The increase of crowded tenements and unsanitary slum districts which resulted from the rapid growth of cities in the latter half of the nineteenth century aroused the philanthropist and the public to the realization that they must solve the problem of housing the working classes and the poor. In view of the fact that much emphasis is placed upon the characteristic feature of American architecture---the middle-class home with its many comforts and conveniences--the housing problem as a question of environment for the individual is taking on larger proportions than a mere tenement-house reform. Comfortable housing involves questions of heat, light, sanitation, and conveniences, better facilities for which the increased production and the inventions of the nineteenth century are continually putting within reach of the masses. In small cities, in rural industrial centers, and especially in the expanding suburbs, the kind of housing facilities provided are recognized as an important element in the standard of living.

Previous to the nineteenth century little attention was paid to the homes of the common people. Ancient and medieval history tells of great personalities, and we possess to-day tombs and temples, palaces and arches, churches and castles, as relics of the past civilization; but the daily life of the people is not recorded, and has passed away with the rude hovels and noisome dens in which they herded. Southern nations easily adapted their dwellings to the climate, although extreme squalor frequently existed. Real comfort, however, was unknown to the northern nations until the great merchant princes introduced into Europe the conveniences familiar to southern potentates. The means by which modern life is made comfortable are the distinctive features of Western civilization, especially of the United States; but certain conditions have prevented the working classes from sharing these benefits.

The workman must live near his work. The demand for property in the centre of cities for business purposes has increased the value of the land, and also lessened the amount available for homes for the workers. As the demand for dwellings exceeded the supply it became profitable to subdivide and sublet old mansions, stores, or cottages built when the city was a country town. These buildings became entombed in blocks of buildings, with no provisions for ventilation, sanitation, or conveniences, and often one hydrant supplied a whole house with water. As the demand increased, the rents rose and more people were crowded into a few rooms. Forty per cent. is said to have been an average return on such property, upon which no repairs were made. To reap this harvest, badly constructed buildings were erected, often by ex-tenants who recognized the opportunity to make money. All available space was used.

Back-to-back cottages were put on the same lot. The worst type of tenement is the "double-decker dumb-bell," peculiar to New York. In English manufacturing towns, small cottages--rows upon rows in narrow alleys--were built on leased land. No unnecessary expenditures were made, as the houses were intended to fall when the lease expired. (Consult Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844.) Damp cellars, dark halls, vermin, filth, lack of repair, no ventilation or adequate water-supply are characteristic of all slum dwellings. Not only does a whole family often occupy one room, but sometimes several families. Boarders are taken to help pay exorbitant rents, and the rooms are rented in the daytime for manufacturing purposes. The mortality in such dwellings is very high, the prevailing diseases being typhoid fever, diarrhea, and all contagious diseases. TUBERCULOSIS is characteristic of the tenement.

For the individual, bad housing means uncleanliness, sickness, lack of privacy, and often contact with criminals, and prostitutes. This causes the corruption of the young, lack of self-respect, discouragement, intemperance, and low morality. In New York City it was estimated that out of a population of 255,033 only 3306 had access to a bath. Ordinarily the most primitive provisions for cleanliness are lacking. Home life, with normal parental and marital relations, is impossible. Furthermore, every working man and woman loses, on an average, twenty days a year on account of sickness. Economists are agreed that where more than 20 per cent. of the income of the head of a family goes for rent, as is often the case among the poor, privations must be endured along other lines of consumption, especially in food. The districts where overcrowding and bad housing prevail are centers of crime, vice, and epidemics, and impose upon society not only a large bill for the maintenance of hospitals, almshouses, and prisons, but greatly lessen
production through the inefficiency of workers. It is estimated that the working population of England between the ages of fifteen and sixty-five lose 20,000,000 weeks in a year. To this loss in working time must be added the inferior quality of the work of people enfeebled in mind and body by poor food and unsanitary homes.

In England the housing question was taken up as a municipal problem, and it has recently become a question of public policy. Lord Shaftesbury was influential in obtaining legislation as early as 1851. The housing problem on the Continent represents a phase of industrial life. Small homes for operatives are built near the large factories. As early as 1835 Andre Koechlin, a manufacturer at Mulhouse, France, began building houses for his workers. The United States has been far behind European countries. Public interest has finally been aroused by the reports of tenement-house commissions, and the knowledge of what has been done abroad. The American public was astonished to learn that New York below the Harlem was the most densely populated city in the world, with 143.2 persons to the acre in 1890, and 156.7 in 1900. The eleventh ward had in 1890 a population of 763,59 to the acre.

Efforts to improve housing conditions have been made by cities and by private individuals. The municipality has two methods: (1) Expropriation; and (2) regulation. (1) Expropriation has been carried on to some extent in all English cities. It involves questions of increased taxation resulting from the expense incurred, the displacement of the population who will overcrowd neighboring districts if not provided for, and occasionally the building of model tenements by the city. Liverpool (1866), Glasgow (1866), and London (1868) first undertook to reconstruct unsanitary districts. Later, general laws were passed, the most important of which is that of
1890, which provides for displacement and for the intervention of the municipality only when private initiative fails. Expropriation may be very expensive. The London acts of 1875-78 made unsanitary conditions a source of profit to the owners. Glasgow has been especially successful in her financial management of these areas. Edinburgh and Liverpool have left much of the expropriated ground as open space, while Dundee has converted these districts into thoroughfares. London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Huddersfield, and Birmingham have erected model dwellings. Expropriation is a success in lowering death-rates and decreasing crime. Better methods of construction make it possible to house more people in the same area. (2) Municipalities may also improve housing conditions by sanitary and building codes and provision for inspection. Such legislation includes requirements as to light, air, cellars, halls, windows, fire-escapes, plumbing, and sanitary conveniences.

