Celebrating Archives Month Philly: A History of Philadelphia’s Department of Recreation Part 3
October is Archives Month Philly, a time for celebrating archives, the work of archivists, and Philadelphia’s rich history. Archives are information centers where records about the past – including diaries, financial records, photographs, and emails – are made available to researchers. Philadelphia Parks & Recreation (PPR) houses the Fairmount Park Historic Resource Archives, a collection of over 10,000 archival documents focusing on a variety of aspects of the Philadelphia park system history, including a wealth of material on the parks’ architectural history.
Since the Fairmount Park Commission and the Philadelphia Department of Recreation merged in 2010, PPR historic preservation staff have worked to compile and incorporate into the Fairmount Park Historic Resource Archives information about the history of the City’s former Department of Recreation. To celebrate Archives Month Philly, PPR is featuring a series of weekly posts highlighting the rich history of municipal recreation in Philadelphia this October and November. Each week, we will be sharing an installment of, “A History of Philadelphia’s Department of Recreation from 1880-2010,” a narrative researched and written by former PPR historic researcher Meredith Leep. Follow along with us each Thursday with #PhillyRecHistory.
Part 3: Bringing the Public Bath Houses on Board
In 1913, the new Board of Recreation assumed responsibility for Philadelphia’s public bath houses from the Department of Public Safety’s Bureau of City Property. [36] The bath houses had grown in number to 23. At this time, the Board of Recreation began taking steps to literally clean up the baths, “securing proper disinfection” for the bathing pools from the Bureau of Health, and installing mandatory shower baths for bathers to use before swimming. [37] In the words of the 1914 commission: “We would not allow our own children to use the baths without these changes, and do not feel justified in allowing other people’s children to risk infection.” [38] Philadelphia’s Board of Recreation, formed as a relatively independent entity according to the 1910 recommendations of the Public Playgrounds Commission, was vulnerable to political maneuverings that prioritized political advantage over recreational professionalism. After the supervisor of recreation resigned in 1918, Mayor Thomas B. Smith removed the experience requirements from the civil service examination for the position, in order to appoint a newspaper reporter named Gudehus, who supported him politically, to the post. [39]
Board members, and an individual known as Otto T. Mallery, who had served as secretary to the Board of Recreation between 1912 and 1915 and was a board member of both the Playgrounds Association of Philadelphia and the Playground Association of America, considered the candidate “incompetent” and “unfit” for the position due to his lack of practical experience. Mayor Smith replaced board members who refused to vote for his candidate of choice, who he nevertheless appointed. [40] Mallery filed an outraged and ultimately ineffective report “calling for the arrest for the mayor for committing the crime of misbehavior and misdemeanor in office.”[41] Ultimately, the Board of Recreation was absorbed into the Department of Public Welfare, becoming the Bureau of Recreation, when Philadelphia enacted a new charter in 1919. At least one of the board members replaced by the Mayor, Sophia L. Ross, [42] was re-hired, serving as the Chief of the Bureau of Recreation in the early 1920s. Otto Mallery “reportedly . . . had a hand in the creation of this Bureau and in helping it weather difficult periods,”[43] though the Bureau remained “ineffective and politically dominated” despite his efforts and the efforts of other recreation professionals.”[44]
(1929 Pet and doll show, Water Tower Recreation Center(Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia, PA)
The construction of recreation facilities continued in the 1920s. By 1928, the Bureau of Recreation possessed 48 recreation sites, 14 of which featured large, state of the art recreation buildings with furnished gymnasiums. The Bureau also operated 37 public pools, which were segregated by gender. [45] In addition, the Board of Public Education continued to run after-school and vacation playgrounds for youth. [46] Throughout the 1920s, the chiefs of the Bureau of Recreation were women, including Sophia L. Ross, a member of the Civic Club and one of the founding members of the Playgrounds Association of Philadelphia. [47]
Stay tuned for next week’s installment in the series, titled “The Bureau of Recreation in the Great Depression.”
View all posts in the Philadelphia Recreation History series
[36] Ordinances of the City of Philadelphia from January 1 to December 31, 1912 (Philadelphia Select and Common Councils, Philadelphia, 1912) (Dunlap Printing Company, 1913), 508.
[37] “Playgrounds for Philadelphia: Report of the Board of Recreation,” (Philadelphia Board of Recreation, Philadelphia, 1914), Philadelphia City Archives, 6.
[39] “Putting Playgrounds into Politics,” The Survey XLI (1918), 46.
[40] George D. Butler, Pioneers in Public Recreation (Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Company, 1965), 84.
[41] “Warrant for Mayor; Avers He Defied Law in Naming of Gudehus,” Evening Public Ledger (Philadelphia, PA), Sept. 26, 1918, 1.
[42] “Gudehus Case,” Thirty-Eighth Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the Civil Service Reform Association of Pennsylvania for the Year Ending April 1, 1919 (Philadelphia, 1919), 6.
[43] Butler, Pioneers, 84.
[44] Butler, Pioneers, 85.
[45] First Annual Message of Harry A. Mackey, Mayor of Philadelphia, Containing the Reports of the Various Departments of the City of Philadelphia for the Year Ending December 31, 1928 (City of Philadelphia, Department of Welfare, Bureau of Recreation, Philadelphia, 1928), Philadelphia City Archives, 563-564.
[46] “A Study of Municipal Recreation in Philadelphia, May 1929” (Charles J. Storey Department of Recreation, Russell Sage Foundation, Playgrounds Association of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, 1929), 9.
[47] “Civic Club General Meeting Minutes, 1893-1907,” 246; “Playground Association of Philadelphia 1909,” 1.
