Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images available at The Internet Archive) [Illustration: BENNETT HOUSE, NEW BEDFORD, MASS. Garden Front.] AMERICAN RENAISSANCE A REVIEW OF DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE ILLUSTRATED BY NINETY-SIX HALF-TONE PLATES BY JOY WHEELER DOW ARCHITECT [Illustration: colophon] NEW YORK: WILLIAM T. COMSTOCK MCMIV Copyright, 1904, By JOY WHEELER DOW Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York PREFACE _This review of American Renaissance originally appeared as a series of papers in the “Architects and Builders’ Magazine,” and the interest shown in them as they were brought out and the later inquiry for these numbers of the Magazine have led the publisher to suggest the propriety of putting them in more permanent shape._ _With this in view the author has carefully collated the articles, added some new illustrations, and in some cases the plates have been enlarged where the subjects seemed worthy of fuller representation than was possible in the limited space allowed in the Magazine._ _The book is intended to be an impartial outline history of American domestic architecture from Colonial times to the present day, and the salutary influence upon it of whatever has been good in past building epochs._ _How well the subject has been presented, it remains for the readers of the following pages to judge._ THE AUTHOR. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. ETHICS 17 II. ART AND COMMERCIALISM 30 III. THE ANCIENT RÉGIME AND--ANDREW JACKSON 40 IV. HUMBLE BEGINNINGS OF A NATIONAL SCHOOL 51 V. THE GRAND EPOCH 61 VI. EARLY 19TH CENTURY WORK 79 VII. THE TRANSITIONAL PERIOD 89 VIII. REIGN OF TERROR--ITS NEGATIVE VALUE 108 IX. FASHION IN ARCHITECTURE 118 X. ADAPTATION 132 XI. CONCERNING STYLE 149 XII. CONCLUSION 156 INDEX 173 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS