Beautification and Regional Identity:
Conflict and Compromise in the United States during the City Beautiful Era
Julian C. Chambliss
Rollins College
Historians have created an abundant literature exploring the transformation caused by industrialization from the walking city of Sam Bass Warner, Jr., to the suburban communities of Kenneth T. Jackson.[1] In recent years, city planning history has placed new emphasis on beautification as a means to understand the interplay between middle-class community demand and the creation of municipal policy.[2] While city planning’s origins have long been associated with urban infrastructure improvements and utopian community ideas, this paper explores how the beautification movement that emerged between 1900 and 1915 altered public perceptions and pushed an aggressive urban re-development agenda. Here we consider the justification and promotion that beautification offered to urban residents in their attempts to address both physical congestion and social turmoil associated with industrialization and urbanization. Moreover, by considering the broader beautification idea in two regional cities, this paper examines the scope of civic aesthetic ideas at the height of City Beautiful Movement acceptance in the United States.[3] Broadly defined, the City Beautiful Movement was a Progressive reform agenda that united architecture and urban planning that flourished between 1890 and 1920 with the intent of using beautification and monumental statuary to counteract the perceived moral decay of poverty-stricken urban environments. The movement, initially closely associated with Washington, DC, did not seek beauty for its own sake, but rather as a social control device to promote moral and civic virtue among urban population.
Thus, while beautification may seem far removed from the social issues associated with progressive reform, City Beautiful supporters such as John Carrere argued, that “a beautiful park awakens the desire for a lovelier home-garden, and the wish for a beautiful home grows into the wish for a beautiful street and every other development will be influenced …”[4] This allowed beautification to be a crucial starting point for creating the communities many Americans believed nurtured greatness. These ideas were not unique to the Progressive Era; instead they were an extension of nineteenth-century ideas about managing community space. As American cities became populated industrial centers in the nineteenth-century, a variety of institutional actors and experts emerged to direct growth. These actors represented public health, real estate value, and architecture questions that were raised as municipalities wrestled with large-scale special purpose projects needed to address specific problems created by rapid urbanization. Improving the water supply, controlling sewage, providing public park systems, transportation, civic art, and other considerations were addressed in a piecemeal manner. Because such efforts were never systematic however, their effects could not be designed to insure long-term community health.
As concerns grew about urbanization Americans weighed the cost of rapid growth against a chorus of social reformers who promised dire consequences if radical improvements were not made to urban life. Reformers such as Lucy Fitch Perkins stressed, “the ordered beauty of a modern city must [by] necessity rest upon the ethical foundation of good municipal government.”[5] National figures such as settlement house workers Jane Addams, planning advocate Charles Mulford Robinson, and tenement reformer Jacob Riis promised middle-class residents that the American city could be redeemed through municipal action. They stressed that working-class residents could be saved by creating stronger municipal governments that supported community health and civic stability. Such proclamation emphasized that city and town beautification provided a cultural education that stimulated the desire to abandon provincial ideas and create urban spaces that realized, in physical form, the values that made the United States unique. This transformation required urban re-development and pushed middle-class activism to support comprehensive city plans as tools of civic education.
Middle-class reformers worked through organizations such as the American Civic Association (ACA), to champion, what organization president J. Horace McFarland described as “public-spirited work” to improve the physical and spiritual health of American cities.[6] With economic upheavals of the 1890s still fresh in the minds of middle-class Americans, businessmen eagerly joined the ranks of the ACA believing clean streets, comfortable homes, and civic beauty were as valuable to commerce as railroads and factories.[7] These economic motives were linked to middle-class women’s efforts to promote cleanliness in congested neighborhoods. Cleanliness campaigns across the country emphasized personal hygiene as one of the keys to citizenship and middle-class women believed stable social behavior was a by-product of beautifying urban space. The linkage between commerce and culture created a planning agenda that bridged the gap between ad hoc economic development and broader health, safety, and livability issues championed by progressive reformers.
