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Preserving
our Community Heritage...Now and For The Future
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Preserving
our Community Heritage...Now and For The Future
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CONTENTS
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APPENDIX B: LITERATURE REVIEW
Little appears to have been written specifically about the development of apartment houses in Seattle. The available literature reflects primarily apartment development in other cities, the sociology of apartment house living, and Seattle's architectural, social or economic history. Information is available on specific buildings, especially in the King County archives. Several buildings in the study area are works of well-known architects or have been nominated for the National Register, and additional documentation is available for them.
Seattle Social and Architectural History The history of Queen Anne published in September 1993 by the Queen Anne Historical Society contains a thorough history of the hill's physical and social development, including an entire chapter on apartment houses. This work contains an invaluable compilation of details, especially regarding early land claims and the activities of key figures in the community's early development. The information on apartment houses relies primarily on the sources mentioned elsewhere in this thesis.
Several books have been written on Seattle's economic and social development between 1900 and 1940. Among these are Roger Sale's Seattle Past to Present and Richard Berner's Seattle 1921-1940: From Boom to Bust. Sale's work is more thought provoking and useful for analysis because it discusses possible reasons why things occurred as they did. Berner, on the other hand, primarily recounts events, especially political and economic events, rather than attempting to explain them. However, his book is a useful compilation of economic and demographic statistics placed in context.
Two members of pioneer families, Henry Broderick and Sophie Frye Bass, compiled informal anecdotal accounts of the city's early history. These works give notably short shrift to Queen Anne. This may reflect the fact that Queen Anne developed later than First Hill, which remained the home of Seattle's early elite for some time. While Queen Anne came to be edged with mansions on the view streets, it was largely a middle- and working-class neighborhood.
A key book is Larry Kreisman's Apartments by Anhalt, which reviews the career and works of Fred Anhalt, one of the best known Seattle apartment developers. The study area has two of his buildings, and another one previously stood on Queen Anne Avenue. Although the book deals with only a small number of unique buildings, the introductory essay discusses overall residential and apartment development trends in the 1920s and the role of apartment buildings in the city's social and urban fabric. Steve Lambert's interview with Fred Anhalt, Built by Anhalt, provides insight into the builder's motives and the development and construction process he used.
Another Kreisman book, Deco Seattle, specifically mentions a group of apartment houses in the study area, between West Roy and West Mercer streets. It cites the Sea View as the city's outstanding example of this type.
Seattle's Visual Inventory of Buildings and Urban Design Resources compiled by Victor Steinbrueck and Folke Nyberg focused first on Queen Anne, and provides useful context for the area's architecture and other urban design features. Even this important reference, however, largely ignored apartment houses.
Historic photographs and maps provide clues to the scale and density of development during various periods. Paul Dorpat's three compilations, Seattle Then and Now, have several photos of the study area. He is particularly interested in locales that have changed significantly, such as Seattle Center and lower Queen Anne.
Apartment Development Elsewhere American apartment living is directly influenced by French and English traditions. James Goode's Best Addresses: A Century of Washington's Distinguished Apartment Houses is primarily concerned with Washington D.C., but it also has an excellent essay on apartment house development in London, Paris and other European cities, which provides connections and context for development of the building type in America. Donald Olsen's The City as a Work of Art: London, Paris, Vienna includes extensive discussion of the roles of single family homes and apartments in the social geography in each city.
Numerous books discuss apartment development in East Coast cities, often going into considerable detail about architecture, ornamentation, unit size, room arrangement and tenants. This information is useful in order to place Seattle's apartment house activity in a national context. Andrew Alpern's Apartments for the Affluent: A Historical Survey of Buildings in New York contains descriptions, photographs and floor plans for numerous New York apartment houses, and an introductory essay on the history of apartment development. Elizabeth Cromly's Alone Together: A History of New York's Early Apartments and New York, New York: How the Apartment House Transformed the Life of the City (1869-1930) by Elizabeth Hawes both focus on social and physical aspects, especially the gradual middle class acceptance of apartment living.
R.W. Sexton's American Apartment Houses, Hotels and Apartment Hotels of Today focuses specifically on modern designs of the 1920s, the period when Seattle saw its most intensive development. This allows a good comparison of the state of the art architecturally in Seattle compared to other cities such as New York, Chicago and Wichita.
John Hancock's chapter on "The Apartment House in Urban America," in Buildings and Society, considers apartment house development throughout the country. It is very valuable in establishing a national context for the small buildings that were typical of Seattle; it contains some information specific to Seattle, as well as data on apartment tenants.
Paul Groth's dissertation on single-room occupancy housing discusses the development and role of apartment hotels and single-room occupancy hotels in American cities. Although his focus differs from the apartment houses discussed in this thesis, the discussion of apartment history, the contrast with apartment hotels, and the differing roles of the two types of structures, is important to the context and social development of apartment houses in general.
The West Coast apartment tradition clearly differs from that of the East Coast. Courtyard Housing in Los Angeles: A Typological Analysis, by Stefanos Polyzoides, et al, is an insightful look at a particular building type and how and why it developed. Much of this development also occurred in the 1920s. While Seattle does not have many of the grand courtyard apartments found in Los Angeles, the study area does contain several good examples of this building type. This book is particularly useful for its discussion of how these buildings fit into the urban form and social structure of a community and how they could be used to solve today's problems.
David Gebhard's Architecture in Los Angeles and LA in the Thirties provide a broader perspective on the historical development of Southern California apartment houses and the role they played in terms of housing and architecture. Thomas Hines in Richard Neutra and the Search for Modern Architecture discusses the works of one of the few architects who made a name for himself through trend-setting apartment structures.
History of Housing A significant amount of literature analyzes the social history of housing in America. Although discussions generally focus on single family housing, many also discuss multifamily housing as alternatives to address specific problems. They compare what people seek from housing and how it can be obtained, or not obtained, through types other than single family homes, and societal attitudes toward those who choose to or have to live in apartments. Examples are found in Building the Dream: A Social History of Housing in America by Gwendolyn Wright, Dolores Hayden's Redesigning the American Dream, and The American Home: Architecture and Society, 1815-1915, by David Handlin.
Newspaper Accounts Newspaper real estate pages and business journals generally track a city's major developments--the construction of significant buildings, the works of prominent architects or developers, and new structures at key locations. A review of Seattle newspapers for several periods during the 1920s reveals only sporadic discussions of apartment buildings. One was a statement by John Graham, the city's best-known architect, hailing the Victoria Apartments, in the study area, as the forerunner of extensive new development. Articles on apartment buildings are surprisingly scarce, considering the number being built. Only occasional descriptions of new buildings were found. The proliferation of downtown office buildings and the rapid expansion of single family areas to the north and south warranted greater news coverage.
One of the most fruitful sources of information on how apartment buildings were seen at the time is found in the classified advertisements. These proved to have a wealth of information on the key features found in the units. This is particularly valuable for the insight it gives not only into what existed in the buildings, but what was considered important enough to advertise. For example, modern features such as refrigerators, built-in radios and connected garages were often considered as important as the views. |