Smith College, Northampton, MA 01063, United States
From 1886 to 1890, Wood studied at Smith College, where she received a Bachelor of Laws degree.
Gallery of Edith Wood
1255 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, United States
In 1915, Edith enrolled at the New York School of Philanthropy (present-day Columbia University School of Social Work), where she received a Master of Arts degree in 1917 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1919.
1255 Amsterdam Ave, New York, NY 10027, United States
In 1915, Edith enrolled at the New York School of Philanthropy (present-day Columbia University School of Social Work), where she received a Master of Arts degree in 1917 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1919.
Edith Elmer Wood was an American housing reformer, economist and author of a number of writings. She was one of the most respected analysts of American housing needs.
Background
Ethnicity:
Both of Edith's parents were natives of New Jersey, the United States, and descendants of English colonists.
Edith Elmer Wood was born on September 24, 1871, in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, United States. She was a daughter of Horace Elmer, a naval officer, and Adele (Wiley) Elmer.
Education
Edith led a peripatetic childhood as her father's duties took the family to various points at home and abroad. She received her early education from tutors and in 1886 entered Smith College, from which she graduated four years later with a Bachelor of Laws degree.
In 1915, Edith enrolled at the New York School of Philanthropy (present-day Columbia University School of Social Work), where she received a Master of Arts degree in 1917 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1919.
Besides, in 1940, Wood was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree by Smith College.
During Edith's early years of marriage to Albert Norton Wood, she took to writing short stories and books of travel, as well as romantic fiction. In 1906, however, while her husband was stationed in Puerto Rico, the illness of a servant girl, who had contracted tuberculosis, roused her interest in social problems. Discovering the high incidence of this disease on the island, she launched a public health campaign and founded the Anti-Tuberculosis League of Porto Rico, serving as its president until 1910, when she returned to the mainland.
Further experience in Washington, D. C., convinced Edith, that tuberculosis was closely related to slum conditions and poor housing. In 1913, she helped draft a bill to allow the District of Columbia to issue low-interest loans to limited-dividend companies for the purpose of improved housing. Although the bill was defeated, government support for housing became the main theme of her life's work.
Edith's husband's retirement made it possible for the family to move to New York City, and in 1915, to better prepare herself for social work, Mrs. Wood entered the New York School of Philanthropy (later the New York School of Social Work and present-day Columbia University School of Social Work). Two years later, in 1917, she received a Master of Arts degree from the educational establishment. In 1919, after writing a thesis, she received a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the same school.
An acute shortage of dwellings after World War I brought the housing problem to national attention, and Edith became one of the leading spokeswomen for a new approach to housing reform. Earlier legislation had emphasized restrictive measures, which set minimum standards for light, air, sanitation and fire protection. These were later supplemented by zoning laws, which attempted to stabilize patterns of land use by preventing industrial and commercial encroachment on residential neighborhoods. With a small group of architects and housing experts, Mrs. Wood argued, that, although such measures eliminated bad housing, they did little to generate the construction of good housing. Indeed, building and zoning codes, by establishing high standards, actually increased the cost of housing and thus exacerbated the shortage for the poor. Such codes, Wood was convinced, needed to be supplemented by a constructive program, under which the government would encourage the building of homes for those, who otherwise could not afford them.
Through numerous articles, pamphlets and books, through the courses she taught in the extension division of Columbia University, and through her chairmanship of the American Association of University Women's National Committee on Housing, from 1917 to 1929, Edith Wood expounded her analysis of the housing problem and its solution. Dividing the population into three groups according to income, she maintained, that real estate subdividers and speculative builders had failed to provide adequate homes for families of middle and lower income. For those in the middle group, she proposed, that the government grant low-interest loans, tax exemptions and subsidies to encourage limited-dividend and cooperative housing ventures, both of which would hold down housing costs. She further advocated, that low-interest loans be given directly to workers, who wished to construct their own homes. A national housing fund, financed by the issuance of government bonds, would constitute the primary source for such government aid.
