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The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains a large and growing collection of building trade catalogs. We add new titles monthly, and so it is always a good idea to check with us to see if we might have the one(s) you are seeking. 

Many of these were digitized last year through our contacts with the Association for Preservation Technology International, with generous financial support from the Heritage Preservation Education Foundation. Digitized catalogs may be located in the Internet Archive's Building Technology Heritage Library. Please note that although many are available online, there is a larger number that are not digitized and must be consulted in the archive.

The Morgan Woodworking Organization produced a very ambitious catalog in 1923. Titled Building with Assurance, the catalog primarily illustrated mill work that the Morgan Company produced in its Oshkosh, Wisconsin factory. With sawmill operations in Arkansas, Michigan and Washington, Morgan could supply its products nationwide. It also sold art glass windows and residential building plans.

Breakfast Nooks became prominent in 1920's mill work catalogs. Morgan copywriters attributed their popularity to "servantless" and informal domesticity. Rose Angell, the former department editor of Woman's World touted their benefits:

In the morning, a few steps from the range take

you into the delightful little alcove--just wide 

enough to hold a long, narrow table and two seats.

What a saving of time and labor not to have to set

the dining room table for the quick breakfast or

cup of tea when the cheery neighbor steps in around

four o'clock.(1)

Nooks could accommodate early and late risers, and sheltered intimate conversations. The Morgan Company's copywriters stressed that tablecloths were optional: the only thing required was a sunny spot!



(1)Rose Angell. "A Woman's Thoughts About A Home." Building with Assurance. Chicago: The Morgan Woodworking Organization, 1923, p. 16. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Images above:  Building with Assurance. Chicago: The Morgan Woodworking Organization, 1923. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Colori e disegni

 We recently acquired a large number of color-related publications for the Southeastern Architectural Archive's Architectural Trade Catalogs collection. Many of these were printed in the early twentieth century, and pertain to exterior and interior paint, flooring and millwork. For those interested in matching historic palettes, these brochures and catalogs may provide  selection criteria. For example, the Aladdin Company's 1916 catalog offered the color choices indicated above.

We have noticed a number of Aladdin designs in greater New Orleans. The Lamberton model, shown above, can be found on both Audubon Boulevard and Pritchard Place.

Images above:  Aladdin Company. Aladdin Homes. Catalog No. 28. Bay City, MI: The Company, 1916. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Plantation Prefab

After the Civil War, labor shortages on plantation properties drove one New Orleans lumberman, Walter W. Carré, to begin selling manufactured portable cabins (top image). The steam-cut lumber was framed, marked and shipped to clients in Arkansas, Honduras, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Carré claimed that his cabins were so easy to use, they didn't even require a carpenter's skills.(1) In April 1869, his company received the "Best Portable Cabin" prize at the Third Grand State Fair and two years later The Daily Picayune touted his cabins  "marvels of ingenuity."(2)

Other New Orleans lumber concerns also offered pre-cut plantation cabins. The Lhote Lumber Company's 1883 catalog featured its double cabin (center image), as did the Louisiana Steam, Sash and Door Company's 1891 catalog (bottom). In their advertisements, each company placed cabin doors and windows in a different arrangement.

For those interested in early portable structures shipped out of New Orleans, see the following articles:

Charles E. Peterson. ”Early American Prefabrication.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts XXXIII (January 1948): pp. 37-46.

Samuel Wilson Jr. “New Orleans Prefab, 1867.” The Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 22:1 (March 1963): pp. 38-39.


(1)"Portable Plantation Cabins." The Times-Picayune 12 November 1870.

(2)"Wonderful Mechanism." The Daily Picayune 27 April 1871.

Images above: "Plantation Cabins." The Daily Picayune 9 September 1882.

"Plantation Cabins." Lhote Lumber  Company Catalog. n.p.,1883. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

"Plantation Cabins." Roberts & Company's Illustrated Catalogue of Mouldings, Architectural and Ornamental Wood Work, Door and Window Frames, Sash, Doors and Blinds, Brackets and Cornices, Porch Columns, Balustrades, Fences, Counters, Shelving and Store Fittings, designed and compiled by William Bell, superintendent, Louisiana Steam Sash, Blind and Door Factory. New Orleans, 1891.Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries. Now digitized via the Internet Archive's Building Technology Heritage Library.

New Orleans Business Archive: Lhote Lumber (1847-1910)

In 1904, the Lhote Lumber Company significantly expanded its operations and built a new $500,000 plant in the Second Municipal District along the Old Basin [Carondelet] Canal. Lhote employed over 150 workers at this new site. As a transition, the company briefly maintained its former operations in the Storyville neighborhood (1300 Toulouse Street) as a branch facility.(1)

Relocating the lumber plant afforded Lhote more direct access to schooners and railroad cars from which to distribute its products.(2) Its old location had required a treacherous hairpin turn at the Old Basin Canal (1873 atlas shown above).

