E. F. Hodgson Historical Timeline

Sources include Hodgson Family Papers, the Dover Historical Society Collection, and Robert Schweitzer and Michael W. R. Davis, America's Favorite Homes: Mail-Order Catalogues as a Guide to Popular Early 20^th Century Houses, Detroit Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 1990

(includes other Catalogue House Companies)

Date	Event
1871	On May 20, E. F. Hodgson was born in Medford, Massachusetts. Father Thomas and mother Caroline immigrated from their native Staffordshire, England.
Ca 1880s	Sometime in this decade, Thomas Hodgson moved his family to a small farm on Farm Street, Dover, Massachusetts.
1886	Sears, Roebuck and Company was founded and established in Chicago.
1892	E. F. Hodgson built a small factory on father’s farm. He sold the first Peep=o'=Day brooders to A. F. Hunt of nearby South Natick who was involved with the national magazine, Farm Poultry. The E. F. Hodgson Company was established. The Peep=o'=Day products were build in prefabricated pieces that could be easily fitted together and then broken down for portability.
1894	The first factory was expanded to meet production demands. E. F. Hodgson published the first mail-order catalog, Peep=o'=Day Specialties. Pages 12 through 14 of this catalog shows that E. F. Hodgson was the first company to build prefabricated portables houses.
1895	Sears began selling building supplies and house plans.
1896	Lewis Manufacturing Company, Bay City, Michigan, was founded as a planing mill.
1897	E. F. Hodgson moved to a larger factory building nearer to the Old Dover Center at Bliss's Corner.
1898	On August 11, E. F. Hodgson married Florence Stowell of Providence, Rhode Island.
1898	The Hodgson Company began the practice of exhibiting at the Sportsman's Show at Mechanics Hall, Boston; Madison Square Garden, New York City; and various other venues in New England and New York.
1900	E. F. Hodgson created the Portable Auto Stable, which was an immediate success.
1902	E. F. Hodgson purchased his first automobile and the first car in Dover.
1902	E. F. Hodgson sold his patent covering his poultry brooder system but remained the New England agent for the new owner who was located in Ithaca, New York.
1902	E. F. Hodgson began offering Hodgson Portable Vacation Cottages.
1905	E. F. Hodgson built a larger factory located in the new Dover Center along side the railroad and had his own railroad siding. He now had access to all of the United States and to the world.
1905	On March 12, son Richard was born.
1906	The Gordon-Tine Company was formed by the merger of several separate businesses in Davenport, Iowa.
1906	The Aladdin Company, the pioneer of pre-cut catalog houses, was founded in Bay City, Michigan of Bay City, Michigan..
1906	Lewis-Liberty, also of Bay City, Michigan, was founded as a planning mill. In 1907, Lewis began cutting lumber for the infant North American Construction Company and Lewis-Built Homes Catalogue circulated.
1907	The E. F. Hodgson Company presented an exhibit of Wigwarm Portable Houses at the Jamestown Exposition, 1607-1907, for which the company received a medal.
1908	Sears Roebuck entered the catalog home business with its first separate lumber and mill work catalog of 22 balloon-frame homes. By 1913 Sears was offering panelized houses, but the company did not announce ready-cut houses until 1916, after Aladdin pioneered that concept. Sears is credited for becoming the largest catalogue-home supplier, but the company was offering ready-cut houses not houses similar or the same as the Hodgson Portables which were introduced in 1892.
1908	The Edison Electric Illuminating Company of Boston began using a Hodgson Portable Bungalow to advertise the use of electricity.
1908	On September 6, daughter Geraldine was born
1909	The E. F. Hodgson Company, on order, shipped 20 portable houses to Messina, Italy, to be used as refugee housing for victims of a tidal wave between Messina and mainland Italy across the Strait of Messina.
1909	E. F. Hodgson's business office moved to Boston.
1909	The Boston Public Schools purchased an E. F. Hodgson portable school and erected it in South Boston.
1909	Mershon & Morley Company of Saginaw, Michigan became the largest manufacturers of portable houses in the United States. A 1917 Mershon & Morley catalog was released, but they claimed the business had been building portables since 1899. However, *the E. F. Hodgson Co. was still “America's First Prefabricator*."
1910	E. F. Hodgson experimented with a two-story unit.
1910	Montgomery Ward began its home-from-catalogue business by offering plans. In 1918 the company adopted the name Wardway Houses which disappeared in 1931.
1910	The Bay City, Michigan, business directory shows that the Lewis Manufacturing Company, founded in 1896 as a planning mill, shared facilities with the North American Construction Company and advertised pre-cut cottages in national magazines.
1911	The E. F. Hodgson Company, Dover, Massachusetts, plant burned to the ground and was replaced by a new and bigger plant.
1911	Gordon-Van Tine Company of Davenport, Iowa, established in 1906, expanded its millwork to sell direct to consumers, to sell prefabricated pre-cut type houses by mail-order and through national advertising. Like most mail-order catalog companies its best years were the 1910s and 1920s. Gordon-Van Tine ceased operations as a catalog house supplier during World War II.
