[Rarebooks] FS: Important 1895 Worker's Housing Study

[Joslin Hall Rare Books, ABAA]

Gould, E[lgin] R[alston] L[ovell].  "THE HOUSING OF THE WORKING PEOPLE.
Eighth Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor"

Washington; Government Printing Office: 1895.

A detailed and wide-ranging survey of the state of working housing in
America, England and Europe during the Gilded Age. There are sections
dealing with sanitary laws as they relate to lodging and tenement houses,
building regulations, the intervention of “public bodies” to improve
conditions, and rent collection. The study then moves on to “model” block
buildings, with a host of information on specific projects and buildings.
Gould then surveys “model small houses”, and describes many specific
projects, including housing built by the Pullman Car Company, Lever
Brothers, Villery and Boch, and the Royal Prussian State Railway for their
employees.

The final sections deal with model lodging houses and “economic and
ethical aspects” of the subject. This chapter includes the rather obvious
conclusion that workers who are well-housed at reasonable rents are more
productive than their badly-housed, overcharged counterparts, and that
companies providing such housing not only are able to have a happier, more
productive workforce, but make a good profit on the rentals as well. It
further notes that much private tenement housing is over-priced and
substandard. The text is fully illustrated with views and plans.

Issued as part of the Executive Documents of the House of Representatives,
Third Session of the 53rd Congress.

The author, E.R.L. Gould (1860-1915) was a respected economist and
university professor associated with Johns Hopkins, as well as a housing,
banking and government reformer in New York city. In his important 1900
essay, "The Housing Problem in Great Cities", Gould wrote-

“The housing question is the most fundamental of social problems relating
to environment. The dictum of the late Cardinal Manning, ‘Domestic life
creates a nation,’ is absolutely sound. The corollary is also true: the
lack of domestic life will unmake a nation. The home is the character unit
of society; and, where there is little or no opportunity for the free play
of influences which make for health, happiness, and virtue, we must expect
social degeneration and decay. Inspect the charts of the whole tenement
region of New York City as they were displayed at the Tenement House
Exhibition, and note the formidable part played by bad housing in the
generation of social ills. Great cities are the danger points of modern
civilization, and any community which leaves to a large part of its
inhabitants inadequate facilities for the true development of domestic
life must fight deteriorating forces at tremendous cost.”

Gould felt that such problems could be overcome by responsible company
policy augmented by government regulation-

“If municipalities are endowed with such powers [to regulate], there would
seem to be no necessity for embarking upon the policy of municipal
building and ownership of model tenement houses... Municipal regulation,
not municipal ownership, is the best watchword for American policy”.

Among Gould’s other works were “The Social Condition of Labor” (1893)
along with "Park Areas and Open Spaces in Cities" (1889).

An important and comprehensive survey of worker housing in America, Europe
and England at the turn of the last century.

Hardcover. 6.25”x9”, 461 pages with 136 plates, many folding. Bound in
full original sheep, new leather spine label; large “To be Returned to
Senate Library” bookplates on front and rear covers; moderate cover wear,
some internal soil, etc.  [09489]  $250.00



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