At 11:04 AM +1100 10/30/00, Denis Gojak wrote:
>
>Prefabricated houses (generally timber, but also corrugated iron,
>oil cloth on timber frame and, amazingly, papier-mache!) were common
>imports on shipping lists from the mid 19th century in Australia,
>from a range of sources, including many from Southeast Asia, known
>as 'Singapore houses'.

In Iceland I lived in a house that had been made in Norway. It seems
that late in the nineteenth century, Norwegian farmers would build
houses in their barns and then sell them to brokers who would come
around at a certain time of the year. The houses were then bundled up
and shipped to Iceland. Since they came from different little
sawmills all over Norway, there was no such thing as a standard
material. Just try to match up old materials when you are remodelling
one of these! Everything has to be made special, except the hardware.
The Icelanders are still bringing in frame houses, but they're not as
sturdy as concrete or turf against the wind.

During the California gold rush, houses were shipped around the Horn.
In Mathews County, Virginia, there is a "California" house that was
salvaged from a Chesapeake Bay shipwreck.

But even the most sophisticated prefab house of that era doesn't, in
my mind, qualify as a DIY in the modern sense. First there were
standardized materials, and books with lots of fashionable plans.
Then there were factories churning out identical parts. Then there
were standard modular parts. These all helped the professional
builder.

When John Q. Public got a 40-hour week, with a whole two-day weekend
off, he could go to the hardware store and get a box of something, or
a can of something, with instructions for use. Or maybe he could go
to his trusty Sears Roebuck catalogue and order anything from a
newfangled cement block machine to a whole house, with detailed
construction instructions.

Old-timey lumber yards were not places for amateurs, even as recently
as the 1950s, hereabouts. Then came the home centers, which merged
the hardware store and the lumber yard in a consumer friendly
installation.

So it seems to me that the original question needs to be refined, and
made more precisely relevant to the archaeological material.
--
Ned Heite  ([log in to unmask])
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