Beginning with the homes of the first European settlers to the North American colonies, and concluding with the latest trends in construction and design of houses and apartments in the United States, this four-volume set informs students, general readers, and others interested in how we lived throughout American history. From tenements to "McMansions," from wattle-and-daub construction in early New England to sustainable materials for "green housing," these volumes provide a rich historical tour through housing in the United States. Divided into four volumes and ten historical periods, the set explores a variety of home types and issues within a social, historical, and political context.Special fact boxes and sidebars highlight unusual homes or features in homes that tell us about the people who lived in them; timelines for each period detail important events in domestic architecture as well as in history; resource guides provide information on important books, articles, Web sites, and videos for further study. The set includes a glossary and comprehensive index; a brief history of the era; styles of domestic architecture around the country; building material and manufacturing; home layouts and designs; landscaping and outbuildings; and furniture and decoration.The volume highlights are: "Volume 1: 1492-1820": information about regional home-building material such as wattle and daub for the Northeast; clay and lime for brick and mortar in Tidewater Virginia; wood for Massachusetts; adobe, mud and plaster for the Southwest and West; stone where available, etc.; building a home where people created most of what they consumed, requiring buildings, barns, cellars, privies, wells and cisterns to accommodate everything from butchery to storage to ice; use of pattern books in design and construction; Innovations in building materials and services; franklin stoves, Rumford ranges for heat; Plumbing - water closets vs. privies, running water and baths; purpose-built rooms for designated events - dining, gaming, breakfasting; and creation of private spaces-the bedroom and the closet." Volume 2, 1821-1900" include: settlement patterns; log homes in Midwest and West; cellars, attics and porches; westward expansion and homestead acts; styles including Italianate, Italian Villa, Stick Style, Eastlake Second Empire; tenements in New York, "Sanitary Housing," and the beginning of company towns, such as Lowell, Massachusetts; Regional styles such as Mission in West and Prairie in Midwest; and Spread of indoor plumbing."Volume 3, 1901-1945" include: the use of electric lights; planned parks and housing around them; mass housing and improving tenements; model town planning and garden apartments; the massive impact on houses in the 1920s and 1930s by the automobile, improvements in refrigeration, heating technology, the telephone, and the radio; and the movement toward small, owner-occupied, single-family housing." Volume 4, 1946 - Present" include: ppposition between traditional styles and modern design; the popularity of the ranch house and split level home; interstate highways, shopping centers, and suburbs; attempts and failures at urban renewal; retirement communities; the rise of consumerism, yuppies, and homelessness; design of "new towns," Do-it-yourself remodeling and design; the beginnings of energy consciousness; new trends that draw from the past (small towns, compact design, mixed uses), now politically encompassed under the umbrella ideal of "Smart Growth"; and support for new urbanist ideals of neo-traditional design, transit oriented development, and infill projects.