| This study was based on a project to document surviving company housing built by the refractory brick industry in company towns in south-central Pennsylvania. Providing representative samples of company town styles and company housing types, this study follows this emblematic product of industrialization---the company house---through deindustrialization. After the initial survey and groundwork research in eight towns, the immediate problem became to explain why all of the houses were built between 1893 and 1924 and then divested between 1944 and 1966. Stated in broader terms, why was company housing taken for granted in one period and viewed as illogical in another? The answer lay in shifting focus from the company houses themselves to include the adjacent brickyards. Demand for refractories accelerated in the 1890s and peaked in the early 1920s, and construction of company housing in these years reflected the industry's response---consolidation of control over its operations and resources, including the labor force. Each brick had to be handled numerous times from molding through drying, burning, and shipping. Brick making machines were just being introduced in the 1890s, and automation of the entire process was not achieved until 1928. The refractories industry was dependent on hand labor, and company housing can be seen as a form of management mechanization functioning in lieu of machine mechanization. Viewed from the perspective of the brickyard, brickyard towns, and particularly their company housing, can be interpreted as a piece of brick-making technology. This study contends that company houses should not be considered in isolation of the industry they served.; The study is also adamant that the period of divestment of company houses---by sale and/or by demolition---is crucial for the history of company houses, for it holds up the mirror image of the era of its construction and signals a caveat to accepting any single meaning for the company house. |
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