USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, 1916-1955 > Part 19
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Even so, some new housing units were built-254 in 1946, 195 in 1947, and 428 in 1948. Of this last, 126 units were in the Wilson Park development of twenty-eight large buildings, a $1,000,000 state-financed housing project for war veterans.
But this progress was only a beginning, as a 1948 survey by the Social Agencies' Council revealed. Pittsfield still needed an
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additional 1,700-2,000 new dwelling units. This was not be- cause of any marked rise in population, but because people were tired of living in old quarters, and could afford to rent, lease, or buy better ones.
With the approach of the 1947 municipal elections, Mayor Fallon announced that he had been in office long enough, that he was serving his tenth year, that he would not run for re- election. He took occasion to urge the scrapping of the city charter adopted in 1932 and in force since 1934. The question of a change was placed on the ballot.
The form of government he favored, said Fallon, was the city manager type, Plan D. This provided for the appointment of a city manager to be chief administrator of affairs. Policies would be set by five elected officials-a mayor and four coun- cilmen-at-large. Representation by wards would be abolished.
When the matter came to a vote, the city decided by a 3,000 majority to keep the 1932 charter, which remains in force.
Many candidates offered themselves to succeed Mayor Fallon. The primaries reduced the field to two-Robert T. Capeless, a young Pittsfield-born attorney, and Harry J. Burns.
Capeless won by a 2,400 majority, carrying all but one of the seven wards. Not yet thirty when he assumed office, Capeless was by far the youngest mayor in the city's history. Like Mayor Fallon before him, Capeless was returned to office many times. In the 1951 election, he ran without opposition in the only un- contested mayoralty election in Pittsfield's history. Capeless con- tinued in office through 1955, having announced earlier that year that he would not run for re-election.
For a period of almost twenty years, from 1938 to 1956, Pittsfield had only two mayors-since 1934, when the new charter went into effect, only three. This gave the city a remark- able continuity of policy and administration, accounting in no small part for the community's success in solving many difficult problems during the Depression, the war, and the post-war years.
For a few years after the war there had been talk of building. an impressive memorial to those who had served during World
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War II. As the old City Hall (1832) and the city library, the Berkshire Athenaeum (1876), were both quite inadequate to meet greatly expanded functions, some suggested building a handsome large memorial in the form of a combined city hall- library-municipal auditorium. Others preferred building an arena or coliseum for indoor recreation. Either project would have cost more than $1,000,000, and the city decided that it had more urgent needs.
Early in 1948, in one of his first acts, Mayor Capeless ap- pointed a School Survey Commission of six members. Acting immediately and to good purpose, the Commission recommend- ed the hiring of an outside firm of professional educational con- sultants to make a city-wide survey of school facilities. After wide and rather heated debate, the recommendation was adopt- ed, and the city engaged the New York firm of Engelhardt, Engelhardt, and Leggett.
Even wider and more heated debate greeted the Engelhardt Report,* submitted early in 1949. The Eagle devoted a special supplement to it, saying that the "report should be studied by every adult in Pittsfield; ignorance of its findings and recom- mendations can result in decisions damaging beyond repair to the future of our children."
To say the least, the report took the city's breath away. It re- commended a ten-year school construction and improvement program to cost $11,288,750-a staggering sum. It found many school buildings obsolete and recommended their abandonment in this order-Briggs, Central, Coltsville, Morewood, Nugent, Peck's Road, Read, and Stearns schools by 1952; Rice and Rus- sell by 1955; Redfield and Tucker by 1956. Some of these build- ings were a century old. But Pittsfield was not prepared to write all of them off as useless. Indeed, most of these schools are still in use.
The report recommended the building of a new $5,000,000 high school at Springside Park. The handsome high school building on East Street, opened in 1932 and long the city's pride, should be used mainly as a junior high school, partly as an elementary school, and partly for School Department offices.
*See also pages 291-292.
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The city was almost unanimously against this proposal, even in view of the admitted fact that the existing building was over- crowded and would become more so every year.
The least controversial part of the Engelhardt Report was the recommendation that elementary schools be built in two rapidly growing sections of the city where there had been no schools before-the outer Elm Street neighborhood to the southeast, and the Allengate area out Dalton Avenue to the northeast.
