Oxford City a Prime Example of Suburbanization

At 22 S Campus Avenue lies the home of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity. Based on my research, most of the buildings surrounding the High Street were constructed in the 1800s when the city was being developed. This current building isn’t too far from the High Street itself. It’s located about a block from High Street. From this, I can tell that the building was constructed a little after the buildings on Central Street. When many towns like Oxford were being developed, they were developed around main streets, and as the city grew, the development grew outward.

On my walk looking for the perfect building before finding this one, I realized the further out from the Mile Square, the newer the buildings were. This building would be considered relatively close to campus and a great place for students to live. From some of the design details, I would say that this building has a Queen Anne style. “The style displayed a combination of various forms and stylistic features borrowed from the earlier parts of the Victorian and Romantic eras. The name of the style suggested eclecticism to its proponents in England, from where the style originated, and coins the name “Queen Anne” from the period 1880-1910″ (Queen Anne).”

On the corner of Campus Avenue and Walnut street is where the building stands. The building is a residential single-family home. “The last two decades of the nineteenth century saw Queen Anne become the most dominant residential style in the U.S., heavily favored by the Victorian elite who had become wealthy from industrial growth(Queen Anne).” From 1860-1920, suburbanization became popular. Due to the bad conditions of the cities, people started to move further out from cities to the suburbs, where most of the buildings were single-family homes. In Oxford at this time, a lot of the homes were also residential(Historic Buildings Map). This house is very decorative and unique. The house has decorative creating along the roofline, a 2.5-story bay topped with a small, gabled porch, and multiple gables with decorative half-timbering.

The wooden porch wraps around the east and the south sides of the house. The overhang is supported by decorative spindle posts with very unusual decorative brackets and cornices (McAlester). The railing is very detailed, with a square motif. The windows are double-hung 1x1s. The window has stone lug sills, and stone lingers with a decorative circle motif engraved in them. When I was looking at the details of the building, I realized that the back of the building looked different from the front. The windows, roof, and materials were different. From this, I was able to tell that, at some point, the back part of the building was an addition added to the original structure. The addition might have been added on for additional tenant space or for a business since people started to own businesses from their homes during the period of industrialization, but the building is a residential single-family home.

In 1880 the building was built for the George Adam family. George adam was an owner of a dry food store in the city of Oxford, and he and his family remained residents there until 1954(Walking Tour of Oxford. It was sold and became the property of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity, and they still remain residents at the property. The additional part that was added onto the back of the building was down by the fraternity to add more space for members. The fraternity made some renovations to the original building(Walking Tour of Oxford.

In the 1860s, Oxford changed a lot when male students went to fight in the Civil War. In 1853 this affected the construction of the Western Female Seminary, an all-girls school that burned down in 1860 and was rebuilt and joined with the Oxford College for Women in 1879 ( (Exploring Oxford’s History)). There was also a high school built in Oxford in the 1850s to 1870s(Highlights of Oxford History). As we can see, Oxford’s academia contributed tremendously to its development and the way it is today. In 1880 the Industrial Revolution was at its peak. As a result, our transportation systems improved tremendously. Industrialization and suburbanization didn’t just affect Oxford but were something the whole U.S. experienced collectively.

As people got wealthier through industrialization, they wanted to move to the suburbs into single-family homes, commuting further to and from work. Romantic movement was also at an upbringing, and this also affected suburbanization. Oxford is very green with a lot of trees and green spaces like an uptown park. Even though it has been called a city, it is a prime example of suburbanization. In the 1880s, when the safety bicycle was created, it allowed students to be able to commute further to classes and work in an efficient amount of time. This also had an effect on the outward expansion of Oxford. Oxford was once a square mile but has extended more outward into the town due to the development and events of the time.

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