Folk Architecture: Reading List

  • “An Early Hay Press and Barn on the Ohio River.” Material Culture: Journal of the Pioneer America Society 25, no. 1 (1993), 29-36.
  • “Early Log Crib Barn Survivals.” In Barns of the Midwest. Eds. Allen G. Noble and Hubert H. G. Wilhelm. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1995, 24-39.
  • “Folk Architecture.” In Folklore and Folklife: An Introduction. Ed. Richard M. Dorson. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972, 281-293.
  • “Folk Architecture in Context: The Folk Museum.” Proceedings of the Pioneer America Society 1 (1972): 34-50. Reprinted in Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked. Ann Arbor: U.M.I. Research Press, 1983, 235-245.
  • “Function in Folk Architecture.” Folklore Forum, Bibliographic and Special Series, No. 8 (1971): 10-14. Reprinted in Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked. Ann Arbor: U.M.I. Research Press, 1983, 229-234.
  • “German American Log Buildings of Dubois County, Indiana.” Winterthur Portfolio: A Journal of American Material Culture 21/4 (1986): 265-74.
  • “The Green Tree Hotel: A Problem in the Study of Ethnic Architecture." Pioneer America 15 (3), 105-121.
  • Log Buildings of Southern Indiana. Bloomington, IN: Trickster Press, 1984, 1996 (rev.).
  • “The Tools Used in Constructing Log Houses.” Folklore Preprint Series v. 4., no. 2. Bloomington: Indiana University Folklore Publications Group, 1976.
  • “The Tools Used in Building Log Houses in Indiana.” Material Culture: Journal of the Pioneer America Society 33/1 (2001): 8-45.
  • “The Whitaker-Waggoner Log House from Morgan County, Indiana.” In American Folklife. Ed. Don Yoder. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1976, 185-207. Reprinted in Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked. Ann Arbor: U.M.I. Research Press, 1983, 247-271.
  • “Some Comments on Log Construction in Scandinavia and the United States,” In Folklore Today: A Festschrift for Richard Dorson. Ed. Linda Degh, Felix Oinas, and Henry Glassie. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1976, 437-50. Reprinted in Viewpoints on Folklife: Looking at the Overlooked. Ann Arbor: U.M.I. Research Press, 1983: 273-288.

Folk Architecture


"[Log churches were similar in construction to log houses], except for two important details. First, their doors are never in the long walls as they are in log houses, but are instead in one of the gable-end walls. Usually the gable-end of the building with the door, or doors, in it faces the road. The interior lay-out of the churches seemingly dictates this door placement. The pulpit is at one end of the church, usually on a slightly raised platform that has space for a choir. Rows of benches occupy the floor in front of the pulpit. It is convenient, therefore, to have the entrance to the church in the wall behind the benches. In this way the seating arrangement is not broken up and late-comers to the service can enter the church at the rear without disrupting the service. Some churches have a single door in the center of the gable-end wall while others have two doors in this wall. In those churches with two doors the sexes were separated during the services. "

Warren Roberts, Log Buildings in Southern Indiana, 1996: 149