Part 1

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BETTER HOMES IN AMERICA

Plan Book

_for Demonstration Week October 9 to 14, 1922_

THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON

July 21, 1922.

My dear Mrs. Meloney:

I am directed by the President to assure you of his earnest endorsement of the Better Homes Campaign which has been launched by the Advisory Council and is being carried on by representative women of America. He regards the campaign as of particular importance, because it places emphasis not only upon home ownership, which he regards as absolutely elemental in the development of the best citizenship, but upon furnishing, sanitation and equipment of the home.

The President feels that as many millions of dollars and the best minds of this generation have been devoted to improve factory conditions, the home is deserving of its share of the same intensive consideration. There are twenty millions of house-keepers in America. For them, the home is their industrial center as well as their place of abode, and it is felt that altogether too little attention has been paid to lightening the labors and bettering the working conditions of these women.

The President feels that the women, who are so successfully conducting this campaign are entitled to all consideration and recognition, and he hopes that every community in America will exhibit a model home.

Your sincerely,

Secretary to the President.

Mrs. W. B. Meloney, Sec'y., Advisory Council for Better Homes Campaign, 223 Spring Street, New York City, N. Y.

BETTER HOMES DEMONSTRATION WEEK

Advisory Council

CALVIN COOLIDGE _Vice-President of the United States_

HERBERT HOOVER _Secretary of Commerce_

HENRY C. WALLACE _Secretary of Agriculture_

JAMES JOHN DAVIS _Secretary of Labor_

Dr. HUGH S. CUMMING _Surgeon-General United States Public Health Service_

Dr. JOHN JAMES TIGERT _U. S. Commissioner of Education_

C. W. PUGSLEY _Assistant Secretary of Agriculture_

JOHN M. GRIES _Director Division of Building and Housing, Dept. of Commerce_

JULIUS H. BARNES _President Chamber of Commerce of the United States_

JOHN IHLDER _Director Housing Conditions, Chamber of Commerce of the United States_

DONN BARBER _Fellow American Institute of Architects_

JOHN BARTON PAYNE _Chairman Central Committee American Red Cross_

LIVINGSTON FARRAND _Chairman National Health Council_

Mrs. THOMAS G. WINTER _President General Federation of Women's Clubs_

MRS. LENA LAKE FORREST _President National Federation of Business and Professional Women's Clubs_

* * * * *

Bureau of Information, THE DELINEATOR, 223 Spring Street

IN AMERICA--October Ninth to Fourteenth

Co-operating Governors

ALASKA SCOTT C. BONE, _Governor_ ARIZONA THOS. E. CAMPBELL, _Governor_ ARKANSAS T. C. McRAE, _Governor_ COLORADO O. H. SHOUP, _Governor_ FLORIDA CARY A. HARDEE, _Governor_ IDAHO D. W. DAVIS, _Governor_ INDIANA W. T. McCRAY, _Governor_ KANSAS HENRY J. ALLEN, _Governor_ KENTUCKY E. P. MORROW, _Governor_ MARYLAND A. C. RITCHIE, _Governor_ MASSACHUSETTS C. H. COX, _Governor_ MISSISSIPPI LEE M. RUSSELL, _Governor_ MISSOURI A. M. HYDE, _Governor_ NEBRASKA S. R. McKELVlE, _Governor_ NEVADA E. D. BOYLE, _Governor_ OHIO H. L. DAVIS, _Governor_ OREGON B. W. OLCOTT, _Governor_ PENNSYLVANIA W. C. SPROUL, _Governor_ SOUTH CAROLINA WILSON G. HARVEY, _Governor_ SOUTH DAKOTA W. H. McMASTER, _Governor_ TENNESSEE ALFRED A. TAYLOR, _Governor_ UTAH CHAS. R. MABEY, _Governor_ VERMONT JAMES HARTNESS, _Governor_ VIRGINIA E. L. TRINKLE, _Governor_ WYOMING ROBERT D. CAREY, _Governor_

* * * * *

New York City Secretary, Mrs. William Brown Meloney

_Better Homes_

_By_ CALVIN COOLIDGE

We spend too much time in longing for the things that are far off and too little in the enjoyment of the things that are near at hand. We live too much in dreams and too little in realities. We cherish too many impossible projects of setting worlds in order, which are bound to fail. We consider too little plans for putting our own households in order, which might easily be made to succeed. A large part of our seeming ills would be dispelled if we could but turn from the visionary to the practical. We need the influence of vision, we need the inspiring power of ideals, but all these are worthless unless they can be translated into positive actions.

The world has been through a great spiritual and moral awakening in these last few years. There are those who fear that this may all be dissipated. It will be unless it can be turned into something actual. In our own country conditions have developed which make this more than ever easy of accomplishment. It ought to be expressed not merely in official and public deeds, but in personal and private actions. It must come through a realization that the great things of life are not reserved for the enjoyment of a few, but are within the reach of all.

