Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal

Journal of Policy History

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 184-210

  Hutchison, Janet ^a  

^a National Museum of American History   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 85011523624     PISSN: 08980306     EISSN: 15284190     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0898030600005923     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. Sinclair Lewis, Babbitt (1980 reprint by the New American Library; originally published, New York, 1922), 15–16.
2. Herbert Hoover, American Individualism (New York, 1922).
3. Joan Hoff Wilson in Herbert Hoover, Forgotten Progressive (Boston, 1975) clarifies his commitment to civic action.
4. See also William J. Barber, From New Era to New Deal: Herbert Hoover, the Economists, and American Economic Policy, 1921–1933 (New York, 1985), 191–195.
5. There is a wide literature on the history of the Americanhome, although much of that literature fails to address the relationship of housing to state policy. For discussions of the single-family detached dwelling as the American dream, see Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (New York, 1981)
6. Moralism and the Model Home: Domestic Architecture and Cultural Conflict in Chicago, 1873–1913 (Chicago, 1980)
7. Clifford Edward Clark Jr., The American Family Home, 1800–1960 (Chapel Hill, 1986)
8. David E Handlin, The American Home: Architecture and Society, 1815–1915 (Boston, 1979)
9. Robert Fishman, Bourgeois Utopias: The Rise and Fall of Suburbia (New York, 1987).
10. For an analysis of cooperative housekeeping, cooperative options, and apartment-living ventures, see, respectively, Dolores Hayden, The Grand Domestic Revolution: A History of Feminist Designs for American Homes, Neighborhoods, and Cities (Cambridge, Mass., 1981)
11. Kristan Sylvain Bailey, “The Federal Government and the Cooperative Housing Movement, 1917–1950” (Ph.D. diss., Carnegie-Mellon University, 1988)
12. Elizabeth C. Cromley, Alone Together: A History of New York's Early Apartments (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990).
13. The one study that recognizes the contribution that Hoover made to housing policy is Ellis Hawley, “Herbert Hoover, the Commerce Secretariat, and the Vision of the ‘Associative State,’ ” Journal of American History 61 (June 1974): 116–140, which includes the Better Homes Movement as central to Hoover's housing policy.
14. This description is my synthesis of the houses promoted by the various programs. Other similar descriptions, topology, and an earlier history of the suburban home are found in Alan Gowans, The Comfortable House: North American Suburban Architecture, 1890–1930 (Cambridge, Mass., 1986). Gowans uses the term “suburban” to mean“less than fully urban.” I would expand the term to include such houses built within the city limits, in developments, and in the countryside. While Gowans argues that the farm depression made it difficult for farmers to purchase such dwellings, I would suggest that the material evidence shows widespread adoption of “suburban” houses across the rural landscape.
15. See also Sally McMurry, The Progressive Farmhouse Ideal (New York, 1986).
16. Literature on housing still lacks a clear overview of the history of real estate development over time. The best analysis of real estate development during the interwar period is Marc A. Weiss, The Rise of the Community Builder: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (New York, 1986).
17. For an analysis of women's responses to suburbanization during this period, see Margaret Marsh, Suburban Lives (New Brunswick, N.J., 1990).
18. On changing youth culture and concerns, see Paula Fass, The Beautiful and the Damned: American Youth and the 1920's (New York, 1977.)
19. The United States Housing Corporation oversaw the construction of two government-funded housing developments. Most of the projects were not completed and the federal government sold ownership rights after the armistice. See James Ford, Report of the U.S. Housing Corporation (Washington, D.C., 1919).
20. For a description of the development of one state-financed development, see Richard M. Candee, Atlantic Heights: A World War I Shipbuilder's Community (Portsmouth, N.H., 1985). In 1917, another form of new state involvement occurred with the establishment of federal Land Banks, which provided farmers with long-term mortgages at low interest rates.
21. Paul Murphy, “Address of Paul C. Murphy, Before the Interstate Realty Convention, Held at Aberdeen and Hoquiam, August 9–11,1917, Under the Auspices of Grays Harbor Realty Board,” Box 482, United States Housing Corporation, National Archives (hereafter cited as USHC, NA). “Own Your Own Home” originated in 1917 as the “Buy a Home” Campaign sponsored by the National Association of Real Estate Boards.
22. Buy a Home Campaign, Local Campaigns, Box 456, Own Your Own Home Papers, Department of Labor, N A.
23. Own Your Own Home Papers
24. “Address of Paul C. Murphy, Portland, Oregon, Before the Minnesota Land Owners Convention of Minnesota, Jan. 9, 10, 11, 1919,” Box 462, Own Your Own Home, Department of Labor, N A.
