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Folk and Vernacular Architecture
Many houses
in America's rural and urban areas can be readily identified according to
their form, or type. They were brought from Europe to North America as part
of the colonists' cultural knowledge and subsequently moved westward with
the settling of the frontier. Often these traditional, or folk, types
were adapted to a particular locale and were then combined with popular
trends in architecture to produce what is commonly referred to as
vernacular architecture.
The people who settled in Indiana came from
widely diverse backgrounds, bringing with them a variety of building
traditions. Because Indiana was generally settled from the Ohio River north,
many of the earliest settlers came from southern states such as Kentucky,
Virginia and North Carolina. Not surprisingly, house types popular in the
south are found in abundance in the southern one-third of the state.
The northern section of Indiana, on the
other hand, was settled by people moving westward out of New England, along
with people representing various ethnic groups. They all brought with them
building types that were familiar to them. As the state became increasingly
culturally homogeneous, these regional and ethnic house forms were more widely
disseminated. Eventually, examples of the most popular houses could be found
throughout Indiana.
Industrialization and the widespread
distribution of its products, including building materials such as
dimensional lumber,
millwork and wire nails, and publications such as
builder's guides and architectural planbooks, introduced traditional
builders to academic, or high style, architecture. Vernacular architecture
is largely the result: a blending of folk forms with popular stylistic influences.
Morgan County has retained a fine
collection of folk and vernacular house types. This is due to several
factors. The county's early settlement and the pioneers' easy access to
timber are reflected in a number of early hewn log houses, and in several
rare cases,
hewn log barns. Unlike many other Indiana counties, the impact
of the railroad was not as widespread in Morgan County. Only two lines
passed through the county, with a number of townships having no direct
access. Because of this relative isolation, examples of the most basic folk
house types, such as the hall-and-parlor and central-passage, persisted much
later in Morgan County. Some examples even date to the early twentieth
century.
Say What? Folk and Vernacular
Architecture
The terms "folk" and "vernacular" have long
been problematic among those who study architecture. Some folklorists,
cultural geographers and architectural historians consider the
classifications to be distinct. Folk architecture is that which is wholly
traditional, informally transmitted as cultural knowledge from one
generation to the next. Vernacular architecture, on the other hand, is
derived from forms of popular culture such as magazines, plan books, and
builder's guides. Folk vs. vernacular is the difference between learning to
build a log cabin from someone who already knows how to do it and building
one by following written instructions.
 To
some students of architecture, folk and vernacular are products, or
buildings that can be classified according to their form or type. To others,
folk and vernacular means a particular kind of process that includes
how people think about buildings, how they build them and how they use them.
The presentation of folk and vernacular
architecture in the Morgan County Interim Report (1993) and in this
website is a combination of both interpretations. It distinguishes between pure folk
(traditional) and vernacular (popular) forms, or products. Yet it also deals
with ways (processes) in which tradition and popular culture merge into
entirely new kinds of buildings that were readily accepted by Americans.
Their popularity led to their distribution across regions and from one
generation to the next.
To learn more, see Vernacular
Architecture by Henry Glassie. Indiana University Press, 2000.
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