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³ “Rich and No License the Choice of the People for the Coming Year,” Lynn Evening News, December 9, 1908. “Popular Alderman Has Plurality over 2500,” Lynn Evening Item, December 9, 1908.

⁴ Mero, Everett B., “Playgrounds in Massachusetts,” The Playground (March 1909): 19–22.Google Scholar

⁵ Finfer, Lawrence A., “Leisure as Social Work in the Urban Community: The Progressive Recreation Movement, 1890–1920” (Ph.D. diss., Michigan State University, 1974): 43.Google Scholar

⁶ This is in marked contrast to the targeted class for the landscaped parks, with their “keep-off-the-grass” signs. See Rosenzweig, Roy, Eight Hours for What We Will: Work and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1870–1920 (New York, 1983), 128–29Google Scholar and Hardy, Stephen, How Boston Played: Sport, Recreation, and Community 1865–1915 (Boston, 1982), 79–80.Google Scholar

⁷ Proceedings of the Second Annual Playground Congress and Yearbook (New York, September 8–12, 1908), 328. Proceedings of the Third Annual Playground Congress and Yearbook (Pittsburgh, PA, 1909), Appendix 27–66.

⁸ MrsAmmon, Samuel, “How to Secure a Playground,” Charities and Commons (August 3, 1907): 48.Google Scholar

⁹ Johnston, Robert D., The Radical Middle Class: Populist Democracy and the Question of Capitalism in Progressive Era Portland, Oregon (Princeton, 2003)Google Scholar; Flanagan, Maureen A., Seeing with Their Hearts: Chicago Women and the Vision of the Good City, 1871–1933 (Princeton, 2002).Google Scholar

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¹¹ The celebratory approach can be found in Rainwater, Clarence E., The Play Movement in the United States: A Study of Community Recreation (Chicago, 1922)Google Scholar; Marsden, K. Gerald, “Philanthropy and the Boston Playground Movement, 1885–1907,” Social Service Review 35 (March 1961): 48–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McArthur, Benjamin, “The Chicago Playground Movement: A Neglected Feature of Social Justice,” Social Service Review 49 (September 1975): 376–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Knapp, Richard F. and Hartsoe, Charles E., Play for America: the National Recreation Association 1906–1965 (Arlington, VA, 1979).Google Scholar

¹² Cavallo, Dominick, Muscles and Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880–1920 (Philadelphia, 1981)Google Scholar; Goodman, Cary, Choosing Sides: Playground and Street Life on the Lower East Side (New York, 1979)Google Scholar; Dickason, Jerry G., “The Development of the Playground Movement in the United States: A Historical Study” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1979)Google Scholar; Boyer, Paul, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820–1920 (Cambridge MA, 1978)Google Scholar; Kirschner, Don S., “The Perils of Pleasure: Commercial Recreation, Social Disorder and Moral Reform in the Progressive Era,” American Studies 21, no. 2 (1980): 27–42Google Scholar; Lorini, Alessandra, “The Progressives Rhetoric on National Recreation: The Play Movement in New York City (1880–1917),” Storia Nordamericana 1 (1984): 34–71.Google Scholar For a review of the American education historiography see Spring, Joel, The American School 1642–1990 (New York, 1990)Google Scholar, especially chapter 7, “Schooling and the New Corporate Order,” and Violas, Paul C., The Training of the Urban Working Class: A History of Twentieth Century American Education (Chicago, 1978).Google Scholar

¹³ Hardy, , How Boston Played, 98–99Google Scholar, 102.

¹⁴ Rosenzweig, , Eight Hours for What We Will, 139–40Google Scholar, 147, 151.

