Question

In 1832, George Washington Snow is said to have constructed the first "balloon-frame" building out of small sticks of lumber. Requiring less lumber and fewer skills to construct, balloon framing quickly displaced timber framing. What made this possible?

Answer

The availability of large quantities of relatively inexpensive machine-cut nails allowed for the development of "balloon framing." Till then, nails had been individually forged by hand and were therefore expensive and not readily available.