MIDDLE TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY

Temporary Housing How Defense Housing Shortages Spurred the

Creation of Housing Legislation and Shaped the

Landscape of America.

Kelsey Fields

12/7/2011

Fields 1

Today Americans are facing a collapsed real estate market. Homes appear largely to

outnumber the population’s potential buyers. This is the direct opposite of the America of a

century ago. Early twentieth century America was a time of great and re-occurring crisis; World

War II followed the Great Depression, which followed the Great War. All of these events were

characterized by an additional crisis—a shortage of adequate housing. Today's housing market

is glutted with single family homes, Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approved pre-

fabricated and mobile homes, and government subsidized low-income apartments. That is not to

say that all Americans have adequate housing, but the programs that are currently in place to

combat the problem would not be possible without the foundation in the federal response to the

housing crisis of the early twentieth century. This paper explores the early federal response to

the housing crisis and how it is intimately related to defense strategy and veteran housing needs.

Specifically it looks at the defense migration problems in areas of Tennessee and congressional

acts aimed at combating these problems.

Many of the same housing problems that the country faced later in World War II

characterized World War I. That is, the country faced shortages in building materials. The same

materials needed for family homes are necessary for and thus redirected to the defense industry

in times of war. The migration of workers to the sites of new military bases and defense

industries compounded this problem. This in-migration of workers and shortage of housing led

Congress to create the United States Housing Corporation in 1918.1 The corporation was

responsible for building housing projects for the in-migrant workers and set the foundation for

1 Joint Committee on Housing, “Study and Investigation of Housing: Hearings on the need for housing,

costs and supply of building materials, building codes and zoning laws, administration and operation of existing

federal housings laws, organization and operation of federal, state and municipal government agencies concerned

with housing; private and government housing finance, and other phases of the field of housing.” 80th

Cong., 1st

sess., 1948, Part 1 Preliminary Discussion at Washington, DC; 10. Here after referred to as Joint Committee on

Housing Hearings 1948.

Fields 2

governmental provisioning of housing. While these housing projects were created to fulfill a

specific wartime need and were not aimed at providing housing for the low-income general

public, it did set the precedent for federal housing acts in the 1930s and 1940s.

Other factors were at work changing American society at this time and influenced

America’s response to the housing and job shortages. Following World War I, the nation

experienced an increase in automobile tourism that greatly impacted the mobility of Americans.

Progressive Era thinking held getting back to nature as necessary for “character-building.” It

was essential to restoring white “manliness” in the face of urban life that was contrary to

America’s frontier roots. This led to the development of wilderness vacations for the wealthy.2

The advent of the Ford Model T assembly line stunningly increased the ability of the general

public to leave their urban homes. This allowed them to “go even further afield in their search

for recreation and readily travel long distances during weekends and vacations to places of scenic

interest where their favorite forms of outdoor life may be enjoyed.”3 However enjoyable and

character-building these vacations might be, it was difficult to pack necessary supplies and small

comforts into the automobile with the rest of one’s family. Those with ingenuity simply attached

modified horse carts to their vehicles for extra storage, while those who had money to spare on

luxuries had trailers built with tents attached. Eventually the trend grew and many people made

their own tent trailers or had them built by local handy men and carriage makers.4

What started as a trend for those who could spend a little extra on travel morphed into a

solution to a problem on housing. The stock market crash of 1929 and the following depression

2 Paul Sutter, Driven Wild: How the Fight Against Automobiles Launched the Modern Wilderness

Movement. (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2005), 22.

3Ibid., 19.

4Al Hesselbart, The Dumb Things Sold—Just Like That!: A History of the Recreational Vehicle Industry in

America, (Benton, Kentucky: Legacy Ink Publishers, 2007), 6.

