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Throughout the 1700s, many people moved west to settle on large plots of land. They lived on their land in a variety of dwellings. -
Farmhouses ranged in design and construction from sod houses to log cabins to ranch houses. At the same time, the construction of large plantation houses was happening in the South. -
The Industrial Revolution brought major changes to the economy and society through the use of new machines and the efficient production of goods. -
The demand for workers grew out of changes in mass production due to the use of such machines. -
Along with immigrants, rural people began moving to the cities looking for jobs. With an increasing birth rate, the cities grew. This increased the demand for housing in urban areas. -
Mansions, such as the Alva Vanderbilt Marble House shown here, were often built for wealthy businesspeople in the late 1800s. -
Many people in urban settings lived in these row houses in the late 1800s. -
The first row houses were built in the 1820s. Row houses are a continuous group of dwellings linked by common sidewalls. -
Two-story row houses sometimes housed as many as six families at a time. -
Most houses were frame houses in various designs. A number of tenement houses, or early apartments, were built before housing regulations existed. The first tenement houses appeared in New York City around 1840 to house immigrants. -
During the early 1900s, there was a dramatic increase in the number of immigrants to the United States with many moving to the cities. A housing boom in the early 1900s began to meet this need for housing. -
Then during World War I (1914–1918), almost no housing was built except by the federal government, causing a housing shortage. House ownership declined. -
There was a shortage of materials and, as a result, structures fell into disrepair. After World War I, about one-third of the population was living in substandard housing -
Substandard means the housing is not up to the quality living standards prescribed by law that are best for people -
By the time of the Great Depression in 1929, more than half the U.S. population lived in cities. The building of houses, however, had slowed down.