These ideas provided the foundation for action when Franklin MacVeagh, president of the Municipal Art League and member of the ACA, proposed the creation of a comprehensive city plan to the Commercial Club of Chicago. Spurred on by the success of city plans created for Cleveland and San Francisco, he argued Chicago needed a similar framework to guide its growth.[8] The club turned to Daniel H. Burnham, designer of the Cleveland and San Francisco city plans, to create a comprehensive city plan. A long-time resident, Burnham was an established advocate for city planning in the United States and eagerly accepted the assignment. Since the Columbian Exposition, he called for community leaders to address congestion concerns through civic improvement projects designed to teach residents to “learn to like and take care of each other” through “harmonious external conditions.”[9]
By 1906, civic beautification in the US had matured as activists from diverse background were united in a comprehensive city plan movement.[10] Supported by civic improvement groups, projects like Burnham’s became a central part of the City Beautiful Movement. A team of architects, lawyers, and artists labored to create a comprehensive plan that would insure Chicago’s economic and cultural future. These efforts were not universally lauded; supporters were forced to defend city plans from critics who feared a comprehensive plan would impose a crushing tax burden. Burnham and his supporters stressed that a comprehensive plan encouraged municipal efficiency.[11] Emphasizing efficiency, plan supporters emphasized that modern technology allowed municipalities to control development, create better environmental conditions, and direct resource allocation.[12]
Proponents argued that municipalities needed to correct man-made failures by using their policing powers, applied through a comprehensive plan, to serve the public’s interests. Thus, the promise of a “healthy and beautiful city” became a rallying cry that represented an aesthetic vision linked to new municipal policies that were above petty politics and geared toward progressive outcomes.[13] The street improvements, municipal art, grand civic architecture, and parks systems demanded under the beautification agenda championed were fuelled by an aggressive process of foreclosures and condemnation for the greater good.[14]
In 1909, the Chicago Plan’s completion was heralded as a supreme achievement in the City Beautiful Movement, so much so, the mayor created the Chicago Plan Commission, an advisory board funded by the Commercial Club and charged with “harmonizing conflicting interests” and shaping the plan’s presentation and implementation.[15] Drawn from business and political leaders, the plan commission had no decision making powers, instead commissioners embarked on an education campaign designed to emphasize that city planning was, in the words of city planning advocate Charles Mulford Robinson, not about “billboards and pavements,” but instead offered to re-develop cities along “scientific lines” for maximum convenience, service, and cultural life.[16]
While the commission never missed a chance to stress the plan’s progressive themes, implementation fell far short of the community enrichment goals reformers desired. Indeed, housing activists searching for humane housing policies were frustrated by the plan commission’s refusal to address overcrowded and dangerous tenement housing.[17] Critics observed that reform language was used to promote the city plan, but the Chicago Plan Commission manipulated progressive goals to serve elite interests, promoting some projects and ignoring others.[18]
The Chicago Plan Commission divided the city plan into stages in an effort, they argued, not to overwhelm public support. Yet, the first stage did not deal with pressing social issues; instead these projects focused on infrastructure improvements in the central business district. The first, the widening of Twelfth Street was instantly controversial. The Chicago Housing Association described Twelfth Street as an area filled with “dilapidated habitation” overlooking “garbage piles” that deprived light and ventilation to local residents.[19] Perhaps more important, Twelfth Street was a vital artery feeding Michigan Avenue and the planning commission argued re-development offered a “tonic” to congestion, grappling with the areas’ problem before a devastating calamity required more drastic action.[20]
Such sentiments struck a responsive chord with middle-class residents. Yet, working-class residents living in the area questioned what public benefits were offered by re-planning their community. The plan commission argued the targeted area’s blight undermined the community’s aesthetic and used this assertion as justification for condemning property. Although aesthetic concerns were an accepted basis for municipal condemnation by 1910, the Chicago Plan Commission pushed beyond the air, noise, and visual pollution protection established in US courts in their advocacy for the comprehensive plan.[21]
