“...the balloon frame was as important as mass transportation in making the private home available to middle-income families and even to those of more marginal economic status....It was characterized by the substitution of thin 2-by-4-inch studs, nailed together in such a way that every strain went in the direction of the wood...” (125-26)

(Jackson, Kenneth T. Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985. Print.)