Katherine E. Chaison | Plot Development, or E. F. Beadle's Adventures in Building Suburban Homes in Late Nineteenth-Century New York | New York History, 88.1

Plot Development, or E. F. Beadle's Adventures in Building Suburban Homes in Late Nineteenth-Century New York

Katherine E. Chaison, Cooperstown Graduate Program, SUNY-Oneonta, Cooperstown, New York

A visitor to Cooperstown, New York, might notice a series of stately, old Victorian houses lining three streets, across from the century-old courthouse at the western edge of town. Not large enough to be mansions, but more elaborate and grand than many of the other village residences, the houses along Pine Boulevard, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street kindle a certain nostalgia for the past.¹ Sitting neatly along quiet, tree-lined streets, nothing about the exteriors of these houses suggests the anxieties and issues that surrounded their construction during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Built at a time in United States history when American identity was contested, much as it is today, these houses and others like them played an important role in constructing the identity of the middle class.

The houses along Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street were part of a real estate investment scheme undertaken by E. F. Beadle, the king of nineteenth-century dime-novel publishers, in the 1880s. Familiar with current building trends from his position in the publishing industry and aware of the potential monetary returns from prudent real estate investment, Beadle wanted to construct a suburban development in Cooperstown similar to the developments materializing on the outskirts of every major American city. New house construction was not uncommon in Cooperstown during the last decades of the nineteenth century, but Beadle's development in the village was unusual in its scope and size. Within the development, Beadle opened a new street at the western edge of Cooperstown and sold over fifteen houses or plots of land. Plot sizes were generous and intended for a particular style of home, the suburban home, which was being designed and marketed to the middle class.

A suburban house in the second half of the nineteenth century was one that was modern, stylistically fashionable, and symbolic of domesticity, environmental determinism, consumerism, and middle-class identity. More of a design genre then a specific architectural style, the modern suburban house embodied a picturesque silhouette inspired by nature.² The suburban house, as a specific form, could be found in locales other than the suburbs of major cities. As it does today, "suburb" in the nineteenth century described a residential area on the city's periphery. But in contrast to today, a nineteenth-century "suburban development" was any neighborhood that featured suburban houses in a charming natural environment with city services and community atmosphere. Cooperstown was too small and geographically remote from a major urban area to act as a true suburb, but it was possible for a small town in the late nineteenth century to feature a suburban development. Beadle succeeded as a suburban developer in Cooperstown by combining the natural environment, suburban house form, and city services into a package attractive to a middle-class clientele.

For many nineteenth-century Americans, the social, cultural, and economic fabric of American life was chaotic and unpredictable after the Civil War. Cities were teeming with life as millions of immigrants filled new labor needs created by emerging industries. Traditional systems of authority such as the master-apprentice relationship were disappearing, and social mobility, an important pillar of American democracy, was threatened. No longer a steppingstone to individual proprietorship and land ownership, wage labor for many had become a permanent lifelong position.³ Two popular and influential movements, the ideology of female domesticity and the cult of male homeownership, merged in the second half of the nineteenth century to fill this ideological gap.⁴ Owning a home became part of the new American dream, one that could be achieved through common opportunities for self-improvement. At a time of economic and social uncertainty for ordinary people, homeownership became a source of empowerment for the middle class, both in practical terms and in generating emotional imagery of "ownership, possession and permanence."⁵

Supporting the new philosophy of homeownership and shaping the design and style of the suburban house was environmental determinism, an ideology which had found a wide range of popular acceptance throughout the United States. Many nineteenth-century Americans believed that the physical environment strongly influenced human behavior, an idea reflected in numerous aesthetic decisions and egalitarian reform movements. The idealism of the suburban house as the perfect home was also shaped by environmental theory.⁶ For Victorians, the physical setting of a house could mold human character and behavior for good or for bad.⁷ The overcrowded conditions of the city tenement were believed to breed poverty and amoral behavior, and the antithesis of the tenement, the single-family suburban house, was offered as the panacea to all urban woes. A single-family dwelling in the garden-like setting of the suburb provided a safe haven for the endangered urban, middle-class family by fostering moral individualism. Countless magazines and pattern books promulgated this idea, printing illustrations of the suburban houses in country vistas or on large lots with shrubs and trees.⁸

