Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America
"Gwendolyn Wright is an architectural historian. In this volume she ignores the stately public buildings that generally capture the attention of her profession and concentrates entirely on the relatively neglected field of domestic architecture. She traces the design and styling of American homes and their relationship to contemporary ideas, technology, and society...."Roger Starr, New York Times book Review"This book is concerned essentially with the model of domestic environment in this country, as it has evolved from colonial architecture through current urban projects. Wright shows us the controversies surrounding 13 different kinds of housing at the time each was first adopted and what happened when they were generally accepted. Beginning with Puritan townscape, topics include urban row housing, Big House and slave quarters, factory housing, rural cottages, Victorian suburbs, urban tenements, apartment life, bungalows, company towns, planned residential communities, public housing for the poor, suburban sprawl. All are part of the American dream, all riddled with contradictory messages." AIA Journal