In Yesterday's Houses of Tomorrow, author H. Ward Jandl has assembled 12 examples of 'futuristic' houses from 1850 to 1950 presenting a unique and eclectic slice of American architecture. "'While the houses [of the future] often delivered less than promised, the ideas embodied in them had a tremendous impact on American domestic architecture as a whole. The outlandishness of some of the designs, the inventiveness of the technology, and the lavishness of the claims and marketing hyperbole served an important purpose: to focus attention on how to improve the way we live. The "houses of tomorrow" contributed, in one way or another, ideas that have since been put into actual practice in a modified - and usually more conservative - form.