The Paper House
I think that hoarding newspapers used to be very common. I base this assumption on the fact that I know of two Depression-era relatives in my extended family who never threw away newspapers and ended up with stacks of them in their house. And if I had two in my family, I'm guessing many other families also had paper hoarders.
Elis F. Stenman of Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts put his paper hoarding habit to good use by constructing his house, and all the furniture in it, out of the newspapers he refused to throw away. The house still exists and is open to the public.
Of course, now that newspaper deliveries are becoming a thing of the past, paper hoarding must be on the decline.
Images from The Pittsburgh Press - Sep 8, 1938.
Elis F. Stenman of Pigeon Cove, Massachusetts put his paper hoarding habit to good use by constructing his house, and all the furniture in it, out of the newspapers he refused to throw away. The house still exists and is open to the public.
Of course, now that newspaper deliveries are becoming a thing of the past, paper hoarding must be on the decline.
Images from The Pittsburgh Press - Sep 8, 1938.
Comments
Late 50´s, early 60´s we used to collect newspapers to sell (by the pound) to make money for the Boy Scouts. The garage was probably a fire hazzard with all the bundled up newspapers as they only turned them in every six months or so.
Posted by F.U.D in Stockholm on 02/21/23 at 06:08 AM
Gotta go next time I'm in the Boston area. It's hard to find something that charges $2 admission these days.
Posted by ges on 02/21/23 at 08:33 AM
My current house was owned or rented by one of those National Geographic hoarders at some time in the past. I found about a ton of them left in the attic as rodent food. It would have been much easier to move them away, with the assist of gravity.
I always figured the appeal was the photos. Beside showing other cultures, that magazine was apparently ahead of the curve in the quality of the pics. I previously lived next door to one of those folks. One of his rooms had no furniture – only 100's, maybe 1000's, of stacked-up National Geo's.
I always figured the appeal was the photos. Beside showing other cultures, that magazine was apparently ahead of the curve in the quality of the pics. I previously lived next door to one of those folks. One of his rooms had no furniture – only 100's, maybe 1000's, of stacked-up National Geo's.
Posted by Virtual in Carnate on 02/21/23 at 10:56 AM
My experience concerning paper drives was similar to F.U. D.'s when I was a wee lad. I thought it was a waste of time since we found very few people in our area kept old papers for any length of time to make a difference. Maybe we went out too often.
Posted by KDP on 02/21/23 at 09:05 PM
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Category: Architecture | Newspapers