Homes in the Heartland: Balloon Frame Farmhouses of the Upper Midwest, 1850-1920
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
The production of dimension-cut lumber and machine-made nails that made balloon frame construction possible by the 1830s sparked a revolution in housing construction in the heart of the nation, the frontier farmlands of the Upper Midwest.
Balloon frame construction gradually replaced traditional methods of building with wood because the new way proved to be more economical and efficient than the mortice and tenon box frame. Farmer-builders and carpenters also realized that balloon frame construction afforded a more flexible approach to planning a house. They could add units to an original structure and adapt interior spaces of the house to suit varying functions in ways impossible in the traditional ways of building with wood, brick, or stone. Building a balloon frame house offered a choice to build a house that appeared to preserve a traditional shape or to construct a dwelling that expressed individuality and some innovation. Assembled of lightweight wooden studs, joists, and rafters, supported by foundation and sill, and fastened together with nails, the balloon frame was like a tightly woven basket in which each component strengthened the other as a tight and secure envelope of space.
In Homes in the Heartland, art historian Fred Peterson chronicles the balloon frame construction revolution as it spread from Chicago into Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, and across South Dakota and North Dakota. Farmers and carpenters were slow to accept the new, lightweight means of construction, Peterson notes, but by the end of the century they judged a balloon frame house to be virtually the only kind of structure for a proper home. Today ninety percent of the farmhouses in the region are of balloon frame construction.
Through photographs, house plans, and text, Peterson examines not only the technical side of farmhouse construction, but the social, economic, and aesthetic aspects as well. He analyzes changes in kinds of farmhouses in a context of evolving values that defined homelife, success, and rural community and examines the roles of ethnicity and social class in choice of home environment.
From the Back Cover
"More than a book about houses and house types, Homes in the Heartland is a prolonged scrutiny of the building and structuring of a whole region, and a revelation of the extant treasures made manifest to the disciplined eye. Fred Peterson has written a very fine book indeed, one ballasted by common sense combined with erudition--a rare combination."--John R. Stilgoe, author of Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820-1939
"This is a pioneering study of an important chapter in American architectural history that has hitherto been almost entirely neglected. Years of meticulous research and on-the-spot investigation have resulted in a comprehensive description of the structural nature of the balloon frame house, its innovative features, and its wide appeal to farmers and other settlers who had outgrown their original primitive houses. Although Peterson limits his investigation to the upper midwest, it is clear that he recognizes the almost universal popularity of the balloon frame and its influence on other types of building. The effect of this book will be a radical and much needed re-writing of much vernacular architectural literature and theory."--John Brinckerhoff Jackson, author of Discovering the Vernacular Landscape
Homes in the Heartland: Balloon Frame Farmhouses of the Upper Midwest, 1850-1920
Homes in the Heartland: Balloon Frame Farmhouses of the Upper Midwest, 1850-1920,Fred W. Peterson,University Press of Kansas,0700605363,Architecture,Architecture Of Specific Structures,Balloon framing,Design and construction,Domestic,Farmhouses,History,History: American,Middle West,U.S. Architecture - General
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