Truth in Advertising

I have this deep love for floor plans. I think it started when I was in second or third grade when the neighbor girls and I would draw chalk houses in the cul-de-sac. They were basically floor plans drawn in chalk. Anyone looking out a window would have seen piles of dress-up clothes lying "randomly" on the pavement and not the latest fashions carefully put away in our chalk house closets. These are fond memories of mine.
In high school I played with the idea of becoming an architect and was one of the only girls to take Engineering Related. I still love drawing floor plans and looking at floor plans. Recently I found a great website www.antiquehome.org that has floor plans from the 1890's up until the 1970's, mostly of kit homes. My favorite are the 1930's-1940's. Where else can you find a house that has 1300 square feet and 4 bedrooms?! But while I was browsing through these wonderful plans I started reading the advertisements on the page. Here are a few of the quotes:

"There is something void in the being of a man who has the care neither of a home nor a family. Within the walls of his selfish fancy he may boast of his freedom and life of ease, but he is a prisoner indeed who knows not the joys of conjugal companionship, and the care and responsibility of home, perhaps in the class of The Kimberley."


"The care of a family means responsibility and responsibility in turn creates power. Just as it is more economical to own a home in The Rosedale class than it is to pay rent, just so it is more economical for a man to support a family than to deny himself the breadth of vision which comes as the result of a happy union and happy home life."

"Large houses have caused thousands of industrious women to become prematurely old. The day for large, pretentious homes is rapidly passing, and the practice of economy in small, convenient homes like The Royal is becoming the joyful duty of housewives. It is not the size of a home that makes it attractive, but the care with which it is kept."

"Nothing so stimulates and elevates a man as for his life companion to believe in him, and in no other way can a man show his appreciation of such confidence and trust as in the earnest endeavor to build her a home of her own. Any woman who has tact, forethought, and patience with her husband need not despair of owning eventually just such a home as The Hamilton."

I love these quotes! You don't hear stuff like this anymore, in general and especially not in advertising! I was blown away by the little truths that are in these statements and even more so because it was advertising, meaning the general populace must have agreed because they did buy these houses and these plans!