The Story of Your Home
Encyclopedia
The Story of Your Home is a non-fiction
book for children about British
domestic life and architecture from cave dwellings to blocks of flats. It was written by Agnes Allen and illustrated by the author and her husband Jack. The book was published in 1949 and won the Carnegie Medal
for that year.
in the Oxfordshire
village where they lived in the summer of 1943. She realized "that thousands of children, like himself, were growing up in brick-built houses in which one turned a tap if one needed water, pressed a switch to flood a room with light, struck a match if one wanted to light a fire." Because of this, she conceived the idea of a children's book that would "describe the ordinary homes of ordinary people at different periods, right back to the days when almost everything that made up the home, including the very house itself, was there only as a result of the personal exertions of the men and woman who made up the household."
The period in which this book was published has been described as the great age of the non-fictional series. These series, sometimes by a single author, sometimes by multiple authors under a general banner, were produced by publishers with an eye to selling particularly to schools and libraries. Accounts of British social history
were particularly in tune with the national regeneration of the post-war years. The dust jacket of The Story of Your Home addressed the school market directly, saying: "It is especially suitable for the upper forms of a Secondary Modern School, where it could be used as a History or Social Studies reading book, as a model and reference book for project work, and as a general reference or library book."
Agnes Allen's Story series began with The Story of the Village in 1947. She wrote a number of other books in this series, mainly about social history and art. They included The Story of Our Parliament (1949), The Story of the Highway (1950) and The Story of Clothes (1955). Her four-book series entitled Living in History took a comprehensive approach to particular eras rather than looking at one aspect throughout the ages.
". Advances in firefighting are also chronicled.
The earliest dwellings mentioned are Pin Hole in Derbyshire
and Kent's Cavern
near Torquay
— these and other cave-dwellings are described as "the very earliest human homes in this country that we know anything about." Other chapters describe homes of different periods, including Iron Age
roundhouse
s, mediaeval manors
, Tudor mansions, later country houses
and terraced houses, and, bringing it up to date, the blocks of flats and suburban homes of the post-war period.
It was the best received of the Story series, which was described as "competently written, if a little dull, and reasonably well-documented."
Its educational merit was stressed: "Any parent, relative or friend wishing to stimulate the historical sense of a young person, could not do better - if he can bear to part with the book himself - than to make a gift of it."
Non-fiction
Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...
book for children about British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
domestic life and architecture from cave dwellings to blocks of flats. It was written by Agnes Allen and illustrated by the author and her husband Jack. The book was published in 1949 and won the Carnegie Medal
Carnegie Medal
The Carnegie Medal is a literary award established in 1936 in honour of Scottish philanthropist Andrew Carnegie and given annually to an outstanding book for children and young adults. It is awarded by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals...
for that year.
Origins
Agnes Allen attributes the inspiration for this book to her young son's curiosity about the old Elizabethan housesTudor architecture
The Tudor architectural style is the final development of medieval architecture during the Tudor period and even beyond, for conservative college patrons...
in the Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire
Oxfordshire is a county in the South East region of England, bordering on Warwickshire and Northamptonshire , Buckinghamshire , Berkshire , Wiltshire and Gloucestershire ....
village where they lived in the summer of 1943. She realized "that thousands of children, like himself, were growing up in brick-built houses in which one turned a tap if one needed water, pressed a switch to flood a room with light, struck a match if one wanted to light a fire." Because of this, she conceived the idea of a children's book that would "describe the ordinary homes of ordinary people at different periods, right back to the days when almost everything that made up the home, including the very house itself, was there only as a result of the personal exertions of the men and woman who made up the household."
The period in which this book was published has been described as the great age of the non-fictional series. These series, sometimes by a single author, sometimes by multiple authors under a general banner, were produced by publishers with an eye to selling particularly to schools and libraries. Accounts of British social history
Social history
Social history, often called the new social history, is a branch of History that includes history of ordinary people and their strategies of coping with life. In its "golden age" it was a major growth field in the 1960s and 1970s among scholars, and still is well represented in history departments...
were particularly in tune with the national regeneration of the post-war years. The dust jacket of The Story of Your Home addressed the school market directly, saying: "It is especially suitable for the upper forms of a Secondary Modern School, where it could be used as a History or Social Studies reading book, as a model and reference book for project work, and as a general reference or library book."
