Pamela H. Simpson is Ernest Williams II Professor of Art History at Washington and Lee University and a 1996-97 Fellow of the National Humanities Center. This article derives from a talk she presented in the Center's fall public lecture series and from essays she has published in Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, III (University of Missouri Press, 1989) and in Gender, Class, and Shelter: Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture V (University of Tennessee Press, 1995).
rchitectural critic Ada Louise Huxtable once wrote that the popularity of what she called "substitute gimcrackery" in the latter half of the nineteenth century was "fueled by the . . . American desire to find ways of doing things that were 'cheap, quick, and easy.'" For a number of years, I have been studying various types of "substitute gimcrackery"--imitative building and decorative materials that became all the rage at the turn of the twentieth century. Made possible by technological advances, these products could be readily distributed by an improved system of mass transportation, and their demand was sparked, at least to some extent, by the emergence of large-scale advertising. Among these many materials, four in particular--concrete block, pressed metal ceilings, linoleum, and an embossed wall covering called Lincrusta--illustrate this intersection of new technology with popular culture.
oncrete is by no means a twentieth-century innovation. A mixture of cement, sand, water, and stone aggregates, it has been around since classical times, and a number of patented procedures for casting it into "artificial stone" emerged in the nineteenth century. Not until 1900, however, was the widespread production of concrete block possible. In that year, Harmon S. Palmer obtained a United States patent for his durable and practical cast-iron machine, with removable core and adjustable sides, that spelled the beginning of the modern concrete block industry.
Yet, even with Palmer's invention, economical hollow concrete blocks would not have appeared had it not been for another development--the improved techniques for grinding and firing Portland cement. Cement, the binder in concrete, is made of lime and clay, fired at a high temperature and then finely ground. Portland cement, named for the limestone it resembled, had been invented in 1824, but late nineteenth-century improvements in its production increased its reliability and lowered its cost. The Portland cement and concrete block industries were thus quite literally bound to each other, and both experienced phenomenal growth in the first decade of the twentieth century. As one writer noted in 1906, "Concrete blocks were practically unknown in 1900, but it is probably safe to say that at the present moment more than a thousand companies and individuals are engaged in their manufacture in the United States." In Omaha, Nels Peterson, a stonecutter, saw the new concrete block and asked himself, "Why should I hew these stones when I could make them in a mold?" So he took his savings, bought a block machine, and started the Ideal Cement Stone Company.
(Courtesy of Sears, Roebuck and Co. Archives) Concrete block was indeed quick, cheap, and easy. A machine could cost as little as $60, and its manufacturers promised that experience was "really unnecessary," that "anyone can do this work." A 1917 Sears and Roebuck catalogue asserted that the device would be "profitable whether you manufacture for your own use or for sale. If for your own use, you can make them during your spare time, or on rainy days." There is plenty of evidence that some individuals did indeed cast their own block, but for the most part it was made by people already in the construction business who were captivated by advertisements that ran in builders' journals, the inescapable Sears catalogues, house pattern books, manufacturers' promotion publications, and trade catalogues.
All it took was a single machine to get the industry going in a community. In Lexington, Virginia, contractor H. A. Donald introduced rock-face concrete block in 1915 when he erected a building for his friend Frank Brown. The town's blacksmith and liveryman, Brown had decided to expand his business beyond stabling horses to accommodate gasoline-powered carriages and desired a larger structure. To make the concrete block, Donald set up on site a portable machine that might very well have been a Palmer. He went on to create some twenty other rock-face concrete structures in the Lexington area in the 1920s, including the Bank of Fairfield, finished in 1926 for $2,400. It may well be the only concrete block building immortalized in poetry. Local versifier Ernest Sale wrote a humorous dedicatory poem for the opening that included this stanza:
Now for the building, shall it be frame or brick?
We want something we can build right quick;
Don't mind the expense, we can sell more stock,
Then they decided to build it of concrete block!
Sale's line, "Don't mind the expense," refers to the fact that although concrete block was much cheaper than stone, it cost more than wood. Still, a block could be produced for about 13 cents and was less expensive than brick to lay. Moreover, it was promoted to "last practically forever," since it required little maintenance and was fireproof (a characteristic that made it especially appealing for garages as well as banks).
