Customer Reviews

Do It Yourself: Home Improvement in 20th-Century America

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Who would have thought that a history of home improvements would have made such a fascinating read but Carolyn Goldstein has done it with her brief overview. Actually it could have ended up as a dry sociological look at the subject but with the pictorial content backing up the text and I thought 120 pages were about right.

Predictable the origins of DIY start decades ago, around 1900 but I tend to think the story really started in the post-war years and in particular from the Fifties. The exodus from the cities to the new suburbs across the Nation meant that homeowners could now change and improve their homes as they liked. The building and equipment trade recognized this and supplied products in convenient sizes and in consumer friendly retail units so that today an outfit like Home Depot has more than 1500 stores with thousands more independently owned or in regional chains.

A key development though was the electric drill. With this in amateur hands anything was possible (including a huge increase in accidents) and the number and range of attachments made the use of a professional handyman even less likely. But having the equipment and materials available you still have to know what to do. To the rescue came the 1951 Better Homes and Gardens Handyman's Book with over 1600 how-to-do-it pictures confirmed that anyone could repair or improvement their home. The book was a continuous seller for over three decades. Today Amazon has a several hundred books on various aspects of DIY available.

Goldstein's text is backed up with an interesting selection of images: period interior photos; trade ads; brochures; handyman magazine covers and contemporary news photos. The lively design works well and I thought the book an interesting look back at home improvements.

***SEE SOME INSIDE PAGES by clicking 'customer images' under the cover.