In America, aside from the adobe construction which the Spanish
found in Mexico and Peru, the first brick were brought over from
England or Holland. The native industry, however, had an early
start in the seventeenth century, so that the Colonial times saw
many fine specimens of brick building from New England to Virginia.
In the nineteenth century, up to about 1880, there was no general
attempt to use brick to the best advantage. For the most part the
brick building of that period was confined to the use of common
brick for ordinary construction or for backing stone-faced walls.
From that date, however, to the present, a growing taste has
demanded and secured artistic effects in the brick wall by the
use of specially manufactured face brick which, in a bewildering
variety of beautiful color tones and textures, have been
sympathetically and artistically treated by our leading architects,
as may be seen all over our country.