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    Houses for a new world : builders and buyers in American suburbs, 1945-1965 / Barbara Miller Lane.

    • Title:Houses for a new world : builders and buyers in American suburbs, 1945-1965 / Barbara Miller Lane.
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    • Author/Creator:Lane, Barbara Miller, author.
    • Published/Created:Princeton : Princeton University Press, [2015]
    • Holdings

       
    • Library of Congress Subjects:Suburban homes--United States--History--20th century.
      Housing development--Social aspects--United States--History--20th century.
      Architecture and society--United States--History--20th century.
    • Description:xi, 305 pages : illustrations, maps, plans ; 26 cm
    • Summary:While the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, and their contemporaries frequently influences our ideas about house design at the midcentury, most Americans during this period lived in homes built by little-known builders who also served as developers of the communities. Often dismissed as "little boxes, made of ticky-tacky," the tract houses of America's postwar suburbs represent the twentieth century's most successful experiment in mass housing. Houses for a New World is the first comprehensive history of this uniquely American form of domestic architecture and urbanism. Between 1945 and 1965, more than thirteen million houses-most of them in new ranch and split-level styles-were constructed on large expanses of land outside city centers, providing homes for the country's rapidly expanding population. Focusing on twelve developments in the suburbs of Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Los Angeles, Barbara Miller Lane tells the story of the collaborations between builders and buyers, showing how both wanted houses and communities that espoused a modern way of life-informal, democratic, multiethnic, and devoted to improving the lives of their children. The resulting houses differed dramatically from both the European International Style and older forms of American domestic architecture. Based on a decade of original research, and accompanied by hundreds of historical images, plans, and maps, this book presents an entirely new interpretation of the American suburb. The result is a fascinating history of houses and developments that continue to shape how tens of millions of Americans live.
    • Notes:Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-294) and index.
    • ISBN:9780691167619 (hardback ; alkaline paper)
      0691167613 (hardback ; alkaline paper)
    • Contents:Prologue: Paraphrases of original buyers' recollections
      New houses and new communities
      West Coast builders : Los Angeles and Orange County
      East Coast builders : Philadelphia and Boston
      The builders of Chicago's Golden Corridor : Midwestern ranches and splits
      The buyers, their backgrounds, and their preferences
      Conclusion: Houses and suburbs transformed
      Appendix 1. Chronological list of Campanelli developments, Massachusetts and Rhode Island
      Appendix 2. Stoltzner business history
      Appendix 3. Interviews with original buyers or their children.
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