Mid-Century DIY

Mighty headboards from slender saplings grow, according to this 1955 cartoon. It'll be a few years before these well-chosen (if closely spaced) hardwoods put our tree-planter's hammer-and-saw skills to the test.

Below, DIYism in the news, 1954...

Ottawa Citizen, April 17 1954

Do-it-yourself-ism was a meme, in the strict and original sense of the word. It was octothorpe-worthy. It was, beyond any dispute, a "thing".

According to Newspapers.com, instances of the phrase "Do it yourself" in Ottawa papers started to climb in 1954, peaked in 1959, then re-peaked around 1977-78 and have since trailed off to early '50s levels. The late-'70s peak reflected a flood of ads for "Do It Yourself Centres". The B-under-a-roof logo looks oddly familiar and warrants further poking at...

Ottawa Journal, May 18 1978

The above ad reminds me of That '70s Trend, the basement rec-room*. The wood-grain printed panelling that became a fixture of so many (often DIY) "semi-finished" basements would come back to haunt us in 1995, as the literal backdrop to a series of controversial Calvin Klein ads — what are those kids getting up to down there? They're being too quiet!

 Of course, that which had grown tacky... is chic once more.

*Which is me trying to say something catchy and failing splendidly. The rec-room, sometimes called the playroom or the kids-room (in our east-end Ottawa nabe, at least) was a commonly understood concept by the 1950s. And the Forman's basement walls, those parts we could see on That '70s Show, were exposed cinder-block. So much the funkier.

I felt that.

Canadian Department Stores Ltd., July 4 1927

This ad was part of a half-page spread which described (this particular?) CDSL as "successors  to "A.A. Fournier, Limited Store No. 12".

While that detail may well contribute to the jigsaw puzzle that is the history of Canadian retail, what I find striking is that fact that this and so many early newspaper ads of this ilk and era don't bother to include a business address. Apparently, one just knew these things. Of course, when this appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, one could traverse the entirety of Ottawa's retail district in little over half an hour, so the store would have been that much harder to miss.

Cloche (bell-shaped) hats, of which some variants are included above, were invented (we are told) in 1908 by French milliner Caroline Reboux, as a rebuke to the overly-wide hat-brims of that decade. Their popularity persisted well into the 1930s.

I'm not sure what to call that intimidating Deco-on-the-Nile affair to the upper left and I don't know if Ottawa was ever actually ready for that sort of thing.

life during wartime

Canada's "Wartime Housing Limited" was the precursor to our present-day CMHC. An understanding of the former's history and achievements can gleaned from Jill Wade's Wartime Housing Limited, 1941—1947: Canadian Housing Policy at the Crossroads (June 1986). Her complete essay can be viewed/download here.

She frames her investigation with this introduction...

"Beginning in 1941, a federal crown corporation called Wartime Housing Limited (WHL) built almost 26,000 rental housing units for war workers and veterans. It was a successful yet temporary phenomenon. Six years later, Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC) absorbed and dismantled the wartime company. Eventually, CMHC made possible the tenants' purchase of the WHL units.

In 1944, while WHL efficiently performed its construction and management operations, a report issued by the housing and community planning subcommittee of the Advisory Committee on Reconstruction described the enormous contemporary need for low and moderate income shelter in Canada. The report recommended a nation-wide, comprehensive, and planned program emphasizing low-rental housing. Instead, the federal government initiated a post-war housing program that promoted private enterprise and home ownership and neglected long-range planning and low income housing.

Thus, an interesting question follows. Why did the federal government not reconstitute WHL as a permanent low-rental housing agency to meet the huge low income accommodation need following World War II?..."

 Jill Wade was born in 1942 and raised in St. Boniface, Manitoba. She taught British Columbia history in the university program at the Open Learning Agency in Burnaby and published Houses For All: The Struggle for Social Housing in Vancouver, 1919-1950 (UBC Press, 1994). (source)

mid-century home-building porn, maple-bacon style

Cover design, 67 Homes for Canadians, CMHC, February 1947 — you can view/download the entire document here. Below is Plan 47-19, i.e. nineteenth in the 1947 series.

Click on the pix to aggrandize.

From the foreword of 67 Homes...

"There has long been an urgent demand in Canada for new, attractive designs of low or moderate-cost houses suited especially to the Canadian way of living.

The purpose of "Homes for Canadians" is, in part, to help meet this demand and to provide the prospective house builder with general information on financing, costs, site selection, construction standards and planning.

This book is divided into three sections. The first contains a broad discussion of the above-mentioned subjects. The second presents 30 new designs for essentially Canadian homes. The third contains designs submitted by prize winner on the recent Canadian Small Homes Competition.

It is our hope that "Homes for Canadians" will help to meet an ever-increasing demand for information of this kind.

[signed]

D. [David] B. Mansur,

President

Central Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

Ottawa, February 1st, 1947"

 And some historical context from CMHC (original here)...

"...In 1946, shortly after World War II, CMHC (first known as Central Mortgage and Housing) was created at a time when Canada faced a massive housing shortage. The immediate challenge was to find housing for the thousands of returning veterans. In the process, CMHC helped create entire cities, such as Ajax, Ontario and Gander, Newfoundland. Thousands of storey-and-a-half houses across Canada were built by CMHC in the years following the war, bringing about new neighbourhoods, towns and cities. In the absence of a co-ordinated building industry, CMHC stepped in to deal with every aspect of housing servicing land, building and selling housing and arranging mortgage financing.

Before CMHC and its planners became involved, cities had grown with little forethought as to where things should be built and what kind of services would be needed. CMHC, through its housing designs and neighbourhood plans, began the first efforts towards the co-ordinated growth of Canadian cities, with housing mixes suitable for a variety of residents, from singles to families and seniors. It was CMHC s influence that led in the development of the first schools of urban planning in Canada.

Even the actual lay-out of neighbourhoods was affected by CMHC: the curved streets, courts and crescents so much a part of the Canadian city s landscape owes much to Dave Mansur, CMHC s first president, and CMHC s planners of the day, who worked to find ways to slow down traffic in residential areas. That rationale is still used in developing new neighbourhoods today.

In the 1950s, when other lenders assumed financing as a private business, CMHC turned to mortgage loan insurance, which guarantees the lender will be re-paid if the homeowner fails to keep up the payments. That assurance has helped keep mortgage rates down and housing affordability up. It also meant that mortgage money was available not just to Canadians in larger cities, but in remote and rural areas of the country.

Over its 50 years, CMHC has been heavily involved in research. At first, it focused its efforts on the technical issues, helping the construction industry solve problems dealing with foundations, drywall, roofing and other construction components. "CMHC approved" is the assurance of quality..."

(This house guaranteed "Flintstones-ready";-)

in the run-up to WWII

The Winnipeg Tribune, July 2 1938