From Cottage to Bungalow: Houses and the Working Class in Metropolitan Chicago, 1869-1929 (review)

In the decades around the turn of the twentieth century, working-class Polish immigrants, arriving in the United States with few skills and less money, built homes and established neighborhoods where they could preserve their religion and heritage while launching themselves into the mainstream of American culture and respectability. They shaped their built environment to meet their own priorities and needs. Joseph Bigott tells this story admirably, connecting house form, home ownership, and community building. His book is primarily a case study of Polish immigrants in Hammond, Indiana, and West Hammond (now Calumet), Illinois, but with a lengthy chapter providing the broader context for Chicago's Polish community.

Of particular interest to historians of technology is the detailed analysis of the transition in building techniques from timber framing to the balloon frame, which Bigott argues was not complete until the mid-1880s, when carpenters ceased to notch studs and floor joists because cut lumber had achieved a high level of standardization. It was during the same decade that factory-produced stairs, windows, doors, and molding became commonplace. The confluence of those developments made possible the cheap workingmen's cottages that proliferated across the urban landscape, particularly in the midwest, from the 1880s until the 1920s. Their simple design and lack of such amenities as bathtubs, central heat, and often indoor toilets, kept the cost low and led to widespread home ownership. Around World War I the bungalow replaced the cottage. Bungalows included a full bathroom, electricity, central heat, and hot water. In design there was little distinction, although the bungalow roof usually sloped down over the front porch.

Most previous studies of working-class communities have focused on wards or parishes within large cities, where it was more difficult to assess workers' aspirations, but in West Hammond Bigott found a largely Polish working-class municipality with a built environment admirably suited to the needs of its residents. West Hammond provided immigrant Poles with an opportunity and venue to express patriotism, communal pride, and modest respectability on their own terms. But sustaining that environment was difficult because there was almost no industry. Property owners were hard pressed to finance municipal services such as water, sewerage, and paved streets while retiring their mortgages. At one point the town found itself deeply in debt. But the 1920s brought a windfall: prohibition was ignored by municipal authorities in West Hammond and license fees were collected from more than fifty "soft drink parlors." Middle-class critics and newspaper editors were aghast, and the town acquired such a bad reputation that it changed its name. Still, the revenue matched the entire property tax, enabling the community to retire its debts, expand services, and erect a municipal building, a high school, and a pool. New bungalows built on the edge of town provided housing options for the more successful residents, including some second-generation Poles. Meanwhile, homeowners upgraded their older frame cottages, sometimes raising them up and building a full ground floor beneath, for rental income or perhaps for a recently married child to start a family.

By placing its emphasis on the house itself, From Cottage to Bungalow enlarges our understanding of the relationship of the workers to their built environment. Bigott is wrong to assert, however, that historians have summarily dismissed working-class housing and downplayed the significance of high rates of home ownership. His comment that "studies of home ownership have avoided detailed analysis of census manuscripts" (p. 156) ignores the work of several historians, including this reviewer. The book does include 126 figures, photos of houses, floor plans, advertisements, and maps that provide crucial evidence, and rarely is an urban history monograph so well illustrated.