Fields 3

slowed down the manufacturing of those camping “house trailers,” but much less than some

industries as “homeowners who lost their houses were forced into an itinerate lifestyle by

economic conditions.”5 “By 1937…trailer production had become the ‘fastest growing U.S.

industry,’ with factory produced trailers supplanting homemade versions. By the late 1930s

According to journalist Samuel Grafton, the mobility of the Model T and the trailer

resulted in the automobile becoming home to many Americans. This situation, acerbated by

wartime shortages in building materials, defense migrations, and a moratorium of non-defense

construction, continued into the early 1940s. This resulted in an "important social phenomenon"

where “the American spirit" was adapted to "the demands of a rootless nomadic life." However,

the housing solution thus derived from the earlier vacationing trend came with misperceptions

and negative connotations. Grafton points out that none of those that he knew of living in trailer

camps were "depressed or unhappy," but he held that:

"Families on wheels, harassed by the uncertainties of the future, spending as little

as they can , consciously avoiding the letting down of roots, cannot and will not

take any responsible role in local life; they cannot and will not support local

institutions; nor can they feel any sense of participation in local problems. They

do not vote. They are connected solely by the payroll to the town in which, by

accident, they find themselves to be. "6

This housing solution came at a price for the mobile families and later the federal

government. Many residents and local governments held the belief that mobile families

have no connection to the communities, causing resistance to their physical

5Hesselbart, 7.

6 House Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration, National Defense Migration:

Hearings on H.R. 113, 77th Cong., 1st sess., 1941, 4274-5 Here after referred to as National Defense Migration

Hearings 1941.

Fields 4

incorporation into the these communities. Local governments of these communities often

failed to support the migrant workers by refusing to build roads or provide sanitary water

and sewage for the trailer camps, leaving that responsibility to the federal government

and defense contractors. This policy further cost defense contractors and the federal

government, as they also had to provide for the removal of trailers and other temporary

housing following the war, so as not to lower the area’s property values.

Of course, improvements to infrastructure remained. Although many of the defense

workers lived in trailer camps, many more were crowded into what little living space was

available in the form of rented rooms, converted barns, and even beds rented in shifts.

Out of the seven Southern states submitting reports to the Select Committee Investigating

National Defense Migration in March 1941, only three of the locations in those states

reported that there was adequate housing available for workers and their families.7

Success of housing in these three locations is attributed to the high organization of health,

7Ibid. 4597-4735. States included Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Alabama, and Tennessee.

Fields 5

education, and recreation programs in larger cities like Alexandria, Virginia.8 Examples

of both failure and success are evident in the reports on Tennessee. Memphis was a

success while the remaining locations of Tullahoma and Milan, Tennessee reported

scarce housing and unsanitary conditions.

The Du Pont Powder Company constructed a plant in Memphis for the war effort.

According to 1941 reports, the migration of workers and families to the plant resulted in more

traffic on the roads leading to the plant and some crowding in the schools. However, “the influx

of migratory labor was easily taken care of through the numerous homes and boarding houses in

Memphis.”9

In Milan, construction of a shell loading plant occurred in a rural area “out in the open

country, many miles from any sizable city.” There it employed “four or five thousand people.”10

The location of the plant in Milan met requirements for its “remoteness from large centers of

population… [and] availability of large tracts of land to permit necessary safe distances between

facilities in both production and storage areas” for the ordnance.11

However, because there were

few residences in the original town, only ten houses, and little local infrastructure, the location

was unable to meet the housing needs of the workers. In March 1941, the report from Milan

painted the picture of the housing shortage, “large crowds of people have taken up practically all

homes and places to stay, and houses that would normally rent from $25 to $30 are bringing

from $75 to $150.” Also reported was a feeling of “ fear [that] the same situation will arise here

8Ibid. 4623.

9Ibid. 4623.

10

Ibid. 4270.

11

Jeffrey A. Hess, Milan Army Ammunition Plant, Milan, Gibson, TN. (Washington, D.C.: Historic

American Engineering Record, 1984.), 20.

