The Greek Revival style moved westward into the Trans-Appalachian states with early 19th century migration. Ohio is rich with examples, as are Indiana and Illinois. The style weakens — that is, to say, the copies of copies of copies become less convincing — as it moves into Wisconsin and Minnesota, though you may be offended by that observation if you’re from one of the latter states. Look not for it in the Dakotas; it’s not here.

The Greek Revival of the “Federal” period was followed by the Italianate, which you will find in the Dakotas and pretty much all the Great Plains States. [Remember, Texas is always an exception.] This was a style of the Civil War years and following, and one, therefore, which was dependent on the transition from hand carpentry to the increased use of power tools. Italianate design requires a good deal of wood trim but, happily, most of it can be produced with a jig saw and a lathe.

Italianate buildings can be found from Hartford to Hannaford and New Orleans to New Ulm. From farmhouses to courthouses. It is interpreted in a variety of materials from brick and stone to wood and stucco; including metal from cast iron and galvanized to wrought. And combinations of those materials, colorful combinations. I’ve always felt comforted by the Italianate, though without any solid reason for that comfort. I’ve also never tried to design anything in the style, until now.

This has been a long lean period in the Agincourt blog, largely because I’m deep in the writing of a manuscript on another project topic, so I didn’t want July to pass without at least a couple posts and the Original Fennimore County courthouse suggested itself — one of those cases where a sequence of buildings (courthouses one, two, and three) were designed in a different order. So now he time has come to imagine what that first seat of county government looked like and why it became outgrown so quickly.

Mid-Century Modern

Yes, the lush semi-tropical setting of this house by Gregory Ain places it securely in Southern California. And the mid-century modern style itself is one you’re unlikely to find in Iowa. But I can dream.

Last semester I worked with a student in a 5th-year architecture studio on the design of an MCM house. He was twenty-two or twenty-three, I’m guessing, and I, of course, more than three times his age, which may account for why it was more difficult than I had thought it would be. But that was my problem, not the student’s, because this was one of the architectural styles of my youth: I am, indeed, mid-century, if not actually modern. So, the earmarks of that historic style are more familiar to me than they would be to a twenty-something. Despite my hope that there is, in fact, very little other than age between me and my students, I’m living a life of quiet delusion.

Your Solar House

A 2008 article by A. Denzer, “The Solar house in 1947,” treats the significance of a book published that year, 1947, by Libby-Owens-Ford Glass Co., promoting L-O-F products and the design of passive solar homes — which one assumes would very likely have been done in an MCM design vocabulary. That was the first architecture book I can recall reading at my local public library some time in the mid-50s. So it became my go-to source for the state of mid-century modernism across the U.S. I bought a copy and gifted it to the student mentioned above — MCM has made a strong resurgence of late and he is far more likely to apply some of its principles than I am. But, for my current purposes, it raises the issue of when Agincourt might have received its first (only?) example of MCM single-family residential design.

Ain, by the way, proves to be a more interesting architect than I had recalled.

For the gamers among you, there is a new periodical on your horizon: Senet, a name borrowed from an ancient Egyptian board game, often found in tombs, for the deceased to enjoy wiling away their eternal hours in the afterlife. I acquired a couple issues and am more than a little intimidated. With a little more courage, I’ll send a letter-to-the-editor, seeking some guidance on the notion of adapting Agincourt as a board game.

My track record for engaging strangers in this Project is a mixed bag; most “solicitations” have gone unanswered. At least no one has replied with suggestions for institutionalization. Yet. I hope.

There’s an old greeting card box, probably older than me, which is filled with family photographs; it may be in the roll-top desk. I know they are family because I recognize two or three people. But certainly not because there are any names pencilled on the backs. Why would anyone do so foolish a thing? “Everyone knows that’s Aunt Toodie” — until everyone who knew Aunt Toodie is dead.

I suppose that explains the number of unidentified “real photo” postcards on the auction site that dare not speak its name. Nameless faces, faces that at one time had meant so much to others or they’d never have been photographed, are a waste of perfectly good visage. So I buy them — often at $3–$5 each — and sketch the lives they might have lived in a small Iowa community a hundred years ago. Some are fleshed out more than others; many are just a name — so far.

And don’t claim better things to do with my time. This is a far higher calling than some I could mention.

HOBART

It came to me this morning that this young man is Hobart; no surname or family yet. But there is a disconcertedness on Hobie’s face that belies his young age. Clearly this photo op was an interruption in his otherwise purposeful day.

Addendum [05 July 2021]: A hasty scan of the Who’s Who will tell you a lot about the curator here: that he is a well-past-middle-age White guy doomed to populate Agincourt with persons not unlike himself. Mea culpa. So, yes, I was drawn to this disconsolate little fellow, perhaps because he reminds me of myself. It then remains for me to fabricate a family for little Hobart.