Agnes Allen's Story series began with The Story of the Village in 1947. She wrote a number of other books in this series, mainly about social history and art. They included The Story of Our Parliament (1949), The Story of the Highway (1950) and The Story of Clothes (1955). Her four-book series entitled Living in History took a comprehensive approach to particular eras rather than looking at one aspect throughout the ages.
Contents
The Story of Your Home is addressed to British children, and uses only examples from British and Irish architecture and archaeological sites to develop its subject. It looks at the houses ordinary people lived in, as well as castles and mansions. It covers not only buildings, but also furniture, crafts, the layout of villages and towns, and the way people lived in general. Architectural details such as the development of roofs and windows are described side by side with changes in fashion and amusements and the origins of terms such as "by hook or by crook" and "humble pieHumble pie
To eat humble pie, in common usage, is to apologize and face humiliation for a serious error. Humble pie, or umble pie, is also a term for a variety of pastries, originally based on medieval meat tripe pies.- Etymology :...
". Advances in firefighting are also chronicled.
The earliest dwellings mentioned are Pin Hole in Derbyshire
Derbyshire
Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...
and Kent's Cavern
Kent's Cavern
Kents Cavern is a cave system in Torquay, Devon, England. It is notable for its archaeological and geological features. The caves are a geological Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Scheduled Ancient Monument , and are open to the public.-Prehistory:The caverns and passages at the site were...
near Torquay
Torquay
Torquay is a town in the unitary authority area of Torbay and ceremonial county of Devon, England. It lies south of Exeter along the A380 on the north of Torbay, north-east of Plymouth and adjoins the neighbouring town of Paignton on the west of the bay. Torquay’s population of 63,998 during the...
— these and other cave-dwellings are described as "the very earliest human homes in this country that we know anything about." Other chapters describe homes of different periods, including Iron Age
British Iron Age
The British Iron Age is a conventional name used in the archaeology of Great Britain, referring to the prehistoric and protohistoric phases of the Iron-Age culture of the main island and the smaller islands, typically excluding prehistoric Ireland, and which had an independent Iron Age culture of...
roundhouse
Roundhouse (dwelling)
The roundhouse is a type of house with a circular plan, originally built in western Europe before the Roman occupation using walls made either of stone or of wooden posts joined by wattle-and-daub panels and a conical thatched roof. Roundhouses ranged in size from less than 5m in diameter to over 15m...
s, mediaeval manors
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
, Tudor mansions, later country houses
English country house
The English country house is a large house or mansion in the English countryside. Such houses were often owned by individuals who also owned a London house. This allowed to them to spend time in the country and in the city—hence, for these people, the term distinguished between town and country...
and terraced houses, and, bringing it up to date, the blocks of flats and suburban homes of the post-war period.
Chapters
- The Very First Homes
- Man Makes Himself a House
- The House Changes Its Shape
- How the House Developed
- The Manor House
- The Town House in the Middle Ages
- Life in the Castle and the Great House
- More about the Way Medieval People Lived
- Sixteenth-century Mansions
- Secret Hiding-Places
- Smaller Houses in the Sixteenth Century
- Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Houses
- Inside the New Houses
- The Home Great-Grandmamma Lived In
- Homes of To-Day
Illustrations
The Story of Your Home has over one hundred black-and-white illustrations, including the floor plans of some buildings. The illustrations were a collaborative effort between the author and her husband, Jack Allen. They are mainly simplified sketches of typical exteriors and interiors which complement the text and form an integral part of the book. There are also some imaginative — although well-researched — recreations of earlier times such as the illustration of a prehistoric lake village.Reception and literary significance
The Story of Your Home was awarded the 1949 Carnegie Medal for excellence in children's literature; it is one of the very few non-fiction books to have received the award.It was the best received of the Story series, which was described as "competently written, if a little dull, and reasonably well-documented."
Its educational merit was stressed: "Any parent, relative or friend wishing to stimulate the historical sense of a young person, could not do better - if he can bear to part with the book himself - than to make a gift of it."