In this module we study the roots of federal housing policy in Depression-era politics and follow the story forward into the 1960s.

1. Module 14.1
Public Housing and the disappearing public
A R T 1 0 0
U n d e r s t a n d i n g V i s u a l C u l t u r e

2. agenda 3.28.15
first federal housing policy during the Depression
attempting to provide housing for the millions evicted
attempting to articulate housing as a basic right
USHA 1937: mechanism for funding public housing
housing ignites during WWII to provide housing for war
workers
Brewster-Douglass, Detroit, MI
Pruitt-Igoe, St. Louis, MO
Cabrini-Green, Chicago, IL [next time]

3. The Great Depression
October 29, 1929: "Black Tuesday" stock market crash.
Shortages in money supply and credit. Many bankruptcies
and shrinking businesses. Workers laid off; 25%
unemployment by 1932.
• No jobs.
• No money for rent or mortgage payments.
• No money for food.
• No money for clothing.
President Herbert Hoover thought it would blow over..

4. The breadline was a common sight.

6. Margaret BOURKE-WHITE, Breadline during the Louisville Flood, 1937

7. Great Depression:
impact on housing
Between 1928 and 1933:
• residential construction activity plummeted by 95%.
• one million households foreclosed upon.
By Spring 1933:
• 50% of all home mortgages were in default.
• rate of 1000 foreclosures/day.

9. Hoover's response, 1932
was probably insufficient.
Federal Home Loan Bank Act (assisted banks with
mortgage lending by creating a credit reserve).
Emergency Relief and Construction Act (loans to
nonprofits building low-income housing).

10. "Hooverville," Sacramento, CA
The distinctive architecture of President Hoover's administration: the shanty.

11. "Hooverville," Seattle, WA, 1931-1941

12. "Hooverville," St. Louis, MO, on Mississippi River

13. "Hooverville," Central Park, NY, 1932

14. "Hooverville,"
Elm Grove, OK
1936

15. location of
Chicago's
Hooverville,
Grant Park at
Randolph St.

17. 1933
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (we usually call him "FDR") was
elected. Put forward a wide range of policies and programs
to create a "social safety net".
origins of: unemployment insurance, public housing, public
assistance, aid to the elderly and disabled

18. New Deal
"New Deal": sea change in reach of federal government
1. Asked Congress to repeal Prohibition.
2. TVA: public project to build hydroelectric dams in one of
the poorest regions of the country.
3. Agricultural Adjustment Act. Paid farmers NOT to plant to
end agricultural surpluses that were depressing crop prices.

19. New Deal, continued
4. National Industrial Recovery. Guaranteed the right to
unionize and bargain collectively for higher wages and better
working conditions. Suspended some antitrust laws (in other
words, allowed some monopolies) and established PUBLIC
WORKS ADMINISTRATION (government-funded
infrastructure projects.)
5. Glass-Steagall Banking Bill (commercial banking
separated from investment banking.)
6. Home Owners' Loan Act.
first 100 days

20. THE PUBLIC WORKS ADMINISTRATION (PWA) focused on large-scale
construction projects, including bridges and dams. In 1934, work began on the
Grand Coulee and Boneville Dams along the Columbia River.

21. Hoover Dam (originally Boulder Dam) was built at the height of the Great Depression,
employing a total of 21,000 men during its five years of construction.

22. Created by Franklin Roosevelt in 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps put
more than 3 million young men to work during the Great Depression.

23. CCC
Established in 1933, the CCC was initially open to
unmarried, unemployed men between the ages of 18 and
25.
Participants had to send $22 to $25 of their $30 monthly
allowance back to their families.
CCC volunteers were divided into companies typically
numbering 150 to 200 men.

24. CCC in Illinois
soil erosion control projects on farmland
construction of lodges and trails at Pere Marquette, Giant
City, and Starved Rock
tree planting
Camp Eureka, located east of the Mackinaw River on the
north side of what is now U.S. 150, served northwestern
McLean County and parts of Woodford and Tazewell
counties.
Many Camp Eureka volunteers gained 10 to 15 pounds
during the first two months of camp life, testament to the
widespread malnutrition and hunger average Americans
faced during the Great Depression.