A man of high ambitions but humble beginnings, Erastus Flavel Beadle was born on September 11, 1821, to Flavel and Polly Beadle of Pierstown, New York, the sixth child of ten.⁹ By the age of seventeen, E. F. Beadle had left his family and apprenticed himself to H. and E. Phinney, operators of a bookstore and printing plant in Cooperstown, New York. In the spring of 1846, Beadle married Mary Ann Pennington of Cooperstown and a year and a half later was the father of a new baby when he decided to move to Buffalo. Despite earning modest success there with his stereotype foundry and small publishing business, Beadle ventured out to Nebraska in the spring of 1857 to seek his fortune in real estate speculation. As an officer of the Saratoga Town Company, Beadle was employed in enticing settlers to Saratoga and distributing land, but he returned broke to the East that fall.¹⁰ By late 1858, Beadle had rejoined the publishing business and relocated to New York City, where he rose to fame and fortune through his successful publication and promulgation of the dime novel.

Throughout his life, Beadle remained closely connected to Cooperstown. Much of Beadle's extended family resided in the Cooperstown area, and as soon as finances permitted, the Beadles purchased a summer residence, "Marcy Hall," a mile south of the village. Prosperous from hops harvests and tourism in the early 1880s, Cooperstown offered potential opportunities for lucrative real estate investments. Beadle continued to acquire land and buildings in the village, buying a second house, "Glimmerview," as well as several shops and houses along Main Street in the village.¹¹ After his wife's death in 1889, Beadle sold all of his interests in the New York City publishing firm to his partners and retired permanently to Cooperstown. Once there, he focused on his real estate investments until his death on December 14, 1894.

Print media in the nineteenth century focused on domesticity, the family, the home, and the themes of suburban salvation and security.¹² As a publisher, Beadle was aware of these popular themes, even capitalizing on them himself by publishing the periodical The Home, a Fireside Monthly Companion and Guide for the Wife, the Mother, the Sister and the Daughter.¹³ House building, construction, and civic improvements were occurring in every part of the country and, tempered by his experiences in land speculation during his sojourn in Nebraska, Beadle understood the risks and benefits of real estate investment. Selling land was profitable, especially for developers who divided up large tracts into smaller residential lots.¹⁴ Although a few developers like Samuel E. Gross of Chicago, Illinois, bought huge tracts of land and divided them into hundreds of small plots to sell, as well as building houses and offering mortgages, most developers were small speculators with several lots of land and few houses.¹⁵

While other developers and investors profited from the creation of suburban developments on the outskirts of major cities, Beadle chose a small town in rural New York in which to construct his new suburban development. Too far from any major urban area to attract middle-class city refugees, the creation of class-specific housing for middle-class residents in Cooperstown might have been an unsound investment for Beadle if he had not been familiar with the area and its residents. Despite living in New York City for the majority of his life, Beadle remained connected to Cooperstown through family, friends, and his summer residence. Beadle straddled the urban and small-town worlds and was in a unique position to mediate between them. Well-versed in the ideology of the home, Beadle believed that the strong middle-class associations of the suburban home and development would appeal to local upwardly mobile residents. Free from the evils of the overcrowded city, but subject to the same desires and fears of their more urban peers, the village's middle-class residents were potential consumers for a suburban development if Beadle could replicate one in Cooperstown.

In 1882 Beadle purchased a piece of valuable farmland from J. L. McNamee on the western border of the village and promptly constructed a street through it, connecting Main Street to Lake Street.¹⁶ Beadle named the new street Nelson Avenue in honor of the late Supreme Court judge Samuel Nelson, who once owned some of the land within Beadle's development. An 1868 map of Cooperstown reveals that, prior to Beadle's opening of Nelson Avenue, the westerly edge of the village remained mainly undeveloped, with a couple of houses and adjoining outbuildings along Pine Street.¹⁷ Even before Nelson Avenue was complete, Beadle had divided his land that fronted Pine Street into three lots, the basic unit of suburban development. Each lot was approximately 70 × 180 feet.¹⁸ The Freeman's Journal in April of 1882 stated that Beadle would "build two or three handsome cottages upon it before long," but the newspaper was misinformed and Beadle sold two of the unimproved lots, one to C. D. Sheldon that fall and another to D. J. McGown the following year.¹⁹ By 1885, Beadle had divided all of his land along upper Main Street, Pine Street, and the newly completed Nelson Avenue. Otsego County deed books record Beadle's series of transactions over the next two years. Beadle conveyed seven tracts of land in 1885 and eight in 1886 along Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street.²⁰

Map of Cooperstown including Beadle's development on Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street, 1890.
Map of Cooperstown, New York (Troy, N.Y.: Burleigh, Lithographing Establishment, 1890). Special Collections, New York State Historical Association Library.

Suburban developments in the second half of the nineteenth century were designed and marketed to appeal to middle-class Americans. A residential district needed to meet three criteria in order to be considered a suburban development. A suburban development contained suburban homes that were well positioned on large lots in harmony with their natural surroundings. Access to modern utilities and transportation routes to the business, culture, and commerce of the city was another essential feature of a suburban development. Finally, a suburban development was a community, preferably of like-minded individuals who shared common aspirations grounded in class identity and associated consumption and behavioral patterns, which helped to combat the growing feeling of isolation and anonymity experienced by many middle-class Americans. The ideal American suburban development was the perfect embodiment of all three features: a natural environment, city services, and community.

The physical structures of Beadle's development successfully incorporated the first characteristic of the suburban development. Corresponding with the dominant environmental ideology of the time, Beadle's lots in his development were large, fostering a sense of privacy and independence. When subdividing his land, Beadle ensured that lot sizes were generous and attractive to purchasers. Beadle's lots on Nelson Avenue averaged 60 feet wide in the front and 250 feet deep. Slightly larger lots were formed on Pine Street and upper Main Street.²¹ Photographs of both front and back yards of homes built on these lots expose generous lawns covered with flowers, plants, and trees.²² Purchasers of Beadle's lots could rest assured that their bit of rural tranquility would remain intact, as the "pressure" to develop was missing in the small-town atmosphere of Cooperstown. Despite its connection by a branch line to the Ulster and Delaware Railroad in the 1880s, Cooperstown was too geographically isolated from any major city to be incorporated into a commuter suburb, preserving the development's rural charm.

2 Pine Street, c. 1900.
Ward Files, 2 Pine Boulevard, Special Collections, New York State Historical Association Library, Cooperstown, New York.

The exterior of the suburban house was an important part of the suburban environment. Late nineteenth-century builders and architects believed the design and ornamentation of a building could evoke as much natural imagery as the building's location.²³ A house's irregular shapes, patterns, textures, and colors were supposed to mimic nature's complexity as well as reveal the individuality of each owner. Most suburban houses were built speculatively and not for a particular family, but personal expression was an important feature of the suburban house nonetheless.²⁴ Profuse ornamentation gilded every newly built suburban house, providing individuality while simultaneously legitimizing wealth, and unique ornamentation was an important feature of the suburban houses that Beadle constructed on Pine Street and Nelson Avenue.²⁵

Beadle sold the majority of his land as unimproved, subdivided lots, but on a few tracts he built suburban houses to lease or to sell. In 1885 Beadle erected a Queen Anne-style cottage designed by E. P. Brink of Denver, Colorado, on Nelson Avenue, near the corner of Main Street and Nelson. Called "Cherry Hall" because of its beautiful, interior cherry woodwork, the house featured irregular lines with a rectangular turret, a triangular dormer, and bay windows.²⁶ Two years later, he commenced work on an eclectic Victorian at the north end of Pine Street. It was a two-and-a-half-story structure with an elongated, octagonal tower, wrap-around porch, second-story porch over the entry, projecting side gables, steeply pitched roofs, and polychromatic trim. A similar structure on Pine, two lots down, was constructed by Beadle a year later. While the latter shares many of the exterior features of the first house, a first-floor bay window, an additional second-story porch to the side, and a single chimney make the structure unique. By utilizing the important symbolic details of the suburban house–irregularity, individuality, and natural complexity–on the houses he built in the development, Beadle identified his houses with popular middle-class environmental ideology.

Modern municipal services were another important feature of the suburban development. The average, urban, middle-class person was accustomed to certain services such as gaslights, sewers, and public water. Modern services were a necessity to any small town like Cooperstown that desired to maintain its status as a popular summer resort. Efforts to secure improvements in these areas were often organized by booster associations or, if vital to the economic life of the community, the local government. Community growth, like the suburban house, was a key part of America's narrative of progress. Village and town improvement associations often were enthusiastic and single-minded in their quest for advancement.²⁷ In 1882, the same year that Beadle purchased McNamee's land, the village trustees of Cooperstown appropriated funding to pay for the services of civil engineers to design the specifications for the installation of a sewer system in Cooperstown.²⁸ A year later, an entrepreneurial village resident established the first telephone connections, and in 1887, village trustees also voted to replace the gas lamps along the central portion of Main Street with electric lights.²⁹ The village trustees additionally approved the installation of three new fire hydrants along Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street that same year to protect the investments of the new home owners.³⁰