25. Paul C. Murphy, “Address of Paul C. Murphy, Before the Interstate Realty Convention, Held at Aberdeen and Hoquian, August 9–11, 1917,” Murphy returned to Oregon after overseeing the setup of the Washington headquarters.
26. Carrie Chapman Catt to Honorable Louis F. Post, Assistant Secretary, Department of Labor, 18 June 1919, Box 456, USHC, NA
27. King H. Pullen, Southern Pine Association to James Ford, 23 June 1919, L. R. Putman File, Preachment, Group No. 3, Box 462, USHC, NA.
28. For example, Senator Albert Fall of New Mexico claimed that these federal developments showed “an insidious concerted effort. to socialize this Government of ours, to overturn the entire Government of the United States.” Quoted in Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York, 1983), 192.
29. “Own Your Own Home Show Formally Opens To-Day,” New York Post, 22 April 1922, Housing, Clippings, General Accounts, Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (hereafter cited as HHPL).
30. Bruce Blivens, “Do Workingmen Deserve Homes?” The New Republic, 5 March 1924, 39–41.
31. See also Edith Elmer Wood, The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner: America's Next Problem (New York, 1919)
32. Charles Harris Whitaker et al., The Housing Problem in War and Peace (Washington, D.C., 1918).
33. “The Housing Committee of the National Association of Real Estate Board to the Executive Committee at Washington, March 6–8, 1922 By Henry R. Brigham, Chairman,” 4, Report of Housing Committee File, Box 35, Idler Papers, NAREB, Roosevelt Presidential Library (hereafter cited as RPL).
34. Herbert Hoover, “Good Homes as Investment,” The Delineator, October 1924, 2. This emphasis on housing a stable industrial labor force has its antecedents in the nineteenth century.
35. Herbert Hoover, The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover (New York, 1952), 257
36. Herbert Hoover, American Individualism.
37. For a discussion of Hoover's ideas about social science management and planning, see Barry D. Karl, “Presidential Planning and Social Science Research: Mr. Hoover's Experts,” Perspectives in American History 3 (1969): 347–409
38. Guy Alchon, The Invisible Hand of Planning: Capitalism, Social Science, and the State in the 1920s (Princeton, 1985). As Brian Horrigan notes, it is no coincidence that government involvement in housing was originally under the purview of the Labor Department.
39. For Hoover's commitment to macroeconomic planning in the construction industry, see Fred Bjornstad, “ ‘A Revolution in Ideas and Methods’: The Construction Industry and Socio-Economic Planning in the United States, 1915–1933” (Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 1991). These associates included James Taylor and John Gries, who remained active in government housing policy throughout the interwar period.
40. Herbert Hoover to President Harding, 9 February 1922, Commerce Papers, Building and Housing, HHPL. Information on the Food Conservation campaign and the women's enlistment can be found in Craig Lloyd, “Aggressive Introvert: Herbert Hoover and Public Relations Management, 1912–1923” (Ph.D. diss., University of lowa, 1970.), 48.
41. For articles on standardization, see, for example, “Secretary Hoover's Standardization Plan,” New York City Expert (April 1922) in General Account Papers, Housing, Clippings, HHPL
42. “Government to Squeeze Waste Out of Industry: Department of Commerce Plans to Reduce Variety in Practically Every Article of Commerce in Country,” New York American (31 July 1922), General Account, Housing, Clippings, HHPL.
43. For his advocacy of a new building code, see “Hoover Presents New Building Code,” New York Times, 22 January 1923, General Account, Housing, Clippings, HHPL. Herbert Hoover (unsigned) to Mr. Ernest T. Trigg, president, National Federation of Construction Industries, Commerce Papers, Building and Housing, HHPL. Hoover's stance on the importance of voluntarism remained unchanged. In his memoirs, he asserted that the “free and confident” economy was more successful than the planned economy of Roosevelt's New Deal, citing as proof house numbers constructed per annum.
44. The Memoirs of Herbert Hoover (New York, 1952), 96.
45. For an excellent discussion of Hoover's optimism about the translation of wartime voluntarism into peacetime efforts, see Robert D. Cuff, “Voluntarism and War Organization During the Great War,” Journal of American History 64, no. 1–2 (1977): 358–372.
46. Hoover, Memoirs, 92.
47. Marie Meloney, “Better Homes,” The Delineator, October 1922, 9.
48. idem, “Better Homes in America,” The Delineator, June 1923, 2.
