In 1906, four years after he had founded the Edison Portland Cement Company at Stewartsville, New Jersey, Thomas Edison announced that his solution to the problem of the housing shortage and inner city slums was the reinforced concrete house, which, if he had his way, could be built in a week. Edison thought he might be able to pour an entire house in one operation. Houses could then roll off a production line and be sold at a low price. Such houses could be built almost entirely of fire-resistant materials, thus also saving the cost of fire insurance.

Edison identified bentonite clay as a substance that had the binding and stability requirements suitable to such monumental concrete structures and determined that more than one structure would have to be built on a single site in order to save on construction costs. All architectural and...