Editor: Kathleen M. Barry

Volume 45 Spring 2016 Numbers 3 & 4

“Paradise” Found: The Suburbanization of One Family Rachel Rettaliata

Westview Park development, aerial view of area west of Beltway, c. 1965. Photo by Morton Tadder. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County

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There is a brick row home that stands on West departed in the postwar era in a mass migration to Lombard Street in Baltimore City. A real estate the . Because it is average, 819 West listing might reveal that it is three stories tall, is an Lombard offers us an ideal starting point for end unit, and enjoys the shade of one of the many exploring an average family’s experience of trees on the block; it has street parking and is suburbanization. This typical family’s move from conveniently located near the major highways and Baltimore City to the leafier suburbs in Baltimore the city center. Most likely, the real estate listing County helps us put a human face on a would not describe this row home as average, but transformation that profoundly reshaped the city that is exactly what it is. There is nothing and county, as well as the rest of and particularly distinctive about 819 West Lombard America in the middle decades of the twentieth Street compared to any other row home on West century. Lombard Street, on the block, or in the entire city. Dorothy Shifflett (née Hoffman) and her ten There are no spectacular architectural features, no brothers and sisters were raised at 819 West stained glass windows, and no reasons exist to give Lombard Street. The house offered only one this house a second glance—except that this row bathroom for all thirteen members of the Hoffman home offers a perfect example of the urban family, but boasted five bedrooms. There was a dwellings from which so many American families small, fenced backyard for the children to play in,

“646 West Conway Street (House) & 819 West Lombard Street (House), Baltimore, Independent City, MD”: Measured drawing by Russell Wright (undated), Historic American Buildings Survey, HABS MD-932. Prints and Photographs Division, Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/item/md1042/).

SUBURBANIZATION PAGE 3 which kept them out of the streets.1 Shifflett’s these social and economic developments of the parents, Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman, had been raised in 1950s and 1960s in America. the city and their children attended public city schools, just as they had.2 Shifflett and her siblings What is Suburbia? experienced a typical childhood in the city. They would play sports in the park, socialize indoors The vast process of suburbanization was in full with friends in the parlor room, and, when they force by the time the Hoffman Family moved from carried on outside, they were harangued by their Baltimore City in 1961. crotchety old neighbor, Ms. Mary. Just to featured countless articles and advertisements antagonize her, Shifflett and her sisters would endorsing suburban living at the time. One editorial swing in their backyard, loudly singing, “God Bless titled, “Act Early, Buyers Advised,” described the Mary’s underpants!”3 boom of the housing market and averred that early Despite the charms of city life, the Hoffman 1961 would be the best time to buy a house.9 These family moved from West Lombard Street in 1961.4 articles ran in the newspaper alongside pages full of The Hoffmans found their new home in the advertisements for new housing developments. One pleasant suburbs of Catonsville, Maryland, in a advertisement for a community named Edgewood neighborhood called Paradise.5 Shifflett joked, “I Meadows promised, “This is Livin,’ beautiful trees guess it was ‘paradise’ to [my parents] after living too!”10 Most of the advertisements for suburban in the city.”6 Perhaps surprisingly, the spacious, communities highlighted the “green spaces”11 and Cape Cod-style home on Prospect Avenue was “fresh air to breathe.”12 When asked how living in comprised of fewer rooms than the row home in the Paradise differed from the city, Shifflett recalled city, but some children had grown and married by that “it was pretty out there, a lot of green trees, and this time and the suburbs offered amenities that the city could not.7 In Paradise, there was tranquility, a sense of safety, and green space that was unparalleled in the city.8 To Shifflett and her family, the move from the city to represented security, comfort, and upward mobility. The movement of families out of the city was not unusual at the time; the Hoffman family could have represented any family leaving Baltimore City in the post-World War II era. So what about this family’s move is special or unique? The answer is: absolutely nothing. But the Hoffmans’ move is historically significant precisely for its typicality, which allows us to explore suburbanization on a personal scale. Suburbanization exploded in the years following World War II for many reasons; improvements in transportation systems, the growing affordability of housing, and the escalation of racial tensions all played a role in the growth of the American suburbs. How and why the Hoffman family relocated from the city to Street scene, Colonial Village in Pikeville, c. 1955. the county helps us see the interplay of Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County

