WOW, THIS IS AN AMAZING TREASURE TROVE: An online archive of 46 years of Aladdin Home Sales Catalogs, courtesy of Central Michigan University and its Clarke Historical Library. I’m serious: Complete catalogs: Page through for hours and watch the history of middle-class housing styles in the first half of the American 20th century unfold. The catalogs were the principal marketing method for the houses…. So also you get all kinds of little detail that paints a picture of how people lived, what they considered when looking for a house… See the dramatic shifts during the Depression and wartimes, for example. They are little social history books. Aladdin’s were kit houses… manufactured houses like the famous Sears’ models. These kinds of homes are EVERYWHERE across America.
The series starts in 1908, with cottages and $98 hunting lodges and one house, at about $600. As the years progress we see bungalows, capes and Dutch Colonials…barracks during WWII…on into the 50s. The images here are from ’54, the last year for catalogs posted, but the bio says Aladdin, which was based in Bay City, Mich., manufactured homes until 1981.
Here’s some history about the firm:
- Begun in 1906 by two brothers, Otto and William Sovereign, the family-owned firm continued to manufacture houses until 1981. Over the firm’s long history it sold over 75,000 homes to both individual and corporate customers.
- The records of the Aladdin Company were donated to the Clarke Historical Library in 1996. The almost complete run of company catalogs, full set of sales records, over 15,000 post-World War II architectural drawings, and various other company records create an extraordinary historical resource.
- The Aladdin Company records are open for use by the public, having been arranged and described through a grant made by the National Endowment for the Humanities. (Mount Pleasant, by the way, is on the far western side of the state, just north of I-94 where it starts to bend around the Lake. Full-text copies of the annual sales catalogs were scanned through a grant by the Michigan Council for the Arts and Cultural Affairs.
Many thanks to all these great folks! I for one cannot wait to start wading through every single catalog. I love love love this every-person kind of house…I am so excited! My guilty secret, though: I seriously thought about not posting this story, afraid I’d never get you back, like, you’ll be Alice fallen down the rabbit hole into retro-wonderland. But there. I’ve gone and done it anyway.
View the website and catalogs here. … I’ll miss you all. 
Hunker down with favorite seed catalogs 
Julia Baum captures the “vibrant display of personality” in cookie-cutter tract houses — 50 years later 
Plastic bathroom tile: 20 pages of images from 3 catalogs 
Become a fan
I am lovin’ that Flamingo! Pink siding and a green roof…man-oh-man.
If I didn’t have to do a group session this morning, I’d allow myself to get sunk in these for the morning!
I looked in the 1953 book (the year our home was built) and found The Plaza, which is a similar one to ours, except we don’t have a garage, just a carport and the Plaza has a square kitchen rather than a galley one (we have 3 bedrooms rather than 2 also).
However, both that one, the Pasadena and a few others have the shingles on them which were on our house originally (I have photos of it being built given to me by the original owner/builder)…and it is making me wanna go home and rip that new siding they covered the shingles with off today!!!!
Oh yes, and I forget to mention – all your floor-plan aficionados will fun with these too! Send me your “winners” – we are always on the lookout for THE PERFECT small house floor plan!
I’m getting light-headed! A treasure trove of home plans to swoon over!!!!!!!!!!!
Well, I know what I’ll be doing all day long.
Good job, Pam!
sablemable, i *knew* you would like these, especially
The single small bathroom is an issue with almost everyone I know who lives in my neighborhood; some of the (slightly) larger homes seem to have half baths off the master bedroom, but most don’t. As we don’t have (human) children–we have cats and dogs–this isn’t THAT big of a deal for us…but my friends that have kids are constantly fighting the urge to buy outside of the neighborhood they love or to add on extra rooms just to stay here!
Clarke Library is a fantastic resource. Every time I go over there I get lost for hours and hours. Now there are house plans to wander through! Thanks for showing these.
Wow, what a trove! Interesting that right up into the ’40s, indoor bathrooms were optional… they must have done a big business in -er- “rustic” areas.
And in 1954: pink bathrooms and pink metal kitchens with giant aphorisms painted on the
soffitts.
magnarama, i admit that i have not had time to go through these. i can’t wait – to find out little details like the ones you mention. yes: indoor bathrooms. i really tend to believe that something like 50% of american homes did not have indoor bathrooms til after wwII. my mom in coal mining town pennsylvania didn’t. my dad in farm country north dakota didn’t. i think i even read it somewhere. amazing to consider….
then – there’s the whole issue 2nd bathrooms — i don’t really think we started to see these start up until the mid 50s.
