The Log Cabin: An American Icon

Abstract

In The Log Cabin Alison K. Hoagland explores the log cabin both as a “seemingly simple structure” and as a symbol freighted with numerous “narratives and counternarratives” (pp. 3, 8). The author's library and field research underscores the cultural complexity and architectural variety of log structures. Hoagland agrees with scholars who have debunked Anglo-American claims that English colonists first built log cabins in America. Lacking definitive evidence on origins, she tentatively supports the consensus view that seventeenth-century Swedes colonizing the Delaware River valley first introduced log cabins. Hoagland's first chapter describing log cabin characteristics appropriates definitions from Thaddeus Mason Harris's Journal of a Tour into the Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains (1805). Referring to “the temporary buildings of the first settlers in the wilds,” Harris contrasted windowless, chimneyless “Cabins,” crudely constructed with unhewn, round logs, with the superior “log-house,” illuminated by glass windows, ventilated by a chimney, and skillfully constructed with squared, hewn logs (Harris quoted by Hoagland, p. 16, emphasis in original). Hoagland identifies Harris as a Boston Unitarian minister but neglects to mention his status as a leading Freemason and chaplain of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. Harris's publications promoted Freemasonry's mythic history of architectural, cultural progress from primitive roughness to polished perfection. Harris's book therefore rejects even the relatively refined log house in favor of “more decent houses” constructed with saw-milled boards (ibid.).