Eventually fuses and breakers led to increased levels of safety in comparison with candles and oil lamps. Today, everything from sprinklers to your favorite appliance depends upon internal wiring, and only blackouts hint of the after-dark nature of homes from just a century ago. Today's two most common home building materials no less than revolutionized the economics of housing. Both are sturdy, lightweight alternatives to the board sheathing and plaster used early this century.
Moreover, these mass-produced panels in a standardized size cut down drastically on installation labor by eliminating extra handling, skilled finishing and a lot of cutting. The result: Buildings that go up faster, cost less to produce and, in most cases, are stronger and more flexible than those of the past. The most famous mass-produced housing development in the nation, Levittown remains the symbol for tract-home communities. Located some 30 miles east of New York City on Long Island, the 6,acre tract of more than 17, homes was developed from to While the concept of carbon-copy homes was not new, Levittown raised knock-off housing to an art form.
In this century, the "throw-away society" approach to housing has become as uniquely American as our building efforts. Today, wood floors are charming, but in the 19th century they were the only option. Then along came synthetic fibers, and suddenly we could afford to fill our homes with plush, wall-to-wall carpeting.
What seems today like little more than a convenience altered the way our homes look and function. But once you became dependent on mechanical cooling, those passive features tended to disappear.
You wouldn't want to live in Houston or Tucson without it," Tarr says. The 20th century brought about the first formal efforts to curb hazards in the home. Lead-free paints, building codes, and asbestos removal are some of the dramatic examples, but even subtle changes have been made with safety in mind. Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from.
By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. By Dan Cray. They can be asked to look first at column headings, then down the columns. Although the tasks do not directly ask pupils to make comparisons, it is likely that they will do so anyway. The largest differences are between the photos. The activity presented here can be extended with illustrations of the interiors of rich and poor housing.
Suitable for: Key stage 2 , Key stage 3 Time period: Victorians Download: Lesson pack Related resources 19th century people What can we tell from this photograph?
This website uses cookies We place some essential cookies on your device to make this website work. Set cookie preferences. Skip to Main Content. Search our website Search Discovery, our catalogue. View lesson as PDF. View full image. Lesson at a glance. Was there much difference between rich and poor homes? Tasks 1. Look at Source 1.
This is a map of Hackney from What things does it show? Are all the streets the same width? What work places are shown? Are there any parks or open fields, schools or churches? Can you find Conduit Street off Rossington Street? Look at Source 2. This is a photograph of Caroline Cottages, Conduit Place, taken around the s. Are these homes for the rich or the poor? Decorating an old house teaches you what the "modern" meant years ago. The modern houses of the early s in America represented several streams of architectural thinking that still support and stimulate today's home designs.
Learning about the intentions and principles underlying the design of your house lets you decorate it in ways that respect both the concept of modern that was and the modern that is. The first decades of the 20th century saw the decline of Victorian home styles in both Britain and America, in favor of the Arts-and-Crafts school of design.
English domestic design, dominated by William Morris, stressed simplicity, craftsmanship and relation to nature. When it comes to early s home decor, nature-based textile and paper designs became enormously popular in England and influenced American designers.
Emphasis on local natural materials and simple designs became guiding fundamentals of the related Mission and Prairie schools of design. Other common styles included the small-scale bungalow and larger American Foursquare and Colonial Revival. Whether the style of your s house remains intact or has been remodeled, some decorative elements were common to nearly all post-Victorian styles. The houses were literally back-to-back.
The back of one house joined onto the back of another and they only had windows on one side. The bottom room was used as a living room cum kitchen. The two rooms upstairs were used as bedrooms. The worst homes were cellar dwellings. These were one-room cellars. They were damp and poorly ventilated.
The poorest people slept on piles of straw because they could not afford beds. However, housing conditions gradually improved.
In the s local councils passed by-laws banning cellar dwellings. They also banned any new back to backs. The old ones were gradually demolished and replaced over the following decades.
Usually, they had two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. The downstairs front room was kept for the best. The family kept their best furniture and ornaments in this room.
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