LEISURE AS SOCIAL WORK IN THE URBAN COMMUNITY: THE PROGRESSIVE RECREATION MOVEMENT, 1890-1920 Dissertation for the Degree of Ph. D. MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY LAWRENCE A. FINFER 1974 fiéfififig1§13§flfie ‘ Urmy I IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII I IIIIIIIIIIII L This is to certify that the thesis entitled Leisure As Social Work In The Urban Community: The Progressive Recreation Movement, 1890—1920 presented by Lawrence A. Finfer has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for lDho¢degree in History Major professor Date October 1 l ‘74 0-7 639 \ as; 1;“ e ” an fit .. I,BMKWMWYM. IBRARY BINDERS ‘ngyregrmlcms: $1 WW 0 4 20m “0 ABSTRACT LEISURE AS SOCIAL WORK IN THE URBAN COMMUNITY: THE PROGRESSIVE RECREATION MOVEMENT, 1890-1920 BY Lawrence A. Finfer This work is a study of the major phases of the public recreation movement in American cities from its inception in the 18905 through World War I. Largely ignored by historians, the recreation movement is in many ways a model of the course of progressive reform. Far from parochial in its membership and outlook, the public recreation cause drew the attention of political reformers, settlement workers, social scientists, and educators, all of whom saw organized leisure as an antidote to the social disorganization pervasive in city life. The intensive psychological and socioloqical studies of children in the 18905 first showed the scientific im- portance of leisure time in character formation. The child study movement, led by G. Stanley Hall, asserted that children recapitulated the past experiences of the race in play, their primary activity throughout the years of growth. In his play the child learned, "by doing,” those principles of ethics and prOper conduct necessary for society to OWE .l Cu - ~ I. I 1 I II. «nu YI- uhnu w. o in . WU.- . v 5,9 . n Ahv N Lawrence A. Finfer function properly. As analyses of urban life showed, however, the need for play was frustrated in the crowded districts of American cities, and therefore often expressed itself in lawless activities. Charity workers considered this fact, as well as what they perceived as the instability of the city child's home and neighborhood life, and argued that society had a duty to oversee the welfare of its off— spring. The l8905 and the first years of the new century, therefore, were marked by progressive-backed agitation for children's playgrounds and other recreational facilities for the young. Playground reformers said that supervised recreation countered both the evil influences of the street and those of the child's home. In the playground, through directed activities, the child learned to obey rules and an authority figure, thus minimizing his potential as a social nuisance. Providing play Opportunities for children, ostensibly a humane venture, thereby fell within the boundaries of social control theory. Urban reformers, however, soon realized that the recreation movement was unduly limited by the phiIOSOphical strictures of pre-progressive thought. The leisure problem, as innumerable social surveys of the period showed, involved aeoe and P.I . Lawrence A. Finfer the entire p0pulace. Urban recreational patterns were dominated by commercialism, resulting in the growth of debasing institutions such as the cheap theater, saloon, and brothel. To progressives, the leisure time pursuits of city residents fragmented community life, thus encourag- ing disorder. As a result, the recreation movement expanded its activities to include adolescents and adults. Its most significant prOposal involved the establishment of so-called "social centers" in public school buildings during the evening. The social centers offered political discussions, community pageantry, and other activities intended to attract entire families. Depicted as democratic in concept, the social centers were actually tightly managed by educators, social service professionals, and local business groups. Rather than promoting community self-government, they were designed to minimize social conflict by drawing disparate ethnic, economic, and political groups into a managed arena. The recreation movement became, by World War I, a recognized sector of progressive reform. Its advocates from social workers to business "booster" groups, found a cmmmon ground in their desire for an efficient, conflict- free society. During the war, when the problem of the relations between military training camps and surrounding com gov: EOVI n rn (I) Lawrence A. Finfer communities concerned the effects of soldier's leisure, governmental programs employed leaders of the recreation movement to coordinate the leisure-time activities of military personnel. In a matter of a generation then, public control and Sponsorship of recreation was recognized as necessary to the maintenance of public order. LEISURE AS SOCIAL WORK IN THE URBAN COMMUNITY: THE PROGRESSIVE RECREATION MOVEMENT, 1890-1920 BY Lawrence A. Finfer A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of History 1974 (a ()COPyright by Lawrence A. 1974 Finfer COR I'm. '15] ~ 3 ‘lh I .s (I) 1 " Lu ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Many persons aided me during the preparation of this work. Dr. Douglas T. Miller, my thesis director, first suggested leisure as a field of investigation. Dr. Norman Pollack and Dr. Russel Nye provided helpful comments during every stage of the research and writing, while Dr. William J. Brazill, who served on my guidance committee until the final stages, also rendered many important suggestions. Special thanks are also due to the staffs of numerous libraries, several friends and colleagues, and to Sally Sash, who typed the manuscript. My greatest indebtedness, however, is to Judy--for all the reasons. ii 1P TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE O O C I O O O O 0 Chapter I. "LITTLE SAVAGES": PSYCHOLOGY, PLAY, AND THE CHILD . . . . . . . . II. THE CITY ENVIRONMENT: PERIL AND OPPORTUNITY . . . . . . . . . . . . III. PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS ,AND VACATION SCHOOLS O C O O O O O O O I O O O O 0 IV. THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE RECREATION MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . V. RECREATION AS A COMMUNITY PROBLEM: THE PROGRESSIVE VISION . . . . . VI. RECREATION AS CIVICS: THE SOCIAL CENTER MOVEMENT . . . . . . . . . . . VII. WORLD WAR I: RECREATION, THE SOLDIER, AND COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION . . . . . BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY . . . . . . iii . . 100 145 176 . . 220 267 291 CO! I I 7.5.? 4.. y... "‘f (I) ‘u I ‘ -~-s hit. _ .—_' —_;';_'_’:L1£;.__,7A_Pk ._.__...._.. 7, ,7 .. PREFACE This study examines the concept of and reSponse to leisure time as a social problem in American urban communi- ties during a period of rapid industrial growth and develOp— ment. The late-nineteenth—century city was a physical arena of crowded districts whose deficiencies in housing, health conditions, and public services were acute. In many ways, the impact of these problems was greatest where the city's children were concerned. Space utilization in large munici- palities seldom provided for play areas for children, while those public parks that existed were usually too far from the crowded districts to relieve the situation.i Social reformers considered the relationship between lack of play space and the growing rate of juvenile delinquency signifi- cant. Influenced by both the scientific studies of child nature and the sociological analyses of slum conditions, they became convinced that the inadequately supervised city child, frustrated in his desire for adventure and athletic contest, represented a threat to social order. When placed against the background of the intensive fear of the "dangerous classeS" of the city existing at the time, the iv nuI. H. ‘6 A ‘t , Iv‘ ‘f H "M - ~33: ”mm... leisure problem suddenly became an important consideration of municipal reformers. The first two chapters of this work are concerned with the background of the recreation movement in the period's studies of the lives of city children. They deal with the psychologist's conception of the child and the role of play in character formation, as well as the re- former's view of the city environment and its effects on the child's morals and character. Chapters III and IV discuss the growth of the movement for children's recre- ational facilities as a component of municipal reform programs of the 18905 and the early twentieth century. Both the publicly espoused rationale for playgrounds and other facilities and specific programs in major cities are considered as are deve10ping patterns of leadership and control within the movement. The latter part of this work examines the expansion of the public recreation movement. As will be shown, re- formers soon concluded that the leisure problem was of lifelong duration and that it was intimately related to the task of building efficient communities. Progressivism's View of the ideal society considered it as an organic whole, in which differences of political persuasion, economic class, and ethnic group ought to be subordinated to the ideal of V s on] POI service to society. The city's leisure patterns, however, only aggravated these differences, and contaminated the populace morally. Through the evening usage of schools as community centers reformers hOped to win city residents away from debasing forms of amusement such as the saloon and brothel to a managed arena where the maintenance of social cohesion was paramount. Chapters V and VI discuss the rationale for the expansion of the recreation movement and the school center programs themselves, while the con- cluding chapter considers the.recreation movement's impact on the wartime problem of military-community relations. It is the intent of this work to show that the public recreation movement, in its ideology and actions, serves as a microcosm of the progressive movement as a whole. The social science professionals, educators, and businessmen who made up the movement agreed that "social efficiency" involved the maintenance of public order. Therefore, they felt that a custodial role had to be assumed by the public sector, wherein agencies and institutions were to undertake managerial duties. Regulation, in this sense, was directed at the mass below by the powered above. In the case of the recreation movement, the original distrust of the working— class parent led to an early focus on children, but this was Vi late 3311 In - IY bi. later expanded to justify the monitoring of the leisure activities of adults. Desiring predictability and order— liness in social relations, progressives attacked the lOgic of leaving leisure time to chance influences such as children's playmates, saloonkeepers, and the physical city itself. The shaping of the citizenry, they reasoned, was a matter too crucial to be left to either individual inclinations or divisive forms of social organization. From this perSpective, the public recreation movement functioned as a community reform venture that defined com- munity in terms of the preservation of order. Hopefully, in this examination of an ignored but significant effort in early—twentieth-century reform, basic questions con- cerning the nature and goals of the reformist process that have seldom been addressed will be explored. vii v-s-.- ll - ifll'w‘. " CHAPTER I "LITTLE SAVAGES": PSYCHOLOGY, PLAY, AND THE CHILD "The first rash rush of the evolutionary invasion is past," proclaimed Henry Drummond, the English biological l theorist in 1894. Drummond wrote these words thirty-five years after the publication of The Origin of Species, assuming that the passage of time just then allowed for a consciously new perSpective as to the meaning of evolution— ary theory, one that called for a reorientation in the scientific community. The theory of evolution, said Drummond, had been in its very nature "misconceived" from the start and "remained out of focus to the present hour." The "whole ndstake" of the naturalists, he said, was to study nature "simply as machinery," and the result had been a misdirected science. The true lesson of evolution was altogether dif— ferent. It pointed to a developing communal consciousness, towards "ascent, not descent," and its deepest significance came in that evolutionary theory applied to a dimension lHenry Drummond, The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent Ci Men (New York: James Pott, 1894), p. 3. belond that Of t as a result 0f t was HOW to be Vi could and ought "form the found5 organic order. "2 Drummond were gaining St! rather than as 5 ary theory implj ty c00peration a bitter struggle scientific thouc iirectly, that 1 harness the pew good. The histc the origins and rent that the . Since he became survival for ma \ 2 Ibi \.' beyond that of the physical. The universe, said Drummond, as a result of the discovery of the theory of evolution, was now to be Viewed as a "psychical" arena, where man could and ought to "take charge" of development, so as to "form the foundation of an inconceivably loftier super- organic order."2 Drummond spoke as a popularizer of feelings that were gaining strength among scientists and social theorists rather than as a lone dissenter. The feeling that evolution— ary theory implied the growth of an organic community marked by c00peration and social interdependence rather than a bitter struggle for survival denoted the new sensibility in scientific thought. The new view thus asserted, however in— directly, that progress depended upon man's ability to harness the power of evolution and direct it towards the good. The historicist View of man necessarily emphasized the origins and develOpment of things. In this case, this meant that the child would receive concentrated attention, since he became the key to individual and institutional survival for mankind as a whole. 2Ibid., pp. v—vi, 17, 114-17. The app1 psychic as well of the long-helC .« . 3 thought tended t contradicted, at concerning chilc German biologiS‘ loner animals a‘ Ernst Haeckel, . hypothesis into ”recapitulated" natal period. began life as a Stages in which finally to reac opencer confirm \3~\ ernar The application of evolutionary theory to man's psychic as well as his physical existence suggested revision of the long—held view of children as "miniature," or flawed adults.3 Indeed, even in its earlier phase, evolutionary thought tended to present a View of child develOpment that contradicted, at least in the physical realm, popular notions concerning child nature and nurture. Fritz Mueller, a German biologist, published findings in 1864 that noted the similarity of human embryo's physical features to those of lower animals at various stages of the prenatal period. Ernst Haeckel, a comparative morphologist, had eXpanded this hypothesis into a cosmic scheme, arguing that the embryo "recapitulated“ the entire route of evolution in the pre— natal period. Laboratory studies indicated that the fetus began life as a simple form and passed ever upward through stages in which it resembled lower mammals and the apes, finally to reach the stage of man at its birth.4 Herbert Spencer confirmed this notion, noting that observation 3Bernard Wishy, The Child and the Republic: The Dawn of American Child Nurture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), pp. 105-7. 4Dorothy Ross, G. Stanley_flall:~_The Psycholo ist as Prophet (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972 , p. 90. ZErik Nordenskioeld, History'of‘BiolOgX_(New York: 2L KnOpf, 1928), pp. 514—20. would demonstra short time, wen crear picture" over countless observation-ori Darwinian phase child, even SEE sense. Young c If Proportion t The head and up Often in apelik imminent than n‘as W the part iClllal-ly if. Had the would demonstrate that the human organism, in a relatively short time, went through changes that gave a "tolerably clear picture" of evolutionary processes that had unfolded over countless ages.5 Later, biologists trained in the observation-oriented methods made popular in the post- Darwinian phase of scientific investigation noted that the child, even 3£E2£_birth was not wholly "man" in the modern sense. Young children had physical features that were out of prOportion to what was considered normal in adult man. The head and upper extremities were abnormally developed, often in apelike fashion, and the vestigial organs were more prominent than those of adult5.6 Indeed, the human infant was behind the higher apes in many areas of development, particularly in its lengthly period of physical helpless- ness. Had the investigations stopped with the examination of physical man, this by itself probably would have caused 5Herbert Spencer, The Principles of Biology, Vol. I (New York: D. Appleton, 1880), p.I849. 6Louis Robinson, "Darwinism in the Nursery," Nineteenth Centur XXX (November, 1891), pp. 831—42; 5. S. Buckner, Babies and Monkeys," Popular Science hkmthly, XLVI (January, 1895), pp. 371—88; Cephas Guillet, Recapitulation and Education," Pedagogical Seminagy, VII (October, 1900), pp. 397- -.445 areevaluation < pological and P5 Speculation tha‘= nphcations the evolutionists. appeal of the e‘ "cosmic" ViGWpO.‘ universe as an . :ental, and spi: 'helong-held dc ndsocial pers' conduct was als. became popular hierscore thes ceeded along pa limited accordi In obse a reevaluation of child-rearing methods. However, anthro- pological and psychological investigations tended to raise speculation that the theory of recapitulation had broader applications than those envisioned by the early biological evolutionists. In part, this was due to the near—magical appeal of the evolutionary dogma itself, which invited the "cosmic" vieWpoint, that is, a broad-based view of the universe as an arena governed in all its sectors--physical, mental, and Spiritual--by evolutionary theory and practices. The long-held desire to explain man in both his physical and social persons as a creature governed by a set code of conduct was also a factor. The observational method, as it became pOpular in the emergent social sciences, tended to underscore these assumptions, and, as problem solving pro- ceeded along parallel lines, problem selection was often limited accordingly by methodological demands.7 In observing societies of primitive men, late- rfineteenth—century anthropologists noted a similarity be- tween their activities and those of children in modern, 7Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Egyolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962), PP. 10, 37, 126. Kuhn's concept of the "paradigm" is use— ful in understanding the impact and appeal of Darwinism and explains how the paradigm may limit the problem-solving processes to measurable phenomena defined by the paradigm. 'civilized" soc tween those act connotations in ous play activi nations was app of the Victori primitive divi chance and spec era, such as t some parts of Sir John Lubbo 'remarkable sin] adult savages a analogy between amusement was c relation to mod realized, as it lists, yet Lubt "civilized“ societies. In particular, a resemblance be- tween those activities that possessed sacred and religious connotations in primitive society and the seemingly superflu— ous play activities and pastimes of the children of western nations was apparent. Edward Tylor and other anthrOpOIOgists of the Victorian period remarked on the closeness between primitive divinatory rites and modern childish games of chance and Speculated that objects used as toys in the modern era, such as the rattle, had once (and still possessed, in some parts of the world) had mythic and sacred meanings.8 Sir John Lubbock, a contemporary of Tylor‘s, observed a "remarkable similarity“ between the mental Operations of adult savages and those of civilized children, of which the analogy between what was formerly sacred and what was now amusement was one. The exact significance this had in relation to modern child-rearing methods was not fully realized, as it was not the major concern of the anthropolo— gists, yet Lubbock and others began to see the possible 8Edward Tylor, Primitive Culture, Vol. I (London: John Murray, 1873), p. 8U} John Lubbock , Origin of'Civili— ggtion and the Primitive'Condition of Man (New York. D. Appleton, 1892),p . 526; James G. Frazier, The Golden Egpgh: A Study in Magic and‘Religion, 3rd ed. (New YorE: Macmillan, 1911), p. 90; J. G. Wood, The Natural History_ of Man: Being an Account of the'Manners and Customs or the Uncivilized Races of Man (London: G. Routledge, 1874), pp. 242- 47. utility of rec states: The op' naturalist vidual is conclusion evidently, facts are the least, The ti and of young c scheme was not (indeed, even had emphasized creativity, an Organism and ti a"tempts to £0: Ceived structu riSlhtly compre duct could and Friedrich Schi t' W (1 ac‘ ' - uvltlesc b1 creating a te utility of recapitulatory theory in explaining mental states: The Opinion israpidly gaining ground among naturalists, that the develOpment of the indi- vidual is an epitome of that of the species, a conclusion which, if fully borne out, will, evidently, prove most instructive. Already many facts are on the record which render it, to say the least, highly probable.9 The fitting of the play activities of human beings, and of young children in particular, into an evolutionary scheme was not necessarily a new develOpment. Romantics (indeed, even their predecessors) in EurOpe and in America had emphasized children's activities as a nascent form of creativity, and thus necessary for the proper growth of the organism and the collective mind. They criticized society‘s attempts to force the child to accept a prematurely con- ceived structure of morals and ethics that he could not rightly comprehend, insisting that the path to prOper con— duct could and should be discovered by the child himself. Friedrich Schiller, in his Letters on the Aesthetic Educa— tion of Man (1795), though not referring merely to children's activities, blamed the demands of the everyday world for creating a temper that left man unable to live in freedom without destroying himself and his fellows, as had occurred M . . ‘ ha ___ 9Lubbock, grigin of Civilization, pp. 522—23, 528. with the whole grow as an ind' Schiller, but him free to cr aesthetic art. the great nati Wards orname the conferring ened sense of t dePendence of t than an indictn tion. Buildir Friedrich Freer the growth of E in France during the Reign of Terror. In what he called the "play impulse," Schiller found a reconciling element between the individual and society that allowed man to perform his social duties and realize his connectedness with the whole community, and yet retain the ability to \ grow as an individual.10 Play was not a "mere game," said Schiller, but a state of mind that ennobled man and left him free to create. Thus it underlay "the whole fabric of aesthetic art." Indeed, historical studies showed that the great nations had been characterized by "a disposition towards ornament and play." The higher end of play was the conferring on man of a "social character," as his height- ened sense of the beautiful led to a realization of the inter- dependence of beings.ll Schiller's message was nothing less than an indictment of civilization in the name of civiliza- tion. Building on similar notions, the German educator Friedrich Froebel (1772-1852) set out to understand and aid the growth of young children through their natural activi- ties--their plays. As the "Father of the Kindergarten," . __ ¥ 10Friedrich Schiller, Letters on the Aesthetic Egycation of Man (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1954), pp' 4] 39, 46, “7'0. llIbid., pp. 79-80. ‘ Froebel assert child “the con in the univers by educational children rathe dental view of theories, base constantly ref and thus wholl connecting the The child in what Froebelia cube and the 3} 0f the surrounc “Wing the pi Point where he c°hnection bett dehonstrated, ( “Lure his: 13 Sindergartzflgg Shepardfleigem I 93) Froebel asserted that true education ought to show the child "the continuity and interconnection of all things in the universe,"12 and that this was best accomplished by educational models emphasizing the self—activity of children rather than sedentary drill. AdOpting a transcen- dental view of evolution that was, unlike later biological theories, based wholly on Spiritualist notions (his followers constantly referred to him as a "Christian Evolutionist"l3) and thus wholly beneficent, Froebel saw the importance of connecting the child's mental processes with natural objects. The child in the kindergarten was to be acquainted with what Froebelians called "gifts," natural shapes such as the cube and the sphere. These objects were to serve as symbols of the surrounding world of more complex forms, thus de- veloping the pupil's senses and perceptive faculties to the point where he could create. In time, the organic—spiritual connection between all things in the universe would be demonstrated, and the child would come to know his place in 12Baroness Marenholtz-Buelow, The Child and Child Nature (Syracuse, N.Y.: C. Bardeen, 1889), P. vi. 13Angeline Brooks, "Essential Principles of the Kindergarten System," in National Education Association, 'ggprnal‘of‘Proceedings'and'AddreSSEEJ 1894, pp. 696-701. Arnold Heinemann, ed. Froebel Letters (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1893), p. 44. nature without noral lessons . 1 , nutter, nothing later life. “15 the failure of child on his possible futur on children, " nature.“ If f; children were 2 growing into In: nothing more t1 adiSplaced se: K 14 Gif Dent £ (St. Lou @3133. 1 15 Erie York; D. APP]. 16 any lO nature without the need of abstract and incomprehensible moral lessons.l4 Children's play then, was a serious matter, nothing less than "the germinal leaves of all 15 later life.“ Froebel was thus extremely critical of the failure of parents and educators to understand the child on his own terms: The young human being is looked upon as a piece of wax, a lump of clay, which man can mold into what he pleases. 0 man, who roamest through garden and fields, through meadow and grass, why dost thou close thy mind to the silent teaching of nature?16 Froebel and his followers evoked the spectre of possible future chaos for the race against those who forced on children, "in tender years, forms and aims against their nature." If faulty methods of education were retained, children*were likely to have the "greatest difficulty" in growing into manhood. Regarding children's activities as nothing more than “misdirection of energies" would lead to a.displaced sense of the self, a loss of confidence, and —__ l4Denton Snider, The Psychology of Froebel's Play- Gifts (St. Louis: Sigma Publishing Company, 1900), pp. 1- 37; Lucy Wheelock, "They Have Eyes and Ears," in NBA, Erpceedings, 1890, pp. 560-63. 15Friedrich Froebel, The Education'of Man (New York: D. Appleton, 1889), pp. 55-71. l6Ibid., p. 56. nineteenth-can asense less " Yet, in the po the relaxation that insured a viewpoint. Be practices in accelerated by Froebelians, With the rise ( tlitings were ‘ Of his ideas c i561snealimy t Utility of pla in Educational \ Friedr' h {Pig 10 Free 1967): pp. 3~1 18 Com finers‘m‘s essg is _. 19 See ll ultimately a feeling of disconnectedness from the larger . 17 community . Froebel's thought, when placed in the late- nineteenth-century American context, was evolutionary in a sense less "scientific" than it was cosmic or Emersonian.l Yet, in the post-Civil War period, a general trend toward the relaxation of rigid concepts of child-raising occurred that insured a sympathetic audience for an enlightened ViewPoint. Bernard Wishy, who has examined child-rearing Practices in America, notes that the new enlightenment was accelerated by the increase in pOpular printed material.19 FrOebelians, among others, benefited from this. Coinciding wi th the rise of the kindergarten movement, Froebel's Wri tings were translated and popular, "distilled" versions of his ideas circulated. Proto-progressive concepts such as appealing to the child's interests in teaching and the utility of play activities received an extensive hearing in educational circles . \ F , 17Ibid., p. 75; see also Irene Lilley, ed. mrlgdrich fi'o—e-bel (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 0 Pp. - o E 18Compare Froebel‘s view of evolution with S erson‘s essay on "Nature" in Ralph Waldo Emerson, Essays: Wecond‘ 'Se‘r‘i‘es (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1886), pp. - 19See Wishy, The Child and the Republic, pp. 94-107. .‘i-v \ .. il— c 's‘A'L' Never processes and integral part further withou orientation th extension of t realm, buttres tserved to c series of "wat could be drill still predomi generation af 0i the kinderg 0: sentimental Mt: In any Seience could 1380s, however attention that °f the new chi involVEd the 1 emeriment-ori \ 20 . ing,“ . 1 hr erlCa frt dissertation' 12 Nevertheless, the benign View of evolutionary processes and the concern for children's activities as an integral part of race deve10pment might not have advanced further without the biological and social science re- orientation then taking place. This was prompted by the extension of the evolutionary hypothesis into the mental realm, buttressed with the authority of experimentation. It served to combat the view of the child's mind as a Series of "water-tight compartments" into which knowledge Col-11d be drilled and moral lessons force fed, which was Still predominant in American education for at least a generation after the Civil War.20 Arguments such as those of the kindergarteners were often dismissed as visionary or Sentimental musings of the ladies bountiful of the move- ment... In any case, doctrines without backing from the new Science could not receive broad-based support. By the late 18808, however, new viewPoints were beginning to attract attention that made many of the arguments of the preponents of the new child training scientifically credible. They inVleed the use of data garnered by observation and experiment-oriented methods similar to those employed by i 20Wilbur Harvey Dutton, "The Child Study Movement tn Merica from its Origin (1880) to the Organization of 1:18 Progressive Education Association (1920)," (Ed. D. lsasertation, Stanford University, 1945), pp. 10-13. biologists. T develop in Ame rental realm i implications 0 acceptance her and community scheme that pr by society. 1 control and di emerging indus Psycho firensions dev following 1887 Publications c 0f psychology ‘ romance and \N R. J s°°ifi1 Philoso Y" ‘ Jo W1 flllehce of Dar Wm c‘51mnstras;eS t ena in the p Edwi Theory 0n Amer e - EVolutiona U'iVEISlty Pre Rmoan Collin cience: The 'ileu. xm ( l3 biologists. The new science of psychology, as it was to develop in America, applied the evolutionary model to the mental realm in a manner countering those pessimistic implications of Darwinism that had prevented its full acceptance here. Long-held beliefs concerning man, will, and community were less threatened, as evolution became a scheme that promised to be both progressive and manageable by society. If man followed the "laws" of science, the control and direction of the future growth so desired by emerging industrial America was insured.21 Psychology as a scientific field with self—realized dimensions developed rapidly in America in the decade following 1887. In that period at least seventy—eight publications clearly identified as being within the field of psychology were published, as compared to only nine in 1877—1886 and one in 1867—1876.22 Furthermore, psychology 21R. Jackson Wilson, In Search of Community: Social PhilOSOphy in the United States 1860-1920 New York: John Wiley, 1968), pp. 29—30; John Dewey, The In- fluence of Darwinism on Philosophy and Other Essays—i5“. Contemporary Thought (New York: Henry Holt, 1910) demonstrates the American usage of Darwinism in the social arena in the post-Spencerian period. 22Edwin G. Boring, “The Influence of Evolutionary Theory on American Psychological Thought,“ in Stow Persons ed. Evolutionary Thought'in'America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1950), pp. 268—96; Joseph Ben-David and Randall Collins, "Social Factors in the Origins of a New Science: The Case of Psychology," American Sociological Review, XXXI (August, 1966), p. 453. as a recognize period, as doc at major unive of psychology had failed to only a decade field to justi implied a more previously bee itvas to deve conception of "(‘0 saw sensat' fitmentalized “heat into ar e'rliel' theory asita(Ccepted height and mot looted matter j lapping and cor hsychic exister \— 23Ben-I 0'191115 of a Ne 2‘iltoss, . 