Once only collected by a few, cast-iron doorstops are coming into their own as American folk art. Doorstops were used winter and summer in the days before central heating or air conditioning. American cast-iron doorstops developed in the 1820s. After the Civil War, they became symbols of upper-class affuence. In the 1920s and 1930s, they could be ordered through the Sears catalog for fifty cents to $2.00. When World War II started, scrap iron was melted down for the war effort and the cast-iron doorstop craze faded.