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From Baltimore County Department of Public Works: Progress and Accomplishments, 1951-1957 (1958), p.89. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County all that, and my father loved the ground.”13 The possessions and perhaps even blood type are Hoffman’s house on Prospect Avenue had a rolling precisely like yours.”15 Similarly, leftist activist and backyard, with an area akin to a secret garden. folk singer Malvina Reynolds wrote scathingly in There was a wrought-iron rocking bench-for-two 1962 of “Little boxes of ticky tacky… And they all tucked behind huge honeysuckle and rose bushes look just the same,” in a song called “Little and a stone path that wound around the lot. Boxes.”16 Aerial photographs of postwar suburban Apparently, American families did truly covet the housing developments like Levittown captured the greenery of the suburbs and, as a result, the notion uniformity of design that critics like Keating and of the picturesque suburb surrounded by nature Reynolds derided. proved to be highly marketable for housing Contrary to such portrayals, however, not all developers. The lure of the suburbs caused suburbs were comprised of monostylistic, low-cost Baltimore County’s population to more than triple tract housing built after WWII. The Hoffmans’ between 1940 and 1960.14 house, for instance, was situated in a spacious Yet even before 1961, the suburbs were not neighborhood, full of character and cultivated without their critics. In 1956, John Keats published lawns. As historian Kenneth T. Jackson made clear his cynical views on suburbanization in The Crack in his widely influential study, Crabgrass Frontier: in the Picture Window. Keats condemned the The Suburbanization of the United States, there was shoddy workmanship of suburban housing no single mold from which all suburbs were developers and the G.I. Bill of Rights for increasing created. The suburban neighborhood might come the affordability of housing, which allowed for the into existence by happenstance, gradual progress, rapid expansion of the suburbs. “You too,” Keats or it could be designed intentionally.17 Jackson wrote in his introduction, “can find a box of your surmised, “Suburbia is both a planning type and a own in one of the fresh air slums we’re building state of mind based on imagery and symbolism.”18 around the edges of America’s cities…you can be By his definition, the postwar suburbs included the certain all other houses will be precisely like yours, new sprawling developments that troubled critics inhabited by people whose age, income, number of like Keats; but the “suburbs” also encompassed children, problems, habits, conversation, dress, neighborhoods formed outside of cities that varied quite a bit from one another in ethnic diversity,

SUBURBANIZATION PAGE 5 affluence, and age, among other things.19 Thus the black family to move in until 1959.24 There were Hoffman family’s move to Paradise in Catonsville, many barriers at mid-century that prevented with its previously owned homes, tree-lined streets from living wherever they and mature landscapes, was as much a part of could afford to and wanted to live. As an economist suburbanization as other families’ move to new who studies racial issues in housing explains, these homes in new subdivisions across the country. included “racially restrictive covenants among white property owners, biased lending practices of Race and Suburbanization banks and government institutions, strong social norms against selling or renting property to blacks Although Keats’ concept of the contagiousness outside established black neighborhoods, and of the “Levittown” suburb was exaggerated, the harassment of blacks seeking residence in neighborhood of Paradise did fit Keats’ description otherwise white neighborhoods.”25 in one aspect: the socio-economic uniformity The disproportionate distribution of benefits among residents.20 Paradise was inhabited by 21 from the G.I. Bill of Rights offers a clear example white, lower-middle to middle class families. The of racial disparities in suburbanization.26 While the 1960 census showed that Baltimore County overall Hoffman family did not directly utilize or benefit was nearly all white, with a mere four percent of 27 22 from the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act of 1944, the population listed as non-white. These figures also known as the G.I. Bill of Rights, it improved seem almost improbable due to the high level of the affordability for housing by guaranteeing home disparity. However, the lack of racial diversity in loans to veterans throughout the nation and suburban communities was virtually universal in 23 encouraged developers to construct more housing, the 1950s and 1960s. For example, Park Forest, a cheaply.28 The G.I. Bill made the purchasing of suburb of , Illinois, did not allow a single homes, through taking on a mortgage,

York Road and Baltimore Beltway, aerial view, Towson, c. 1960. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County

