Albert Farwell Bemis Foundation records

This collection includes correspondence, reports, manuscripts of published works, notes, financial and personnel records, publicity material, course information, index cards, bibliographies, blueprints, plans, photographs, and printed material about housing, especially prefabricated housing from the period 1926 to 1954, with the bulk of the material dating from 1940 to 1954.

Reports in series 1 and some material in series 2 actually predate the beginnings of the foundation. These early records describe housing research done for Bemis Industries, Inc., which was similar in nature to the later studies that the foundation sponsored. For example, Eugene Mirabelli, an MIT civil engineering professor, completed two studies for Bemis Industries and the MIT Building Research Council which compared state housing sanitation laws and studied trends in construction material. In 1935, Prentice Bradley, a 1931 MIT graduate, toured Europe and surveyed housing projects, including cooperative and prefabricated developments. Bradley sent John Burchard written reports which included a completed questionnaire and printed material describing each housing development.

Preliminary planning of the foundation started soon after Albert Farwell Bemis’s death in 1936. The administrative records in series 2 include information on these plans as well as biographical material on Bemis.

Planning of the foundation: In 1937, John Burchard wrote to housing industry leaders and architectural educators requesting suggestions for the proposed building research foundation. Burchard also visited many of the housing industry’s leaders in order to see first-hand their problems and requirements and to gather more research suggestions. Burchard’s reports and correspondence from these investigations formed the basis for the establishment of the foundation. (See series 2.)

Administrative records: The foundation was established in June 1938. Its formal administrative records include the foundation budgets from 1939 to 1955, as well as other financial and personnel records. Also included are foundation Advisory Committee correspondence, agendas, and reports. These records in series 2 span the sixteen years of the foundation’s existence, yet they form only a small part of the foundation collection.

Prefabrication survey: The bulk of the collection deals with the various research activities and services of the foundation. The largest project—a prefabrication survey—was formally started in 1947 when the foundation distributed questionnaires to manufacturers throughout the United States. Before that time, the foundation had requested prefabrication information but had not attempted a comprehensive study. As early as 1935, before the foundation started, Bemis Industries had begun gathering information from manufacturers. These early records were updated and interfiled with the survey files.

Most of the survey files are from manufacturers involved with some aspect of prefabrication, but the files also contain information from organizations such as the Tennessee Valley Authority and the Farm Security Administration. The survey files include photographs, plans, and blueprints of prefabricated houses; correspondence and completed questionnaires about the companies; advertising material; and cross reference sheets with citations to articles about the companies. (See series 5, subseries B.)

In all, the foundation surveyed almost 900 firms. For about 200 firms, separate files of confidential records were also maintained. These confidential files contain financial reports from Dunn and Bradstreet, reports and interviews done by the foundation staff, legal information, and correspondence the foundation staff considered sensitive. These files also contain some information on the Federal Housing Association’s confidential rulings.

A much smaller section of the prefabrication survey contains general information (series 5, subseries A) such as correspondence, statistics based upon the survey, and detailed reports about a few of the firms. The foundation maintained an address list of prefabricators and kept an updated list which gave geographical and alphabetical access to firms. Information from the Housing and Home Finance Agency, the Prefabricated Home Manufacturers’ Institute, and the Modular Service Association are also included in the general files.

A few years after the prefabrication survey formally started, the foundation expanded their area of inquiry by surveying prefabricators in foreign countries. They gathered information from over thirty countries in North and South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Australia, but most reports are from Europe. (See series 6, subseries E.)

Index card files: An index to all the participants in the survey is in series 7. The index cards carry the names of the manufacturers in the US and abroad, the file number, and occasionally the manufacturer’s address and other notes. The cards are in alphabetical order and indicate which firms are in both the general and confidential sections. Two other sets of cards in the series also relate to the prefabrication study. One serves as a guide to the geographical location of prefabricators, and another lists bibliographical information about prefabrication.

Other research projects: While no other project was as extensive as the prefabrication survey, a variety of housing concerns were studied under the auspices of the foundation. Records concerning many of these projects are in series 2. A number of outside researchers conducted projects in association with the foundation. Eric Carlson, the associate editor of The American City, studied cooperative housing, and the collection contains his report as well as correspondence and printed material. Harold Horowitz studied the mechanical facilities of houses; his extensive report to the foundation Advisory Board is also in the collection. Herbert Heavenrich’s correspondence and reports on British housing and the Research Center for Group Dynamics’ correspondence, notes, and graphs from their study of Westgate are further examples of foundation research records.

Educational program: Part of the foundation’s research efforts benefited MIT’s educational program. From 1949 until 1953 the foundation gave an Industrialized House Course in conjunction with MIT’s School of Architecture. Material from this course includes correspondence, assignments, schedules, and reports. An Industrialized House Conference was held at the end of each course and the collection includes information on conference arrangements, publicity, participants, and programs. The foundation summarized each conference in a report, and the collection contains transcripts of the conference proceedings and drafts of reports for the 1950, 1951, and 1952 conferences. There is little information on the 1953 conference. These Industrialized House Conferences presented prominent speakers from industry, academe, and government, such as Buckminster Fuller, Foster Gunnison, and Major General J.S. Bragdon. Requests for the reports show that the conferences received a great deal of interest from the housing community. (See series 3.)

Publications and other activities: The foundation did not limit their educational efforts to MIT. They published books and pamphlets of their own studies in an effort to reach a wider audience. Records concerning their publications, including Burnham Kelly’s The Prefabrication of Houses, appear in series 3, along with program proposals, foundation publicity, and information about visitors. Educational outreach was one of the purposes of the foundation, and the housing and building community used the foundation as a resource for inquiries about prefabrication, low-cost housing, and other building concerns. Examples of this interchange can be found in series 3.

Information file: In order to deal with housing questions and concerns, the foundation gathered data from other research and educational programs that were conducting housing research. This information file (series 4) contains material on US government research agencies (subseries A) and non-governmental research facilities (subseries B). The Housing and Home Finance Agency conducted most of the federal projects, many in conjunction with MIT. The more general research file contains information from industries, universities, and other organizations. For example, the Building Research Advisory Group had a Building Research Institute that conducted a housing survey and held conferences, with advice from the foundation. The major part of the information file contains information from universities’ research activities. Both the federal and the non-federal files document the research work through correspondence, reports, bulletins, photographs, and printed matter. The foundation staff included clippings and cross-references to pertinent articles in their information files.

International files: The foundation’s International Housing Information File is similar to the information in the file on housing research (series 3) and the prefabrication survey (series 5). The international section contains information on the research activities of foreign government departments and agencies, housing organizations, universities, and industrial concerns. As already mentioned, the foundation expanded their prefabrication survey to provide global information. While the international information and survey files are on a much smaller scale than their US equivalents, these files also contain correspondence, reports, publicity information, photographs, clippings, and other printed material. An index file on exports is also in the collection (series 6).