Sies, Mary Corbin. "Toward a Performance Theory of the Suburban Ideal, 1877-1917." In Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture, IV, edited by Thomas Carter and Bernard L. Herman. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1991.
Sies offers a method with which to examine the "logic of the suburban ideal," or the ideas and motivations involved in the community-building process that shaped the construction of four planned, exclusive suburbs between 1877 and 1917. She argues that an understanding of the physical embodiment of the suburban ideal requires an analysis of its cultural meanings. She thus suggests that artifact-based study be expanded to include ethnographic research and advocates using performance models to translate evidence into discernible patterns of behavior and thought and reveal their cultural meanings. [C. Rector]