Be a patriot, buy a home: re-imagining Home owners and Home ownership in early 20th century atlanta.

In a 1945 review of John Dean's Homeownership: Is It Sound?, real estate analyst Helen Monchow observed that Dean had set himself an unpopular task in examining "an institution so long established, so deep seated, and so widely accepted as a principle or ideal of the so-called American way of life." She continued that "Enthusiasm for homeownership- or at least equal opportunity for homeownership--amounts almost to a religion in this country." (1) But in 1945, the position of homeownership as a sacrosanct institution had just reached maturity. The Homeowners' Loan Corporation (HOLC), Federal Housing Administration (FHA), and the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB) of the 1930s, and the Veterans Administration (VA) program of the 1940s buttressed the (largely white) migration to single family homes in the suburbs just after World War II, institutions and policies that have been investigated (and complicated) by a range of social scientists. (2) This article examines the era prior to that significant wave of legislation, when the federal government joined with the real estate interests to reassert the meaning of homeownership within American society. (3)

This study of Atlanta's experience with early 20th century homeownership campaigns indicates that, in the years following the Great War, various historical friends converged that pressed the federal government and the housing in dustry to re imagine and re position homeownership. I use the term re position because as Donald Krueckeberg, Peter Dreier, J. Paul Mitchell and others have shown, bias toward property ownership over renting has existed throughout the history of the nation (4) But federal desires to use property ownership to calm political turmoil and buttress and reinvigorate land markets combined with private land interests to encourage new cultural constructions of the homeowner and homeownership. By imbuing homeownership and homeowners with partic ular meanings, federal and private interests were able to entice Americans into adopting practices and frameworks that served a number of national interests, including the stabilization of land markets and the adoption of specific political frameworks. By forging and delivering status rewards, federal and real estate interests encouraged new attention to homeownership a generation before tax write-offs, amortised mortgages, and federal mortgage insurance combined to make homeownership "affordable" to most Americans. Federal initiatives publicly associated the homeowner with thrift, character, moral fiber, and citizenship. Rhetoric imploring men to protect their families through homeownership was carefully deployed and reinforced. Homeowners were held up as patriots and family providers, the bulwark of the nation-state. National and local real estate interests and organizations followed, and then aligned renting and the renter with negative imagery, such as bolshevism and radicalism.

Atlanta's land dealers initially eschewed the own your home campaigns of the early 20th century and remained focused on their lucrative rental housing investment market; yet in 1921 they changed course and adopted promotional strategies that, by then, had pervaded the nation for three years. Examining how the national homeownership movement drew in a formerly rental-oriented land market elucidates not just the power of the federal-private property interest nexus, but how, over a very short period, this coalition built a successful campaign that used traditional American imagery to create a new discourse of home and homeownership. By investigating how Atlanta's land dealers were enticed into the national homeownership trajectory, we better understand how--throughout the U.S.--the terms homeowner and homeownerskip were charged with particular meanings that were, in the 1930s and 1940s, solidified in public policies.

Atlanta Real Estate

McBurney's Auctioneers helped Atlanta Journal readers equate homeownership itself with "good society" when they pitched, "Davis Street is settled with a good class of people, most of whom own their own homes." (5) A 1909 administrator's sale posting highlighted that the neighborhood surrounding 143 Ashby Street was "the best, mostly HOMEOWNERS" [emphasis in original]. (6) A 1910 ad for the addition to West End Heights highlighted "THIS IS A HOME-OWNING SECTION" [emphasis in original]. (7) But despite these examples, use of homeowner presence as a signifier of a neighborhood's "quality" was rare before 1910. (8) Atlanta's homeownership rate was extremely low compared to other cities across the country (see table 1). Only between 19 and 25 percent of Atlanta's homes were owned outright or under mortgage when the 1907 panic arrived, as compared to about 40 percent nationwide.(9) That being said, homeownership rates ranged widely across the U.S., from as low as New York City's 11.7 percent in 1910 to Spokane's 51.3 percent.(10) Variations in homeownership rates have not been adequately studied in and of themselves, but evidence from various case studies and other housing research lend some insight into Atlanta's low rates. Contrary to practices today, Margaret Marsh argues, it was not financial ability that kept old-stock Americans from buying homes; buying simply was not that important to most families. (11) There were few advantages to point to, and ownership worked against Americans' desires for mobility. (12) And as Olivier Zunz, John Bodnar, Roger Simon and others have shown, immigrants--not old stock white Americans--practiced homeownership to a greater degree at the turn to the 20th century. (13) Like elsewhere, mobility rates in the South's Gate City were high and, like most of the South, its presence of first generation immigrants was low. Thus, Atlanta's high tenancy in the late 1800s and early 1900s may well have been a preference rather than an outcome of high housing prices or underdeveloped financing mechanisms. And lack of comment, reporting, or other analysis of low homeownership and high mobility rates from progressive era reformers, public policy makers, or real estate interests suggests that there was little concern about this pattern. (14)

Table 1Housing Tenure

                   Atlanta, Ga                   United States

            Rent             Own             Rent           own
1890  77.4 percent     22.6 percent    52.2 percent   47.8 percent
1900  81.4 percent *   18.6 percent    59.9 percent*  40.1 percent
1910  75.3 percent *   24.7 percent    54.2 percent   45.8 percent
1920  74.3 percent    24.4 percent **  54.4 percent   45.6 percent

* Calculated from ownership rates as reported in Gries and Taylor,
"How to Own Your Home." Rental rate = (100 - ownership rate).
** Gries reports 24.7 percent for 1920.
Sources: U.S. Census of Population and Housing (Washington:
Government Printing Office, 1890); U.S. Census of Population and
Housing (Washington: Government Office Printing Office, 1920);
John M. Gries and James S. Taylor, eds, "How to Own Your Home"
(Department of Commerce. Washington, D.C.:
Government Printing Office, 1923).