Fields 6

[in Milan] as in Camp Forrest near Tullahoma, Tennessee

and Alexandria, Louisiana, where people slept in

automobiles or any other places where they could find

shelter.” This overcrowding caused a sanitation problem that

Mr. G.C. Cloys, Jr., the Assistant Director of Tennessee

State Employment Service, hoped would influence “health

department officials to arrange temporary toilet facilities and

water supply…in convenient spots for those who gather

outside employment offices.”12

According to Henry S.

Bloker, District Manager of the Tennessee State

Employment service, there was an influx of 15, 000 hired

workers to the Camp Forrest project. An estimated minimum

31,000 soldiers and additional 8,000 families of officers and

federal employees soon joined the 15,000 workers.13

Preston

Valien reported that those hired workers were only a fraction

of the estimated 23,000 workers who travelled to Tullahoma

from Alabama, Arkansas, and the surrounding areas of

Tennessee for a job.14

On March 1, 1941, Congress passed Public Law Nine on Defense Housing and

Temporary Shelter and later passed two additional acts that made up the Temporary Housing

12

National Defense Migration Hearings 1941, 4624.

13

Ibid. 4625.

14

Ibid. 4626.

Fields 7

Acts. Public Law Nine gave the President the power to assign government agencies to “provide

temporary shelter, either by the construction of buildings or otherwise…in localities where by

reason of national defense activities a shortage of housing exists.”15

Therefore, government

agencies constructed trailer parks, as seen in photograph one, to house the workers.

One such agency was the Farm Security Administration (FSA). The FSA was

responsible for ordering at least 4,000 trailers for defense purposes. The Palace Travel Coach

Corporation of Williamston, Michigan and Newport, Arkansas built some of these homes.

Palace was one of the companies to receive a contract with the FSA to create deployable

temporary housing for emergency response—that is, to provide housing for refugees in case of

the destruction of American cities by Axis powers. These mobile homes, marketed later as the

1942 Palace “Expando,” were built on their own chassis and designed to be towed by a civilian’s

personally owned vehicle. It unfolded from both sides to form a triple wide home with four

rooms and a shower. The process by which it unfolds is seen in photographs two through four.

Another agency tasked with providing temporary shelter Tennessee Valley Authority

(TVA), which was the cover organization for the development of the Oak Ridge National

Laboratory as part of the Manhattan project. The Manhattan project developed the Oak Ridge

15

Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act, 1941, Public Law 9, U.S. Statutes at Large 55 (1941-1942): 14.

Photograph 5

Trailers that house those constructing Oak Ridge, Tennessee. Photo from the American

Museum of Science and Energy. Note the Palace Expando homes second and third from the right.

Fields 8

site in a generally unpopulated area of Tennessee near the TVA’s Norris Dam site for many of

the same reasons that the powder plant was located in rural Milan—so as to protect population

from accidental or enemy caused explosions. As such the location had a sparse amount of

buildings in which to house defense workers. Reports on the housing conditions at Oak Ridge

were not made to the Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration as Milan and

Camp Forrest were, partly because construction of the community did not begin until 1942 and

partly because of wartime security concerns. Yet, historic photographs clearly show the

conditions of community brought on by the population boom and recollections of Oak Ridge

residents show that the site followed the pattern of other sites in Tennessee. According to Jay

Searcy, a 10 year-old at the time of his residence in Oak Ridge, some workers slept in abandoned

outbuildings, barns, cars, and even in tents, which was here his wife’s family lived, before they

were able to move into a trailer.16

Furthermore, the National Register Nomination for Oak Ridge

documents the Army's response housing concerns.