25John “Mosul. " Psych. 14 as a recognized profession grew at a rapid rate in the period, as doctoral programs in the field were inaugurated at major universities and degrees conferred. Faculties of psychology became commonplace whereas psychologists had failed to gain recognized positions in their field only a decade previously.24 The demands placed upon the field to justify its importance as an independent science implied a more dynamic View of mental processes than had PreViously been adhered to. The theory of instinct, as it was to develop here, formed the basis for the pragmatic conception of the mind. Unlike the faculty psychologists Who saw sensation and response as mutually exclusive, com- Partmentalized sectors, the new psychology merged concept and act into an organic whole. John Dewey found the eaI‘lier theory of the so-called "reflex arc" inadequate, as it accepted the dualism between sensation and idea, or thcblight and motor reSponse. That division, he said, frag- mented matter instead of seeing it as a series of over- la‘pping and coordinated responses that formed a (unified psychic existence.25 William James provided the example \ Or' . 23Ben-David and Collins, "Social Factors in the lglns of a New Science," pp. 457-65. 24Ross, G. Stanley Hall, pp. 103-04. 25John Dewey, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psy- cholOgy," Psychological Review, III (July, 1896), pp. 357-70. FrK—T' 0. Dewey used to c the curious ch out and is hurt Here coordinatl Deueyan logic, and, in fact, The st. to be made adequate s in the obj Eviden I01e of activi it explained w low methods of mm“: the in] Which constitu. Children. Thi; "W it Was scil Previo aCtivities of y that Were whol 0f hulhan natur N- 26Will VOL I (New Yo 15 Dewey used to demonstrate his point, citing the idea of the curious child who, confronting a lit candle, reaches out and is burned by it; obviously sensory and motor areas were coordinated in this instance.26 Thus, if one accepted Deweyan logic, activity itself became a road to learning and, in fact, its necessary path: The stimulus is something to be discovered; to be made out; if the activity affords its own adequate stimulation, there is no stimulus save in the objective sense already referred to.27 Evidence then, pointed to a new evaluation of the role of activity and its significance. At the very least, it exPlained why American education had been so ineffective. New methods of child raising, therefore, had to take into aCCount the importance of play activities and the play group, whi Ch constituted the major interests and institution of children. This had long been clear to the Froebelians, but now it was scientifically applied to the study of children. Previously, the post-Darwinian studies of play ac"t—Ji-vities of men and children were guided by assumptions that were wholly mechanistic in regards to their appraisal of hmnan nature and motivation. Herbert Spencer, in his \ I V 26William James ,‘ The Principles of Psychology, °1- I (New York: Henry Hat, 1390), p. 25. p 3 27Dewey, "The Reflex Arc Concept in Psychology," 9 70. fashion, with were the main Spencer tended play of men an 'Plays" he sai processes cond fact that high business of intellect and and was expen useless exerci BY "Simulated t0 Spencer, ba cation.28 A s Moritz Lazarus huoceupied'u a the regenerati tested upon th \ 8Herl: 2 VOL II (New y 29 See v0.12“ (New y Enthue of th. “man Instinct 1937), pp. 67C l6 Principles of Psychology had “agreed," in backhanded fashion, with Schiller's assertion that aesthetic feelings were the main product of play impulses. Yet, since Spencer tended to regard art itself as superfluous, the play of men and children fell into the same category. "Plays" he said, "neither subserve, in any direct way, the processes conducive to life," but merely derived from the fact that higher animals were not wholly occupied with the business of maintaining themselves owing to their superior intellect and nutrition. A "surplus of energy' resulted, and was expended by the play activity, a "superfluous and useless exercise of faculties that have been quiescent." By “simulated actions in place of real actions,' according to Spencer, basal instincts were given immediate gratifi- cation.28 A similar View, the "recreation" theory of [Moritz Lazarus, defined play as "the aversion to remaining (unoccupied," a desire to expend energy so as to allow for the regeneration of truly useful faculties.29 Both theories rested upon the dualistic theory of instinct underlying 28Herbert Spencer, The Principles of PsycholOgy, Vol. II (New York: D. Appleton, 1897}, pp. 627—32. 29See William James, Principles of Psychology, VOl. II (New York: Henry Holt, 1890), pp. 427—31 for a critique of the Lazarus theory, printed earlier in “Some Human Instincts,“ Popular Science Monthly, XXXI (September, 1887), pp. 670—72. faculty psycho organisms as a natural quiesc similar to tha theory.31 The wa activities on Newly revised futility of te iimdities to This was not ideas of prop notion that hu Now, however, mental and phy Has the dEPend the Child, it whole were I love: forms pa \ 3oJohr elo e‘flia . .‘ PP- 725~27.°f 3 133m 17 faculty psychology. As Dewey noted later, the idea of organisms as averse to activity, the so-called "myth of natural quiescence," dominated Spencerian man,30 a critique similar to that applied by William James to the Lazarus theory.31 The way towards a reevaluation of child nature and activities on the theoretical plane was thus pointed to. Newly revised laws of mental deve10pment asserted the futility of teaching abstract principles and moral pro- fundities to the disinterested, uncomprehending child. This was not necessarily a radical departure from previous ideas of prOper individual and communal development. The nOtion that human growth followed a set pattern remained. NOW: however, the closeness of the relationship between mental and physical processes was better understood, as was the dependence of race survival on psychic health. In the child, it was felt, the laws of growth for mankind as a Whole were revealed, since developmental patterns in lOWer forms paralleled those of the more advanced. The V1901. with which the new discipline of psychology grew \ c BOJOhn Dewey, "Play," in Paul Monroe, ed. we‘dia of Education (New York: Macmillan, 1918) , . 725-270 31James, Principles of Psychology, II, p. 429. an. an!" provided a bod and interprete: asympathetic largely of pro applauded labo ties in I‘child established as sense of comun pliable perio to the eradic velopment of creased knowl proclivities w of exploiting centrol. G. Sta View of the ct c(liner of catc 0% could c0m \. 32 See W Harm Univei 33 . EVa chlld—Saving ’ l rrection, P1 18 rovided a body of knowledge that discerned, analyzed, nd interpreted laws of mental development. Meanwhile, .sympathetic audience of intelligent laymen, composed .argely of professionals in education and Charity work mplauded laboratory findings that justified their activi- :ies in "child—saving."32 Child development was now established as the key to the existence of an organic sense of community. As one social worker put it, "the fliable period of early childhood is the most favorable :o the eradication of vicious tendencies and to the de— "33 The in- relopment of latent possibilities for good. :reased knowledge of and respect for the child's natural proclivities was, paradoxically, advocated for the purposes 3f exploiting these inclinations to the end of social zontrol. G. Stanley Hall was the "bulldog" of the scientific dew of the child, a popularizer of new theories and the :oiner of catchwords that attracted the interests of laymen. )ne could conceivably doubt Hall's credentials as an 32See Roy Lubove, The Professional Altruist: The Mergence of Social Work'aS'a'Career'lBBOelQBO (Cambridge: mrvard University Press, 1965), pp. 3-60. . 33Eva Harding, "The Place of the Kindergarten in hild-Saving," in National Conference of Charities and brrection,‘ProoEedings, 1900, pp. 243-46. original thi asset. He ep' turned-social educator and 1846, played developments ’ In fact, Hall' “1878, was i and he later 1' field at an Am d(lCtorate he 1 Wk. training mBthods.34 He theories of ir t° an activist atSued that t} \‘ t0 Merl J‘s (Patersw 19 original thinker, yet his eclecticism was his greatest asset. He epitomized many of the anxieties of the late- nineteenth-century American mind in his writings, and his hOpes for the child were advanced, yet analagous to those of modernizing America. Therefore, this scientist- turned-social philosopher became influential both as an educator and as a psychologist. Hall, who was born in 1846 , played an integral part in some of the most profound deVe lopments in the field of psychology in the late nine- teenth century. He studied in Germany at the laboratory of Wilhelm Wundt, and later worked with William James. In fact, Hall's Ph.D., which he received from Johns Hopkins in l 878, was the first American doctorate in psychology, and he later held one of the first professorships in the fie 1d at an American university. After completing the Cic>q~hcarate he returned to Germany for several more years of ‘7qu , training himself thoroughly in new experimental m Q thods.34 He also became well-acquainted with the major th Qcries of instinct. Indeed, his own dissertation pointed tQ an activist concept of sensory-motor processes, as he §t~Sued that the muscular sense linked mind and matter and \ . . ..... t 34Merle Curti, The Social Ideas of American Educa- Qrg (Paterson, N.J.' Pageant Books, 1959), pp. 393-420. that pSYChiC in more advan More conception of appeal. Thou patient with aspiritual d 36 terialism religious sen scientificall vere more in played a Sign science and r nineteenth-Ce Hall' has a basic p children, whi extensive exp findings in p \ 35 Ros 36 OI Education, 37 The See ‘ In act “ iihdiicNa ;f I 20 at psychic existence passed from muscle to nerve fibers more advanced species through the course of evolution.35 More important, however, was Hall's broad—based iception of psychology, which widened the scope of its seal. Though opposed to abstract philosophizing and im— ;ient with "dreaminess," he asserted that psychology had piritual dimension and was not an ally of soulless ma— ialism.36 He saw psychology as showing that man's inner igious sense of the unity of form of all things was entifically verifiable. Religion and science, therefore, e more in tandem than they were at odds. Hall thereby yed a significant part in the movement to reconcile ence and religion that is a prominent trend in late- ateenth—century American thought.37 Hall's theory of recapitulation asserted that there ia basic psychic matrix for future growth present in dren, which was identifiable and guidable. Through nsive experimentation and wide popularization of his iings in publications and in public appearances, he 3 5Ross, G. Stanley Hall, pp. 70-72. 36G. Stanley Hall, "The New Psychology as a Basis ducation,“'Forum, XVII (August, 1894), pp. 710—20. 37See Paul Boller, American Thought in Transition: Im act of‘Evolutionary;Naturalism‘1865;1900 (Chicago: McNally, 1968),'passim. made it a guic‘ was noted befc new to science as no one had critical impor lay in child-r remembered the ‘tvolution" re} vestigations c is Position 5 Clark Universj both a testing tround for sti aPPlYing the E SHIV eYing the 21 made it a guiding principle of education in the 18905. As was noted before, the recapitulatory hypothesis was not new to science. Hall, however, demonstrated its validity as no one had done previously, and asserted that its critical importance and most direct practical applications lay in child-raising. A confirmed evolutionist (he later remembered that he was "almost hypnotized" by the word "evolution" when he heard it38 ), he proceeded with in- vestigations confident of the utility of his findings. His position after 1888, as head of the young and vigorous Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, afforded him both a testing arena for his theories and a training ground for students. Hall had long been interested in applying the evolutionary scheme to children's activities. Surveying the field of education in 1882, he labeled it a (dismal failure in its announced objective of moral training. Given America's belief in education as the guarantor of race improvement and preservation, Hall said, it was dis- astrous that schoolmen concentrated their efforts on the "3 R's," which had little relation to moral training. Abstract discussions about the nature of God and Heaven made little sense to children, he said, and constituted 38See G. Stanley Hall, Life and Confessions of a Psychologist (New York: D. Appleton, 1924), p. 357. 'goody talks" Edmators had to accomplish nothing more itwas unders ofmaiin bot fiw as the tr aversed the prompt develo Ofnatural la Provi 22 II n n - - - - n 3 9 goody talks that were impertinent and stultifylng. Educators had missed the point of what child training was to accomplish. "Moral training,’ left unexamined, was nothing more than a vague and meaningless phrase unless it was understood to be a by-product of the development of man in both his individual and social senses, which Hall saw as the true end of education.40 Instead, educators reversed the order, assuming that moral training would prompt development. This constituted, to Hall, a violation of natural law. Proving this point with impressive credentials was Hall's use of the experimental method in his study, "The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School," first published in the Princeton Review in 1883 and reprinted so often that by the 18905 it became required reading for teachers and all those concerned with children. Based on an 1869 study of the ideas of nature and self as compre— hended by Berlin schoolchildren, Hall prepared a list of subjects in questionnaire form and secured the cooperation of Boston leaders of the kindergarten movement in finding . 39Go Stanley Hall, "The Moral and Religious Train— ing of Children," Princeton Review, X (January, 1882), PP. 37—38. 40G. Stanley Hall, "New Departures in Education," North American Review, CXL (February, 1885), pp. 144-52. just what the roundingS bef< study was sigi mnerstanding City children, Few were able natural objeC‘ their own bod: ohects were ( phenomena with example, when cdldren envi: 92.5 percent I 23 ust what the young child knew about himself and his sur- nundings before the beginning of formal education.41 The :tudy was significant, both in what it showed the child as 1nderstanding, and in what it showed him to be ignorant of. Iity children,it seemed, had little understanding of nature. Few were able to visualize with certainty such commonplace ratural objects as trees, farm animals, or even parts of :heir own bodies. Instead, their perceptions of these )bjects were expressed in terms of associating natural phenomena with the artificial constructs of the city. For example, when asked to visualize "pond," a majority of the :hildren envisioned an artificial water-container, and 92.5 percent had no mental picture whatsoever of "growing 42 Wheat." Children who attended kindergarten, having the xperience of Froebel's symbolic shapes, did better at dentification but nevertheless Hall concluded that "the evelation of ignorance afforded by the results was great."43 owever, Hall did not take the findings as an indication 4lGe Stanley Hall, The Contents of Children's Minds n Entering School (New York: E. L. Kellogg, 18935, pp. 3-4, . Originally in‘Princeton'Review, XI (May, 1883), pp. 249- 42Ibid., pp. 18-20. 43G. Stanley Hall, "Pedagogical Inquiry," in NBA, roceedin‘s, 1885, pp. 506-11. that the mind interpretation education by : Rather, he wen contain shapes Concepts of 51 visualized in ing Of which \ analagous to 1 anthrOPOlOgisi :‘ne World was “’ith the diffs accelerated r‘. ”a“ 0f inte 24 that the mind of the child was a tabula rasa. Such an interpretation might have undercut his criticism of education by failing to confront faculty theory directly. Rather, he went on to note that the child's mind did contain shapes and images whose meaning was unclear. Concepts of sun, moon, God, thunder and other notions were visualized in mythical characterizations, the exact mean— ing of which was not easily discernable, but which seemed analagous to the percepts of primitive man as recorded by anthropologists. Thus the young child's comprehension of the world was analagous to that of his distant ancestors, with the difference that his understanding proceeded at an accelerated rate. These ideas, to Hall, represented "many strata of intelligence up through which the mind is passing very rapidly and with quite radical transformations."44 As head of a growing young university Hall was in nposition to undertake major studies of child nature, and :hrough his aggressive manner he made the movement known 5 "child study" a near cult by the mid-18905. Innovative educators looked to him and his staff for guidance in con— MCting inVestigations into children's worlds. Internal 44Hall, "The Contents of Children's Minds on ntering School," p. 41. troubles at C the study of the 18905, bu certain staff they ironical of a well-coo students.45 his ideas as the narrow co the cooperati inns of which journals he f 15% (1 these Platfor little Concez analoSlized ty skepticism of 25 troubles at Clark prevented him from fully systematizing the study of children and committing himself to it until the 18905, but when these problems led to the loss of certain staff members to the University of Chicago "raids," they ironically helped Hall by assuring him of the service of a well-coordinated loyal remnant of faculty and students.45 Hall‘s research methods helped to popularize his ideas as well. Opposing both "philoSOphizing" and the narrow confines of the laboratory, he actively sought the cooperation of lay personnel in his studies, the find- ings of which were disseminated in the two important journals he founded and edited, the American Journal of Psychology (1887), and Pedagogical Seminary (1890). Through these platforms he aggressively defended his ideas, with little concern for scholarly niceties; more than once he analogized the positions of his critics to the proven-wrong skepticism of Agassiz on Darwinism, implying that their ideas would soon be discarded as invalid.46 45Darnell Rucker, The Chicago Pragmatists (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1969), pp. 15—16; Hall, "Life “and ‘C‘o'n'f'e's's‘i'on‘s‘ of" a" Psychologist, pp. 290-96. 46G. Stanley Hall, "Child Study at Clark University," American‘Journal‘of‘Psychology, XIII (January, 1903), p. 97; G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, Vol. I (New York: D. Appleton, 1904), p. vi. Child backing to r01 child as repe tended to con whose reason the groupings Vague forms 0 tribal counci h'i’th rudiment written but 8 lost importan aCOmmon inte ation’ indust outcomes of t group uSnell} of Children a ticularly Sic 0f " II B near 1 26 Child study yielded new findings that gave scientific backing to romantic and kindergarten theorists who saw the child as repeating the race cycle. Children, it was found, -t:e311ded to congregate in groups, clubs, and associations ‘hzrlczse reason for existence was, however, closer in idea to 1:11e3 groupings of primitive man than to the modern adult. ‘U'Eigylzee forms of government, bearing obvious similarity to tribal councils of savages and barbarians existed, along wi th rudimentary forms of justice and punishment, and un- Vvlrii-1t:1:en but seriously attended to codes of loyalty and lawl47, D1c>53‘1=L important was that the basis of these associations was a. column interest such as athletics, collections, or the I>JLE3‘1!' group. In these groups, rather than in school, said IiéillrajL., the child learned the great moral lessons of cooper- ation, industry, and right character that were the desired outcomes of the growth process. The fact that the play grQ‘LIp usually provided the core interest for the groupings c>13 ‘CIhildren and assured their remarkable cohesion was par- ‘ljl“:=\11arly significant. In observing the boys of the town 0 fi "B" near Boston engaging in group play in a sand pile, \ _._ B 47John Johnson, Jr. , “Rudimentary Society Among ~ QYS , " Johns 'an'kin's Studies in‘ Historical "and Political DQience, II (Baltimore: JBhns Hepkins University, 1884), 69. Iii-47. Henry Sheldon, "The Institutional Activities f American Children," American Journal of Psychology, IX (July, 1898), pp. 425-47 Hall found th be the means industry and and buildings practiced by was the fact children cou] so see that ‘ is an organic Educe the Child's E 50 it would ( Children pre: lesion to re‘ said Henry D: embryo," and Course, FrOe] in the Same 1 with Symboli. uide analogy \ scribheIiBG. N, 4 (~ 9J0 Nathan 17 r 5 0Dr 27 Hall found their activities, far from being useless, to be the means by which the children learned the values of industry and work by constructing miniature farms and buildings. Self-governance and the value of law was practiced by creating a "town government." Most important was the fact that ideas had been realized by action. The children could oversee their own creation, and in doing so see that “each element in this vast variety of interests is an organic part of a comprehensive whole."48 Education therefore, said Hall, ought to focus on\‘t the child's preoccupation with the play group. By doing so it would obey natural laws of what an early student of children preferred to call "social embryology." This al- lusion to recapitulation came to be accepted.49 The child, \\ said Henry Drummond, should be regarded as an "unfolding embryo," and his development guided accordingly.50 Of course, Froebelians had asserted this all along, yet not in the same manner as Hall. While kindergarteners dealt with symbolic shapes to demonstrate organic unity and pro- vide analogies to natural surroundings, Hall preferred to 48G. Stanley Hall, "The Story of a Sandpile," Scribner‘s, III (June, 1888). pp. 690-96. 49Johnson, p. 18; "Notes,"'The'Nation, XXXVIII 50 Drummond, The Lowell Lectures, p. 129. 'TY engage the ch the use of sy of mind.51 i many in his 5 based society quences. Rec healthy outdc great moral 1 daY'tO-day e); 'tunity to p15 his bOdy’ and The f<3th deve its rePresent Similar to ti? idEdlisz b0} 28 engage the child directly in nature itself, feeling that the use of symbolic shapes was based on faculty theories 51 This was not the sole reason, though, for like of mind. many in his age Hall felt that the passing of the agrarian— based society of earlier America had had negative conse- quences. Recalling his own childhood, he remembered the/fl? healthy outdoor life of the farm child, who learned the great moral lessons that insured race survival by way of day-to-day experience. The farm child had greater oppor- tunity to play and explore in natural surroundings, exercise 52 his body, and become acquainted with animal and plant life. The farm develOped the all-sidedness of the child through its representation of social life in miniature. Far from similar to the overly-Specialized urban society, Hall's idealized boyhood farm was a community where one learned a wide variety of crafts and industries. The family too, was ngtmfragmented as it had been by industrialization, as the hearth resembled both a symbolic and actual meeting 51G. Stanley Hall, "Some Defects of the Kinder- garten in America," Forum, XXVIII (January, 1900), pp. 579- 86. 526. Stanley Hall, "Boy Life in a Massachusetts Country Town Thirty Years Ago," in Proceedin s of the American‘Antigparian'SocieEy, n.s. VII (OCEOEer, 1895), pp. 107-28. ‘ IF“ place. The 1 man was thus hya personal was gone and This amythic, una modernity and chaos must ne humanity tOge reason, he and basis of chi] he aCcep'tEd 5 animal, and }‘ new CODSiderg instinct: emc TI 4.- “OS‘ aPpropr: 29 place. The loss of this "great laboratory" for deve10p- ment was thus regretted by Hall, who found himself gripped by a personal, "all pervading sense of sadness that all was gone and forever past recall."53 This did not mean that Hall wished to return to ‘N a mythic, unattainable state of nature. He accepted modernity and applauded "progress," but felt that social chaos must necessarily result if the bonds that had held humanity together in the past were broken. For this reason, he advocated the comprehension of the child on the basis of child nature and interests. In Jamesian fashion,/fl he accepted and even celebrated the closeness of man to animal, and his tendency to link mind and body implied a new consideration of the irrational. By implication instinct, emotion, and action were the educator's tools most appropriate to the child's stage of the recapitulatory process. They were used well when the educator understood that the child's mind was not a tabula rasa but what a student of Hall's called "a page on which the ink will flow more readily in some directions than in others."54 53G. Stanley Hall, "Note on Early Memories," Peda- gggical Seminary, VI (December, 1899), p. 496. 54Edmund C. Sandford, "Mental Growth and Decay," American Journal of Ps cholo , XIII (July, 1902), p. 430; See also Hall, "The Ideal Scfiool as Based on Child Study," in NBA, Proceedings, 1901, pp. 474-88. la'r’.."‘—'Ifl 'rfi“- A Thou; of the race : criticized m< adulthood,55 child. Inst; child's beha‘ ality. Hall Freudian the< stifling o u [-11 chances of an end PIOduct. design as a 1 Hall advocat, pitting down He did: howe‘ by allowing ' View was dis. which he Dev. and emotiOn. hood memorie, he stripped I \ 55 Hall’ 30 Though Hall said that childhood was "the paradise of the race from which adult life was a fall . . ." and criticized modern society for rushing the young into 55 he did not advocate absolute freedom for the adulthood, child. Instinct and emotion were the lawful basis of the child's behavior, yet ultimately inferior to adult ration- ality. Hall's message, therefore, was a crude form of the Freudian theory of repression. He asserted that the stifling of the child's basic impulses increased the chances of a "nervous," unsocialized adult becoming the end product. Play as a form of education fit into this design as a means of guidance toward "desirable" ends. Hall advocated strict discipline, and did not question putting down behavior considered antisocial or dangerous. He did, however, ask that educators react to such conduct by allowing it harmless or constructive outlets. Hall's view was distinctly antagonistic to intellectual training, which he never considered as crucial to growth as instinct and emotion. As a grown man investigating his own chil- hood memories of the western Massachusetts farm country, he stripped naked and rolled in the grass: 55 Hall, "Note on Early Memories," pp. 496-97. . . . re as a boy clothes experien Hall academic are theory in al at Clark con "tepical syl guides sent who were int toys, collec ings were pu edited by Ha 1CCal child- 18903.57 Th by GSCaping credentials ““98, follc amateur inve scientific i \ 56E 57 My «333$ 58 ‘ End Cha legL 31 . . reverting to savagery as I had often done as a boy by putting off civilization with all clothes and their philosophy. It was a curious experience of closeness to nature.56 Hall and his followers in both academic and non- academic areas demonstrated the validity of recapitulatory theory in all sectors of child life. He and his students at Clark constructed observational experiments called "tOpical syllabi" which consisted of questionnaires and guides sent from there to teachers, educators, and others who were interested on such varied subjects as children's toys, collections, emotions, and concepts of self. Find- ings were published not only in the scholarly journals edited by Hall but also in the publications of the many local child-study groups that flourished throughout the 18903.57 The syllabi helped systematize child study and, by escaping the laboratory's confines, established its credentials as a practical science that was, as one scholar notes, followed by an "army of enthusiastic, if often amateur investigators providing what all hOped would be scientific implementation of the child-centered ideal."58 56Ibid., p. 504. 57See, for example, Illinois Society for Child Study, Transagtions, I (May, 1895), pp. 40-51. 58Quoted in "Introduction" to Charles Strickland and Charles Burgess, eds., Health, Growth, and Heredity_ G. Stanley Hall on Natural Education (New York: Teachers College Press, 1935), p. 18. Typi analyzed, pr child nature growth. For achild's do operations. dolls, inclu much in the Pointed out the Child wa Likewise, ch deceit to be Connected tc playing in y; in another, would tell a seeminle‘re magnified ir threats of t \5 9 J5 Applet“. is 30m ReviE W W, I\ 60 Jo G. % 32 Typically, when data was collected and results analyzed, proof was given to the evolutionary View of child nature and the cruciality of interest in shaping growth. For instance, a generally ignored object such as a child's doll gave clues as to the direction of his mental Operations. Children ascribed life qualities to their dolls, including emotions, sickness, and other qualities much in the manner of savage men. Curiously, if an adult pointed out to the child that the doll was not "alive," the child was undeterred and retained it as a confidant.59 Likewise, children's lies were not always cases of pure deceit to be punished by an unsympathetic adult, but were connected to the "partial self-deception" caused by role playing in play, wherein the child imagined himself to be in another, generally primitive state and, in heroic fashion, would tell an untruth to protect a real comrade or a seemingly-real friend.6O Childhood fears too, were often magnified in the semi-rational world of play, where imagined threats of thunder, the dark, and the like were similar to 59James Sully, Children'S'Way§_(New York: D. Appleton, 1897), p. 22; James sully, "Dollatry,"'Contem- orary Review, LXXV (January, 1899), pp. 58-72; A. Caswell E is and G. Stanley Hall, "A Study of Dolls," Pedagogical Seminary, IV (December, 1896): pp. 129-75. 60G. Stanley Hall, "Children's Lies," American Journal of‘Psychology, III (January, 1890), pp. 31-70. 1n Y.‘ .l-fi- “*1 the fears of ascribed to 1 water, which up in the pr: element of p: and predator by the fact late to man, Children the: be exPlained mentioned, h, the desire t, Chil the ideology Pheral field both of Whic recapitlllato bi(Holist, (1 children of Selves 0n th \ 61 J G. Wournal Of P V. 0‘ QUantz 33 the fears of early man. The psychic qualities that children ascribed to natural objects such as trees and bodies of water, which generally occurred when the child was wrapped up in the private world of play, also were seen to have an element of primitivism. Likewise, the lack of sympathy and predatory behavior of some children could be explained by the fact that altruistic qualities of cooperation came late to man, who in his early days struggled for existence.61 Children then, were complex beings whose behavior could not be explained by attending to conscious elements only. As mentioned, however, empathy for the child was tempered by the desire to direct the course of his actions. Child study found verification for its beliefs IE/i the ideology of Darwinian science itself, namely the peri—‘ )heral fields of animal psychology and cultural anthropology, 30th of which were under the influence of historicism and recapitulatory theory. George John Romanes, a British dologist, demonstrated that emotions appeared in the hildren of man in the same order that they revealed them- elves on the evolutionary scale in animals. Higher animals 6lG. Stanley Hall, "A Study of Fears," American ournal of Psychology, VIII (January, 1897), pp. 117—219; . O. Quantz, "Dendro-Psychoses," American Journal of Sychology, IX (July, 1898), pp. 439-505; Frederick Bolton, fly ro—Psychoses,"'American‘Journal'of‘Psychology, X Tanuary, 1899), pp. 169—227. possessed em< addition to ‘ lower beasts precocity" w. higher virtu. savage state ViCtl lated the hy: as it examinr SP€Cialized and games of relevance of allow the Ch \sh mic. paSSiVe COnC 34 possessed emotions that were more complex and social, in addition to the simplier, more individualistic emotions of lower beasts.62 Thus, said one student of children,."moralj7 precocity" was itself abnormal, and one could not expect higher virtues from young boys essentially still in the savage state . h ’ Victorian anthropology, as has been noted, formu- lated the hypothesis of recapitulatory social development as it examined primitive societies. By the 18903 more specialized studies, particularly of the customs, interests, and games of primitive men, confirmed the belief in the relevance of recapitulation and pointed out the need to allow the child tq_£e-experience th§_§3ages_ofigrgwth through which social man had passed, Assuming this rather M». -os.