Twelfth Street residents believed the proposed improvements unfairly burdened working-class neighborhoods arguing those most affected by the commission’s recommendations were Bohemians, Italians, and Jews according to, M. Meyerovitz, president of the Twelfth Street Property Owner Association, “laboring men, who through hard work have accumulated a thousand dollars and have brought [themselves] a little home.”[22] In response, the plan commission argued beautification offered benefits to working-class residents that outweighed inconveniences.[23] Each side accused the other of self-interest, yet the progressive appeal used by the plan commission clearly worked in its favor. Indeed, the president of the Twelfth Street Association felt compelled to explain that working-class residents believed in civic pride and civic spirit, but they did not want to sacrifice their possessions to achieve these goals.[24] Despite such objections, the plan commission director, Charles H. Wacker explained bluntly, “You cannot improve condition without some slight inconvenience. Every city has to do it; we will have to do it to maintain our commercial supremacy.”[25]
The effectiveness of this argument was undeniable as the city consistently defeated court challenges from disgruntled residents affected by the Chicago Plan. The success of the Chicago Plan sparked a resurgence of stalled city plans and inspired new ones across the country. Regardless of municipalities’ size, community leaders saw the Chicago Plan as a model of planning success and sought to emulate it. In response, the commission promoted the exchange of city planning information across the U.S. in the hope they could make city planning more “expeditious and economical” for other communities faced with similar problems.[26] In southern states municipal leaders sent “urgent and repeated invitation” to the Chicago Plan Commission to arrange an “extended lecture tour of all the leading cities of the South.”[27] In response to this and other requests, commissioners arranged for roaming exhibits and sent commission literature to interested organizations in Alabama and Georgia.[28]
Like their northern counterparts, southern city planning supporters saw the city plan as a tool to promote community improvement. Concerned about the congestion and pollution, middle-class residents urged the municipal government to address problems ranging from poorly paved streets to nonexistent park space under the banner of the City Beautiful Movement. In Atlanta some community leaders agreed that municipal development needed greater planning. When Mayor Livingston Mims administration (1901-1903) took office he became a proponent of beautification. He stressed the need to invest in better streets, more public facilities, and to have stronger control of municipal franchises.[29] In 1902, Mayor Mims “bequeath beautifying the city” to Atlanta’s Federated Women’s Club. Working with the city engineer, Mims divided the city into several beautification districts to be administered by local women’s groups.[30] Across Georgia club women emerged as strong advocates of the City Beautiful Movement. Southern club women were vocal critics of unsanitary conditions and they saw civic beautification as a way to improve community health. Municipal leaders searched for a balance however, excessive expenditure for beautification exposed politicians to attacks from fiscal conservatives. Indeed, Mims’ administration was criticized because of debts accumulated pursuing his civic agenda.[31]
Regardless, within the municipal government, civic beautification generated calls for improved municipal services. Park commissioner Dan Carey noted in the Atlanta Constitution that the city “was so deficient in park development that it seems almost a shame to write upon such matters in public print.”[32] Carey urged residents to demand the city match national trends. Somewhat pessimistic however, Carey feared Atlanta’s residents failed to realize their rights to a better civic environment.[33] Such sentiments were not true, middle-class groups identified the benefits that beautification could bring to Atlanta and pursued them. Spurred on by publications such as the Ladies Home Journal and organizations like the ACA, club women worked under a state-wide beautification crusade to convince officials to remove visual pollution and promote beautification.[34] Atlanta club women worked to beautify hard to improve local neighborhoods gaining the support of J. Horace McFarland, president of the ACA and columnist for the Ladies Home Journal who urged Atlanta Constitution readers to “sit-up, take notice, and get busy” in their quest to create local civic beautification programs.[35]
In 1909, Atlanta’s beautification movement was given a boost when real estate agents banded together to form the Atlanta Real Estate Board. This real estate board joined with the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce to create the city’s first planning commission. Seeking to bolster Atlanta’s civic image members worried that too many narrow and dead-end streets, too few parks and playgrounds, a housing shortage, and a lack of essential water, sewer, and traffic arteries was substandard for a city its size.[36]
The new planning body lacked official standing. Described by the Atlanta Chamber of Commerce as a “non-profit unofficial planning commission” it was charged with seeking solutions to urban development problems.[37] The commission quickly focused its attention on traffic concerns and chastened municipal officials for failing to transform narrow streets into modern thoroughfares.[38] Echoing sentiments in Chicago, Atlanta’s planning supporters argued the city council’s haphazard approach to municipal development allowed politics to interfere with needed civic improvements stalling some projects and promoting others for political gain.[39]