According to the nominations,

reports showed that the Army

responded to the housing issue with

nearly every method previously used

at other defense sites. Firstly, they

utilized the 181 farmhouses that were

in the area prior to the military's

16Jay Searcy, “My Nuclear Childhood,” on Manhattan Project Heritage Preservation Association, updated

August 2005, http://www.mphpa.org/classic/COLLECTIONS-C/OR-JSEA/ORP-JSEA-01.htm.(Accessed April 14,

2011.) This is a reproduction of an article that ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer on August 9, 1992. It is reproduced

on the website with their permission. It should be noted that this is the reminisces of a 60-year-old that is informed

by many outside sources of information of varying degrees of accuracy. As such, his version of history should be

critically examined in the matter of facts, such as numbers and dates. However, his accounts do serve to illustrate

examples of other facts found in more reliable sources.

Photograph 6

Schult “flat-top” at the Oak Ridge site. Curtsey of the

Recreational Vehicle and Mobile Home Hall of Fame

Fields 9

condemnation of the land. These briefly housed the administration of the project while new

housing was constructed.17

To provide housing for the workers constructing the atomic

processing plants and for the plants future employees, they provided 1071 trailers from the FSA

program and constructed 980 hutment houses.18

Original estimates stated that additional housing

was necessary for 13,000 workers at the plants. However, this number immediately increased

and the military responded by instituting another trailer camp to provide housing for 2000

workers.19

In 1945, the project was still under construction. Buses brought construction workers

in from surrounding towns to complete new projects so that the housing space at Oak Ridge

remained open for use by Manhattan project employees. Housing eventually consisted of 9324

family units such as, Cemesto homes. Cemesto was the name given to panels covered with a

mix of concrete and asbestos from which the houses were constructed. Housing also included

pre-fabricated homes built by the Schult Corporation, a trailer and pioneer mobile home

company from Elkhart, Indiana. The design of the Schult homes differed from traditional trailers

because they were transported in eight foot by twenty-four foot sections by a large tractor-trailer

instead of being built on a chassis. The pieces were then set onto a foundation with a crane in

the same manner as a modern pre-fabricated home. This process is seen in photograph six. They

were nicknamed “flat tops” because of their flat roofs. Furthermore, the project housed families

in duplexes, optimistically called Victory Cottages. In addition to the family housing were 93

dormitories, barracks, 400 trailers in trailer camps, and hutment housing. All totaled these

17“Historic and Architectural Resources of Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” National Register of Historic Places

Multiple Property Documentation, July 24, 1991, E5.

18

Ibid. E15.

19

Ibid.

Fields 10

structures provided housing for approximately 75,000 people.20

This increase in population

exemplifies the magnitude of the housing challenge faced at Oak Ridge. The growth in

population made Oak Ridge the fifth largest city in Tennessee—a far cry from the small number

of people residing in the 181 farm homes previously inhabiting the property.21

While defense migration clearly influenced the population and infrastructure of towns in

America, it also offers insight into the American idea of what a house is and who should have

one. The housing constructed at Oak Ridge was rigidly segregated by "rank and race."22

High-

ranking military officers, scientists, and engineers deemed valuable to the project's success lived

in the bigger and semi-permanent Cemesto homes. Those lower ranking personnel with families

lived in the Schult homes and the duplexes. Project administration would not grant single men

and women homes but housed them

instead in apartments, dormitories,

and barracks. Married couples with

children made their home in

"victory-cottages" and trailer parks

unless they were a large family and

an opening became available for

them in the Cemesto or Schult

housing.23

Single men in menial

positions lived in hutments.

20Ibid. E14.

21

Ibid.

22

Ibid. E16.

23

Ibid. E16.

Photograph 7

Pictured is a segregated hutment house neighborhood at

Oak Ridge. Photo curtsey of the American Museum of Science and

Energy.