—.._4~— him“, Mr“ passive concept of cultural diffusion, historicist studies led to these conclusions, in a manner paralleling psych- 1ogical investigations.63 William Wells Newell, a promi- nent American anthrOpologist and editor of the Journal of American Folklore, found old childhood rhymes, games, and 62Drummond, The Lowell Lectures, pp. 120-37; George John Romanes, Mental Evolution in Animals (New York: D. 63See Robert E. L. Faris, "Evolution and American Sociology," in Stow Persons, ed., Evolutionary Thought in America (New Haven: Yale, 1950), pp. 160—80, for a discus- Sion of the concept of cultural diffusion in th period. songs to be < formerly plaf respected thi ance" in an i pologists of Alfred Haddo: modern child; verifying thi tive men bec- Stewart Culi: 35 songs to be descended directly from ballads and games formerly played by adults, mostly in England. Newell reSpected their ingenuity, ruing a "threatened disappear- ance" in an age of industrialization.64 British anthro- pologists of the period such as Henry Carrington Bolton, Alfred Haddon, and R. H. Codrington found the games of modern children analagous to once-sacred ceremonies, thus verifying the Tylor thesis that serious customs of primi- tive men became amusements with the passing of ages.65 Stewart Culin, an American who directed the Museum of Archeology and Palaeontology at the University of Pennsyl- vania, became the best-known investigator of the genesis of games. His extremely meticulous and detailed observa- tional studies asserted them to be "instruments of rites or . . . descended from ceremonial Observances of a 66 religious character." Games of early men were not mere 64William Wells Newell, Games and Songs of American Children (New York: Dover, 19627, pp. 7, 23- EO‘TOriginally published in 1883). 65Henry Carrington Bolton, The Counting-Out Rhymes of Children (New York: D. Appleton,‘1888), pp. 1-3, 41, 57; Alfred Haddon, The'Stud ‘of‘Man (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1898 , pp. Codrington, The Melanesians:"StudieS'in‘Their‘Antrho- pglogy and'FolkiLore (London: Oxford, 1891), pp. 339143. 66Stewart Culin, "Games of the North American Indians," in Bureau of American Ethnology,'TwentyiFourth Annual Report, 1902-3 (Washington: Government Printing amusements, gether and, who, through munity, and to. Usir gist Karl G1 Plays of ani Studies that lated immedj Berted GrOOE dEVelobed th the surviva; 36 amusements, but serious concerns that bound society to— gether and, by implication, serious also to today's child who, through his play world learned his place in the com- munity, and the laws and customs he would have to adhere to. Using rather similar evidence, the German psycholo— gist Karl Groos published two influential studies on the plays of animalsand men following the formula of paralleling studies that was in favor in this period. Both were trans- lated immediately and widely discussed. Animal play, as;/ i serted Groos, was nothing more than an instinctual response) developed through natural selection in order to guarantee the survival of the individual species. The role of play was rehearsal, essentially "preparation for life" in that (the young animal exercised his mind and body in coordinated ifashion, developing survival function while still under parental care. Play was not, he said, merely “blowing off steam" as Spencer maintained, but involved acts of experi— mentation and anticipatory responses that revealed to the' \..,..-’ Office, 1907), pp. 1—809; "Mancala, the National Game of Africa," in Smithsonian Institution,‘Report'of‘the'United StateS'National Museum, 1894 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1896), pp. 597-607. 'Korean Games, with Notes on the Corresponding'GameS‘of‘China and Japan (Phila- delphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1895), pp. l:43; "Exhibit of Games in the Columbia Exposition," Journal of American Folklore, VI (July- September, 1893), p57‘7633277 "American Indian Games," in Journal of American Folklore, XI (October- -December, 1898), pp. 245— 52. animal its p cited the yo This play ac if no rehear when confron Groos noted and physical in the state in his activ '10 classify less energy, frequently, in a group, for a cause 4 POiOgical E) usaVagesu an hood was abn dS‘rehearSa: 37 animal its powers and capabilities. In one example, Groos X cited the young kitten's play with string as a "prey." This play activity prepared the kitten for survival, for if no rehearsal occurred, the animal would be helpless when confronted with a "real" situation. In addition, Groos noted that the lines between work and play, and mental and physical reSponse were not particularly distinguishable in the state of play, for the animal-—or child——was absorbed in his activity with an earnestness that belied attempts to classify it as idle amusement or the discharge of use— less energy.67 The higher animals tended to play more frequently, as Spencer conceded, and had tended to do so in a group, wherein lessons of co-operation, self—sacrifice for a cause, and obedience to law were learned. Anthro— pological evidence that showed how amusements and games of "savages" and "barbarians" prepared their young for adult— hood was abundant and aided in the formation of the play- if as-rehearsal theory.68 \e/” 67Karl Groos, The Play of Animals (New York: D. Appleton, 1896), pp. xx, 4—7, 76-82; The Pla of Man (New York: D. Appleton, 1898), pp. 2-11, 337-58. 68See, for example Charles Eastman, Indian Bo — hood (Rapid City, S.D.: Fenwyn Press Books,~l97fiTT—E%T 63- originally published in 1902). Obv: the theory c more orients concept was rehearsal ti that human } necessary p; for cathart; carry very ; theories US! Of dCthitY With the in' them in a . any Case , i. the tendenc: S“To or gr. trend in Am. Lhmarckian . Gaining a f \ 69 G 70 38 Obviously, the Groos theory of play differed from the theory of G. Stanley Hall. Hall's psychology was far more oriented to past developments while the preparation concept was futuristic in its outlook. Hall felt the rehearsal theory "superficial and perverse,‘ pointing out that human progress had made the plays of children, while necessary preparation for adult life in the past, valuable for cathartic reasons today.69 Yet the debate did not carry very far. Educators and child—workers found both theories useful, as both vieWpoints asserted the importance of activity in child life and, as they were unconcerned with the intricate scientific debate, cited each of them in a juxtaposition that muted the conflict.70 In any case, it is important to note that both theories shared the tendency to link the mental and physical realms in the study of growth. Their acceptance was reflective of a trend in American thought that made it receptive to a neo— amarckian view oint of man's activities and develo ment. P P aining a foothold in the 18905 as an opposition theory 69G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence, Vol. I (New York: D. Appleton, 1904), pp. 202-03. 7OSee Ernest N. Henderson,'TextsBook'in‘the Principles of Education (New York: Macmillan, 1910), pp. 383-98; E. A. Kirkpatrick, "Play as a Factor in Social and Educational Reforms,“ Review of Reviews, XX (August, 1899), pp. 192-96. to mechanist rhetorically emerging soc of Lester We picted as a will, and w: This develOp 5110] Wesley Powe: his cultura Of natural . Proceeded i the acquire 1“ reconcil terisiics, dominant tr were Self~c \ 71G AmeriCan so was xx H 723 hman EVOlc 1883)] pp. St 73[ LUdy’ll in 39 to mechanistic evolution, a revivified Lamarckianism, made rhetorically compatible with evolutionary theory in the emerging social sciences, became popularized in the thought of Lester Ward and others. It allowed evolution to be de- picted as a cosmic scheme, seemingly compatible with free will, and without the overtones of Spencerian gloom.71 This tendency of American social science to develop along eclectic lines was illustrated by John Wesley Powell, who in an 1888 article for the American Anthropologist asserted that man, through the growth of his cultural and political institutions, had grown free of natural selection but remained tied to evolution, which proceeded in Lamarckian fashion in the mental realm, where the acquired wisdom of the past was passed on to posterity.72 In reconciling Darwinism with the notion of acquired charac- teristics, practitioners of child study were only following dominant trends in American social philOSOphy, and they were self-consciously aware that they did 50.73 71George W. Stocking, Jr., “Lamarckianism in of Ideas XXIII (April—June, 1962), pp. 239-56. 72John Wesley Powell, "Competition as a Factor in Human Evolution,“ American Anthrgpplcgist, 0.5. I (October, 1888). pp. 297-322. 73David Kinley, "Some Social Aspects of Child- Study," in Illinois Society for Child Study, Transactions, I (December, 1894), pp. 22—30. The explains its the movement child nature and amoral y sullied by t consciousnes mom that thr plied that t lJithout the lseable defi Prescribed h American Frc 40 The nature and direction of child study then, explains its popularity. As Nathan G. Hale has noted, the movement proceeded from a dualistic conception of child nature: the child was impulsive, self—centered, and amoral yet to be worshipped as spontaneous and un— sullied by the features of an "overcivilized, nervous" consciousness, seen in the 18905 as a developing phenome- 74 Child studies im- non that threatened national growth. plied that the child——the future adult-~could be controlled without the loss of this cherished spontaneity, for the useable definition of "spontaneity" implied freedom within prescribed boundaries acceptable to society as a whole. American Froebelians had always insisted that "natural education," far from justifying "disagreeable romping,“ had pointed to the socialization of the individual.75 Child study lent scientific authority to this idea, as it justified the importance of the commanding figure as a guide and setter of the limits of “spontaneity." Likewise, 74Nathan G. Hale, Jr., Freud and the Americans: The Development of Psychoanalysis in‘the‘United‘States 1876- -l9l7 (New York: Oxford, 1971), p. 105. 75Melvin Lazerson, ‘Urban Reform and the Schools: Kindergartens in Massachusetts 1870—1915,“'History of Education Quarterly, XI (Summer, 1971), pp. — Nora Smith, The‘CHildren of the Future (Boston: Houghton— Mifflin, 1898T7 ppo 67—100. since it ins teachable b) ment asserts ChiI science, the teacher and Study appea schools and sessions on Interest in Education A Study in 18 teachers, P the gatheri 41 since it insisted that the child was a malleable being teachable by exploiting his imitative instincts, the move- ment asserted man's ability to control development.76 Child study was popularly depicted as a practical science, the knowledge of which was necessary for the teacher and child worker. Courses in psychology and child study appeared immediately in major universities and normal schools and publications multiplied accordingly,77 while sessions on it drew large crowds at national meetings. Interest in the subject was so great that the National Education Association established a Department of Child Study in 1894.78 Regional groups also attracted interested teachers, parents, and child workers who participated in the gathering of data for the topical syllabi.79 This 76James Mark Baldwin, Mental Development in the Child and the Race (New York: Macmillan, 1894), pp. 3—7; James Sully,4“Studies of Childhood XI, Material of Morality," Popular Science Monthly, XLVII (October, 1895), pp. 808—17; Ellen Haskell, "Imitation in Children," Pedagogical Seminary, III (October, 1894), pp. 30—47. . 77M. V. O'Shea, “Psychology for Normal Schools,“ in NBA, Proceedings, 1895, pp. 682—88. 78Constance McKenzie, "President‘s Address,“ in NEA,Proceedin s, 1894, pp. 682—85; see also “Notes,“ Pedagogical Seminary, III (October, 1894), p. 173. 79Lewis S. Feuer, “John Dewey and the Back to the People Movement in American Thought,“ Journal of The H'i'st‘or of Ideas, xx (October-December, 1959) , ppi‘fics—se; “FEEHBSSE‘EEE‘EEé Use of Members and Round Tables,“ Illinois Society for Child Study,‘Transactions, I (May, 1895), pp. l—86. self-conscil science in . progressive such as Hal fluential i; Edu put the gen. context. F as is devel children si tiVe times. Physical co or intEllec young child Prematul-ely "hiccking n ll mOtor‘spec the Young C to long per \ 80 a: Cerebral Udy I [3% £10 5 'L 5c 42 self—consciously "modern" milieu created by the rise of science in education undoubtedly spurred the growth of progressive philosophies, and many students of children such as Hall, Dewey, and Francis A. Parker became in- fluential in the period of progressivism in education. Educators heard evidence from child studies that put the general theory of recapitulation into a practical context. Findings showed that large muscle control, such as is developed by physical exercise, came readily to children since it had been necessary for survival in primi— tive times. More intricate movements and finer mental or physical coordinations, such as those involved in writing or intellectual exercise were unnaturally difficult for young children, and attempts to force them on the young prematurely were condemned. Teachers were warned to avoid "blocking neural pathways' 80 and the early cultivation of "motor—specialization." "Fatigue" studies showed that the young child did not possess an attention span conducive to long periods of grueling mental work. Overtaxing the 80Reuben Post Halleck, "The Bearings of the Laws Of Cerebral Development and Modification in Child Study,“ NEA, Proceedings, 1897, pp. 833—43; Halleck, “The Educa- tion of the Motor Centers," Illinois Society for Child 3tudy, Transactions, III (April, 1898), pp. 46—55. mental real disease, ma Physical ac of the educ notion that play had lc zation of a With the CI and sociali policy was i“ G. Stanl gator, "a l SChOOlroOmu Pm and intere: that moral \ 81: PP. 550—53. APrelimi . 1009; s, n rOOm'll . 9L1 82' ds AffeCte. pp' 682~95 Or No Rece 83 b 9:.REdmed 43 F mental realm, warned the investigators, could lead to } disease, maladjustment, and resentment of authority.81 Physical activity and play then, were necessary allies of the educator, not antagonists promoting idleness. The notion that idleness and incorrigibility was promoted by play had long been popular, and had led to the populari— zation of a "no-recess" policy after the Civil War. Now, with the cruciality of activity in promoting educability and socialization demonstrated, the faultiness of such a policy was obviously nothing less than "an abomination," in G. Stanley Hall's words.82 Play was, said one investi- gator, "a potent means for reducing the fatigue of the schoolroom" and helping maintain order.83 Perhaps more important than the value of activity:( ‘and interests in preserving children's health was the fact» T I 8lEdward Shaw, "Fatigue," NEA, Proceedin s, 1898, ypp. 550—53; John Hancock, "The Motor Ability of Children—- IA Preliminary Study," NEA, Proceedings, 1894, pp. 1003- ;1009; S. E. Ware, "Nervousness and Fatigue in the School— ‘room," Child—Study Monthly, IV (March, 1899), pp. 517—21. l r 82G. Stanley Hall, "The Health of School Children as Affected by School Buildings," NEA,'Proceed”ngs, 1892, lpp. 682—95. Committee on Hygiene in Education, Recess ior No Recess in Schools,9:NEA,KProceedings,.1885,-pp. 414-28. i i 83H. E. Kratz, "How May-Fatigue in the Schoolroom Ibe Reduced to a Mimimum?“ NEA, Proceedings, 1899, pp. 1090- ”96. that moral lessons were learned in physical activity. l l l Child stud} and games v methods of agap in Ar John Dewey University undergradue reasons £01 or Parental said DeweyI any innate children a: 44 Child study insisted that the indirect methods of play and games were the "historically correct" and time-tested methods of inculcating social norms. As such, they filled a gap in American, pedagogy that had worried the educator. John Dewey, while an instructor in philosophy at the University of Michigan, had been shocked to find that undergraduate students studying ethics could give no good reasons for right conduct, but instead cited guilt, fear, or parental authority as motivating forces. Moral training, said Dewey, needed a scientific basis, and could not assume any innate disposition towards the good on the part of children and youths.84 Physical activity represented one means of molding nature through interests. It established, said one investigator, a series of "motor—remembrances" ithat helped in directing the child's energy to constructive iends.85 Socially acceptable forms of conduct expected of 4the adult were rehearsed and assimilated by the young in play, which was described as the "master workman“ by which youth's "apprenticeship to life" was guided.86 84John Dewey, "The Chaos in Moral Training," POpular Science'MonthlyJ XLV (August, 1894), pp. 433-43. 85Frederick Burk, "The Influence of Exercise Upon Growth," NEA,'Proceedings, 1899, pp. 1067—73. 86Luther Gulick, "Psychological, Pedagogical, and Religious Aspects of Group Games," Pedagogical Seminary, VI (October, 1898), pp. 135-5 . The field of ec were no 101 Parker, the an 1889 mee "the little that the ct had to be C laws of dev failure of useful in t Convinced c their "most Observance “19 life of The loud the Sc 45 The influence of the new view of childhood on the field of education can scarcely be overestimated. Children were no longer regarded as miniature adults. Francis A. Parker, the pioneer educational progressive, asserted in an 1889 meeting of the National Education Association that "the little child is born a savage."87 This did not mean that the child was born with a tabula rasa, but that he had to be comprehended as an organism with self-realizing laws of development. This provided an explanation for the failure of education and a promise that it might yet prove useful in the shaping of society. The new laws of growth convinced one educator to urge his colleagues to abandon their “nostrums, tonics, and pills" in favor of the observance of "the true sequence of cause and effect in the life of the child."88 The scientific view of child life looked well be- yond the schoolroom, however. By emphasizing experience 87Francis A. Parker, "The Child," NEA, Proceedings, 1889, pp. 479-82; see also Charlotte Powe, "Work’and Play in the Primary and Grammar Grades," NEA,'Proceeding§, 1901, pp. 502-7; Nathan Oppenheim, The Development'of'the Child (New York: Macmillan, 1898), pp. 11-12; W. S. ChristoPHer, "Our Future Leaders--The Children of To-Day,“‘ChildeStugy_ Monthly, II (January, 1896), pp. 193-204. 88C. H. Henderson, "Cause and Effect in Education,‘ ngular‘Science'Monthly, XLV (May, 1894), pp. 51-61. as the key supervise i state of cc codes of be attention t for the ric_ ceived depe the young. Channeling Centable c} tramSfOrmat the Case wj treated soc into traini evolu"510m e In Jthis waE the SOCial ability of reddy to Cc experiencE m‘Sorderlir 89. v ( NEA, meee \ 46 as the key factor in growth and the need to shape and supervise it, a new definition of "freedom" as a state of consciousness acquired by the observance of set 89 As had been demonstrated, codes of behavior emerged. attention to the total sector of experience was necessary for the right development of freedom. Progress thus con- ceived depended upon controlling the growth processes of the young. Play was to serve as the means of control, by channeling the child's basic interests into socially ac- ceptable channels rather than using them to effect societal transformation or as a means of adult education. As was the case with the "old“ education, this View of learning treated society as a constant, and thereby turned learning into training rather than growth. "Taking charge" of evolution was therefore possessed of this darker dimension. In this way, developments in science paralleled those in the social arena, where a similar belief in the manage- ability of human conduct was emerging. Science was thus ready to confront the city, the prevailing sector of experience in late-nineteenth-century America, as a foe of disorderliness in the name of freedom. 89James L. Hughes, "The Twentieth Century School," NEA, Proceedings, 1897, pp. 162-69. circles in during the might Seem life of th society." Were the t taking pla Gated that Prevented volved the "SOCially the urban CHAPTER II THE CITY ENVIRONMENT: PERIL AND OPPORTUNITY A new confidence characterized social reform circles in the last decade of the nineteenth century and during the first part of the twentieth. At first, this might seem difficult to comprehend, since the social life of the period was not that of the idealized "good society." The real reasons for this ambience of Optimism were the theoretical and methodological changes then taking place in the practical social sciences, which indi- cated that social strife was manageable or might even be prevented altogether. Social reform thus conceived in- volved the minimizing of disruption by the so-called "socially weak," a category that included the children of the urban working classes. Society's right to take an active role in the guidance of the conduct of its members became axiomatic, particularly where children were con- cerned. This newly-asserted custodial role assumed that institutional and social structures were to remain constant, and that atomized pepulations were to adjust accordingly. 47 Jane Addam this Chang tive“ effo I throug how mu used t all se cause ‘ sisted So and willie 0f urban s initiatiVe has not su Of the Spe iectual tr PSISonal r NOiEd rath general, 0 developmen perfeetion \\ 1 Dr. Gr Q * am typescript 4.4 48 Jane Addams, some years later, recalled the effects of this changed sensibility on those involved in "regenera— tive" efforts: I remember in those nineties and perhaps through the first decade of the present century how much we talked about social reform. We used to call it "social engineering," and it all seemed comparatively easy then, perhaps be- cause we were younger and had hopes which per— sisted upon surrounding the efforts of youth.1 Social scientists, educators, philanthropists, and willing "amateurs," constituting the loose coalition of urban social reformers, had by this time recovered the initiative from the grimmer evolutionary prophets. This was not surprising, since the rigid mechanistic determinism of the Spencerian school ran counter to American intel- lectual traditions of free will, perfectability, and personal regeneration. Evolutionary theory itself pro— moted rather than closed discussions of human nature in general, one of them being the longtime debate concerning the relative influence of heredity and environment in development. The result of this debate was a new faith in human progress. It was, however, dissimilar to ante—bellum perfectionism in that it rested upon a scientific foundation. i 1Quoted in "Addresses at Dinner in Honor of Dr. Graham Taylor,“ City Club (Chicago), May 27, 1930, typescript in Graham Taylor Mss., Newberry Library, Chicago. In addition that societ One concerned t larly the s of criminol asserting t type," disc breakers cc they mere 1' into the m accursed cj Were introc Product of Elmira Refe that there in the Off: a likelihm Charges, e. to Society financial v r fashiOn' p \7 Pan p . R erl SOUS, Sm! 49 In addition, the new faith was characterized by its belief that society need not be hampered by its backward members. One debate emerging from the evolutionary backwash concerned the origins and nature of abnormal man, particu- larly the so—called "criminal classes." The Italian School of criminology put forth the positivist view of the problem, asserting the existence of an easily-identifiable "criminal type,“ discernable by concrete measurement. While law- breakers could be identified before they began their careers, they were incurable and had to be segregated, since entry into the normal community was impossible for a naturally accursed class. In somewhat different form, these ideas were introduced into America in the 1877 volume, The Jukes: A Study in Crime, Pauperism, Disease and Heredigy, the product of an investigation by Richard Dugdale done at the Elmira Reformatory in New York State. Dugdale concluded that there was a tendency for heredity to become "fixed" in the offSpring of degenerative populations, resulting in a likelihood on the part of the descendants to become public charges, either as criminals, harlots, or beggars. The cost to society at large, both in terms of ruined lives and in financial waste, was great, and proceeded in geometric fashion, paralleling the growth of branch families.2 2Richard L. Dugdale, The Jukes: A Study in Crimel_ Pauperism, Disease and Heredigy (New York: G. P. Putnam's The seeking "3: fit and the p0pulace. of an exot: pOpulation: large body the questi. nent stude; degeneracy and impote Society, r Predestihe heIited de arguments in Shaping Posed View 50 The Jukes served as convenient material for those seeking "scientific" proof of the hopelessness of the un- fit and the inevitable depravity of certain parts of the pOpulace. It inspired many similar studies, some of them of an exotic nature, alleging the existence of cursed populations endangering good citizenry.3 Nevertheless, a large body of scientists and reformers refused to consider the question closed. Adolf Meyer, one of the most promi— nent students of childhood, denounced theories of inherited degeneracy as a "Sword of Damocles" that invited pessimism and impotence on the part of those seeking to improve society, resulting in what Meyer called a “blind belief in predestination."4 At the same time that theories of in— herited degeneracy became popular there also arose counter— arguments depicting environmental factors as most critical in shaping human nature. Ironically, these seemingly Op- posed viewpoints had much in common. Furthermore, the problem was complicated when the question of children's conduct was involved, as generalized analyses of human 3See 0. C. McCulloch, "The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in Social Degeneration," N.C.C.C., Proceedings, 1888, pp. 154-59. _ 4Adolf Meyer, “On the Observation of Abnormali- ties in Children,“'ChildiStudy‘Monthlyj I (May, 1895), ‘pp. 1—12. nature base proved irre Ill with the he the 1887 Ne on the top; speaker, Re parents" i: the bad hai awtul care tempered b into save fore the u might resu decent Cit concluded, ditiohs" t ' Could Prev Pests, Hi Vironmente of importg that the i \\ 5] Alley, l ll 1 51 nature based on samplings of the adult population often proved irrelevant. Illustrating the problems faced by those dealing with the heredity—environment conflict is an address at the 1887 National Conference of Charities and Correction on the topic of children in slum areas. According to the speaker, Reverend R. W. Hill, "diseased and enfeebled parents" inexorably produce children who tend to imitate the bad habits of their elders and eventually repeat their awful careers. This seemingly hereditarian argument is tempered by the speaker's feeling that society may step in to save the children. An "outside force,’ acting be— fore the “hardening process" of nascent adulthood sets in, might result in the children of the "vicious" becoming decent citizens after all. The trouble with the young, he concluded, lay not in their inner natures but "in the con- ditions" they emerged from.5 Therefore, early action could prevent the growth of a new generation of public pests. Hill's address shows that hereditarian and en— Vironmentalist proponents of the period agreed on a number of important questions. Both accepted the proposition that the poor and their offspring were “depraved" or 5Reverend R. W. Hill, "The Children of ‘Shinbone Alley,'“ N.C.C.C., Proceedings, 1887, pp. 229—35. "vicious ," its structt against wh: mentalist s it expresse and could 1 analysis t1 and contem] Ward and H: Wi was the mo envirohmen life. Lik School, he child's Or the faCtua leled adul inexorélble crime "ari ConditiOn it (LOHdOn ; (New YOrk. 52 ricious,‘ and therefore both saw existing society and :5 structures as a constant standard of measurement -ainst which behavior was to be appraised. The environ- :ntalist vieWpoint became more popular, however, since expressed an overt faith in the power of human effort d could be placed in the mainstream of American social alysis that had historical antecedents in Lockeianism d contemporary sources in such diverse types as Lester rd and Horatio Alger. William Douglas Morrison, a British penologist, s the most important individual involved in bringing vironmentalist analysis to the study of crime in child fe. Like his positivist predecessors in the Italian 001, he emphasized the collection of minute data on the 'ld's origins, but he drew different conclusions from factual evidence.6 Juvenile crime, he said, paral— ed adult crime, but rather than indicating that an xorable force gripped the child, it showed that such me "arises out of the adverse individual and social dition of the juvenile offender,"7 or a combination of 6William Douglas Morrisonf'crime‘and'ItS'Causes ndon: Swan Sonnenschein, 1891), pp. 3—5. 7William Douglas Morrison, Juvenile Offenders w York: D. Appleton, 1897), pp. ix, 42, 114. these sets with the jl only "aggre cause the e a "habitual this was tl or no acc01 led him to either in the charac life." Mo Of those w from birth audienCe h aspects of Ac Crime did 'iaYWard jt ihEmselVes Viromnente 53 ese sets of circumstances. Standard methods of coping th the juvenile criminal, most notably punishment, would 1y "aggravate and intensify" the trouble, and perhaps use the one-time or occasional problem child to become "habitual" offender or public charge. The reason for is was that punitive methods, as practiced, took little no account of the child's surroundings, which had likely d him to crime in the first place. Improper upbringing, ther in the material or moral sense, tended to "vitiate e character, or unfit the combatant for the battle of fe." Model citizenship, therefore, could not be expected those who were "breathing a polluted moral atmosphere om birth upwards."8 Morrison's views readily gained an dience here, eSpecially with those concerned with legal "9 ects of “child-saving. Acceptance of environmental interpretations of ime did not imply a lack of regard for the extent of it. yward juveniles were viewed as a distinct threat to emselves and to society, with the difference that en— ronmentalists placed emphasis on the criminality of 8Morrison, Crime and Its Causes, pp. vii, 87—88. 9Anthony Platt, The Child Savers: The Invention Delin uenc (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 9 . pp. 2 -3l. "moral" de authority, been artif emotional to the com into a use tations of were advis and to con circumstah some Valid envirohmen Causes of aCcept it Fo mental Charac to off Al would wOuld Of par / 54 "moral" defect. The "moral imbecile," according to one authority, was an individual whose growth processes had seen artificially quickened via improper upbringing and emotional instability, and who thus constituted a threat :0 the community's welfare.lo He could, however, be made .nto a useful citizen,belying the fatalistic interpre- :ations of heredity. Those dealing with child problems ere advised to "ignore the part that heredity plays, nd to confine our efforts to improving the surrounding ll ircumstances" since even if one felt that there was I ome validity to the hereditarian argument (and, indeed, nvironmentalists often subsumed heredity as one of the auses of social problems, though not the sole one), to ccept it absolutely would render human action worthless: For, if at birth the child's bodily and 1 mental organization is complete, if the characteristics of parents are handed down to offspring, then there the matter ends. All individual efforts at self-improvement would be worthless, every individual impulse would be incapable of realization, every effort of parent or teacher would be at an end. 10Dr. I. N. Kerlin, "The Moral Imbecile," N.C.C.C., :oceedings, 1890, pp. 244—50. 