With public discussion raging on the school building prob- lem, the matter came before the city's Capital Outlay Commit- tee, created in 1944 and consisting ex-officio of the members of the Planning Board, the president of the City Council, and the City Auditor.
Considering all aspects of the problem-educational, finan- cial, and political-the Capital Outlay Committee, with Fred- erick M. Myers as chairman, recommended (1) the construction of two new junior high schools, one in the north section of the city and the other in the south, each to accommodate 1,000 students. This would, for the first time, bring together in their own proper buildings junior high school students. At the same time, it would release space in the elementary schools and re- lieve overcrowding in the lower grades.
The committee recommended (2) a $750,000 addition to the senior high school. This has not been built. Third, the com- mittee recommended the construction of three elementary schools. The estimated cost of the whole program exceeded $6,000,000. As state aid would supply a third of the funds, the cost to Pittsfield would have been $4,410,000.
As there was little question about the need for new elemen- tary schools, more than $1,000,000 was soon appropriated to construct three of these-Allengate (350 pupils) in the north- east section, Egremont (250 pupils) in the southeast section, and Highland (125 pupils) to replace the century-old Peck's Road School in the northern section. A School Building Com- mission of eleven members, headed by Franz X. Brugger, a re- tired GE executive, was appointed to administer the construc- tion program.
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In September 1951, for the first time since 1926, some of Pittsfield's younger children entered new schools that were up- to-date in every respect-large windows, fluorescent lighting, sound-proofed walls, movable desks and chairs, cafeterias, health rooms, gymnasium-auditoriums, and facilities for radio, moving pictures, and other modern educational aids. The schools were designed to provide children with plenty of space for work and play.
But one of them, Egremont, had scarcely been opened when School Superintendent Russell pointed to the need of enlarging it because of the rapid growth of population in the outer Elm Street area. Late in 1954, steps were taken to add four class- rooms and a kindergarten to the school.
In addition to new construction, an extensive program was undertaken to renovate the older elementary schools. The initial experiment in modernizing two rooms at Plunkett School was so successful that the improvements made there served as a model for changes in all the schools. As a result, children en- joyed better lighting, better sanitation, greater fire protection, and more attractive surroundings.
Some of the older school buildings were retired-Nugent in 1949, Peck's Road in 1951, Coltsville in 1951, and Read in 1953. Since 1916, eight of the older elementary schools had been displaced and closed.
If the need for some new elementary schools was generally recognized, the proposal to build two new junior high schools at a cost of $4,000,000 was not so readily accepted. Many felt that the city could not afford this-that the old junior high schools, however inadequate and overcrowded, would have to do for the present.
Mayor Capeless, the Parent-Teacher Association, and many civic groups strongly favored the junior high school building program. The City Council was deadlocked about it. The matter was submitted to the voters at the 1949 municipal election in the form of this rather ambiguous question:
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Shall an act passed by the state legislature in 1949, entitled "An act authorizing the city of Pittsfield to borrow money for school purposes," be accepted?
The voting machines registered 7,175 in favor, 3,855 against, and 7,477 blanks. What the large number of blanks signified was anybody's guess.
In any case, work on the junior high school project went ahead rapidly, stimulated by a remarkable degree of community participation. Springside Park was chosen as the site of North Junior High School. Land on Pomeroy Avenue was acquired for South Junior High School. An expert firm of school archi- tects, Perkins and Will of Chicago, was engaged to design the buildings. Teachers were asked to participate in the planning by making recommendations for educational requirements and specifications.
A Junior High School Planning Council of some fifty mem- bers-half being non-educators nominated by the Parent-Teach- er Council, the other half being junior high school teachers, supervisors, and principals-was organized to discuss both building and curriculum questions.
The city engaged experts from the Harvard Graduate School of Education to review and make recommendations on junior high school curricula. The center of wide and lively discussion, the Harvard Report criticized junior high school education as being too departmentalized. It urged "integration" of studies by the adoption of a "core" curriculum, which has been done in part.
Contracts for constructing the new buildings were let to the lowest bidders, two Pittsfield firms-Carroll, Verge and Whip- ple for the North, and George E. Emerson Inc. for the South building. Construction proceeded on schedule. Teaching staffs were transferred from the junior high schools to be discon- tinued, and in September 1953, the junior high school students of the city entered their modern buildings, at once efficient and very attractive, designed in a semi-campus arrangement.