25. CCC volunteers at Camp Leroy in Illinois
creating control measures for soil erosion.

26. CCC project in Illinois during the Great Depression.

27. 1935 Second New Deal
WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION (WPA)
• provided jobs, built post offices, schools, and
infrastructure like bridges, highways and parks.
• also employed artists, writers, directors, and musicians
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT to set terms by which
unions and employers would interact.
SOCIAL SECURITY ACT
• created pensions for old age
• system of unemployment insurance
• care of dependent children and the disabled

28. The Works Progress
Administration spent more
than $4 billion dollars on
highway, road and street
projects.

29. New York City's Triborough Bridge was one of the biggest WPA projects.

30. WPA workers on the job.

31. 1936
Despite aggressive investment in jobs programs, the
Depression continued.
Severe labor unrest.
December 1936: the United Auto Workers started a sit-down
strike at a GM plant in Flint, Michigan that lasted for 44 days
and was joined by 150,000 autoworkers in 35 cities. By 1937,
8 million workers had unionized.

32. when/how does it end?
We enter World War II against Japan and Germany after the
bombing of Pearl Harbor, end of 1941.
The war machine cranks up. Full employment.

33. internal company morale poster,
Westinghouse Corp.
J. Howard Miller
1943

40. Along with exhorting Americans
to save and conserve, gardening
was promoted as a patriotic
measure.

42. HOLC (1933)
HOME OWNERS' LOAN CORPORATION (HOLC).
A government-sponsored corporation established in 1933 to
refinance home mortgages that were in default (preventing
foreclosure).

43. FHA (1934)
FEDERAL HOUSING ADMINISTRATION (FHA)
The FHA was created in 1934 to stimulate the building
industry. How?
• insuring mortgage loans made by banks—increasing
number of loans with better terms
• smaller down payments, longer repayment periods
• minimum standards for housing construction

44. “There are far-reaching problems still with us for which
democracy must find solutions if it is to consider itself
successful. For example, many millions of Americans still live
in habitations which not only fail to provide the physical
benefits of modern civilization but breed disease and impair
the health of future generations. The menace exists not only
in the slum areas of the very large cities, but in many smaller
cities as well. It exists on tens of thousands of farms, in
varying degrees, in every part of the country.”
—FDR, State of the Union Message
January 6, 1937

45. "I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-
clad, ill-nourished. . . . The test of our
progress is not whether we add more to
the abundance of those who have much;
it is whether we provide enough for those
who have too little.”
—FDR, Second Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937

46. "Springwood," FDR's home in Hyde Park, NY, built 1800; 1845; 1866; 1915

47. USHA (1937)
UNITED STATES HOUSING AUTHORITY (USHA) provided
$500 million in loans for low-cost housing projects across the
country. How?
USHA was the loan- granting agency to state and local
housing authorities to build low-cost housing in both small
and large urban areas.
Loans could be as much as 90% of project costs, at low-
interest and on 60-year terms.

48. USHA gets started
By the end of 1940, over 500 USHA projects were in
progress or had been completed, with loan contracts of $691
million.
Program was supposed to be self-sustaining through the
collection of rents: 50% rent from the tenants themselves,
33.33% paid by Federal government; and 16.66% paid by
the localities themselves.
During World War II, the USHA was instrumental in planning
and constructing housing for defense workers.

49. FDR
"Second Bill of Rights"
State of the Union
January 11, 1944

50. FDR
"Second Bill of Rights"
State of the Union
January 11, 1944

51. the role of race
The Great Migration
characteristics of Northern racism vs Southern racism

52. Great Migration
When the Emancipation Proclamation was signed
(January 1, 1863) fewer than 8% of US African-American
population lived in the Northeast or Midwest.
By 1900, 90% of all African- Americans still resided in the
South.
Western Migration, 1879-1881, about 60,000 African-
Americans moved into Kansas and Oklahoma Indian
Territories in search of social and economic freedom.