BIG FAMILIES: one very basic bathroom = big progress.
Hey Pam, very cool resource and I am almost sure that my home and the homes on our street are Aladdin. Do you have any leads on a place to get those cool window awnings? They would be really nice to have in the summertime and would look awesome.
Hi Petersens, I’ve done a bit of research on awnings. This is of great interest to me. But I was only dabbling. I need to get serious. They are around — and they apparently can really dramatically improve energy efficiency, cutting down on your a/c bill. Okay, it’s on my list.
When I was a teenager in 1981, my Dad came across an Aladdin catalog from 1917 that he’d found while helping my great-aunt move out of her bungalow. I used to spend hours looking through that catalog & sketching floor plans from it on graph paper, altering the plans as I saw fit.
I occasionally will see a home from that era that I recognize as being one of the houses from that catalog. I’m sure I still have it somewhere buried deep in one of my many boxes.
Thanks Pam for posting that link!
Ooops, a correction about the location of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. It is actually in the central lower peninsula, about an hour north of Lansing at the junction of US 27 and M 20.
The directions given above go to South Haven, a lovely town to visit with a popularly pictured lighthouse.
Off to become lost in Aladdin neighborhood!
Oops. And I lived in Michigan for 10 years of my life! I swear, I looked it up on Mapquest, but I guess that goes to show! thanks, Elaine!
Thanks so much for posting. I love old house catalogs.
Hello,
I loved this post and even looked up my house on my counties assessor page to see what year built.
I did notice in this post that it said the houses were offered to 1981.
On the library website the catalogs stopped in 1954. I do hope they are incomplete and will get catalogs up until 1981, especially the 1960’s ones.
Robert
I need to find time to go through these. Love the old house catalogs as my last home was a kit house, a stucco demi- bungalow built in 1926. Since realizing it was a kit house I have poured through anything I could find to determine whose kit it was. Maybe I will find it here. How exciting would that be?
Wow – what a resource! I know how’ll I’ll be spending the rest of the weekend. Thanks, Pam!
So far, I like 2 plans from 1954: The San Diego, page 4 and The Ventura, page 8. Both have a nice flow.
And, on page 53, check out the pink and gray bathroom!!!!!!!! (I’m feeling faint)
Very cool! I love my kit home but information on the internet is sparse. Mine is a 1952 era Gunnison Magichome. I wish i could find a catalog for it!
Like Eric, I’m a kit-home fan because of my factory-built home. It’s from the National Homes Corp. in Lafayette, Ind., and even has a little plaque showing its number off the assembly line, as it were.
My neighborhood is 44 of these houses.
We’re thinking about traveling to the historical society for the county Lafayette is in to try to find National Homes Corp. catalogs.
To have this resource from Aladdin online is fantastic.
I too have a National Homes house, but my plaque was missing — just an empty square at the top of the basement stairs. Well, I just found it on the floor behind the stove! It says “do not paint” — so someone must have taken if off the wall.
I’d like to find my model in a National Homes catalog. Have you found any catalogs online?
Hi Pete, no, I have not seen any catalogs online. However, I think that they come up on ebay now and then…. set up a search and see what the retro decorating gods send to you…
Oh I love old catalogs! Though I usually end up just getting frustrated because I want to buy everything.
I did come across this site a few months ago in my random searches: http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Plans/
If you look on the left side of the page they do have 2 National catalogs, amongst others just in case anyone needs more distractions!
As if we’d ever leave you Pam! We may get distracted temporarily, but leave here for long and you’re bound to miss out on something amazing! Like this! I’m off to bookmark it now (only because it’s after 1 a.m. and I need to get to bed!).
i also have natl home built 1957 love it does yours have basement
My husband and I just bought an Aladdin home Sept ’08. We fell in love not only with the home but also with the neighborhood built by DuPont in the 1920′s. Our lovely gem of a neighborhood is just outside Nashville,TN. I also found a vintage doorknocker that the Aladdin company gave away as Christmas gifts in 1926!! The one thing I cannot find in the online Aladdin catalogs is a pic of our specific home. I am wondering if the homes built for large companies such as DuPont were not listed in the published catalogs. Does anyone know about this?
does any recall seeing plans for the 1923 house, “The Rustic”? I can’t seem to find it. Thanks.
Hey, I know that Flamingo house.
I made it for the Sims!
Found these on a browse and thought of you….can’t think why ;o) http://www.midcenturyhomestyle.com/plans/