A note on why I'm blogging

Architecture and construction are governed by changes in technology - style comes about after the change in how we can build. I have seen the changes caused by the end of old growth lumber and the introduction of engineered lumber. I remember when the first machine that could cut granite counter tops was set up in town. I saw how the ability to make inexpensive mouldings out of finger-jointed wood or mdf changed window and door casings, and changed our clients' expectations. So I want to think about how the development of technology we now take for granted (wire screens) or see as eye candy ( shutters) has impacted design. And how people were inventive as they came to understand what the technology could do.

When I give the tour at the Historic Park-McCullough House, and I talk about this stuff, people are fascinated - they love knowing how The House works. So I need to be accurate, not just hypothesizing.

I'm also interested because screens and shutters are examples of green technology and design. They can be made from renewable resources. They don't use fossil fuel to operate. They can be adjusted for the weather. They can be repaired without fancy tools. And they will not be obsolete because 'they' don't make the part anymore.

I also love to learn about how people have interacted with their spaces. I share the enthusiasm of the visitors to The House - I think it's fun to imagine being the first person to turn a sieve upside down and recognize that it could keep flies off the food. Or to realize that, of course, mosquitoes don't bite when there's a breeze, so how do we make a breeze?

Screens - a quick history

As I wrote the first draft for this, the chickens were complaining about the snow. They don't like to step in it, and shake their toes. It covered the ground where they scratch. We are all ready for spring, and screens!

This post on screens is a follow-up to the post on shutters. They are related in that as screens become popular, the use of shutters declined.

The Park-McCullough House has half screens that are a later addition (or at least the fasteners do not date to 1864) to the windows. Trenor Park used the latest technology when he built his house in 1864. Did he specify screens? We haven't seen any references in our archives. The House has a extensive collection of photographs, but I know of no early pictures with screens on windows in the background.

So, when might the family have added screens? My usual first stops are Victorian Interior Decoration, Winkler and Moss, for general history, and then the pattern books, mill work catalogs, and the Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogs. The pattern books may be promoting a new idea; when something is in the catalogs, it's an accepted part of the culture.


VID has a wonderful picture of horrible mosquitoes in an 1885 ad , as well as ads for mosquito netting over beds from the 1840's to the 1890's. The picture of the embroidered screen doors above comes from the 1893 catalog of the Mulliner Box & Planing Co., (republished by Dover in 1995). The 1895 Ward catalog shows similar screen doors and sells screening for do-it-yourself-ers.
I know from my own work (as an architect) that sun porches sprout on houses in great numbers in New England around 1900 - glassed-in new and existing porches, with screens stored close by for summer use. Screen porches are standard features by the 1920's. But they don't appear in the pattern books. Was the public ahead of the designers?

I think technology is a deciding factor. When could we manufacture screening? The research I have found says the English made 'wire gauze' as early as the 1830's. American companies who made screening for sieves, made screens too by the late 1850's. The US made screens were used mainly to cover food from flies - upside down sieves! (The weave was not fine enough to keep out mosquitoes.)

However, the Justin Smith Morril Homestead in Strafford Village, Vermont (built in the early 185o's, enlarged in 1859) has screens which may be original. The early screens were painted because the iron mesh would rust, and may have been used for privacy, rather than to keep out flying things. 'Wire cloth' needed to be finely woven to keep out mosquitoes, then it needed to be inexpensive. That seems to have happened in 1876 when a patent was issued for a power loom to weave screening - to Mr. Wickwire of Cortlandt, NY. (What a great name!) The quantity of screening produced in the US increased more than10 fold in the next 20 years.

The Park-McCullough House has screen panels in various states of repair in the basement. (The family saved everything.) Maybe they can be dated.

A great resource here was '100 Years of American Commerce, 1795-1895, edited by Chauncey M. Depew which I found reprinted on-line by Google Booksearch.