Overview:
Going back to the mid and late 19th century, manufacturers and other extremely well off families who were wealthy lived in the select few neighborhoods in the city where there were mansions. But along with mansions there was housing eventually made avaliable for all other kinds of people. When the auto industry started up in Detroit around 1910-1920s, a lot of people from the south moved up north to find work. The housing market took off and lot of new homes were built. “In 1920s Detroit, building projects accounted for well over $1 billion (in 2015 dollars) on an annual basis and took, in large part, the form of single-family houses.” People thought that single family homes looked better and made a better image for the city. Once, Detroit had the most single family homes around, more than any other city in the U.S. Over 60% of the houses in Detroit were single family units. When more blacks started moving to Detroit they were housed together in a couple of neighborhoods. This led to some controversy and even riots. After the big boom of houses being built in the early 20th century, “very few new homes were constructed in metropolitan Detroit between 1929 and 1946. By 1940, the federal government was actively building large public housing projects to stimulate the economy and eliminate slums.” The city, whether it be the government or the citizens, had build so many houses and projects they all took a step back after awhile and cooled down on building new buildings.
The Woodward Mansion:William E. Boeing was the creator of the largest American aerospace companies. Ever heard or flown on a Boeing 737? Williams’s father, Wilhelm Boeing, had built for him a beautiful arts home that looked like it was straight from Europe in 1875. This mansion would be known as the Woodward Mansion. This house was built on The Boulevard which was were the wealthiest people lived in Detroit in the late 19th century. Eight years after Wilhelm died, his wife Marie sold the mansion to Michael and Eliza Murphy in 1989. The house sold for $26,000 ($700,000 in today’s terms.) The Murphy’s were ready to move out of the house because of financial struggles by 1905. In that year Michael sold the mansion to investers for $35,000 ($840,000 in today’s terms,) who turned the house into apartments. By 1910 the mansion was demolished, along with many other mansions that sat in The Boulevard neighborhood. The Woodward Mansion only stood for a couple decades but in its prime it was well kept and an elegant home.
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Sojourner Truth (1791-1883)
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The Sojourner Truth Housing Project:The black neighborhoods were already packed so the government couldn’t build any new houses there for them. Whites at the time did not want new houses for black to be built in their neighborhoods. Congressman Rudolph Tenerowicz let a lot of white in this movement, even The Federal Housing Administration threatened that they would not support any federal help for mortgages if blacks moved into white neighborhoods.
Within months the Sojourner Truth Homes were built and finish on December 15th, 1941. “Washington officials named it after the nation’s preeminent African-American abolitionist, women’s rights advocate and hero of the Underground Railroad movement, Sojourner Truth, who lived in or near Battle Creek from 1857 to her death in 1883.” But on January 20th, 1942, federal housing officials in Washington declared that the Sojourner Truth houses were now reserved for white folks and not blacks after succumbing to the pressers put on them. After going back and forth and realizing how bad the blacks’ housings conditions were in their neighborhoods, severely overly crowded, they changed their minds once again and on February 28th, 1942, blacks were allowed to move back into the Sojourner Truth development. Of course the whites did not want this to happen so they day before the blacks were to return to the housing projects, the 27th, white were marching around the complex hoping to intimidate the people enough so they would not want to move in. “Although 200 police officers were on duty, there was a great deal of racial fighting that day with 40 injuries, but no deaths. Police called off the entry of blacks to their homes and, by the end of the day, arrested 217 blacks and 3 whites.” A lot of newspapers reported on the racial differences in the arrests that took place. The Sojourner Truth houses were left empty for a long while after that riot took place. “At the end of April, 1942, 1,100 city and state police officers and 1,600 members of Michigan National Guard were mobilized and sent to the area around [the Sojourner Truth Homes] to guard six African-American families who moved into the Sojourner Truth Homes. That show of military force broke the back of white resistance and, thanks to a continued police presence, there were no further racial problems for the blacks who moved into this federal housing project. Eventually, 168 black families moved into these homes.” |