It is true, though, that financing options were limited in the late 1800s and early 1900s, which may have slowed purchase of owner-occupied homes as well as investment properties. Firms offered financing plans to homebuyers, bur pur-chasers still had to come up with a substantial down payment and then pay off the balance fairly quickly. (15) In 1907 the Standard Trust Company advertised "a new method of home buying" that delivered a $1000 loan over six months. (16) Buyers put $6 down and paid $6 a month and a $36 final payment--a 10-1/2 year loan at 5 percent interest. (17) Holland McGehee advertised a variety of shorter payment options. A Chestnut Street house was offered for $1600-$500 cash and the balance at $15 a month. A 5-room Rhodes Street house was offered at $2100-$200 cash and the balance at $20 a month. On other homes McGehee simply listed "terms," implying that payment terms were available. (18) Forrest and George Adair had lots on Sunset Avenue for $5 cash and $5 a month, though the final price nor length of payment plan was listed. (19) W.A. Foster offered a 10-room house for $5500, one-half cash and the balance at 12 and 18 months at 7 percent interest. (20) Ware and Harper offered a 6-room rental property for $2150 - $1150 down, balance at 7 percent. (21)

A smattering of building and loan associations financed most home purchases in the late 1800s. Members could buy into the building and loan for $1 a month, but high demand for the loans resulted in high premiums." (22) The 1890s depression put many of the building and loans out of business and a lull continued through the turn to the 20th century. (23) But banks and other funding bodies feared taking too much financial risk, given the country's dramatic economic fluctuations. A national panic in 1907 and an increased focus on manufacturing for conflicts overseas slowed sales and construction by 1916. Like real estate interests nationwide, Atlanta's land dealers were in a constant struggle to stabilize the local market, land prices, and construction costs. (24) Despite these challenges, the number of homes in mortgage increased 43 percent between 1890 and 1920 (though Atlanta, at 24-7 percent of homes in mortgage or owned outright, remained below the national average of 45.6 percent in 1920). (25)

The owner-occupied sections pointed to by real estate ads at the turn to the twentieth century were, in reality, fairly small concentrations. They were not the planned, park-like (or covenant-protected) developments such as Druid 1 Hills or Ansley Park. (26) Rather, the areas highlighted by these agents fit the grid pattern of the city and held little or no public green space- And the homes of the city's notables were usually flanked by more modest structures, like the rental homes of workers. Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps indicate that larger homes were dispersed throughout the landscape. Where concentrations did exist, they usually comprised no more than two block lengths, or four square blocks--a far cry from the multi-acre, exclusive communities visible today. (27) (Moreover, as historian Rick Beard points out, renters had a significant presence in early park neighborhoods--particularly Inman Park--even though such areas would later be associated with homeownership.) (28) Nonetheless, it is evident that an aesthetic and real estate industry trend was beginning to tether class and neighborhood in late 1800s Atlanta, and tenure status offered one sorting option. This movement heightened concerns over and desires for greater homogeneity, and for neighborhoods that reflected the cultural stature of Atlanta's growing urban middle and upper classes. (29)

By 1910, Atlanta's real estate industry was well established, and focused on active and lucrative rental housing, commercial real estate, and property management markets. Sales to people seeking their own home certainly took place, but if the number of advertisements is an effective gauge of activity, owner-occupied housing was a small product line. What's more, Atlanta's subdividers, neighborhood designers, urban boosters, and land agents were embedded in a national real estate network that stretched from coast to coast. Leadership participated in city building expositions, traveled extensively, and sought the company and advice of well known city planners. More to our point, Atlanta's agents were actively engaged in the National Association of Real Estate Boards (NAREB). Formed in 1908 as the National Association of Real Estate Exchanges (NA-REE), the NAREB was originally made up of brokers, developers, property managers and a range of other land- and building-oriented professionals. (30) Shortly after the organization's formation, Atlanta played host to NAREE's officers. Walter Cooper, George Adair, Forrest Adair, L.C. Green, and others were on hand in 1911 to entertain as well as educate the guests about the Gate City's land market and business practices. (31) Over 100 Atlanta business leaders attended the banquet and discussion, which covered such topics as absentee property ownership and commercial property[ taxation. (32) A few months later, Atlantans attended the national convention, where prominent land dealer George Adair invited the officers to host the next national meeting in Atlanta.(33)

When Adair tried to lure the N AREE convention to the Gate City, he chose to highlight one of the Gate City's firms that handled significant numbers of When Adair tried to lure the NAREE convention to the Gate City, he chose to highlight one of the Gate City's firms that handled significant numbers of rentals, not sales. Adair urged the convention audience to visit his native city, imploring that he would show the professionals

a rental agency that I believe will be interesting and instructive for you to visit--one that employs eighty-two men and has on its roll eight thousand tenants. Is there a larger one in any of these big cities? That proprietor of that business (it is not mine), one of our largest competitors there, however, authorized me to say that his books, his accounts, his statements, his hank hook and everything that he has got is subject to your inspection when you are there next year, and it may he interesting to have a committee spend a little while in his office, to see how he has done and built it up in a town of a hundred and fifty-six thousand inhabitants. (34) Adair clearly saw Atlanta's rental housing industry as the business to showcase; the home sales line, or any firm dealing in it, was left unmentioned. It was Atlanta's rental housing investment and property management sector that allowed these businessmen to become firmly embedded in national real estate circles, educational programs, and lending and building campaigns. But despite Atlantans' primary concern with rental housing and investment, the real estate network that Adair played to was building an Own a Home campaign that would soon stake itself to state interests in economic and political stability.

NAREB and the larger real estate network shaped property trends, disseminated knowledge, set standards, and otherwise cultivated a professional consciousness among salespeople. The organization's National Real Estate Journal (NREJ) was key to keeping members up to date on practices and innovations across the nation. A 1915 article, for example, explained "the planning of a low-cost house" and another detailed the "relation of real estate men to city planning." (35) Similarly, at the annual conventions, attendees could learn how Californians handled their race "menace"--Chinese immigrants and Chinese Americans. As historian Jeffery Hornstein suggests, the conventions and other association activities facilitated network development, allegiance to the profession, and "enable[d] members to do business outside their own communities and transcend the limits of [localism." (36) Atlanta's builders drew on all these resources as they espoused their New South creed and scrambled to erect a city that lived up to its swagger. More than this, boosterism and urban competition across the country lured cities and their real estate agents collectively in new directions. As more cities joined particular initiatives, others followed. This momentum embedded various practices over time, and paradigm shifts came rarely.

When the NAREB launched its Buy a Home initiative, Atlanta followed suit--if in a limited way. In 1915 Atlanta's Chamber of Commerce and local real estate board advertised a "build now" and "lend now" campaign, but limited news coverage of the project suggests that the otherwise active agents did not put much effort into the initiative. (37) The campaign was short-lived and lacked the sophisticated tactics of the post-war work. Like the other "buy a home" campaigns around the country, the Gate City's petered out quickly as building materials were increasingly diverted to overseas manufacturing and war concerns (38). With private building all but shut down, federal officials were forced to consider how to house workers migrating to wartime manufacturing jobs, and then later, how to shelter returning soldiers. National housing needs and international political crises brought the U.S. federal government into housing in myriad ways. And in a very short period, federal interest in housing tenure firmly set the national housing policy trajectory toward homeownership.

