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    Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891
    Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891
    Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891
    Ebook417 pages1 hour

    Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891

    By George F. Barber

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    At the end of the nineteenth century, carpenter, architect, and publisher George Franklin Barber began publishing his residential designs in inexpensive, illustrated catalogs. Containing order forms and price lists for the drawings, the catalogs were not the first to sell private homes to the public on a widespread basis but were the first to give customers an opportunity to participate in custom-designing their own houses.
    Reaching thousands of potential clients throughout the United States and abroad, Barber's catalogs featured homes cited today as "unique," "fascinating," and "distinctive." This excellent reproduction of his 1891 catalog, The Cottage Souvenir No. 2, includes all 120 designs for 68 homes, complete with elevations and floor plans. Included is an eclectic mix of plans for homes in the Colonial, Romanesque, and Queen Anne styles, as well as designs for verandas, summer pavilions, churches, and barns.
    Invaluable to architectural historians, preservationists, and home restorers, this reprint of a rare catalog by one of America’s most successful domestic architects will also be of interest to anyone fascinated by Victorian-era architecture.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDover Publications
    Release dateMar 8, 2012
    ISBN9780486140063
    Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891

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      Book preview

      Victorian Cottage Architecture - George F. Barber

      Copyright

      Introduction copyright © 1982 by Michael A. Tomlan

      All rights reserved.

      Bibliographical Note

      This Dover edition, first published in 2004, is an unabridged republication of The Cottage Souvenir No. 2: Containing One Hundred and Twenty Original Designs in Cottage and Detail Architecture, originally published by S. B. Newman & Co., Knoxville, TN, 1891. The introduction by Michael A. Tomlan entitled Toward the Growth of an Artistic Taste and which has been included in this edition, is from the 1982 reprint of The Cottage Souvenir No. 2 originally published by the American Life Foundation and Study Institute, Watkins Glen, New York.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Barber, George F. (George Franklin), 1854-1915.

      [Cottage souvenir no. 2]

      Victorian cottage architecture : an American catalog of designs, 1891 / George F. Barber ; introduction by Michael A. Tomlan.—dover ed.

      p. cm.

      Originally published: The cottage souvenir no. 2. Knoxville, Tenn.: S.B. Newman & Co., printers, 1891. With new introd.

      Introd. is from the 1982 reprint of The Cottage souvenir, no. 2, originally published by the American Life Foundation and Study Institute, Watkins Glen, N.Y.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      9780486140063

      1. Architecture, Victorian—United States—Designs and plans. 2. Architecture, Domestic—United States—Designs and plans. I. Title.

      NA7207.B37 2004

      728’.37’097309034—dc22

      2003067488

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y 11501

      Table of Contents

      Title Page

      Copyright Page

      TOWARD THE GROWTH OF AN ARTISTIC TASTE

      NOTES

      THE COTTAGE AND SOUVENIR - No.2.

      REMARKS - ON THE Principles of Design, Harmony of Form and Proportion in Architecture.

      HINTS - To Home-Builders.

      PRICES

      Medieval Art through Eighteenth-Century Art

      Nineteenth-Century Art

      Pictorial Archive

      TOWARD THE GROWTH OF AN ARTISTIC TASTE

      by Michael A. Tomlan

      FIGURE 1 A Sales Tag, c. 1878

      FRONTISPIECE George F. Barber (1854-1915)

      All over America, the idea is spreading that a new building must be original, not thereby meaning a freakish departure from well known principles of design, but one planned originally for the owner. This is right, and will do more toward the growth of an artistic taste and the establishment of content in the homes of the people than any factor which can be employed....¹

      GEORGE FRANKLIN BARBER, one of this country’s most successful, late nineteenth century domestic architects, used these words in describing the direction he and his firm were taking to help form the ideas of American home builders. Barber’s ability to meet individual needs and his contributions to the growth of an artistic taste were made possible by his adoption of the mail-order method of architectural practice. By publishing his designs in inexpensive illustrated catalogues, complete with price lists for his drawings (and even with order forms), Barber reached thousands of potential clients throughout the United States and abroad. Recently, as Americans have once again begun to accept and even to embrace the artistic taste of which Barber was speaking, dozens of his original designs have been rediscovered. Within the past decade, Barber Houses ² have been repeatedly cited as unique, fascinating, and distinctive. A number of them have been photographed for periodicals, books, and state or local architectural inventories. Many have been restored (at least three of which have become house museums), others have been sketched and printed for Christmas cards and wall hangings, and one design has even been built in miniature and sold as a doll house. The Cottage Souvenir No. 2 which follows in facsimile provides us not only with a record of Barber’s first attempt to reach a national market, but also with the opportunity to study as a collection some of his most popular designs.