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Hutzlers Brothers Store in Towson, aerial view of store and parking lot, December 1952. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County commonplace and enabled ordinary families to own As more and more African Americans left the homes at an increasing rate. Unfortunately, for rural South to seek better lives and opportunities in servicemen of color, Veterans Administration (VA) cities over the middle decades of the twentieth offices did not bequeath the benefits of the G.I. Bill century, growing urban racial tensions also factored in an egalitarian fashion.29 Since fewer African in suburbanization. Such tensions would come to a Americans served in World War II than white men, head only seven years after the Hoffman family fewer homes funded by G.I. Bill loans would have moved from the city, culminating in the Baltimore been owned by African American families than Race Riots. When asked about the environment were owned by white families. But black veterans surrounding West Lombard Street before the were further discriminated against by the mostly Hoffman family’s move, Shifflett specified that by white counselors available at the VA.30 The small 1961, “the neighborhood was changing…different numbers of black veterans who did receive loan kind of people were moving in and it was getting approval from VA counselors were often turned rowdier, you know, people did not take care of their down by banking institutions because “the G.I. Bill houses as much anymore and [her] parents did not only permitted the VA to guarantee loans, not like it there much anymore because they were actually lend veterans money.”31 As a result, very getting afraid for the children.”32 The practice of few black families were able to relocate to the families moving from their neighborhoods when a suburbs. Even if they were able to afford the move, “different kind of people” moved in is commonly they were either unwelcome or logistically unable referred to as “.” As incidents of to live too far from their children’s segregated interracial tensions grew between 1950 and 1980, schools, at least until desegregation. so in turn did “white-flight communities” in the

SUBURBANIZATION PAGE 7 suburbs.33 Baltimore City public schools proceeded continued to catch the streetcar from the suburbs.39 with desegregation during the late 1950s and early Although the car-less Hoffman family did not 1960s and this, most likely, only heightened profit much if at all from the improvements to the friction within the city.34 transportation system during the 1950s and 1960s, the improvements benefited many Americans by Improvements in Transportation providing the option to live outside of the big cities Racial tensions in Baltimore did not prevent and commute to work. As the suburbs, private car Shifflett’s father, Richard Hoffman, from ownership, and commuting grew, so did the need commuting to the city for work. The conveniences for a better highway system. The Federal-Aid of paying a mortgage and having job stability Highway Act, better known as the National permitted the Hoffman family to afford living in Interstate and Defense Highways Act, was passed Baltimore County. Unexpectedly, by 1968, in 1956 and resulted in massive highway construction and infrastructure improvement.40 The employment in the suburbs was less stable than employment in the city, mostly due to the high National Interstate and Defense Highways Act not only created an improved highway system, it also concentration of young workers outside of the 41 cities.35 Fortunately, Hoffman worked a steady job fueled the evolution of the suburbs. After the in the boiler room of the Bethlehem Steel enhanced transportation system was implemented, Company.36 In 1961 and the ten years previous, even more families could leave the city for the airy, Bethlehem Steel Company, according to Mark quiet life that the suburbs offered. Reutter, “had the greatest metal-making capacity The improved transportation system may not on earth.”37 Hoffman worked at Bethlehem Steel have been a factor that pulled the Hoffman family Company during the peak of the company’s steel- into suburbia, but developments in transportation making capabilities and remained there until definitely pushed the Hoffman family out of the retirement. At the time of their move to the city. With the rise of suburban development in the 1950s and 1960s, Baltimore City suffered great suburbs, the Hoffman family did not own a car. 42 When they lived in the city, Hoffman took the bus economic and business losses. The convenience or the streetcar to work and “if they were on strike, of suburban strip malls, the popularity of the he would walk” to the Bethlehem facility on Key automobile, and the increasing ease of Highway.38 The Hoffman family would not transportation slashed profits in city business districts and caused the closure of many downtown purchase a car for several years after their move to 43 Catonsville. In order to get to work, Hoffman department stores. The Baltimore City Planning Commission decided to construct the beltway and

Catonsville Area Branch, Baltimore County Public Library. Exterior view of new building, 1100 Frederick Road, August 1962. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County

