Textured Vermont Round Barn

by Deborah Benoit

Title

Textured Vermont Round Barn

Artist

Deborah Benoit

Medium

Photograph - Photography

Description

This is an old round barn in I believe Berkshire, Vermont. I found it while driving the back roads.
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Round barns date to the 18th and early 19th century. George Washington designed and built a sixteen-sided threshing barn at his Dogue Run Farm in Fairfax County, Virginia in 1793. It is considered the first American round barn. Early round barns were particularly associated with the Shaker community, one was constructed in 1826 at the Shaker community in Hancock, Massachusetts. A few other round barns appeared on the American landscape before the Civil War.
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Despite considerable publicity of the 1826 Shaker barn, the design did not become popular until the 1880s, when some agricultural colleges began to push the design as they taught progressive farming methods, based on the principles of industrial efficiency. It was between 1880�1920 that round barns were most popular in the United States, especially in the Midwest.
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The rise in popularity and the promotion of round barns occurred surrounding the new focus on efficiency. The circular shape has a greater volume-to-surface ratio than a square barn. Regardless of size, this made round barns cheaper to construct than similar-sized square or rectangular barns because they required less materials. The structural stability is also enhanced over that of a typical quadrilaterally shaped barn. Simplified construction lacking elaborate truss systems for the arched roof was also seen as an advantage. In the Midwest, particularly, the buildings were thought more resilient against prairie thunderstorms. The interior layout of round barns was promoted as more efficient, since farmers could work in a continuous direction. In the days before mechanization, labor-saving features were a big selling point.
Fountaingrove Round Barn in Santa Rosa
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The interest in round barns spread to California in the later 19th century and several were built there. Santa Rosa, California is home to two well-preserved and well-known round barns. One, the Fountaingrove Round Barn, is located on land that was part of the Fountain Grove spiritual commune, the Brotherhood of New Life, founded by Thomas Lake Harris around 1875. Built near the end of the 19th century, it was part of the Fountaingrove winery owned by Harris's prot�g�, Kanawe Nagasawa, who reportedly designed the structure. Another survivor is the De Turk Round Barn on Donahue Street, and was built in the late 1870s by local settler and businessman Isaac De Turk.
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Claims of round barn efficiency were overstated. The round barn never caught on as a standard barn, as some of those pushing the progressive, efficiency-based agricultural methods had hoped. The spread of machinery, especially with the Rural Electrification program, eliminated the advantages of labor-saving designs that were more complicated to build, and the popularity of round barns faded. Regardless, numerous round barns were constructed during the period of popularity the design enjoyed, and a large number still stand today.

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June 17th, 2011

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