Who designed your house? A technological and cultural history of conventional wood construction, 1790--1880.

摘要

Early versions of balloon frame construction method were built at the start of the nineteenth century, and by century's end, the technique was widespread. This study suggests that it was gradually established at the beginning of the 1800s in the unique circumstances of the Midwest frontier. It happened gradually and unevenly. Its adoption accelerated in the context of the multi-cultural and entrepreneurial frontier.; This study refutes the established hypothesis that balloon frame construction was “invented” in Chicago in 1833. Instead, the balloon frame resulted from multiple refinements of heterogeneous construction practices. These coalesced, with cultural consensus, into one more or less socially agreed upon way of building—“invention as closure.” What resulted was a radical, holistic revision and reconceptualization of technique. It was recognized as an invention at the moment of its initial agreement as a common cultural practice. In Chicago, this was 1833, in St. Louis it was earlier.; Documentary evidence suggests that the balloon frame existed elsewhere in 1833 and as early as 1784 in the Franco-American settlements along the Mississippi River. The etymology of “balloon” lies in Franco-American language and building practices in the region centered on St. Louis in the late eighteenth century.; Its origin and its initial development follow a model of the “cycle of hybridity.” It was spawned from multiple building traditions that were themselves gradually being refined in a multicultural frontier around the time of the Louisiana Purchase. The varied building practices interacted and overlapped to form the balloon frame. Its success was so vigorous that it replaced these earlier traditions almost completely.; Gradually, in the last half of the century, the arguments for adoption changed to ones for codification. Journals, builders' guides, and pattern books were all used to promote it as a nation-wide building practice—a key component in the technological organization of a massive system of design, production, and consumption of house-building. By the early twentieth century, the technique was so well established that light-wood framing techniques became almost entirely resistant to change and innovation.