“Hobart” as a given name is German, related to “Hubert”. Identifying its central European origin, a searched a list of surnames and their meaning — pretty subjective stuff, I realize. I tried several of them just for the sound and settled on a few with one or two syllables, ultimately choosing Koch (“cook”) for two reasons: 1) there was a well-known architect from Milwaukee named Koch, and 2) it is pronounced at least three ways: cook, coke, cotch. I’m going with “coke”. Now to generate some parents, siblings, and a plausible emigration story.

“Schadenfreude: when simple envy isn’t enough.”

During the Cold War, there was the joke about the English speaker (by which I mean American english) feeling superior to the Russian who did not have a word for peaceful coexistence in his Russian vocabulary, and had had to borrow “detente”. The humor lies in the truth that neither does American English; though we use the French detente — not so much since the C.W. is past — for that same deficiency in our own tongue. And so it is, I suppose with Schadenfreude.¹

It is made up of two German words: Schaden, which means “harm” or “damage,” and Freude, which means “joy.” Hence Schadenfreude is the phenomenon of taking joy or satisfaction from the bad fortune of another. A self-satisfied sort of “Told ya so!” As I’m not an etymologist, the distinctions between schadenfreude and karma are subtle. But what of schadenfreude in Agincourt?

¹ Why did this remind me of Dankmar Adler, onetime partner of architect Louis Sullivan? Adler’s mother had died in childbirth and, so, was given the name Dankmar, meaning “sweet sorrow”. How sad to be reminded each day of the circumstance of your birth. And the painful joy it had brought to another.

[1504]

Accidents happen. Sometimes they’re intentional and made to look random. But let’s give everyone the benefit of doubt — one of the few occasions when doubt can work against the public good.

Photographs of train wrecks come up for auction frequently and are usually well beyond my budget. Images of trolley and interurban mishaps are less frequent and proportionally higher in value. That’s the way of the market. This one, of a car that ran along the Ohio shore of Lake Erie, had an opening bid of $35, too rich for a flunky faculty member. So I’m content to merely heist a jpeg.

Interurban cars like this one were made by a few companies. Their subtle differences are obvious to “rail fans” among whom I can’t yet count myself. But it does look like the sort of car the NITC would have run from Fort Dodge to Storm Lake: a hybrid, with a passenger area but also a portion set aside for freight. Despite these differences, their measurements were more or less standardized, from track gauge to clearances, which might have useful for a company like the NITC whose “fleet” may have been a mixed breed. The design of this car would have looked something like this:

Those clearances are important for designing station platforms or depots, especially like the NITC facility in downtown Agincourt, where the track passes through the building. Though, at 50’–6″, this would have protruded out each end of its shed and blocked the sidewalk a few times a day for brief periods.

“We must build one house. We must build one family.” — Congressman John Lewis

REUNION

COVID vaccination has reached levels where it may be possible during these summer months to see some family reunions around Agincourt. Technically, I’m having one right now; indeed, anywhere I happen to be is a reunion of my family of one. There is the family we get, of course, but then there is the family we make. I’ve recruited a pretty awesome one, but we could still get together in the corner booth at Mango’s. What’s a “cousin”?

Reunion reminded me of a subtle shift in advertising on TV; probably in print media, too, but I don’t see much of that. What now constitutes a “family” is no longer the 1950s model presented in “Pleasantville.” I’m seeing families that look a whole lot different and, in fact, more representative of who we are. Couples that are Black and White with bi-racial children might be expected in 21st century America. But now I’m also seeing a more representative percentage of Asian-Americans. And those couples are often same-sex — actually showing affection for one another and their children. Now this is making America great.

Commercials seem directed at a broader range of age, as well as race. In fact, holiday gatherings are opportunities to extend this idea generationally, too. I’d jump at the chance to lurk in the corner of a Madison Avenue ad agency as they strategize the casting call for a shoot. The Supreme Court (certainly not the current court) allowing me to marry my husband was a landmark day in modern culture but it wasn’t real until it was used to sell me insurance or corn flakes. Or make-up (not that I’m using eye shadow these days) but cosmetics constitute a huge and lucrative market, with a broader range of skin color and hair type. Products go where the money is and advertising dollars follow suit.

I’ve tried, in my halting, myopic, aging-White-guy way to broaden Agincourt’s base, who lives there, where they come from, how they relate. But I’ve got a long way to go. And not much time to do it. But is there a tent big enough; if not, we must build it.

Stay tuned.

[Appropriately, this is entry #1500]