Modern Conveniences”: Multi-Family Housing Choice, the Apartment, and the Modernization of Raleigh, North Carolina, 1918-1929
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MESZAROS, ELIZABETH PAIGE, Ph.D. “All Modern Conveniences”: Multi-family Housing Choice, the Apartment, and the Modernization of Raleigh, North Carolina, 1918-1929. (2012) Directed by Dr. Lisa Tolbert. 356 pp. This dissertation argues that city planners and boosters in 1920’s Raleigh, North Carolina, advocated that she was to be a “residence city” based on single- family homes in exclusive suburbs for the white middle-class. However, both realtor-developers and private homeowners chipped away at the symbol of the “residence city.” Raleigh was to be modern, but it was a modernity based not just on the rhetoric of city leaders who emphasized the single-family home. It was a modernity based on the actions and desires of realtor-developers who were anxious to exploit the new architectural form of the apartment house. It was also a modernity based on the decisions of individual, private, homeowners to incorporate non-family members into their households to earn additional income and contribute to their family’s economic prosperity. Homeowners in some ways rejected the “residence city” because they rented out portions of their homes to non-family members. In other ways, they embraced the symbols of the white, affluent, suburb by insisting on architectural solutions, such as porches and private entrances, which emphasized the value of privacy and by complying with restrictive housing covenants which barred sale or rental of properties to African Americans in perpetuity. Realtor-developers also rejected the “residence city” because they chose to invest money in multi-family apartment houses in addition to single-family home developments like Boylan Heights, Cameron Park, Glenwood-Brooklyn, and Oakwood. The “residence city” was a philosophy put forth by city boosters in which the single-family home became the symbol of progress and refinement—a modern philosophy for a modern place. It was the way in which Raleigh business leaders expressed the concept of the “suburban ideal” locally. In the eyes of these city boosters, Raleigh would not be a city of transients and renters instead, it would become a bastion of southern success through an army of white, affluent, suburban homeowners. The “residence city” was newly constructed in the 1920s to help control the socio-economic composition of Raleigh’s suburbs as they competed for land space with already established communities that did not conform to the vision of racially and economically sorted neighborhoods. The popularity of multi-family housing solutions in the form of boarding houses, apartments within single-family houses, and new apartment houses contradicted the vision of the “residence city” made up of single-family, suburban homes. This study contributes to the fields of urban history, suburban history, southern history, and architectural history because it examines Raleigh’s transition from a town to a modern, southern city filled with new technologies and experimental housing forms. Most importantly, this dissertation contributes to the history of the New urban South and vernacular architecture history in terms of examining traditional multi-family housing patterns, the introduction of newer, more modern multi-family housing options, and to suburban history by using an analysis of housing records (including city directories, newspaper classifieds, historic property registration and nomination forms, and suburban promotional brochures) coupled with modern fieldwork photographs. The tension between how Raleigh boosters, realtor-developers, and residents in the early decades of the twentieth century defined the “residence city,” in symbolic terms, and the actual practices of middle-class homeowners and realtor-developers alters our understanding of the history of the American suburb. “ALL MODERN CONVENIENCES”: MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING CHOICE, THE APARTMENT, AND THE MODERNIZATION OF RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA, 1918-1929 by Elizabeth Paige Meszaros A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2012 Approved by Dr. Lisa Tolbert Committee Chair © 2012 Elizabeth Paige Meszaros APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation written by ELIZABETH PAIGE MESZAROS has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair________________________________________ Lisa Tolbert Committee Members________________________________________ Charles Bolton ________________________________________ Watson Jennison ________________________________________ Patrick Lee Lucas ____________________________ Date of Acceptance by Committee _________________________ Date of Final Oral Examination ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would never have come to fruition without the unwavering faith of my professors, colleagues, and friends in the History Department at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I am grateful to Dr. Lisa Tolbert, who chaired my doctoral committee, for all of her help and encouragement in achieving this educational goal. I am also indebted to Dr. Charles Bolton and Dr. Watson Jennison from the History Department and to Dr. Patrick Lee Lucas from the Interior Architecture Department of UNCG for their guidance and support. I would like to thank Rob Grabarek for his help in constructing the maps for this dissertation and Richard Shuping for his technical support. I am appreciative to the late Dr. Allen W. Trelease for his financial gift to the department which funded this dissertation. Finally, I am grateful to the librarians and staff at the State Library of North Carolina, the North Carolina Archives, the Olivia Raney Historical Library, and the Walter Jackson Library for all of their help with research leads and locating sources for this project. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................... vi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 1 II. “A TOWN THAT WAKED UP AND BECAME A CITY”: TRADITIONAL AND MODERN MULTI-FAMILY HOUSING OPTIONS IN RALEIGH .................................................................... 48 III. “LET NO ONE BE A STRANGER BUT ONCE”: THE “SUBURBAN IDEAL” VERSUS THE SUBURBAN REALITY, LIFESTYLE PATTERNS OF RALEIGH’S SINGLE-FAMILY HOMEOWNERS AND APARTMENT RESIDENTS ...................................................................................... 88 IV. “A RESIDENCE CITY”: SPATIAL PATTERNS IN A MODERNIZING RALEIGH .............................................................. 144 V. HOUSE AS PRIVATE RESIDENCE, HOUSE AS INCOME STRATEGY: THE “SUBURBAN IDEAL” AND THE VERNACULAR USES OF SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES ..................... 193 VI. “DWELLINGS FOR RENT”: THE RISE OF THE DEVELOPER APARTMENT HOUSE .............................................. 256 VII. CONCLUSION .................................................................................... 318 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 323 APPENDIX A. SINGLE-FAMILY HOMES RESIDENTS DATA ........................ 332 APPENDIX B. APARTMENT HOUSE RESIDENTS DATA ............................. 341 iv LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1. Provision of Board in Apartment Advertisements ................................ 56 Table 2. Working Women in Raleigh’s Suburbs .............................................. 120 Table 3. Apartment Amenities from Classifieds Sample .................................. 127 Table 4. Water Features in Apartments from Classifieds Sample ................... 134 Table 5. Exterior Spaces in Apartments from Classifieds Sample ................... 138 Table 6. Boarding Houses Operating in Raleigh, 1918-1929 .......................... 164 Table 7. Suburban Neighborhoods from Classifieds Sample .......................... 173 Table 8. Suburban Neighborhood Development Dates ................................... 198 Table 9. Single-Family Houses from Fieldwork Sample .................................. 202 v LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1. February 5, 1922 Advertisement ........................................................ 67 Figure 2. Map A: Raleigh Suburban Neighborhood Locations .......................... 74 Figure 3. Trolley Stop Shelter on Glenwood Avenue ....................................... 111 Figure 4. Map A: Raleigh Suburban Neighborhood Locations ........................ 115 Figure 5. December 1, 1929 Advertisement .................................................... 127 Figure 6. Map B: Raleigh City Limit and Downtown ........................................ 150 Figure 7. Map C: Boarding House Locations .................................................. 153 Figure 8. Map D: African-American Boarding Houses .................................... 155 Figure 9. Map A: Raleigh Suburban Neighborhood Locations ........................ 159 Figure 10. Title Page 1923 Promotional Booklet ............................................. 171 Figure 11. Map E: Raleigh Apartment Houses By Address ............................ 179 Figure 12. Map F: Raleigh Apartment Price List ............................................. 183 Figure 13. Map G: Hornaday and Faucette Price List ..................................... 188 Figure 14. Map H: Thompson and Yarborough