PAGE 8 History Trails expressways, even before the passage of the Had the planned construction of Harbor City National Interstate and Defense Highways Act, in Boulevard not pushed the Hoffman family out of order to bring business back to the Central Business the city, several other factors would have likely led District.44 them to reach the same decision. The increasing The proposed construction of Harbor City racial tensions that led to the Baltimore Riots of Boulevard (now known as Martin Luther King Jr. 1968 presumably encouraged the Hoffmans’ move Boulevard) threatened to demolish the Hoffman’s to the suburbs. As a family that still consisted of home on West Lombard Street.45 The city planned school-aged children and aging parents, the specter to build Harbor City Boulevard perpendicular to of violence and increasing crime rates would have Lombard Street and the construction would split the probably prompted the Hoffmans to consider street in half.46 Mr. Hoffman was told that his options beyond West Lombard Street in any case, house would be one of those destroyed in the as so many other families did. With the increased process.47 By building an expressway conjoined affordability of housing, the booming business of with Fremont Avenue, across Lombard Street and the steel mill, and improved transportation, the the other parallel streets in the vicinity, the city Hoffmans did indeed have alternatives to choose hoped to connect interstate highways I-395 and I- among, including the house in Catonsville that they 170.48 Harbor City Boulevard also would provide purchased. Not every factor in the phenomenon of “freeway access to many of the City’s main streets, suburbanization was at play in their decision to creating access to Baltimore’s Central Business leave their Baltimore City home for the suburbs of District.”49 Under the impression that his row home Baltimore County. Their experience is only one would be demolished, Hoffman took the example of how certain factors helped to make opportunity to move his family to greener pastures. suburban living a widely shared goal and reality. As it turned out, the plans to build Harbor City Did the Hoffman family find their own version Boulevard were delayed by bureaucratic wrangling of paradise? Perhaps they found, for them, the over choosing a highway system plan that most closest place to it. Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman lived in benefitted the city.50 Eventually, the construction of their house on Prospect Avenue for the rest of their the boulevard was completed in 1982 and it was lives. After their deaths, the house was passed renamed Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.51 The down to their youngest daughter, Penny, who lived Hoffman’s old row home on West Lombard Street there for over twenty years. The story of their move was never demolished.52 from the city to the county is a typical one. Their eleven sons and daughters find no particular Conclusion historical significance in the move worthy of A young couple today may search the internet discussion, except to revive childhood memories for the perfect starter home. They might stumble from their city days. But, to us, their move shows upon a humble community nestled in the town of how the events that led to the growth of Catonsville. The “home for sale” listings on suburbanization, as a whole, affected the decisions Prospect Avenue might capture their interest. The of the average family. The social and economic rows of post-war homes on quiet, tree-lined streets transformations and sweeping changes in the still exist. They are much older now and are even transportation infrastructure of the 1950s and 1960s considered “fixer-uppers.” But they have a lot of created a compelling combination of push and pull potential. Any young couple looking to purchase factors for the Hoffmans, as for so many other their own bit of the American Dream, a concept families. And so they chose the suburban life over cultivated through decades of suburbanization and the city living that they had identified with their development, might just fall in love with the whole lives. detached houses that sit back from the winding roads of Baltimore County, Maryland.

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Ingleside Shopping Center, 5600 Baltimore National Pike, Catonsville, mid-1958. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County

Cromwell Valley Elementary School, Towson, under construction, c. 1962-1963. From Construction Photos between February 3, 1962 & March 2, 1963 by Foster Photography. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County

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Map of “Urban Communities in Baltimore County,” from Planning in Baltimore County: An Information Booklet (Office of Planning and Zoning, Towson, Maryland, 1968), p. 4. Collections of the Historical Society of Baltimore County

