650 Canton Ave
Milton, Mass.

August 21, 1934

Miss Helen Alfred
National Public Housing Conference
112 East 19th Street
New York, N.Y.

My dear Miss Alfred:

Your letter of August 16th has been forwarded to me here. I shall
be happy to accept your invitation to speak at the luncheon of the
New England conference on public housing and education and legislation
at Brookline on October sixth. If it suits you I will take as my
subject The Future Distribution of Population, or The Ideal Distribution
of Population. I think the second is better, but if a more popular
title is desirable perhaps you can suggest one.

As soon as your plans have progressed far enough will you
please let me know just how many minutes I am to speak. I should also
be glad to know as much as possible about the other addresses at the
conference so that I may make mine fit in with the rest as well as
possible.

Until about September 17th my address will be at Milton, Mass.,
as given above.

Yours sincerely,

NATIONAL PUBLIC HOUSING CONFERENCE

President

Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch

112 East 19th Street, New York, N. Y.

Telephone: ALgonquin 4-5753

309

Secretary

Helen Alfred

Treasurer

Herbert Bayard Swope

Vice-Presidents

Edith Abbott
James C. Bonbright
William Hodson
Rabbi Edward L. Israel
Harry W. Laidler
Edouard C. Lindeman
Bishop Francis J. McConnell
John Nolen
Rev. John O'Grady
Cornelia Bryce Pinchot
Mary Harriman Rumsey
Edith Elmer Wood

September 24, 1934.

Professor Ellsworth Huntington
Yale University
New Haven, Conn.

Dear Professor Huntington:

I am very sorry to be this late in replying
to your letter of August 24th. Before writing you,
however, I wished to have the program of our New England
Conference in final shape.

We are delighted to know that you will find it
convenient to address our New England Conference in
Brookline on October 6th. Mrs. Simkhovitch, our Presi-
dent, will preside, and you will be preceded on the
program by Mr. Horace Peaslee of the Federal Housing
Division of the P. W. A., and Mr. Clarence Pickett of
the Subsistence Homesteads Corporation, Department of
the Interior.

As you may imagine, Mr. Peaslee will discuss
the slum clearance and low cost housing program of the
Recovery Administration, and Mr. Pickett the industrial-
agricultural housing schemes which are being developed by
his department. I believe it will be of great interest
to those present if you will envision the "ideal"
community, as you suggest in your letter, tying your
address in with the realistic programs to be described
by the other speakers. I am hopeful that you may also
present the implications and possibilities of a permanent
Federal-local program for rehousing urban workers, at least
within their means, and with a share of their currency.

So that we may allow time for discussion
following the formal program, I am asking the speakers
to limit their addresses to a maximum of twenty minutes.

We feel we are particularly fortunate and will
be honored to have you as our speaker on this occasion, so
that the subject of this particular session - "The
Challenge of the Slums" - can be placed on so substantial
a basis.

President

Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch

Telephone: Algonquin 4-5753

309

Secretary

Helen Alfred

Treasurer

Herbert Bayard Swope

Vice-Presidents

Prof. Ellsworth Huntington
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Professor Huntington:

September 26, 1934

Since writing you yesterday, we have been very fortunate in securing time over the National Broadcasting Co. network for a broadcast of our luncheon program.

In view of the desirability of bringing this program to a larger audience, it seems highly worth while to reduce the time for each speaker to thirteen minutes. Since we have a forty-five-minute period, from 12:30 to 1:15, we can have a satisfactory discussion period afterward, at which some of the ideas you may not be able to include in your speech can be brought out.

HA:MEC

RESOLUTION
Adopted at the
FIRST NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE ON PUBLIC HOUSING
Held Under the Auspices of the
NATIONAL PUBLIC HOUSING CONFERENCE
at the
HOTEL BEACONSFIELD, BROOKLINE, MASS.,

OCTOBER 5-6, 1934

Recognizing the great and immediate need for rehousing large portions of our population now resident in structures which menace both health and morale, and the tremendous stimulation which such a construction program would impart to our national economic recovery, the first New England Conference on Public Housing, now in session in Brookline, Massachusetts, wishes to go on record as approving the work already done by the federal government and various cities of the nation in the field of slum clearance and reconstruction.