The State Apparatus

The federal government's foray into housing construction began in 1917 as the newly established U.S. Housing Corporation (USHC) began working with private developers to build affordable housing for the men and women who sought war-related jobs. (39) The USHC and the later Division of Building and Housing at the Commerce Department aligned government policy with practices of some of the leading real estate minds in private industry. A number of well known planners and architects became "dollar-a-year men" and went to Washington to assist in the war effort. Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., for example, proposed the use of emerging city planning ideas to house war workers and directed the housing construction program at the U.S. Housing Corporation. (40) While Congress only reluctantly approved monies to build homes for civilians, the program eventually funded the development of housing plans consistent with those put forward by community builders throughout the U.S., including John Nolen. (41) As a direct result, cities and towns were delivered sound units in the latest, planned neighborhood design--courtesy of the federal government. By using some of the leading suburban designers, the government helped propagate a new visual aesthetic and shape expectations of what communities and neighborhoods should look like, and who they should contain.

But even while the federal government involved itself in the direct provision of housing, it promoted private home building and ownership by the individual citizen. Homeownership, couched in the rhetoric of republicanism, promised to stabilize unrest caused by domestic industrial struggles, urban riots, and fears of communism and anarchy. Moreover, as historian Janet Hutchison avers, homeownership became a symbol of an individual's commitment and loyalty to the United States. (42) In 1918, the U.S. Department of Labor launched the Own Your Own Home campaign. Using masculine and patriotic appeals, campaign head Paul Murphy pushed that a man must provide for his family by "building a home," else he "robs his patriotism of practicability." (43) Murphy's early rhetoric illustrates the tactics used and disseminated by government of ficials and real estate dealers. Masculinity and the protection of one's family became equated with patriotism and the protection of the republic. Over time, homeownership became a sign for numerous traits, beliefs, and practices, such as thrift. At the federal level, leaders produced how-to manuals to promote ownership, and supported local initiatives that served similar purposes. Pamphlets and other materials that appealed to women's traditional responsibilities to the home and family--and thus homeownership--were distributed to women's and service organizations, for example. (44) By 1919, though, the Department of Labor had removed itself from the direct provision of housing, a change that relieved many land developers across the nation. And in 1919, the federal government ended its official relationship with the Own Your Own Home campaign, though it supported the program for years and helped broaden its appeals for homeownership. (45)

Many housing scholars credit Herbert Hoover's promotions of public-private partnerships, voluntarism and related policy actions with the favorable treatment salespeople and rank-and-file Americans gave to homeownership as well as to homogenous, single family home-based development in the 1920s. In American Individualism, Secretary of Commerce Hoover reiterated the philosophy founding fathers put forth regarding property and republicanism, asserting that Elsewhere he used tradition as his justification: "It is chiefly through the hope of enjoying the ownership of home and independence that the latent energy of the citizenry may be called forth. Since 1841, the United States has, in its land laws, recognized this great incentive." (47) Hoover attached homeownership to family and child welfare when he asserted, "what greater incentive for saving is there than for the ownership of a home, the possession of which may change the very physical, mental and moral fiber of one's own children?" (48) Historian Janet Hutchison points out that Hoover may have publicly articulated American republicanism in trying to convince Americans to commit to place and debt, but Own Your Own Home campaigns also served to bolster the construction industry and stabilize the economy in the immediate post-war years. (49)

Private property is not a fetich [sic] in America. [ ... ] Our
development of individualism shows an increasing tendency to regard
right of property not as an object in itself, but in the light of a
useful and necessary instrument in stimulation of initiative to the
individual, not only stimulation to him that he may gain per-sonal
comfort, security in life, protection to his family, but also
because individual accumulation and ownership is a basis of selection to
leadership in administration of the tools of industry and commerce. (46)

Even though the federal government had ended its official relationship with the Own Your Own Home campaign, it continued an indirect association with this drive as well as others that celebrated single family housing and equated the single family home with healthy families and political stability. (50) The Commerce Department provided research on home construction, produced educational materials, and sponsored expositions on house building. And in 1923 they began widely distributing the pamphlet, "How to Own Your Home: A Handbook for Prospective Homeowners." Through such practices, Hoover and his colleagues linked homeownership to the maintenance of the nation-state, contending that "the present large population of families that own their homes is both the foundation of a sound economic and social system and a guarantee that our society will continue to develop rationally as changing conditions demand." (51) John Gries, one of the authors of "How to Own Your Home," asserted that "the great majority of people have a strong desire to own their homes," even though it is not clear on what evidence he based his assertion. Despite his contention that the majority of Americans had already bought into this ideology, Gries put forth reasons that citizens should consider buying: the rent will not be raised, the owner will not be ordered to vacate, the owner can make alternations as he sees fit, money invested in improvements is realized in increased home value, the family feels greater security, there is a stimulant for earning and savings.(52) Hoover affirmed his faith in homeownership and the single family home when he accepted the presidency of Better Homes in America. Better Homes propagated the single family home ideal by, among other things, using school home economics and shop industrial arts classes to decorate model homes. (53) Donald Wilhelm, a government publicity agent, asserted that "it is exactly the thing needed to shove the whole housing and better homes ideas of the Department over." (54) The lack of adequate financing mechanisms, it appears, was not the only obstacle to more Americans buying homes; Americans needed to be persuaded of the "value" of homeownership and the single family home.

Homeownership was propagated through private and government professional circles via early land economics journals. Land economist Richard Ely, who founded the Institute for Land Economics and Public Utilities in 1920, favored homeownership in his policy promotions, and his suggestions carried great weight. (55) Like Hoover and other leaders, Ely adopted the linguistic equivalencies that had become de rigueur in Washington and in private practice. In his discussion of an experimental housing project in Queens, New York, Ely asserted that "a home owner is almost invariably a good citizen." (56) And homeownership "aids thrift and prosperity for the many." (57) While homeownership was promoted, tenancy and multi-family housing were simultaneously disparaged. In a 1925 article in Ely's journal, it was assumed that multi-family housing was undesirable. Gertrude Harley began her discussion, "A great many factors influence and determine the amount of home tenancy in American cities. This summary is an attempt to determine the significance of the multi-family structure as a factor in this problem" [emphasis added]. (58) The conference on home building and home ownership continued this rhetoric and molded it into a scare tactic: "There has been a very startling trend in recent years in America away from the private house to the larger multiple dwelling. The tendency is an unfortunate one. In the minds of many it threatens American institutions." (59) Ely and his staff's research was some of the most widely used in the nation in these early years of land studies. Besides being disseminated in the institute's own Journal of Land and Public Utility Economies, Ely edited textbooks on land economics, and he and his staff provided expertise at the 1931 presidential conference and advised organizations from NAREB to the U.S. Department of Commerce--thereby embedding their arguments into most of the housing networks around the country. (60) Ely contributed to studies that showed an increase in tenancy in some large cities in the early 1920s (which coincided with the national push for increased homeownership). (61) And Ely's former students and staff members went on to participate in the founding of the Federal Housing Administration and Federal Home Loan Bank Board in the 1930s. (62)

Federal interest in homeownership gave new life to the Own Your Home campaigns re-launched by NAREB immediately after the war. The U.S. real estate industry utilized Hoover-style rhetoric as a sales tactic, reiterated connections between Americanism and homeownership, and profited from them. The NAREB developed a multi-pronged strategy designed to persuade more individuals to consider purchasing a home. The National Real Estate Journal and national conventions gave voice to the hundreds of local homeownership promotions and at the same time provided strategies and language to spark new and spur ongoing efforts. The organization and its members then stayed on message and espoused these justifications in different venues. The campaign, at various times, asserted the following:

* An owned home is the ideal environment for child rearing.

