Houses and Homes: Exploring Their History (American Association for State and Local History Book Series) [Paperback]

Barbara Howe (Author), Dolores A. Fleming (Author), Emory L. Kemp (Author), Ruth Ann Overbeck (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 6, 1995

This volume in the Nearby History series helps the reader document the history of a home. The reader will learn to examine written records, oral testimonies, visual sources, and the house's surroundings. The author covers American housing patterns, the individual characteristics of houses in different regions, construction techniques and materials, household technology, and family life styles.

Houses and Homes is Volume 2 in The Nearby History Series.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Altamira Press (October 6, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0761989293
• ISBN-13: 978-0761989295
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #910,835 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Discovering the history of your home..., August 1, 2001

By 

Robin G. Sowton "rsowton" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Houses and Homes: Exploring Their History (American Association for State and Local History Book Series) (Paperback)

Whether you're interested in researching a house's history to start a historic neighborhood society or to aid your genealogical research, you'll find great details here for how to determine the age of a home.

The book explains how changes in technology and the American landscape affected home construction. Rooms used to have multiple functions until the Victorian era, when they became more specialized and each room acquired a specific function. Some functional rooms, such as the 'family room' and the garage would not appear until the end of WWII, as a result of the baby boom and increased mobility.

You will learn about common building methods and how homes in specific regions were affected by cultural and environmental influences.

There are also interesting anecdotes about unusual discoveries... such as the story about the woman who was puzzled about groove marks in the floor of a room, until she learned that the building had once been a dentist office, and the dentist used to roll the dental chair across the floor in that spot.

Each chapter contains a useful bibliography, and the section on finding written records is good too.