The Root of the Importance of Houses in America

"The house owes its importance to its association with the family.  All the indigenous and immigrant cultures who have lived in what is now the United States have identified the family as the core institution of their societies, although they have defined it in very different ways.  However they are defined, families are complex institutions.  Shared values bind them, but internal divisions distinguish their members as individuals and according to their assigned roles, as spouses, parents, children, servants.  Equally important, families have histories - gene pools, genealogies, family stories and traditions: they are constellations of memories that surface in surprising ways from one generation to the next."
-- From Upton's "An American Icon"
           It is obvious that houses are important to Americans.  Without them, American ways of living would be quite different, especially the communal sense of families.  A house is one of the first things a new couple buys, and then it turns into the house where they raise their family.  The topic of family is very prominent in American history also.  Before there was all this technology, one's family members were sometimes the only people that one would be able to talk to.  I believe that a house is a dense fact that can describe a family.  No single house has the same stuff in it as another.   Family stories and traditions are kept within a house; the architecture and the furnishing help tell this story.  Houses are a place to keep memories safe in; memories of family and of American history.