      Although George Franklin Barber was born in July 1854, in De Kalb, Illinois, he grew up on a farm near Marmaton, Kansas, just eight miles west of Fort Scott, with the family of his older sister, Olive, and her husband, William Barrett.³ His only formal education was sporadic, punctuated by local unrest and the Civil War. He took an early, active interest in rock collecting and horticulture, and on at least one occasion sent an entire collection of wood and rock specimens to his older brother, Manley DeWitt Barber, in De Kalb.⁴ The interest in horticulture seems to have become a part-time commitment by early manhood, for in 1878 he signed a deed making him the sole owner of a farm adjacent to that of the Barrett family,⁵ and a sales tag has survived indicating that he was a dealer in Ornamental Nursery Stock. At the same time, however, Barber’s occupation on tax assessment receipts is listed as a carpenter. ⁶

      The question of precisely when Barber first became actively interested in the construction of buildings can be answered only indirectly. There is a legend in the Barber family that he displayed an early interest in artistic matters; recollections of one person picture him drawing in the mud with a stick, while other children were more actively occupied.⁷ The first evidence of his interest in architecture per se is a notebook entitled Civil Architecture, 1873, in which Barber sketched several pages of architectural elements and wrote a short description of each. The variety of Classical and Gothic details, and the various elementary geometrical exercises included in the notebook suggest that Barber educated himself by copying a dictionary-like handbook.

      While the extent and nature of his architectural library at this time is not known, some of Barber’s acquisitions in the ensuing years can be documented. In 1876, for example, Barber made a number of purchases from the booksellers and publishers A. J. Bicknell & Co. of New York. Among these were several volumes in Weale’s Rudimentary Series—English handbooks noted for their technical information, including those on mechanics, acoustics, building, and architectural modelling. Another book, Palliser’s American Cottage Homes, was inscribed G. F. Barber, Fort Scott, Kansas, February 7, 1883; this would have been available through Bicknell’s successor, William T. Comstock.⁸ Other publications, including periodicals, may well have been purchased but not survived because they were bound as paperbacks or were merely unbound newsprint. Thus it becomes clear that Barber’s architectural education, as well as his method of practice, was largely dependent upon the U. S. Mail.

      Although Fort Scott was experiencing a building boom as a major railroad junction for southeast Kansas, Barber left by 1884 to rejoin the majority of his relatives in De Kalb.⁹ This move may have been in response to an opportunity to assist his older brother, Manley DeWitt Barber, a respected house carpenter in the area. At this time George’s training and concern for the everyday problems of the carpenter resulted in the patent specifications for his Nail Holding Attachment for Hammers.

      The attachment will be found very useful for carpenters and others on high buildings as the operator may hold himself securely with one hand while doing the nailing with the other, thus avoiding the necessity of a scaffold or the placing of a ladder for driving a few nails...."¹⁰

      While there is no record of whether or not this simple spring clip was ever produced, even today most carpenters would see the merit of Barber’s invention.

      As was indicated by the books he had purchased, however, Barber thought of building not simply as a carpenter, but as a designer. By the mid-1880s he was acting as architect for the firm of Barber and Boardman, Contractors and Builders, apparently involved with many residential structures.¹¹ Undoubtedly the largest known building of his early career was the Congregational Church, which still stands at the corner of Grove and Second Streets in De Kalb. A rather detailed account of the construction of the church, written by Manley DeWitt Barber and published in a local newspaper, noted it was begun in late September 1885, and finally completed in mid-1888.¹²

      While enjoying considerable success, Barber’s often poor health made it necessary for him to leave De Kalb for the more salubrious climate found in the mountains of East Tennessee. Arriving in Knoxville in late 1888 with his wife and newborn child, Barber set to work trying to establish his practice, engaging in various business relationships before settling upon J. C. White as his business manager in 1892.¹³ White, active in the suburban residential development of northeast Knoxville, was a principal of the Edgewood Land Improvement Company, whose interests centered on Washington Avenue.¹⁴ Thus it should be no surprise that in this neighborhood could be found a number of residences designed by the Barber firm: in fact The Cottage Souvenir No. 2 includes both J. C, White’s home, as Design No. 54, and Barber’s first home in Knoxville, as Design No. 60.

      FIGURE 2 A page from Civil Architecture, 1873

      FIGURE 3 Barber’s Nail Holding Attachment for Hammers, 1884

      FIGURE 4 The Congregational Church, De Kalb, Illinois, 1885-8

      FIGURE 5 Washington Avenue, Knoxville, c. 1890

      FIGURE 6 The Cottage Souvenir, Eighteen Engravings of Houses ... c. 1887

      FIGURE 7 Modern Artistic Cottages, or the Cottage Souvenir ... c. 1888

      Although there seems to be no record of exactly when Barber first thought of publishing his designs, his first known works were produced before he moved to Knoxville. The Cottage Souvenir, Eighteen Engravings of Houses Ranging in Price from $900.00 to $8000.00 in Wood, Brick and Stone, Artistically Combined was published in De Kalb in 1887 or early 1888.¹⁵ The collection was simply presented: the designs were printed on card stock 6¾ high by 5¼ wide, with an elevation or perspective on the front and plans on the back. The binding was merely a piece of yarn, threaded through a hole punched in the corner of each card, and tied in a bow. This was, in fact, an illustrated sampler intended to advertise Barber’s capabilities.

      More designs were added to this first collection in a staple-bound fifty-six page booklet, entitled Modern Artistic Cottages, or the Cottage Souvenir, Designed to Meet the Wants of Mechanics and Home Builders, probably also printed in De Kalb, about 1888.¹⁶ For $.85 the purchaser received twenty-five different designs, introduced by three pages of Brief Hints to Home Builders; the reader was invited to correspond with the author, who would provide all the necessary plans and specifications. This marked, on a modest and informal basis, Barber’s entry into an architectural

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