* An owned home is the ideal environment for family life.

* The ideal home is the single family home.

* The homeowner is thrifty.

* The homeowner is independent.

* The homeowner is committed to the community.

* The homeowner is committed to the American way of life.

* It is human nature to want to own one's home.

* Homeowners are not socialists.

Renters and rental housing were likewise tagged with particular characteristics:

* Apartment living is detrimental to family life.

* Apartment living is detrimental to child development.

* Renters are prone to crime.

* Renters cause social disorder.

* Rental housing brings social disorder to neighborhoods.

Some claims relied on sentimentality and emotional appeals, such as those tying the owned home to family and children. One such editorialist asserted that "No family can ever acquire that deep-seated regard and heartfelt affection for a rented house that is naturally developed for a home which they own." (63) In practice, these claims were delivered in even stronger language that inspired guilt were one to fail to purchase a home. Land dealer Max Ragley explained that "one cannot make a home for children in an apartment house--there is no room to play, [and children] are not wanted [in an apartment house].... Is this not going to have some deleterious effect on family life?" (64) Another NREJ article explained:

When the children grow up and strike out for themselves they look back
with tender memories to the old home, their own rooms, the pleasant
evenings when everybody could dance without fear of the tenants upstairs
pounding on the floor or of rebuke by the lordly janitor, and to the
favorite nooks in the house and yard for study and place. (65)

Similarly, homeownership was the realization of male responsibility to his family, and thus was tied to progressive era constructions of masculinity: "He takes comfort in the fact ... that if he is taken away his wife and children will have a roof over their heads. The family is kept intact through the ownership of the modest home." (66) Other claims suggested a basis in fact. For example, it was not uncommon to see assertions that it was human nature to want to own one's home. Arthur Wenz told the Wisconsin Association of Real Estate Brokers that "a desire seems to be born in every one to have a home of ones' own, to possess a little place, however small--to be one's own landlord." (67) And a 1918 NREJ editorial combined human nature and masculinity in quipping, "The desire to own a home is one of the natural, primal instincts of every real man."(68)

Others appealed to one's sense of patriotism. This rhetoric equated home-ownership with love-of-country and then demanded that the citizen perform his or her patriotism by purchasing a home. One NREJ editorialist penned "yes, own your home and protect it with your life, and you will be a good citizen and patriot."(69) NAREB was unabashed in forging equivalencies, declaring "BE PATRIOTIC! BUY A HOME!" (70) The editorial leading the June-July 1918 edition of the NREJ contended that "A nation of renters will always be lacking in patriotism." (71) Others implied the tie between homeownership and Americanism by asserting direct ties between renting and anti-Americanism. The NREJ buffered its reports and stories and filled white space with quips such as "No man was ever an anarchist or participated in the destruction of property which he owned or in which he had an interest." (72) Another writer stated that "it is safe to predict that [the homeowner] will never be found in the Socialist ranks." (73) Others offered stories about tragedies that befell people or nations that did not subscribe to these tenets. One such story relayed that "the utter collapse of the Russian army was largely due to the fact that, although it was numerically the strongest armed force of any of the belligerent nationals, its rank and file was composed of landless peasants, and they refused to fight longer for a land of which they owned no part." (74) In another NAREB write-up, the author again associated renting with radicalism, stating that "Scott Nearing, sensationalist, Socialist, I. W. W. leader and whatnot, recently declared that the man who rented was the best citizen." (75)

As noted earlier, some firms lent status to neighborhoods by highlighting the presence of homeownership, thus implying the lower status of renters and neighborhoods with a high renter presence. Planner Charles H. Cheney was explicit in laying out a tenure hierarchy for the readers of the nationally distributed Survey, contending, "we need some flats and apartments, but not scattered through every block of the city to discourage and make less desirable the home of the most important social unit, which is a single family, living and developing by itself [emphasis added].(76) He went on to say that cities that did have a preponderance of tenement-apartments--and thus renters--were "cursed." (77) Such negative consequences were highlighted elsewhere, and taught potential home-buyers to fear rental housing--and renters.

Such appeals and rhetoric were canned and distributed across the country. Indeed, NAREB implored its members to "educate" local citizens about the value of homeownership and the single family home:

Realtors: You have a definite duty. Aside from your natural wish to
dispose of property on your lists, you have a patriotic call. The nation
looks to you for education! Put a shoulder to the wheel! Get into the
human side of present conditions. Teach the nation that there is one
duty none should shirk. Convince the nation that it will become greater
when it owns its own home! (78)

And educate they did. Real estate firms and agents launched 68 Own Your Home campaigns around the country in 1918 alone. The NREJ editors provided their own advice about increasing homeownership. This 1918 recommendation was typical: "We want to speed the day when every Realtor will have a rack outside his business door, filled with tracts on Home Ownership, The Folly of Renting." (79) The journal's practice of running multiple articles outlining homeownership benefits and campaign how-tos were interspersed with quips and quotes that agents could borrow for local use. One such blurb read, "The home will make the citizen, and the honest and patriotic will create the foundation on which the national security, the national indebtedness and the national honor may safely rest." (80)

Local agents shared their successful methods with others, transferring rhetoric, planning tips, and advertising schemes through journals and conventions. NAREB suggested that local organizations form a committee with representatives from their real estate board as well as related industries in the town, such as home furnishings and building materials. (81) S.E. Hege of the Spokane Realty Board explained how his city approached a slowing building year. The realty board sought to "inspire a desire in the minds of non-homeowners that it is to their advantage to buy a home now." With the Spokane Daily Journal they held a contest for the letter--not to exceed 300 words--that put forth the best argument for owning one's own home. They offered three prizes, the top being $50. The Chronicle published a selection of letters, which apparently encouraged even more contest participation and certainly provided advertising for the real estate campaign. Local high school teachers encouraged their students to write in, which brought in at least 200 more essays. (82) T.P. Hay, Jr., of Birmingham explained that his city was likewise confronting a slow real estate market and that "the idea of the campaign was to drive home to the public in every way possible the phrase 'Buy a Home.'" The real estate board purchased 500 yellow window signs with BUY A HOME printed in red and asked area merchants to display them in shop windows. A sign painter was engaged to add any additional wording about the shopkeeper's own home-related wares. Hay explained that a local furniture house finished off his sign with "BUY A HOME AND LET OSTER BROTHERS FEATHER YOUR NEST." A jeweler came up with "BUY A HOME AND PUT YOUR SAVINGS IN A DIAMOND." The streetcar company also posted the signs in the cars' front windows. (83) And Harry Culver, developer of Culver City, took readers through an entire tutorial on building a subdivision, which included a section on selling the idea of homeownership. (84)

