Culture and Politics in a New York Metropolitan Community

Suburban Landscapes Creating the North American Landscape Gregory Conniff Edward K. Muller David Schuyler Consulting Editors George F. Thompson Series Founder and Director Published in Cooperation with the Center for American Places, Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Harrisonburg, Virginia Suburban Landscapes Culture and Politics in a New York Metropolitan Community Paul H. Mattingly The Johns Hopkins University Press Baltimore & London This book was brought to publication with the assistance of a Research/Publication grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission, a division of Cultural Affairs in the Department of State. ∫ 2001 The Johns Hopkins University Press All rights reserved. Published 2001 Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The Johns Hopkins University Press 2715 North Charles Street Baltimore, Maryland 21218-4363 www.press.jhu.edu Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mattingly, Paul H. Suburban landscapes : culture and politics in a New York metropolitan community / Paul H. Mattingly. p. cm. — (Creating the North American landscape) ‘‘Published in Cooperation with the Center for American Places.’’ Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8018-6680-4 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Suburbs—New Jersey—Leonia—History. 2. City planning—New Jersey—Leonia—History. 3. Landscape changes—New Jersey—Leonia—History. 4. Leonia (N.J.)—History. 5. Leonia (N.J.)—Politics and government. 6. Leonia (N.J.)—Social life and customs. I. Center for American Places. II. Title. III. Series. HT352.U62 N55 2001 307.76%09749%21—dc21 2001000676 A catalog record for this book is available from the British Library. To Jane, For All the Reasons Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 chapter 1 Dutchness and the English Neighborhood 14 chapter 2 The Village as a Voluntary Organization, 1859–1894 32 chapter 3 Village Landscapes 57 chapter 4 The Trolley Produces a Country Town, 1894–1920 79 chapter 5 Country Landscapes, Bohemian City 113 chapter 6 The Middle-Class Zone 138 chapter 7 The Political Culture of Suburban Professionals 161 chapter 8 The Ideology of the Civic Conference 180 chapter 9 The Modernization of Suburban Realism 210 chapter 10 Recovering Suburban Memory 236 Appendix 261 Notes 275 Index 321 Acknowledgments his book originated and developed in a classic suburban pattern. TA casual discussion at a residential Sunday brunch at Anthony and Evelyn Scozzafava’s Sylvan Avenue home led to the informal commitment to do something for the old Civil War Drill Hall. Robert R. Pacicco, a local Leonia merchant and then town mayor, provided vigorous moral support throughout and lent his good offices in the successful pursuit of a New Jersey Historical Commission grant. With grant support and the advice of commission staff, especially Howard Green and Perry Blatz, I organized local volunteers—Linda Cirino, Kate Scooler, Lynn Friendly, and photographer Fred Cicetti and in later stages Peter Mecca—into the Leonia Social History Project (1986–87) to interview, research, and retrieve the history of their town. The foundation for this present study owes everything to their ingenuity and camaraderie. There are many other Leonia participants who provided strategic assistance at crucial points, including Anne Williams and Carole Root Cole. None, however, were more central than the several dozen inter- viewees who donated their time and memories. How central their contribution was will only be partly registered in the book’s citations. My warmest thanks to them all for their neighborly cooperation. The Leonia Public Library staff, particularly library director Har- old Ficke with his staffer Linda Braun, deserve special praise for re- thinking and reorganizing their schedules constantly to accommodate the Leonia Social History Project (1986–87). Their work has provided a professionally organized repository (thanks to Gail Malmgreen of New York University, financial support from the Leonia Consum- ers’ Cooperative, and the careful recent monitoring of Theresa Wy- man) for the artifacts of Leonia’s history, both previous holdings and x Acknowledgments new material that the project generated. I also want to note the enthusiastic support of Carol Karels and her own several books on Leonia which provided documentary buttressing and pleasurable reading. In spring 2000 we received a substantial grant from the New Jersey Historical Commission to produce and distribute this book. One of the notable products of all these investigations was the VCR-accessible sixty-minute documentary video Village, Junction, Town: Leonia, 1840–1960 (1987), for which Fred Cicetti and Peter Mecca deserve special accolades. Among other places the documentary has been shown was at the annual