Yet, with all these advantages, concrete also unquestionably attracted customers because of its ornamental potential. Any number of wreaths, scrolls, or cobblestone faces could be reproduced. Most in demand was rock-face, the imitation of quarried stone which became the standard unit on all Sears machines. Manufacturers and builders commonly referred to this pattern as "artificial stone," underscoring the fact that though it was cheap and easy, it looked like something considerably more expensive.
he pressed metal ceiling, another highly regarded imitative material, appeared on the scene in the late 1880s. At first a simple, utilitarian product made from sheet iron, it had, by the early twentieth century, evolved into a very ornate decorative element stamped in steel. Promoted as a "lighter, more durable, less breakable substitute for cast plaster," the pressed metal ceiling remained popular until the 1930s.
Unlike the concrete block industry which specialized in a single product, few sheet metal companies were devoted solely to making metal ceilings. They were likely to turn out other exterior and interior sheet metal items, such as cornices, drain pipes, and roof cresting. The Mesker Brothers in St. Louis, for example, carried on a thriving business in cheap architectural ornaments, selling not only metal ceilings but entire building facades.
Between 1890 and 1930, some forty-five companies in the United States marketed metal ceilings. Most were in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, located along rail lines that served as vital arteries for getting the pressed metal products directly to contractors and, more especially, to the small "tin shops" that accounted for most of the orders and installation work. One such enterprise was the H. T. Klugel Architectural Sheet Metal Company of Emporia, Virginia. Klugel had been trained in the hand manufacture of sheet metal products by his father in Danville, Illinois. Unlike most young men of his time, when he set out on his own, he went east--not west--settling in Emporia, a rail junction town where the Atlantic Coast Line crossed the Southern. There he opened a shop that would eventually supply contractors throughout the southeastern part of the state. From the rolled metal sheets produced by large foundries, he fashioned cornices, stove flues, gutters, and drain pipes. If a local proprietor requested a pressed metal ceiling for his establishment, Klugel directed the customer to catalogue selections, then installed the ceiling plates once they arrived. He also kept a variety of pressed metal ornaments in stock, incorporating them, when occasion arose, into marquees, cornices, and other decorative details. In 1914, he used the face of his own shop to display the various types of sheet metal ornaments. Thus, like many other such businesses of the period, Klugel's firm provided a combination of bought-ready-made items and a resident tinner's expertise to meet the needs of the community.
A number of advantages were attributed to pressed metal ceilings--they were fireproof, sanitary, certainly economical when compared to other decorative materials--but durability was the chief selling point. As many manufacturers noted, the initial cost might be more than that for wood or plaster decoration, but the low upkeep and the virtual everlasting quality of the material saved money in the long run. Even though individuals could not fabricate pressed metal in their own backyards as they could concrete block, these claims, extensively advertised in manufacturer's catalogues, builders' and carpenters' magazines, and the Sears and Roebuck catalogues, helped to make the new decorative material a nearly ubiquitous feature of early twentieth-century commercial architecture in the United States and accounted, as well, for its wide use in hospitals, schools, churches, and even homes.
inoleum, another material introduced in the latter half of the nineteenth century, was invented by an Englishman. Legend has it that one day the young Frederick Walton noticed a skin of oxidized linseed oil coating a jar of paint. He peeled it off and began playing with the rubber-like substance, thinking of ways to use it. Eventually in 1860, after many trials, he patented his formula, compounding the name from two Latin words: linum (flax--from which linseed oil is made) and oleum (oil). In 1864, Walton set up a factory in England to produce his mixture of oxidized linseed oil, ground cork dust, and assorted gums and pigments which were pressed together by heavy rollers onto a canvas backing. By 1866, the Linoleum Manufacturing Company was reporting steady sales, and by 1869, it was exporting to the United States and the Continent.
