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A New Form of Credit: The State Promotes Home Improvement, 1934–1954

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 October 2009

Richard Harris
Richard Harris*
Affiliation:
McMaster University
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Journal of Policy History , Volume 21 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 392 - 423
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Copyright © Donald Critchlow and Cambridge University Press 2009

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References

NOTES

1. Ratcliff, Richard U., Urban Land Economics (New York, 1949), 321–34Google Scholar; Straus, Nathan, Two Thirds of a Nation: A Housing Program (New York, 1952), 17Google Scholar; Rapkin, Chester, Winnick, Louis, and Blank, David M., Housing Market Analysis (Washington, D.C., 1953)Google Scholar; Kelly, Burnham, Design and the Production of Houses (New York, 1959), 39Google Scholar; Grigsby, William G., Housing Markets and Public Policy (Philadelphia, 1963), 85Google Scholar. The term “filtering” was not used until the late 1930s, but the concept was older. See, for example, Gries, John M., “Construction,” in President’s Conference on Unemployment, Recent Economic Changes in the United States, I (New York, 1929), 237Google Scholar; Mead, Richard R., “Merchandising Residential Properties,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 190 (1937): 72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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7. For contemporary exceptions, see Goodwillie, Arthur, Waverly: A Study of Neighborhood Conservation (Washington, D.C.: Home Loan Bank Board, 1940)Google Scholar; Keyes, Scott, “Converted Residences and the Supply of Housing,” Journal of Land and Public Utility Economics 16, no. 1 (1940): 47–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Grebler, Leo, “The Housing Inventory: Analytic Concept and Quantitative Change,” American Economic Review 41, no. 2 (1951): 555–68Google Scholar; Nash, William V., Residential Rehabilitation: Private Profits and Public Purposes (New York, 1957)Google Scholar. For historians’ accounts, see Gelber, Steven, “Do-It-Yourself: Constructing, Repairing, and Maintaining Domestic Masculinity,” American Quarterly 49, no. 1 (1997): 66–112CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goldstein, Carolyn, Do-It-Yourself: Home Improvement in Twentieth-Century America (Washington, D.C., 1998)Google Scholar; Kelly, Barbara, Expanding the American Dream: Building and Rebuilding Levittown (Albany, N.Y., 1993)Google Scholar; Hutchison, Janet, “Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal,” Journal of Policy History 9 (1997): 15–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8. Brand, Stewart, How Buildings Learn: What Happens After They Are Built (New York, 1994)Google Scholar.

9. The three were examined for selected years as follows: American Builder (1931–45), American Lumberman (hereafter AL) (1926–27, 1936–37, 1939–41, 1945–52), and Building Supply News (hereafter BSN) (1926, 1927, 1933–36, 1939–40, 1945–52). In 1946, lumber dealer subscriptions to these journals were 14,353, 11,668, and 14,251, respectively, which constituted 18 percent, 77 percent, and 100 percent of all subscriptions, respectively. Calculated from data reported in McNair, M. P. and Hanson, H. L., Problems in Marketing (New York, 1949), 455–61Google Scholar.

10. Using variants and combinations of “home,” “improvement,” “modernization,” “Title I,” “installment credit,” and “Better Homes,” a Boolean keyword survey was undertaken of the full text of the digital archives of the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal.

11. Urwick, L. and Valentine, F.-P., Europe–United States of America, Vol. 5. Trends in the Organization and Methods of Distribution in the Two Areas (Geneva, 1931)Google Scholar. See also Chase, Stuart and Schlink, F. J., Your Money’s Worth: A Study in the Waste of the Consumer’s Dollar (New York, 1927), 34Google Scholar.

12. Ayres, Milan, Instalment Selling and Its Financing (New York, 1926)Google Scholar; Seligman, Edwin, The Economics of Instalment Credit (New York, 1927)Google Scholar; Olney, Martha, Buy Now, Pay Later: Advertising, Credit, and Consumer Durables in the 1920s (Chapel Hill, 1991)Google Scholar; Calder, Lendol, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (Princeton, 1999), 17Google Scholar.