The New York laws are in advance of all others, for which they serve as a model, but adequate inspection is seldom provided. If owners are compelled to keep their property in a good condition, they become more careful in the choice of tenants. Thus the undesirable classes are gathered into one district where they are easily looked after. Private associations do a good work in looking up abuses until laws are well enforced and the people taught to deal directly with boards of health. In New York City there are over thirty societies. The Sanitary Aid Society, Ladies' Health Protective Association, and the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor may be mentioned. The Mansion House Council on Dwellings of Poor and the Sanitary Society of Edinburgh are prominent in Great Britain. In France and Belgium the elements of household hygiene are taught in public schools.

Efforts undertaken by private individuals may be classified as: (1) Commercial, (2) semi-philanthropic, (3) Philanthropic, and (4) houses built by private employers for the benefit of their employees. The commercial enterprises pay as large a per cent. as possible, giving at the same time good accomodations. The semi-philanthropic companies limit their dividends to a normal commercial rate on high-class investments. The profits of the philanthropic trusts are used in improvements and erecting new property. Housing by employers usually pays a good return. The buildings put up by these various enterprises are blocks, small houses, and lodging-houses. The very poor must rent rooms or small houses. For the lowest classes, so degraded that they cannot make use of improvements, the methods of the Octavia Hill Association are most satisfactory. Miss Hill began the work in 1864, when John Ruskin spent L3000 in purchasing unsanitary property in a vicious neighborhood. The plan is to take old property, to put in necessary repairs, to demand a prompt payment of rent, and gradually to add improvements out of the surplus from a repair fund. The standard of living of the people is raised by making the tenants realize that care on their part results in improvements. Thrift is encouraged by discounts for payment of rent in advance. When the tenants are ready, new buildings are erected. The association owns property, or, as agents, collects rents. Women volunteers have happily combined rent-collecting with friendly visiting. Similar methods have been adopted in other cities. Philadelphia has an Octavia Hill Association, Gotham Court in New York has been improved, and Mrs. Lincoln has used this method in Boston.

Among the companies providing better housing facilities may be mentioned: In England---the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrious Classes (1841), which owns fourteen estates in London, and pays 4 1/2 per cent.; The Peabody Donation Fund, which owns enormous blocks of tenements; The Improved Industrial Dwellings Company of London founded by
Sir Sidney Waterloo as the result of a successful experiment (1862), and which endeavors to combine beauty and utility in large blocks; the Guinness Trust. On the Continent of Europe are the Berlin Mutual Building Company (1849), and other commercial and semi-philanthropic companies in different cities. In the United States A.T. White founded the Improved Dwelling Company of Brooklyn (1876), which has erected the Home Tower and Riverside buildings, the older buildings paying 10 per cent., the new buildings 5 or 6 per cent. Other New York enterprises are the Astral Apartments (Brooklyn) of Pratt Institute; Improved Dwellings Association with model tenements at Seventy-first Street, paying 6 per cent.; Tenement House Building Company, with property on Cherry Street. In Boston, the Harrison Avenue Estate, the Rufus Ellis Memorial Building, Cooperative Building Company (1871), and The Improved Dwelling Association (1885). In Philadelphia, Theodore Starr Property, The City and Suburban Company of New York City was organized in 1896 as the outcome of the Improved Housing Conference. It aims to offer a safe investment returning 5 per cent., and to provide the best accommodations for working classes. The company is willing to undertake the reconstruction of the East Side of New York City. In this connection the Marylebone Association of London, which undertakes to improve the immediate
surroundings of working-class homes, should be mentioned.

Companies have been formed to build and sell property, or to make it possible for the artisans themselves to build. The Artisans', Laborers', and General Dwelling Company of London has opened up suburban estates; the Workingmen's Dwellings Company of Passy-Auteuil, the Discount Bank of Paris, and the Berlin Building Association are important examples. In the United States, building and loan associations, started in Philadelphia, have reached low-salaried clerks and artisans. The best and cheapest method originated in Belgium in 1889, and it has been tried in France and Germany. General savings banks with Government guarantee loan capital to companies of responsible individuals, who act as intermediaries in making loans to workingmen. There are two general forms of companies: (1) Joint-stock and cooperative-loan companies, which allow the individual to select his land and lend him money to put up his house; and (2) joint-stock and cooperative-building companies, who build houses and sell them. The workman pays 10 per cent. and gives a mortgage. The important feature of this system is the arrangement for a life insurance which prevents any loss to his family in case of death. Another important aspect of the housing problem is the question of lodging-houses (q.v.). Thus far the improvements in housing have hardly reached the class who need them the most.

In the United States the twentieth century opens with a widespread interest in housing problems, largely stimulated by charity organization societies.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: United States Eighth Special Report of Commissioner of Labor, 1895 (Plans and Enterprises); Reports of Tenement House Comissions for State of New York; American Economic Association Publications, viii., Nos. 2-3 (Bibliography); City Homes Association, Tenement Conditions in Chicago (Chicago, 1901) (which gives an excellent account of Chicago's housing condition, illustrated; Lechler, Nationale Wohnungsreform (Berlin, 1895); Congress International des Habitations a Bon Marche, Compete Rendu. et Documents (Paris, 1900) (which contains a number of articles on the housing conditions of various countries); Rowntree, Poverty, A Study of Town Life (New York, 1901) ; Sykes, Public Health and Housing (London, 1901) (a discussion of London conditions from a medical standpoint); Shaw, Municipal Government in Great Britain (New York, 1895), and Municipal Government in Continental Europe (New York, 1897).