Fields 11

While this list covers the range of housing available to white workers, black workers

were segregated into hutment neighborhoods segregated from the white neighborhoods. They

were even segregated according to sex, as men and women lived apart from one another,

separated by “five-foot fences topped with barbed wire.”24

Four to six persons lived in each

hutment, which were approximately sixteen-feet squares constructed from un-insulated plywood

featuring pyramidal roofs surrounding a chimney and rows of plywood awnings covering

glassless windows.25

They were without running water, forcing their occupants to use

community bathhouses. Coal stoves heated the structures. Because of these conditions, many

black workers lived separately from their families, who remained behind. Policy held that black

children could not live in Oak Ridge until it was changed 1946.26

Such segregation was justified

by the military as being in line with a "policy of respecting, local customs and laws in areas

where federal installations were located."27

The company hired by the military to run the city

justified their policy by asserting that responsibility “is not to promote social changes, whether

desirable or undesirable, but to see that the community is efficiently run and that everybody has a

chance to live decently in it."28

While defense migration clearly affected the population and infrastructure of towns in

America, it also offers insight into the American idea of what a house is and who should have

one. Even though Public Law Nine and the Temporary Shelter Acts gave the President the

power to “provide temporary shelter, either by the construction of buildings or otherwise,” the

24Searcy.

25

Ibid.

26

Ibid. E 21-22.

27

Ibid. E 21.

28

Ibid. E 22 as quoted from Charles 0. Jackson and Charles W. Johnson, City Behind A Fence, (Knoxville:

The University of Tennessee Press, 1981), 118.

Fields 12

government was not technically authorized to build permanent housing in defense areas even to

house returning veterans.29

This was likely for practical reasons. Constructing buildings was

more expensive as well as more permanent. Since the increase in population in these localities

was due to defense migration, as soon as the war was over industry would abandon newly

constructed buildings as industry returned to normal employee numbers. Using mobile homes

and semi-permanent demountable housing, which was cheaper and movable to meet housing

needs in other parts of the country or sellable for profit is the more cost effective answer. In

testimony given to the Select Committee Investigating National Defense Migration in 1941,

speculation that between the Army, the Navy, the FSA, private defense industry, and even

individual defense workers, an estimated more than 85% of the 20,000 trailers produced in that

year were used for defense housing.30

What is interesting is the effect that defense housing, housing laws, and racial

segregation had on one another. The problems of defense migration informed the government

that the nation could not face the housing shortage of discharged veterans without federal aid.

As a temporary measure, the government utilized the same housing they had previously utilized,

by selling surplus trailers and

converting barracks into apartments.

These solutions were to

meet private housing needs and on

college campuses to provide for

veterans attending college on the

G.I. Bill. This resulted in the first instances of married student housing on college campuses. In

29Urgent Deficiency Appropriation Act, 1941, Public Law 9, U.S. Statutes at Large 55 (1941-1942): 14.

30

National Defense Migration Hearings 1941, 7306.

Photograph 8

Photograph of the CTD barracks at MTSC after

conversion into apartments for married veterans attending

college on the G.I. Bill

Fields 13

Tennessee, one of the best-documented examples of this was the creation of "Vet Village" on the

campus of Middle Tennessee State Teachers College (MTSC), now Middle Tennessee State

University. The village began with the placement of the Eleventh College Training Detachment

(CTD) on the MTSC campus in 1943. The CTD program was developed by the Air Corps to

educated and train future pilots.31

Barracks

were constructed on the campus to house the

cadets. After the war, the university

converted these barracks were into

apartments, but even this did not provide

enough housing for veterans and their

families. Trailers soon joined the barracks,

making a "trailer town" for the families.32

They even elected a Mr. and Mrs. Vet

Village to be included in the 1950 school

yearbook, the Midlander.33

The little community even featured a "laundry house, grocery store,

and even a mayor."34

As for the veterans that did not go to college, the G.I. Bill provided the opportunity of

home ownership in the form of a loan program. Originally, the loan was a small amount simply

31Middle Tennessee State College, Midlander, Vol 17 (Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Middle Tennessee State

College, 1944), 56. See Also Edward Humes, Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream,

(Orlando: Harcourt, 2006) for discussion on the University of Denver’s experience with veteran housing.

