This ambitious book tells a richly detailed story of Houston home life and culture from the settlement of Harrisburg and Houston in the 1820s and 1830s to World War I, when rapid economic development and modernization began to spell demolition for many notable nineteenth-century houses and public buildings.

The authors discuss landscape and horticulture, the development of domestic architecture, the evolution of home interiors, and domestic life, and its influence on the social and cultural fabric of the city.