11Quoted in "News and Notes,“ Charities Review, (April, 1897) I pp. 92—93- _ 12W. O. Krohn, "Minor Mental Abnormalities in ildren as Occasioned by Certain Erroneous School Methods," A; Proceedings, 1898, pp. 163—64. "H humanitari of pedagog clusions o dictory. vironmenta SUggested violations This Sugge all‘Pervas fiREd in t referred i: prObiEms r dSCertaine bEiief 1785 equal achj Sc indicate E and Child. \ ll §0urcee 01 ' ( October 14 55 "Heredity" then, came to be dismissed as an anti- anitarian anachronism akin to “the old Calvinist fear "13 Furthermore, investigators found the con- pedagogy. sions of hereditarians to be tentative or even contra- toryo Dugdale's work, on reexamination, stressed en— onmental factors as causing crime and pauperism and gested that amelioration of the conditions producing lations of social codes led to race improvement.14 3 suggested that "heredity" had been depicted as the -pervasive explanation for social ills, yet never de— ad in terms of its meaning and scope. Whether the term erred to the biological or to the social causes of alems, or to a combination of the two, had never been srtained. Perhaps this indicated that the conflict of .ef resulting from ideas of equal opportunity and un— Ll achievement had not been confronted. Scientific debates on the problem did not, however, cate attention to these basic questions. In reformist child—study publications the Italian School was l3Ibid.; see also Bayard Holmes, M.D., "Some ces of the Dependent Classes," Child—Study Monthly, ctober, 1895), pp. 109—13. l4Dugdale, pp. 64—66; see also Mark H. Haller, nics: Hereditarian Attitudes in American Thought Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1963), pp. 15— Nathan Oppenheim, The Development of the Child (New Macmillan, 1898Y, pp. 185—88. denounced problems, instigato: dated the. very simi criminolo theless cl being "at sisted th be saved. faith in ing: in t data, and Shificien "Opposed" EGUCatiOI. tUdy," h -..___~. ] iii (Mal-Ci PerVerSJ‘ I (Septe l finc'udinc rintin Man, II g{ No, 4 ': 1898) : ll>i 56 denounced regularly for failing to look at "causes" of problems, as it mistook the results of social folly for instigators.15 Hereditarians, meanwhile, had consoli— dated their position by the late nineties to an argument ‘Very similar to environmentalists. Arthur MacDonald, a criminologist who deferred to the Italian School, never- theless characterized the problem of crime's origins as being "at its foundations an educational one," and in- sisted that those degenerate through inheritance could be saved.16 Perhaps the fact that both camps shared a faith in positivist methodology led them to an understand- ing, in the sense that each could collect rather similar data, and interpret that data differently, yet in a manner sufficiently ambiguous as to cause the merging of once "opposed" viewpoints. For example, the Chicago Board of Education in 1899 established a "Department of Child- Study," which conducted an investigation of the physical 15"Book Notices and Reviews," Charities Review, II (March, 1897), pp. 48—50; Maximilian P. E. Grossman, 'Perversion Through Environment," Child—Studngonthly, ’1 (September, 1900), pp. 116—17. l6Arthur MacDonald; Juvenile Crime and Reformation including Stigma of Degeneration (Washington: Government >rinting Office, 1898), pp. 14, 24; MacDonald, "Abnormal Ian," U.S. Bureau of Education Circular of Information lo. 4, 1893 (Washington: Government Printing Office, .898), pp. 10—11, 45. and mental a reformat trative ma gence the Rather the of an uncc bad home 5 improvemez T] matters In tifiC" del While it , lend cred used With they insi and crime ations, b 57 end mental status of inmates of the John Worthy School, L reformatory that was part of the juvenile court adminis— zrative machinery. In terms of height, weight, and intelli— gence the delinquent boys were judged as "below normal." lather than citing this as evidence of hereditary disorders >f an uncorrectable variety, nutritive deficiencies and Jad home surroundings were blamed, and the possibility of improvement held out.17 The advent of the science of genetics only confused matters more, though it ultimately proved that the "scien— :ific" debate had been conducted via questionable premises. Vhile it would appear that the geneticist argument would Lend credence to the hereditarian viewpoint, it was actually 1sed with impunity by environmentalists. Recent discoveries, :hey insisted, afforded "proof" that poverty, degeneracy, ind crime were not inexorably handed down to future gener— ltiODS, but were acquired characteristics.l8 Thus, they 17Chicago Public Schools, Report on Child—Study nvestigation (Chicago. Board of Education, 1899), pp. 1— 25— 45, Chicago Public Schools, Report of the Depart- £23,0f Child— Study and Pedagogical Investigation (Chicago, card of Education, 1901), pp. ll-l3; see also Edward arshall, "Scientific Child Study," Leslie's Popular Monthly, I (March, 1901), pp. 419-30. l8Oscar Craig, "Agencies for the Prevention of auperism," in Robert A. Woods, ed. The Poor in Great ities (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1895), pp. 363- 4; Bernard Wishy, p. 114. said, eacl and stres; perhaps d' being mad directive of unlimi R vidual, a imPortanc adUii‘. Cha social an tion seem eased" ba Moreover, terms of to PrOtec (iEVelopme nineties. canSes" e comment} ““98. StirrOund: thetic a] in the a: 58 said, each generation could be "remade." These storms and stresses in the biological and social sciences were perhaps due to the rapidity with which discoveries were being made. They also suggest, however, a self-imposed directive to avoid a challenge to the dominant ideology of unlimited opportunity. Regardless of the position favored by an indi- vidual, all addressed the problem of child-rearing. The importance of the early years of life in the forming of adult character was established as a major concern for social analysts. Demanding in its urgency, its regula- tion seemed to be the key to problems arising from "dis- eased" backgrounds of a biological or social nature. Moreover, the definition of social problems as a whole in terms of the child led to a focus of attention on the duty to protect society from its aberrant members, a logical development of the crisis atmOSphere of the eighties and nineties. Environmentalists speaking of "getting at the causes" of ills usually indicated a desire to protect the community from its outcasts rather than to right social wrongs. Thus a view of the problems of inheritance and surroundings that considered both gained a readily sympa- thetic audience. Most scholars, by 1900, saw the merit in the argument of the follower of G. Stanley Hall who suggested with whic ings, so tendency, to moral of fitnes dynamic v role of t he econc tIOliing" mentalist he Pione 'I will that PrOgI Self. Porti be me Only \ ] PEGa . \9% Making of 99- 399.. 59 suggested studying heredity as "in the strain of cattle with which the farmer would stock his acres" and surround- ings, so as to either develop or control hereditary tendency, thus giving assistance to "any predispositions 19 to moral rectitude." As Charles Cooley, the sociologist, put it, “the fittest must always survive, but the standard 20 of fitness is largely in our control." Inevitably, this dynamic view of evolution led to a consideration of the role of the state in the moral arena, much as it had in the economic. The value of the outside force in "con- trolling" deve10pment justified, whether one was environ- mentalist or hereditarian, state action. Franklin Giddings, the pioneer sociologist, stated the logic for state action as a conserving force: The key to the solution of the social problem will be found in a frank acceptance of the fact that one part of every community is inherently progressive, resourceful, creative, capable of self-mastery and self-direction, while another portion, capable of none of these things, is to be made useful, comfortable and essentially free only by being brought under bondage to society ng. R. Street, "A Study in Moral Education," Pedagogical Seminary, V (July, 1897), pp. 39-40. 20Charles Cooley, "Nature versus Nurture in the Making of Social Careers," N.C.C.C., Proceedings, 1896, pp. 399-405. and k they thems S ofsocial important ment. Fc the City, period's American "cities" as compa: in urban Cities. lation I‘( gain of ; fi(lures, Pattern. 60 and kept under mastership and discipline until they have ac uired the power to help and govern themselves.2% Since the trend toward environmental explanations E social problems marked the new social science, it is nportant to explore the late-nineteenth-century environ— ant. For an increasing number of Americans, this meant 1e city, whose coming dominance was reflected in the ariod's statistical studies. Almost 30 percent of the ierican pOpulace according to the 1890 census, lived in :ities" (defined as locales with more than 8,000 people), 22 The increases : compared to only 3.5 percent in 1790. r urban population were even more dramatic in the "great" ties. In a ten—year span (1880—1890), New York's popu— tion rose by 25 percent, while Chicago experienced a in of 118 percent in the same period.23 Mere population gures, however, only reveal one dimension of the growth ttern. As Stephan Thernstrom notes in a recent study of 21Franklin H. Giddings, "The Ethics of Social agress," in Jane Addams et a1., Philanthropy and Social agress (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1893), p. 244. 22Adna Ferrin Weber, The Growth of Cities in the legeenth Century: A Study in Statistics (Ithaca, N.Y.: :nell University Press, 1969 reprint of’1899 ed.), . 22-24; U.S., Eleventh Census, 1890, pt. 1 (Washington: 7ernment Printing Office, 1895), p. lxv. 23 Ibid., p. lxvii. urban Bos adequate shows an massive p tumult wi ficulties with it. city, it over," in POpulatic D it to be Populatio centage 0 American- °f New Yo concentra “reigns \ 2 POVert a M9 61 ban Boston, population figures are not in themselves equate indices of population shifts. Thernstrom's work ows an internal migration rate to and from Boston of ssive prOportions.24 This "turnover" rate hints at the nult within the large cities of the time, and at the dif— zulties of antiquated governmental machinery in coping :h it. While this work applies only to a particular :y, it can be fairly assumed that the problem of "turn— er, in varying prOportions, applies to other major >ulation centers as well.25 Demographic analyses of the city's populace showed to be different in composition from metrOpolitan ulations of earlier periods. An extremely high per- tage of great city residents were foreign—born or rican-born children of foreign parents.26 In the cases New York, Chicago, and Boston, all centers of immigrant centration, the figures reached as high as 78 percent sign-born or offspring thereof.27 Furthermore, as has ,— 24Stephan Thernstrom, The Other Bostonians: arty and Progress in the American Metropolis, 1880-1970 nbridge: Harvard University Press, 1973), pp. 16-207fi232. 25 See Weber, The Growth of Cities, pp. 22—27. 26U.S., Eleventh Census, pt. 1, p. xciii. 27Ibid.; see also Arthur Mann, Yankee Reformers in Urban Age (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1954), pp. 3-6. often bee era's imn of Southe the case. in Americ that is, drones ir formers, gressione grant, it lations l The rura: Capable ( ( °f Worry. life Vio: more deli Not mere: "nervhuSI \ I Pmm'gl'dt; rlntlng / e e Amer: 62 ten been noted by historians, a higher percentage of the a's immigrants came from the non—Anglo—Saxon countries Southern and Eastern EurOpe than had previously been a case. Not merely were the “new" immigrants unskilled American social mores, but they were feared to be "dregs," it is, failures in their own lands who were bound to be >nes in America. John R. Commons, along with other re- rmers, espoused this View, in testimony before con- :ssional investigatory bodies.28 In addition to the immi— ent, internal migratory patterns increased city popu— Lions by displacing people from the farms to the city. rural-born population, theorized reformers, was no more able of coping with city life than the immigrant.29 ‘G. Stanley Hall's view of these changes was one worry, as he feared that the rapid transition to urban h violated evolutionary law which indicated a slower, deliberate pattern of change would be more desirable. is merely was the "unnatural" city likely to cause vousness" (a constant concern of both psychologists 28U.S. Industrial Commission, Reports . . . On gration and on Education, XV (Washington: Government ting Office, 1901), pp. ix—xxi, 311. 29See Everett S. and Ann S. Lee, "Internal Mi— ion Statistics for the United States," Journal of American Statistical Association, LV (December, 1960), 664—97. and soci.‘ threaten seen to l in this ] istic" v. period) . crisis i: was beyo detailed themselv piling f bending SOlution administ PreCeden in Brita of his e Booth, a Sit up t became i -.__~_~ Training PP- 72.8 'n LendC :4 63 and social commentators of the period), it was likely to threaten body and morals, particularly since the two were seen to be interconnected.30 Surveys of city conditions in this period, whether of the "scientific" or "impression- istic" variety (using the arbitrary distinctions of the period) agreed that the city problem represented a grave crisis in American community life. That study was needed was beyond question, reformers felt, and in calling for detailed, factual analyses of urban social life they aligned themselves with the positivist faith of the period. Com- piling facts was regarded as a necessary means of compre- hending the problem and avoiding rash, "unscientific" solutions, a notion that persisted in all levels of urban administration and nascent social work as well. Ample precedents for such survey methods existed, most notably in Britain, where Charles Booth was publishing the results of his early investigations of London's working classes. Booth, as president of the Royal Statistical Society, helped set up the methodological matrix for social surveys that became internationally influential.31 3OG. Stanley Hall, "Moral Education and Will- Training," Pedagogical Seminary, II (January, 1892), Pp. 72-89. 31Charles Booth, "Life and Labour of the People in London: First Results of an Inquiry Based on the 1891 A graphic r State Ter investige p0pulatic tenement city. tenement attempts investig, again. ' 010m, b' most ten. Variety. was some of the 1 Civil pr C0“"le d \ Census ' II 64 American surveys of major cities showed a demo— raphic nightmare in the making. An appointed New York tate Tenement House Committee in 1894, typical of the nvestigatory bodies of the period, estimated Manhanttan‘s opulation as 1.9 million, of which 1.3 million lived in enement houses, tightly packed in poverty pockets of the ity.32 Hastily built and pitifully congested, the typical snement was totally unfit for human habitation, and ttempts to "reform" the tenement system, via deliberate nvestigation, legislation, and regulation failed time and Jain. This fact should have influenced reform method— Logy, but reform procedure changed little. In Manhattan, >st tenements were of the so—called "double-decker" Lriety. The double—decker, or "dumbbell" tenement as it ,s sometimes known, was the product of reformist agitation the late seventies and early eighties. This earlier vil pressure, the result of sanitary reform agitation ming during and after the Civil War, argued against nsus," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, LVI acember, 1893), pp. 557-93; Harold W. Pfautz, Charles athyon the City: Physical Pattern and Social Structure licago: University of Chicago Press, 1967), pp. 3, 13, 32New York State, Report of the Tenement House mittee as Authorized by Chapter 479 of the Laws of i (AIBany: James Lynn, 1895), pp. 8, 12. tenement: ies," the malodorcn Coupled \ caused b} of 25 by ment was Sign was airshaft: air circ1 the Prize 1879 com] attack t1 65 tenements as health hazards, "pestilential human rooker- ies," that bred germs and disease Via "poisonous and 33 malodorous gases,‘ sewage, and animal and human waste. Coupled with the inadequate ventilation given apartments caused by building on the standard rectangular lot pattern of 25 by 100 feet on a gridiron street plan, the old tene- ment was a breeder of high mortality. The dumbbell de- sign was considered an improvement, since it provided for airshafts at the sides of the buildings, thus increasing air circulation to the interior rooms, and so it was awarded the prize for the best design on a reformist-sponsored 1879 competition. However, the "new law" tenement did not attack the basic problems of the gridiron system, popula- tion congestion, and low income, all of which were con- sidered outside the province of sanitary reform. Instead, it actually encouraged the perpetuation of the tenement evil by allowing airshaft space to count towards the per- centage of Open space required on a given lot, thus re- ducing the already meager yard space. Furthermore, the 33Ibid., p. 13; New York Sanitary Aid Society, Re ort, 1837,quoted in I. N. Phelps Stokes, ed., New York Slums: Extracts from Sources to 1905, Vol. iv, pp. 1654-63 in manuscripts andjlrcfiives fiivision, New York Public Library; Carroll D. Wright, "The Slums of Chicago, New York and Philadelphia . . .," Seventh Special Report of theMCommissioner_pf Labor (Washington: ‘abvern- ment Printing Office, I354), pp.“§7L95. new law predeces ventilat suspecte The stud the ment thus inc "powder using de 0f the 1 People P ties as Standpoi disaster Worst fc the airs newspape Gene air rOon / 66 new law tenements were built with more stories than their predecessors, on the rationale that airshafts gave adequate ventilation to any amount of floors. By the late eighties, New York tenement wards were suspected of harboring dangers beyond the sanitary dimension. The studies of human nature, as already mentioned, linked the mental state and bodily efficiency closer together, thus increasing worries that the urban poor areas were "powder kegs." The aforementioned commission of 1894, using detailed survey methods, found that certain wards of the lower east side of Manhattan contained over 400 peOple per acre,34 and individual blocks recorded densi— ties as high as l,700 people per acre.35 From the physical istandpoint of course, this deemed the new law tenement a ‘disaster. The double-decker was now labeled "one of the worst forms of housing ever employed," and the dangers of the airshaft enumerated in both investigative reports and newspaper exposes: Generally opening into the cellar, in which foul air is constantly being sucked into the various rooms. If the shaft is large enough to allow the 34New York State, Report of the Tenement House Committee . . . 1894, passim. 35 . Charles N. Glaab and A. Theodore Brown, A hstory of Urban America (New York: Macmillan, 1967), >. 159. ligt becc the wane ligt in, of f fron had mega sinister areas "9 for an a forth of could ea OCCupant 67 light to strike the ground floor, it immediately becomes a receptacle for old clothes, food and the like, while its usefulness as'a light shaft wanes. When the shaft is not protected by a sky- light, rags and rubbish of all kinds are thrown in, and it is sometimes used as a privy. In cases of fire, the light shaft allows the flames to pass from floor to floor with great rapidity.36 Contemporary observers concluded that such dwellings had negative moral effects on their occupants, producing a sinister equation. One pOpular writer called the tenement areas "grim and grewsome" environs whose moral decay allowed for an atmosphere of vice and crime. A picture was put forth of an exotic arena of pestilence, whose corruption could easily extend outside its own borders. As such, the occupants of the area were regarded with a mixture of contempt, fear, and pity, described as "degenerate popu- lations, so disfigured by sin and ignorance," trapped in a 37 "polyglot wriggling compound." This sort of attitude transcended any differences existing between hereditarians and environmentalists, as it appealed to their mutual fears. _ ___‘ 36Quoted in Marcus T. Reynolds, The Housing of the Poor in American Cities (College Park, Mdi: McGrath Publishers, 1969 reprint of 1893 edition), p. 14. 37Frank Moss, The American Metropolis from Knickerbocker Days to EEg_Eresent: New York CityLife in All Its PHESes, Vol. II (New York: P. F. Collier, , pp. - , 366-67.- couched study 51 this se: form an nationw; relatiw very yon "Little that di: PrOblem tended - Childre] of the 1 tasks, i Was obs< Day Papw WhethEr general Some of 68 Interpretations of statistical evidence were couched in heavily moralistic terms, though "scientific" study supposedly ruled out subjective interpretation. In this sense, the child problem became more complicated in form and scope. Despite a generally declining birth rate nationwide, immigrants in congested areas still had a relatively high birth rate, resulting in an abundance of very young, American—born children. A study of Chicago's "Little Italy" found only 10 percent of the children in that district to be over ten years of age.38 Along with the problem of numbers was the fact the stable family life tended to disintegrate in the city, and this trend affected children's lives in adverse ways. Coping with the problem of the city family was more difficult than other reform tasks, as many wondered if the family as it had been known Was obsolete. A participant in a symposium of "Present— Day Papers" written for Century magazine in 1890, mused on whether the family of former days had fallen victim to the general bigness of social life and would now have to have some of its functions, particularly in regards to child— :aising, taken over by outside agencies. Child study and 38Carroll D. Wright, "The Italians in Chicago: .Social and Economic Study," Ninth Special Report of he Commission of Labor (Washington: Government Printing ffice, 1897), PP- 15—17. early to sh cigar as yor facton or gar along: Proper meetix lodge; POPUIe Were J backgy life I \ Centur Dewey 69 rrly educational progressivism, as will be seen, pointed > similar conclusions, seeing the family role in the nintenance of moral order as in need of buttressing.39 As such, the city's tendency to corrupt children ‘ arally received particular attention in investigations I E the physical environment. Trades in tenements, such as .gar making and clothing, often employed children, some ; young as three years of age. The combination home- ) actory made for scenes of young children making cigars y : garments in foul—aired sweatshops, while parents worked i .ongside and tried gamely, but unsuccessfully, to maintain i "Oper custodial care of their young.40 Meanwhile, as zeting high rents with low income proved difficult, vdgers and boarders from the "shiftless and floating" pulation were taken in. Usually young single men who re recent arrivals from a similar ethnic group or rural ckgrounds, the lodgers were blamed for corrupting child— fe by presenting a bad sort of moral tone to the 39Samuel W. Dike, "Problems of the Family," itury, n.s. XVII (January, 1890), pp. 385—95; John vey, The School and Sociepy_(Chicago: University of .cago Press, 1899), pp. 10—12. 40T. J. Dowling, "Tenement House Cigarmaking in 7 York City," in Bureau of Statistics of Labor of the .te of New York, Thirteenth Annual Report (Albany: H. Crawford, 1896), pp. 545-48; see a1So "The Sweating tem," scp. no. 11 in New York State, Report of Tenement Se Committee . . . 1894, p. 251. 7O impressionable mind. "Life is promiscuous as that of brutes,‘ noted one observer. Children were obliged to listen to criminal braggadocio that served as "their first lessons in crime, drawing it in, as it were, with their first breath." The consequent "moral contagion" made the deve10pment of socially acceptable habits of discipline, self-respect, and "right thinking" impossible.41 Notions regarding the "moral corruption" of city children were shared by charity workers and child study adherents. They felt that if children were acquainted with adult responsibilities prematurely and in an anti- social or "unnatural" manner (i.e., one not conforming to middle-class definitions of familial stability and moral purity) the effect on the impressionable young mind would be wholly negative. The evolutionary pattern of child raising was upset, thus making the child dangerous to him- self and to his community. Therefore, as the nuclear family crumbled into an amalgam of vice, crime, and dis- orderly relationships,the spectre of a perverted class of 41B. 0. Flower, "Practical Measures for Promoting Manhood and Preventing Crime," Arena, XVII (November, 1897), pp. 673-80; Edward T. Devine, " he Shiftless and Floating City POpulation," Annals of the American Academ of Political and Social Séience, X (September, l§§¥$, pp. 149- 62; Helen Campbell et a1., Darkness and Da li ht; or, Lights and Shadows of New York Life (Hartford, Conn.: A. 5. Worthington, 1892), pp. 106:68. 71 children became frightening.42 The reformers' fear of "depravity" transcended hereditarian and environmentalist beliefs, since anti-social behavior, whatever its cause, required control. The theme of the danger of the lustful city to its young was heard constantly, and seems to have stemmed more from fears that children would infect sur- rounding communities than from purely humanitarian con- cerns. Slum exposés, whether via official commissions or popular journalists, were phrased as warnings more than as cries of outrage.43 While the exposé urged the com- munity to ameliorate the plight of the poor by attacking the "causes" of poverty, it did so in terms of the medical idiom of preventing contagion rather than developing cures. This is due to the fact that "causes,“ as such, were de- fined within limits that excluded the reconsideration of basic economic postulates. The career of Jacob Riis as a champion of the rights of city children illustrates the motivation of the campaign for city uplift. Riis regarded urban ills as problems of morality rather than systematic economic faults. 42James B. Reynolds, "Influence of Tenement House Life on the Nervous Condition of Children," Illinois Society for Child Study, Transactions, II (1896), pp. 33-35. 43See Joseph Lee, "White Slaves, the Oppression of the Worthy Poor," Charities Review, I (February, 1892), pp. 179-85. 72 He saw greed, vice, and ignorance as both products and causes of the slum, thereby viewing difficulties in terms of attitudes rather than monetary scarcity and holding the poor largely responsible for their lot. Riis depicted the tenement as a "dumping ground" for society's unfortu— nates, with the child as its innocent victim. With "the gutter for a playground," an atmOSphere of immorality among one's companions, and squalid home conditions de- moralizing the impressionable mind, growth to good citizen— ship was impossible. "The wonder is that they are not all corrupted," said Riis.44 The present-day child nuisance was contagious, since the bad boy would eventually lead a debauched adult life and probably channel his resent— nent towards those living in more comfortable areas of the city, As such, Riis' descriptions of slum children's lives urged middle— and-upper-class reformers to protect themselves by providing the child with a moral shield . . . 45 against his own surroundings. 44Jacob Riis, The Peril and The Preservation of :he Home (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs, 1903), pp. 26—27; {115, The Children of the Poor (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892), pp. 18—24. 45See Robert H. Bremner, From the Depths: The )iscovery of Poverty in the United States (New York: Jew York University Press, 1956), pp. 69—72. 73 The writings of Riis serve as a bridge between pOpular moods and reformist circles. He employed little statistical material in his work, yet his message was similar to that being prOpogated by the growing body of professional charity workers. Riis was a strong prOponent of environmentalism. True, he admitted, heredity was im- portant, but "in the last analysis, what is it but the sum of the environment that should have been undid generations back?"46 In this way, Riis placed the blame for the child's delinquency squarely on the family. These views derived from his own experience, an Algeresque rise from poor immi- grant status to middle-class reSpectability that left him indebted to his adOpted country and convinced of its basic benignity.47 Thus he concurred with the charity worker's distinction between the respectable poor and the pauper class. Riis regarded the tramp with scorn, and had little sympathy for those in financial distress whom he judged "capable" of working.48 Judging them incompetent, 46Jacob Riis, "A Blast of Cheer," N.C.C.C., Pro- ceedings, 1901, p. 21. 47Jacob Riis, The Making of an_American (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 14-62; Louis Ware, Jacob A. Riis: Polipe Reformerngeporter Useful Citizen (New York: D. Appleton, 1936), pp. 7 - . 48Jacob Riis, "The Making of Thieves in New York," Century, XLIX (November, 1894): PP. 111-13; Jacob Riis, How t e Other Half Lives (New York: Charles Scribner's EBBS' 1g”), pp. ig—gIo he impli over, if childrer view of rate of parents. parents, generati in his 1 Versatic 'Whe 'We And door 74 .mplied that agencies and institutions ought to watch ', if not interfere with directly, the raising of their dren. His warnings seemed all the more plausible, in of the many statistical studies which showed a high of crime among American—born children of foreign nts.49 Wise to American ways, easily outwitting their nts, sullen and resentful, the first American-born ration required management and discipline. Frequently, is realistic reporter's style, Riis would "quote" con- ations between a "street arab" and an adult: ‘Where do you go to church, my boy?‘ We don't have no clothes to go to church.‘ ind indeed, his appearance, as he was, in the loor of any New York church would have caused L sensation. Well, where do you go to school, then?' I don't go to school,l with a snort of contempt. Where do you buy your bread?‘ We don't buy no bread; we buy beer,‘ said the toy, and it was eventually the saloon that led he police as a landmark to his "home." It was Orthy of the boy. As he had said, his only ed was a heap of dirty straw on the floor, his aily diet a crust in the morning . . .50 49William I. Cole, "Criminal Tendencies,’ in t A. Woods, ed., The City Wilderness: A Settlement (Boston: Houghton—Mifflin, 1898), pp. 148—75; Department of Commerce and Labor, Bureau of the s, Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents in Institutions, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1907i, 3—20. 50Riis, How the Other Half Lives, pp. 184-85. plined < street, life, a1 day-to-¢ would i: to repe blaming economi ment in agreed 75 Inevitably, said Riis, the unmanaged and undisci— ned child drifted from the collapsed home into the set, where he would prematurely learn the facts of a, and acquire the bad habits of living a jungle-like, —to-day existence. Thus the corrupt older generation Ld infect the younger, and produce a criminal class :epeat their squalid lives. Riis, therefore, in ning the slum dweller's plight on moral rather than 10mic circumstances, thereby limited the role of govern- : in righting social wrongs. Slum residents, of course, :ed that they were exposed to vice and crime at an early 51 but argued that immorality was nothing more than by-product of economic deprivation. Riis and the al service professionals, however, had only revised old theory of poverty—as-moral decay, seeing it as ming from earthly, controllable sources rather than itual, irredeemable origins. The implication was that rality, as such, could be stopped without a major alter— 1 in the economic structure. 51Riis, "The Making of Thieves in New York," L12-l3; see also Harry Roskolenko, The Time That Was (New York: Dial Press, 1971), p. 24; Moses Rischin, EQmised City: New York's Jews, 1870—1914 (Cambridge: 1rd University Press, 1962), pp. 82—88. 