32

Middle Tennessee State College, Midlander, Vol 22 (Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Middle Tennessee State

College, 1947), 92.

33

Middle Tennessee State College, Midlander, Vol 25 (Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Middle Tennessee State

College, 1950), 72.

34

Middle Tennessee State College, Midlander, Vol 27 (Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Middle Tennessee State

College, 1952), 41.

Photograph 9

Shown here is the trailer town section of Vet

Village on the campus of MTSC.

Fields 14

a “50% guaranty by the government on a first-mortgage loan made for home purchase or

construction” on a character–loan basis where the loan does not exceed $1000 or 40% of the

value of the property”35

Additionally, Kathleen Frydl points out, these were not generally direct

loans, but rather loans subsidized by the Veterans Administration (VA). Because of this, it was

up to the private lender to determine whether they would profit from loaning a veteran money,

thus many lending institutions denied loans to young, working class, female, or black veterans.36

While congress immediately increased the loan amount of the G.I. Bill in 1945, there was

much confusion on behalf of both veterans and the remaining public as to the process by which

how loan decisions were made and how a VA loans differed from an FHA loan. Much of the

confusion, at least in 1948, seems to stem from the 1947 changes to Title VI of the FHA

legislation. The confusing change was the “section 610 program” wherein FHA mortgage

insurance was made available to all “permanent war housing built by the government during the

national defense and war periods,” which were then being sold with priority to veterans. This

program thus provided veterans with the means by which to “obtain the financing necessary to

acquire war housing units at moderate prices.”37

These were not VA loans, although they were

direct mortgage insurance for veterans by the federal government.

Of further confusion was the similarity of the FHA loan insurance program with the VA

loan insurance program. One of the differences was that the FHA uses staff appraisers to

determine the property value before loaning money. The VA used outside appraisers hired on a

fee system. This is significant because veterans were not only receiving two seemingly different

35 Joint Committee on Housing Hearings 1948, 15.

36

Kathleen Frydl, “African-American Veterans.” in The G.I. Bill, (New York: Cambridge University Press,

2009), 222-262.

37

Joint Committee on Housing Hearings 1948, 12.

Fields 15

appraisal values, but rather it is important because of the method behind the FHA appraisal

process. Kenneth T. Jackson has made a career out of delving into Home Owners’ Loan

Corporation (HOLC) records. He and others like Amy E. Hillier have shown that the HOLC

system of appraisal was racist and had the effect of segregating blacks and other ethnic

Americans into slums by denying loans to applicants in areas deemed to contain adverse

influences. More importantly, they have clearly shown that the HOLC utilized The FHA process

of appraisal. As clearly stated in the FHA’s underwriting manual, adverse influences had “a total

weight of 20 [percent], making it one of the most important features in the rating of location.”38

This goes beyond insuring that zoning ordinances are followed and that houses are up-kept.

Instead the manual calls for “prevention of the infiltration of business and industrial uses, lower-

class occupancy, and inharmonious racial groups.”39

In addition to advocating harmony among

racial groups, the FHA went so far as to recommend restrictive housing covenants in deeds to

insure that no racial “in-harmony” occurred.40

During the 1948 “Study and Investigation of Housing,” Senator McCarthy repeatedly

discussed the confusion that the two systems caused “some 20,000,000 people.”41

He requested

and even threatened to write into law an order forcing the FHA and VA programs to use the

same appraisal system, which would also have the effect of insuring a racially motivated

appraisal.42

Furthermore, as the VA would only guaranty those loans and not make them directly

38Federal Housing Administration, Underwriting Manual: Underwriting and Valuation Procedure Under

Title II of the National Housing Act, (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1936), part 226.

39

Ibid part 229. Emphasis mine.

40

Ibid part 228.

41

Joint Committee on Housing Hearings 1948, 24 and 84-88.