¹⁵ Reese, William J., Power and the Promise of School Reform: Grassroots Movements During the Progressive Era (Boston, 1986), xix–xxivGoogle Scholar, 150. For discussions of working-class and African-American playground involvement outside of Massachusetts see Baldwin, Peter C., Domesticating the Street: The Reform of Public Space in Hartford, 1850–1930 (Columbus, 1999), 116–76Google Scholar; DeVault, Ileen A., Sons and Daughters of Labor: Class and Clerical Work in Turn-of-the-Century Pittsburgh (Ithaca, 1990), 118–21Google Scholar; Lewis, Earl, In Their Own Interests: Race, Class, and Power in 20th Century Norfolk, Virginia (Los Angeles, 1991), 80–84Google Scholar; Gilmore, Glenda, Gender and Jim Crow: Women and the Politics of White Supremacy in North Carolina, 1896–1920 (Chapel Hill, 1996), 173–74.Google Scholar For a discussion of how women in Chicago developed a shared vision of playgrounds and recreation that was distinct from that promoted by the men, see Flanagan, , Seeing with their Hearts, 103–09.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Cavallo, , Muscles and Morals, 2–3.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Playground Association of America, “Play Leadership,” Leaflet No. 6 (December 15, 1909).

¹⁸ Lee, Joseph, Constructive and Preventive Philanthropy (New York, 1902), 171Google Scholar; “Annual Report of the Park Commission,” The City Documents Comprising the Mayor's Address, The Annual Reports for 1904, The Municipal Register, and the Chronological View of the Government of the City of Lynn (Lynn, MA, 1905), 48. League, Massachusetts Civic, Annual Report (Boston, 1907), 25.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Rosenzweig, Roy and Blackmar, Elizabeth, The Park and the People: A History of Central Park (New York, 1992), 6–7.Google Scholar

²⁰ Mero, , “Playgrounds in Massachusetts,” 20Google Scholar; Kirschner, , “The Perils of Pleasure,” 34–36.Google Scholar

²¹ MCL, Annual Report (1907), 31–32.Google Scholar

²² Lee, Joseph, “Play and Congestion,” Charities and the Commons, 20 (April 4, 1908): 45.Google Scholar “The Rochester Play Congress,” Survey 24 (July 2, 1910): 561.

²³ Curtis, Henry, The Play Movement and Its Significance (New York, 1917), 124–28.Google Scholar Clay McShane shows that by 1900, before the exponential growth in the automobile's popularity, regulatory and engineering changes—often in response to the bicycle—and increased traffic volumes had already elevated vehicle movement to the primary function of many streets. Automobiles and the dangers they posed increased the existing tendency to eliminate or to segregate other street uses, such as play, either to quieter streets or to other public and private spaces. McShane, Clay, Down the Asphalt Path: The Automobile and the American City (New York, 1994), 57Google Scholar, 80, 115–19, 174–79, 189–90. See also Baldwin, , Domesticating the Street, 171–76.Google Scholar

²⁴ For example, David Jones observes that many of the early leaders of the PAA were not philanthropists, but members of a small, nascent group of recreation professionals. Supervised playgrounds provided an opportunity to legitimize and expand their profession. Jones, David Benjamin, “Playground Association of America: A Thwarted Attempt at the Profession-alization of Play leaders” (Ph.D. diss., University of Oregon, 1989).Google Scholar

²⁵ Smith, Lucy, “The Picnic,” School Review, Shepard School, June 1899Google Scholar and Lee, Ella, “My May Party,” School Review, Shepard School, June 1899Google Scholar, MS/G8, Group C.4, Lynn Historical Society, Lynn MA.

²⁶ Croswell, T.R., “Amusements of Worcester School Children,” Pedagogical Seminary 6 (1899): 326CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 343–44. See also Nasaw, David, Children of the City: At Work and At Play (Garden City, 1985).Google Scholar

²⁷ Hardy, , How Boston Played, 80Google Scholar; The City Documents Comprising the Mayor's Address, the Annual Reports for 1908, the Municipal Register, and the Chronological View of the Government of the City of Lynn (Lynn, MA, 1909), 344–45.

²⁸ “Park Commission Report,” The City Documents Comprising the Mayor's Address, the Annual Reports for 1903, the Municipal Register, and the Chronological View of the Government of the City of Lynn (Lynn, MA, 1904), 132–33.

²⁹ “Park Commission Report,” The City Documents Comprising the Mayor's Address, the Annual Reports for 1906, the Municipal Register, and the Chronological View of the Government of the City of Lynn (Lynn, MA, 1907), 480.

³⁰ ”Annual Report of the School Committee,” The City Documents…for 1903 (Lynn, 1904), 24.

³¹ “Mayor's Address,” The City Documents Comprising the Mayor's Address, the Annual Reports for 1907, the Municipal Register, and the Chronological View of the Government of the City of Lynn (Lynn, MA, 1908), 24.

