Wealth-Contributing Factors in the Building of Modern Homes

Abstract

PROTECTION from the elements constitutes one of the most fundamental necessities in the life of man. Passing from the period of bare necessity to the modern electrically equipped home represents man's capacity to cooperate with the laws of nature in establishing what to the wealthy of the Middle Ages would be called an ideal home. Along with home development has gone the increased wealth of our country. It is only when a man actually starts to build a house that he fully appreciates the composite interdependence of modern industry. The materials raw and already manufactured consisting of lumber, nails, hardware, glass, stones, cement, tools, and roofing are neither a house nor a home. The transitional stages are from raw and manufactured products into a constructed house and its final conversion into a home. Multitudes of workmen and varied industries throughout the country are reciprocally dependent for a livelihood upon this most elementally constructive instinct of man. It is quite significant that the word home is used in preference to house. The word home implies not alone shelter but a place wherein the parental and sacred obligations of individuals to each other are given an environmental setting. It is a place which affords a setting for the different instincts which man is capable of expressing. The social instinct, the deeper instinct of constructive workmanship combined with the deeper emc tions pertaining to beauty, pride, and self-realization are among the forces at work ultimately to establish a home. So vital is this thought of the far-reaching consequences of home life on the development of the individual that any city is exceedingly proud when it can be characterized as a city of homes.