page_title: Seaside Village Historic District
section_title: Early History of Seaside Village
hierarchical_section_title: Seaside Village Historic District / Early History of Seaside Village
caption_attribution_description: English: The original plans for Seaside Village included 377 units. Not all were built as construction began in October 1918 and the war ended a month later. Work continued with the construction for a while,but the area closest to Atlantic Street was left as a large field.
context_page_description: Historic Seaside Village Co-operative encompasses a primarily residential area in the South End of Bridgeport, Connecticut. It is bounded on the east by Iranistan Avenue, the north by South Avenue, the south by Forest Court and by the west by Alsace Street. The property consists of a densely built collection of brick rowhouses, arranged in irregular combinations. The village was developed during World War I to alleviate a housing shortage caused by an influx of workers hired to work in the city's munitions factories. It is a good example of an early government-funded project of this type, and was a collaborative design effort by R. Clipston Sturgis, Skinner & Walker, and Arthur Shurtleff.
  The district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1990.
context_section_description: Bridgeport experienced a big influx of immigrants and industrial workers in the late 1800s and early 1900s as the city became the major industrial center in Connecticut. Bridgeport's population increased more than threefold from 1880 to 1914, growing from 30,000 to 115,000 as immigrant labor arrived and manufacturing expanded.   World War I brought large munitions orders from the English, French, and Russian armies.  Other companies manufactured war-related products, which contributed to the population expansion. 
  From 1914 to 1916, the population grew from 115,000 to 175,000 as Bridgeport factories supplied European countries and the U.S. with war-related products.  By 1918, Bridgeport had over $60 million in work contracts for the federal government for the war effort.   Remington Arms alone produced 50 percent of the U.S. Army's small-arms cartridges and employed 17,000 laborers.
  The manufacturers had expanded their factories, however they were unable to meet production quotas due to a severe lack of adequate housing for the workers.  The housing shortage was so severe that workers were buying train tickets and sleeping in the railway terminal, renting eight hour shifts in rooming houses to sleep, and the City even considered building massive tents for housing up to 10 families.
  In addition to the housing shortage, the facilities that housed the workers and their families were inadequate.  Tenements, the primary housing for factory workers and their families were dark, often windowless, with a central shaft for ventilation.  They were also unsanitary, ugly, flammable, and miserable to live in.  The cost of real estate had soared, so buying a home was out of reach of the working class.  There was an urgent need for quality rentals to attract and retain workers in the factories.
  The Bridgeport Housing Company was formed in 1916 to deal with this housing problem.  It was composed of about a dozen manufacturers and public service companies with capital of $1,000,000.  One of its first actions was to appoint R. Clipston Sturgis of Boston, as the architect and Andrew Shurtleff as the town planner.  The town planner controlled most aspects of the project. Mr. W. H. Ham, a Boston engineer, was appointed as the general manager.
  R. Clipston Sturges was the top ranked architect of his time.  He served as President of the American Institute of Architects from 1913- 1915.  He was involved in designing the wings for BuIfinch's state house in Boston. Sturgis also designed the Perkins Institute for the Blind in Watertown, Massachusetts.
  Arthur Shurtleff studied under Charles Eliot from 1895 to 1896 at Harvard and worked for Olmsted Brothers Landscape Architects from 1896 through 1905, before he opened his own firm in Boston. Along with Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr., he was an early faculty member of Harvard University's landscape architecture program, founded in 1900.
  William H. Ham graduated from Dartmouth College in 1897 and in 1898 from the Thayer School (Dartmouth) of Civil Engineering and Architecture. From 1908 to 1916 Mr. Ham was a member of the firm of French and Hubbard, consulting engineers on factory buildings.  He then became manager of the Bridgeport Housing Company.  Ham aggressively lobbied Washington D.C. for $3 million in loans to cover the costs of construction for WWI housing in Bridgeport.  The loan had just been approved by Congress, when the federal government decided to directly address the problem since similar problems were occurring in other cities across the United States.  The U.S. Housing Corporation asked the Bridgeport Housing group to act as their local agents and gave them the task of selecting the architects, directing the design, and securing the builders.
  To solve the housing crisis for workers serving the war effort, the United States Housing Corporation was formed in July 1918 with $100 million in capital.  They partnered with the Bridgeport Housing Company and examined 20 housing sites in Bridgeport deciding upon 7 of them (two of which, were abandoned on the signing of the armistice).  These sites
caption: Original Plans for Seaside Village 1919 U.S. Housing Vol. 2
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