13. Wehrwein, G. S. and Woodbury, Coleman, “Tenancy versus Ownership in Urban Land Utilization,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 148 (1930): 194CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Editors of Fortune, Housing America (New York, 1932), 54–56; Dewhust, F. Frederick and Associates, America’s Needs and Resources: A New Survey (New York, 1955), 206Google Scholar; Grebler, Leo, Blank, David M., and Winnick, Louis, Capital Formation in Residential Real Estate (Princeton, 1956), 131Google Scholar.

14. Ely, Richard T., “Foreword” to United States Department of Commerce, Mortgages on Homes: Census Monograph II (Washington, D.C., 1923), 14Google Scholar.

15. , R. S. and Lynd, H. M., Middletown: A Study in Modern American Culture (New York, 1929), 105, 254Google Scholar.

16. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Historical Statistics of the United States. Part 2 (Washington, D.C., 2003), Series N 156–69Google Scholar; Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Construction Industry in the United States. Bulletin No. 786 (Washington, D.C., 1944), 16Google Scholar. GNP data reported below are from National Association of Home Builders, Housing Almanac 1955 (Washington, D.C., 1955), 107Google Scholar.

17. For discussion in the study period, see Keyes, “Converted Residences,” 49; Colean, Miles, Housing for Defense: A Review of the Role of Housing in Relation to America’s Defense and a Program for Action (New York, 1940), 64Google Scholar; Kelly, Design and the Production, 25; “Hard-to-get-statistics,” Architectural Forum 106, no. 6 (1957): 132–33, 242.

18. Urquhart, M. C. and Buckley, K. A. H., Historical Statistics of Canada (Toronto, 1965), 500Google Scholar.

19. Calculated from U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1936), table 830Google Scholar.

20. Statistics Canada, Historical Statistics of Canada (Ottawa, 1983), Series 168–80Google Scholar. In Canada, the inflection point came in 1928.

21. Lynd and Lynd, Middletown in Transition, 557, 558.

22. Keyes, “Converted Residences,” 48; Smith, Peter J. and McCann, Lawrence D., “Residential Land Use Change in an Inner Edmonton,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 71, no. 4 (1981): 543–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Grebler, Blank, and Winnick, Capital Formation, 329.

23. Lynd, Robert S. and Lynd, Helen M., Middletown in Transition: A Study in Cultural Conflicts (New York, 1937), 197Google Scholar; Tobey, Ronald C., Technology as Freedom: The New Deal and Electrical Modernization of the American Home (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1996), 135Google Scholar.

24. Nash, Residential Rehabilitation, 4; Colean, Housing for Defense, 175. The ratio continued to exceed 50:50 until 1939.

25. U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Statistical Abstract of the United States (Washington, D.C., 1936)Google Scholar, table 830.

26. Hutchison “Building for Babbitt,” 201.

27. Ford, James, “Better Homes in America,” in The Better Homes Manual, ed. Halbert, Blanche (Chicago, 1931), 744Google Scholar; Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 202; Hutchison, Janet, “The Cure for Domestic Neglect: Better Homes in America, 1922–1935,” In Perspectives in Vernacular Architecture II, ed. Wells, Camille (Columbia, Mo., 1986), 168–78Google Scholar.

28. ord, “Better Homes,” 747.

29. Gries, John M. and Ford, James, Housing and the Community: Home Repair and Remodelling (Washington, D.C., 1931)Google Scholar.

30. American Lumberman, Old Homes Made New (Chicago, 1924); National Lumber Manufacturers Association, High Lights of a Decade of Achievement (Washington, D.C., 1929), 59–63Google Scholar.

31. “National Trade Extension Staff Holds Conference,” AL 2735 (15 October 1927): 67; “Exemplifying Remodeling Possibilities,” AL 2713 (14 May 1927): 38.

32. Editorial, The Home Modernizer 1, no. 1 (June 1929): n.p.

33. “Association Work Shown by Contest,” New York Times, 4 May 1930, N18; Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 199–200; Blaszczyk, Regina, Imagining Consumers: Design and Innovation from Wedgwood to Corning (Baltimore, 2000), 200ffGoogle Scholar.