In their first year of operation, with about 1,000 pupils in both North and South, the buildings were filled to within 6
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per cent of capacity. In the second year, they were operating at 7 per cent over capacity.
Pittsfield thus shared the unhappy experience of many other communities where new schools were built only to have them outgrown within a few years. To remedy the local situation there has been talk of building a new West Junior High School and of reopening the old Central Junior High School on the Common, boarded up and abandoned since 1953.
In 1949, Pittsfield appointed its first Negro teacher, Margaret A. Hart of neighboring South Williamstown, a graduate of North Adams State Teachers College and Columbia University. The ban against married women teachers was lifted. Since the early 1920s, the marriage of a woman teacher had been regard- ed as an "automatic" resignation. Teachers' salaries were raised, and the inequities in their salary schedules were removed.
In 1945, Pittsfield had voted more than 4 to 1 in favor of equal pay for men and women teachers. This speeded steps toward a single salary schedule. In 1948, the School Committee decreed that, regardless of sex or of grade taught, salary cate- gories would be based on "professional preparation"-ad- vanced academic training, college degrees, and similar criteria. While somewhat "mechanical" in emphasizing formal academic training and the accumulation of college degrees, and in dis- regarding individual teaching aptitudes, the new system was certainly superior to the antiquated one it displaced.
This emphasis on teachers' "professional preparation" in determining appointment, salaries, and promotions had imme- diate results. The percentage of public school teachers with col- lege degrees rose rapidly-in the elementary schools, from 5 per cent in 1944-45 to 41 per cent in 1953-54. By 1953-54, 35 per cent of junior high school teachers and 48 per cent of those teaching in the non-vocational courses of the senior high school had proceeded beyond college graduation to higher degrees.
Pittsfield teachers desiring to advance themselves had long been handicapped by their difficulty in establishing "residence" courses required for a college degree. As there was no institu- tion of higher learning in the city, they had to travel to North
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Adams, Amherst, Springfield, Albany, and more distant points to establish residence by attending classes there. This was no longer necessary after 1946 when Pittsfield became a part-time college center. Since that time, summer sessions of the North Adams State Teachers College have been "residenced" in the high school, bringing many students to Pittsfield from miles around.
In 1949, a clear reflection of changing manners and mores, senior high school students, both boys and girls, were granted the privilege of smoking in the rear areaway, provided they did no smoking in the building, where they had been "puffing" surreptitiously in lavatories and other hideouts.
In addition to the school building program, its largest post- war undertaking, the municipality made other improvements. In 1949, it opened the $3,000,000 Cleveland Brook Reservoir in Hinsdale on the east branch of the Housatonic. Useful also in flood control, the new reservoir held 1.5 billion gallons of water, more than the rest of the city's reservoirs combined. By itself, it could supply Pittsfield with 8 million gallons a day.
A new $362,000 Hillcrest Hospital was established off West Street, overlooking Onota Lake. Some 15,000 people attend- ed the opening of this modern 100-bed hospital in December 1950. A $175,000 Naval Armory erected in Burbank Park be- came the headquarters of the local Naval Reserve unit.
The city enlarged and improved its system of parks and play- grounds. A tract of several acres in Coltsville, given by the heirs of Harry G. West, was dedicated as the West Memorial Park in 1950. The Blue Anchor Boat Club property on Pontoosuc Lake was acquired, to give the city almost a mile of beach along the lake for public recreation. Spasmodic efforts were made to clean up the banks of the Housatonic and free its waters of pol- lution. The stench of its waters on hot summer days could be most offensive.
The installation of a new lighting system on Tyler Street was celebrated on St. Patrick's Day in 1949, with a large crowd sing- ing favorite Irish songs. Thirty union painters donated their time and labor to give the City Hall Annex, formerly the
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town jail, a new coat of paint-a much needed improvement that cost only $200, the price of the paint.
To improve its personnel work, the city created in 1949 a Department of Administrative Services, naming as its direc- tor Philip C. Ahern, former executive secretary of the Pittsfield Tax Research Association.
A Salary Survey Commission was appointed to study and make recommendations on rates of pay for municipal em- ployees. Most employees had been brought under Civil Service. Jobs "at City Hall" were no longer political plums to be handed out to the faithful by those in power. They could be filled only by qualified people, as determined by examination. After ap- pointees had passed their probationary period, they could be removed from office only for cause.