First established in 1847, the company was known for its mill work and "manufacturing cabins and dwellings framed for shipment."(3) By 1904, its manufactured dwellings were being referred to as "Ready-Made Houses."(4)  Lhote maintained an international business, shipping its products through the Gulf of Mexico. From Mexico, Lhote was hired to manufacture the 1900 Orizaba exposition buildings and the Vera Cruz quarantine station.(3)

Hard times quickly fell on the operation. In July 1910, New Orleans auctioneer W.A. Kernaghan offered the plant for $200,000.(5) When it failed to realize this price, the National Realty Company acquired it for $188,000.(6) National Realty promptly flipped the mill, selling to the National Sash and Door Company for $200,000.(7) George V. Lhote eventually became the operation's general manager.

National Sash and Door Company experienced an economic upswing after World War I, becoming the recipient of numerous commissions for residential and commercial projects. In 1918, the Southern Pine Association hired the company to construct a model children's bungalow that was displayed in Lafayette Square.(8)  National Sash & Door also supplied mill work for the Lafayette model school on Carrollton Avenue, the Bohn Motor Company Garage, and for new branches of the Whitney-Central Bank. It exported its products to clients in Arkansas, Mississippi and Texas, as well as to those in the Caribbean, Central America, Mexico and South America.(9)

Records from a number of different Southeastern Architectural Archive collections document the Lhote Lumber Company and the National Sash & Door Company.

Architect James Freret produced drawings for the company's 1883 millwork catalog, housed in the SEAA's Architectural Trade Catalogs.

Architect C. Milo Williams photographed Lhote's Storyville lumber operation in the last decade of the nineteenth century. His image is housed in the SEAA's Williams Family Records.

Architect Martin Shepard, who frequently worked for construction and real estate concerns, kept various mill work company ephemera, including an advertising notebook from the National Sash and Door Company. Shepard's records are housed in the Southeastern Architectural Archive as Collection 109.


(1)"To Our Customers and the Public." The Times-Picayune  24 July 1904.

(2)"New Lhote Plant the Largest Lumbering Mill in the South." The Times-Picayune 19 July 1904.

(3)Henry Rightor. Standard History of New Orleans, 1900.  p. 531.

(4)Advertisement.  The Times-Picayune 1 September 1904.

(5)"Lhote Mill May Reorganize." The Daily Picayune 29 July 1910.

(6)"Lhote Lumber Plant Bought." The Daily Picayune 9 September 1910.

(7)"National Sash and Door Company Files Its Charter." The Daily Picayune 22 October 1910.

(8)"Model Bungalow of Southern Pine." Lumber World Review 25 June 1918: p. 58.

(9)"Lhote Sees Big Future for Millwork Industry." The Times-Picayune 24 May 1925.

Images above:  Lhote Lumber Company, Second Municipal District. Sanborn Atlas. 1908-1909.

Lhote Lumber Company Properties, Squares 132, 152, 153. Auguste B. Langermann. Plan book containing the improved part of the city of New Orleans. Second district. Compiled for fire insurance companies.  New Orleans, 1873.  Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Advertisement.  The Times-Picayune 1 September 1904.

Brackets

The subject of New Orleans brackets is frequently a hot topic for researchers. Thanks to a grant from the Heritage Preservation Education Foundation, many of the Southeastern Architectural Archive's and the Canadian Centre for Architecture's historic building trade catalogs have been digitized and are available through the Internet Archive's Building Technology Heritage Library.

Notable catalogs published by New Orleans building concerns include the following:

Roberts & Company's Illustrated Catalogue of Mouldings, Architectural and Ornamental Wood Work, Door and Window Frames, Sash, Doors and Blinds, Brackets and Cornices, Porch Columns, Balustrades, Fences, Counters, Shelving and Store Fittings, designed and compiled by William Bell, superintendent, Louisiana Steam Sash, Blind and Door Factory. New Orleans, 1891.

The Southeastern Architectural Archive's current Bungalows exhibit features catalogs with Queen Anne and bungalow brackets.

