Victorian Cottage Architecture: An American Catalog of Designs, 1891

332 Pages·2012·22.69 MB·English

by  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
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