Real estate interests blanketed the nation with simple yet effective educational tactics throughout 1918 and thereafter. Real estate dealers agreed on the messages they wanted to convey, and their campaigns reiterated and embedded a relationship between homeownership, Americanism, and middle-class values. Significantly, Atlanta maintained its focus on rental housing investment and property management for years, despite a constant barrage of homeownership messages from Washington and the national real estate ranks. A mover in the national network of urban boosters and land promoters for years, Atlanta's land dealers were surrounded by the homeownership-as-patriotism campaign. Atlantas largely ignored these efforts; but in 1921, the city's real estate interests made a conscious decision to promote homeownership as an additional product line. When they did so, they adopted the rhetorical practices honed by the U.S. government and the national real estate network, selling not just shelter, but homeownership as ideology.

The Atlanta Campaign 

The executive committee of NAREB met at the Piedmont Hotel in Atlanta in January 1921, and 150 agents from across the U.S. joined the discussion on homeownership and methods to encourage it. The subcommittee on housing's report reiterated the patriotism-homeownership dyad to meeting goers and to Atlanta Journal readers by reprinting one NAREB report's conclusion that homeownership would promote a "more patriotic citizenship." Readers were also reminded of the ties being forged between ownership and social improvement--family contentment, reduced labor tensions, as well as lowered rates of suicide, divorce and radicalism. (85) Meeting discussions indicate that if home builders and real estate agents were initially wary of government intervention in housing, by the end of World War 1 they were open to federal assistance in propping up home mortgages. Financing concerns took up much of the meeting, and the Own Your Own Home committee commissioned Holyoke National Bank to draft a financing proposal to present to federal officials. The resulting plan suggested financing homebuilding for patrons with $1000 in their savings department. The committee also recommended that Congress stimulate homebuilding and respond to the acute housing shortage by exempting mortgages from taxation. (86) But a year later, in 1922, an editorial cartoon appearing in the Atlanta Journal suggested that financing still hindered sales (see figure 1).

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

A review of newspapers available in Atlanta during this period confirms that the federal government and NAREB's pro-homeownership discourse and carbon copy campaign strategies made their way to small towns and big cities alike. The language, claims, and appeals indicate that this rhetoric transferred smoothly and was rarely altered to any regional particularities. One Pittsburgh Courier writer penned that "the duty of every man is to own his home; to plant the flag of personal liberty upon a piece of land of his own, over which he is monarch" (see figure 2). (87) Scare tactics suggested that American institutions were threatened: "the permanence of our institutions cannot be safe-guarded if we disregard our obvious duty to render possible the acquirement of homes for our citizens" [emphasis added]. The writer concluded by appealing to the reader's religious duties: "our service as individuals--service to ourselves and our dependents; to our state and our nation; to our God--cannot measure up to that standard of constructive citizenship ... unless we feel the impulse to own our own home, to be our own landlord." (88) Atlanta land investor E.R. Black also recalled older power and landed relations in 1922 when he asserted that "A city of homes ... would be an independent city, every citizen the monarch of his own home." (89) Other Atlanta businessmen trucked out multiple tactics. The Atlanta National Bank took out a 1/6-page ad in the Atlanta Constitution and declared that "The man who owns his home is a better citizen than he would be otherwise." Not satisfied with associating homeownership with good citizenship, the bank situated homeownership as a panacea to revolution when it contended that "the pride of ownership is a wonderful antidote for the poison of bolshevism, and makes for stability and permanency." (90) The Atlanta Journal likewise mobilized multiple justifications outlined by the national campaign, including the "expert" finding that homeownership was a salvo for domestic social ills. A 17 February 1922 editorial explained that "students of social problems find that inadequate and unwholesome housing is a source of some of the gravest ills of the time, particularly of that futile unrest which tosses men and families hither and thither, leaving them at last disheartened in all that makes for useful citizenship." (91) In Atlanta, as elsewhere, real estate agents and the state continually equated homeownership with traditional American values; to be truly American, one needed to own his or her home. Homes were not simply assets to individuals, but homeowners were assets to the community and nation. Homeownership promised a politically stable U.S. in a politically unstable time. And ultimately, one had a patriotic obligation to purchase homes and promote stability.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

In early 1922, Atlanta launched its Own Your Home campaign, reportedly the first in the South in the post-war years. (92) R.W. Evans chaired the three-month push, which culminated in an Own Your Home exposition scheduled in May. The exposition was designed to meet a number of needs; it promised to jumpstart home building in the Gate City, funnel customers to home-related businesses (such as interior decorators and lumber companies), reiterate city beautification themes, and promote home buying. The six-day exposition was similar to other commercial and world fairs in that each day had a particular theme or target group. Monday was grand opening (and replete with speeches and other pomp and circumstance), Tuesday was businessmen and taxpayers' day, Wednesday women's club day, Thursday Federation of Trades day, Friday homeowners' day, and Saturday everybody's day. The city auditorium housed over 50 exhibitors ranging from architect Leila Ross Wilburn to lumber companies and decorative stores. Various interests offered prizes to entice visitors, including a lot in the Adair Company's Stewart Avenue development and a lot in S.B. Turman's Kirkwood development. Other prizes included face brick, doors, tile, and monogrammed china. (93) Newspaper ads placed by participating companies reiterated the board's themes. R.O. Campbell Company emphasized that "IT'S EASY TO OWN YOUR HOME" [emphasis in the original]. (94)

While some rhetoric tied homeownership to masculinity and protection of family, a significant portion of exposition activity targeted women. The day designated for "club women" adopted typical domesticity themes and features. The women's club women" adopted typical domesticity themes and features. The women's club cookbook was featured at one booth, and a cooking demonstration was held at the Georgia Railway and Power Company booth. Club women would display "various phases of home work." H.G. Hill was scheduled to speak on "the proper selection of paints" and related matters. Readers were assured that there would be large room "fitted up especially for the ladies" that would be hosted by Mrs. J.E. Carlisle. And a complete dinner service in white and gold monogram would be given away, compliments of local china dealer Mrs. William Lycott. The Atlanta Constitution noted that women had attended and were welcome on other days of the exposition, but this particular day would have appeal for "feminine minds." What's more, the paper suggested that women had a particular desire for homeownership and explained "the vast majority of women dream of the time when they may own their own home." If female readers had not previously desired a home, they now knew that they should. (95)

