Alfred Tredway White was an American housing reformer and philanthropist.
Background
Alfred Tredway White was born in the old city of Brooklyn, N. Y. , the son of Alexander Moss and Elizabeth Hart (Tredway) White. His father, a native of Danbury, Connecticut, was descended from Thomas White, an early settler of Weymouth, Massachussets; his mother's family was of Connecticut origin and had lived in Dutchess County, N. Y. , since the first decade of the nineteenth century. Alfred's parents were well-to-do, his father being junior member of the New York importing firm of W. A. & A. M. White.
Education
His secondary schooling was obtained at the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute and was supplemented by two years at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N. Y. , where he received the degree of C. E. in 1865.
Career
Returning to Brooklyn, he served an apprenticeship in his father's business and was eventually taken into partnership. In the meantime, however, outside interests claimed an increasing share of his attention. As early as 1872 he was giving much thought to the possibility of improved housing for families with small incomes in large cities. Learning that in London, England, model tenements had been built with outside staircases, he could not rest until he had assured himself of the practicability of such a project. In 1876 he built in Brooklyn his first block of small apartments with light rooms. The best features of the London experiment were included, with others applicable to American conditions. Every room had its share of sunlight and air. The old taunt of "philanthropy and 5 per cent" had no sting for White. From the start he disclaimed a philanthropic motive, and with the whole enterprise on a business basis, he was able to show net profits of five per cent year after year, for he was providing his tenants with something that they could not get elsewhere. He was gratified by the fact that the proportion of day laborers and sewing-women in his Brooklyn houses was greater than in the model tenements of London. Well pleased with the outcome of his early effort, he completed in 1890 a large project known as the Riverside Tower and Homes Building. He also erected nearly 300 one - and two-family houses. His buildings sheltered more than 2000 persons. In 1879 he published Improved Dwellings for the Laboring Classes; in 1885, Better Homes for Workingmen; and in 1912, Sun-Lighted Tenements: Thirty-five Years Experience as an Owner. It is not too much to say that the outstanding success of White's operations contributed as much as any one factor to the enactment of New York's tenement-reform legislation of 1895 and later years. His activities brought him into direct personal relations with various elements in the community and acquainted him with their common needs. He was one of the leading spirits in the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities from its inception in 1878. He was also active in the Children's Aid Society. In politics he was an independent. Mayor Charles A. Schieren, a Republican, appointed him commissioner of city works in 1893. That office, next to the mayorship the most important in Brooklyn, White administered in such a way as to set new standards of efficiency and economy. In later years his interests broadened to include the educational work for the negro at Hampton and Tuskegee, and a wide range of sociological problems. He gave $300, 000 to the department of social ethics at Harvard. White himself, skating alone on a small lake in the Harriman State Park, Orange County, N. Y. , broke through and was drowned under the ice.
Achievements
He was known as "Brooklyn's first citizen. " He developed the Home Buildings (1877), Tower Buildings (1879, now Cobble Hill Towers)[3] and the Riverside Buildings (1890). He advocated a model of "philanthropy plus five percent, " accepting a limited financial return on his projects.
Connections
On May 29, 1878, he married Annie Jean Lyman, who died in 1920. He had a daughter.