meeting of the Organization of American Historians in St. Louis, Missouri (April 9, 1989), where panelists and suburban experts—especially Michael Ebner, Kenneth Jackson, and Robert Fishman—offered instructive suggestions. Inter- ested parties who seek copies of the documentary should contact the Leonia Public Library. The New Jersey Historical Society (with special thanks to Robert Burnett and Nancy Blankenhorn) and the Englewood (N.J.) Public Library together provided a nearly complete microfilm copy of North Jersey Life/Leonia Life from 1922 to 1954. No library has a complete copy of this important local source. In addition, the New Jersey His- torical Society; the State Archives in Trenton, especially State Ar- chivist Karl Niederer and Bette Epstein; and the National Archives (Northeast Region) supplied the necessary census material. Special thanks to Robert C. Morris, director of the National Archives North- east Regional Office. Pertinent material from the Johnson Memorial Library in Hackensack, New Jersey, particularly from their Bergen County Collection, was much appreciated. Other repositories and individuals who gave unstintingly of their time and expertise include the New York University Library and staff, the New York Public Library, the Society of Illustrators (with special thanks to director Terence Brown, Norman Blegman, and Nick Meglin), Walt Reed of Illustration House, New York Library of the Performing Arts, Salmagundi Club, and the National Academy of De- sign, all in New York City. Robin Ward Savage showed me the great range of her mother’s (May McNeer’s) and father’s (Lynd Ward’s) work and shared insights that were simply indispensable. Several western museums made their art collections and archives available, including the Museum of Nebraska Art in Kearney, Nebraska (with special thanks to Gary Zaruba and director John McKirahan); South Acknowledgments xi Dakota Art Museum in Brookings, South Dakota (and the insightful comments of director Joseph Stuart); Stuhr Museum of the Pioneer in Grand Island, Nebraska (and the assistance of Janelle Lundberg and Angela McLean); the Arthur M. Mitchell Memorial Museum in Trin- idad, Colorado (and the generosity of its director, Peggy Weurding); and the staff of the Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University. During my time at Brigham Young University, Dawn Pheysey of the College of Fine Arts and Communication provided both special research access and commentary on the sculpture and career of Mahonri M. Young. I also greatly appreciated the cooperation of the Sal- magundi Club for access to its archives and to the Archives of Ameri- can Art, Smithsonian Institution, both their New York City branch and the main repository in Washington, D.C. I would like to thank David Voorhees, editor of De Halve Maen: The Magazine of the Dutch Colonial Period in America and a systematic scholar of Dutch culture, for an informed and helpful reading of chapter 1. Thanks also to Charles T. Gehring and Nancy Zeller of the New Netherland Project of the New York State Library, for their helpful suggestions on Dutch history and customs. I extend a special apprecia- tion to series editors George F. Thompson and David Schuyler for confidence and suggestions, as well as to the efficient editorial staff at the Johns Hopkins University Press. Much of the methodology and interpretive stance of this study owes much to the students and colleagues of New York University’s Program in Public History. In countless ways our annual workshops throughout the 1980s and 1990s have opened avenues of conceptual- ization which I have relied on to carry this analysis of suburban community formation forward. In addition, the critical comments of Mi- chael Birkner, Linda Cirino, Michael Frisch, David Harnett, James McLachlan, Kate Scooler, John Stilgoe, William R. Taylor, and my NYU colleagues Rachel Bernstein and Danny Walkowitz on earlier drafts of this study were extraordinarily helpful. Friends and acquain- tances who have assisted this project in so many varied ways will all understand the point of the dedication. Suburban Landscapes Introduction his study concerns a single suburban community, Leonia, New TJersey, just outside New York City in northern Bergen County. The issues explored here, however, are primarily those of community formation and cultural identity, the dynamics of social cohesion and conflicting democratic politics. These issues are important not only because half of the American population now live in suburbs but also because suburbs are so seldom examined as experiments in democratic community building. The dominant social science literature has ap- proached the American suburb convinced that its essential nature has been fixed by self-serving middle-class opportunists escaping the inner

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