spacious and open with oak hardwood floors, teakwood and mahogany paneling, lath and plaster walls. A local newspaper describes the home as “somewhat Japanese in feeling.” In addition to the house plans, Greene & Greene provides the owner with furniture; all decorative hardware and lighting fixtures; and textile selections for rugs, curtains, upholstery from their artisan shop. Many of the windows have custom Tiffany glass panels.
The Gamble House is the setting for Doc’s home in the 1985 movie Back to the Future.
The Greene brothers (Charles Sumner Greene and Henry Mather Greene) are the leaders in the American Arts and Crafts aesthetic movement and important in establishing Southern California as a center for this style. With an emphasis on craftsmanship instead of machined mass-production, their open, harmonious designs are a reaction to the clutter of the 19th century Victorian home. A perfect fit for the California climate, the Greene & Greene style is quickly adapted for other regions and spreads across America.
Sears Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans
The Sears Catalog is an icon of American business. Founded by Richard Warren Sears and Alvah Curtis Roebuck, this mail order business is a revolutionary retail model before the advent of the chain store. Through the catalog the company sells everything for home, farm and family to anyone with a mailbox.
In 1908 Sears issues the first speciality catalog for houses—Book of Modern Homes and Building Plans. The Modern Home catalog advertises three separate lines of homes featuring 22 architectural styles for customers with different financial means. The hundreds of choices and combinations encourages the buyer to custom design his house. Mass-production and precut/prefitted materials shrink the construction time and costs making home ownership possible for more Americans. With prices from $650 to $2,500 Sears offers the home buyer a complete package: design plans, building materials, fixtures and “no-money-down” financing. By 1930 the catalog proclaims Sears as the “World’s Largest Home Builders.” From 1908 until 1940, Sears sells over 100,000 ready-to-assemble houses.
Sears’ Modern Homes catalog becomes the model for merchandising prefabricated buildings. Paul R. Williams designs plans for the 1930s Lea Steel Home catalog that are used in the construction of El Reno Apartments. His catalog plans are also all inclusive.
Frederick C. Robie House, Chicago
The Robie House in Chicago is an early example of residential work by architect Frank Lloyd Wright. Wright’s design — later called the Prairie-style — is created for manufacturing executive Frederick C. Robie and his wife Lora in 1909. Wright is inspired by his client’s “unspoiled instincts and untainted ideals” and designs this house to serve Robie’s grand ideas for an expensive residence.
The design, tailored to fit the Robies’ narrow, corner lot (60 x 180), shocks neighbors. They compare the radical long and low red-orange brick building to a steamship—two rectangles (or vessels) abutting with the central chimney locking the pieces together. In this Prairie-style home, Wright organizes the interior around a great limestone hearth under the wide sweeping roof. The open interior illustrates Wright’s new philosophy of domestic design: he combines a feeling of shelter with an organic connection to the surroundings. Wright controls every aspect of the home’s design infusing the final product with his new aesthetic ideas.
In the Robie House Frank Lloyd Wright uses steel beams to stretch the walls twenty feet. The wood rafters rest directly on the steel. This use of steel in residential construction is a first.