As was the case in Chicago, businessmen were at the forefront of Atlanta’s planning. Robert R. Otis, president of the real estate board, served as commission president. Other notable members included Frederic Paxon, president of Chamber of Commerce, and developer W.J. Davis, each member well known in local business circle, no women or African-American served on the commission. The commission’s effort received a boost when Haralson Bleckley, president of the Atlanta Architectural League, proposed a comprehensive development plan. The Bleckley Plaza Plan included a civic center, wide boulevards, walkways, and expanded park space. Somewhat limited in scope, it was inspired by ongoing interest in the Atlanta Architectural League for the Plan of Chicago. A. Ten Eyck Brown, a prominent local architect, contacted the Chicago Plan Commission and received copies of the Chicago plan and other commission publications in the period preceding the completion of the Bleckley plan.[40]
The Atlanta Plan Commission hoped the plaza plan would offer a blueprint for downtown urban development.[41] The plan commission argued the Bleckley Plan, which included a new viaduct system to separate rail and street traffic, offered a solution to the growing traffic congestion problem. The plan commission did not limit its suggestions to the transportation infrastructure. The commission considered housing, schools construction, street paving, and clean water problems as part of its agenda.[42]
Despite their hopes, unofficial and under funded, the Atlanta Planning Commission did not have the same success shaping municipal policies as its northern counterparts. Middle-class southerners faced strong opposition from broad spectrum of citizens concerned about how they would be affected by the planning agenda. Moreover, the plaza plan did not provide a focal point for activism, instead state legislators worried that land deals with local railroads would be devalued by street improvements. At the same time, downtown property owners rejected the placement of public comfort stations next to office properties in the plaza plan.[43] Such resistance was heaped on top of traditional ward politics that drove competition over limited resources. Director Otis charged that political battles waged over the merits of improvements in some sections of the city as opposed to others ultimately did the most to prevent the planning commission from functioning.[44] Ignored and without funds for publicity, the plan commission disbanded after one year of fruitless service, failing to achieve any reforms.
Atlanta’s failure highlighted how much the progressive idea helped to define city planning’s benefits. A city plan was an attempt by white middle-class residents to address their anxieties about urban development by creating a municipal framework that promoted values linked to community stability. In densely-packed Northeast and Midwest cities, the drive to create livable neighborhoods was informed by “traditional” American fears they were being overwhelmed by new immigrants with radically different religious and cultural beliefs. Middle-class Americans sought a clear civic vision to offset the effect of lower races on American cultural development. Progressive reformers believed working-class immigrants were unschooled in civilized society and unaware of crucial American traditions.[45] Worst, trapped in their own congested neighborhoods, these immigrants were denied the means to learn the values that could lead to self-improvement and assimilation. Re-planning municipal space was a means to reach working-class immigrant communities that were, according to Dwight F. Davis, chairman of St. Louis City Planning Commission, “suspicious of American institutions” and perceived authority as representing “punishment rather than protection.”[46] The planned urban space offered a counterpoint to the congested neighborhood that isolated poor residents from the wider civic society.[47] In contrast, beautification brought residents in contact with the best of American civilization, and taught them that the government maintained their welfare and public society represented progress.[48] Framed in this manner, city planning offered a response to community unrest that far outweighed its cost. For southerners unconcerned by threats to their cultural cohesion however, city plans represented an economic question.[49]
This fundamental difference dictated how southern planning supporters pursued city planning and their goals in the first decade of the twentieth century. Although Progressive city planners readily accepted the civilizing benefits associated with beautification, they were not as effective translating those desires into policy initiatives supported among the broader public. The rhetoric of southern city planning advocates painted planning as a vehicle to achieve improved civic vision, but offered little emphasis on civic education and instilling values. Not even fears that white citizens were not doing enough to “keep [African American] bodies clean and their minds pure” was enough to motivate municipal expenditure for more park space.[50] Indeed, neither African-American residents nor working-class whites were enough of a threat to community identity or social stability for southerners to believe they needed to reaffirm community culture through civic aesthetics. African-Americans never represented the frightening otherworldliness associated with racially ill-defined and religious diverse immigrants. Moreover, politically disenfranchised and targets of white violence, African-Americans could not be a justification for aggressive municipal expenditure to create civic spaces that educated the masses.
