Endowments; Tenement houses; Urban policy; New York (N.Y.); New York Congestion Committee; Marsh, Benjamin Clarke, 1877-1952
Format
correspondence
Genre
Business correspondence
Origin Information
1913-04-28
Physical Description
microfilm, 16 mm, b&w
digitized microfilm
Note (Reel no.)
Reel 82, 83
Note
PDF may contain multiple grant documents.
Benjamin C. Marsh
Benjamin C. Marsh (1878-1952) was a social worker, journalist, and Georgist activist who helped pioneer the city planning movement in the United States... After working with charities in Pennsylvania, he went to New York and became involved in poverty issues. Overcrowding in places like the Lower East Side led the National Consumers League and other groups to establish the Committee on Congestion of Population in 1907; Marsh was hired as the committee's first executive secretary. He toured Europe to learn how housing was being regulated there, organized anti-congestion exhibits and made numerous speeches on the subject. In 1909, he published the first American book dedicated exclusively to city planning, An Introduction to City Planning: Democracy's Challenge and the American City... Marsh helped planning evolve by more strongly infusing it with social considerations. His Committee on Congestion of Population partnered with New York City's Municipal Art Society in 1909 to present the first exhibition on city planning ever held in the United States. As a result of the attention that Marsh brought to the issue of overcrowding, in 1910 local officials established the City Commission on Congestion of Population with Marsh as its secretary. Its report of the following year caused controversy for recommending that a new land tax be considered but eventually led to New York adopting the first comprehensive zoning scheme in the U.S." [SOURCE: "Benjamin C. Marsh." Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_C._Marsh. Accessed 5 Oct. 2018.]
Language
English
Library Location
Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Columbia University