Gettysburg Doorscape, Part 4
Seth Hinshaw, 2/23/2019
This is the final posting about the doors of Gettysburg. The doors I discuss here primarily date to the mid- to late-twentieth century. Architectural historians are generally critical of these doors as being of little historic value, but the fact is that some of these doors are becoming old in their own right and can be understood even if not appreciated. As a(n) historian, I see these doors as part of the story rather than seeing them as the ugly cousins.
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This is an interesting two-panel exterior door. I don't know how old this particular door might be. Two-panel exterior doors appeared in millwork catalogs from 1920 to 1946, but I don't recall any that featured the bull's eye medallion in the lower panel. Some companies that produced doors did not also produce millwork catalogs, which leads me to believe this set of doors was made in one of the smaller door factories. |
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The fanlight paneled door was one of the more common doors of the mid-twentieth century. It was introduced in 1926 and produced as late as 1971. The version shown in the Gettysburg door here is the most common of the type. At the top, it has a four-pane fanlight that was in use before 1975. The later fanlight is shown later in this blog post. Note also the configuration of the panels, with two small panels over two vertical panels (it is cross-framed). This panel configuration is found on 95% of the doors with the four-pane fanlight (again, compare this to the door a little further below). |
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Here we have a mid-nineteenth century twin house with mid-twentieth century replacement doors. The name of the door is Rising Lights, and it is by far the most common of the flush veneered doors of the mid-twentieth century. Rising Lights was introduced by 1916. It was loosely associated with the Revival types of houses in the 1920s but came into its own just after World War II and was ubiquituous during the years 1945 to 1960. It seems to have gone out of production in the early 1970s. Architectural design guidelines usually select this door when offering an example of the "wrong" door for a particular historic house, but since this door has been out of production for nearly 50 years I think that existing examples should be given more consideration rather than thrown into the landfill. |
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Flush veneered doors of the mid-twentieth century came with a variety of lights. This door features an octagonal light with muntins arranged in the shape of what was then called an octothorpe (today we usually call it the "hash" sign or the "pound" sign). The door with octagonal lights was produced from 1950 to 1958 only, so we have a pretty tight window when this door was made (though it could have been moved here from elsewhere). |
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Now we are looking at the modern version of the fanlight paneled door. I have not been able to discover when this door was introduced. It was definitely not in production as late as 1975, but I have not been able up to now to find any examples older than 1990. The key feature of the door is the piece of vinyl that holds the lights in place, which is called the doorlite rim. The importance of the doorlite rim is that creates a tighter seal around the panes and is better able to keep water out of the interior of the door. Note that the door has a five-pane fanlight with the addition of the half-circle light at the bottom. Another difference with the modern version of the door is that the four panels below the fanlight are of equal size. This panel configuration appeared in a small number of the earlier fanlight paneled doors (perhaps up to 5%), but I have never seen a modern fanlight paneled door with the earlier configuration of panels either in a catalog or in my travels. Maybe I will come across one next month - who knows? |
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While researching millwork catalogs for my book, I was rather shocked to discover that doors of this variety are only shown intermittently. To be more specific, doors of this type are found far more commonly in the real world than the millwork catalogs indicate. I don't have a good explanation for this. Until more data can be collected, it is rather difficult to assign a date to doors of this type. This door could date to circa 1900. At that time, the panel configuration that I call the "run-around" was introduced, in this case with L-shaped panels encircling a center panel. I show an example on page 88 of the door book. When the process of assembling doors with dowels was perfected, it was easier to produce complicated panel configurations. This door could date to circa 1925. Some of the early Spanish Revival doors featured run-around panels, and I show one of them in the book on page 117. I found it interesting that millwork companies were loose in their terminology of doors of this type. Doors with new panel configurations were usually asociated with the European revival types in the 1920s and 1930s, but a Spanish Revival door in one catalog was sometimes identical to a French Revival door produced by a different company. For this reason, I usually call doors of this variety "Mediterrannean Revival doors" as a catch-all category that may be refined further. In the case of the door shown here, I would call it a Mediterranean Revival door even if it ends up belonging to the circa 1900 set of doors. |
Earlier blog posts
8/28/2020 Chicago Millwork Supply Company catalog of 1931
10/6/2019 History of Hinkle & Company (1833-1870)
9/17/2019 History of Mulliner Box & Planing Company
6/3/2019 J.R. Quigley Plant, Gloucester City, New Jersey
4/23/2019 Cleveland Cottage Door
4/13/2019 Trenton historic door #2
4/10/2019 Trenton Doors #1
3/6/2019 Pressed Wood Door Knobs
2/23/2019 Gettysburg Doorscape, Part 4
2/18/2019 Gettysburg Doorscape, Part 3
2/12/2019 Gettysburg Doorscape, Part 2
2/9/2019 An Introduction to the Gettysburg Doorscape
1/22/2019 The Blake Latch
1/19/2019 Rare Four-Panel Door of 1890s
1/5/2019 Cast Iron Rim Locks
12/28/2018 Inaugural Blog Post