It is the sense of this conference that such a building program must be extended and amplified to make secure the gains already made. To this end we respectfully urge immediate appointment by the President of a federal commission to study and make recommendations for a continuing and permanent program of public housing to be laid before the Congress of the United States at its approaching session.

We further submit that the housing conditions of certain income classes in the New England States, and over the entire nation, make federal loans and grants to municipal housing authorities even more imperative than such assistance to local road building programs has been in the past. To this end we urge the establishment of a permanent federal housing division in the Department of the Interior, empowered to make loans from moneys appropriated for that purpose by Congress, at low interest rates and for long amortization periods, to local housing authorities for slum clearance and public housing construction, according to standards deemed desirable by the federal housing division.

In order to facilitate and initiate local developments in cooperation with the federal government, we further urge immediate passage of local housing authority laws by the various state legislatures, and the cooperation of State and local officials to attain this end.

To insure the inception and continuance of such a public housing program over the entire New England area, this conference wishes to go on record as approving the calling of a second conference on the question of public housing in this region next year.

This conference further recommends that state committees be formed to continue the work begun at this regional conference and to cooperate with all existing agencies, private and public, in keeping the community fully informed as to developments in New England and in the country as a whole.

DR. SARA STITES, Chairman
Committee on Resolutions
New England Conference on Public Housing

112 East Nineteenth Street
New York, N. Y.

PRESIDENT
Mary K. Simkhovitch

SECRETARY
Helen Alfred

TREASURER
Herbert Bayard Swope

You and Your Friends

are cordially invited to attend

A NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE

ON

SLUM CLEARANCE AND LOW-RENT HOUSING

to be held under the auspices of the
NATIONAL PUBLIC HOUSING CONFERENCE

Hotel Beaconsfield

Brookline, Massachusetts

Friday, October 5 and Saturday, October 6

1934

NEW ENGLAND SPONSORING COMMITTEE

CONNECTICUT

Prof. Edwin M. Borchard

Prof. Jerome Davis

Prof. Maurice R. Davie

Mrs. George Parmly Day

Miss Lillian D. Wald

MAINE

Rt. Rev. Benjamin Brewster

MASSACHUSETTS

Mrs. LaPue Brown

Mrs. Addison C. Burnham

Rt. Rev. Charles Wesley Burns

Mrs. E. A. Codman

Mrs. Algernon Coolidge

Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Davies

Miss Ethel Ward Dougherty

Mr. Harold U. Faulkner

Mrs. William Whitworth Gannett

Miss Elizabeth M. Herlihy

Prof. Arthur N. Holcombe

Mr. John Ihlder

Mr. E. A. Johnson

Mr. Alfred Baker Lewis

Miss Lucy Lowell

Mr. John Nolen

Rev. George L. Paine

Mr. William Stanley Parker

Mr. Howard C. Raymond

Mr. George E. Roewer

Miss Caroline Saltonshall

Mr. Henry K. Sherrill

Prof. Sumner H. Slichter

Prof. Sara Stites

Mr. Albert H. Stoneman

Mrs. T. R. Sullivan

Prof. Colston E. Warne

Mr. Curtis H. Waterman

Mrs. Eva W. White

Dr. Mary E. Woolley

RHODE ISLAND

Prof. C. Enoch Ekstrom

Miss Alice W. Hunt

VERMONT

Rt. Rev. Samuel B. Boott

-2-

Permanent Conference Chairman

MRS. MARY KINGSBURY SIMKHOVITCH
President, National Public Housing Conference,
Vice-Chairman, New York City Housing Authority,
and Director, Greenwich House Settlement

* * * * *

Friday, October 5

10:30 A. M. - "PRACTICAL ASPECTS OF PUBLIC HOUSING" - Joint Session of Massachusetts State Federation of Planning Boards and National Public Housing Conference

Prof. FREDERICK J. ADAMS, Harvard
University, Presiding

Mr. DWIGHT L. HOOPINGARNER, Associate
Director, Public Works Housing
Division

Dr. ROBINSON NEWCOMB, U. S. Bureau of
Foreign and Domestic Commerce

Mr. FREDERICK L. ACKERMAN, Technical
Advisor to the New York City
Housing Authority

Mr. HAROLD S. BUTTENHEIM, Editor, The
American City

Mr. EDWARD T. HARTMAN, State Consultant on Planning, Discussion Leader

1:00 P. M. - Luncheon - INFORMAL ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION

2:00 P. M. - HOUSING TOUR OF BOSTON
Conducted by MR. JOHN IHLDER,
Secretary, Boston Housing Assn.
(Bus Fare $.50)

8:00 P. M. - "PUBLIC HOUSING - A CHALLENGE TO YOUTH"

Mrs. SIMKHOVITCH, Presiding

Mrs. EVA WHITING WHITE, President,
Women's Educational and Industrial Union, and Headworker,
Peabody House

Prof. HAROLD U. FAULKNER, Department of
Economics, Smith College

Prof. SARA STITES, Simmons College,
Discussion Leader

* * * * *

Saturday, October 6

10:00 A. M. - "ORGANIZING THE COMMUNITY FOR PUBLIC HOUSING EDUCATION AND ACTION"

Mrs. SIMKHOVITCH, Presiding

Mr. FREDERIC H. FAY, Chairman, Zoning
Board, Representing MAYOR
MANSFIELD of the City of Boston

Mr. HARRY F. LAKE, Representing MAYOR
STORRS of the City of Concord,
New Hampshire

Miss HELEN L. ALFRED, Secretary,
National Public Housing Conference,
Discussion Leader

12:30 P.M. - Luncheon - "THE GOVERNMENT TAKES A HAND IN HOUSING"

Mrs. SIMKHOVITCH, Presiding

Mr. HORACE W. PEASLEE, Federal Housing
Division, Public Works Administration

Mr. CLARENCE PICKETT, Subsistence Homesteads Division, Department of the Interior

Prof. ELLSWORTH HUNTINGTON, Yale University.
(Luncheon Reservation $1.25, to be made in advance)

ALL SESSIONS WILL BE OPEN TO THE PUBLIC WITHOUT CHARGE

Please Send Reservations for Saturday Luncheon and Housing Tour to
Miss Helen Alfred, Hotel Beaconsfield

President

Mary Kingsbury Simkhovitch

Secretary

Helen Alfred

Treasurer

Herbert Bayard Swope

Vice-Presidents

Telephone: Algonquin 4-5753

309

October 12, 1934

Professor Ellsworth Huntington
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut

Dear Professor Huntington:

I wish to thank you most cordially for your kindness in going to Brookline and for the very excellent message you delivered. I felt that the material you presented held many important implications for the development of public housing programs in the cities of New England.

We hope to have the speeches delivered at the various sessions mimeographed and assembled for distribution, and I shall hope to send you a copy of this material at an early date.

While our conference failed to come up to expectations in some respects, we believe that already there have been valuable repercussions from it, and that as time goes on unanticipated and useful by-products will result.

I shall expect to receive from you a statement of the expenses involved in your trip to Brookline.

Thanking you again, and with kind wishes, I am

HA:MEC

Enc.

PRESIDENT
Mary K. Simkhovitch

SECRETARY
Helen Alfred

You and Your Friends

A NEW ENGLAND CONFERENCE

ON

Hotel Beaconsfield

Brookline, Massachusetts

1934

CONNECTICUT

MAINE

Rt. Rev. Benjamin Brewster

MASSACHUSETTS

Mrs. LaRue Brown
Mrs. Addison C. Burnham
Rt. Rev. Charles Wesley Burns
Mrs. E. A. Codman
Mrs. Algernon Coolidge
Rt. Rev. Thomas F. Davies

RHODE ISLAND

Prof. C. Emmanuel Ekstrom
Miss Alice W. Hunt

VERMONT

Rt. Rev. Samuel B. Booth

Total . . . . . . .

October 15, 1934

Miss Helen Alfred, Secretary
/ National Public Housing Conference
112 East 19th Street
New York, New York

Dear Miss Alfred:

I thank you for your letter of October 12th. I enjoyed the conference at Brookline and found it profitable. I wish that I could have been present at other sessions.

My expenses were as follows:

Railroad fare . . . . . . . . . $7.85
(New Haven and return)

Berth . . . . . . . . . . . . . $5.00

Meals, etc. . . . . . . . . . . $1.98

Total . . . . . . . . . . $12.83

When the addresses given at the conference are
mimographed, I wish you would send me at least two copies.

EH:JS