76 By the nineties the "local color" movement in .iterature reached the city. "Slumming" was a standard utlet for the popular writer and for the realist and ,aturalist weary of Victorian restraints on subject matter. enement genre such as newspaper vignettes and in the short tory format was common. Usually written in a Dickensian tyle, most of them appealed to the innate curiousity of he growing reading public concerning the city immigrant. uch writers assured their audiences that the new arrivals are harmless and colorful, though strange. Social life in enement areas was pictured as an urban version of small- )wn folksiness and, while far from confortable in the aterial sense, not desperate either. One writer told .s audience that tenement occupants were happy people, 10 "get more pleasure out of life than the privileged .asses," while others dwelled on the camaraderie of the Ior and their tendencies toward an innocent, childlike (rt of fun not enjoyed in more formal circles.52 On the her hand, realism and naturalism in literature often 52See M. J. McKenna, Our Brethren of the Tenements d the Ghetto (New York: J. S. Ogilvie, 1899), p. 20; lian Ralph, People We Pass: Stories of Life Among the sses of New York CiEy (New York: Harper and Brothers, 55), Pp. 4, 8, 78; Brander Matthews, Vignettes of Man— ttan (New York: Harper, 1894), pp. 67-82. pron ones fere Crar gloc lacc {We Wart Doll in 5 they rea: dOSe (Le: IQPJ Dre: Tale 191 77 prompted a searching examination of slum conditions. Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets pictured the slum as a dark force of destruction, within which the "careening building,‘ the tenement, served as an engine of evil. William Dean Howells showed little patience with the romanticizers, noting that the so-called "picturesque" slum remained so only when the writer gave his audience "the distance which it needs." To immerse oneself in the slum atmosphere would provoke a far dif- 53 Ironically, Opinions such as those of ferent portrait. Crane and Howells were criticized as Spencerian, overly gloomy, and thus anti—humanist by newspaper reviewers. Jacob Riis, however, steered a middle ground between the two extremes, idealizing the denizens of the congested wards, particularly the children, yet stressing the moral pollution and squalor of the slum. His stories, appearing in Century and various newspapers, implied a personal inti- macy with the subject that satisfied both the call for realism and the curiosity of the reader, adding prOper doses of environmentalism and pathos. Most of his child 53Stephen Crane, Ma ie: A Gigl of the Streets (Lexington, Ky.: UniverSIEy Press of KentuCky, 19 reprint of 1893 ed.), p. 9; William Dean Howells, Im- ressions and Experiences, pp. 219-22; see also David'M. Fine raham Cahan, StephenéCrane, and the Romantic Tenement Tale of the Nineties," American Studies, XIV (Spring. 1973). pp. 95-107. 78 subjects were his friends, and all of them were "basically good." All, however, were victims of the corrupt slum atmosphere. For some, this meant needless death in a street accident, a commonly reported occurrence of the times given fictional breadth by Riis.54 For others, it meant a life of crime, but with mitigating circumstances. The criminal child in the Riis vignette was a natural product of "a bare and cheerless room," with "a pile of rags for a bed in the corner," and a stereotyped drunkard father.55 Jacob Riis' best known tale of a tenement child gone wrong was "Skippy of Scrabble Alley," which was based on the real-life career of a youthful convicted murderer.56 "Skippy" had grown up amid hOpeless conditions in the city's worst ward: So far as he had ever known home of any kind it was there in the dark and moldy basement of the rear house, farthest back in the gap that was all the builder of those big tenements had been able to afford of the light and air for the poor 54Jacob A. Riis, "Paolo's Awakening,‘ in Riis, Out of Mulberry Street: Stories of Tenement House Life in New York City_(New Yofk: Century Company, 1898), pp. 166-8I. 55Jacob A. Riis, "Nisby's Christmas," in Children of the Tenements (New York: Macmillan, 1903), pp. I04-I6. 56 Jacob A. Riis, "The Genesis of the Gang," Atlantic, LXXXIV (September, 1899), pp. 302-05. 79 peOple whose hard-earned wages, brought home every Saturday, left them as poor as if they had never earned a dollar . . .57 Naturally, "Skippy" took to the streets to seek companionship and such happiness as he could find. Yet the city restricted him from even minor pleasures, and his arrest for ball-playing in the streets led him to the gang and its evil ways. The ethic of the savage, "to take things as he found them, because that was the way they were" had taken hold of him, and his tragic end was only a natural product of this socially instilled lawlessness. Yet, concluded Riis, "the real reckoning of society" ought to be with "Scrabble Alley," and not the boy.58 In this way, sentimentalism served to warn the reader of the social peril of the unattended young.59 The conventional agencies of "child-saving," en- trusted with the care of the slum child, did not prevent his fall. The most obvious of these institutions, the school, was a conSpicuous failure in assuming this custodial 57Jacob A. Riis, "Skippy of Scrabble Alley," in Children of the Tenements, pp. 357-59. 58 Ibido I pp. 360-640 59This theme is discussed further in Walter F. Taylor, The Econogic Novel in America (New York: Octagon Books, 1964i: p. 82. 80 and preventive role. Overcrowding in the slum school was endemic, and many children were turned away even when their parents preferred that they learn rather than work.60 Even if admitted to school, however, the child was more Likely to be stunted than helped. Ill—prepared and con— :emptuous teachers, lacking knowledge of the new principles 3f child development, forced the young into taxing mental exercises that unduly strained the growing mind. Child itudy adherents argued that the anti-"natural" education 9 >f the schools invited disaster by ignoring laws which 'were nature's chief provision for the education and "61 realthful employment of children. Crammed into con— 'ining desks in crowded rooms,62 the city child came to iew the immoral street as an arena of freedom. Since the traditional agency of child management, he school, was judged inadequate, and since disorder of serious nature was likely, early social welfare _ 60New York State, Report of the Tenement House 3mmittee . . . 1894, pp. 170-73; see also New York Times, Dvember 22, 1891, p. 4. 61Stuart H. Rowe, "The School and the Child's 1ysica1 Development," NEA, Proceedings, 1905, pp. 742—49. 62See R. Tait McKenzie, "Influence of School .fe on Curvature of the Spine," in NBA, Proceedings, 98, pp. 939-44. 81 institutions assumed the burden of "child-saving." This marked a turn from earlier forms of philanthropic practice. Joseph Lee, the Boston philanthropist-reformer, dis- tinguished in a 1902 work between "constructive" and "preventive" philanthropy. In the past, said Lee, pre— ventive work such as legislation, repressive measures, and relief had been employed to cope with the burden of the unfit. Now, however, in keeping with theories of environ— mentalism, there was a turn towards "constructive" activity. The "constructive" activity placed stress on the actual causes of need and the eradication of these, so as to deal with the case before it reached the hopeless stage.63 "Constructive" effort would logically be concentrated on the child, who was not yet absolutely corrupted. The distinction made by Lee between "old" and "new" philanthropy is comprehendable when placed in the matrix of the new social welfare movement. Beginning in the late 18705, the "charity organization" movement swept through American cities. Ostensibly an administrative reform, its implications were actually more than technical. Major relief agencies were consolidated into a central clearing 63Joseph Lee, Constructive and Preventive Philan- thropy (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 2—9. 82 house, so as to avoid overlapping aid or sectarian clashes among the many church-affiliated relief agencies.64 More than c0ping with such problems, however, charity organiza- tion was intended to be precisely what Lee called "con- structive" philanthrOpy. It would, felt its prOponents, answer the complaint made against relief agencies for spending too much time on reforming the "vicious" and not enough at preventing their existence by building up insti- 65 This focus on "causes" of tutions and initiative. poverty did not imply any reevaluation of the social structure, as charity organizers still saw their role as limited. They distinguished sharply between "pauperism" and "poverty," thus retaining moralistic cant at the same time they boasted of making philanthropy "scientific." The pauper was an individual deserving of contempt, one who consciously sought the status of a public charge. "Lazy, Shiftless, and extravagant," such persons were public 64Nathan Huggins, Protestants Agginst Poverty: Boston's Charities 1870-1956 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwald Publishers, 1971), pp. SI, 69-70; see also Asa Briggs, "The Welfare State in Historical Perspective," Epropean Journal of Sociology, II (1961), pp. 221-58. 65R . w. Hill, "The Children of 'Shinbone Alley,'" p. 229. 83 leeches who deserved no sympathy.66 The old philanthrOpy of direct relief was held accountable for the persistence of pauperism, which was regarded as a moralistic aberration rather than a manifestation of economic inequities. Allegedly "easily" obtainable, direct relief encouraged bad habits. Charity organizers, in their desire to co— ordinate administration, sought to end the pauper threat to the city by legal means, encouraging strict anti- mendicancy legislation.67 As such, it is apparent that charity organizers did not believe in "inherited" de— gradation, but their environmentalism was not at all humanitarian in its motivation. “Poverty, however was a different phenomenon, wholly opposed to pauperism. Never fully defining just what it was, charity organizers essentially regarded any- one with material need yet short of the status of public charge to be in "poverty." Yet, unlike pauperism, this 66Robert Treat Paine, "The Importance of Stopping Outdoor Relief to Chronic or Hereditary Paupers," Charities, X (February 7, 1903), pp. 134-37; Joseph Kirkland, "Among the Poor of Chicago," in Robert A. Woods, ed., The Poor in Great Cities, pp. 195-239. 67W. A. Johnson, "Methods and Machinery of the Organization of Charity," no. 34 in Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, Annual Reports and Miscellaneous Papers, 1887 (New York: C.O.S., 1888). 84 state was not opposed to nature, but "the necessary result of the natural dependence between man and man," and a natural outcome of urbanization.68 Direct subsidy in the form of relief to those in poverty was opposed, as it encouraged the receiver to slip towards pauperism. "Human nature,‘ said Josephine Shaw Lowell, a leader of the charity organization movement in New York, insured the de— cline of those encouraged to rely on direct relief and, indeed, any aid given "in order to make it as little dangerous as possible," required accompanying "moral care."69 Washington Gladden, the most significant of the Social GOSpel clerics, many of whom were involved in charity organization, also warned against direct relief: We must never forget that the degradation of the soul is a far worse misery than hunger or cold and that a method of charity which relieves men's bodily wants and at the same time undermines their manhood or weakens their self-respect, is of very doubtful value. 68Ansley Wilcox, "The Charity Organization Idea," no. 31 in Ibid.; J. J. McCook, "Charity Organization and Social Regeneration," Lend-a-Hand, XIII (December, 1894), pp. 161—64. 69Bremner, pp. 51-60; Mrs. C. R. Lowell, "Poverty and Its Relief," Lend-a—Hand, XV (January, 1895), pp. 6-12. 70Washington Gladden, "The Plain Path of Reform," Charities Review, I (April, 1892), pp. 251—56. _'—-——~—————_____. 85 Thus “misery“ was unnatural yet, if it existed, unassailable. By such reasoning, the charity organizers retained the old moralism, and invested it with the new evnironmentalism. A "causes of need" form used by the New York Charity Organization Society in the nineties listed “intemperance” and "laziness" as among the appli— cable labels allowed for a particular case.71 Problems were not regarded as unsolvable, however. PeOple could be enlightened by indirect means, and hopefully raised from "pauperism" to “respectable poverty." Charity workers extolled the hardworking, unburdensome poor and worried that the mixing of paupers and the poor in the slums en— couraged the latter to take up the ways of the former.72 Using this reasoning, resistance to poverty was defined in terms of disease. Children, as such, were vulnerable to "moral contagion" from criminal classes or profligate parents. Since this was not biologically inherited, how- ever, it might be prevented by proper action. 71Charity Organization Society of the City of New York, Annual Reports and Miscellaneous Papers, 1895 (New York: Charity Organization Society, 1896), p. 39. 72Zilpha Smith, "Causes of Poverty," Lend—a-Hand, V (January, 1890), pp. 23—30; see also Riis, How the Other Half Lives, pp. 22—24, passim. 86 Charity organization, then, was a form of social insurance for the powered against those without power. Membership rolls of charity organization societies were dominated by propertied and upper-class elites, and public appeals made on self-interested premises. Public exhi- bitions of tenement conditions were acknowledged to be part of a strategy of "bringing the so—called slums to "73 Private groups involved in relief the people uptown. were advised to de—emphasize "wasteful" ("$950 of every $1,000 given") direct aid, since only indirect assistance was helpful to the "vicious." Such a position did not wholly conflict with the Spencerian dictum that aid to the lowly, while elevating the giver, kept human waste afloat, for charity organizers continually argued that their activities reduced the "unfit" populace Via moral suasion.74 l The attempt to "reinforce those who are morally deficient," was really an efficient way of protecting society from the 73See Lawrence Veiller, The Reminiscences of Lawrence Veiller, transcript of interview for Oral History .__l___.________l . . . PrOject, Columbia UniverSity; Chicago Woman's Club, Board Minutes (April 6, 1892), in Chicago Woman's Club Mss., Chicago Historical Society. 74Richard T. Ely, Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society (New York: Macmillan, 1903), pp. 167- 87 Spread of “moral disease."75 As a means of further divorcing social welfare functions from the economic realm, municipal charity organizations were consistently chartered so as to be administered by unpaid boards of trustees,76 thus furthering the growth of an inbred charity "establishment." Charity organizers, committed as they were to indirect relief, experimented widely with the "friendly visitor,' an ancestor of the modern—day social worker. The friendly visitor, usually a middle- or upper—class woman, visited the homes of the poor and provided aid in housekeeping, nutrition, use of resources, and 'good habits" in general so as to promote familial stability without recourse to the dole. The friendly visitor aimed to prevent the poor family from becoming a public charge by teaching it how to "make do," and at no time promoted such political notions as to cause family dissatisfaction with the economic structure. Indeed, Mary Richmond, a 75H. L. Wayland, "A Scientific Basis of Charity,“ Charities Review, III (April, 1894), p. 271; Charles R. Henderson, Introduction to the Study of the Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1901), p. 48. 76Josiah Quincy, "The Administration of Municipal Charities," N.C.C.C., Proceedings, 1898, pp. 198-205. 88 prominent friendly visitor later active in the profession- alization of social work, warned visitors not to be "swept away by enthusiastic advocates of social reform" from a "safe middle ground" position. Visitors, she said, should never lose sight of the fact that “character is at the very center" of social ills.77 In the practical arena then, environmentalism promoted a multicausal view of poverty that viewed problems primarily in moral and behavioral terms. Amos Warner's American Charities, the most comprehensive and representa- tive volume on the field in the nineties, spoke of a vast, interconnected web of circumstances leading to degeneration including disease, diet, lack of education, "self-abuse," shiftlessness, and family collapse.78 This new consideration of the causes of "weakness" retained the moral-spiritual overtones of the older vieWpoints, but added the authority of science as both a confirming force and as a panacea. Warner acknowledged that "the child follows by some secret 77Quoted in Roy Lubove, The Professional Altruist: The Emergence of Social Work as a Career 188 - (Cambridge: Harvard Universityi Press,I I963), p. H. 78Amos G. Warner, American Charities: A Stud in PhilanthrOpy and Economics (New York: Thomas Crowell, 89 but irresistable propulsion the history of the parent," but insisted that conscious interference by outside forces could check the trend towards a "vicious" temperment. As such, "constructive" philanthropy was interspersed with heavy doses of the old "preventive" variety. Multi— causality as such might be considered a progressive advance over grimmer analyses, but the de—emphasis of economics at the expense of behavioral factors diluted the reform thrust considerably. Seemingly "humane" considerations of the causes of poverty actually tended to avoid the very confrontation with the "roots" of poverty that were al— legedly under attack and the strategy of "indirect" aid prompted a piecemeal approach to social ills that slowed progress. As C. Wright Mills pointed out, multicausality, when employed in such a context, weakens efforts at social amelioration and objectively aids in the maintenance of the status quo.79 The institution that was supposed to cope with the problem of the wayward child was the juvenile court. State—by-state agitation throughout the nineties culmi- nated in the establishment of these courts in Illinois in 79C. Wright Mills, "The Professional Ideology of Social Pathologists," American Journal of Sociology, IL (September, 1943), pp. 169-80. 90 1899, and elsewhere during the next decade. Seen by its proponents as a humane and yet “scientific" movement, the juvenile court rested on the notion of society's corporate responsibility for the child and his surroundings. To be sure, institutions such as reformatories and juvenile asylums justified their existence on like grounds, but their arguments tended to contain overtones of the anachro- nistic theories of "natural depravity“ now rejected by reformers. In addition, institutionalization of children had by now come under attack as producing hardened indi— viduals who, as a result of being cared for, lacked in- itiative and became paupers.80 The alternative, placement of juveniles in the regular court flow was likewise decried, as the child was put among adult criminals and pointed towards evil. For its legal-historical rationale, the juvenile court movement drew heavily on the new social science. The modern state was analogized to a sort of extended family, comparable to the primitive tribe in the anthropological sense, and endowed with the duty to protect 80"Report of Illinois, N.C.C.C., Proceedings, 1899, pp. 53—54; Frank B. Fay, "Our Children in 1915," Lend-a—Hand, VI (May, 1891), pp. 308—11. 91 its members.81 In the legal sense in particular, the doctrine of In loco parentis was used to justify state interference in the affairs of an "inadequate" family. The juvenile court system saw child life as an evolutionary process demanding discreet yet "constant vigilance."82 As such, it was more than just a court, and this is reflected in its procedures and delegated powers. Hearings were conducted informally, the process of conviction eliminated, and crime and punishment, in the sense that they existed in adult courts did not occur here. A juvenile did not have to have committed a "crime" to be brought into court. Colorado's definition of delinquency, for example, was phrased in terms of violation of socially acceptable forms of behavior that were not necessarily criminal: 81Josiah Strong, The New Era, or the Coming Kingdom (New York: Baker and Taylor, 1893), pp. 121, 253, 320—21; P. Caldwell, "Duty of the State to Delinquent Children," N.C.C.C., Proceedin s, 1898, pp. 404—10; Homer Folks, The Case of Destitute, Neglected, and Delinquent Children (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 236—41; Anna GarIin Spencer, "Social Responsibility Toward Child-Life," in sec. II of International Congress of Charities, Correction, and Philanthropy, Chicago, June, 1893 (Baltimore: Johns HOpkins UniVersity, 1894), pp. 6-15. 82See Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order (New York: Hill and Wang, 1967), p. I697 92 patronizes, visits or enters a disorderly house or dram shOp . . . wanders about the streets in the night without being engaged in any lawful business or occupation. Likewise, judgment proceeded differently in this court than it did in adult courts. In considering the disposition of the case, the sitting judge considered the violation itself less important than its chances for repetition. Penal reformers and child—workers favored the "indeterminate" sentence or probation, the length of which depended on the individual's maintenance of "good behavior.“84 The movement then, rested on wholly environmental- ist concepts. It assumed that adequate behavior was a matter objectively determined, and that social forces and institutions could produce desired behavior patterns in those judged aberrant. As such, the court considered the child's surroundings, and his parents in particular. In doing so, the court felt it was attacking the "cause" of problems, and doing so before the child was hopelessly debauched. Court investigators, individually trained in a manner comparable to friendly visitors in methods of 83"The Year in Juvenile Courts," Charities, XIV (July 1, 1905), p. 873. ' 84Platt, The Child Savers, pp. 99, 177. 93 "objective" observation, consistently blamed parents for providing the child with a crime-inducing environment. Once again, analogies in procedure to medical practice were used, in this case to examine the so-called "neuro- pathic" family. Immigrant parents, concluded the investi- gators,ignorant of American sanitary standards and morals, induced the young to labor without reward, and provided 85 Children, them with inadequate custodial supervision. more at home in the city street and in the nether worlds of American cities than their parents thus were "running wild . . . like little animals" and falling prey to "noxious growth" patterns due to this lack of parental 86 The reports of court investigators, used by checks. judges, phrased the problems in these environmental terms in their analyses of given situations: 85Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, "The Delinquent Children of Immigrant Parents," N.C.C.C., Proceedin s, 1909, pp. 255-60; Luther H. Gulick and Leonard P. Ayres, Medical Inspection of Schools (New York: Charities Publishing committee,_l908), p. 7; Elza Herzfeld, "Superstitions and Customs of the Tenement House Mother," Charities, XIV (July 29, 1905), pp. 983-86. 86T. D. Hurley, ed., guvenile Courts and What The Have Accom lished (privately printed, 1903), p. 18; Joseph Hawes,.Cni1dren inpgrban Society; Juvenile Delinquency in Nineteenfh Century;America (New York: Oxford UniversityiPress, 1971), pp. I80-8l. 94 2nd arrest. Both times for stealing . . . father out of work. 6 children . . . Boy has not been in school more than two weeks this year . . . mother drinks. Surroundings very bad. Boy does not go to school. Father out of work and mother apparently half crazy . . . They would not let me in, and the mother was very brawling and noisy about my coming. A sister about 15 years of age is the only support of the family.88 Parents thus became pariahs who mentally and physi- cally abused their children. Reports similar to the above told of children being forced to work long hours, only to turn over all their earnings to ungrateful, often drunk, parents. Such persons, "thoroughly disreputable in drink and language," made the home a place to be avoided, driving the child into the company of similarly abused "gang" members and eventual trouble.89 Little wonder then, that 87Investigator's Notebook, p. 145 (June, 1897- August, 1899), Juvenile Protective Association Supplement I--Case Studies, Folder 7 in Juvenile Protective Associa- tion Mss., University of Illinois——Chicago Circle. 8Investigator's Notebook, p. 193 (November, 1899- August, 1901), Juvenile Protective Association Supplement I-—Case Studies, Folder 9 in Juvenile Protective Associa— tion Mss., University of Illinois——Chicago Circle. 89Ibid., p. 107; as a result of the agitation of juvenile court reformers, Colorado passed an "Adult Delinquency" statute, holding parents accountable for the criminal actions of their unsupervised children. 95 children became incorrigible. Judge Ben B. Lindsey of Denver, the well—known juvenile court jurist, regarded children as "little savages,‘ subject to storm and stress, whose amorality could be channelled into good or evil pursuits. He was totally skeptical of the efficiency of punitive measures in the case of children who had been raised in, as an investigator put it, "ignorance of the "90 Therefore he and raison d'etre of social customs. other juvenile court judges accepted jurisdiction over the family on the grounds that, as defined by child—workers attached to the court: . . . enjoyment of the parental relationship is a privilege to be exercised under strict accounting, and to be justified by adequate performance.9l Thus progressivism, as one historian of the juvenile court movement writes, was “unwilling to eliminate the traditional practice of moral indoctrination."92 90Ben B. Lindsey, "Childhood and Morality," NEA, Proceedings, 1909, pp. 146—57; Ben B. Lindsey and Harvey O Higgins, The Beast (New York: Doubleday, Page, 1910), p. 149. Carl Kelsey, "The Juvenile Court of Chicago and Its Work," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, XVII (March, I901), pp. 298—304. 91Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, “The Community and the Child," Survey, XXV (February 4, 1910), p. 786. 92Peter Gregg Slater, "Ben Lindsey and the Denver Juvenile Court: A Progressive Looks at Human Nature," American Quarterl , XX (Summer, 1968), pp. 211-23; Roy Lubare, The Progressives and the Slums (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1962), pp. 186—89. 96 Determinism was cast aside, and the state's police power extended to the realm of the juvenile life cycle, the correct management of which would perpetuate the objec- tively fixed moral order. If the family could not give the child a "proper" upbringing, the state had to do so, and the reformers had little respect for the parental capabilities of the new immigrants. As Jane Addams re- marked, one could not expect a primitive Italian peasant to act as a New England scholar.93 Likewise, Thomas Travis, a student of delinquency, declared morality to be a quality alien to slum youth: It would be like asking a Chinaman to produce the music of Wagner, or an African savage to show the delicac of moral feeling a cultured woman manifests.9X There were alternatives to the removal of the child from his home. In general, they involved attempts to in- fluence and regulate his conduct, so as to counterbalance home influences. One charity worker asserted that there were "three ways out of this degradation—-by education-—by 93Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics (New York: Macmillan, 1902), p. 229; see also Daniel Levine, Varieties of Reform Thought (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1964), p. 22. 94Thomas Travis, The Young Malefactor: A Study in Juvenile Delinquench Its Causes and Treatment (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1908), pp. 16—17. 97 suitable recreation-~by change in environment."95 As such, the child's leisure time was scrutinized since it was con— sidered to be a major corrupting force, yet potentially an ally of constructive citizenship, according to the child study movement. A student of G. Stanley Hall, in examining juvenile gangs, depicted them as "natural" phenomena arising from an "instinct of activity" and a desire for companion- ship ("the social instinct"). Generally formed to facili— tate leisure—time pursuits, the gang "went wrong" only if legitimate outlets for activity were lacking.96 Unfortu- nately, this was often the case in the City, where innocent activities such as street play were banned, and children daring to play were arrested. Graham Taylor, the Chicago settlement house leader, reacted angrily to this. He said that society, "in a blunderbuss way, was insuring the creation of delinquency "by punishing them for the 'crime' of being what they were made to be---boys."97 95Chicago Woman‘s Club, Board Minutes (April 6, 1892), Chicago Woman's Club Mss., Chicago Historical Society. 96J. Adams Puffer, "Boys' Gangs, Seminary, XII (June, 1905), pp. 175—212. 97Graham Taylor, "The Big Problem of the Small Boy," Epicago Daily News, May 2, 1903, clipping in Graham Ta lor Mss., Newberry Library, Chicago; see also Lillian Wald, The House on Henry Street (New York: Henry Holt, 1915), p. 95. Pedagogical 98 Child study suggested ways to turn these impulses into less harmful channels. James Mark Baldwin, a leading child psychologist, said that the child's natural tendency to imitate, which made him "a veritable COpying machine," "98 might serve as a "great socializing function. Other studies urged that slum children be considered as "a con— geries of uncoordinated prOpositions,' capable of prOper conduct if supervised. The overall confidence that the "easily impressed" mind could be guided into "right channels" indicated that the manipulative dimensions of such a program were welcomed.99 Nascent welfare state theory, then, advocated prepa- rations for the handling of a permanently disabled class while at the same time failing tO challenge the myth Of equal Opportunity. This meant that welfare work would be framed within a definition of proper conduct that 98See James Mark Baldwin, Mental Development in the Child and the Race (New York: Macmillan, 1896), pp. 296—98, 357—59, 488; Baldwin, The Individual and Society (New York: Macmillan, 1900), pp. 18-26; Mary F. Ledyard, "Relation of Imitative Play to Originality and Consequent Freedom," NEA, Proceedings, 1899, pp. 547—51. 99James Sully, "Studies in Childhood. XI: Material of Morality," Popular Science Monthly, XLVII (October, 1895), pp. 808wl7; "Discussion," N.C.C.C., Proceedings, 1891, pp. 325—26. 99 encouraged a compliant populace and asserted the governing community's right to insure its perpetuation. Society's assumption of a wider custodial role, when coupled with the recent scientific discoveries of the nature Of children's play, pointed to a significant place in social programs for public recreational facilities. CHAPTER III PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS, AND VACATION SCHOOLS Speaking before the Chicago Woman's Club in 1892, Albion Small, the noted sociologist, asserted that character building and healthy growth involved "the proper direction Of animal virtues.“l This notion did not shock those present, since a curiosity about man's physical nature characterized the nineties.2 This change in the moral climate was part of an overall perception Of the need to cope with all sectors of being in order to regulate social life. Children, in particular, were regarded as in need Of supervision, and custodial and pedagogic potentialities were greatest in their play lives. The playground movement of the nineties was the product Of this understanding, a reform cause incorporating the latest developments in the practical and theoretical social sciences. lChicago Woman's Club, Minutes (November 11, 1892), in Chicago Woman's Club Mss., Chicago Historical Society. 2See John Higham, “The Reorientation Of American Culture in the Nineties," in John Weiss, ed., The Ori ins of Modern Consciousness (Detroit: Wayne State Univer51ty Press, 1965), pp. 25-48; Larzer Ziff, The American 18905 (New York: Viking, 1966), pp. 51-88. 