Land dealers saw an opportunity to embed home buying expectations early in life and targeted Atlanta's children. Not simply activities designed to settle impatient children while parents learned how to choose the right architect, expo promoters explained that "one of the most important features of the educational campaign ... is to interest the children and make them see the value of homeowning." The expo featured a life-size playhouse, "built exactly like a large dwelling, having two nice room where the youngsters can play at keeping house." The playhouse was given away on the last night of the expo. And Steel Realty Development Corporation sponsored a children's essay contest. Prizes ranging from $1 to $15 were given for the "best" short essays giving the ten best reasons why a person should own his own home. Fifteen prizes were given. (96)

The Atlanta Journal editorial on the expo smacked of the messages put forth by Hoover and other federal representatives and NAREB and demonstrated how effectively those institutions sold their wares: "The steadying and constructive influences of homeownership, both upon individuals and upon the community, are too manifest to need recounting." Yet the writer went on to list: " Thrift, patriotism, progress, prosperity, contentment are all traditionally linked with the making and owning of homes." (97) Tellingly, the writer articulated specific needs for shelter (a shortage of between 5000 and 7000 units); but the case he made for ownership remained focused on patriotism and thrift. Readers were assured that the expo would help them figure out how to buy on a working person's wages--and how to decorate the house once it was acquired. (98)

Public storytelling about home buying by people already invested with status helped cement homeownership as a status good in Atlanta. According to the Atlanta Constitution, Mayor James Key spent his opening remarks at Atlanta's home exposition sharing his and his wife's own story of home buying. Key explained, "When I took home the deed to my first little home months after I was married...it was one of the happiest moments of my life. My wife and I had struggled a long time in the purchase of our first home on the installment plan and when we finally were rewarded for our efforts by having the deed delivered to us, it was indeed a happy moment. " (99) Key's narrative aligned homeownership with American values and the American experience. Initially marked by struggle and sacrifice, the event finally resulted in the newlyweds' triumph and reward. (100) Being delivered by the city's mayor, the narrative also associated homeownership with status. The mayor's reference to buying on an installment plan assured reluctant buyers that it was socially acceptable to carry debt (at least on a home).

The real estate board's approach promoted the idea that Atlantans wanted to purchase a home, but simply did not know how to go about it or feared the difficulty of the process. The use of assumption--in this case, assuming one wanted to buy a home--was useful in persuading the audience to adopt the homeownership ideology. It suggested that everyone wanted to buy a home, and pressured the reader not to be different. Then sellers moved on to assure potential buyers that "experts" would serve as coach. The visitor, one ad explained, would be walked through the entire planning and buying process:" the exposition exhibits cover everything from the lot itself to the last detail of the furnishings--from methods to provide funds with which to build to the insurance on the completed home." (101) The exposition would save the buyer time and provide them with "an expert": "here the family can gather around the various exhibits and plan their new home with the assistance of highly trained experts--passing from exhibit to exhibit, planning the new home down to the minutest details, not from catalogs but from the actual materials and with assistance of the best talent trained in using those materials." (102) The Atlanta Constitution assured readers that "The many exhibits are all arranged to show just how to choose a building site [and] an architect's plans." Visitors could see "the many varieties of building material which can be selected, the latest and most advanced ideas in equipment and decorating the new home, and many similar subjects." (103)

The show's rhetoric also situated realty and home building as professional activities that required the direction of trained personnel. (104) While the ads and articles did not tell the reader directly that he or she should not undertake self-building, they did argue that the entire process should be planned, monitored and carried out by experts in the field. (105). One exposition advertisement explained that "Here the family can gather around the various exhibits and plan their new home with the assistance of highly trained experts" [emphasis added]. (106) Individual companies also emphasized how they would bring their specialized skills to your case and help ease what has now positioned as a challenging process. Builders Brownlee & Shaw offered "Let us estimate with you, as our unlimited facilities will prove beneficial." (107) Even while the real estate industry wrangled over codes of ethics, education and training, and professional standards internally, real estate practitioners crafted a rhetoric that told consumers that land professional already possessed the knowledge base and professional status that they contended was necessary to lead buyers along the path to homeownership.

*****

The promotions led by the federal government and private land dealers immediately after World War I eventually pulled Atlanta into the trajectory toward homeownership ideology. Private industry as well as local, state, and federal governments had a stake in increasing homeownership in that it would help stabilize land markets, case economic fluctuations, and calm political turmoil. But increased homeownership was not easily achieved. Low ownership rates were not simply an outcome of economic challenges; when Herbert However told the nation that he was investigating the problems of homeownership and home building, he meant more than the problem of financing-- he meant the seeming lack of desire for homeownership.(108) And to create desire, state and federal interests needed more than better mortgage structures.

Discourses created by state and private interests to encourage homeownership bypassed shelter, health, or wealth building, and focused on status. New rhetoric associated ownership with socially valued institutions, such as family, or other subjectivities, such as masculinity, These discourses embedded homeownership and the associated imagery in an individual's life cycle and expectations. As cultural anthropologist and urban planner Constance Perin points out, an individual's steady movement through an expected tenure cycle (rental housing to starter home to larger home to smaller empty nest accommodations) allowed the real estare industry to better predict land markets.(109) And predictability calmed market fluctuations. Brokers and state interests were able to entice individuals into assuming the risk of (significant) debt--into participating in this system of predictability and order--by giving homeowners status within American society. Homeowners were held up as patriots and citizens. They were painted as good family protectors and providers. They were labeled prudent and reliable. The association of homeownership with an individual's thrift and constancy led to associations of homeownership with job stability and adulthood. Thus, young Americans came to view homeownership as part of life's stages--and expectations. As homeownership became part of the American culture and life cycle, it became less necessary to persuade citizens that a relationship existed between homeownership and status or particular values. But even if the presence of such rhetoric has diminished, it remains evident and continues to be retooled. These discourses around homeownership and the home still carry cultural power--they impart values and equivalencies, equate homeownership with Americanism, and situate property ownership as the pinnacle life experience, just as one government sponsored enterprise's tag does when it asserts "Our business is the American dream." (110) Homeownership is American, we are reminded. It is patriotic. And it is our dream.

ENDNOTES

The author thanks Sarah Robbins and Sherry Linkon for their helpful comments on the most recent drafts of this work. Ronald Bayor, Douglas Flamming, and Larry Keating provided important feedback in the early stages of this study.

(1.) Helen C. Monchow," Review of John P. Dean, Home Ownership: Is It Sound?," American Economic Review 35 (1945):734.

(2.) On HOLC, FHA, and FHLBB see Amy Hillier, "Residential Security Maps and Neighborhood Appraisals in Philadelphia," Social Science History 29, no. 2 (2005): 207-33; Amy Hillier, "Spatial Analysis of Historical Redlining: A Methodological Exploration," Journal of Housing Research 14, no. 1 (2003): 137-67; Amy E. Hillier, " Redlining and the Home Owners' Loan Corporation," Journal of Urban History 29, no. 4 (2003): 394-420; Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York, 1985), 190-218.