53. African-American population density, by county, based upon 1900 census data

54. US Census Bureau, Data Visualization Gallery,
https://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/020/

55. Great Migration
steady stream with massive waves around WWI and WWII
when high-paying jobs were plentiful
PHASE I: 1910-1940
PHASE II: 1940-1970

56. hope of freedom
"The North symbolized to me all that I had not felt or seen; it
had no relation to what actually existed. Yet by imagining a
place where everything is possible, it kept hope alive inside
of me."
—Richard Wright

57. Jacob Lawrence, The Great Migration, 1940-1, panel 3

58. Jacob Lawrence, The Great Migration, 1940-1, panel 23

59. race, 2010
http://demographics.coopercenter.org/DotMap/index.html
complete map
http://www.wired.com/2013/08/how-segregated-is-your-city-
this-eye-opening-map-shows-you/
map presented with commentary & city jpegs

60. DETROIT
The Story of Brewster-Douglass

61. Protest signs outside the Sojourner Truth Housing Project, 1942
Detroit, MI
Racism is a reality in the industrial North.

62. Brewster-Douglass, Detroit
Project developed in phases, beginning with low-rise
apartment rows, ending with high-rise towers.
Existing neighborhood cleared: Black Bottom—the
commercial strip was known as Paradise Valley.
Current residents objected, but did not have a voice in the
decision.
Segregated housing project for African-Americans.
First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt attended the "clearing"
ceremony.

63. Hastings Street, the core of "Paradise Valley," Detroit, MI, c. 1950
This place wasn't broken. Why did it need fixing?

64. Hastings Street area, after the construction of I-75 and I-375

65. Brewster Project
Design by Harley, Ellington & Day of Detroit.
Low-rise apartment blocks, begun in 1935, was completed in
1938.
Expansion, completed in 1941, brought the total number of
housing units to 941.

66. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt with a child from the redeveloped area.

67. Brewster Homes, 1939: the first wave of construction for war workers

68. 2 story rowhomes. Exterior lawns are not grown in yet.

69. Frederick Douglass
Apartments
The Frederick Douglass Apartments, built immediately to the
south of the Brewster Project, began construction in 1942
with the completion of apartment rows, two 6-story low-rises,
and finally six 14-story high rises completed between 1952
and 1955.
The combined Brewster-Douglass Project was five city
blocks long, and three city blocks wide, and housed
anywhere between 8,000 and 10,000 residents.

70. Douglass Towers, last remaining 4 towers, 2010 (now demolished)

71. qualifications for residency
Detroit Housing Commission initially required one parent
for each family to be employed.
Housekeeping inspections; "moral" fitness

72. Brewster Homes
1991 the original Brewster Project was demolished
1994 250 new townhomes renamed the "Brewster Homes."

73. ST. LOUIS
The Story of Pruitt-Igoe

74. Pruitt-Igoe
1952 city began clearing the old DeSoto-Carr
neighborhood.
57-acre complex of 33 11-storey buildings.
2,868 apartments for low-income people.
Mayor Joseph M. Darst said, "These two projects are
tangible evidence of progress in the continuing war
against slums and decay."

75. An aerial view of the Pruitt and Igoe housing complexes under construction
northwest of downtown, August 1954.

76. sketch for "open gallery concept"

77. One of the first
families to move
into Pruitt
October 1954

78. Igoe Homes in July 1955, 10 buildings with
apartments for 1,132 families.

79. Tenant in her living room in Igoe, 1967.

80. using the stove for heat,
January 1970

81. January 1970
severe weather caused pipes to freeze,
then burst, damaging electrical systems
and heat

82. Demolition of Pruitt-Igoe, April 1972

83. Children walk by piles of rubble on Oct. 5, 1972. Why is the debris still there?

84. "The Pruitt-Igoe Myth"
(2011)
dir. Chad Freidrichs
https://vimeo.com/39276340
Site tour
https://vimeo.com/18356414
Trailer for documentary