34. Calder, Financing the American Dream, 17, 251; Seligman, Economics of Instalment Credit, 12.

35. Seligman, Economics of Instalment Credit, 52–53; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 402.

36. Ayres, Installment Selling, 26; Cox, Reavis, The Economics of Instalment Credit Buying (New York, 1948), 211–12Google Scholar.

37. Seligman, Economics of Instalment Credit, 101.

38. “Instalment Plan Upheld as Sound if Home is Aided,” Washington Post 1 August 1926, F5; “American Radiator Earns $12,413,742,” New York Times, 15 March 1929, 42; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 402; “Announces New Modernization Budget Plan,” AL 3065 (18 January 1936): 29.

39. “Big Companies Join in Rehabilitation,” New York Times, 2 October 1932, 8.

40. “Kriegshaber Reroofs 500 Homes in 18 Months,” BSN 27, no. 3 (18 January 1927): 151, 153–55.

41. Hidy, Ralph W., Hill, Frank E., and Nevins, Allan, Timber and Men: The Weyerhaeuser Story (New York, 1963), 474–75Google Scholar.

42. Emmett, Boris and Jenck, John E., Catalogues and Counters: A History of Sears, Roebuck and Company (Chicago, 1950), 524–26.Google Scholar

43. “Asks Government Aid on Home Construction,” New York Times, 27 December 1931, 132.

44. U.S. Congress, National Housing Act, Hearings before the Committee on Banking and Currency of the U.S. Senate, May 16 to 24, 1934, on the National Housing Act, 73rd Cong., 2nd sess. (Washington, D.C., 1934), 295, 302.Google Scholar

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46. “Companies Lend to Aid FHA Plan,” Wall Street Journal, 23 October 1934, 1.

47. Chandler, Lester V., America’s Greatest Depression, 1929–1941 (New York, 1970), 83.Google Scholar

48. Harriss, C. Lowell, History and Policies of the Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (New York, 1951)Google Scholar; Winston, Carey, “Home Owner’s Loan Corporation,” in The Story of Housing, ed. Fish, Gertrude S. (New York, 1979), 193–94Google Scholar.

49. “Home-Loan Groups Plan Building Aid,” New York Times, 30 January 1934, 33; Stringer, Harry R., Save Your Home (Washington, D.C., 1933), 18Google Scholar; Harriss, History and Policies, 108, 127, 128.

50. Harriss, History and Policies, 107; “288,000 Aided in Repairs on Homes by U.S.,” Washington Post, 9 July 1934, 2.

51. “Finds Home Repairs Give Higher Values,” New York Times, 27 February 1938, 186.

52. Harriss, History and Policies, 108n.14.

53. Goodwillie, Waverly, 6.

54. “288,000 Aided in Repairs,” 2; Goodwillie, Waverly; von Hoffman, “Enter the Housing Industry.”

55. “Favors Repair Loans for Home,” Wall Street Journal, 22 May 1934, 5.

56. U.S. Congress, National Housing Act, 23, 320, 24, 61, 171.

57. Federal Housing Administration, The F.H.A. Story in Summary, 1934–1959 (Washington, D.C., 1959), 6.Google Scholar

58. U.S. Congress, National Housing Act, 32, 38, 294, 374–80, 431–35. McFarland estimated that the effective rate of interest on J-M’s loans was 24 percent. McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 405. The calculation of interest on installment loans can be complex. See Cox, The Economics of Instalment Credit Buying, 200ff.

59. Ferguson, Abner, “A Decade of FHA’s Mortgage Insurance Experience,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio 8, no. 4 (1944): 3Google Scholar; Jones, Ernest P., “Title I Lending: Past and Future,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio 9, no. 1 (1944): 12.Google Scholar

60. “Owners Spending Cash for Repairs,” New York Times, 11 November 1934, RE2.

61. Program details are reported in McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 405–9; Coppock, J. D., The Government Agencies of Consumer Instalment Credit (New York, 1940), 157Google Scholar; Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 108, 115; “The New Amendments to the National Housing Act,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio 5, no. 4 (1941): 3–4, 42–44.