(3.) Most discussions of suburbanization between World War I and II focus on the role of the automobile in encouraging suburban neighborhood building. See, for example, Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States, chapter 10.

(4.) Peter Dreier, "Status of Tenants in the United States, " Social Problems 30, no. 2 (1982): 181-82; Donald A. Krueckeberg, "Grapes of Rent: A History of Renting in a Country of Owners," Housing Policy Debate 10, no. 1 (1999): 9-30; J. Paul Mitchell, " Historical Overview of Federal Policy: Encouraging Homeownership," in Federal Housing Policy and Programs, ed. J. Paul Mitchell (New Brunswick, 1985), 39-40.

(5.) Atlanta Journal (14 May 1884).

(6.) Adair Plat Book, V 14, p. 69. Kenan Research Center, Atlanta History Center Archives (hereafter referred to as AHC).

(7.) Adair Plat Book, V 14, p. 78, AHC.

(8.) In contrast, Margaret Garb identities the rise of homeownership as a status symbol in Chicago around 1900. See Margaret Garb, City of American Dreams: A History of Homeownership and Housing Reform in Chicago, 1871-1919 (Chicago, 2005), particularly chapter 5.

(9.) John M. Gries and James S. Taylor, "How to Own Your Own Home: A Handbook for Prospective Home Owners," ed. Department of Commerce {Washing on, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1923), vii-viii.

(10.) Ibid., viii.

(11.) The suburban placement of the home carried more symbolic meaning. See Margaret Marsh, Suburban Lives (New Brunswick, 1990), 87.

(12.) On residential mobility, also see Ronald Tobey, Charles Wetherell, and Jay Brigham, "Moving out and Settling In: Residential Mobility, Home Owning, and the Public Enframing of Citizenship, 1921-1950," American Historical Review 95, no. 5 (1990): 1404-05.

(13.) John Bodnar, Roger Simon, and Michael P. Weber, Lives of Their Own: Blacks, Italians, and Poles in Pittsburgh, 1900-1960(Chicago, 1983), 153-35; Roger D. Simon, "City-Building Process: Housing and Services in New Milwaukee Neighborhoods, 1884-1910," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 68 (1978): 18; Olivier Zunz, Changing Face of Inequality: Urbanization, Industrial Development, and Immigrants in Detroit, 1880-1920 (Chicago, 1982), 152-61.

(14.) The exception was when African American laborers increasingly began to migrate north to war-related jobs, a situation noted regularly in city newspapers.

(15.) Marc A. Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (New York, 1987), 31-32.

(16.) Mutual saving banks and, after the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, state chartered community banks held a significant share of mortgages. See Ibid., 33.

(17.) Atlanta Constitution (7 April 1907).

(18.) Atlanta Independent (4 November 1911).

(19.) Journal of Labor (8 September 1905).

(20.) Atlanta Journal (1 January 1905).

(21.) Atlanta Journal (25 January 1915).

(22.) On building and loans see Henry Morton Bodfish, History of Building and Loan in the United States (Chicago, 1931); Garb, City of American Dreams: A History of Homeownership and Housing Reform in Chicago, 1871-1919, 47-48; Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning, 32-33.

(23.) Horace Russell, "Georgia," in History of Building and Loan in the United States, ed. Henry Morton Bodfish (Chicago, 1931), 353-55. Organized to collect savings for home construction, building and loans were granted tax and regulatory advantages at the state and federal level once homeownership became public policy. Marc Weiss, "Richard T. Ely and the Contribution of Economic Research to National Housing Policy, 1920-1940," Urban Studies 26, no. 1 (1989): 119. By 1925, Georgia had 21 associations with $1.25 million in assets. (Five years later, the state had 37 associations with $6 million in assets.) Russell, "Georgia," 631.

(24.) Weiss, Rise of the (Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning, 62.

(25.) Gries and Taylor, "How to Own Your Own Home: A Handbook for Prospective Home Owners," vii; Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning, 32.

(26.) See Rick Beard, "From Suburb to Defended Neighborhood: The Evolution of Inman Park and Ansley Park, 1890-1980," Atlanta Historical Society Journal 26 (1982): 113-40; Rick Beard, "Hurt's Deserted Village: Atlanta's Inman Park, 1885-1911," in Olmsted South: Old South Critic/New South Planner, ed. Dana F. White and Victor A. Kramer (Westport, CT, 1979), 195-221; Elizabeth A. Lyon, "Frederick Law Olmsted and Joel Hurt: Planning for Atlanta," in Olmsted South: Old South Critic/New South Planner, ed. Dana F. White and Victor A. Kramer (Westport, CT, 1979), 165-93.

(27.) The 1911 Atlanta Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps, for example, indicate that the largest lots and homes on Jackson, for example, were on one block length. Including less distinguished, but still comfortable homes, one can count two block lengths, but the length ends with three shotgun houses on the southwest. Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps, City of Atlanta, GA, 1911 (Teaneck, NJ, 1983). The changing class and racial geography of the city is more fully developed in LeeAnn B. Lands, To Rend the City: White Power and the Culture of Property (Athens, forthcoming).

(28.) Beard, "From Suburb to Defended Neighborhood: The Evolution of Inman Park and Ansley Park, 1890-1980," 125.

(29.) Some developers did make modest attempts at planned, single class, single race developments within Atlanta's core city prior to 1900. In the 1880s George Adair, Richard Peters, and H.I. Kimball joined forces, and money, to attempt the building of Peters Park in the northwest quadrant of the city. Borrowing the increasingly popular parklike design from nationally prominent architects and city planners, Peters Park included curvilinear streets and green spaces that contrasted sharply with the rest of the neighborhood's grid structure. Joe! Hurt's Inman Park, in the estern suburbs, competed with Peters Park for buyers. See Don L. Klima, "Breaking Out: Streetcars and Suburban Development, 1872-1900," Atlanta Historical Society Journal 26 (1982): 77-80.

(30.) Jeffrey M. Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth-Century American Middle Class (Durham, 2005), 2, 9.

(31.) National Real Estate Journal 3 (15 March 1911), 21. Early issues of the NREJ were found at the National Association of Realtors library and archives, Chicago, IL.

(32.) National Real Estate Journal 3 (15 March 1911), 21-22.

(33.) National Real Estate Journal 3 (15 August 1911), 428-429.

(34.) National Real Estate Journal 3 (15 August 1911), 428.

(35.) National Real Estate Journal 12 (15 October 1915), 289; National Real Estate Journal 11 (15 January 1915), 8.

(36.) Hornstein A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth-Century American Middle Class, 30.

(37.) Atlanta Journal (14 January 1915).

(38.) Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth-Century American Middle Class, 120.

(39.) Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning, 28.

