“Just arrived from the East” : manufactured and imported building materials in early nineteenth-century Indiana

Abstract

This thesis examines the availability and use of manufactured and imported building materials in southern and central Indiana before 1850. Specifically, it seeks to identify the extent to which materials such as paint, machine-cut nails, window glass and prefabricated sash, architectural hardware, and cast iron stoves were imported into the region from both foreign and domestic sources. It examines the transition from handmade and hand-wrought to standardized, mass-produced, and prefabricated building materials and explores the impact of emerging American consumerism, changing economic policy, and advancements in technology and transportation on the built environment of the Indiana frontier.