Although she believed such projects would indirectly aid the poor, as middle-income families vacated older housing, Mrs. Wood for the immediate future urged the federal government to lend money to cities and towns for slum clearance and the construction of government-owned housing projects. She envisioned a national housing agency to administer the joint program of low-interest loans and public housing. Through its control over federal funds, the agency would be able to enforce minimum housing standards throughout the country. It would also serve as a clearinghouse for information on housing and town planning.
Although government support for housing was common in a number of European countries, many Americans in the 1920's regarded the idea as radical and even socialistic. Mrs. Wood sought to allay such concern by arguing, that the government should receive a limited, but reasonable return on its investment, and by pointing out the incalculable public saving, that would result from reducing the costs of the social ills she attributed to slum housing.
When a movement for community and regional planning developed in the 1920's, Wood became an officer of the Regional Planning Association of America. But she remained essentially a housing reformer, little interested in subordinating housing programs to broader social and economic planning.
The economic depression of the 1930's generated new interest in government housing programs, both for their own sake and as a means of providing employment in the construction industry. In 1932-1936, Mrs. Wood held the post of vice-president of the National Public Housing Conference (of which she was director from 1936 to 1945), founded under the leadership of Mary K. Simkovitch. Composed primarily of social workers, this well-organized lobby was of considerable assistance to Senator Robert F. Wagner in mobilizing support for the Wagner-Steagall National Housing Act, passed in 1937. The act marked the beginning of federal support for public housing, the goal, for which Mrs. Wood had long fought.
It's also important to note, that, from 1934 to 1937, Wood served as a consultant to the United States Housing Authority, set up under the Wagner-Steagall National Housing Act, and also served as a consultant to the Housing Division of the Public Works Administration in 1933-1937. She also was a commissioner of the New Jersey State Housing Authority in 1934-1935.
Publications Wood authored include "Her Provincial Cousin: A Story of Brittany" (1893), "Shoulder Straps and Sunbonnets" (1901), "The Spirit of the Service" (1903), "An Oberland Chalet" (1910), "The Housing of the Unskilled Wage Earner" (1919), "Housing Progress in Western Europe" (1923), "Recent Trends in American Housing" (1931), "Slums and Blighted Areas in the United States" (1935) and "Introduction to Housing: Facts and Principles" (1940). She also contributed material to magazines and newspapers.
Wood suffered a heart attack in 1943, but continued her writing and advising activities even while bedridden. She was finally forced to retire from her campaign to improve the lives of the poorer classes in 1944, at the age of 73.
During her public career, Edith Wood advocated federal support for public housing.
Membership
Edith belonged to some academic fraternities, including the Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society.
Connections
Edith married Albert Norton Wood, a naval officer, on June 24, 1893. Their marriage produced four children, including Horace Elmer, who died in childhood, Charles Thurston Elmer, Horace Elmer II and Albert Elmer.
Father:
Horace Elmer
Mother:
Adele (Wiley) Elmer
child:
Horace Elmer Wood
child:
Charles Thurston Elmer Wood
child:
Horace Elmer Wood II
child:
Albert Elmer Wood
husband:
Albert Norton Wood
References
Notable American Women: A Biographical Dictionary: Notable American Women, 1607-1950
This superb biographical dictionary covers the lives of exceptional women throughout three and a half centuries of American history. Here are artists, lawyers, reformers, educators, entrepreneurs, physicists, writers, pioneers, presidents' ladies, film stars. Here are those, known for their deeds, and those, famed for their looks - the genteel and the disreputable, the highborn and slave-born. Here are the famous in all areas of endeavor - names like Ruth Benedict, Jane Addams, Willa Cather, Isadora Duncan, Carole Lombard, Sojourner Truth, Pocahontas, Texas Guinan, the Everleigh sisters, Carrie Nation, Amelia Earhart. Here also are many names, rescued from obscurity.