1912	Harris Homes of Chicago, Illinois, was founded in 1893 as a house wrecking Company. In 1908 the company started selling new as well as used lumber. A 1912 catalog indicates that they were in the portable house business. By 1915 they were head-to-head competition with Sears.
1913	Sears offered panelized houses.
1914	E. F. Hodgson erected a Hodgson Portable at Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Eventually, 25 Hodgson portables would be erected to become a vacation community known as Brewster Park.
1914	The Lewis Company separated its lumberyard operation, Westover-Kamm Company, but continued the Lewis Company as the manufacturer of "Easy Built" homes.
1915-1916	Sterling Homes, Bay City, Michigan, was founded. It became the third company with similar operations to be located in this city. The three Bay City companies were interrelated: Aladdin, Lewis, and Sterling.
1916	The Sears ready-cut house catalog entered the market offering houses in numbered separate pieces to be put together by the buyer. The Aladdin Company had already offered this approach in 1906.
1916	On a visit to Boston, where she was the guest of the Mayor of Boston who had a summer home in Dover, Massachusetts, Queen Elizabeth of Belgium purchased a 100-bed Hodgson Portable building to be used at Panne′, Belgium, as an orphanage for children made orphans by the war. The linens for the orphanage were made by the women of Dover.
1916	On April 15, daughter Marion was born.
1917	Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts, established a program to support faculty purchases of land and houses. Hodgson Portables, well-known in the area, were to be used in the program. World War I delayed the program which then began after the Armistice. A number of Hodgson Portables were purchases with some still being used today.
1918	Eight Hodgson Portables were erected on Boston Common to house the Army-Navy Canteen, the YMCA Hut, the Food Facts Bureau, the Boston Women's Committee on Food Conservation, the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee and the Women's Municipal League, the Civic Federation, the American Red Cross, and the Liberty Hall (camouflaged). . Other New England cities and towns did the same.
1919	The town of Millis, Massachusetts, a Dover neighbor, purchased one of the Hodgson Portable houses which had been erected on Boston Common and erected it in the town for eventual use as a Scout house. Unfortunately, after a restoration following World War II, arson destroyed the house in 1969.
1927	E. F. Hodgson became one of the original eight incorporators of the Brewster Park Club where friends and neighbors of the Hodgson family summered. The Park remains an active and popular vacation site on the Bay side of the Cape.
1928	20 Hodgson Portables were erected at Camp Sloane YMCA, Lakeville, Connecticut for $20,000 (website: www.camp-sloane.org). 6 of them are still being used.
1931	Florence Hodgson, a member of the Dover Alliance, negotiated with her husband for the donation of a Hodgson Portable to be used as a new parish house for the Dover Church. E. F. Hodgson gave the building as a gift in memory of his mother, Caroline Hodgson. The building is still in use.
1933	The Division of Subsistence Homesteads announced that the first homestead community, a project of interest to Eleanor Roosevelt, was authorized and would be built near Reedville, West Virginia. The E. F. Hodgson Company received a contract for the first 50 homes, a beneficial contract worth $48,000. The first 50 houses were followed by 100 more from other home manufacturing companies. The Reedsville Project is now called Arthurdale Heritage, Inc. Forty-eight of the Hodgson portables are still on the property and in use today.
1940	E. F. built a Hodgson House for his wife at One Old Meadow Road, Dover, Massachusetts. The Hodgsons stayed in the house a limited time as E. F. had been diagnosed as having Parkinson's Disease which soon required constant medical assistance. The family plus nurses moved to 50 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston. This house is one of the two best Hodgson Portables remaining in Dover.
1943	In June, son Richard Stowell Hodgson died unexpectedly. He was buried in the family plot in Highland Cemetery in Dover, Massachusetts.
1944	In October, the E. F. Hodgson Company was sold to an outside party.
1948	E. F. Hodgson died on October 3 in Boston of Parkinson's and was buried in the family plot in Highland Cemetery, Dover, Massachusetts.
1948-1995	The Hodgson Company existed under various names and in various places under different people. By 1990, it was apparent that the former Allied-Hodgson Houses, Inc., was in a struggle for its existence, which was accelerated by the deterioration of the New England economy. By 1995, the company ceased operations and several of the remaining workers established their own modular company in New Hampshire.

Click on the link below for a more general prefab Timeline from the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis Minnesota:

http://design.walkerart.org/prefab/Main/PrefabTimeline

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