³² “Park Commission Report,” The City Documents…for 1904 (Lynn, 1905), 40.

³³ The Park Commission Reports in the Lynn City Documents, 1903 to 1910, document the time and expense to improve these grounds.

³⁴ City of Somerville, Massachusetts, Annual Reports 1902 (Somerville, 1903), 23–24; City of Somerville, Massachusetts, Annual Reports 1903 (Somerville, 1904), 16–18; City of Somerville, Massachusetts, Annual Reports 1905 (Somerville, 1906), 303–05.

³⁵ City of Somerville Annual Reports 1903, 179; City of Somerville Annual Reports 1905, 165, 168; City of Somerville Annual Reports 1906, 193.

³⁶ Twenty-Third Annual Report of the School Committee of the City of Northampton, Mass, for the Year Ending November 30, 1906 (Northampton, 1907), 16–17, Twenty-Fourth Annual Report…for the Year Ending November 30,1907, (Northampton, 1908), 17–18, Twenty-Fifth Annual Report…for the Year Ending November 30, 1908 (Northampton, 1909), 16–17.

³⁷ “What Cities ‘Played’ Last Year and How,” The Playground 5 (April 1911), 27–28; “What Cities ‘Played’ Last Year and How,” The Playground 7 (January 1914), 391–93.

³⁸ “Playground Happenings,” The Playground (May 1908), 8–9, 15; “Playground Happenings,” The Playground (June 1908), 13; Hanford M. Burr, “Springfield Playgrounds: One Hundred Dollars Invested,” The Playground 3 (May 1909): 2–3; Sheffield, Ada Eliot, “Springfield Playground Association,” The Playground 3 (May 1909): 3–7.Google Scholar

³⁹ Marsden, , “Philanthropy and the Boston Playground Movement,” 49–51.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Marsden, , “Philanthropy and the Boston Playground Movement,” 55Google Scholar, 58. MCL, Annual Report (1908), 5, 15.Google Scholar

⁴¹ “A Working Platform for the Smaller City,” Charities 14 (May 6, 1905): 709–10.

⁴² Finfer, , “Leisure as Social Work,” 146–47Google Scholar; Dickason, , “The Development of the Playground Movement,” 136–37.Google Scholar

⁴³ Lee, Margaret Cabot, Letters and Diaries of Margaret Cabot Lee: Extracts Selected by Her Sisters, Marian C. Putnam and Amy W. Cabot, with a Biographical Sketch by Her Husband Joseph Lee (Boston, 1923), 26–29Google Scholar, 54, 57–59.

⁴⁴ Davol, Ralph, “Public Playgrounds Bill Explained by Representative Davol,” The Playground (December 1908): 20–22.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ “Civic Improvement—Social Legislation in Massachusetts,” Charities and the Commons 20 (August 22, 1908): 617. Since the labor movement, during this period in Massachusetts, was one of the strongest allies of the campaign for direct democracy—the initiative and referendum—insisting on the referendum option may indicate the MCL's plan, from the start, to reach out to the working class; Goebel, Thomas, A Government By the People: Direct Democracy in America, 1890–1940 (Chapel Hill, 2002), 102–04.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ “Report of the Committee on State Laws,” in Proceedings of the Second Annual Playground Congress and Yearbook, 349–51.

⁴⁷ “Massachusetts's Playground Vote,” Charities and the Commons 19 (December 19, 1908): 435.

⁴⁸ MCL, Annual Report (1909), 24.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ “Massachusett's Playground Vote,” 435; “Playgrounds in Massachusetts,” The Survey 22 (April 24, 1909): 141.

⁵⁰ Leland, Arthur and Leland, Loma Higbee, Playground Technique and Play craft (New York, 1913).Google Scholar

⁵¹ MCL, Annual Report (1909), 19–20.Google Scholar

⁵² MCL, Annual Report (1909), 15–17.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ MCL, Annual Report (1909), 18–19.Google Scholar William F. Hartford provides a more direct view into how the working classes may have understood their interest in playgrounds. The Artisan, Holyoke's weekly labor newspaper, supported playgrounds as part of the “great aim of the trade union movement…the freedom of the child from the slavery of toil at too early an age.” Hartford, William F., Working People ofHolyoke: Class and Ethnicity in a Massachusetts Mill Town, 1850–1960 (New Brunswick, 1990), 146.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ Leland, and Leland, , Playground Technique and Play craft, 91–108.Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ “Give the Children a Chance,” Lynn Daily Evening Item, December 7, 1908.

