Making Modern Homes: a History of Langston Terrace Dwellings, a New Deal Community in Washington, D
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ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: MAKING MODERN HOMES: A HISTORY OF LANGSTON TERRACE DWELLINGS, A NEW DEAL HOUSING PROGRAM IN WASHINGTON, D.C. Kelly Anne Quinn, Ph.D., 2007 Dissertation directed by: Associate Professor Mary Corbin Sies Department of American Studies Langston Terrace Dwellings is a complex of 274 units of apartments and row houses in Washington D.C. that opened in 1938 under the auspices of the New Deal’s Public Works Administration. Designed by Hilyard Robinson, this modern housing program was built principally by African American professionals for African American families. This study recasts our understanding of modern housing locating it in the broader historical context of modern architecture, urban planning and African American life. Design professionals and residents contributed to the program’s early success as an aesthetically pleasing, socially significant community. This work chronicles how African American residents forged a life for themselves and their children in architect-designed modernist apartments and row houses. I begin with an analysis of the application process in which hopeful residents petitioned the federal government; I conclude with a consideration of the pioneering residents’ place- making efforts. In Chapters One and Two, I introduce key figures: first, I highlight the ordinary Washingtonians who applied to move into Langston, and then I profile the architect principally responsible for the formal design program. The hopeful residents relied on individual strategies and extensive social networks to secure a spot in government housing; the architect Robinson also developed and honed individual strategies and extensive social networks to advance his architectural practice and to obtain a government contract. I explore the European interwar housing estates he visited in Chapter Three and offer a formal analysis of Langston in Chapter Four. In Chapter Five, I return to the ways in which the first cohort of residents worked to make homes and form community. I marshaled evidence from 2,263 letters applications; city directories; census manuscripts; government project files; private correspondence between architects, reformers and government officials; architectural plans; Sanborn maps; popular and architectural periodicals; and photographs. Additionally, I traced the project’s precedents by conducting fieldwork in Europe and the United States. My assessment of the legacy of this project emerged from partnerships with current residents and neighbors. As such, this research relied on a number of interdisciplinary research strategies including graphic documentation, archival research, and community-based collaboration and investigation. MAKING MODERN HOMES: A HISTORY OF LANGSTON TERRACE DWELLINGS, A NEW DEAL HOUSING PROGRAM IN WASHINGTON, D.C. by Kelly Anne Quinn Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy 2007 Advisory Committee: Professor Mary Corbin Sies, Chairperson Professor Elsa Barkley Brown Professor John L. Caughey Professor Melinda Chateauvert Professor Francille Rusan Wilson ©Copyright by Kelly Anne Quinn 2007 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Numerous individuals and organizations enriched this project (and this author) with their intellectual, emotional, and institutional support. Since this is a dissertation about government-funded housing, I take special pleasure in recognizing the many creative and astute people who shared their time and ideas with me while working and, in some cases, living in publicly-funded institutions. I wrote this manuscript while affiliated with public universities; I relied on materials from public libraries and archives to advance my arguments; I visited public housing programs in cities in the United States and Europe; and I contemplated many of these ideas while riding public transportation. A range of professionals have assisted me while I engaged this project. Archivists and librarians across the country have come to my aid. With efficiency and cheer, they indulged my fits of joy when I stumbled across poignant passages in old clippings, notes, or speeches; they retrieved, borrowed, and re-shelved hundreds of boxes and volumes; they refilled toner cartridges and reams of paper; and they jump-started microfilm readers. Security guards and cleaning crews kept me company during late night writing sessions in my offices in Lefrak Hall in College Park, in the Victor Building in Washington, D.C., and in Art and Architecture in Ann Arbor. Esteemed scholars offered trenchant comments on my sometimes tardy conference and colloquium papers; their suggestions sent me back to the sources reinvigorated