There are two shrines at which mankind has always worshipped, must always worship: the altar which represents religion, and the hearthstone which represents the home.

These are the product of fixed beliefs and fixed modes of living. They have not grown up by accident; they are the means, deliberate, mature, sanctified, by which the human race, in harmony with its own great nature, is developed and perfected. They are at once the source and the result of the inborn longing for what is completed, for what has that finality and security required to give to society the necessary element of stability.

The genius of America has long been directed to the construction of great highways and railroads, the erection of massive buildings for the promotion of trade and the transaction of public business. It has supplied hospitals, institutions of learning and places of religious worship. All of these are worthy of the great effort and the sustained purpose which alone has made them possible. They contribute to the general welfare of all the people, but they are all too detached, too remote; they do not make the necessary contribution of a feeling of proprietorship and ownership. They do not complete the circuit. They are for the people, but not of the people. They do not satisfy that longing which exists in every human breast to be able to say: "This is mine."

We believe in American institutions. We believe that they are justified by the light of reason, and by the result of experience. We believe in the right of self-government. We believe in the protection of the personal rights of life and liberty and the enjoyment of the rewards of industry. We believe in the right to acquire, to hold, and transmit property. We believe in all that which is represented under the general designation of a republic.

But while we hold that these principles are sound we do not claim that they have yet become fully established. We do not claim that our institutions are yet perfected.

It is of little avail to assert that there is an inherent right to own property unless there is an open opportunity that this right may be enjoyed in a fair degree by all. That which is referred to in such critical terms as capitalism cannot prevail unless it is adapted to the general requirements. Unless it be of the people it will cease to have a place under our institutions, even as slavery ceased.

It is time to demonstrate more effectively that property is of the people. It is time to transfer some of the approbation and effort that has gone into the building of public works to the building, ornamenting, and owning of private homes by the people at large--attractive, worthy, permanent homes.

Society rests on the home. It is the foundation of our institutions. Around it are gathered all the cherished memories of childhood, the accomplishments of maturity, and the consolations of age. So long as a people hold the home sacred they will be in the possession of a strength of character which it will be impossible to destroy.

Apparently the world at large, certainly our own country, is turning more and more for guidance to that wisdom born of affection which we call the intuition of woman. Her first thought is always of the home. Her first care is for its provision. As our laws and customs are improved by her influence, it is likely to be first in the direction of greater facility for acquiring, and greater security in holding a home.

Some of the fine enthusiasm which was developed by the required sacrifices of war may well find a new expression in turning towards the making of the home. It is the final answer to every challenge of the soundness of the fundamental principles of our institutions. It holds the assurance and prospect of contentment and of satisfaction.

Under present conditions any ambition of America to become a nation of home owners would be by no means impossible of fulfillment. The land is available, the materials are at hand, the necessary accumulation of credit exists, the courage, the endurance and the sacrifice of the people are not wanting. Let them begin, however slender their means, the building and perfecting of the national character by the building and adorning of a home which shall be worthy of the habitation of an American family, calm in the assurance that "the gods send thread for a web begun."

Here will be found that satisfaction which comes from possession and achievement. Here is the opportunity to express the soul in art. Here is the Sacred influence, here in the earth at our feet, around the hearthstone, which raises man to his true estate.

(Signed) Calvin Coolidge

THE HOME AS AN INVESTMENT

By HERBERT HOOVER

One can always safely judge of the character of a nation by its homes. For it is mainly through the hope of enjoying the ownership of a home that the latent energy of any citizenry is called forth. This universal yearning for better homes and the larger security, independence and freedom that they imply, was the aspiration that carried our pioneers westward. Since the preemption acts passed early in the last century, the United States, in its land laws, has recognized and put a premium upon this great incentive. It has stimulated the building of rural homes through the wide distribution of land under the Homestead Acts and by the distribution of credit through the Farm Loan Banks. Indeed, this desire for home ownership has, without question, stimulated more people to purposeful saving than any other factor. Saving, in the abstract, is, of course, a perfunctory process as compared with purposeful saving for a home, the possession of which may change the very physical, mental, and moral fibre of one's own children.

Now, in the main because of the diversion of our economic strength from permanent construction to manufacturing of consumable commodities during and after the war, we are short about a million homes. In cities such a shortage implies the challenge of congestion. It means that in practically every American city of more than 200,000, from 20 to 30 per cent, of the population is adversely affected, and that thousands of families are forced into unsanitary and dangerous quarters. This condition, in turn, means a large increase in rents, a throw-back in human efficiency and that unrest which inevitably results from inhibition of the primal instinct in us all for home ownership. It makes for nomads and vagrants. In rural areas it means aggravation and increase of farm tenantry on one hand, an increase of landlordism on the other hand, and general disturbance to the prosperity and contentment of rural life.