62. United States, National Housing Act, 24, 25, 158; Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 58; Freund, David, Colored Property: State Policy and White Racial Politics in Suburban America (Chicago, 2007), 165–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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65. “FHA Will Conduct Clinics in Queen’s,” New York Times, 24 November 1935, RE1–RE2.

66. Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 58–74; Hanson, Elisha, “Official Propaganda and the New Deal,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 179 (1935): 182.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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68. Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 170–71; “Tune in on FHA,” 110; American Builder (January 1935), 58.

69. Brightbill, J. Earl, “Modern Merchandizing in the Lumber Industry,” AL (28 July), 43.Google Scholar

70. Laird, What Makes People Buy? 79.

71. Federal Housing Administration, Selling Better Housing (Washington, D.C., 1935), 6. Hutchison, “Building for Babbitt,” 202.

72. Federal Housing Administration, Complete Program: Better Selling of Better Housing. FHA Form 165 (revised) (Washington, D.C., 1935), 1, 7, 24, 26. Esperdy suggests that the FHA wrote this manual and organized evening sales meetings in six hundred cities in the spring and summer of 1935 because they had been disappointed by the initial failure of local building interests to do an effective sales job. Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 80.

73. Federal Housing Administration, Selling Better Housing.

74. Esperdy, Modernizing Main Street, 67, 69.

75. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 137, 138.

76. “Giving 800,000 Jobs Credited to Women,” New York Times, 28 May 1935, 22.

77. “Revival of Title I Insured Lending,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio 2, no. 8 (1938): 12–13, 27–28; “FHA Fall Modernization Campaign,” AL 3182 (13 July 1940), 37, 61.

78. Smythe, Memo to FDR, 67; Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 263.

79. Federal Housing Administration, The Modernization Credit Plan (Washington, D.C., 1936), 4.Google Scholar

80. “Dealers Oppose Government Competition in Housing,” AL 3171 (10 February 1940), 62–63; Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 98; Newton, Glen R., “Remodelling Contest Sells 19 Title I Jobs,” BSN 49, no. 5 (November 1935): 187–88Google Scholar; “Does Good Job of Modernizing,” AL 3081 (29 August 1936), 33; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 401.

81. Wells, Kenneth R., “Building Bank Business with Title I,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio 10, no. 4 (1946): 6.Google Scholar

82. Ibid., 404; Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 475; “Companies Lend,” 1; “J-M to Make FHA Loans,” American Builder (October 1934), 58; “Modernization Credit Offered by Roofing Manufacturer,” AL 3066 (1 February 1936), 38.

83. “Finds Great Need for Home Repairs,” New York Times, 16 September 1934, RE2; L. H. Goldbright to Dean F. Fenn, 27 October 1936 [File 203–6A, vol. 712, RG 19, LAC], 2, 3; FHA, “Confidential Report—For Information of Finance Institutions Only. Summary of Insured Modernization Loans,” Typescript, 30 January 1935 [File 203–6A, vol. 712, RG 19, LAC].

84. “Leaders to Study Housing Program,” New York Times, 15 October 1934, 12; “Plan Housing Schools,” New York Times, 28 January 1935, 22.

85. Weyerhaeuser Sales Corp., Good Homes Never Grow Old: A Manual for Homeowners on the Economic Maintenance of Homes (St. Paul, Minn., 1935).Google Scholar

86. Johns-Manville Corporation, 101 Practical Suggestions for Home Improvements (New York, 1936).Google Scholar

87. Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 476.

88. Hyman, Louis, “Debtor Nation: Changing Credit Practices in Twentieth-Century America (Ph.D. diss., Harvard University, 2008), 119, 130Google Scholar; Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 76.

89. Federal Housing Administration, How Banks Are Making Modernization Loans, FHE 18A (Washington, D.C., 1934), 4–5.Google Scholar

90. Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 56–58, 112.

91. Federal Housing Administration, How Banks Are Making Modernization Loans, 6.

92. Federal Housing Administration, How and Why Banks Are Making Modernization Loans, FHE 18C, supplement C (Washington, D.C., 1934), 14.Google Scholar

93. “Owners Spending Cash for Repairs,” New York Times, 11 November 1934, RE2.