While Cooperstown featured the modern amenities of electricity, telephone, water, and sewer services during the early stages of development for Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street, not all of these utilities were initially available to the residents of these streets. For a house to be suburban, however, it was essential that the village or the suburb in which the house was located have the infrastructure for these modern services, offering suburban home owners the potential for future connection. Oftentimes, only the main thoroughfare in a new suburban development was paved and lit, and utilities were frequently only extended a block at a time upon the residents' petition for city annexation.³¹ As the developer, the burden was not Beadle's to provide his new subdivision with utilities. It was the responsibility of the residents and the village to connect these houses with such services.

Access to shopping was also a necessity for the suburbanite, especially as the middle-class wife had an important role to perform as a consumer. The village of Cooperstown was located outside of the daily commuting range that would permit a housewife to make her weekly pilgrimage to city department stores, but a variety of stores lined Main Street, selling everything from the esoteric to the everyday. Dry goods and home furnishings could be acquired at Bundy Brothers and Cruttenden, meat from W. H. Michaels and R. R. Converse, clothes from Spingler and Gould, shoes from W. H. Bundy, and books and stationery from S. J. W. Reynolds.³² For special shopping excursions, the railroad provided a connection to city department stores in Albany or even New York City.

After environment and modern services, including access to shopping, community was the third crucial attribute of the suburban development. By the mid-nineteenth century, American cities had become frighteningly large and anonymous, and demographic shifts in the city in combination with frequent rental and property turnovers guaranteed that many middle-class, urban Americans did not know their neighbors or feel actively involved in a community. Ideally, suburban living would promote the right kind of community by fostering appropriate associations among like-minded individuals, for the suburban development was created to cater to the values of the middle class.³³ As a small town, Cooperstown did not suffer from urban anonymity, but the community feel and middle-class identity of Beadle's development would still appeal to potential middle-class consumers.

Beadle constructed the appropriate physical environment for a suburban development and the village of Cooperstown offered the essential modern amenities, but the last characteristic of a suburban development, community, could not be controlled by Beadle. Only the consumers of Beadle's development, the homeowners, could determine if Beadle would be successful in the creation of a suburban development. Who were Beadle's customers, and why did they purchase a lot or house from Beadle? Census records, town directories, newspaper articles, and maps provide specific information about the particular residents of Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and the upper section of Main Street, including occupation, age, and marital status. After a thorough demographic analysis, similarities emerge for the residents of these three streets. All of Beadle's consumers were Caucasian and U.S. citizens, the majority were married, and the age of the household head was between thirty and forty years old. Residents along these three streets were also employed in traditional middle-class jobs. One resident worked at a bank, another was an express agent, and others were proprietors of retail businesses. Factual data on the residents can only hint at the possible motivations behind the choices of Beadle's consumers. The demographics of people living in Beadle's development suggest, however, that residents on these streets identified with the middle class through their purchase of the suburban home, suggesting that there was a community of like-minded upwardly mobile individuals within Beadle's development.

On February 23, 1886, John G. Fowler and his wife Emma purchased 30 Nelson Avenue from Beadle, paying $7,000 for the land and the "new two story dwelling house completed situated thereon."³⁴ The Fowlers immediately sold their old house on Pine Street to Beadle for $4,000.³⁵ Constructed in the 1840s for previous owners, the Fowlers' country residence on Pine Street was described as dilapidated by 1886.³⁶ One and a half stories with an extra wing on the north and an unusual two-story projecting portico and castellated balustrade, the Fowlers' former residence was discordant with its environment and outdated. The Fowlers' new home, Cherry Hall, was a vivid contrast to their previous house. Thoroughly modern, Cherry Hall included a parlor, library, and cozy inglenooks paneled with beautifully carved cherry wood.³⁷ Inside and out, the Fowlers' new home embodied the architectural details thought to promote domesticity, family life, and moral behavior.