with new questions and gusto. Thank you especially Jason Guthrie, Jeff Howard, Richard Kirkendall, Bob Bruegmann, iii Gwendolyn Wright, Larry Keating, Suzanne Smith, Trysh Travis, Cathy Turner, and Ian Grandison. Committees of people I may never meet deemed my proposals worthy of funding; this financial support enabled me to develop my ideas more fully. Their grants and fellowships enabled me to make important connections between people, places, and movements. Special thanks for the awards: an American Fellowship from the American Association of University Women, a Pre-doctoral Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution Archives of American Art, a Citation of Special Recognition from Graham Foundation, and a Mary Savage Snouffer Fellowship from the College of Arts and Humanities at University of Maryland. I received travel grants from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, the American Heritage Center at University of Wyoming, the Committee on Africa and the Americas and David C. Driskell Center for the Study of Visual Arts and Culture of African Americans and The African Diaspora both at University of Maryland. In various locales, I have shared aspects of this work at annual and biannual conferences including: American Association for State and Local History, American Studies Association, College Art Association, Collegium for African American Research, International Planning History Society, Modern Language Association, National New Deal Preservation Association, Organization of American Historians/National Council on Public History, and Society for American City and Regional Planning History. Additionally, I presented materials at a number of special meetings and symposia including: “African American Identity Travels” held at University of Maryland; “Another Look at the 1930s” hosted by Centre Interdisciplinaire d'Etudes Américaines; iv Buell Center Dissertation Colloquium assembled at Columbia University; “Crossovers: African Americans and Germany,” convened at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster; and “Mid-Century Modernism in Washington, D.C.” sponsored by the Latrobe Chapter of Society of Architectural Historians. Additionally, I was invited to present my work at the Delaware Seminar at University of Delaware, during Black History Month at the Henson Valley Montessori School, for the public lecture series of the Greenbelt Museum, and at the Smithsonian American Art Museum/Archives of American Art lunchtime lecture series. As a graduate student in College Park, I tested early theses and ideas about modern housing with colleagues in the History Graduate Student Association colloquium; at the “Tools for Social Justice” symposia organized by The Consortium on Race, Gender, and Ethnicity; and in the Faculty, Student, and Staff Development Programs in the Department of African American Studies. I also benefited immensely from assistantships in the Departments of African American Studies and American Studies, as well as from the Modern Movement in Maryland documentation project. Periodically, I worked as a research assistant for Elsa Barkley Brown; those positions offered way more than a stipend and benefits. I learned how to think, look, and listen while working with her. I finished this dissertation project while on a teaching fellowship in the Urban and Regional Planning Program and at the Center for Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan. In Ann Arbor, a number of colleagues—both faculty and students—responded to portions of this work in the classroom and around the seminar table. I refined my thinking and analysis because of presentations at the Urban and Regional Research Collaborative, at the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies, at the v Architecture students’ T-Square Society and at the Center for Africanamerican and African Studies’ Faculty Brownbag Series. Throughout my academic career, beginning in grade school, I have benefited from teachers and scholars who helped shaped this project directly and indirectly without formally serving on my dissertation committee. Thank you to Rowena Archer, Mary Alice Ashton, Mary Frances Berry, Julia Bryan-Wilson, Judith Capen, Margaret Claydon, Seton Cuneen, Bonnie Thorton Dill, Hasia Diner, Yvonne Dixon, Val Dodd, Rebecca Easby, Isabelle Gournay, Lillian Green, Sharon Harley, Eileen Julien, Joan Kinnaird, Liza Kirwin, Debbie Lessner, Eda Levitine, Joan Lord, Randy Mason, Jane McLeod, Ann McGraw, Robyn Muncy, Dorthea Newnam, Debby Rosenfelt, Lucy Strausbaugh, Lori Shpunt, Diane Vanner, Frances Walsh, Bill Waters, Richard J. Wattemaker, the late Rhonda M. Williams, Jean C. Willke, and Clyde Woods. My dissertation committee helped me to cultivate this project in unexpected and exciting ways. Thanks very much to Elsa Barkley Brown, John Caughey,