Farrington's and the Mobile Home on the American Landscape

By Lisa Phinney

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank Mrs. James Farrington, Mrs. Jerome Brault and Mr. Mark Brault for sharing their time, experiences and family photographs with me. I would also like to thank Alfred Holden for his assistance in photographing some of the illustrations.

INTRODUCTION

Mobile homes have been popular as recreational vehicles since the 1920s, but it was not until World War II that they were widely used as permanent housing. Their low cost, their mobility and convenience made them a perfect solution for housing large numbers of people in a short amount of time. Trailers changed the landscape around many industrial plants and the peripheral areas of towns and cities as workers poured in to work in defense industries. The history of Farrington's Trailer Park in Burlington, Vermont serves as an example of this development and the general trends in the development of the mobile home park.

This paper will discuss the evolution of both the mobile home and its uses and will examine Farrington's Trailer Park and its transformation from farm to suburban neighborhood.

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