Walton's chief competition was the oil cloth trade centered in Lancashire and Scotland. Oil cloth, an economical and practical floor covering widely used since the eighteenth century, was made manually by placing successive layers of sizing on canvas topped with a painted design which was then varnished. Linoleum was far superior, thicker and longer-wearing, more waterproof and resilient. Its success was such that the oil cloth firms began to imitate it. In 1877, Walton initiated legal proceedings against Nairn, a large Scottish firm, for infringement of his trademark, but the British courts ruled against him. It seems that Walton never registered the name "Linoleum." Even if he had, the court maintained, he could no longer have exclusive right to the name, for it was now a household word. Thus, in less than fourteen years, linoleum had become such a ubiquitous feature of homes and commercial buildings that it was considered generic.
Faced with a number of rivals, Walton's company began to expand to Germany, France, and the United States. In 1872, Walton sailed to New York to help establish the American Linoleum Manufacturing Company, the first producer on these shores. He spent two years supervising the building on Staten Island of a factory and its company town, which he named "Linoleumville." In 1879, The Carpet Trade, acknowledging the success of this new American business owned by Joseph Wild, reported, "The manufacture of sheet oil cloth has been considerably interfered with . . . by the introduction of linoleum."
The next major technological development in the industry was Walton's "inlaid linoleum" appearing in 1882. No longer a controlling partner and unhappy about his company's lack of enthusiasm for this refinement of his product, Walton sold out and opened the Greenwich Inlaid Linoleum Company. The original linoleum had been produced in one color. When patterns were used, they had been printed or painted on the surface, just as the earlier oil cloth had been. The disadvantage of this technique was that the design wore off with use. Walton came up with a method for making the patterns as permanent as the background. His first results depended on hand work--variously colored pieces of linoleum were cut, individually arranged into designs, then heated and rolled, fusing all the fragments into one solid sheet. By 1892, again in the lead, he invented a way to do all this with a single machine. The obvious superiority of the inlaid linoleum was reflected in advertising that boasted of colors going "straight through to the back." Once again, Walton's creation was so good that others began to imitate it, but since inlaid was more expensive, the cheaper, printed version continued to be produced.
By 1910, there were at least six firms making linoleum in the United States. Joseph Wild continued to manufacture until the 1930s; in Philadelphia, there were the operations of George Blabon and Thomas Potter; in New Jersey, there was Cook's and a branch of the British firm, Nairn; but the one that would ultimately dominate them all--continuing down to the present day--was the Armstrong Cork and Tile Company, established in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in the 1860s. By 1907, someone had figured out that instead of selling all its cork debris to linoleum companies like Wild's, Armstrong might as well start turning out linoleum itself. Beginning production in 1908, the business soon made its name widely known by adopting new advertising techniques aimed directly at the consumer rather than solely to the trade.
The number of manufacturers and markets for linoleum grew world-wide in the early twentieth century. Germany's output soon rivaled that of Britain's, and by the 1930s and '40s, the Americans dominated the industry, but linoleum was truly a global product. The linseed oil came not only from the United States, but also from South America; the cork came from Portugal and Spain; jute was shipped from India and Pakistan to Scotland, where it was processed into burlap for the canvas backing. From the 1870s to the 1960s--when it was supplanted by plastic-based vinyl products--linoleum was the most widespread manufactured floor covering in existence, popular in first-world countries as well as third. It even surfaced on the high seas where the navies of Great Britain, Germany, and the United States found it to be an excellent non-slip, non-splintering, water-proof deck covering. Its thickness earned it the name "Battleship Linoleum," and its plain-colored versions of "battleship" grey and brown appeared everywhere, especially in post offices and other government buildings.
The huge success of linoleum, like that of concrete block and metal ceilings, derived not only from its being less expensive but also from its being considered superior in some respects to traditional materials. One advertisement declared, "Linoleum is, par excellence, a comfortable floor. Cork and oxidized linseed oil are naturally elastic and combine to make a sort of cushion that absorbs the shock of footsteps." This resiliency made it a good choice for homes and for businesses, factories, and stores as well--anywhere people stood for long periods. Moreover, its seamless, water-resistant surface was easier to clean than wood, hence more sanitary. There were even arguments advanced for its antiseptic qualities. In 1913, a German scientist reported on his experiments that suggested the oxidizing linseed oil gave off a germicidal gas, an advantage often cited in advertisements. Thus, linoleum seemed especially suited to kitchens, bathrooms, nurseries, and hospital rooms.
Armstrong Cork Company, 1924.
(Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library,
Wilmington, Delaware)Linoleum was also valued for its durability. Some manufacturers contended that it could wear for sixty years or more, and Armstrong maintained at one point that its product would "last as long as the house." To demonstrate its sturdiness, an exhibitor at the 1900 Paris Exposition went so far as to install one-inch-thick linoleum on a few driveways and courtyards as a road covering that would muffle the sounds of horses hooves and carriage wheels. So confident was he of success that he claimed to be negotiating a contract with the French Government to pave the entire Champs Elysees with linoleum!
The chief attraction of linoleum, however, was aesthetic. The early plain colors were soon superseded by an amazing annual display of motifs: mosaics, tiles, parquetries, marble, and "carpet" patterns. Sometimes, the publicity for these designs seemed a bit outrageous. A Cook's advertisement--"Which is Which?"--asked whether one might not have difficulty distinguishing wood parquet from its linoleum imitation, a question that very likely stretched the reader's credulity.
These elaborately embossed mythological creatures with their resonance to antiquity reveal a deliberate effort to achieve aesthetic values in a wall covering. (Detail of Lincrustra panel at a house in Radford, Virginia. Photo by Pamela Simpson. Courtesy of the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware)he ever imaginative Frederick Walton came up with a new product in 1877 that he initially called "Linoleum Muralis"
--linoleum for walls. Lincrusta-Walton, as it came to be known, had all the advantages of the popular floor covering with the added feature that it was embossed. It immediately caught the public's fancy. An 1880 pamphlet highlighted many desirable qualities--"warm and comfortable," it "would not warp or be eaten by worms," "was not cold in winter or hot in summer like stone or terracotta," "did not absorb moisture and give it out like brick and plaster," and "was impenetrable and resistant to wet." This last characteristic made it particularly appealing. Linoleum's non-absorbent, easy-to-clean surface had been brought from floor to wall. In a glowing report in 1884, the Journal of Decorative Art pointed out that "amongst the many contributors to these twin sisters, Hygeia and Art, the name of Mr. Walton is, and will long continue to be recognized as, that of the man whose inventive powers have placed within the reach of the great bulk of the middle and upper classes a material peerless as a sanitary agent and of a beauty that need fear no rival."Besides its hygienic properties, Lincrusta-Walton was hailed for its durability. Advertised as "Solid in Color! Solid in Relief! Solid in Value!" it earned a reputation for being the "indestructible wall covering," a feature that A. G. Butler in his 1943 memoir humorously underscored when he described cleaning up the rubble from bombed out London houses. Commenting on "the triumph of Lincrusta," he added, "I do not mean aesthetically, but quite the opposite, in a military sense. No material, I think, has stood up to blast so stoutly. The bumpy adhesive skin on walls and ceilings, aping rich plaster work, has counteracted many blows from bombs, even sustaining whole surfaces by itself."
Lincrusta-Walton's most appealing characteristic, however, was decorative. It could simulate carved plaster and wood as well as embossed leather and metal. A 1906 line successfully imitated ceramic tile and in 1912, an improvement to earlier efforts with oak dado proved to be wildly popular. Lincrusta was used in almost every conceivable setting from homes to hotels to government buildings, lodge halls, railroad carriages, yachts and ocean liners--including the Titanic. Well before that great vessel went down, Walton had begun to market Lincrusta in the United States and even though the inevitable competitors soon appeared, it maintained its prominence as "King of Wall Decoration."
incrusta, linoleum, metal ceilings, and concrete block are representative of a number of materials that began to appear over a century ago as a result of innovative manufacturing techniques. But it was not inventive genius alone that accounted for their success. Major capital investment in new industrialization, the rapid expansion of business, supported by an infrastructure of improved railroad, telegraph, and mail service, and new approaches to advertising were contributing factors.
If this account has thus far established that these materials were popular and that they reflected changes in mass culture, we are still left with the question of what they meant to the people who made and used them. Without doubt, a significant reason for their popularity was that they successfully met a need--they were cheap, quick, and easy. But they were also ornamental. And the very fact that they were practical imitations of more expensive decorative materials is what rallied the elite against them.