The Louisiana Research Collection, another of Tulane University's Special Collections units, houses other important postbellum catalogs that include brackets:

Roberts & Company. Illustrated Catalogue of Mouldings, Architectural & Ornamental Wood Work Designed and Compiled by William Bell. New Orleans, 1880. TH1155.R62 1880

Orleans Manufacturing and Lumber Company. Combined Book of Orleans Mfg. & Lumber Co., Limited. New Orleans, Louisiana: manufacturers of cypress sash, doors, blinds, mouldings, stair work, mantels, and all kinds of interior and exterior finish ; glass lists, latest styles, elevations, designs, etc., of embossed, ground, and cut glass ; brackets, scroll and turned work, wood drapery, store fronts, corner blocks and beads, plinth blocks, sawed and turned balustrades, door and window frames, pulpits, pew ends, etc. ; also revised edition New universal moulding book giving full size of mouldings, and their exact measurement in inches on each moulding. Chicago: Rand McNally, 1893. NA2850.O75 1893

The Williams Research Center at the Historic New Orleans Collection houses another early catalog with New Orleans connections:

W.B. Judson. The Standard Moulding Book: a catalogue of mouldings, brackets, architraves, balusters, newel posts, pew ends, stail railing, etc., with new and improved designs for doors, door frames, windows, store fronts, elevations, etc., etc. Chicago: Lumberman Publishing, 1882.

The University of California Santa Barbara's Lawrence B. Romaine Trade Catalog Collection includes publications by the Lhote Lumber Company (Old Basin Canal) and the Louisiana Red Cypress Company.

& the City of New Orleans' Historic District Landmarks Commission maintains helpful guidelines that include photographs and stylistic descriptions of brackets.

For Sears Catalog brackets, click here.

Images above:  Bracket. Ripley Residence. 1420 Harmony Street, New Orleans, LA. Project Number 1052. Circa 1963-64. William T. Nolan Office Records, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

"Bungalow Brackets" from Lafayette Sash and Door Factory. Standard Miniature Millwork Design Book. Lafayette, Louisiana, 1928. Architectural Trade Catalogs, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Sixteenth Street Canal

We recently came across this photomechanical reproduction from 1898 that shows the milling operations of the New Orleans Cypress and Lumber Company, formerly the McEwen and Murray Sawmill. The operation was located in the square bounded by Cambronne and Dante Streets, the new basin and the Sixteenth-Street Canal. In November 1897, one of the McEwen dry kilns containing 5000 feet of lumber was destroyed by fire. The McEwen mill was owned by the New Orleans Cypress and Lumber Company and began operating under the owner's moniker by 1898.

In February of that year, the plant sustained significant tornado damage. The roof of the machinery room was completely blown away, exposing the engines to the elements. Other surrounding structures also sustained damages. Mount Olive Baptist Church was completely torn apart, its timber scattered into the nearby swamp. Workers' houses adjacent to the mill were "prostrated" and twenty families were "rendered homeless."(1)

The mill sustained catastrophic damages in July 1899, when a massive lumber fire swept through the plant. Yard number 2 contained some 8,800,000 ft. of clean and undressed cypress ready for shipment. A strong southeast wind spread the fire very quickly and despite the response of six steam engines that drew water from the canal [now renamed the Seventeenth-Street Canal], the yard was lost. The owners, represented by Captain and Mrs. R.A. Scott, and F.G. Tiffany of Lacrosse, Wisconsin, filed a $150,000 claim with the Pescaud insurance agency.(2)

(1) "A Little Cyclone Sweeps the City." The Daily Picayune 20 February 1898.

(2)"A Lumber Fire." The Daily Picayune 16 July 1899.

Image above:  New Orleans Cypress and Lumber Company, Ltd. Advertisement from Official Directory of the Southern Pacific Company and Atlas of Lines for Use of Shippers and Buyers. Chicago: Lanward Publishing Company, 1897-1898. Louisiana Research Collection, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Bungalow Elements

The Southeastern Architectural Archive retains a large collection of building trade catalogs that provides examples of bungalow plans, millwork, interior designs, wallpaper, paint samples and garden features.  Local millwork suppliers included the National Sash & Door Company, the Hortman Company and the Lafayette Sash & Door Company.

Images above:  Bungalow Balusters, Doors, Porch Rails and Windows from National Sash and Door Company. Sash Door Blind and General Millwork. New Orleans, 1919.

Bungalow Brackets, Rafter Ends from Lafayette Sash and Door Factory. Standard Miniature Millwork Design Book. Lafayette, Louisiana, 1928.


Both publications are from the SEAA's Architectural Trade Catalogs, Collection 89.

From Milwaukee to New Orleans

The 1884-1885 World Cotton Exposition in New Orleans introduced new household and building products to fair visitors. Various companies, including those represented by local agents, advertised their wares in such publications as The Industries of New Orleans: Exposition Year (1885).