In 1880, the U.S. Census listed six members of the Fowler family: head of household John G., age forty-four; wife Emma, age forty-one; son Willard, age eighteen; daughter Cora, age twelve; son George, age six; and mother-in-law Amy Campbell, age seventy-eight.³⁸ A dealer in flour, feed, and coal, Mr. Fowler was an individual proprietor, a respectable, middle-class occupation.³⁹ Fowler's oldest son, Willard, was following in his footsteps, working as a clerk in a store.⁴⁰ The Fowlers possessed the financial means to pay Beadle the $3,000 difference between the two houses, as there is no record of any mortgage on the books at the Otsego County courthouse.⁴¹ The Fowlers were a couple with resources, a fact which was clearly not demonstrated by their old house. By abandoning their unfashionable dwelling for a new home within Beadle's development, the Fowlers were strengthening their visible identification with the middle class. Their new suburban home was not only suitable for raising their middle-class family, but also reflected the family's social standing.

"Cherry Hall," the Fowler residence, 2006.
Photograph by the author.

In April 1886, the Fowlers' new neighbors at 28 Nelson Avenue, Allen and Della Gallup, started construction on their home. A month earlier, the Otsego Farmer reported, "Mr. E. F. Beadle has divided his two lots of 90 feet front each, on Nelson Ave. into three lots of 60 feet front and sold the first two to George L. Gould and Allen Gallup for $750 each. The lots are 250 feet in depth."⁴² The Gallups constructed a two-story Queen Anne-style house with two-story bays and a projecting front porch, similar in style to houses found in popular pattern books such as Palliser's American Cottage Home.⁴³ The 1895 New York State Census of Otsego County listed Allen Gallup as an Express Agent, age forty-four; Allen's wife Della was thirty-four, and his two sons, Elmer and Earle, were fifteen and eleven respectively.⁴⁴ The 1897 Cooperstown directory confirms Gallup's occupation and listed Elmer as living at home and Earle as a student.⁴⁵ Gallup's occupation as an express agent, probably for the railroad, was one of the many new, clerical, white-collar jobs that appeared during the second half of the nineteenth century. As a wage laborer, Gallup and his family's middle-class status were tenuous and dependent on his current employment and on the family's conspicuous consumption. The Gallups borrowed $250 from Beadle to purchase the lot, and more money was needed to construct the house.⁴⁶ Constructing a new suburban home within Beadle's development was a financial stretch for the Gallups, but it reinforced their identity with the middle class at a time when the criteria for middle-class membership were amorphous and dependent on definitive visual signs.

George L. Gould, purchaser of the second lot sold by Beadle in March of 1886, and neighbor to the Gallups, was listed in the 1895 census as a merchant-tailor. The Goulds borrowed money as well from Beadle, needing $650 to purchase the lot.⁴⁷ Soon after, the Goulds started to build their new house, a two-story Queen Anne structure, comparable in style to their next-door neighbors' house. A year later, the Otsego Farmer noted, "Mr. George Gould has moved into his new house on Nelson Ave."⁴⁸ At the time of the family's purchase, the Gould household included: Mr. Gould, age forty-four; his wife Eliza, age thirty-one; son, George R., age eight; and son Percy, age two.⁴⁹ The Cooperstown city directory listed Gould as a partner in Spingler and Gould, merchant tailors and clothiers of men's clothes at 60 Main Street.⁵⁰ Gould was also the treasurer of the Thanksgiving Hospital board and the president of the Mohican Club, a prominent Cooperstown social club.⁵¹ As a purveyor of fashion, Gould would have been aware of consumer trends, including trends in housing, and of the popularity of the suburban house form. Gould was a businessman, an important member of the Cooperstown community, and he and his wife were beginning a family. The Goulds' new house guaranteed the proper environment for their growing family.

Beadle offered a few larger lots for sale on upper Main Street, across the street from the new Otsego County courthouse.⁵² E. S. Bundy, a dry goods merchant, purchased one of these lots, 194 Main Street, from Beadle in 1885 for $875.⁵³ Beadle loaned Bundy $700 towards the purchase price of the lot, with interest due annually and the principal due in five years.⁵⁴ Immediately, Bundy commenced construction on his lot and in September of 1885 borrowed an additional $3,000 from Phepe D. Cooke, probably to cover building costs.⁵⁵ Like the loan from Beadle, the principal on Cooke's loan was also due in five years. In April 1886, the Otsego Farmer reported, "the residence of Mr. E. S. Bundy is now nearly completed, so near that he has moved his family and is living in it. It is a very handsome and commodious structure."⁵⁶ Bundy's house on Main Street was a solid three-story Queen Anne structure with protruding gables, a front porch, side bay windows, and a third-story balcony. It was home to Bundy, age forty, his wife Adelia, age forty-one, and their two girls, nine-year-old Bessie and two-year-old Florence.⁵⁷ A truly fashionable dwelling, it was adorned with elaborately carved woodwork, shingles, and dentils. As one of the owners of Bundy Brothers and Cruttenden, a dry goods store at 59 Main Street, Bundy was aware of the exterior and interior standards for the middle-class suburban house. According to an 1897 advertisement in the Cooperstown directory, Bundy Brothers and Cruttenden was listed as the "Headquarters for Dry Goods, Carpets, Crockery, Wall Paper, Furniture, We can furnish your House from top to bottom, Good goods at Reasonable Prices."⁵⁸ Bundy's house at 194 Main Street was a showpiece advertising his dry goods business and an assertion of his solid, middle-class identity.