49. There is a wide literature on the role of maternalist reform in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Significant are Theda Skocpol, Protecting Soldiers and Mothers: The Origins of Social Policy in the United States (Cambridge, Mass., 1992)
50. Linda Gordon, Pitied But Not Entitled: Single Mothers and the History of Welfare, 1890–1935 (New York, 1994)
51. Seth Koven and Sonya Michel, eds., Mothers of a New World: Maternalist Politics and the Origins of the Welfare States (New York, 1993)
52. Robin Muncy, Creating a Female Dominion in American Reform, 1890–1935 (New York, 1991)
53. Molly Ladd-Taylor, Mother-Work: Women, Child Welfare, and the State, 1890–1930 (Urbana, III., 1994).
54. Donald Wilhelm, “Memorandum for the Secretary,” 22 June 1922, Commerce Department Bureau of Standards, Commerce Papers, HHPL.
55. “Statement by Secretary Hoover for Christian Science Monitor,” 25 March 1925, Bldg. and Housing, Commerce Papers, HHPL. In addition to sponsoring home exhibitions, the national Better Homes office distributed home-ownership manuals and zoning primers from the Commerce Department to local committees.
56. Marie Meloney, “Better Homes in America,” The Delineator, September 1922, 2
57. Edwin Brown to Mr. Clarence T. Myers, secretary, Lake Division, ASHSB, 26 November 1923, Architects' Small House Service Bureau Papers, Minnesota Historical Society (hereafter cited as ASHSB, MHS)
58. Meloney, “Better Homes in America,” The Delineator, January 1924. 1
59. idem, “Better Homes Prizewinners,” The Delineator, October 1924, 1
60. idem, “Better Homes in America,” The Delineator, November 1922, 18.
61. Meloney, “Better Homes in America,” The Delineator, November 1922,18
62. The Delineator., “Better Homes in America,” The Delineator, May 1923, 1.
63. For a discussion of the National Better Home, see Janet Hutchison, “The Cure for Domestic Neglect: Better Homes in America, 1922–1935,” Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture II, ed. Camille Wells (Columbia, Mo., 1986), 168–178.
64. James Ford to Marie Meloney, 14 January 1926, Bldg. and Hsg., Better Homes in America, HHPL (hereafter cited as BHA)
65. Meloney, “Ten Great Songs,” The Delineator, November 1923, 5.
66. Edwin Brown to Clarence Myers, 26 November 1923, ASHSB Papers, MHS.
67. An excellent overview of the Architects' Small House Service Bureau, including an analysis of cost, is found in Thomas Harvey, “Mail Order Architecture in the Twenties,” Landscape 25:3 (1981), 1–9.
68. Lisa Marie Schrenck discusses bureau marketing, operations, designs, and decline in “The Impact of the Architects' Small House Service Bureau on Early Twentieth-Century Architecture” (M.A. thesis, University of Virginia, 1987).
69. See also Schrenk's excellent introduction in Your Future Home (Washington, D.C., 1992; reprint of 1922 edition, St. Paul: Weyerhaeuser Forest Products)
70. “Report of the Committee on Small Houses, the American Institute of Architects for the year 1923, American Institute of Architects, Box 1, HIA.
71. Although the American Institute of Architects endorsed the Architects Small House Service Bureau, architects in fact contested the efficacy of such a program. Hoover's endorsement of the Architects' Small House Service Bureau also drew protests. In Walter Fawcett's “Government Endorsements and the Architect,” Architectural Record, October 1925, 393–94, he questioned the ethics of such governmental endorsements. Hoover refused to revoke his endorsement since the architects were not making excessive profits
72. John M. Gries to Hoover, 28 October 1925, Bldg. & Housing, Commerce Papers, HHPL. The central bureau office was located in Minneapolis with branch offices in several other cities.
73. Thomas Harvey, “Mail Order Architecture,” 1–9
74. “A Short Story of One Year's Work of the Bureau by Edwin H. Brown, President of The Architects' Small House Service Bureau of the United States Inc,” ASHSB, MHS
75. The American Institute of Architects for the Year 1923, “Report of the Committee on Small Houses,” American Institute of Architects, Box 4, BHA, HI. Edward D. Pierre, architect, Indianapolis to Mr. Clarence Myers, 3 December 1923, ASASB, MHS. Hoover to Mr. Edwin H. Brown, secretary, American Institute of Architects, 9 April 1924, ASHSB, MHS, 1–2.
76. “Economy and Durability Specified for Three Journal Houses,” Minneapolis Journal, 15 April 1923, 1.