The controversy over the propriety of imitation had been raging in the building press throughout this period. Echoing a machine-hating attitude going back to Pugin and Ruskin, architectural circles condemned the new materials as cheap, ugly, and tasteless. A 1907 issue of American Architect and Building News referred to the "imitations of rockface masonry which are so frequently seen" and are so "depressing and distasteful." Another architect, Oswald Herring, sounded the same alarm in 1912 when he wrote that "the sight or mention of concrete block in its present crude form, especially in imitation of rockfaced stone, has been sufficient to band the profession as a unit in protest and condemnation." He concluded that as a "cheap and vulgar imitation of stone, concrete will never be acceptable in any work of worth."
Attacks against pressed metal ceilings were inherited from a similar debate going on since the 1870s over sheet metal's "servile imitation." The manufacturers' sensitivity to this charge was captured in Albert Northrop's defense of his product in 1890, when he argued that his metal ceilings were "not imitation of anything"--they "were not a sham," but instead "real panels, real moldings, real rosettes," not painted ones "made of crumbling plaster or inflammable wood." In truth, however, metal ceilings were often presented as imitations of plaster designs. In the heyday of the Spanish Mission style in the 1920s, for example, manufacturers came out with lines explicitly designated as "Stucco" and "Spanish Texture."
Likewise, linoleum and Lincrusta came in for criticism from the elite. To this day, people restoring an old house will probably view linoleum as something to rip out in order to get down to the "real" floor. A. G. Butler's comments about Lincrusta's ability to stand up to German bombs clearly reflected upper-class scorn for "bad and trashy decoration." "It quite hurts me," he lamented, "to think that something we have scoffed at for years has turned out to be an able ally in the fight. A pity it is so unattractive, especially when painted chocolate."
Consumers, however, responded differently. They considered the new products to be "progressive" and "modern." Linoleum could imitate marble, a traditional, elite material, but it was not "cold" like marble; Lincrusta could look like leather, oak or plaster, but would not dry out and crack as they would and was easier to clean; metal ceilings appeared to be decorative plaster but, unlike plaster, would last "practically forever"; rockface block looked like stone but was produced at a fraction of the cost. When people chose one of these products, they did not think they were selecting a poor second, but a wholly satisfactory, if not superior, alternative.
Huxtable is right in her assertion that it was middle-class practicalness that lead people to acquire "substitute gimcrackery"--indeed, even to delight in it. In 1905, a year after John Hodges opened his Hollow Stone Manufacturing Company in Artesia, New Mexico, the local newspaper editor praised the new concrete block buildings Hodges had constructed as "substantial and beautiful substitutes for stone," so "attractive," in fact, that more would surely follow. In 1912, the Lexington, Virginia Gazette observed that the ceilings in the People's Bank were "handsomely paneled in metal," denoting the "progressive spirit of this enterprising and successful bank." Some decades later in Lexington, one Charles Staton decided to build his house from rockface block produced by the Rockbridge Block Company. When I asked him why, he responded simply that he "liked the way it looked." If we take these people at their word, we can understand the appeal of the materials. The fact that they were imitative did not demean them in the eyes of those who made and who used them.
Thus, popular taste--piqued by the mass advertising of products that were readily available and easily distributed--triumphed in the end, spawning considerable discussion about the new materials being "democratic." An 1888 article promoting Lincrusta in The Painters Magazine and Coach Painter noted that "Art in the past ministered to but a few who were lords of the earth. The temple and the palace were alone thought worthy of adornment. In the past it was the few only who were noble--in the future it will be the many and art is rapidly becoming democratic in the consequence." In other words, machines made ornament affordable to a wider population, just as changes in social structure, wealth distribution, and voting rights laws had broadened enfranchisement. For too long our architectural histories have focused on elite, architect-designed buildings. The story of concrete block, pressed metal, linoleum, and Lincrusta tells us about ordinary buildings and about ordinary people who embraced the products of their age.
Return to Ideas Contents Page.
Return to National Humanities Center Home Page.
Ideas is published twice a year. Editor: Jean Anne Leuchtenburg.
Copyright © 1997 by the National Humanities Center.
Comments to: lmorgan@ga.unc.edu
Last modified: October 1997
nationalhumanitiescenter.org
