| This dissertation examines the interplay of structure, ideology and architectural design in seven company-owned textile mill villages in Rhode Island. It focuses in particular on changes in community, class and household structure and on the role which architecture played in implementing these changes.; I begin by discussing the early mill villages established during the opening decades of the 19th century. I argue that social practices, community structure, and architecture alike combined familiar elements with new.; I then examine the years following the close of the Civil War. Historic maps and floor plans of mill houses built during this period demonstrate the increasing salience of social class in mill village life. These data show how occupational distinctions in the workplace became elaborated in the village landscape, with manufacturers building distinct types of housing for each rank of factory employee.; I then turn to the reformist era between the mid-1870s and the First World War. Social class, now everywhere evident in the mill village landscape, entered political discourse. So, too, did discussions of workers' domestic arrangements. Reformist rhetoric made workers' personal habits and private lives its primary target, and it identified their homes as the appropriate arena of reform. Mill house design became an important means of restructuring family life.; At the community level, wholesale redesign of village layout created a new landscape of tree-lined streets and single family cottages clustered around a village green. Through such devices as company sponsored flower gardens, parks and recreational facilities, manufacturers downplayed class distinctions and promoted an image of harmonious small-town life. I discuss how the resulting village landscape, an artifact of 20th-century reformist vision, has been widely misinterpreted as evidence of how early manufacturers incorporated "traditional" values into their factory communities.; I conclude by examining developments in the years following the Depression. Mill village properties experienced a variety of fates, including demolition, purchase (often followed by renovation) by private individuals, conversion to federally subsidized housing, and designation as historic structures worthy of preservation. In analyzing these developments, I consider what they reveal about contemporary attitudes towards community, class, family, and America's industrial past. |