42

Ibid. 84.

Fields 16

many local lenders denied loan applications on older housing on unimproved lots.43

Such

policies of local control of lending and administration clearly enforce local norms of racial

segregation. But then, that was the purpose of writing local control into the G.I. Bill according

to Edward Humes.44

This argument is supported by the findings of Robert Weaver, Kathleen

Frydl, David Onkst, and Ira Katznelson.45

Furthermore, this is not surprising considering the

attitude of the federal government toward segregation at the time. The assertion that they policy

of the federal government was to follow local custom on the issue of race relations as discussed

earlier, was essentially federal sanctioning of institutional segregation.

The movement of industrial jobs around the country directly affected housing segregation.

According to Schulman, defense manufacturing and military reserves were placed in the south in

an effort to combat the oppressive poverty that the Sunbelt faced during the Great Depression. 46

As seen in the report by Fisk University’s Preston Valien, these new industries attracted many

workers of both races hoping to get a job.47

However, the overwhelming majority of positions

went to whites like Jay Searcy’s parents who were “$4-dollar-a-day cotton-mill hands in

Stevenson, [Alabama].” Moving to Oak Ridge offered the Searcy’s the chance to triple their

income.48

43Ibid. 88.

44

Edward Humes, Over Here: How the G.I. Bill Transformed the American Dream, (Orlando: Harcourt,

2006).

45

Robert Weaver, The Negro Ghetto, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948); Kathleen Frydl,

The G.I. Bill, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009); David Onkst, “‘First a Negro…Incidentally a

veteran:’ Black World War Two Veterans and the G.I. Bill of Rights in the Deep South, 1944-1948,” Journal of

Social History, 31 no. 3 (Spring 1998), 517-543; and Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action was white: An Untold

History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2005).

46

Bruce J. Schulman, “Persistent Whiggery: Federal Entitlements and Southern Politics.” in From Cotton

Belt to Sunbelt: Federal Policy, Economic Development, and the Transformation of the South, 1938-1980, (Durham:

Duke University Press, 1994), 112-134. For discussion on the politics of placing defense programs in the south.

47

National Defense Migration Hearings 1941, 4626.

Fields 17

Weaver argues that blacks followed the advertised opportunities of migrating for defense

work and were repeatedly turned away; many were forced into northern industrial areas. In

response to this increase in black population, communities relied heavily on racially restrictive

covenants to protect their property values from adverse influences as stated by FHA and HOLC

appraisal policy. This resulted in segregated neighborhoods where rent was inflated due to the

increased demand and lack of space.49

Even though the Army’s mission was solely to complete a

project as rapidly and with as little resistance as possible” in the social development of defense

towns, Oak Ridge’s black population eventually gained some benefit from post-war government

programs.50

In 1949, after the opening of the city behind the fence to the general public, black Oak

Ridge residents had their first opportunity to move from the plywood hutments and later (post

1946) Victory Cottages that they had occupied since 1942. New neighborhoods were being built

according to the original city development plan written by the Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill

architectural firm. One of which was designated for black residents. The neighborhood known

as Scarboro contained the identical type of buildings as the new white neighborhood that was

being constructed. Furthermore, the Atomic Energy Council (AEC), which was in charge of

post-war atomic research at Oak Ridge, “consulted with the leaders in the black community”

who reportedly chose to move the construction site from the proposed “east village” area to a

different valley known as Gambell Valley.51

When the construction finished in 1950, it

48Searcy.

49

Robert Weaver, The Negro Ghetto, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1948); Kathleen Frydl,

The G.I. Bill, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009).

50

Searcy.

51

“Historic and Architectural Resources of Oak Ridge, Tennessee,” National Register of Historic Places

Multiple Property Documentation, July 24, 1991. E 29.

