Ozark Vernacular Houses: A Study of Rural Homeplaces in the Arkansas Ozarks, 1830-1930

by Jean Sizemore

Over 160 photographs, drawings, and maps provide examples of the four traditional Ozark house types and reveal the unity of a distinctive Arkansas culture that bears identity with all hill peoples. Of importance to architects, folklorists, cultural historians, and anyone interested in the Ozarks, this fascinating examination of the Ozark house is a way toward understanding the mind of the inhabitants and their entire way of life.

246 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1994

Reviews

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I live in the Arkansas Ozarks and so picked this up at a garage sale out of curiosity. This is more for preserving knowledge for academic purposes than for a general audience. It's not difficult to read; it's merely the type of details the author focused on. She looked at the main styles of the rural houses found in the Arkansas Ozarks (in Washington and Stone counties) from 1830-1930 and traced where those styles originally came from. These styles were the single pen, double pen, dogtrot, and I-house. There were floor plans and pictures of these types of houses so you get a good idea of what they were like. She then looked at the other buildings that were on the land and how they were arranged. There was some information about rural practices of the time (like how hogs were free-grazed, so the fences protected the garden rather than penned the animals) and the architectural style of the barns. She also preserved information about how the interior of several of the homes were laid out, what furniture was in which rooms, and even how long it took for electricity and telephones to become widespread in the area.

[Kimberly]

It's been a while, but my memory of this is that it is very thorough, and very academic. Probably not for those who are only casually interested in Ozark architecture.