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Black Housing, White Finance: African American Housing And Home Ownership In Evanston, Illinois, Before 1940 - Statistical Data Included
Journal of Social History, Winter, 1999 by Andrew Wiese
As in many blue collar subdivisions of the era, home ownership in Hovland's addition was high from the start. In 1920, the forty small houses in Hovland's addition were 90 percent owner occupied. Moreover, like the working class builders that Richard Harris and Becky Nicolaides describe, buyers kept housing costs down through a variety of informal building strategies. [48] Most lot owners hired small contractors to build houses for them, although about one-third cut costs by building their own. Either way, lot owners often started small and built their way up. One common practice was to construct an inexpensive frame "garage"--often one or two rooms without water or electricity. Owners moved into these rudimentary structures until they could afford to add on, or they used them as temporary shelters while building more substantial homes. South Carolinians, Newton and Lillian Moore, for example, purchased a lot on Grey Avenue in 1915 and took out a building permit for a "one story frame building" with an estim ated cost of $100. [49] Two years later, the city granted the Moores a second permit for a "one room addition" costing $50. In spite of rock-bottom building costs, the Moores were living in the house in 1920. That same year, the Moores sold the house to another African American, Samuel Woods. After paying off his contract with the Moores, Woods took out new building permits in 1926 and 1927, and he borrowed money for improvements totaling $2,000. In both cases, Woods listed himself as the builder. The house at 1829 Grey represented the work of two owner-builders, but the process of extended construction and the Moores' decision to start with a very modest structure were common features of low cost home building in west Evanston and other blue collar suburbs. [50]
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In addition to pure owner-builders, many families combined contractor-building with long-term construction and "sweat equity" to reduce the cost of home ownership. "Garage-first" building, for example, was not uncommon for lot owners who hired skilled carpenters to build for them. Asa Lee, for instance, hired black contractor, Anthony Gandy, to build a "frame garage and storeroom" for $1,200 in 1922 on a lot that he owned in Hovland's addition. Eight months later, Lee hired a white carpenter to convert the building to "temporary living quarters." When the city sanitary inspector visited that Autumn, four adults were living in "a two room shed without water, light or sewer connections," and the city directory identified Lee as the head of household. A photograph reveals a windowless building with two doors and a small brick chimney, surrounded by construction debris. Over the next two years, Lee apparently saved his money--perhaps collecting rent from the adults with whom he lived--and in June, 1925, he took out a permit for a $7,500 frame house. [51] In Lee's case, contractors did all the building, but staggered construction and Lee's willingness to endure substandard conditions for several years brought ownership of a well-built home within reach. Like workers in a variety of early suburbs, some black Evanstonians expressed a value for home ownership that exceeded the need for privacy or urban services, which were basic to middle class suburbanization.
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