Hidden Treasures are everywhere

[feng_shui_house]

I am trying to slowly sort out stuff. I've had several major purges over the years, throwing out, donating, repurposing, using up, etc.

But much remains.

Today, feeling the need for distraction on the throne, I grabbed a dusty magazine that was lying on top of a bunch of needlework, etc. magazines.

Dusted it off and leafed through it. Printed in 1946, full of photos of actual houses and building plans, the preface cheerfully burbled about the new and clever materials and design methods in architecture and how everyone in the post war days was going out and buying and custom building new homes.

I really doubt everyone was able to afford these. The homes are huge, situated on landscaped lots five times the size of my home, which my parents bought in the post war years after saving up because before that they were living in a trailer with 2 kids and another on the way (not me, I was later than that). I expect mom bought the magazine just to dream on.

I thought it would be nice to share- and I did find it on line at Archive.org.

https://archive.org/details/HouseToChoosePlanAndBuildYourOwnHouse

Comments

[jaxomsride2]

New and clever materials - like asbestos? Ah those were more innocent times. After the war there was the need to do an awful rebuilding in the uk.

[feng_shui_house]

In the US it was a lot of things, not really rebuilding (I believe a few terrorist bombings happened*-, but not a lot). It was more a social change, women worked in men's jobs in factories, people who'd never been more than a few miles from their home had seen other countries, and in 1944 the G.I. bill (Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944) provided education, housing, and other benefits to qualifying veterans.

So people saw a chance to change their lives, and a home they owned was a possibility for some-- not as many as that book made it sound! The author had worked for Better Homes and Gardens, which was a magazine that made it sound like every home could be a showcase and every patch of ground a Garden of Eden. :^)

*At least one-- https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/july-4/terrorist-bomb-explodes-1940-new-york-worlds-fair