Modern Homes

What is a Sears "Modern Home?" From 1908–1940, Sears, Roebuck and Co. sold 70,000 to 75,000 houses through their mail-order "Modern Homes" program. Over that time Sears designed 447 different housing styles … from elaborate multistory houses to simple three-room and no-bath cottages. 1908 Catalog Entire houses would arrive by railroad, from precut lumber, to carved staircases, down to the nails and varnish. Families picked out their houses according to their needs, tastes, and pocketbooks. Sears provided all the materials and instructions, and for many years the financing, for homeowners to build their own houses. Here are a few catalog covers featured through the years (photos borrowed from Internet): 1930 1914 1926 No official tally exists of the number of Sears mail-order houses that still stand today, but it is thought that thousands of these houses have survived in varying degrees of condition and original appearance. There are strict standards used to authenticate a house as an original Sears kit house, including presence of part numbers or other markings on wooden elements such as joists or rafters; mortgage financing from mail order companies; correspondence, blueprints, shipping labels; oral history; measurements of the outside dimensions of the house; floor plans; and room dimensions. I recently heard, from a very reliable source (and former owner), that there are at least four Sears Craftsman houses here in Vicksburg. The houses are located on Chambers Street, and appear to have been well loved and maintained through the years.   If you would like to know more about the "kit houses," here's the link to the Sears Archive website: Sears Archives And here's a link to a website that tells you how to identify a Sears kit house:  How to Find Sears Modern Homes It amazes me that the beautiful house shown on the cover of the 1908 Modern Homes Catalog would be perfectly "at home" in one of our upscale neighborhoods today. I hope reading this has inspired you to pay more attention to the houses in the neighborhoods where you live.  Who knows!  You may live IN, or next door to, a "Modern Home" and not even know it!

The Old Gingko

One of my favorite places in Vicksburg, whatever the season.

The Old Gingko tree in the Vicksburg National Cemetery,

located in the Vicksburg National Military Park.

Here is the original color photo.  Which do you prefer?

Catching Up

I hope this finds you doing well, and I hope you have been having a good summer, wherever you are.  Without meaning to, I have been absent for quite a while, and I sincerely appreciate the notes I received from some of you “just checking on me.”  It’s nice to know I was been missed. I think I have been suffering from a combination of writer’s block and “summer doldrums,” most likely due to the extremely hot summer we’re having here in Mississippi.  I can’t get inspired to go out and take pictures “off the beaten path,” or anywhere else for that matter, unless I can take them from the window of my air-conditioned car. I'm looking forward to this Fall and cooler weather and new “off the beaten path” adventures in search of new and interesting pictures to capture with my cameras.  In the meantime, here are a few I captured here in Vicksburg, during my absence from Southern Lagniappe. Architectural Art