77. For a discussion of bureau costs, see Harvey, 5. Mr. Brogren, “Questionnaire,” received 23 January 1924, ASHSB, MHS.
78. Maurice I. Flagg to Mr. Charles D. Kelley, Detroit News, 1 November 1923, ASHSB, MHS
79. Maurice Flagg to Edwin Brown, 25 October 1923, ASHSB, MHS
80. Maurice Flagg to James Ford, 25 June 1925, ASHSB, MHS.
81. Architects' Small House Service Bureau, Your Future Home (St. Paul, Minn., 1923)
82. other architects criticized this alliance, seeing it as commercializing the bureau. Robert T. Jones, Tech. Dir., ASHSB to Mr. N. M. Collart, Superintendent of Decoration, Sherwin-Williams Co., Cleveland, Ohio, 21 December 1923, ASHSB, MHS
83. Robert Jones, Tech. Dir., to Mr. N. M. Collart, Superintendent of Decoration, 19 November 1923, ASHSB, MHS. Newspapers often had connections to real estate interests and participated in real estate speculation. Requests for bureau house plans that cite Better Homes in America as their source are from areas throughout the country, including New Jersey, West Virginia, and Texas, ASHSB, MHS.
84. James Ford, “The Plan Service of the Architects' Small House Service Bureau,” American Building Association News, 5.
85. H. S. Sackett, secretary and director, Home Modernizing Bureau, to George Akerman, secretary to the president, 17 September 1929, Pres. Subj. File-Better Homes Correspondence, HHPL
86. H. S. Sackett to Santa Maria Constr. Co., 3 September 1929, Pres. Subj. File-Better Homes Corres., Presidential Subj. File, HHPL.
87. H. S. Sackett, “What Modernization Means Today,” Home Moderrdzor, 4–7, Better Homes, Presidential Papers, HHPL.
88. “Kohler, Walter Jodok,” Who's Whom America, 1926–1927, vol. 18 (Chicago, 1934), 2749.
89. Arnold R. Alanen and Thomas J. Peitin, “Kohler, Wisconsin: Planning and Paternalism in a Model Industrial Village,” American Institute of Planning Journal (April 1978): 146–147
90. Marie Kohler, “Kohler Village Observes its Thirteenth Annual Better Homes Week,” Kohler of Kohler News, July 1937, 3
91. “Walter Kohler Making Active Campaign,” Kohler of Kohler News, September 1928, 10
92. “Home Modernizing Bureau Now Permanent Organization: Walter J. Kohler Head of Movement to Stimulate Business and Employment and Improve Homes,” Kohler of Kohler News, June 1928, 8.
93. Elizabeth Wood, “Modernizing the Discarded and Disregarded House: Attractive Homes Are a Community Asset,” Illinois Clubwoman's World, October 1929, Chicago, Modernization File, Box 63, BHA, HIA.
94. Discussion with and thanks to Maggie McFadden, daughter of Glenora English. Clipping of Dutch Colonial house now in my possession. 5 November 1993; John Colville, “Questionnaire,” received 15 May 1924, ASHSB, MHS.
95. Marie Meloney to Edgar Rickard, 21 March 1933, BHA General, BAEF Collection, HHPL
96. For a discussion of the housing policy debates during the 1930s, see Gail Radford, Modern Housing for America: Struggles in the New Deal Era (Chicago, 1996).
97. “Memorandum,” 21 March 1934, BHA General, BAEF Collection, HHPL. Better Housing, 14 February 1935, 1–3
98. Leo Henderson, Mgr. to President Roosevelt, OF 1091, Mis. 1934–36, Box 4, FHA, RPL.
99. Jackson criticizes the ineffectiveness of Title I, citing Albert M. Cole as noting in 1954 that Title I “is of limited assistance to families of modest income.” Crabgrass Frontier, 364, n 49.
100. Hoover, Memoirs, 92.
101. C. W. Warburton, director of Extension Work, United States Department of Agriculture, 31 March 1934, Special Materials, Box 15, BHA, HIA.
102. Miles L. Colean, American Housing, Problems and Prospects (New York, 1944), 66.
103. See also Historical Statistics of the United States: Colonial Times to the Present (Washington, D.C., 1970), N 156–69.
104. Charles and Mary Beard, American Citizenship (New York, 1919), 25–27
105. Lewis, Babbitt, 16
106. The Editors of Fortune Magazine, Housing America (New York, 1932), 1
107. Stuart Chase, “The Case Against Home Ownership,” Survey Graphic, May 1938, 263. My thanks to Gail Radford for calling this article to my attention.
108. Charles and Mary Beard, American Citizenship, 25–27.
109. For discussion of marketing efforts to encourage consumer desires, see Roland Marchand, Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940 (Berkeley, Cal., 1985)
110. William Leach, Land of Desire: Merchants, Power and the Rise of a New American Culture (New York, 1993).
111. Edwin Brown, “Report of the Committee on Small Houses (To the Fifty-fourth Annual Convention),” ASHSB, MHS.