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A New Deal for Washington If Washington is to represent us fairly among the great world capitals; if it is to have the appeal it should have to the pride and affection of our own people, it must provide dignified,spacious,comfortableliving conditionsfor thosewhose work calls them here or whose inclination prompts them to become residents. The prestige and appeal of the capital do not lie wholly in its governmental structures,but dolielargelyin its dwellings.Thelattercover by farthe largestpart of its area and in many ways make the strongest and most lasting impression. John Ihlder, to the National Capital Park and Planning Commission, September 21,1929 If the movement [forhousingreform]gainsheadwayit isconceivablethat fromthe ashes of this depression new cities may rise, and that new standards of comfort, cleanlinessand beauty will replace the cheap,slovenlyhovels that mar every city Washingtor1Star, editorial, April 20,1930 Historians have frequently criticized Franklin Roosevelt's administration for its shortcomings in advancing urban planning. For all its attention to national planning, the New Deal remained largely indifferent to physical planning in local areas, a factor no less true of Washington than the rest of the country1Roosevelt's term of office brought with it, however, attention to social needs largely missing at the national level for the previous twenty years. By responding especially to the nation's housing crisis through the creation of public housing, the New Deal broke new ground in social policy By making Washington a leading example, the national government inspired hope for the solution of one of the city's as well as the nation's most intractable problems. Washington's experience revealed, however, the limits of public housing reform, as it failed to satisfy either those the policy was intended to help or the most vociferous critics of substandard housing. In October 1929,with the nation suffering from the outset of the depression , U. S. Grant 111, executive officer of the National Park and Planning Commission, wrote Frederick Olmsted Jr. to announce that the commission , after a period of indifference to housing problems, was about to take up the issue. For fifteen years the District Commissioners had attempted to rid the city of alley dwellings, he charged, but "they have allowed themselves to be checkmated in their very weak effort to obtain results from the original law. ...It is evident that somebody else has to do something about it, and that is why our Commission is making the investigation and preparing legislation."2 Undoubtedly Grant's interest in the alleydwellingswas spurred by his associationwith housing activist Charlotte Hopkins3 and by the publication in January 1929 of a new study of alley conditions by Howard University professor William Henry Jones. The report represented a new departure in the cooperation of black and white civic leaders, including Mrs. Hopkins, but it retained the moralistic overtones of the earlier era by denouncing "a certain retrograde kind of Negro culture. They are now the habitats of a classofpeoplewho are unable, or do not wish to measure up to white cultural standards."4 To promote new action in Washington's festering slums, Grant turned to John Ihlder, one of the pioneers in a new generation of professional housing advocates. Inspired to enter the field through a meetingwith Jacob Riis, Ihlder first commented on housing reform as a reporter for the Netv York Evening Sun. Following a stint as secretary of the Municipal Affairs Committee of the Board of Trade in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Ihlder returned to New York in 1910 to serve as field secretary for the new National Housing Association under the tutelage of its founder, Lawrence Veiller.A three-year appointment as director of the Philadelphia Housing Association , a private philanthropic organization, brought to his attention the plight of war workers, especially blacks recently arrived from the South. Recruited with Mrs. Hopkins's support to head the new Department of Civic Development for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in 1920,in 1925he formed a joint committee with the American Civic Association to investigate ways finally to eliminate slum buildings in Washington's back alleys.5 He played a role in drafting the bill to create the National Capital Park and Planning Commission and was one of those Olmsted recommended for inclusion on the first board. Passed over for that position, Ihlder left Washington to head the Pittsburgh Housing Association in 1927.In response to Grant's invitation, he served as a consultant to the NCPPC on housing until his return to the city in...

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