Suburbs for a Labor Elite

Abstract

Unlike many suburbs at the beginning of the twentieth century, Oakwood, a of Knoxville, Tennessee, manifested a blue-collar character. Planned to appeal to the middle class, Oakwood instead attracted highly skilled blue-collar workers and families as residents. Though well-served by lines, Oakwood was not a suburb. The Oakwood example calls into question both the extent to which the function of a may be gleaned from morphological evidence and the conventional wisdom about the origin and the evolution of American suburbs. SUBURBS in the United States have been examined from a variety of viewpoints: idea and image, failed solution to urban problems, and response to innovations in transportation technology, to list only three examples.' Interpretations of suburbs may be found in a vast literature, but misconceptions about them concerning both their contemporary nature and historical development are so entrenched as to be described as a suburban myth.2 This myth consists of two interrelated elements: American suburbs have been exclusively residential and exclusively for the white middle class. Historical research has tended to reinforce the second element, and the streetcar suburb interpretation of urban expansion is frequently found in textbook generalizations.3 The subject of this article is a blue-collar residential of a small city in the upland South during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. A focus on this subject raises important questions about some assumptions underlying the vast literature on American suburbs. Are generalizations based on regionally restricted evidence applicable to southern cities, particularly a small upland center? An interpretation of suburbs as middle-class residential centers predominates in the literature. But what was the role of suburbs for blue-collar workers, especially the elite among them who could afford improved housing? The case study is Oakwood, a of Knoxville, Tennessee, in the first two decades of the twentieth century * We express our appreciation to Kurt Butefish for preparing figures 1 and 5-8. Yi-Fu Tuan, Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perception, Attitudes, and Values (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974); Richard A. Walker, The Transformation of Urban Structure in the Nineteenth Century and the Beginnings of Suburbanization, in Urbanization and Conflict in Market Societies (edited by Kevin R. Cox; Chicago: Maaroufa Press, 1978), pp. 165-212; Sam Bass Warner Jr., Streetcar Suburbs: The Process of Growth in Boston 1870-1900 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962); and David Ward, A Comparative Historical Geography of Streetcar Suburbs in Boston, Massachusetts and Leeds, England: 1850-1920, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 54, 1964, pp. 477-489. 2 Scott Donaldson, The Suburban Myth (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969). 3 Maurice Yeates and Barry Garner, The North American City (New York: Harper and Row, 3rd ed., 1980), pp. 192-198. * MR. KANE is administrator of M.B.A. programs at the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland G1 1XH. DR. BELL is a professor of geography at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee 37996. This content downloaded from 207.46.13.157 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 05:43:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW (Fig. 1).4 We offer not only an analysis of an infrequently mentioned type of but also the opportunity to ponder its meaning in the various generalizations or interpretations of American suburbs. Knoxville experienced a period of rapid growth between 1880 and 1900. During that period the population of the city expanded 237 percent to a total of more than 32,000 in 1900. Part of the growth was by annexation, but the principal portion resulted from expansion, generated by economic changes in the southern Appalachian region, that was based on exploitation of resources such as coal, iron ore, timber, and marble. Knoxville benefited as a processing, marketing, and service center. By 1900 industry was the largest sectoral employer in the city, and the high level of industrialization distinguished Knoxville from other southern cities like Atlanta, Memphis, Nashville, or even Birmingham. The demographic structure also differed: in 1900 almost 75 percent of the population of Knoxville was native-born white. Although Knoxville shared an industrial dependence for its economy with many northern cities, they had large proportions of foreign immigrants that were not characteristic of southern cities, especially Knoxville. The location of suburbs for Knoxville was influenced by many factors. The industrial core of the city was adjacent to the railroad tracks and along Second Creek. Surrounding the industrial district was a residential zone for factory employees and their families, though not exclusively because class intermixing still prevailed residentially during the final two decades of the nineteenth century. Middle-class suburbs were found at the edges of the city and beyond. The first such suburb, West Knoxville, was annexed by the city in 1889 and became a high-status residential neighborhood. Topography imposed broad limits on the spatial expansion of Knoxville. By 1917 the city had expanded to Sharp's Ridge, a high, steep ridge approximately two and a half miles north of the city center. Because of that barrier, urban expansion had an east-west axis. The topographical gradient was a factor in the configuration of routes when they were built. The role of routes in urban expansion is frequently generalized in textbook treatments of the evolution of American urban form. Electric service began in Knoxville in 1890, only two years after the first service run in Richmond, Virginia. The rapidity with which installation of service dispersed validates the argument that technological innovations in urban transportation underwent speedy diffusion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Streetcar systems tended to overextend services in the hopes of stimulating use.5 Many companies, including the Knoxville Electric Street Railway Company, went bankrupt in the 1890s 4 Kevin David Kane, Oakwood: Knoxville's Suburb of the Labor Aristocracy, 1902-1917 (unpublished M.S. thesis, Department of Geography, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, 1984). 5 Warner, footnote 1 above; and David Ward, Cities and Immigrants: A Geography of Change in Nineteenth Century America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 125-145. 320 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.157 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 05:43:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms SUBURBS FOR LABOR ELITE FIG. 1-Oakwood in relation to Knoxville, Tennessee. because of overextension.6 Routes were speculatively linked to suburban real-estate developments. Service was limited in southeastern Knoxville, which was predominantly black, while lines continued through affluent West Knoxville into undeveloped areas. Oakwood was sited approximately two miles to the north of the central business district of Knoxville and immediately to the east of the Coster Repair Works of the Southern Railroad. Those shops marked the northern limit of the industrial zone of the city at the turn of the century. The northern boundary of Oakwood was a section of the Knoxville, Cumberland Gap and Louisville Railroad, which was purchased by the Southern Railroad in 1905. Oakwood was separated from Knoxville by a residential and industrial area known as North Knoxville and several streets just outside the municipal boundary. The site was purchased by Carl Brown Atkin in 1901.7 6 Edwin P. Patton, Transportation Development, in Heart of the Valley, Knoxville (edited by Lucille Deaderick; Knoxville: East Tennessee Historical Society, 1976), p. 219. 7 Knox County Will Book Three, 1895-1901, pp. 284-285. 321 This content downloaded from 207.46.13.157 on Thu, 09 Jun 2016 05:43:36 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms -,W --l-q AKWOODILL ;r S 7 ADDITION I; ^1KI KNOXVILLE