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Notes the Deep South, 1944-1948,” Journal of Social History 31, n. 1 Dorothy Shifflett, interview by author, Catonsville, MD, 3 (1998), 522-523. November 11, 2012. 27 An act to provide Federal Government aid for the 2 Shifflett interview. readjustment in civilian life of returning World War II 3 Shifflett interview. veterans, June 22,1944 ; Enrolled Acts and Resolutions of 4 Shifflett interview. Congress, 1789-1996; General Records of the United States 5 Shifflett interview. Government; Record Group 11; National Archives, accessed 6 Shifflett interview. November 11, 2012, Access to Archival Databases at 7 Shifflett interview. www.archives.gov. 8 Shifflett interview. 28 Keats, The Crack in the Picture Window, xiii. 9 Editorial, “Act Early, Buyers Advised,” Baltimore Sun, 29 Onkst, “‘First a Negro…Incidentally a Veteran,’” 521-520. January 2, 1961. 30 Ibid. 10 Advertisement, “This is Livin,’” Baltimore Sun, January 2, 31 Onkst, “‘First a Negro…Incidentally a Veteran,’” 522. 1961. 32 Shifflett interview. 11 Advertisement, “Howard County: Land of Opportunity,” 33 Rachael A. Woldoff, White Flight/Black Flight: The Baltimore Sun, March 13, 1961. Dynamics of Racial Change in an American Neighborhood 12 Advertisement, “There’s Plenty of Room for Everyone,” (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2011), 3. Baltimore Sun, January 6, 1961. 34 Maryland State Department of Education, A Decade of 13 Shifflett interview. Progress in Education in Maryland: 1949-1959 (Baltimore: 14 Neal A. Brooks and Eric G. Rockel, A History of Baltimore State Department of Education, 1961). County (Towson, MD: Friends of the Towson Library, 1979), 35 Thomas M. Stanback and Richard V. Knight, 369. Suburbanization and the City (Montclair: Allandheld, Osmun 15 John Keats, The Crack in the Picture Window (: & Co., 1976), 124-125. Houghton Mifflin, 1956), xi. 36 Shifflett interview. 16Malvina Reynolds, “Little Boxes,” lyrics reprinted in 37 Mark Reutter, Making Steel: Sparrows Point and the Rise Charles H. Smith and Nancy Schimmel, Malvina Reynolds: and Ruin of American Industrial Might (: Summit Song Lyrics and Poems, accessed April 26, 2016, Books, 1988), 7. http://people.wku.edu/charles.smith/MALVINA/mr094.htm. 38 Shifflett interview. 17 Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The 39 Shifflett interview. Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford 40 Museum label for “On the Interstate, 1956-1990,” American University Press, 1985), 3-11. on the Move, Smithsonian National Museum of American 18 Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier, 4-5. History, Washington, D.C. [viewed November 2, 2012]. 19 Ibid., 5. 41 Ibid. 20 Museum label for “Shapes of the Suburbs,” American on the 42 Terry Wikberg, "Building Baltimore: The Baltimore City Move, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Interstate Highway System," Maryland Legal History Washington, D.C. [viewed November 2, 2012]. Publications 13 (2000), 4. 21 U.S. Bureau of the Census, U.S. Census of Population: 43 Museum label for “The Sprawling Metropolis,” America on 1960, Vol. I, Part 22, Maryland (Washington, DC: U.S. the Move, Smithsonian National Museum of American Government Printing Office, 1961), Table 33. History, Washington, D.C. [viewed November 2, 2012]. 22 Ibid., Table 27. 44 Wikberg, “Building Baltimore,” 4. 23 Museum label for “Diversity in the Suburbs,” American on 45 Wikberg, “Building Baltimore,” 12. the Move, Smithsonian National Museum of American 46 Ibid. History, Washington, D.C. [viewed November 2, 2012]. 47 Shifflett interview. 24 Ibid. 48 Wikberg, “Building Baltimore,” 17. 25 William Collins, “Fair Housing Laws,” EH.Net 49 Ibid. Encyclopedia, ed. Robert Whaples, February 10, 2008, 50 Wikberg, “Building Baltimore,” 13. accessed April 27, 2016, http://eh.net/encyclopedia/fair- 51Wikberg, “Building Baltimore,” 17. housing-laws. 52 Shifflett interview. 26 David H. Onkst, “‘First a Negro…Incidentally a Veteran’: Black World War Two Veterans and the G.I. Bill of Rights in

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About the Author Submissions Rachel Rettaliata is a 2014 graduate of UMBC While the subject matter of History Trails has with a degree in History and International Affairs. traditionally focused almost entirely on local This article is a revised version of a semester-long concerns, we are interested in expanding its scope family history research paper, written under the into new areas. For example, where one article guidance of History Department Chair, Dr. might focus on a single historic building, person, or Marjoleine Kars. Rachel is currently an intern with event in the county, others may develop and defend Preservation Maryland and a Fulbright Scholarship a historic argument, compare and contrast recipient. As a Fulbright Fellow, she will spend the Baltimore County topics to other locales, or tie 2016-2017 academic year conducting historical seemingly confined local topics to larger events. research on national monuments in the Republic of Articles abiding by the Chicago Manual of Style Moldova. Rachel will return to the United States in Documentary Note (or Humanities) system will be fall 2017 as a graduate student in University of given priority. For an abbreviated guide to Chicago- Maryland, College Park's Historic Preservation style citations, see Kate L. Turabian's A Manual for program. Writers of Research Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (University of Chicago Press, 2007; http://www.press.uchicago.edu/books/turabian/turab ian_citationguide.html). Digital and/or hard copies of articles may be Board of Directors submitted to the attention of the History Trails Tom Graf, President editor at the address below. E-mailed and digital Dale Kirchner, Vice President copies are preferred. H. David Delluomo, CPA, Treasurer Phyllis Bailey Brian Cooper Evart ‘Bud’ Cornell Geraldine Diamond Edward R. English, III

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