194 Main Street, the Bundy residence, c. 1890.
Ward Files, 194 Main Street, Special Collections, New York State Historical Association Library, Cooperstown, New York.

Middle-class standing in the late nineteenth century was tenuous, and three years later Bundy was forced to retract his bold claim. In December 1889, Bundy sold his house to Samuel L. Warrin of New York City for $7,000.⁵⁹ Despite the money from the sale of his house, Bundy paid off his loan to Cooke six months late.⁶⁰ Perhaps Bundy's business was not doing well, or the expense of the new house was too great. Two years later, Bundy purchased a smaller house, 10 Susquehanna, on the other side of town with another $3,000 loan.⁶¹ Older and less flamboyant than the Bundys' house on Main Street, their new house was on a smaller lot in a mixed-class neighborhood. Whatever the reason, Bundy's relocation of his family to a smaller house illustrates the social flux that many members of the middle class experienced in the late nineteenth century. Dependent on others for income, either from the profit margins of a store or from steady wages paid by a company, many middle-class Americans were unsure of who or what they were in a society that relied on consumption to denote social standing. Bundy's purchase of a lot from Beadle demonstrates his self-identification with the middle class, despite his inability to pay for the most symbolic emblem of that class, the suburban home.

While Beadle could not ultimately control who would purchase lots or houses within his development, Beadle's customers were his own peers. He conducted business with them at the bank, purchased meat, building supplies, blankets, curtains, and newspapers from a few of them, and gossiped and talked politics with others.⁶² The consumers of Beadle's development might have been small-town residents, but they were aware of larger national trends. As merchants, express agents, druggists, bank tellers, and lumber yard owners, the residents of Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street encountered middle-class views about society, culture, and the family through business contacts, popular literature, travel, Cooperstown's tourist industry, and their own social interactions. As their peer, Beadle knew that his potential clients would understand the messages inherent in the physical structures of his development, and he speculated that they would want to live within his development.

Beadle was correct, and between 1882 and 1886 the deed books at the Otsego County courthouse record eighteen transactions as Beadle conveyed lots and houses along Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street to buyers.⁶³ Interest in Beadle's lots and houses at the western edge of the village was high, and by 1886 all available lots from the original piece of land had sold. New lot owners rushed to construct elegant dwellings, and house buyers quickly took up occupancy in their stylish abodes. By purchasing homes within Beadle's development, residents were identifying themselves as members of the middle class and simultaneously creating a middle-class community, thus fulfilling the third criteria of a suburban development. Beadle had successfully constructed and promoted a suburban development on the western edge of Cooperstown.

Beadle correctly incorporated the fundamental physical and geographical structures of suburban ideology into a successful and profitable development venture. The rural environment of Cooperstown and the town's utilities were the perfect combination of natural charm and modern amenities, two key features of the ideal suburban development. On a few lots, Beadle constructed suburban homes, another important characteristic of a suburban development. His consumers were residents of a small town, but they remained aware of the current social and cultural values in America that associated domesticity and homeownership with the middle class. Buying a house or land from Beadle was a conscious investment in the idea of a suburban home and a bold assertion of middle-class identity. Beadle's houses and lots attracted a middle-class clientele, creating a neighborhood of like-minded individuals and meeting the third criterion for a suburban development.

Examining Beadle's development of Pine Street, Nelson Avenue, and upper Main Street demonstrates that a small town in late nineteenth-century America could include important architectural features of city suburbs—the suburban house and suburban development. The presence and acceptance of a suburban development in Cooperstown indicates that the town's middle-class residents were aware of the changing nature of middle-class identity and were responding to social fluctuations in ways similar to their urban peers. Studying the structures and residents of Beadle's development reveals at a concrete level how members of a small town's middle class experienced the sociocultural changes of industrialism.

