March, 1912 
AMERICAN HOMES AND GARDENS 99 
Door-Knockers 
Along Old Lines 
By Hewitt Trent Cooper 
Photographs by T. C. Turmer 
Gothic door-knocker 
sa)| HERE is always delightful suggestion in the 
{| coming upon a door having a knocker. De- 
spite our ingenious era, with its endless 
system of electric bells, there 
is nothing that quite takes the 
place of the old-fashioned 
door-knocker in the matter of external evi- 
dences of the hospitality to be expected from 
within. Surely the one-time pull-bell, herald- 
ing the visitor’s approach like a terrifying 
clash of cymbals divided into echoing suc- 
cessions of noisy sound, and as often coming 
out by the roots, to the said visitor’s discom- 
fiture, could not obliterate from the memory 
the cheery sound of the tap at the door of 
the knocker that sought, in a sense, to imitate 
man’s signal and save his knuckles. That the 
old-fashioned door-knocker had a decorative 
value as well as its utilitarian one further en- 
deared it to custom. Indeed, despite the 
changes of our own day, we have been not 
only reluctant to give up the beloved door- 
knocker, but we have made up our minds to 
restore it to its old place of honor. Some of 
us do this for aesthetic reasons, while others permit it to 
maintain its utilitarian offices. 
Indeed, it is possible to 
adapt the door-knocker of 
the days gone by to our 
present needs by contriv- 
ing to fit it with hidden 
electric connection, so that 
we knock and ring at one 
Falstaff door-knocker 
Windsor Stag door-knocker 
Bae Le 
Colonial door-knocker 
and the same time. The writer has seen several door- 
knockers of this sort, so fitted that raising the knocker pro- 
duced connection with the electrical current, which caused 
the bell to ring in its place inside the house. 
For the small house, the knocker itself 
usually suffices to inform the occupants that 
the visitor is without, and in modern cottage 
architecture we find its use returning to such 
an extent that our leading manufacturers of 
architectural hardware are making a spe- 
cialty of attractive door-knockers, especially 
of reproductions of famous old door-knockers 
or adaptations of old patterns. Arts and 
crafts workers, too, are turning their atten- 
tion to the subject of designing door-knockers 
along artistic modern lines, and the German 
artists, particularly those of Munich and of 
Darmstadt, have produced some very fine 
work along original lines. It is very interest- 
ing to be the possessor of a door-knocker 
that is unique, that has been especially de- 
signed for one’s own house, carrying with it 
the distinction of its own individuality, but 
since everyone cannot indulge even in the 
limited luxury of an object to order of this sort, it is fortu- 
nate that one may now purchase fine reproductions in bronze, 
brass and wrought iron of 
historic knockers, faithfully 
copied, many of them from 
originals now treasured in 
the various museums of 
Europe and America. 