German immigrant carpenter William Willer was an enterprising Wisconsinite whose sash, door and blind company introduced a number of patents in the late nineteenth century. All were developed by William's son Henry E. Willer, whose first patent, for an interior wooden sliding blind, became immensely popular (US patents 312,051; 312,052; and 312,053). At the peak of the family's operations in the first decade of the twentieth century, the company employed over 200 people. 

The Willer Manufacturing Company was represented in New Orleans by architect-brothers William C. and C. Milo Williams. The latter employed Willer's sliding blinds in his design for a residence located at 1406 General Taylor Street, a structure no longer standing. The blinds can be seen through the second-story windows in the photograph below.

The sliding blinds were classed by cost, with "Class A" being the most expensive, because it included a window frame made with a receptacle at the top, in which the blind could be entirely hidden from view. "Class B" (shown below) sliding blinds had no such concealment, and, as such, windows would always be partially obfuscated by a section or sections of the sliding blind.

Photographic image above is from the Williams Family Office Records.

Prints are from Willer's patent inside sliding blinds: manufactured under 10 letters patent granted to Henry E. Willer: other applications pending. Milwaukee, WI: William Willer, 1885. Trade Catalogs Collection.

An additional Willer catalog may be accessed via the Building Technology Heritage Library.

Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Building Letterheads XV-XVI

Southern Demolishing & Lumber Company, Incorporated

407 North Broad Street

1940

George L. Ducros Tile Company Tiling Contractors

1601 South Gayoso Street

1957

Images above: Building Letterheads, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Building Letterheads XIV

In August 1925, three large New Orleans lumber concerns merged. Salmen Brick and Lumber (founded in 1844 by Fritz Salmen), Hortman Lumber (founded in 1913 by Claude Hortman) and National Sash & Door Company (organized in the first decade of the twentieth century) consolidated to become the Hortman-Salmen Company, Incorporated.

In April 1931, the company moved to its new plant, located at the intersection of Dupre and Toulouse Streets, and covering four municipal squares adjacent to the Carondelet Canal.

Image above:  Detail, EAH, Sales Department to Perrilliat-Rickey Construction Company, 22 July 1936, Building Letterheads, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

Building Letterheads XIII

Beginning in 1901, the Schwing Lumber & Shingle Company operated along the Mississippi River at Bayou Plaquemine. The company's dominance of the Louisiana cypress shingle market was mentioned in W.E. Clement's Plantation Life on the Mississippi (1952). Schwing also operated a successful Spanish moss operation, supplying the cured "lagniappe product" for the upholstery trade.

By the late 1930s, Schwing was managing mineral rights related to speculative oil drilling operations across its vast land holdings. Company president Calvin Kendrick Schwing became a prominent politician, serving in the Louisiana state senate from 1928 to 1936. In December 1956, Dow Chemical Company purchased all the Schwing Lumber stock, and thus acquired 60,000 acres of land.

Image above: Detail, Calvin K. Schwing, letter to Mr. Bert Nadler, 15 November 1938, Building Letterheads, Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

New Orleans Business Archive: Dixie Mill Supply Company

Dixie Mill Company Storage, S. Diamond Street, 08.2008 by K. Rylance

Dixie Mill Supply Co. opened at 631 Tchoupitoulas in 1917. Its president was M.E. Cahn and its secretary was Joseph Goldstein. By the mid-1920s the business had moved to its current location at 901 Tchoupitoulas. Today, Dixie also deals in metallurgical salvage: the photograph above was taken of the interior of one of Dixie's South Diamond Street storage spaces, just as the contents had been sold to a third party. An elbow joint, such as the ones seen in the foreground, may fetch as much as $1,000 on the open market, depending on metal content.

Iron-Clad Joint Co. Advertisement from Soards' New Orleans City Directory for 1918 Vol. XLV, p. 10. The Southeastern Architectural Archive, Special Collections Division, Tulane University Libraries.

City directories are an excellent resource for those interested in historic businesses and architecture. Many early twentieth-century "yellow page" advertisements display products, buildings, and company slogans. The Southeastern Architectural Archive maintains a collection of New Orleans and suburban directories, as well as trade catalogs associated with the use of metals in architecture, especially aluminum and steel.

Resources for Architectural Salvage:

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The Architectural Bank
1824 Felicity Street
504.523.2702

Carrollton Lumber Company
2938 Leonidas at 8600 Earhart Boulevard
504.861.3681

The Green Project
2831 Marais Street
504.945.0240

Habitat ReStore
2830 Royal Street
504.943.2240

Preservation Resource Center Warehouse
2801 Marais Street
504.947.0038

Ricca's Architectural Sales
511 North Solomon Street
504.488.5524