The Era of Cobblestone Architecture Manuscript

Amoung the papers in the Gerda Peterich collection in the archives of the Cobblestone Museum is a 106 page typed manuscript for an unpublished book "The Era of Cobblestone Architecture", by Gerda Peterich, Cary Lattin, Robert Frasch, and Olaf William Shelgren, Jr. Handwritten edits and comments are throughout the manuscript. One page of notes is dated 5/10/1972.

This manuscript is a predecessor for the book "Cobblestone Landmarks of New York State", by Olaf William Shelgren, Jr., Cary Lattin, and Robert W. Frasch, Photographs by Gerda Peterich, 1978.

The book publishing effort was ongoing for a number of years funded by grant efforts with the intent of informing the public about the unique cobblestone architecture that should be preserved. To-date it isn't clear why the manuscript was not published, but a shorter version documenting notably fewer structures was published with revised and edited text from the manuscript.

Assumptions can be made as to the circumstances that were responsible for the turn about abandoning the manuscript and doing a new smaller book revision dedicated to Gerda Peterich. Funding limitations and the death of writer and photographer Gerda Peterich in 1974, who still had cobblestone structures to photograph, were factors. Note that Gerda's name was first in the attributions for the manuscript and last as photographer for the published book.