^1.�Before the placement of the soldiers' monument on Pine Boulevard after World War I, the street was referred to as Pine Street, except for the short time during the last decade of the nineteenth century after Beadle's development when it was known as Beadle Avenue. For the rest of the paper, Pine Boulevard will be referred to as Pine Street. For a more detailed study of Beadle's development in Cooperstown, see the author's thesis, "E.F. Beadle's Vision: Suburban Building in Cooperstown, New York" (master's thesis, Cooperstown Graduate Program, State University of New York College at Oneonta, 2006).

^2.�Linda E. Smiens, Building an American Identity, Pattern Book Homes and Communities, 1870–1900 (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira Press, 1999), 13.

^3.�Stephan Thernstrom, Poverty and Progress; Social Mobility in a Nineteenth Century City (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1964), 26.

^4.�John R. Stilgoe, Borderland: Origins of the American Suburb, 1820–1939 (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), 6.

^5.�Katherine C. Grier, Culture and Comfort, Parlor Making and Middle Class Identity, 1850–1930 (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Press, 1988), 5.

^6.�Gwendolyn Wright, Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural Conflict in Chicago, 1870–1913 (Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press, 1980), 55.

^7.�Grier, Culture and Comfort, 6.

^8.�George Palliser and Charles Palliser, Palliser's American Architecture (New York: Palliser, Palliser and Co., 1878).

^9.�A tiny farming hamlet that has all but disappeared in the current century, Pierstown is located several miles north of Cooperstown, New York, west of Otsego Lake. The only mention of Pierstown in a 1903 Otsego County map is a road labeled Pierstown Road, which originates from the site of the hamlet. Beadle often considered himself to be from Cooperstown and after his success in publishing, Cooperstown was happy to claim him as a native son. Newspaper Clippings, Beadle Papers, Special Collections, New York State Historical Association (hereafter NYSHA) Library.

^10.�In 1857 promoters and land speculators were engaged in a battle to control the future of Nebraska and its settlements. Land speculation ran rampant as towns and fortunes were created and destroyed overnight in the fight for population, railroad stops, and other features that would ensure a town's survival. Companies of speculators would form to create a town and then lots would be given away to anyone willing to build a structure on the land, with the idea that a speculator's land value increased exponentially with a town's population. Saratoga was located a mile north of its competitor, Omaha. "Introduction," David L. Bristow. To Nebraska in '57. E. F. Beadle (1923; New York City Public Library, To Nebraska, digitized by David L. Bristow, 2002), http://members.aol.com/oldnebraska/Beadle_1.htm#ch4, accessed Jan. 26, 2006.

^11.�I have found no record of Beadle purchasing Glimmerview from A. A. Jarvis. Notes in the Ward Files for 54 Lake Street speculate that Beadle leased Glimmerview. On December 29, 1898, Beadle's daughter and executrix, Sophia B. Raymond, sold the property for $18,000 to Charles F. Zabriske of New York City, direct evidence that Beadle did indeed own Glimmerview. Ward Files, 54 Lake Street, Special Collections, NYSHA Library.

^12.�Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream, A Social History of Housing in America (New York: Pantheon Books, 1981), 97.

^13.�The Home proved to be so popular that several issues were reprinted due to demand. Albert Johannsen, The House of Beadle and Adams and its Dime and Nickel Novels, The Story of a Vanished Literature (1950: The Beadle and Adams Dime Novel Digitization Project, 2005), Part III, Periodicals, The Home. http://www.niulib.niu.edu/badndp/thehome.html, accessed Jan. 26, 2006.

^14.�Smeins, Building an American Identity, 72.

^15.�Dolores Hayden, Building Suburbia, Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820–2000 (New York: Pantheon Books, 2003), 80; Smeins, Building an American Identity, 72.

^16.�Freeman's Journal (Cooperstown, N.Y.), October. 14, 1882.

^17.�F. W. Beers, Atlas of Otsego, New York, 1868 (New York: F. W. Beers, A. D. Ellis, and C. G. Soule, 1868).

^18.�Originally lots on Pine Street were not as deep as comparable lots on Nelson Avenue. After additional purchases of land within his development from J. L. McNamee and J. R. Carter in 1884, Beadle offered extra footage to the owners of two of the original lots on Pine Street. Both elected to enlarge their lots. Deed, liber 232, p. 218; Deed, liber 195, p. 366; Deed, liber 192, p. 276. All deeds cited in this work were accessed at the Otsego County Office Building, Cooperstown, N.Y.

