Housing, permanent shelter for human habitation. Because shelter is necessary to everyone, the problem of providing adequate housing has long been a concern, not only of individuals but of governments as well. Thus, the history of housing is inseparable from the social, economic, and political development of humankind.  The dwellings and other structures within a geographic and cultural area tended to follow common patterns characteristic of that area.  Microsoft® Encarta® Encyclopedia 2003.

Log Cabin, typical dwelling of the American pioneer during the westward expansion after 1765. Well adapted to frontier conditions, the log cabin could be built by one person with a heavy ax and a hunting knife. The walls followed the simplest rectangular plan and were formed of rough logs laid horizontally, jointed at the corners, and chinked with mud and moss as protection against the wind.  By the time of the American Revolution the cabin had become the characteristic frontier dwelling. Among the many famous Americans born in log cabins were Presidents William Henry Harrison, Abraham Lincoln, and Ulysses S. Grant.

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Indian Teepee

Log Cabin

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In agricultural settlements, people typically lived in single-room round or rectangular huts made with poles covered by thatch or sometimes grass. Roofs were frequently gabled for protection against the heavy downpours that occurred every year during the rainy season. Each residence usually had a cooking hearth, storage pit, and workshop area where pottery and tools were made.

Grass Hut

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Although today sod houses are most often associated with Kansas and Nebraska, sod has been used as a building material throughout history.  On the Great Plains, without wood or stone, its use was a matter of necessity. Thus, on the Plains it was used for all manner of structures, houses, schools, barns, and even forts, such as Fort Mitchell, 55 miles east of Ft. Laramie, built in 1864 to guard the Oregon Trail and the mail route.

 Sod roof

Ranch

A trailer home  is a mobile house designed to serve wherever parked as a dwelling or a place of business.

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Trailer Home

High Victorian Gothic architecture, inspired by contemporary work in England and by the critical writing of John Ruskin, appealed to an American desire for more picturesque variety in building styles. Industrial expansion underwent a dramatic shift after the American Civil War (1861-1865). As a result, the profits of expanding industry became increasingly concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people. It was a period labeled The Gilded Age by writer Mark Twain, and colorful and exuberant displays in architecture characterized it. Twain himself was not immune to dramatic display, as seen in the High Victorian Gothic house built for him (1873-1874) in Hartford, Connecticut. Designed by Edward Potter, the Twain house is built of brightly painted brick and wrapped in broad porches. 

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Igloo

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An Eskimo house, being a dome-shaped hut usually built of blocks of hard snow. The igloo, a temporary winter hunting shelter to the Alaskan Eskimo does, in fact, melt inside, but not to a great extent.The snowflakes falling outside of the igloo, in the harsh Alaskan winter, quickly melt when they land on its roof, and provide a replacement layer of insulation for the igloo. The ongoing freezing and re-freezing of the igloo, hardens it, and transforms the blocks of snow the Eskimos used in the construction process into a solid, icy, domed refuge.

Victorian House

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A castle is a fortified residence of a feudal lord or monarch. Derived from the walled cities of ancient Rome and the fortified palaces of Byzantium, the castle became virtually ubiquitous in western Europe during the wars of the late Middle Ages.

Castle

Classic House