There is no incentive to thrift like the ownership of property. The man who owns his own home has a happy sense of security. He will invest his hard earned savings to improve the house he owns. He will develop it and defend it. No man ever worked for, or fought for a boarding-house.

But the appalling anomaly of a nation as prosperous as ours thwarted largely in its common yearning for better homes, is now giving way to the gratifying revival of home construction. Accordingly the time is ripe for this revival to afford an opportunity to our people to look to more homes and better ones, to better, more economical and more uniform building codes, and to universal establishment and application of zoning rules that make for the development of better towns and cities. We have the productive capacity wasted annually in the United States sufficient to raise in large measure the housing conditions of our entire people to the level that only fifty per cent, of them now enjoy. We have wastes in the building industry itself which, if constructively applied, would go a long way toward supplying better homes, so that what is needed imperatively is organized intelligence and direction. For the problem is essentially one of ways and means.

And, finally, while we are about Better Homes for America and are lending such indirect support to the movement as the Government, States, counties, communities, and patriotic individuals and organizations can rightfully give, let us have in mind not houses merely, but homes! There is a large distinction. It may have been a typesetter who confounded the two words. For, curiously, with all our American ingenuity and resourcefulness, we have overlooked the laundry and the kitchen, and thrown the bulk of our efforts in directions other than those designed to make better homes by adding to the facilities of our very habitations. If, in other words, the family is the unit of modern civilization, the home, its shelter and gathering-point, should, it would seem, warrant in its design and furnishing quite as large a share of attention as the power plant or the factory.

We believe, therefore, that in every community in which it is possible a "_Better Homes in America_" Demonstration should be planned and carried through during the week of October 9th to 14th, 1922.

(Signed) Herbert Hoover

THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE

WASHINGTON

July 24, 1922.

Dear Mrs. Meloney:

Naturally I am interested in the "Better Homes in America" movement. When we consider the all powerful influence of home conditions and home atmosphere on the lives and character of our people, both young and old, surely every proper effort to improve those conditions should have the support of all good citizens.

Our people in the Department of Agriculture will be glad to advise with your committee chairmen on any matters in which they can lend assistance. Our home demonstration agents in different sections of the country can no doubt be helpful in advising as to the setting up of demonstration kitchens.

You seem to have gathered to your help the cooperation of a large number of state governors and also a number of other gentlemen who, because of their public work, can possibly contribute to the success of the campaign.

With very best wishes, I am

Sincerely yours,

[Signature]

Mrs. William Brown Meloney, Secretary to the Advisory Council for the "Better Homes" Campaign, 223 Spring Street, New York City.

A PLAN for COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION of BETTER HOMES IN AMERICA

_Demonstration Week October 9th to 14th, 1922_

_The future history of America will be shaped in large measure by the character of its homes. If we continue to be a home-loving people we shall have the strength that comes only from a virile family life. This means that our homes must be attractive, comfortable, convenient, wholesome. They must keep pace with the progress made outside the home. Realization of this has crystallized into a national civic campaign for Better Homes in America endorsed and encouraged by Federal and State officials and by prominent men in public life as set forth in this Plan Book._

The following plan has been prepared to give practical help to citizens of any community organizing for a _Better Homes in America_ Demonstration Week, October 9th to 14th, 1922.

The Campaign in each community centers about a _Better Home_--completely equipped, furnished and decorated, in accordance with approved modern practice, and placed on exhibition during Demonstration Week.

Better Homes exhibitions have already been held, but now for the first time a national organization, endorsed and supported by the President of the United States and other Federal and State officials, is prepared to give practical help to every community wishing to share in the _Better Homes in America_ movement.

The community which exhibits a _Better Home_ during Demonstration Week will be given a powerful impetus for good. Every civic interest, every business and industry will be favorably affected. A _Better Homes_ demonstration is a stimulus to better living, civic pride and community morale. It encourages thrift and industry. It develops a higher standard of taste. It means a better community in every way. This has been proved by the experience of many communities which have held successful exhibitions. They have ranged from cities as large as Cleveland, Milwaukee, Columbus, Kansas City and Dayton to villages of a few hundred population. In every case where the demonstration has been properly organized lasting benefits have followed.

_Follow the Plan_

The National Advisory Council of _Better Homes in America_, through its Bureau of Information, has made a thorough investigation of previous exhibitions of this character.

This investigation has shown clearly that when the local organizations proceed in the right way a _Better Homes_ demonstration may easily be made a great success. Causes of trouble as well as of success have been analyzed to bring out the methods that should be avoided. The Advisory Council, therefore, is in a position to recommend plans that have stood the test of practical experience.