⁵⁸ Bureau of Statistics and Labor, Census of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts 1905, Volume 1 (Boston, 1909), Table 2 and 7 of the Introduction. The election results were culled from “Seven Cities Hold Election,” Boston Daily Globe, December 1, 1908; “Two Cities Turn ‘Dry’: Marlboro and New Bedford,” Boston Daily Globe, December 2, 1908; “Eight Cities in 21 Vote for License,” Boston Daily Globe, December 9, 1908; “No Licenses' Sweep: Twenty of Thirty-three Cities Anti-Saloon,” Boston Evening Transcript, March 9, 1909; City of Cambridge, The Mayor's Address at the Organization of the City Government, April 5,1909 and the Annual Reports Made to the City Council for the Period from December 1, 1907 to March 31,1909, (Cambridge MA, 1909), 852–53; Mero, , “Massachusetts Adopts Playground Law,” 18Google Scholar; Mero, , “Playgrounds in Massachusetts,” 22.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ Mero, , “Massachusetts Adopts Playground Law,” 17.Google Scholar

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⁶² MCL, Annual Report (1911), 23Google Scholar; (1912), 17, 19, 21; (1913), 27–29.

⁶³ Northampton Herald quoted in “Playground Happenings,” The Playground 3 (March 1909): 24.

⁶⁴ “Report of the School Committee,” Inaugural Address of the Mayor with Annual Reports of Officers of the City of Northampton Massachusetts for the Year Ending November 30, 1910 (Northampton, 1911), 109.

⁶⁵ “What Cities ‘Played’ Last Year and How,” The Playground 5 (April 1911): 27–28; “Report of the School Committee,” (Northampton, 1911), 110.

⁶⁶ “Playgrounds in Massachusetts,” The Survey 22 (April 24, 1909): 142.

⁶⁷ City ofSomerville Massachusetts Annual Reports 1909 (Somerville, 1910), 338; City of Somerville Massachusetts Annual Reports 1914 (Somerville, 1915), 149.

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⁷⁰ Lee, Joseph, “How to Start and Organize Playgrounds,” The Playground 3 (February 1910): 1.Google Scholar

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⁷⁵ “Puts Five Out of Office,” Lynn Evening News, August 10, 1914; “To Declare Offices Vacant at 5 P.M.,” Lynn Evening News, August 14, 1914; “Woman for Park Board,” Lynn Evening News, August 15, 1914; The City Documents Comprising the Annual Reports for 1914 the Municipal Register and the Chronological View of the Government of the City of Lynn (Lynn, MA, 1915), 305. John T. Cumbler furnishes an analysis of the geography of Lynn's neighborhoods by class; see chapter 2, “Lynn: Queen City to Zero Defects,” Working-Class Community in Industrial America: Work, Leisure, and Struggle in Two Industrial Cities, 1880–1930 (Westport, CT, 1979). Labor interests also demanded representation on the municipal playground commission in Holyoke. Hartford, , Working People ofHolyoke, 146.Google Scholar

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⁷⁸ MCL, , Annual Report (1921), 1.Google Scholar

⁷⁹ Curtis, Henry S., The Practical Conducto/Play, (New York, [1915] 1925), 8–9.Google Scholar For a case study of how Curtis was spectacularly wrong in his “influential people” strategy see Hise, Greg and Deverell, William, Eden by Design: The 1930 Olmstead-Bartholomew Plan for the Los Angeles Region (Berkeley, 2000).Google Scholar

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⁸⁴ Lee's thinking on neighborhoods and democracy has much in common with the political philosophy of Mary Parker Follet, active in Boston's social centers, as found in her 1918 The New State. See Mattson, Kevin, Creating a Democratic Public: The Struggle for Urban Participatory Democracy during the Progressive Era (University Park, 1998), 87–104.Google Scholar

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⁸⁷ Playground and Recreation Association of America, The Normal Course in Play (New York, [1925] 1929), 29–32, 196–97, 257–60.