100 101 The Chicago Woman's Club, interested in "civic work,“ was anxious to put into practice the new ideas of the period. They felt, as did other groups active in charity work, that intelligent, directed action could solve the most pressing social problems. At the same time, the 1893 Columbian Exposition spawned a feeling that the urban community could be ordered, both physically and in its social intercourse. Reformers viewed the city as an organism of separate but nonetheless closely linked parts, a tightly organized entity despite its size.3 Ordering and improving childhood was an important part of programs intending to integrate urban social life. The child's major pursuit-—play--was perceived as the best means Of regulating his conduct. The Columbian Exposition contained a "Children's Building," managed by a woman's civic committee chaired by Mrs. Potter Palmer. New tech- niques in education and in child-raising were demonstrated there, with Special attention tO leisure activities. Parents who wished to view other exhibits left their children in the care Of matrons who led classes in physical 3Roy Lubove, The Progressives and the Slums (Pittsburgh: University Of Pittsburgh Press, 1962Y, pp. 186—88, 218—19; Charles Zueblin, American Municipal Progress (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 3—7. 102 culture, games, and manual training.4 Exhibits concerned with the child study movement were also part of the children's building. The thrust of the entire display was to show the validity of the notion of reciprocal dependence of mind and body, now accepted by both scien- tists and progressive churchmen.5 Given the recognizable dangers Of city life to both the bodies and morals of its residents, the concern with the implications of this theory was unsurprising, particularly as it applied to children. Poorly attended to by their parents and thus prey to physical and moral collapse, the children of the city were nothing less than the flotsam of urban life. This led to the rhetorical question posed by a child-saver Of the period: If dirt is misplaced matter, then what do you call a child who sits eternally on the curbstones and in the gutters of our tenement house districts. 4Bessie Louise Pierce, A History of Chicago: Volume III: The Rise of a Modern Cipy, 1871-1893’(New York: A. Knopf, 1957), p. 505. 5New York World, November 23, 1891, p. 6. 6Quoted in Chicago Society for School Extension, By-Laws (Chicago: n.p., 1903), p. 9. 103 The city child was bound tO become a nuisance, since he grew up under conditions recognized as not "normal." Prey of evil street influences, he endangered property, harassed residents, and would likely become more threatening to public order with age. To progressives,. the city child raising process epitomized the drift and disorder said to be the core Of the "social problem." Without regulation, the harmless diversions Of children might develop into chronic criminal pursuits. For this reason, development of the "efficient life" had to begin in childhood. The philosophy of the juvenile court permeated all areas of work with children. The juvenile court movement stressed the need to "manage" children so as to prevent the growth Of bad habits, especially when parents were judged "deficient." In this sense, play was an appropriate place at which to begin work, since city children spent much of their time in rough, unsupervised street play. If controlled, said court workers, play led to self—control and Obeisance to law.7 Thus the goal of preventing 7John Martin, "Social Life in the Streets," in University Settlement Society (New York), Re ort, 1899 (New York: University Settlement Society, 1900), pp. 22-24. 104 delinquency would be met. The logic Of this position was not disputed, for all professions concerned with children agreed that childhood represented an Opportunity, a chance at "formation," which was far superior tO "reformation," or OOping with an already entrenched problem. One child worker saw his role as a "seducer" of children into "ef— fective citizenship." This involved active work with children prior to the commission of a criminal act, and logically assumed all children were possible social threats: Society must learn to idealize to the extent of thinking of every child as a possible delinquent before it may dream Of every child as an acceptable member of society, and lay its plans accordingly.8 It is not surprising then,.to find that those persons at the forefront of juvenile court movements were also active in the establishment of play facilities for children.9 This was consistent with the progressive desire tO manipulate the child's environment to insure "self- control and habits Of industry." It also reflected their faith that the child "well—placed and trained" need not be 8Quoted in Richard Roy Perkins, Treatment Of ggyenile Delinquents (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1906), pp. 56457, 76; see also T. F. Chapin, "Play as a Reformative Agency," N.C.C.C., Proceedings, 1892, p. 443. 9"Play versus Juvenile Courts," Boston Sunday Globe, November 11, 1906, p. 4. 105 well-born.10 In addition, management of children's activi- ties promoted Americanization. Perhaps this might under— mine family life, but many reformers were willing to do so, given their.lack Of faith in the competence of the lower- class family. Urban social life gave outside agencies the opportunity to direct the growth of the immigrant child. The European, according to the progressive child reformer, was "raw material," needing "social training and discipline" to become fit for American citizenship, and the child of foreigners could be helped to "measure up" to American standards.ll Given this belief that the undirected flow Of activity in urban social life encouraged unacceptable be- havior patterns, children's play came under scrutiny. Jacob Riis, in his examination of the lives of street children, concluded that leisure time was the spawning ground of crime, yet also of good citizenship. At present, he said, the unsupervised child was a menace both to his own and to the community's well-being. Prevented from 10"Prevention and Cure," Boston Herald, April 22, 1897, p. 6. llBeulah Kennard, "Pittsburgh's Playgrounds," Survey, XXII (May 1, 1909), p. 195; Rev. M. Mc G. Dana, Our Juvenile Delinquents," Lend~a-Hand, XV (August, 1895), pp. 86—89. 106 exercising their natural desire to play by police, traffic, or the physical city itself, boys naturally turned to il- licit activity. Studying case histories Of boys at a juvenile home, Riis concluded that their Offenses were not criminal, but "a case Of misdirection, or no direction at 12 In this sense, he all, Of their youthful energies." said, the play life Of children became the key to crime prevention. Riis argued that "crime in our large cities is, to an unsuSpected extent, a question Of athletics "13 As has been noted, he distilled the thought Of merely. the child-study movement into forms fit for popular con- sumption. The general public, already sympathetic to the idea of the city as "unnatural," accepted his vieWpOint. The city boy, by Riis' definition, could be analogized to "a little steam engine with the steam always up and play as a safety valve." The policeman, landlord, and other agents Of Oppressive restraint, "sat" on the valve and caused a buildup Of pressure and its eventual explosion in crime. TO be sure, the lack Of play facilities did not lead the child directly to murder or other terrible crimes, 12Jacob A. Riis, Tpe Children Of the Poor (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1892), p. 130. 13Jacob A. Riis, The Peril and the Preservatipp Of the Home (Philadelphia: G. W. JacObs, 1903), pp. I67-69. 107 but it encouraged petty mischief and the flouting of society's rules which, if unchecked, began the evolutionary process from boy to vicious outlaw.l4 For these reasons, children's desires had to be fulfilled in some harmless way. Riis continually liked to point out that the boys' gang, hated and feared by city residents, could be turned into a force for good. The gang was "nothing but the genius for organization in our boys run wild," and, with proper guidance, could shed its role as a "distemper Of the slum" and become an agency Of good behavior.15 During this period, numerous studies of boys' activities in cities were published, most of which reduced the problem of the city child to one Of undirected and frustrated play. There was little question, as statistics d6 showed, that juvenile Offenses were increasing, ahd the "gang instinct" was seen as the root cause.» Boys, like their savage forebears, enjoyed games of chance, the hunt, and a generally vigorous physical life in their formative l4Jacob A. Riis, "The Genesis Of the Gang," Atlantic, LXXXIV (September, 1899), pp. 304-05. 15Jacob A. Riis, "The Making of Thieves in New York," Century, IL (November, 1894), p. 110. 16See Joseph Lee, "Juvenile Law-Breakers in Boston," Publications Of the American Statistical Associ— ation, VIII (1902—3), (Boston: American Statistical Association, 1903), pp. 409-13. 108 years. This was both natural and healthy, since play had historically evolved into modes of COOperation that presaged 17 adult life. In his play group the boy learned the values Of subordination to a cause, concern for others, and the 18 Observers Of children came moral order of civilization. tO idealize gang rituals and, in their tendency to study them in intimate detail, made the thesis of leisure activity as the solution to crime seem scientifically valid. Though they conceded that unrestricted play made the boy's mental processes "diffusive, unsymmetrical, lacking inhibition," most city boys were "clearly diffentiated" from the mental dullard or "moral imbecile."19 The period Of the nineties through the early progressive era was marked by private and church-related attempts tO work with city boys, using leisure activities as their major stimulant. Supporters Of such movements were quick to note that their efforts in- volved both wayward youths and those not in trouble.20 17C. C. Van Leiuw, "Racial Traits in the Group Activity Of Children," NEA, Proceedings, 1899, pp. 1057-63. 18J. Adams Puffer, "Boys' Gangs," Pedagogicpl_ Seminagy, XII (June, 1905), pp. 201-02. 19J. Madison Taylor, "Difficult Boys," POpular Science Monthly, LXIX (October, 1906), p. 340. 20William Byron Forbush, The pr Problem (Boston: Pilgrim Press, 1901), pp. 160-200, passim; John E. Gunckel,. Boyyille: A History Of Fifteen Years Work Amon Newsbo 8 (Toledo: Toledo NewsboysTAssociatiOn, 1905), pp. iii, g- 12. 109 Students Of child life, however, tempered their idealizing Of the city boy with their descriptions Of contemporary conditions. For all the potential of good citizenship in the city boy's reservoir Of character, his influences at present were bad. The street was a jungle, 21 where "might makes right," a child's version Of the Darwinian battleground depicted by naturalistic writers. One child worker saw the street as the devil's playground itself, the scene Of the demolition of human character, from which "sickness, nervousness, melancholy, stupidity, uncontrolled passions, lack Of balance, mental and moral" 22 resulted. Street life, "with a lack Of prOper counter- acting influence," led "inevitably toward the cultivation 23 of the destructive spirit." Probation officers investi- gating the home and neighborhood environs of convicted Offenders concurred in this condemnation Of "perverted" 24 play instincts. Therefore, the Offering Of a substitute 21Stoyan Vasil Tsanoff, "Children's Playground," Mppicipal Affairs, II (June, 1898), p. 293. 22 Ibid., p. 294. 23Stoyan Vasil Tsanoff, Educational Value pf_ Children's Plpygrounds (Philadelphia: privately printed, I897), p. 17. 24 Charles Stelzle, BO 3 Of the Street: How g9 Win Them (New York: F. H. ReveII, I9047, pp. 15-I6. 110 for the disorderly street life was deemed,bothia-realistic action and a direct attack on social ills.25 The first agencies to explore the possibilities of playgrounds for children were the settlement houses. Ac— cording tO a recent work, the settlement had a "profound commitment" to recreational facilities for their districts, and ranked it as high on their lists of neighborhood pri- orities as health care and housing.26 The reason for this is rooted in the basic thrust of the settlement movement. Settlement residents saw city dwellers as living in an atmosphere of loneliness,27 despite the physical evidence of overcrowding. This condition was not physical, however, but psychic, a consequence of the loss of local ties Of family, neighborhood, and peer group brought on by displace— ment from abroad or from a rural community. Such persons, according to Jane Addams, came to large cities "without fellowship, without local tradition or public spirit, with— out local organization Of any kind." Impersonalization 25Leonard Benedict, Waifs of the Slums and Their Way Out (New York: F. H. Revell, 1907), pp. 23—24, 153—54. 26Roy Lubove, The Progressives and the Slums, pp. 193—205. 27Jane Addams, "The Subjective Necessity for Social Settlements," in Jane Addams, et a1., Philanthropy and Social Progress (New York: Thomas Crowell, 18937, p. 4. 111 and the lack Of orderly relationships, interpersonal and institutional, made the city population a transient one, susceptible to the machinations Of ward boss,.saloonkeeper, 28 or gang leader, according to Addams. The settlement filled the breach as the remedy for this "social maladjust- ment." Composed Of college—educated persons whose own uselessness hangs about them heavily,‘ it became the practi— cal manifestation Of the concept of the ersatz, extended family pOpularized in the social sciences.29 Hull House, perhaps the most famous Of American settlements, saw its role as a place of good example, 'in a part Of the city where such homes are rare,' and con— sidered itself as "embracing the best things Of the best "30 In its extension into the family realm it circles. followed the rationale of its contemporaries, the charity organization society and the juvenile court. According to Graham Taylor Of Chicago Commons, an early settlement, recovery Of the positive concept of family was the main 28Ibid. . 29Jane Addams, "How Would You Uplift the Masses," in Jane Addams: Writings Mss., Hull House, University of IllinOis——Chicago Circle. 30Mary H. Parker,."A House on Halstead Street," clipping in Hull House Scrapbook, I (1889—94), Folio 424 in H311 House Association Mss., University Of Illinois—— Chicago Circle. 112 function of the houses.31 Nevertheless, the settlement worker, in conceiving of "family," had an idealized grouping in mind, alongside which the family of the tenement districts paled. Thus he was Often critical Of the poor man's family, seeing it as a basic cause Of his travail. Jane Addams regarded the interposition of settlement between adult and child as legitimate and necessary. This, she felt, and not economic change, was the key to the problem Of the tenement family: One Of the most discouraging features about the present system Of tenement houses is that many are owned by sordid and ignorant immigrants. The theory that wealth brings responsibility, that possession establishes at length education and refinement in these cases fails utterly.32 Shaping the play life Of children, then, was a major facet Of the settlement program. From the start, leisure activities were seen as an agency for the promotion Of good conduct in children, and the remedy to mischief. The ex- istence Of the street gang was not necessarily a barrier to the settlement worker who, living in the neighborhood, Often established a close rapport with the young, hOping to n AA. A LA- 31Graham Taylor, Pioneering on Social Frontiers (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1930), pp. 290:91. 32Jane Addams, "The Objective Value Of Social Settlements," in Addams, et a1., PpilanthrOpy_and Socigl Progrpss, pp. 30-31. 113 "methodize their sport." As such, the settlement con- sidered it important to make a "strong effort" to secure play space. Usually with the help Of a private donor, they converted vacant areas into playgrounds, Hull House leading the way in this regard.33 However, the settlement was limited by both its many interests and lack of funds from proceeding beyond the minimal, despite its ambitions. Hull House residents, meeting in January, 1895, shortly after the Opening of their playground, saw the new year as bring- ing "the murky fingers Of debt holding us with tenacious 34 Despite their expertise in fund-raising, settle— grasp." ment houses could never administer an ambitious system of public recreation unilaterally. In desiring Open spaces in the city however, the settlement aligned itself with the late-nineteenth—century parks movement. Parks for cities became a popular cause in this period, as they represented a buffer or "breathing space" in the "artificial" city where residents could enjoy the physical effects of gOOd air and the moral improvement 33Hull House Residents and Associates, Minutes Of Meetings, I (January, 1895), p. 76 in Hull House Assoc1— ation Mss., University Of Illinois—-Chicago Circle; see also College Settlement, Eighteenth Annual Report (New York: Winthrop Press, 190077’p. 7. 34Ibid., p. 76. 114 that allegedly resulted from idyllic surroundings.35 Scientific studies asserted the health-giving value Of 36 following the post-Civil War drive for sanitary parks, reform. Bostonians, as early as 1876, worried about the erasure of natural parklands by population encroachment. Rapid urban expansion, said Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., prevented "ventilation," which was necessary for the prOper physical and moral growth of children.37 The real boost to the parks movement, howeVer, was the Columbian Exposition. Meetings and displays there showed the value Of parks as breaking the "undue, weari- some regularity" of gridiron-patterned street layout. The views Of planners such as Frederick Law Olmsted came to be . 38 regarded in social theory as well as technical proposals. 35Roy Lubove, The Urban Community: Housing and Planning in the Progressive Era (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1967), p. 5; see also Nathan Matthews, Jr., "Justification of City Expenditure on Parks and Parkways—- ll Material for Public Education, in NEA, Proceedings, 1903, ppo 102—1090 36See Elizabeth Halsey, The Development of Public Recreation in Metropolitan Chicago (Chicago: Chicago Recreation Commission, 1940), pp. 16-17. 37See Parks for the People: Proceedings Of a Meeting Held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 (Boston: Franklin Press, 1876), pp. 21-23. 38Frederick Law Olmsted, "Parks, Parkways, and Pleasure Grounds," Engineering Mggazine, IX (May, 1895), Pp. 253-60. 115 The so—called "city beautiful" movement arose soon after the conclusion Of the exposition. This was a civic concern that expressed itself in beautification projects ranging from public buildings to parks.39 Its leadership came from the burgeoning business community, which valued parks both as a commercial venture and as engendering a psychic attach- ment to the city on the part Of the populace. The Kansas City Park Commission, for example, in drawing up plans for an ambitious park system, frankly acknowledged these con— siderations: We are just beginning to realize that by beautifying our city, making our city beautiful to the eye and a delightful place of residence, abounding in provisions that add to the enjoyment of life, we shall create among our people warm attachments to the city and promote ciVic pride, thereby supplementing and exercising our buSiness advantage and increasing a power to draw buSiness and population. The initiatives Of so-called "civic leaders" such as these were welcomed by those who planned city parks. To Frederick Law Olmsted, an effective park movement required 39See Charles Zueblin, American Municipal Progress (New York: Macmillan, 1902), pp. 6—9. 4ORoport of the Park and Boulevard Commissions Of Kansas City, Missouri (Embracing Recommendations for the EStablishment of a Park and Boulevard System for Kansas EiEX_L_Resolution of October 12, 1893 quoted in Lfibove, The Urban Community: Housing and Planning in the Progres- M— Sive Era, pp. 40—41. 116 "a small body of cultivated men, public spirited enough to serve without pay."41 Such a nonpartisan group, freed of politics, would insure the predominance Of “efficiency" as the major consideration in site selection and administration. Not ignored however, was the supposed theraputic value Of parks. The Kansas City Commissioners saw their system as providing the city boy with an ideal environment that would help him "grow into a cheerful, industrious and contented 42 For this reason, private bodies such as chambers man." Of commerce and "civic clubs" Often sponsored small parks and model playgrounds for a short time tO demonstrate the value Of public funding. Charity and settlement workers Often joined in coalitions with these business- dominated groups, so much so that a discernable pattern of private-to-public deve10pment Of recreational facilities is apparent in all major cities throughout the period. Non- partisan park boards or boards Of education usually assumed the work after a time. As such, private efforts were Often transplanted, administrators and all, onto the public pay- roll. This meant a like municipalization Of the concerns of these private groups. 41 p. 254. 42 Olmsted, "Parks, Parkways, and Pleasure Grounds,” See Lubove, The Urban Communipy, p. 43. 117 Agitation in favor of public recreation tended to concentrate on the beneficial effects of parks and play- grounds on children's behavior. While this was an overtly more humane argument than one which confined itself to estimates Of the commercial value Of a park system, it was in reality little more than a self-serving position. By the nineties commercial leaders had been won over to the views of settlement workers and educators concerning the social adjustment Of the city child. The earlier positions which justified park expenditures for health reasons had not impressed businessmen, but “health,' as seen from the point of View Of the mental realm, did. At the 1894 New York State Tenement House Committee hearings, the com- mittee acknowleged that “no suggestion more frequently re- curred than that in favor of small parks, and Of playgrounds for children."43 Like sentiments began to appear in other cities, particularly in those municipalities where strong settlement and charity organization movements allied them— selves with one Of the new civic bodies. New York and Chicago are cases in point. 43New York State, Report Of the Tenement House Committee . . . 1894, pp. 41—42. 118 The playground movement in New York is not only illustrative Of the gradual municipalization Of recreational agencies but also of the linkage of recreation, reform, and social theory. As the movement developed, it was incorporated into the anti-slum agitation Of the times, and in philosophy and actions was representative Of the outlook of the urban reformer. New York actually had a law on the books providing for playgrounds as early as 1887, when Mayor Abram S. Hewitt stimulated the passage of the so-called Small Parks Act following a tenement house investigation. The act gave the Board of Street Opening and Improvement power to lay out public parks in Manhattan, and appropri- ated up tO $1,000,000 a year for such purposes.44 Un- fortunately, funds unused one year could not be spent the next, and thus lost monies were not recoverable. Bureau- cratic slowness, usually due to the overlapping functions Of agencies, coupled with the city's hesitancy to exercise rights Of eminent domain, led to total disuse Of the act. This led Hewitt, then out of office, to remark disgustedly 4 that "everything takes ten years." 5 44Jacob A. Riis, "Letting in the Light," Atlantic, LXXXIV (October, 1899), p. 497. 45Allan Nevins, Abram S. Hewitt: With Some Account Of Peter COO er (New York: Harper and Bros., 19357, PP- 504—06. 119 In the early nineties the playground movement continued on a modest scale. Usually through private donations, vacant parcels Of land were outfitted and main- tained by settlement houses or by charity organizations such as the New York Association For The Improvement Of the Condition Of the Poor.46 One Of the most significant of these efforts was that Of the New York Society for Parks and Playgrounds for Children, founded by Abram S. Hewitt in 1890. Noting that some Of the most crowded wards had 47 the pOpulations "more dense than that Of Cairo, Egypt,” society Opened a model playground. Their efforts soon attracted public attention due to the newspaper coverage Of Walter Vrooman, a young reporter for the Now York Worlg. Vrooman put forth the society's contention that private playground work could not satisfy the need for a compre- 48 hensive park system. On November 13, 1891, he wrote in the World Of the formation Of the "New York Union Of Religious and Humanitarian Societies for Concerted Moral 46See Lillian D. Wald to Mrs. Solomon Loeb,. March 26, 1895 in Lillian Wald Mss., New York Public Library. 47New York Society for Parks and Playgrounds for Children, Annual Report, 1893 (New York: New York Society for Parks and Playgrounds for Children, 1893), p. 9. 48Walter Vrooman, "Parks and Playgrounds for Children," Century, XLIII (December, 1891), pp. 317-18. 120 Effort."49 This movement, described in bold-face headlines as "the greatest movement ever inaugurated for the real benefit of all the people," was to spur civic regeneration, beginning with an extensive system of parks and play- grounds. Several weeks later, with Vrooman spurring them on, many of the most prominent clergymen in the city spoke on the use of a park system as a vanguard of moral regener— ation.50 Vrooman's continued exposés of the lives of slum children, "on whom dyspepsia and melancholia are steeped in every feature," gave the impression that a great wave of reform was on the way.51 Unfortunately, the young re- former's enthusiasm had resulted in his overuse of repor- torial license. The great “union,' it seemed, was little more than a hoax, and those who had been quoted as en- dorsers angrily denounced Vrooman's scheme.52 The movement soon dissolved into the sectarian bitterness typical Of church—sponsored relief agencies. 49New York World, November 13, 1891, p. 1. 50"Public Parks and Playground: A Symposium," Arena, X (July, 1894), p. 279; New York World, November 23, I891, p. 6. 51Harlan B. Phillips, "Walter Vrooman: Agitator for Parks and Playgrounds," New York History, XXXIII (January, 1952), pp. 30—31. 52New York Times, November 14, 1891, p. 8. 121 As a result, by 1894 the reformers could only point to one real success: Mulberry Bend Park, which was established in a slum area continually depicted as a den of vice by Jacob Riis and others. This was the only park erected under the 1887 law. Mulberry Bend Park, however, was an Old-school park. That is, it was erected as a "breathing space,‘ and not a playground. There was an important difference between the two. Landscape architects and park Officials were slow to conceive Of the park as an area whose purpose was other than that of an idyllic garden. Children, particularly "street" children, were forbidden tO play there, as the moral effects Of the park were supposedly transmitted by the Observation of beauty and the healthful air only. Playground workers complained Of the intransi- gence of park Officials, while Jacob Riis related how he personally was warned to “keep Off the grass" Of the very park he had agitated in favor Of. To Riis, such restric- tions on park use made it of minor value as a crime de- terrent. He saw them as yet another form Of checking natural energies without substituting a harmless diversion for 53 them. One of the Officials Of the New York Association for Parks and Playgrounds for Children remarked bitterly 53Riis, “Letting in the Light," p. 495. 122 that "the present attitude Of our park Officials is that it is better for grass to grow green over children's graves than yellow under their feet."54 Nevertheless, the call for playgrounds was soon taken up by the more "systematic" reformers. The 1894 Tenement House Committee, noting the failure of the 1887 act, suggested new legislation designed to make procedural problems less of an Obstacle than they had been.55 The testimony Of witnesses, many of whom suggested the need for small play parks to keep children "out of trouble," was followed by an investigation conducted by a reform group, the Committee Of Seventy, in 1895. This proto- progressive organization Of business and professional persons appointed a sub-committee on small parks, among whose members were Jacob Riis, Gifford Pinchot, and repre— sentatives Of the major settlement houses. It called for revision of the 1887 Small Parks Act, and also suggested a statute making a playground compulsory at all new school sites.56 The most important benefits Of the playground, 54"Parks and Playgrounds: A Symposium," pp. 282—88. 55New York State, Report of the Tenement House Committee . . . 1894, p. 505. 56Committee of Seventy, Report Of Sub-Committee on Small Parks, 1895 (New York: Committee Of Seventy, 1895), pp. 3—5. 123 according to the committee, related to its value in the prevention Of juvenile crime. Citing one area where a small park existed already, Jacob Riis noted a significant drOp in crime on the police rolls. He concluded that "my experience with POVerty Gap makes me feel quite certain "57 that there is a connection. The state legislature in 1895, enacted the school playgrounds provision, popularly known thereafter as the "Riis Law."58 Park and playground establishment thus became the. core, both in ideas and in personnel, of early urban pro- gressivism in New York. Its advantage as an issue for reformers was self-evident, for playgrounds were something that everyone could favor. Conceived as an antidote tO the slum, the playground fell within the spectrum of "indirect" aid preferred by charity workers. Moreover, it was viewed as a positive development, a “constructive" form of phi— lanthropy, since it aided those who had not yet "gone awry" but were likely to do so. As such, the rationale for play- ground construction shows the congruence between "construc- tive" and "preventive" philanthropy. 7Riis, "Playgrounds for City Schools," Century, IL (September, 1894), p. 660. 58New York Parks and Playgrounds Association, Statement Relating to Recreation in Greater New York (New York: Parks and Playgrounds Association, I9I0), p' 17. 124 In 1897 the city appointed a small parks committee under the chairmanship of ex-Mayor Abram S. Hewitt. The committee's members were almost wholly recruited from the "good government" clubs, organizations which had the function Of formalizing the coalitions Of business and professional persons dedicated tO "civic betterment." Jacob Riis, a member Of one Of them, admitted the domination Of the business vieWpOint, but defended the clubs as valuable re- form mechanisms.59 The committee's report, when issued later in that year, emphasized the role Of the small park in maintaining orderly relationships. Children, it said, were "forgotten" in the original city plan, and needed play space. Without it, the report warned, the "sense Of hos- tility between the child and the guardians Of public order" would continue, and eventually culminate in the creation Of a "criminal class." The logic Of evolution from frustrated play desires to acts Of illegality was accepted in full by the committee: The failure to provide for the reasonable recreation Of the people, and especially for playgrounds for the rising generation, has been the most efficient cause Of the growth Of crime and pauperism in our midst. A; A - h‘ 59See Good Government Club "x" to Jacob Riis, July 20, 1896 in Box 2, Jacob Riis_M§s,,.New York Public Library.60 City Of New York, Report Of Committee on Small Pgrks, 1897 (New York: City Of New YorkleA'T) , pp. 13'. 125 To combat this trend, the committee advocated the construction of playgrounds in congested areas, particularly in what it called the "areas of turbulence." It emphasized the positive moral effects of wholesome play on children, asserting that "physical energies, if not directed to good ends, will surely manifest themselves in evil tendencies."61 In addition, the report noted that the construction of small parks would involve the razing of bad tenement sections deemed "dens of crime" by police and settlement workers. Slum clearance displaced the "most depraved and debased classes," who at present constituted a direct threat to persons and property in the adjacent commercial and shopping districts. In this way, Jacob Riis argued, playgrounds constituted the true “remedy' for crime.62 The committee's report was buttressed with maps, tables citing population density and crime rates, and other relevant statistics gathered by survey methods. As a result Of both the committee report and the election Of the reform Low administration in 1897, the city began working more closely with groups advocating play- grounds. The most noteworthy Of these was the Outdoor 61Ibid., pp. 3-5. 