The Comfortable Tasty Framed Cottage: An African American Architectural Iconography

African American architectural history is not a secondhand version of the European American white experience; evidence of African American architectural agency can be discovered by tracing the evolution of the iconography of the "comfortable, tasty, framed cottage." Arising out of aspirations of assimilation before and after emancipation, the image of an idealized African American middle-class house was understood not only as a healthful and convenient shelter, but as the measure of racial progress and as a strategy for gaining acceptance into the dominant white culture. Three institutions within the African American community promoted this iconography: industrial education, the women's reform movement, and the print media. While abysmal living conditions existed for most African Americans, a small number created houses that were informed by the iconography of the ideal black home. Indeed, so powerful was this architectural message of assimilation that black possession of a middle-class home often provoked white violence. While the origins, development, and promulgation of the idealized image can be outlined with some assurance, judging its ultimate value is more uncertain, and some have denounced the African American iconography of domestic architecture as a false and destructive adaptation of white hegemonic cultural values.