Iron had been used in architecture for thousands of years, but it became seriously considered for commercial construction in the late eighteenth century after Thomas Pritchard designed the world’s first cast iron bridge over England’s River Severn.
Pritchard Bridge
Due to the political and socio-economic circumstances of England at the time, Americans took leadership in the full realization of iron’s construction possibilities and it became the material of choice in the construction of many new towns and cities.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, iron foundries could be found throughout New England. Daniel Badger and James Bogardus were initial leaders in American cast iron construction. In the early 1840s, Badger founded the Architectural Iron Works and erected the first cast iron storefront in Boston. James Bogardus was initially a foundry man for Daniel Badger, but relocated in 1846 to New York City and constructed one of the first cast iron façades there in 1848. By 1856, Bogardus had written one of the bibles of the industry, Cast-Iron Buildings, Their Construction and Advantages. This publication and the pattern books developed by the East Coast foundries soon spread the merits of mass-produced iron architecture throughout the country.