2Jacob A. Riis to Board of Education, New York City, July 13, 1897 in Ibid., pp. 23—25. 126 Recreation League, another reform coalition growing out Of the good government club movement. The league secured the city‘s permission and partial funding to develop Seward Park, an unimproved plot on the lower east side. It Opened the park for the summer of 1898, and funded other,.smaller sites as well.63 Nevertheless, the league consistently clashed with the Tammany—dominated park board, which was always suspicious of the reformers. Still, since it had the backing of powerful civic groups, the league gained the necessary funds to fully improve the Seward Park site. On October 17, 1903, it was completed for a formal Opening, attended by over 100,000 area residents. Jacob Riis delivered the Opening remarks, applauding the area's children for having "fairly earned" a place where "64 At the same time, the “no copper will dare disturb you. league's efforts had prompted the extension Of the play— ground system, both in schools and under the parks 63Arthur Henry, "The Outdoor Recreation League," Outlook, LXIV (January 6, 1900), pp. 47-53; New York City, Par s Department, Annual Roport, 1902 (New York: Martin Brown, 1903), p. 35; Outdoor Recreation League, "The Kips Bay Free Gymnasium and Playground," (New York: Outdoor Recreation League, 1899 (?)), pamphlet in New York Public Library. 64"Speech by Jacob A. Riis at the Formal Opening of the William H. Seward Park, Canal Street and East Broadway, 17 October 1903," holograph in Box 2, Jacob Riis M§§., New York Public Library. ““‘ 127 department. Charles Stover, a settlement worker, later became the city's park commissioner, after the league had turned control Of the playgrounds over to the city.65 New York then, had developed a successful playground move— ment in less than a decade, largely due to the movement's arguments in favor of mild reform as a preventive measure. Civic groups made up of business leaders, social workers, and other professional persons also led the drive for public recreation in Chicago. There they were organized into issue—oriented committees that, due to overlapping membership, made for an inbred reform "establishment" on this and all urban reform issues,66 even moreso than was the case in New York. Those represented included private organizations such as the Chicago Woman's Club and the Chicago Civic Federation, a nascent progressive group founded to put city government on a sound "business basis." "67 All saw the need for a "counter—attraction to the 65Charles Stover, "Seward Park Playground at Last a Reality," Charities, X (February 7, 1903), pp. 27—33; New York City, Parks Department, Annual Report, 1903 (New York: Martin Brown, 1904), pp. 10—12. 66See Anthony R. Travis, The Impulse Toward the Welfare State: Chicago 1890—1932 (Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1971), pp. 47-83. 67J. Frank Foster, "An Article on Small Parks Read Before the Chicago Society for School Extension," (n.p., n.d.), pamphlet in Chicago Historical Society. 128 corrupt city environment. The large number of immigrant children in the city, "filling every nook, working and playing in every room . . . pouring in and out Of every "68 constituted a large pOpulation that stood little door chance Of develOping into desirable citizens. Juvenile court workers continually pointed this out. Actually, the reformers were willing to concede the point, and were mainly concerned with preventing bad conduct rather than helping the child grow. Their main concern, said one, was to "get them out Of the streets . . . at all hazards and "69 at_any cost. The playground effort moved more smoothly here than in New York, thanks tO the aforementioned network Of reform groups. In addition, Chicago already had a fairly comprehensive park system, organized into districts since 70 1869. Still, the system had been conceived as a network Of "breathing spaces," rather than play spaces, and most of the parks were far removed from tenement districts. 68Agnes S. HOlbrOOk, ”Map Notes and Comments," in Residents Of Hull-House, Hull-House Maps and Papers (New York: Thomas Crowell, 1895), pp. 5-6. 69Arthur A. W. Drew, "Holliganism and Juvenile Crime: The Only Cure," Nineteenth Centupy, XLII (July, 1900), p. 97. 70Halsey, The Development Of Public Regreation in MetrOpOlitan Chicago, p.—I8. 129 The interest in parks Spurred by the 1893 exposition, while considerable, did not automatically create a drive for playgrounds, which owed their initial presence to settlement efforts. Both Hull House and the Northwestern University Settlement made model playgrounds an integral, though 71 Settlement limited, part Of their neighborhood programs. workers led games and other activities on ill-equipped areas leased or informally lent by philanthropists. This arrange- ment was unsatisfactory, but tO the settlement worker it was a superior alternative to unregulated street play. Moreover, it kept the child away from his crowded home, where he would probably imbibe both bad air and bad morals. The movement received its biggest boost when it was linked to the concern for juvenile crime that resulted in the 1899 juvenile court bill. During this period, recre- ational facilities as a crime deterrent became a virtual article of faith among Chicago reformers. Early in 1898, Jacob Riis addressed the Municipal Science Club, a business and professional men's organization, at Hull House. Blend- ing child study ideas with his own intimate recollections Of the New York slums, he urged the establishment Of a 71Northwestern University Settlement, Circular NO. 6 (June, 1896), p. 13. 130 municipal playground system. The club's president, im- pressed by the argument, said that prudence dictated the logic in favor Of a playground system, calling it a matter Of "intelligent selfishness."72 Speakers at the Woman's Club and the Civic Federation had also convinced them Of the value of the playground in preventing crime.73 Often cited as proof was the reduction of delinquency by one— third in the area Of the small, ill—equipped Northwestern University Settlement playground. Not only were children less disposed toward criminal careers, according to the local police lieutenant, but traffic accidents had de— creased as well.74 Another playground worker quoted police as saying that delinquency was directly proportionate to the lack Of play space.75 Municipal action soon followed. On June 12, 1899, the city council heard a resolution asking for funds to 72Michael P. McCarthy, "Politics and the Parks: Chicago Businessmen and the Recreation Movement," Illinois State Historical Sociepnyournal, LV (Summer, 1972 , pp. 161-62. 73Chicago Woman's Club, Club Minutes (February 24, 1897) in Chicago Woman's Club Mss., Chicago Historical Society. 74Charles Zueblin, "Municipal Playgrounds in Chicago," American Journal of Sociology, IV (September, 1898), p. 155. 751b1d., p. 146. 131 maintain playgrounds in the crowded wards, which were demonstrably short Of play space. The resolutions passed several months later, the council acknowledging that it had been influenced by "numerous movements."76 Soon after, [a "Special Park Commission" was created, consisting Of representatives of civic organizations, the Woman's Club, and the settlements, as well as the already extant park boards. The commission became the leader Of the public recreation movement in Chicago in the progressive period. When stymied in its request for large appropriations by the machine-controlled council, it agitated for and secured the passage of a public bond issue tO finance small park construction.77 The commission's success was due to its stress on play facilities as a form Of social insurance. According tO Mary McDowell of the University Settlement, the playground filled the breach between home and settlement necessary for the assimilation Of the immigrant populace. Testifying in favor Of the playground system, she asserted that the foreign pOpulations "must become more rational in 76Chicago City Council, Proceedin s, 1899-1900 (Chicago: City Council, 1900), pp. 653-5?, 1535-37. 77Special Park Commissioners, Report of the Special Park Commissioners tO the City Council Oflthe Cit O Chicagonyébruary 4,—190I (C Chicago: John F. Higgins, 1901), p. 4. 132 their thinking and acting." TO encourage this process was good sense, in that it made Chicago "more desirable for the home-seeker, and a safer place for business enterprise and deve10pment." In addition, exercise expended on play was far superior tO that "used to bully fellow workers and lead to struggles against law and order."78 The Special Park Commission Opened a number of playground sites beginning in 1902. Working closely with the already extant park commissions, it attempted to place them in crowded areas such as the stockyards district. Dominated by real estate interests, the several commissions were in the meantime both solicitous Of prOperty rights, and cognizant Of the effect Of park placement on land values. Publicly, however, they stressed the crime-prevention aSpects most strongly, the South Park Commissioners citing "conditions found in home life" as a major reason for the 79 Meanwhile, the commissioners ordered play- new parks. ground supervisors to direct the activities in the parks. Team games were encouraged, since they promoted character building and loyalty tO a higher cause.80 Chicago's 78McCarthy, "Politics and the Parks,“ pp. 167-71. 79South Park Commissioners, Annual Rpport, 1904 (Chicago: South Park Commissioners,wI905)p p. 6} 80South Park Commissioners, Annual Re ort, 1905 (Chicago: South Park Commissioners, I906), pp. 48-49. 133 playground system soon attracted national attention, especially when early studies of its effectiveness "proved" that areas with small parks experienced a marked decline in crime. Particularly persuasive was a study which examined the delinquent inmates of the John Worthy School. It found that Six times as many of the boys came from no-park areas than from sections of the city that had parks.81 Obviously then, playgrounds provided a "healthy outlet“ for youthful energies. As one Chicago playground supervisor expressed it: Fighting an athletic battle for the glory and honor of one's neighborhood, as a member Of a well-organized team composed Of one's neighbors, is a long step in advance of fighting for one's self against every one in the neighborhood.82 Complementing the playground movement was the drive for summer "vacation schools" for children. Differing from playgrounds only in that they made use of school facilities idle in the summer, these institutions were justified on grounds similar to that Of playgrounds. Their promoters noted the special dangers to person and property from un- supervised children, asserting that the summer vacation 81"Chicago's Park Commission on River Ward Con- ditions," Commons, VII (June, 1902), pp. 1—3. 82Ernest Poole, “Chicago's Public Playgrounds," Outlook, LXXXVII (November 30, 1907), pp. 726—27. 134 removed the school from consideration as an agency of control. Summer social life in the city intensified the temptations open to children. It was the epitome Of that state of disorderly, inefficient existence seen as charac- teristic Of the working class: . . . half-clad babies Sprawl and disport them- selves among the half-decayed vegetables dis- played for sale outside the doors of the houses and over the sidewalks. The saloons, of which there are many, are literally packed with men, women, and children . . . all is life and sen- sation and motion, a multitude of fiery eyes and inimitable Shrugs bespeak far more than any English tongue can. 3 The summer then, encouraged illicit forms of recreation that led to bad conduct and criminality. Teachers complained that pupils returning to school in the fall had acquired an "unhealthy moral tone and swing of the mind and heart towards immorality." As a result, it Often took until Thanksgiving to restore order. The loss Of the previous year's "good work" in the summer might prove even more grevious, as the pupil might not return to school at all.84 Once again, statistical studies were used to 83“An Italian Colony," clipping in Hull House Scrapbook, III (1895—97) folio 426 in Hull House Association Mss., University of Illinois--Chicago Circle. 84Fred W. Smedley, "The Future of the Vacation School," Child-Study Monthl , III (October, 1986), pp. 294- 97; Graham Taylor,’“By Graham Taylor,“ Chicago Daily News, July 2, 1904 in Graham Taylor Mss., Newberry Library, Chicago. 135 illustrate the danger Of unchecked activity. The Massa- chusetts Civic League, a Boston organization of charity workers and the “civic—minded" appointed a committee on "Juvenile Law—Breaking“ in 1899. It found juvenile arrests increasing greatly in the summer, particularly among boys ten to fifteen years Of age.85 Similar studies in Chicago showed identical results: an increase in summer arrests Of over 60 percent. The child's environment, particularly his home influences, were once again seen as the root cause Of the problem. The slum home "gives no incentive or Op— portunity for understanding what is best in life,‘ asserted the Chicago Woman's Club, a leader Of the vacation school movement.86 Vacation schools were established by the same groups who had promoted playgrounds, and proceeded on the same course of private—to-public funding. In Boston, the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, a coalition Of sectarian 85Joseph Lee, "Preventive Work," Charities Review, X (February, 1901), pp. 586—600; Sadie American, The Movement for Vacation Schools," aperican Journal Of Sociology, IV (November, 1898), pp. 309—26; Lee, Construc— tive and Preventive Philanthropy, pp. 112—15. 86Sadie American, "Vacation Schools in Cities," Commons, II (March, 1898), pp. 3—4; Massachusetts Civic League, Annual Report-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Co—Operative Press, 190077 pp. l7—l8; Chicago Woman's Club, Report of the Chicago Permanent Vacation School Committee of Women's Clubs, 1902 (Chicago: Chicago Women's Clubs, 1902), pp. 7-8. 136 charity organizations, supervised summer playgrounds and playrooms in school facilities. Its purpose was 275 The training camp commissions and the War Camp Community Service, the organization created out of the Playground and Recreation Association of America, were entrusted with providing soldiers with what Baker called an "invisible armor . . . a set of social habits replacing "20 those of their homes and communities. The key to ac— complishing this was the rationalization of the "bewilder- ing environments" of the camps.21 Combining military and civilian authorities in the effort would avoid disruptions of the sort experienced in Europe and maintain the ef— ficiency of the services. Wartime conditions also gave Baker extraordinary powers to deal with the vice problem. The new Selective Service Act contained sections author- izing the president and Baker to ban alcohol in or near camps and to suppress Vice, even when licensed in the community as was the case in many southern areas.22 Ac— cordingly, Baker asked the State Councils of National Defense, set up to manage war—related activities in local ZOIbid. 21Annual Report of the Secretary of War, 1917, (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1918), P. 30. 22William Snow, “Social Hygiene and the War," Social Hygiene Monthly, III (July, 1917), pp. 31—32. 276 communities, and to COOperate to insure that those "who will be at that plastic and generous period of life should be surrounded by safeguards."23 Some communities with licensed vice districts such as El Paso and New Orleans were re- 1uctant to close them, but Baker and Fosdick threatened them with removal of the training camps and the consequent stigma and loss of revenue that would follow.24 However, Fosdick himself admitted that "it is not enough merely to set up "verboten" signs along the road— side,"25 and the major part of the war recreation prOgram concentrated on the maintenance of acceptable forms Of leisure for soldiers.in and out of camp. The training camp commissions administered an extensive athletic program designed both to improve the physical fitness of the draftees (the lack of which was shown in the high rejection —‘ 23See Commission on Training Camp Activities, "Documents Regarding Alcoholic Liquors and Prostitution in the Neighborhood of Military Camps and Naval Stations," pp. 1-5, pamphlet in RaymondyB. Fosdick Mss,,_Princeton University. See New York Times, May 20, 1917, p. 5; Raymond B. 24 Fosdick, Chronicle Of a Genera;iog_(New York: Harper and Brothers, 1958), p. 146. 25Raymond B. Fosdick, "The Commission on Training Camp Activities:. Address at meeting of the Academy of Political Science December 15, 1917," (New York: Academy of Political Science, 1918), pamphlet. 277 rates and the consequent need to lower standards to raise needed manpower), and brought in service organizations such as the Y.M.C.A. to set up facilities such as libraries and Clubhouses. This, said Fosdick, was not a matter of "sentimentality," but "just plain efficiency."26 He argued that it was necessary to provide "adequate expression for the healthy animal spirit" lest it "invariably assert it- "27 In addition, the self in some form of lawlessness. commissions conducted an extensive program of educating soldiers to the dangers of venereal disease. President Wilson had promised that soldiers would return to their homes after the war "with no scars except those won in "28 and the commissions' pamphlets: honorable warfare, movies, and lectures were intended to accomplish this. One movie, "Fit to Fight," was seen by virtually all draftees. It depicted the story of "Hank Simpson,” a naive farm boy convinced by his camp buddies to ignore the warnings of the commission's lecturer and go to town 26See Edward F. Allen, ngping Our Fighters Fit For War and After (New York: Century, 1918), p. . 27Raymond B. Fosdick, "The War and Navy Depart- ment's Commissions on Training Camp Activities," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sc1ence, LXXIX (September, 1918), pp. 130-42; 28 See Fosdick, Chronicle of a Generation, p. 157. 278 "good time." In doing so, he contracts venereal for a disease, and becomes a "useless Slacker" in an army hospital while his fellow trainees eagerly leave for Europe on the troop transport.29 In general, the com- missions' program proved somewhat successful in lowering disease rates, which were far lower among the American forces in Europe than they had been in Mexico, and like— wise less than occurred in European armies.30 Nevertheless, Fosdick understood that supervision within the camps had to be supplemented with organization in surrounding communities. As mentioned, this was the task of the War Camp Community Service, a quasi-Official agency directed by Joseph Lee. Lee's conception of the recreation movement placed it in the context Of organizing community relations, and this made it adaptable to the war situation. According to him, the young enlisted man at the camp, severed from home and community surroundings, presented a threat to the adjacent community analagous to 29Walter Clarke, "Social Hygiene and the War," Social Hygiene Monthly, IV (October, 1918), pp. 259-306. 30Raymond B. Fosdick, "The Fight Against Venereal Disease," New Re ublic, XVII (November 30, 1918), pp. 132- 34; see also Report of the Commission on Training Camp Activities to the Secretary of War (Washington: Govern— ment Printing Office, 1918), p. 4. . 279 that of the unsupervised city child. Lacking those "natural human relations in which a normal life so largely consists, and this at an age at which these relations are of vital and absorbing interest," he was likely to heed his peers' promptings much as the city boy heeded the gang. Camp communities, said Lee, had responded to the problem in the wrong way, as its "good" members and institutions had shunned the soldier while the "bad" did not.31 Instead, as one of Lee's subordinates put it, it was “time for Xville to be interpreted to her guests by her best instead of her . . 32 worst Citizens.“ Enlightened self—interest justified the participation of "civic leaders" in leisure time campaigns. Lee noted that "the atmOSphere which it creates for him will be the one in which it itself must live,‘ and urged communities to order the lives of their residents, not merely the soldiers, in accordance with the recreation movement's concept of service. The War Camp Community Service operated similarly to the pre—war recreation campaigns. Community organizers, lJoseph Lee, "War Camp Community Service," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, LXXIX (September, 1918), pp. 189—91; Lee, "The Training Camp Commissions," Survey, XXXIX (October 6, 1917), pp. 3-7. 32Charles F. Weller, "Permanent Values in War Camp Community Service," Survey, XL (December 7, 1918), pp. 295-96. 280 most of whom had had experience in public recreation drives, worked with selected members of local groups, appointed by Lee, in planning programs. "The great ones of the com- munity, as one organizer referred to them, represented not the whole community but its business and professional sectors. Chambers of Commerce, Rotarians, women's service groups, and professional social workers were the usual 33 sources of support. "Community houses,‘ similar to the school social centers, conducted amusements such as dances, movies, and community songfests, while sub-committees supervised girls' work designed to combat the so-called "lure of the khaki." These groups, usually called "Girls' Protective Bureaus,“ policed recreation areas, provided education to combat "moral dangers," and encouraged ado— lescents to participate in war relief work.34 Communities reluctant to address this problem in the past despite appeals from recreation workers were now forced to do so. 33War Camp Community Recreation Fund, Cam aign Manual (New York: Playground and Recreation ASSOCIation of America, 1917), pp. 6-7, 22—23; War Camp Community Service, A Few of the Things All America Does For the Men in Uniform YNew York: Playground and Recreation Associ- ation of America, 1918), pp. 6-8. 34Henrietta S. Additon, "Work Among Delinquent Women and Girls," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, LXXIX (September, 1918), pp. 152—60. 281 The work of the War Camp Community Service was supplemented by that conducted by local groups under the auspices of the State Councils of National Defense. These agencies also employed persons with extensive backgrounds in social service and public recreation, who saw the war as an Opportunity to eXpand local recreation programs.35 The ideal of neighborhood organization, for example, suddenly gained respect as local "community councils," often centered in the schools, carried the concept of total war to the neighborhood. P. P. Claxton, the United States Commissioner of Education, saw these groups as valuable in mobilizing community sentiment, while President Wilson himself argued that they could "build up from the bottom an understanding and sympathy and unity of purpose."36 The community council was not regarded as a manipulative device but as "localized" democracy. This organization of entire neighborhoods, according to John Collier, promoted "manifoidladjustments--permanent adjustments if we will make them such-—in the direction of constructive citizen- ship.” By connecting recreation with public service, 5Leroy Bowman, "The Neighborhood Association," in NCSW, Proceedings, 1918, pp. 465-69. 36Ida Clyde Clarke, The Little Democracy: A Text:_ Book on CommunityOyganization (New York: D. Appleton, 1918). pp. 243, ll: 282 said Collier, the councils were not vulnerable to the com- plaint of "factory system" agency rule.37 In actuality, the local councils were dominated by business and professional groups, as were the other relief organizations. In Chicago, for example, the City Club was directed to supervise the work. It accepted a Chamber of Commerce plan for the "systematic formation of neighborhood units," administered according to a plan of "38 while in "controlled decentralized civic COOperation, New York the People's Institute was active in coordinating the work. These organizations Sponsored pageants, children's activities, and service functions that local neighborhoods seldom planned themselves, but instead were directed by business-oriented groups.39 Their desired end was not to increase the community's role in planning its affairs, but to promote war spirit and identification with the so-called "civic leaders" who dominated the agencies. 37John Collier, "Community Councils: Democracy Every Day," Survey, XL (August 31, 1918), pp. 604-06; Collier, "The Organized Laity and the Social Expert," NCSW, Proceedings, 1917, pp. 464-69. 38City Club of Chicago, Minutes and Reports of the Civic Committees 1917-18, pt. 2, pp. l90-91, 207 in Chicago City Clfib Mss., Chicago Historical Society. 39Charles F. Weller, "Patriotic Play Week and the War-Time Recreation Drive," Playground, XII (August, 1918). pp. 175-89. ‘ 283 By the end of the war, recreation planners felt that they had fulfilled the aims of the progressive recre- ation movement. One War Camp Community Service organizer said that "community life has received a great impetus,"40 as changes that would have taken many years to occur had taken place during the war. In this sense, of course, the planners were merging the public recreation campaign with the general course of urban progressivism.41 Originally conceived as a "comprehensive program of civic eXpression and communal service,” urban progressivism had, during the war, "put individual wills together." According to George A. Bellamy, the Cleveland settlement leader, this was its greatest accomplishment. The pre-war community, said Bellamy, had been "a mighty population without a great sense of COOperation except in some sudden, tragic im- "42 pulse. The wartime trend, however, had been to create new agencies and institutions insuring continued COOperation. 4OMartha Candler, "The Better Cities Which the War Camp Community Service is Building," American City, XIX (October, 1918), pp- 262-65. 41See Edward Burchard, "Community Councils and Community Centers," in NCSW, Proceedings, 1918, pp. 469-72; Samuel Wilson, "The Community House--An Element in Re- construction," American City, XIX (December, 1918), pp. 467- 70. 2George A. Bellamy, "A Community Recreation Program for Juveniles," in NCSW, Ptoceedings, 1918, pp. 65-68. 284 From this perspective, it is understandable that many in public recreation urged the continuance of wartime govern- mental programs. As was the case with other war agencies, though, the demobilization sentiment plus the business— man's general distrust of government (despite its bene- ficial activities) resulted in the dismantling of the recreation bureaus. Lessons, however, had been learned. Community organization in the leisure sphere continued throughout the twenties in the form of "booster" activi- ties and in the work of social service agencies. War, therefore, had organized communities, but had done so in a manner accelerating the divorcement of decision—making from the members of the communities themselves. In this sense, the war was indeed the climax of the public recre— ation movement. it * * * * * * * * * * * * * 'k * * * * * It is now apparent that the public recreation move— ment failed both to reduce urban crime and to overcome the appeal of commercial recreation by providing wholesome alternatives. Nevertheless, programs analagous to those advocated by the recreation reformers during the first part of the century remain as integral components of govern— mental efforts in the social welfare sector. It is tragic that many of the descriptions of slum life and its effects 285 utilized in this study appear timely today. More un- settling, however, is the fact that analyses of the causes of poverty and deprivation and the prescribed remedies for such ills changed little throughout the years. This work asserts that the public recreation movement was limited in its effectiveness, since it adhered to a network of assumptions concerning American society and its goals that has hampered all major reform movements. An analysis of this ideological structure and its application to the recreation cause is all the more necessary, due to its continued resilience in social thought. In this sense, the study of leisure is a foil to the consideration of the concept of reform in general. All reform movements claim to address the "causes" of the injustices they attack, and the progressive recre- ation movement was no exception. Beginning with the early playground drive, however, the movement confined itself to a concern with the secondary and peripheral mani— festations of deprivation and want. The limitation of the debate concerning the origins of crime to hereditarian- environmentalist parameters precluded an examination of the basic flaws in the urban socio—economic structure. Theories of innate depravity were rejected since they 286 threatened the ideal of equal opportunity central to American belief. The alternative, however, viewed crime as the by-product of aberrant forms of social organiza- tion within the family or neighborhood. The notion of the "depraved" slum-dweller was thereby not rejected, but placed upon an ideologically acceptable plane, as society's need to control the errant child became the assigned task of “reform." The charity organization movement's dis- tinction between the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor was preserved as well, evolving into a definition of "right conduct" contingent upon the child's acceptance of the status quo. Child psychology contributed to this out- look, though perhaps unwittingly, by asserting the need to sympathize with the child's mental struggles. It viewed this understanding as a means to the end of maintaining order. This variety of regimentation precluded a signifi- cant critique of the child's material lot. Therefore, the early playground advocate who saw play as promoting the development of the trait of "resentment against injustice" did not (or perhaps did) realize that the major figures in the playground movement hoped to submerge this impulse. As a result, the burden Of the child "problem" shifted from the social and economic structure to its 287 victims. Holding the parent accountable for his child's legal difficulties was no more humane than the discarded concept of innate depravity. Nevertheless, "adjustment" of populations rather than institutions was perceived as the solution to social problems, and entrusted to social service professionals and educators convinced of the necessity for order. The "eXpert," myopic in his com- mitment to "scientific" analysis, accepted the crime: disease analogy. This encouraged a View of the entire populace as diseased and in need of management. The rigor of scientific scrutiny was circumscribed, therefore, be- ginning not at the causal level but at the symptomatic. This critique of the playground movement does not denigrate the basic premise of providing play space for children. Play, however, is a basic right in and of itself, and should not be viewed as a means to another end, nor as compensation for deprivation. Many of the early playground workers displayed a sincere concern for the city child's lot. Yet,despite its claims, the playground cause did not reduce juvenile lawlessness, proving that socio-economic deficiencies are not easily counterbalanced. Moreover, the social control dimension of the playground campaign was very real. Joseph Lee, its main Spokesman, defined 288 character in terms of acquiescence to an old, hierarchical conception of society, his overt celebration of child-life being an expression of loyalty to a questionable ideal. The initial failure to attack the underlying causes of want insured that later phases of the recreation move- ment, concerned with adolescent and adult leisure, would be refinements of old ideological commitments. Progressives such as Simon N. Patten and Jane Addams succinctly de- scribed the failure of the urban community to generate healthy forms of recreation. Likewise, analysis of ado- lescent amusements, the prostitution problem, and the saloon were often correct in showing how economic miseries led many to participate in unhealthy leisure pursuits. Still, more attention was given to the social disarray that was implied by these studies than to the facts they presented. AS a result, adolescents and adults were judged in need of society's custodianship much as the child had been. The welfare state concept of society's corporate responsibility for its members therefore focused on their behavior rather than their economic well-being. The community recreation drive, as exemplified by the social center, derived from these assumptions. It is difficult to criticize the provision of healthful forms of 289 leisure for adolescents and adults, yet it is apparent that the social center's major commitment was to the minimization of conflict. Social center promoters lacked respect for ethnic and local community tradition. To make this the major point of criticism, however, is to let present-day sensitivities hinder the analysis. Many in- volved in the recreation cause accepted the existence Of these traditions, realizing the folly of destroying older forms of unity. They therefore encouraged the retention of the trappings of ethnicity and neighborhood, while denying the community the power to govern itself. The social centers, as was shown, were controlled not by their patrons but by local business and professional groups de- sirous of a "safe" citizenry. The "civic club" was the ancestor of the "service" organization of the 19205, proof of the consensus-molding possibilities of community recreation. Indeed, with the post-war removal (visible, at least) of the most morally repugnant recreational forms, the attack on commercial recreation waned as it was recognized as a socializing force. Eventually, civic leaders realized that commercial and public recreation were complementary. Recreation is now regarded as a means of assimilating the entire populace into the consumerist mainstream. 