Although proponents struggled to give city planning a progressive core that protected working-classes residents from exploitation and environmental degradation, beautification allowed middle-class business leaders across the country to strengthen their control over municipal development. The City Beautiful Movement helped to create a new institutional structure supported by middle-class business interests. These men and women shaped urban re-development to pursue goals defined by middle-class economic and social values. As a consequence, much like the city planning agenda that emerged after World War II, Progressive Era planning became a tool to safeguard family interaction and stabilize economic opportunities.[51]
[1]See Sam Bass Warner Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston, 1870-1900 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1962) and Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontiers: The Suburbanization of the United States (NY: Oxford University Press, 1985).
[2]For consideration of City Beautiful Movement see William H. Wilson, The City Beautiful Movement. (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1989) and Stanley K. Schultz, Constructing Urban Culture: American Cities and City Planning, 1800-1920 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989). For a consideration of cultural influence on city planning and civic policy see Peter C. Baldwin, Domesticating the Street: The Reform of Public Space in Hartford, 1850-1930 (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1999).
[3]I would like to thanks the member of the Bad Ones Research and Writing Consortium for their recommendations while writing this paper.
[4]John M. Carrere, “City Improvement from the Artist Standpoint,” Western Architect 15 (April, 1910), 40-41.
[5]Lucy Fitch Perkins, "Municipal Art," The Chautauquan 36 (February, 1903), 516-517.
[6]J. Horace McFarland, “The Nationalization of Civic Improvement,” Charities and the Commons, 17 (3 November, 1906), 231. For descriptions of beautification’s effects in contemporary press see Sylvester Baxter, “For Civic Improvement: What To Do and How To Do It,” Century Magazine 64 (October, 1902), 43. For consideration of middle-class responsibility and political activism see Doowon Suh, “Middle-Class Formation and Class Alliance,” Social Science History 26 (Spring, 2002): 107. For consideration of city planning policy in the United States see Blaine Brownell, “Urban Planning, the Planning Profession and the Motor Vehicle in Early Twentieth-Century America,” in Shaping an Urban World, Gordon E. Cherry, ed. (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1980), 59-60.
[7]Mayo Fesler, “Commercial Organizations and Civic Work,” Charities and the Commons 17 (3 November, 1906), 219.
[8]Kristen J. Schaffer, Daniel H. Burnham: Urban Ideals and the Plan of Chicago (Dissertation, Cornell University, 1993), 160-163.
[9]“Commissioners and Citizens Discuss Lakefront Designs,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 11 October, 1896.
[10]Jon A. Peterson, The Birth of City Planning in the United States, 1840-1917 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2003), 151-152.
[11]Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett, Plan of Chicago, Charles Moore, ed. (NY: Princeton Architectural Press, 1993), 4.
[12]Dwight F. Davis, “The Neighborhood Center–A Moral and Educational Factor,” Charities and the Commons 19 (1 February, 1908), 1504-05.
[13]“Picture Chicago as a Model City: New Plan Commission and Commercial Club Discuss Great Ideal, Practical Is the Word, Alderman Snow, C.D. Norton, and C.H. Wacker Say Proposed Scheme will Pay,” Chicago Daily Tribune, 9 January, 1910, 1.
[14]Burnham and Bennett, Plan of Chicago, 154.
[15]Charles D. Norton, “Broader Aspects of City Planning,” Presentation of the Plan of Chicago, Proceeding of the 211 meeting of the Commercial Club of Chicago in honor of the Chicago Plan Commission, (Chicago: Commercial Club of Chicago, 1910), 6. Chicago Plan Commission Records [CPCR], Municipal Reference Collection, Harold Washington Library [HWML], Chicago.
[16]Charles Mulford Robinson, “The Replanning of Cities,” Charities and the Commons 19 (1 February, 1908), 1489-90.
[17]Norton, “Broader Aspects,” 6.