With Federal and State governments endorsing and encouraging this Plan of educating the people to _Better Homes in America_, the conduct of local demonstrations is given tremendous impetus and support. And with the suggestions and the Plan for conducting such demonstrations herewith presented, any community may confidently undertake the production of a _Better Homes_ Exhibition during Demonstration Week, October 9th to 14th, 1922.

A comparatively few energetic and capable women, with the support of local civic organizations, can effectively put into practice the ideas and plans with which they will be supplied by the Bureau of Information. The expense of a _Better Home_ demonstration need not be great; in some communities it may be kept as low as $25.00. Builders, merchants and prominent citizens will combine to supply the Model _Better Home_, and to furnish it. Civic organizations and newspapers will cooperate to interest the public.

The most successful demonstrations have been so managed as to impress upon visitors that they were not selfish enterprises, intended to help special interests, particular firms or individuals. They have been so conducted as to benefit every line of business and to help the community as a whole. Neither the name of the builder or owner of the home exhibited, nor the name of any person or business firm furnishing any portion of the exhibit, is permitted to be displayed.

The motive behind the demonstration is primarily educational.

_How to Form a General Committee for Better Homes Demonstration Week_

A Better Homes Demonstration should be organized and directed by a disinterested group of prominent women, working from motives of public service. This group should be formed of a Chairman and a General Committee of from four to seven members, depending upon the size of the community.

Each member of the General Committee is Chairman of one or more sub-committees as outlined later in this Plan.

The Chairman of the General Committee is appointed through the National Advisory Council of _Better Homes in America_. She appoints the members of the local General Committee. They in turn appoint the members of the Sub-committees. In the case of the Sub-committees it is particularly important that appointments should be made with the knowledge and approval of the local civic and commercial interests whose co-operation is desired. Detailed suggestions for procedure are outlined later.

The duties of the members of the General Committee fit naturally into the following arrangement of Sub-committees with a member of the General Committee as Chairman of each Sub-committee:

(1) Sub-committee on Advertising and Publicity. (2) Sub-committee on Selection of Demonstration Home. (3) Sub-committee on Equipment of Demonstration Home. (4) Sub-committee on Furnishing and Decorating. (5) Sub-committee on Reception of Visitors and Management of Home. (6) Sub-committee on Program of Events. (7) Sub-committee on Budget for Demonstration Week.

Where the size of the community makes it desirable to have a General Committee of only four members, some such distribution of the Sub-committees as this is recommended:

(1) Chairman (a member of the General Committee) heading (a) Sub-committee on Advertising and Publicity; and (b) Sub-committee on Progress of Events. (2) Chairman (a member of the General Committee) heading (a) Sub-committee on Equipment of Demonstration Home; and (b) Sub-committee on Furnishing and Decorating. (3) Chairman (a member of the General Committee) heading (a) Sub-committee on Selection of Demonstration Home; and (b) Sub-committee on Reception of Visitors and Management of Home. (4) Chairman (a member of the General Committee) heading (a) Sub-committee on Budget for Demonstration Week.

_How To Secure Patrons for Better Homes Demonstration; Full Cooperation of All Local Interests Essential_

Following the organization of the General Committee, the first duty of its Chairman should be the arrangement for meetings of the Committee--or its individual members--with the various City Officials, and Civic and Commercial Organizations in the community, to explain the Plan for a _Better Homes_ Demonstration and to secure their endorsement and active support.

Those endorsing and supporting the Demonstration may be known as Patrons and should comprise the following:

The Mayor Commissioner of Education (or Superintendent of Public School) Publishers or Owners of Local Newspapers Presidents of Important Women's Clubs President of Chamber of Commerce Agricultural Home Bureau, etc. President of Real Estate Board President of Rotary Club President of Kiwanis Club Presidents of Building & Loan Associations Presidents of other Business or Trade Associations related to the Home Building and Furnishing Industries.

Churches should also be asked to support the movement.

Additional Patrons may properly be selected from prominent citizens of the community, who are noted for their public spirit and are not included in the above list.

The two essentials for a successful _Better Homes in America_ Demonstration are genuine co-operation from all local civic, financial, commercial and educational interests, and full and extensive publicity through the local newspapers. From the youngest boy or girl scout to bank president, business man, school teacher, minister, manufacturer and city official, everybody in a community should have a real personal interest in the Demonstration. When the benefits of a successful _Better Homes_ Demonstration are once understood this interest is readily aroused.

Investigation of successful exhibitions in Kansas City, Indianapolis, Cleveland and elsewhere proved conclusively that the cooperation of all local interests was the biggest single factor of success.

_How to Form Sub-Committees_