290 Much recent scholarship concerns itself with progressivism's commitment to social control. This study, in its scrutiny of the nature and motivation of a signifi- cant reform cause of the period, fits within this trend. The parallels between the leadership structure and method- ology of the recreation movement and that of the period's business hierarchy are obvious. The recreation movement was ideologically consistent with the progressive reform dimension in general, although it drew much of its strength from the middle-class professionals involved in social work. The loss of the dissenting perspective by those directly concerned with social improvement indicates an ideological weakness in the accepted social theory of the period allowing for the absorption of the community worker into consensus politics. In this sense, the de- ve10pment of the modern recreation movement serves as a grim bench mark of the growth and deve10pment of this century's reform tradition in all its manifestations. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY There is no comprehensive historical analysis of the recreation movement. Clarence Rainwater, The Play Movement in the United States (Chicago, 1921) is a useful chronology Of developments, though not an analytical work. Primary material dealing with recreation and peripherally related topics in urban history is plentiful, however. This essay is intended as a topical survey of these materials, roughly corresponding to their usage in this work. Insofar as is possible, sources whose utility ex- tends over several areas will be indicated as such. The interaction between scientific and reform ideas in the late nineteenth century is important to the comprehension of major influences on reformers. General works such as Paul Boller, American Thought in Transition: The Impact of Evolutionary Naturalism 1865-1900 (Chicago, 1969) and R. Jackson Wilson, In Quest of Community; Social Philosgphy in the United States 1860-1920 (New York, 1968) detail the American interpretation of evOlution as pro— gressive and manageable. Of the primary materials Henry Drummond, The Lowell Lectures on the Ascent of Man (New 291 292 York, 1894) was one of the most influential works that took this point of View, albeit it was written by an Englishman. Anthropological studies were likewise useful to those studying child nature and human society in the 18905. Among these are Edward Tylor, Primitive Culture (London, 1873) and the more Specific works dealing with games and amusements such as William W. Newell, Games and Songs of American Children (New York, 1883) and Stewart Culin, Korean Games (Philadelphis, 1895). Another source of new ideas on child nature was education, with which child psycholOgy enjoyed a reciprocal relationship, each influencing the problem-solving pro- cedures of the other. The National Education Association, Journal of Proceedings and Addresses from the mid-18805 through the early years of the twentieth century devoted many sessions to child study, kindergartens, and the mental effects of schooling. G. Stanley Hall presented a number of papers at these meetings. Links between child study and progressive education may be discerned in Francis A. Parker, "The Child" in NEA, Proceedings, 1889 and John Dewey, The School and Society (Chicago, 1899). Also, in 1894 the NEA established a child study department to organize presentations in that area. 293 For the child study movement it is advisable to begin with Dorothy Ross, G. Stapley_Hall:' ThePsycholo- gist as Prophet (Chicago, 1972), by far the best treatment of Hall's career though the shorter study byMerle Curti in his Ths_Socia} Ideas of American EducatO£§_(Paterson, 1959) is also useful. Hall's two seminal essays on child nature are "The Moral and Religious Training of Children," Princeton Review, X (January;.l882) and "The Contents of Children's Minds on Entering School," 33inceton Review,- XI (May, 1883). It is necessary to consult the numbers of the American Journal of Psychology and Psdagogital Seminaty, the journals Hall founded and edited, for detailed studies of child nature and play. The most important are Henry Sheldon, "The Institutional Activities of American Children," Agg, IX (July, 1898) and Hall's joint study with A. Caswell Ellis, "A Study of Dolls," ES, IV (December, 1896). The journals also contain many of the topical syllabi used in data-gathering by Hall and his students. Other works developing the concept of play in psychological thought are Hall, "The Story ofva Sand Pile," Scribnet's, III (June, 1888); "Boy Life in a Massachusetts Country Town Thirty Years Ago,” Proceedings of the Americas Antiquarian Society, n.s., VII (October, 1890); and "Note 294 on Early Memories," Es, VI (December, 1899). In addition, the studies of local child study groups Show the central place of children's play in the movement. These include David Kinley, "Some Social ASpects of Child-Study,” in Illinois Society for Child Study, Transactions, I (December, 1894) and the various works published in gtild-Study Monthly. Karl Groos' two volumes, The Play of Animals (New York, 1896) and The Play of Man (New York, 1898) de— tail the theory of play-as-preparation-for life, which impressed many urban reformers. Writings on the city environment and its effects on urban residents are voluminous. Census figures for the period proved useful in comprehending demographic changes, as did older works such as Adna F. Weber, 2E2 Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Centuty; A Study in Statistics (Ithaca, 1969 reprint of 1899 ed.) and The United States Industrial Commission, Reports . .‘. Os Immigration and Education, Vol. XV (Washington, 1901). Stephan Thernstrom,.The Otter Bostonians: Poverty ass Progress_in the American MstrOpolis (Cambridge, 1973) is a recent work that considers factors other than pOpulation growth in charting demographic changes in the city. Any classification of primary source works on the city in this period must begin with the writings of 295 Jacob Riis. The small collection of his papers in the New York Public Library (the major collection is in the Library of Congress) contains little material of interest, but for some correspondence between Riis and local reform groups. His popular writings, however, both of the in- vestigative variety and the fictional, deal extensively with the consequences of city life for children's growth patterns and the need to direct their play toward con— structive ends. How the Other Half Lives (New York, 1890); The Children of the Poor (New York, 1892); Children of the Tenements (New York, 1903); "The Making of Thieves in New York," Century, XLIX (November, 1894) are among the most noteworthy. The story "Skippy of Scrabble Alley" in Children of the Tenements is Riis' most concise statement of the way in which frustrated play desires evolved into crime. Besides those of Riis, there are a number of other useful works of this genre, including Helen Campbell, Darkness andtDsylight (Hartford, 1891); Robert A. Woods, The Poor in Great Cities (New York, 1895). One of the_ early official investigations of slum life is New York State, Report of the Tenement House Committee as Authorized by the Laws of 1894 (Albany, 1895), while specialized studies of immigrant life such as Carroll D. Wright, "The 296 Italians in Chicago: A Social and Economic Study," Ninth Spscial Report of the Commissioner Of Labot_(Washington, 1897) and the recent study of New York's lower east Side by Moses Rischin, The Promised City:_ New York's Jews 1870- l2l3_(Cambridge, 1963) discuss the response of ethnic . groups to city life. I. N. Phelps Stokes, ed., New York_ Slums: Extracts from Sources to 1905 is a multi-volume compilation of materials available in the New York Public Library. The nature versus nurture controversy and the rise of the environmentalist viewpoint is an important chapter in urban reform. Mark Haller, Eugenics; Heredi: tarian Attitudes in American Thought (New Brunswick, 1963) is an excellent introduction to the subject. Primary materials are most useful, however, especially the Egg: ceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Cor- rection. Among the many papers contained herein are 0. C. McCulloch "The Tribe of Ishmael: A Study in Social De- gradation" (1888); Rev. R. W. Hill, "The Children of 'Shinbone Alley'" (1887); I.N. Kerlin, "The Moral Imbecile" (1890); P. Caldwell, "Duty of the State to Delinquent Children" (1898); and Charles Horton Cooley, "Nature versus Nurture in the Making of Social Careers" (1896). The 297 influence of this debate on criminological theory was profound. The works of William Douglas Morrison, in- cluding Crime and Its Csuses (London, 1891) andJuvenite Offendsrs (New York, 1897) are important statements of the environmentalist theory of the origins of crime as are Bayard Holmes, "Some Sources of the Dependent Classes," Child-Study Monthly, I (October, 1895) and M. P. E. Grossman, "Perversion Through Environment,"~Childetudy Monthly, VI (September, 1900). Thomas Travis, Tte Young Malefactor (New York, 1908), J. A. Puffer, "Boys' Gangs," Es, XII (June, 1905) and James B. Reynolds, "Influence of Tenement House Life on the Nervous Condition of Children," in Illinois Society for Child Study, Transactioss, II (1896). The shaping of the philosophy of charity and social work is discussed in a number of excellent secondary accounts. Roy Lubove, TtstPtpfessional Altruist: Ths Emetgence of Social Wotk as a Careet_(Cambridge, 1965) is the definitive work on the rise of social work as a pro- fession and its ideological background. Robert H. Bremner,. Ftom the Depths: The Discgysrypf Poverty in thstUnitsd_ States (New York, 1956) traces the origins of the charity organization movement, while Nathan Huggins, Protestants 298 Against Poverty; Boston's.Charities 1870-1900 (Westport, 1971) and Anthony R. Travis, The Impulse Toward the Welfare State, Chicago 1880—1932 (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Michigan State University, 1971) are excellent studies dealing with specific locales. Amos G. Warner, American Charities (New York, 1894) is the standard survey from the period itself, in which the environmentalist premises of charity organization are made clear. Joseph Lee, Construc- tive and Preventive PhilanthrOpy (New York, 1902) is a most important work dealing with charity organization, the role of reformers, and changing currents in reform thought in the late-nineteenth-century which also, incidentally, serves as an excellent guide to the thought of one of the most important figures in the recreation movement. Several periodicals were founded in the 18805 and 18905 to promote the exchange of ideas on charity organization, among them Charities, Charities Review, Lend-a-Hand, and The Commons. Josephine Shaw Lowell, "Poverty and Its Relief,l Lend-a— flsgd, XV (January, 1895); Zilpha Smith, "Causes of Poverty," Lend-a—Hand, V (January, 1890); Washington Gladden, "The Plain Path of Reform," Charities Review, I (April, 1892); and H. L. Wayland, "A Scientific Basis of Charity,“ Charities Review, III (April, 1894) are representative of 299 the vieWpoints of important reformers of the 18905 on charity and relief. Manuscript collections of charity and settlement house reformers contain much useful material on the above tOpics and on slum life and urban reform. The Graham Tsylor Mss. (Newberry Library, Chicago) is the best of these, but the Msry McDowell MSS. (Chicago Historical Society); tlllian Wald Mss, (New York Public Library); and the Hull House Association Mss, (University of Illinois--Chicago Circle) are excellent as well. Materials concerned with juvenile courts and peripheral agencies involved in the care of youthful offenders are plentiful. An excellent revisionist work, Anthony Platt, Tts Child Savsgs: The Invsntion of DE: ligguency (Chicago, 1969) sees the modern concept of de- linquency and the juvenile court as less humane than has been preViously assumed, citing reformist distrust of parents and their desire to protect society from disorderly elements as motivating forces in the "child-saving" crusade. The gsvenile Protective Association Mss. (University of Illinois--Chicago Circle) cover an organization which pro- moted the establishment of juvenile courts in Chicago and afterwards transformed itself into a group overseeing the moral influences on the lives of city children. 300 Investigator's notebooks in this collection detail case studies of delinquents and their home environments as seen by court officers. Other useful works in this area include R. R. Perkins, Treatment of Juvenile Delinquents (Chicago, 1906); Louise DeKOVen Bowen, "The Delinquent Children of Immigrant Parents," in NCCC, Proceedings, 1909, and Samuel Dike, "Problems of the Family," Century, n.s. XVII (January, 1890). Ben B. Lindsey, "Childhood and Morality,' in NEA, Proceedings, 1909 represents the views of the most well—known juvenile court judge in the period. The playground movement and its place in urban reform is dealt with in Michael P. McCarthy "Politics and the Parks: Chicago Businessmen and the Recreation Move— ment," Illinois State Historical SocietytJournal, LV (Summer, 1972). It is necessary, however, to rely on the primary material available in the aforementioned manuscript collections (Taylor, McDowell, and Hull House) for most of the information on Chicago's playground movement, as well as the Annual Reports of that city's various park boards, particularly the South Park Commissioners and the Special Park Commissioners. The Annual Reports of the Massachu- setts Emergency and Hygiene Association (1885-98) cover 301 early playground work in Boston and the Msssachusetts Civic League Mss. (Massachusetts Civic League, Boston) cover the post-1900 activities of the group headed by Joseph Lee. For New York, the aforementioned works and manuscripts of Jacob Riis detail the most significant deve10pments, but Walter Vrooman, "Parks and Playgrounds for Children," Century, XLIII (December, 1891), the pre- viously cited Tenement House Committee Report Of 1894, the Committee of Seventy, Report of Sub-Committee on Small Parks, 1895 (New York, 1895), and City of New York, Report of Committee on Small Parks, 1897 (New York, 1897) all contain relevant material. Frederick Law Olmsted, "Parks, Parkways, and Pleasure Grounds," Engineering Magazine, IX (May, 1895) and the documents collected in Roy Lubove, ed., The Urban Community: Housing and Planning in the Pro- gressive Era (Englewood Cliffs, 1967) provide information on the planning of park and playground systems. The playground as a crime-preventing and character building agency is the theme of Stoyan V. Tsanoff, Educa- tional_Value of Children's Playgrounds: A Nobel Plan o: Character Building (Philadelphia, 1897); Charles Stelzle, Bgys 9f the Street: How to Win Them (New York, 1904); and "Public Parks and Playgrounds: A Symposium," Arena, X (July, 1894), in which several key reformers eXpress their feelings. 302 The vacation school crusade is discussed in Sadie American, "The Movement for Vacation Schools, American Joutpsl of Sociolpgy, IV (November, 1898) and in the various annual reports issued after 1898 by the Chicago Woman's Club Permanent Vacation School Committss (which later became the Chicago Society for School Extension). New York Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, In the Dgg-Days: _The Vacation Schoolsy Season 1896 (New York, 1897); Katherine A. Jones, "Vacation Schools in the United States,” Review of Revieys, XVII (June, 1898); and Richard Waterman, Jr., "Vacation Schools,‘ in NEA, Proceedings, 1898 should also be consulted. Joseph Lee's career as a leader in the public recreation movement is detailed in A.V.H. Sapora, "The Contributions of Joseph Lee to the Modern Recreation Movement and Related Social Movements in the United States," (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Michigan, 1952). Published material on Lee, however, is lacking. Barbara Miller Solomon, Ancestors and Immigrants (Cambridge, 1956) discusses his activity in the nativist movement, while John G. Sproat, The "Best Men": Liberal Reformers in the Gilded Ags_(New York, 1968) analyzes the background of patrician reform from which Lee emerged. The 303 previously mentioned Massachusetts Civic League M55. contain useful material on Lee's activities in that organization, including the playground referendum of 1908, as does Kate S. Bingham, "The Playgrounds of Greater Boston," New England Magazine, XL (April, 1909). Recre- ation, XXXI (December, 1937) is a special memorial issue containing otherwise uncollected biographical material. Lee's own writings on recreation and social reform are extensive. "The Philanthropist's Legislative Function," New England Magazine, XXVI (March, 1899) displays the theoretical underpinnings of his thought as does the previ- ously mentioned Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy (New York, 1902). Play and Education (New York, 1915) shows the influence of child study on his concept of play, which he depicted as the prime factor in child develop- ment. Other important works by Lee include "Playground Education," Educational Review, XXII (December, 1901); "Play as an Antidote to Civilization," Playground, V (July, 1911); and "Play as Medicine," Survey, XXVII (November 4, 1911). Henry S. Curtis, "How It Began, Recreation, XXV (May, 1931) details the founding of the Playground Associ— ation of America. The Playground Association of America, 304 Papers of the Chicsgs Meeting, Playground Assoclation of America (New York, 1908) is a collection of addresses and session reports of the initial national convention, in- cluded in which are addresses by Graham Taylor, Joseph Lee, and Luther Gulick on the significance of the nationaliza- tion of the recreation movement. The Playground Association of America, Proceedings of the Second Annual Playground Congress and Year Book, 1908 (New York, 1909) is a single volume collection of addresses for that meeting, and the Proceedings of the third meeting in 1909 were also collected in one volume. Thereafter, addresses delivered at annual meetings were reprinted in Playground, the organization's magazine, itself an important source of information on the movement. Allen T. Burns, ”Relation of Playgrounds to Juvenile Delinquency," Charities and the Commons, XXI (October 3, 1908) was originally delivered at the 1908 meeting, and represents the most important study of its kind in the period. Massachusetts Civic League, ElEXZ. ground Referendum for Cities and Towns of Over Tsp_ Thousand Inhabitants (Boston, 1908) deals with one of the important early projects of the national recreation move- ment, while Henry S. Curtis, "Does Public Recreation Pay?" American City, VIII (February, 1913) aligns the movement with the mainstream of urban progressive reform. 305 Jean Quandt, From thetSmall Town to the Grest Commppity: The Social Thought of Progressive Intellectuals (New Brunswick, 1970) is an excellent study of the pro- gressive concept of community, especially as it developed in conjunction with the Social sciences. Morton and Lucia White, The Intellectual Versus the City: From Thomas Jefferson to Frank Lloyd Wtigtt_(New York, 1964) contains Similar material on the theme of community in an urban setting, and has a particularly good section on Robert Park. Works of and about individual sociologists are helpful. Most important are Charles Horton Cooley, Human Nature and the Social Orger (New York, 1902) and Social Organization (New York, 1909), which represent a critique of social disorganization and assert the need for an organic form of community. Robert E. Park, "The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the Urban En- vironment," American Journal of Sociology, XX (March, 1915) is the classic statement of the ecological view of the city, the background to which is found in Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis and Mental Life," in Kurt H. Wolff, ed., The Sociology of Georg Simmel (Glencoe, 1950). Park D. Goist, "City and Community: The Urban Theory of Robert Park," American Quarterly, XXVII (Summer, 1971) is a 306 worthwhile secondary analysis. Franklin Giddings, The Princlplestof_Sociology_(New York, 1896) puts forth the concept of "consciousness of kind" that was most influ- ential in the sociological thought of the period, while Edward A. Ross, Social Control_(New York, 1901) explores other dimensions of the decline of "community" in modern society. Charles R. Henderson, The Social Spirit_ln America (Chicago, 1904) is a treatment of community by a forgotten but important sociologist. The translation of the sociological concept of community into practical work in community relations is best seen in the writings of important settlement figures. Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (New York, 1910); Robert A. Woods, "The Neighborhood and the Nation," in NCCC, Proceedings, 1909 and "Families and Neighborhoods," Survey, XXII (June 26, 1909); and Edward T. Devine, Tpe Normal Lits (New York, 1915) and The Family and Social Work (New York, 1912) are representative. Simon N. Patten, Product and Climax (New York, 1909) is a particularly important work linking the loss of community to the lack of comprehensive public recreational facilities. Adolescence and its relation to the leisure problem was a major theme in the writings of psychologists and 307 reformers. G. Stanley Hall, Adolescence (New York, 1904-05) was the most influential of the theories of youth in the period. J. S. Kett, "Adolescence and Youth in Nineteenth Century America,‘ in T. K. Rabb and R. I. Rotberg, eds., The Family in History: Interdisciplinary ' Essays (New York, 1973) and John and Virginia Demos, "Adolescence in Historical Perspective," Jsurnal of Marriage and the Famlly, XXXI (November, 1969) are excel- lent secondary accounts. M. V. O'Shea, §gcial Develppment and Education (Boston, 1909) discusses the problems of social adjustment in adolescence, case analyses Of which are given in William Healy, The Individual Delipguest (Boston, 1915) and S. P. Breckinridge and E. Abbott, The Delinquent Childsnd the Home (New York, 1912). The moral hazards of leisure as they related to adolescents were extensively researched in the social surveys of the period. The Chicago City Club Mss. (Chicago Historical Society) and the gpyenile Protective Associatios Mss. (University of Illinois--Chicago Circle) contain materials detailing the methods, scope, and findings of such surveys. Some were reported in pamphlet form such as Louise DeKoven Bowen, Five and Ten Cent Theatres (Chicago, 1909) and A. P. Drucker, On the Trail of the 308 Juvenile-Adult Offendst_(Chicago, 1912). Russell Sage Foundation studies such as Josephine Goldmark, Boyhood and Lawlessness (New York, 1914) and Ruth True, The Neglected Girl_(New York, 1912) are likewise useful, as are the sections dealing with leisure in the various volumes of Paul U. Kellogg, ed., The Pittsburgh Survey (New York, 1914), and the Specialized study by Michael M. Davis, The Esploitstlpn of Pleasurs_(New York, 1911). Roy Lubove, "The Progressives and the Prostitute," Historian, XXIV (August, 1962) and John C. Burnham, "The Progressive Era Revolution in American Attitudes Toward Sex," Journal of American Histpry, LIX (March, 1973) detail the background of the period's vice investigations. The Committee of Fourteen Mss. and The Committee of Fifteen Mss. (both in the New York Public Library) are large collections containing investigative reports, affidavits, and other materials on prostitution. Chicago Vice Commission, The Social Evil in Chicago (Chicago, 1911) is a one-volume report of findings in that city. Attempts to explain vice as originating in habits of leisure are Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (New York, 1909) and Louise DeKoven Bowen, The_Straight Girl on the Crgpkeg‘ Path:_ A True Story (Chicago, 1916). George Kibbe Turner, 309 "The Daughters of the Poor," McClure's, XXXIV (November, 1909) is a muckraking treatment of the vice problem. The saloon as a leisure institution is the subject of William B. Harrison, "The Social Function of the Saloon," (1898), found in the Chicago Commons Mss, (Chicago Historical Society). This work, along with E. C. Moore, "The Social Value of the Saloon," smerlgan Journal_of Sociology, III (July, 1897) and Mary K. Simkhovitch, The City Workerts World is America (New York, 1917) asserted that the saloon fulfilled a community need, and that a substitute insti- tution rather than repression was necessary. The growth of the recreation movement from the playground stage to the community planning period is seen in the exhortations of Simon N. Patten in Tpe New Basis of Civilization (New York, 1905) and J. R. Richards, "The Aim and Scope of the Recreation Movement," Playground, X (January, 1917). The origins of community recreation programs are traceable to the public lecture system in the New York schools, material on which is found in the Hsnry M. Leipziger Mss. (New York Public Library). Walter Lippmann, A Preface to Politics (New York, 1912) outlines the basic progressive argument in favor of public action in the leisure sector. 310 The background to the social center movement is discussed in Joel Spring, Education_and the Rise of ths Corporate State (Boston, 1973), a study of the social control dimension in progressive educational programs; and in Sidney C. Sivertson, Community Civics: Educatiop for Social Efficiency (Unpublished Ph.D. dissertatiOn, University of Wisconsin, 1972). The boost given to social center programs by the efficiency movement iS Shown in Raymond E. Callahan, Edutstipptapd the Cult of Efficiepty. (Chicago, 1962) and Simon Patten, "An Economic Measure of School Efficiency," Educational Reyisy, XLI (May, 1911). Ellwood P. Cubberley, Ctanging Conceptions of Educatipp_ (Boston, 1909) shows the new attitude toward wider use that arose among educators. William Wirt, "Utilization of the School Plant," in NEA, Proceedings, 1912 represents the viewpoint of the Gary, Indiana superintendent considered the major specialist in school efficiency. For the background to the social center movement in Rochester,see Blake McKelvey, Rochester: The Quest for Qpality,_1890-l905 (Cambridge, 1956) and Edward Stevens, Jr., "Social Centers, Politics, and Social Efficiency in the Progressive Era, Historytpf Educatipn_Quarterly, XII (Spring, 1972). The Rochester Board of Education, g, .-- _‘w—~.H 311 Proceedings, (Rochester, 1907-10) and Annual Pepptt (Rochester, 1907-10) detail the movement's rise and fall as does the local newspaper, the Rochester Union-Advertiset, Most of the material on Rochester's social centers is found in the writings of Edward J. Ward, especially The Social Center (New York, 1913); "The Rochester Social Centers," in Playground Association of America, Proceedings of the Third Annual Playground Congress and Year_Book, 1909 (New York, 1910); "The Little Red Schoolhouse," Survey, XXII (August 7, 1909); and "The Schoolhouse as the Civic and Social Center of the Community," in NEA, Proceedings, 1912. John Dutko, Socialism in Rochestet 1900-1917 (M.A. thesis, University of Rochester, 1953) is the best account of the controversy leading to the closing of the centers. Actual center activities are discussed both in the aforementioned works and in League of Civic Clubs, Pschester Social Centers and Civic Clubs: The Story of the First_Two Years_(Rochester, 1909), as well as in Common_Gppg, the social center magazine. Ray Stannard Baker, "Do It For Rochester," smerican_Magazins, LXX (February, 1910) and Henry S. Curtis, "The Neighbor- hood Center," American City, VII (August, 1912) are repre- sentative reformist views of the social center phenomenon. 312 The expansion of the movement is chronicled in Clarence A. Community-recreational activities in New York are detailed in the Pesplels Ipstitute Mss. (New York Public Library), a large collection within which the writings of John Collier and the reports of civic committees are most im- portant.‘ John Collier and Edward A. Barrows-,Th‘e-City~ Where Crime is Play (New York, 1914) isrepresentative of the views of the People's Institute on the community_recre- ation problem and Collier's study "City Planning and the Problem of Recreation," éflfl§l§.0§.Fh? Ameripsp'Acadsmy o: Pplltical and SpeiellSpispes,-LI (January, 1917) exhibits the linkage between public recreation_and city promotion that is at the nascent stage during the progressive period. The Raymppd_BttFosdick Mss. (Princeton University) contain much material on Fosdick's-activities as chairman of the Commission on Training Camp Activities and his autobiography, Chronicle of s Generation (New York, 1958) is also useful. For the social service professional's_view of the war see Robert A. Woods, "Address," NCSW, Proceedings, 1917, and Edward T. Devine, "Social Forces,V Survey,-XXVIII (June 20, 1917). U.S. Children's Bureau, gsyeniletDs:_ linquensy in Certain Couptries at Wsr; A Brief Rsyiew of Available Foreign Sources (Dependent, Defective, and Delinquent Classes series no. 5; Washington, 1918) surveys the effects of war on child—life, as does W. D. Lane, "Making the War Safe for Childhood v. Delinquency in War Time," Survey, XXVIII (August 8, 1917). The background to the military vice problem is studied in M. J. Exner, "Prostitution and its Relation to the Army on the Mexican Border," Social Hygiene Monthly, III (April, 1917). The government's view of the situation is presented in Newton D. Baker, "Invisible Armor," Survey, XXXIX (November 19, 1917) and Raymond B. Fosdick, "The Fight Against Venereal Disease," New Republic, XVII (November 30, 1918). The war activities of community organizations are chronicled in Playground, XII (1917—18 inclusive) and in Joseph Lee, "War Camp Community Service," Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, LXXIX (September, 1918) and Lee, "The Training Camp Commissions," Survey, XXXIX (October 6, 1917). See also War Camp Community Recreation Fund, Campaign Manual (New York, 1917) and War Camp Community Service, AsPsy of the Things All America Does For the Men in Uniform (New York, 1918). The work of collateral organizations is discussed in John Collier, "Community Councils: 314 Democracy Every Day, Survey, XL (August 31, 1918) and Edward Burchard, "Community Councils and Community Centers," NCSW, Proceedings, 1918. Community organiza- tion in general, including its methodology, is the subject of Ida Clyde Clarke, The_LAiAttletpemosrac_:y (New York, 1918). an! .., u mflafimwj .a; 111-...- M’m SC" 1‘ ‘ mm. A: 1 ..., ""1“: x 2......“..:.. I“ ~-.»... —....v.._ m _ “M... . ‘3‘ : --. -4 -.. .L m uwmwnwxv—rennuu‘ 2‘“ mutwr-r": ....‘1‘:;L“._‘L.1-L-p1_nfia- ”\‘v‘ m 4". p... ‘-~~-\ - w Anr \I uuv'r v—w».