[18]Charles H. Wacker, “The Economic and Commercial Features of a City Plan,” Presentation of the Plan of Chicago, Proceeding of the 211 Meeting of the Commercial Club of Chicago in Honor of the Chicago Plan Commission, (Chicago: Commercial Club of Chicago, 1910), 12. CPCR, HWML.
[19]Sadie T. Wald, “Chicago Housing Conditions,” Charities and the Commons 15 (6 January, 1906), 458.
[20]Graham Taylor, “The New Chicago,” Charities and the Commons 19 (1 February, 1908), 1557.
[21]Charles Mulford Robinson, “Bill Board Decisions,” Charities and the Commons 19 (15 February, 1908), 1628. Gunning v. St. Louis, 137 S.W. 929, 942 (MO, 1911); Gunning v. Kansas City, 144 S.W. 1099, 1102 (MO, 1912).
[22]Proceeding of Chicago Plan Commission, 1911, 206-7. CPCR, HWML.
[23]Charles E. Merriam, Civic Education in the United States (NY: Scribner’s, 1934), 52-60.
[24]Ibid.
[25]Proceeding of Chicago Plan Commission, 1911, 213, CPCR, HWML.
[26]Chicago’s World Wide Influence on City Planning, CPCR, HWML, 1914, 3.
[27]Ibid, 4.
[28]Ibid.
[29]Lucian Lamar Knight, History of Fulton County Georgia: Narrative and Biographical (Atlanta: AH Cawston Publishers, 1930), 172.
[30]“Mayor Looks to Women to in Beautifying City.” Atlanta’s Women’s Club MS Collection Scrapbook #2 (1896-1920), Atlanta History Center.
[31]Gail Anne D’Avino, “Atlanta Municipal Parks, 1882-1917: Urban Boosterism, Urban Reform in a New South City” (Dissertation, Emory University, 1988), 111.
[32]“About Parks of Atlanta Secretary Carey Writes,” Atlanta Constitution (5 April, 1908), 6A.
[33]Ibid.
[34]Edward Bok, The Americanization of Edward Bok: The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After (NY: Scribner’s, 1922), 255-56.
[35]J. Horace McFarland, “Some Civic Improvements,” Atlanta Constitution (12 April, 1908), 2.
[36]Robert R. Otis, Atlanta’s Plan 1909-1932 (Atlanta: Atlanta Real Estate Board, 1932), 4. Robert R. Otis Personality File. Atlanta History Center (AHC).
[37]Charter member of the Atlanta Real Estate Men’s Exchange included Robert R. Otis, Ralph O. Cochran, Chas. P. Glover, Marion Kiser, Frank Liebman, Harris G. White, M.S. Rankin, and B.S. Grant among others. Association File, Atlanta Real Estate Board, AHC.
[38]Robert R. Otis, Atlanta’s Plan 1909-1932 (Atlanta: Atlanta Real Estate Board, 1932), 1-2. Robert R. Otis Personality File. AHC.
[39]Galloway, The Inman Family, 76-77. See also Georgina Hickey, Hope and Danger in the New South City: Working-Class Women and Urban Development in Atlanta, 1890-1940 (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 2003), 55-65.
[40]Ibid.
[41]Otis, Atlanta’s Plan, 3.
[42]Franklin M. Garrett, Atlanta and Environs: A Chronicle of Its People and Events (NY: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1954), 507-508.
[43]Otis, Atlanta’s Plan,, 3.
[44]Ibid.
[45]Louise M. Newman, White Women’s Rights: The Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States (NY: Oxford University Press, 1999), 11-12.
[46]Dwight F. Davis, “The Neighborhood Center–A Moral and Educational Factor,” Charities and the Commons 19 (1 February, 1908), 1506.
[47]Charles Mulford Robinson, “Improvement in City Life: Aesthetic Progress,” Atlantic Monthly 83 (June, 1899), 771-73.
[48]Ibid.
[49]Edward L. Ayers, The Promise of the New South: Life After Reconstruction (NY: Oxford University Press, 1992), 414-417.
[50]“About Parks of Atlanta Secretary Carey Writes,” Atlanta Constitution (5 April, 1905), 6A.
[51]Arnold Hirsch, Making the Second Ghetto: Race and Housing in Chicago, 1940-1960 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983), 9. See all of chapters one and two.