The Story of Brick
The manufacture and use of brick go back to the remotest antiquity, far beyond the earliest recorded history, which is supposed to be about 3,800 B. C, the date of a clay tablet assigned to the age of Sargon of Akkad, founder of the Chaldean dynasty, fully two thousand years before the time of Abraham.
Babylonian Origin
Naturally the use of brick originated where clay, of which they are made, was abundant; and there is every reason to believe that the brick industry had its beginning in the broad alluvial valley of the Euphrates which is the traditional cradle of human civilization. At any rate, according to one authority, good brick have been taken from excavations in old Babylonia, dating back to 4,500 B. C, as good as the day they were made. And the same authority adds that brickmaking was doubtless practiced ten thousand years ago. It was Nature that gave the hint, for the sun hardened the mud along the river bank and cracked it into irregular pieces which the native could utilize, after shaping them to the desired size, for piling up in the walls of his crude hut. It was an easy step in advance to shape the mud beforehand while soft and lay it out in the sun to bake. This produced what we call adobe brick, afterwards greatly improved by mixing chopped reeds or straw with the soft mud before baking. It will be remembered how the Egyptian Pharaoh embittered the slavery of the children of Israel by compelling them to find their own straw for the brick they were required to make. At a very early date the dwellers in the Euphrates valley learned to burn brick, as indicated by the biblical story of the Tower of Babel; and by the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the great Babylonian king (604-562 B. C), not only were well-burned brick made and used extensively, but colored enamels were successfully applied for decorative effects. Considerable remains of this ancient brickwork are still found, although for many centuries the ruined cities of the Mesopotamian plain were used as sources of building material for the more modern cities which have since come into being.
Spread of the Craft in Antiquity
From the Euphrates, brickcraft spread eastward to Persia, India, and China, and westward to Egypt, Greece, and Rome. The Romans, who were the great builders of ancient times, made very extensive use of brick in their immense building operations, wherever good clay could be found. From the numerous monuments of Roman brickwork that still remain, the brick are seen to be of an excellent hard-burned quality, and generally of a large, flat, thin rectangular or triangular form.
Brickwork in the Middle Ages
When the nations of Europe took form out of the ruins of the Roman Empire, they inherited among other arts that of making brick, and subsequently carried it to a higher state of development, especially in countries such as Northern Italy, Southern France, the Netherlands, and Northern Germany, where the absence of good building stone gave a natural impulse to brickmaking. In the great Gothic epoch of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, brick enjoyed a wide vogue and was freely and effectively used in the best types of building such as city halls, great churches, palaces, and mansions of the wealthy.
The use of brick in England began with the Romans in the early centuries of our era, but native brickmaking does not appear until well after the days of Magna Charta. In Henry VIII’s time, English brickmaking, probably under Flemish influence, was greatly developed. But it was not until the days of Queen Anne and the Georges, in the eighteenth century, that brick building reached its greatest vogue, so much so that brick nearly drove out all other materials. This period accounts for those fine old country houses so representative of substantial comfort and dignity, scattered throughout England, which delight the eye of the traveler today. And ever since that time English builders have maintained a fine sense of the architectural values in sound and beautiful brickwork, as may be seen in many splendid examples of modern construction.
The Use of Brick in America
In America, aside from the adobe construction which the Spanish found in Mexico and Peru, the first brick were brought over from England or Holland. The native industry, however, had an early start in the seventeenth century, so that the Colonial times saw many fine specimens of brick building from New England to Virginia.
In the nineteenth century, up to about 1880, there was no general attempt to use brick to the best advantage. For the most part the brick building of that period was confined to the use of common brick for ordinary construction or for backing stone-faced walls. From that date, however, to the present, a growing taste has demanded and secured artistic effects in the brick wall by the use of specially manufactured face brick which, in a bewildering variety of beautiful color tones and textures, have been sympathetically and artistically treated by our leading architects, as may be seen all over our country.