94. Cheyney, C. I., “This 14-Point Sales Plan,” BSN 49, no. 5 (November 1935): 180Google Scholar; Mueller, Ben C., “A Sale a Day with FHA,” BSN 49, no. 4 (October 1935): 153Google Scholar; Taylor, Hugh K., “Campaign Is Gaining Speed!” BSN 47, no. 5 (November 1934): 161.Google Scholar

95. Theobold, A. D., Forty-Five Years on the Up Escalator [privately published, 1979], 71.Google Scholar Theobold was director of education and research for the Savings and Loan Institute.

96. “Proposal for a Home-Building Service Plan,” Federal Home Loan Bank Review 2, no. 4 (1936): 118.

97. McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 403.

98. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 107.

99. Bushman, “Dealer Business Under Title I,” 28–29.

100. Cox, The Economics of Instalment Credit Buying, 345.

101. Ratcliff, Urban Land Economics, 265.

102. Statistics in this paragraph are reported in Coppock, The Government Agencies, 28, 157; Goldstein, Do-It-Yourself, 26; “FHA Fall Modernization Campaign”; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 401. Tobey reports that in Riverside, California, one in five households had taken out home-improvement loans by 1940. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 164.

103. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 22.

104. Hidy, Hill, and Nevins, Timber and Men, 476.

105. Harris, Richard, “The Birth of the North American Home Improvement Store, 1905–1929,” Enterprise and Society 10 (2009 - in press).Google Scholar

106. “Sales Resistance Overcome by Complete Job Quotation,” AL 3083 (26 September 1936), 29, 46.

107. Jones, “Title I Lending,” 13.

108. Hines, Ralph J., “On Our Retail Way to Greater Prosperity,” AL 3071 (11 April 1936), 36–37, 55.Google Scholar

109. “Dealers Can Learn Much of Value from Study of This Survey,” AL (6 November 1937), 22 [editorial].

110. “Dealers Oppose Government,” 62.

111. Dauer, E. A., Comparative Operating Experience of Consumer Instalment Financing Agencies and Commercial Banks, 1929–1941 (New York, 1944)Google Scholar, 34n.11; McFarland, “Economic Evaluation,” 404; Jones, “Title I Lending,” 11.

112. Tobey, Technology as Freedom, 107.

113. Olney, Buy Now, Pay Later, 108.

114. Wells, Kenneth R., “Building Bank Business with Title I,” Insured Mortgage Portfolio 10, no. 4 (1946): 6Google Scholar; Paddi, John B., “The Personal Loan Department of a Large Commercial Bank,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 196 (March 1938): 135CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barry, David C., “Consumer Financing and Its Relation to the Commercial Bank,” Journal of the American Statistical Association 33, no. 201 (March 1938): 51–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hyman, “Debtor Nation,” 136.

115. Smythe, Memo to F.D.R., 166; Gordon Sturrock, “Money to Loan,” Chatelaine, November 1936, 82.

116. “Memorandum for Submission to Arthur B. Purvis, Esq., Chairman of the National Employment Commission of Canada,” typescript, 23 July 1936, 4 [File 11, vol. 3357, RG 27, LAC]; Hobbs, Margaret and Pierson, Ruth R., “‘A Kitchen That Wastes No Steps’: Gender, Class, and the Home Improvement Plan, 1936–1940,” Histoire Sociale/Social History 21 (1988): 10, 12, 13, 18, 19Google Scholar; Sturrock, “Money to Loan,” 82; “Dominion Home Financing Explained to Southwest Ontario,” AL 3089 (19 December 1936), 45.

117. Hobbs and Pierson, “‘A Kitchen That Wastes No Steps,’” 13, 16; “How to Borrow the Sum You Need,” Chatelaine, April 1937, 22–23; Richard Fisher, “Before/After,” Chatelaine, March 1937, 20–21; National Employment Commission, Press Releases re. Home Improvement Program, 1936–37, nos. 76, 77, and 164 [File 10, vol. 3354, RG 27, LAC].

118. Harris, Richard, Making a Productive Consumer: The Rise of the Home Improvement Market, 1905–1960 (forthcoming)Google Scholar.