^19.�Freeman's Journal, April 1, 1882; Deed, Liber 192, p. 276; Deed, Liber 195, p. 366; Selected deeds from 1882–83.

^20.�Selected deeds from 1885–86.

^21.�Otsego Farmer (Cooperstown, N.Y.), March 6, 1886.

^22.�Ward Files, 2 Pine Boulevard, Special Collections, NYSHA Library; Ward Files, 10 Pine Boulevard, Special Collections, NYSHA Library.

^23.�Wright, Building the Dream, 106.

^24.�Ibid., 113.

^25.�Alan Gowans, Style and Types of North American Architecture, Social Function and Cultural Expression (New York: Icon Editions, 1992), 174.

^26.�"Building Structure Inventory Form," Ward Files, 44 Nelson Avenue, Special Collections, NYSHA Library.

^27.�Smeins, Building an American Identity, 87.

^28.�James Fenimore Cooper et al., History of Cooperstown (Cooperstown, N.Y.: Freeman's Journal, 1929), 95.

^29.�Ibid., 96, 111.

^30.�Ibid.

^31.�Hayden, Building Suburbia, 77.

^32.�Parshall and Brainard, Directory of Cooperstown, NY, 1897, Contains a Record of the Local Government, Institutions, Clubs, Societies, Churches, Points of Interest about the Village and Vicinity (Cooperstown, N.Y.: Freeman's Journal, 1897).

^33.�Smeins, Building an American Identity, 86.

^34.�Deed. liber 204, p. 234.

^35.�Deed. liber 204, p. 235.

^36.�David Egner, "Overlook Bed and Breakfast, 8 Pine Blvd., Cooperstown, NY," Ward Files, 8 Pine Boulevard, Special Collections, NYSHA Library.

^37.�Ibid. Nelson Avenue and Pine Street houses have both been renumbered during the last century. As of May 2006, 30 Nelson Avenue was 44 Nelson Avenue.

^38.�1880 U.S. Census, Cooperstown, Otsego County (microfiche), NYSHA Library.

^39.�Ibid.

^40.�Ibid.

^41.�There is no record of a mortgage on the Fowlers' property on Nelson Avenue in the mortgage books at the Otsego County Courthouse. However, between 1885 and 1896, Fowler lent money four different times to various parties. Mortgage, liber 119, p. 54; Mortgage, liber 125, p. 497; Mortgage, liber 134, p. 67; liber 140, p. 466. All mortgage records cited in this work were accessed at the Otsego County Office Building, Cooperstown, N.Y.

^42.�Otsego Farmer, March 6, 1886, April 24, 1886. 28 Nelson Avenue was renumbered and as of May 2006 was 42 Nelson Avenue.

^43.�George Palliser and Charles Palliser, Palliser's American Cottage Homes (Bridgeport, Conn.: Palliser, Palliser and Co., 1878).

^44.�1895 N.Y. State Census, Cooperstown, Otsego County (microfiche), NYSHA Library.

^45.�Parshall and Brainard, Directory of Cooperstown, NY, 1897.

^46.�Mortgage, liber 119, Page 454.

^47.�Mortgage, liber 119, Page 455.

^48.�Otsego Farmer, March 4, 1887.

^49.�1895 N.Y. State Census, (microfiche). NYSHA Library.

^50.�Parshall and Brainard, Directory of Cooperstown, NY, 1897.

^51.�Ibid.

^52.�These larger lots on Main Street were 70 × 300 feet as opposed to the 60 × 250-foot lots on Nelson Avenue, Selected deeds from 1885–1890.

^53.�Deed, liber 202, p. 253.

^54.�Mortgage, liber 117, p. 544.

^55.�Mortgage, liber 119, p. 105.

^56.�Otsego Farmer, April 6, 1886.

^57.�1895 N.Y. State Census (microfiche). NYSHA Library.

^58.�Parshall and Brainard, Directory of Cooperstown, NY, 1897.

^59.�Otsego Farmer, Dec. 18, 1889.

^60.�Mortgage, liber 119, p. 105.

^61.�Mortgage, liber 131, p. 73.

^62.�"Invoices," Beadle and Adams Papers, Special Collections, Morris Library, University of Delaware, Wilmington, Delaware.

^63.�Selected deeds from 1882–86.

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