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. Come back soon!
barb says
i also have natl home built 1957 love it does yours have basement
Tikimama says
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!).
Julie Rogers says
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.
Pete says
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?
pam kueber says
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…
Cara says
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!
Scott Herron says
Just found these comments! Our first home was a National Homes kit with the plaque in place in the basement stairwell (serial number 43779!). We bought it in 1987 and I think it was built in 1952 or 1953.
Would love to find more information about National Homes.
Scott
ShariD says
Hi Scott – I know this is kind of late for a reply, but I just saw your comment here. My husband and I live in Indiana, and we lived in Lafayette from 1978 to 1980, when National Homes was still cranking out houses. In fact, for most of that time, we lived in subsidized apartments that had originally been constructed by National Homes! They were very boxy, and I understood at the time they were built, it was like stacking prefab blocks with a big crane! Every first floor level for a townhouse was identical – a living room up front and a large eat-in kitchen behind. The second floor contained two bedrooms and a bath. If you got a three or four bedroom unit, they were three stories! They just added the appropriate sixe prefab on top. They have been torn down now for a few years finally, after a rather contentious battle with the remaining residents and city government, and a brand new, very modern complex built in “old fashioned” farmhouse and cottage and bungalow styles have been constructed in their place. Also subsidized. We drove through it a while back, and it looks so much nicer than those plain brown boxes we used to live in!
Anyway, one reason I am replying to you is that I am a true kit home freak, and I happened to stumble across this video on YouTube a while back, all about how National Homes were being built back in the middle of the Post-War home building boom of the 50’s. The link ishttps://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5_0U8pTlCpw
And it shows them (quickly) from start to finish. Thought you might like to see it, if you haven’t already. Enjoy!
ShariD says
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5_0U8pTlCpw
I’m trying again to post that link. It doesn’t look like it came out quite right, because my “is” got attached to the beginning of the url. Let’s see if this is better!
Eric says
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!
monogirl says
I just fund this catalog on Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/jenosale/sets/72157627624319138
sablemable says
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)
Carleton Heights Girl says
Wow – what a resource! I know how’ll I’ll be spending the rest of the weekend. Thanks, Pam!
Elizabeth Mary says
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?
Robert says
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
Bob Hellstrom says
Hi – The catalogs were offered much later than 1954. I bought my Aladdin Pasadena #1 in the summer of 1964, after driving from Connecticut to Bay City, MI, where I had a tour of the plant. Fascinating place. The lumber they used was incredibly impressive. It was all dry, knot-free and straight as an arrow. All edges of the structural lumber were rounded off. You couldn’t get a splinter from working with this lumber, if you tried. I was told that I could select any plan in the catalog; make whatever changes I wished to any of their plans; or they would custom make the house to any plans of my choice. I worked off their standard plans but moved the fireplace, moved and added doors and closets, changed the type of windows and doors. My house was delivered a few days before Halloween in October 1964 on the last freight train to come through East Hampton, before the New York, New Haven & Hartford gave up that spur of their line.
They really didn’t have a sales force. They relied on existing customers to be their sales representatives. If we agreed to allow prospective buyers to tour our houses, they would pay us $5 for each group that came to tour the house.
I still have all the supporting advertising, blueprints, etc.
Happy Daze says
Thanks so much for posting. I love old house catalogs.
50s Pam says
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!