(40.) Mel Scott, American City Planning (Berkeley, 1969), 170; Weiss, Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning, 28-29. On the building of war housing, also see Robert Macieski, "Home of the Workingman Is the Balance Wheel of Democracy: Housing Reform in Wartime Bridgeport," Journal of Urban History 26, no. 6 (Z000): 715-39. Eric J. Karolak, "'No idea of Doing Anything Wonderful': The Labor-Crisis Origins of National Housing Policy and the Reconstruction of the Working-Class Community, 1917-1919," in From Tenements to the Taylor Homes: In Search of an Urban Housing Policy in Twentieth Century America, ed. John F. Bauman, Roger Biles, and Kristin M. Szylvian (University Park, PA, 2000), 60-80.

(41.) Scott, American City Planning, 171-72.

(42.) Janet Hutchison, "Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal," Journal of Policy History 9, no. 2 (1997): 187.

(43.) As quoted in Ibid.: 189.

(44.) Ibid.

(45.) Ibid.: 190.

(46.) Herbert Hoover, American Individualism (New York, 1922), 36-37.

(47.) Herbert Hoover, "Home Ownership Will Develop Citizenry," National Real Estate Journal (1921): 20.

(48.) Ibid.

(49.) Hutchison, "Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal," 187.

(50.) Ibid.: 190. On the single family home in American imagery, sec Gwendolyn Wright, Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America (Cambridge, MA, 1981), Particularly chapter 6.

(51.) Herbert Hoover, "How to Own Your Home," ed. Department of Commerce (Government Printing Office, 1923), v.

(52). Gries and Taylor, "How to Own Your Own Home: A Handbook for Prospective Home Owners," 1.

(53). Hutchison, "Building for Babbitt: The State and the Suburban Home Ideal," 192-94.

(54.) Ibid.: 193.

(55.) Weiss, "Richard T. Ely and the Contribution of Economic Research to National Housing Policy, 1920-1940," 115-16.

(56.) As quoted in Ibid.: 117.

(57.) As quoted in Ibid.: 71.

(58.) Gertrude Harley, "Multi-Family Housing Units and Urban Tenancy," Land Economics: A Journal of Planning, Housing, and Public Utilities (1925): 371.

(59.) Ibid.: 150.

(60.) Weiss, "Richard T. Ely and the Contribution of Economic Research to National Housing Policy, 1920-1940," 117.

(61.) Ibid.: 118.

(62.) Ibid.: 118-19.

(63.) N.A., "The 'Own Your Home Movement' the Crying Need of the Nation," National Real Estate Journal 17 (June-July 1918), inside front cover.

(64.) Max Ragley, "Why Every Man With a Family Should Own a Home," National Real Estate Journal 12 (15 October 1915), 276.

(65.) N.A., "The Joys of Home Ownership," National Real Estate Journal 9 (15 June 1914), 431.

(66.) N.A., "The Joys of Home Ownership," National Real Estate Journal 9 (15 June 1914), 431.

(67.) Arthur Wenz, "The 'Own Your Home' Campaigns," National Real Estate Journal 17 (June-July 1918), 260.

(68.) N.A., "The 'Own Your Home Movement' the Crying Need of the Nation," National Real Estate Journal 17 (June-July 1918), inside front cover.

(69). Edward Newton Haag, "Reasons for 'National Home Day,'" National Real Estate Journal 18 (December 1918), 164-65.

(70.) "Many 'Own Your Home' Campaigns Being Planned for 1918," National Real Estate Journal 17 (February 1918), 71.

(71.) N.A., "The 'Own Your Home Movement' the Crying Need of the Nation," National Real Estate Journal 17 (June-July 1918), inside front cover.

(72.) National Real Estate Journal 21 (5 January 1920), 10.

(73.) National Real Estate Journal (15 June 1914), 42 1.

(74.) National Real Estate Journal 17 (June-July 1918), inside front cover.

(75.) "Many 'Own Your Home' Campaigns Being Planned for 1918," National Real Estate Journal 17 (February 1918), 71.

(76.) Charles H. Cheney, "Removing Social Barriers by Zoning," Survey (1920): 277.

(77.) Ibid.: 276.

(78.) "Many 'Own Your Home' Campaigns Being Planned for 1918," National Real Estate Journal 17 (February 1918), 71.

(79.) N.A., N.T., National Real Estate Journal 18 (December 1918), 165.

(80.) N.A., N.T., National Real Estate Journal 18 (December 1918), 165.

(81.) N.A., "Many 'Own Your Home' Campaigns Being Planned for 1918," National Real Estate Journal 17 (February 1918), 71.

(82.) S.E. Hege, "Own Your Own Home," National Real Estate Journal 11 (15 May 1915), 274.

(83.) T.P.Hay, Jr., "A 'Buy a Home' Campaign, "National Real Estate Journal 14 (November 1916), 209.

(84.) Harry H. Culver, "How We Built Up Our SubDivision Business," Proceedings of the General Sessions of the NAREB, 1924:55.

(85.) Atlanta Journal (12 January 1921).

(86.) Atlanta Journal (12 January 1921). Kenneth Jackson notes that interest on debt has been part of the income tax code since its establishment in 1913. The deduction became more important when taxes increased substantially for World War II. Kenneth T. Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier: The Suburbanization of the United States (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), 293-94.

(87.) The Pittsburgh Courier was nationally distributed and available in Atlanta.

(88.) Pittsburgh Courier (28 April 1923).

(89.) Atlanta Constitution (9 May 1922).

(90.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(91.) Atlanta Journal (17 February 1922).

(92.) Atlanta Constitution (9 May 1922).

(93.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(94.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922)

(95.) Atlanta Constitution (3 May 1922), Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(96.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(97.) Atlanta Journal (17 February 1922).

(98.) Atlanta Journal (17 February 1922).

(99.) Atlanta Constitution (9 May 1922).

(100.) Key also foreshadowed homeownership's position in family lifecycles. See Constance Perin, Everything in Its Place: Social Order and Land Use in America (Princeton, NJ, 1977), particularly Chapter 2.

(101.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(102.)Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(103.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(104.) The positioning of real estate workers as "experts" is consistent with Jeffrey Hornstein's argument that realtors were specifically attempting to assert their professional status nationally during this period. See Hornstein, A Nation of Realtors: A Cultural History of the Twentieth-Century American Middle Class, particularly chapter 3.

(105.) On owner-building, see Richard Harris, Unplanned Suburbs: Toronto's American Tragedy, 1900 to 1950 (Baltimore, 1996).

(106.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(107.) Atlanta Constitution (7 May 1922).

(108.) John M. Gries and James Ford, eds., Housing Objectives and Programs, vol. 11, President's Conference on Home Building and Home Ownership (Washington, D.C., 1932), xv.

(109). Perin, Everything in lts Place: Social Order and Land Use in America, 32-33.

(110.) Fannie Mae, www.fanniemae.com (accessed 27 November 2006).

By LeeAnn Lands Kennesaw State University