Fields 18

consisted of “15 cinderblock single-family units, 143 frame duplexes, and seven dormitories”

which were to be converted into apartments at a later date, and an elementary school to service

the black students that had been attending the Bethel Valley School since 1946.52

Soon after,

this the AEC started leasing land to residents for the construction of private housing. However,

local loan agencies failed to provide loans for construction on land that was not owner-occupied.

To remedy this and in response to a new law requiring the liquidation of housing at Oak Ridge,

the AEC began selling the lots. In an effort to “avoid speculative buying,” a policy was

instituted in which residents had the first option on purchasing their homes.53

While black were

not given the option of purchasing the new ranch housing constructed under FHA titles IX and

VIII, it appears that they were given the option to buy their homes in Scarboro.54

Although they

were limited in opportunity by the fact that only fifteen single family homes were built, they

were also theoretically eligible for the FHA’s section 610 programs discussed above which

would allow a black resident making the fifty-eight cents-an-hour the opportunity to purchase a

home.55

Notably, even though the community of Oak Ridge integrated in 1955 with the

desegregation of the school system and the acceptance of blacks living in the same dormitories

and apartments as whites, the neighborhood of Scarboro is still predominately black in

population.56

While Oak Ridge offers an interesting and seemingly rare example of blacks benefiting

from federal defense housing policies directly following World War II, it should be noted that

52Ibid. E30.

53

Ibid. E30.

54

Ibid. F22.

55

Ibid. E32.

56

Ibid. E32-33 as of 1991.

Fields 19

specific documentation of home ownership in Scarboro was not researched. Assumption of

homeownership was based on the AEC’s need to sell homes and the consistent demographic

make-up of the neighborhood from its creation in 1950. While it is true that the homes in

Scarboro are now owner-occupied, this may be a recent occurrence and speculative selling of the

neighborhood as rental property could have occurred. Deed research in Oak Ridge could bring

this information to light and find whether there were restrictive covenants involved in selling of

Oak Ridge lots even though such covenants were ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court in

1948’s Shelley v. Kramer decision.57

Furthermore, additional research should be undertaken to

compare Oak Ridge and Tennessee’s other defense sites with other well documented defense

sites such as those located in Hartsford, Connecticut; Norfolk, Redford, and Newport News,

Virginia; Childersburg and Sheffield, Alabama; Detroit, Michigan; Erie, Pennsylvania and others.

Roger W. Lotchin has already undertaken extensive research on defense housing in San Diego,

California. To a lesser degree, Christine Killory and Leroy Harris have also researched San

Diego’s defense housing.58

The majority of the work on San Diego focuses on the impact of the

Linda Vista defense housing project on San Diego’s infrastructure and demographics. The

defense industry had a tremendous impact on housing options and attitudes. A close look at

housing history leaves no doubt this nation’s housing profile is greatly derived from military

need and federal practices to address that need.

57 See Clement Vose, Caucasians Only: The Supreme Court, The NAACP and the Restrictive Covenant

Cases, (Berkley: University of California Press, 1959) and Joe T. Darden, “Black Residential Segregation Since the

1948 Shelley V. Kramer Decision” in Journal of Black Studies, 25 no. 6 (July 1995), 680-691. For discussion of

Shelly v. Kramer.

58

Roger W. Lotchin. Fortress California, 1910-1961: From Warfare to Welfare, (New York: Oxford

University Press, 1992); Roger Lotchin, "The Metropolitan Military Complex in Comparative Perspective: San

Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, 1919-1941," in The Urban West, ed. Gerald D. Nash, (Manhattan, Kansas:

Sunflower University Press, 1979); Leroy Harris, "The Other Side of the Freeway: A Survey of the Settlement

Patterns of Negroes and Mexican Americans in San Diego," Ph.D. diss., (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Mellon University,

1974). Christine Killory, “Temporary Suburbs: The Lost Opportunity of San Diego’s National Defense Housing

Projects,” The Journal of San Diego History 39 no 1-2 (Winter/Spring 1993).

Fields 20

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