The lifting of war-time restrictions on automobile travel brought Pittsfield's traffic problem again to the fore. As in every city, more and more cars crowded the streets, especially in the business area, and parking became an increasingly troublesome problem.
Parking meters were installed on some of the main streets in the summer of 1948. Mayor Capeless inserted the first nickel- "gold-plated"-in a meter in front of City Hall. The one-hour meters kept cars moving instead of idly occupying valuable space along the curbs for hours at a time, or even all day long. While this afforded some relief, it did not solve the problem. In 1948, Mayor Capeless suggested large city-owned parking lots in the business area for the convenience of shoppers and others.
To lessen the traffic snarls in the heart of the city, a new pat- tern of rotary traffic around Park Square was tried out in Sep- tember 1950, with a complicated system of lights to control drivers and pedestrians. Some complained that the new rotary pattern was most confusing. It is still in force, however, having reduced accidents and expedited the flow of ever-increasing traffic.
After the war, as conflict between the Soviet Union and the Western powers developed into the "cold war," Communism
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at home and abroad became increasingly an issue in the press and all public life. The Communist issue in Pittsfield came to a focus in the UE trade union locals representing the workers at GE. Under the national Taft-Hartley law (1947), union offi- cials, both local and national, had to take an oath that they were not Communists or under Communist domination if their unions were to be officially accredited as bargaining agents by the National Labor Relations Board. Most trade unionists ob- jected on principle to being thus singled out for "loyalty" declarations.
With few exceptions, however, the trade unions reluctantly accepted the law. The leaders of UE did not. On this and other issues, UE withdrew and was expelled from the CIO late in 1949 and established itself as an independent union. The CIO organized a rival union, the International Electrical Workers Union, known as IUE-CIO. This split placed the General Elec- tric Company in an uncertain and embarrassing position be- tween the two unions.
To clarify matters, the company asked the National Labor Relations Board to conduct an election among the 100,000 or more of its employees in ninety-nine plants to determine which union they preferred to represent them. Each plant voted as a unit.
The election at the Pittsfield plant in May 1950 revealed that the employees preferred IUE-CIO by a large majority. But UE retained control in many GE plants, including the largest of all, in Schenectady, where the local had 20,000 members. A UE local continued to function in Pittsfield, but its membership steadily declined.
John H. Callahan, a local labor leader, born in Pittsfield and once violently denounced as a "Red," rose to the top in the national affairs of the IUE-CIO, becoming a member of the GE-IUE Conference Board which deals with contracts and all major labor-management problems within the company.
The "Red" issue had entered the 1948 presidential campaign. The question of "subversion" at home and of foreign policy in relation to the Communist bloc in Europe and Asia dominated
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debate. The Democratic candidate was President Harry S. Tru- man. The Republicans again named Thomas E. Dewey, gov- ernor of New York. Both candidates spoke in Pittsfield just a few days before the election, addressing large crowds when their campaign trains stopped at Union Station. Dewey's recep- tion was rather more impressive than Truman's.
As in 1936, political pundits, basing their predictions upon public opinion polls and their own "expertise," confidently pre- dicted long before the election a sweeping Republican victory. Most of the press agreed. But the people decided once again that it was not "time for a change," electing Truman by a com- fortable margin. The Democrats not only increased their ma- jority in the Senate but recaptured control of the House, which they had lost in 1946. Truman carried Pittsfield, Berkshire County, and Massachusetts, winning in the city by a 2,300 majority.
The Democrats staged a major local upset in Berkshire County, winning control of the Board of County Commissioners for the first time since its founding almost two hundred years before.
Business after the war, to the surprise of many, continued to prosper. There had not been, as so generally expected, a sharp post-war depression. But early in 1949, shortly after the election, the economy began to sag.
This caused immediate worries in Pittsfield. With textile sales declining, local mills slowed down or suspended opera- tions. The Eaton Paper Corporation reduced its working force. The Berkshire Button Company, which had established itself in one of the old Tillotson mills in 1931, went out of business. Its buttons, made of bone, could no longer compete with those made of plastics. In the first half of 1949, some 1,300 em- ployees were laid off at GE. Those retained were put on a short work week to spread employment.
Even so, Pittsfield remained relatively prosperous. In Decem- ber 1949, its average weekly industrial wage, $61.96, was the third highest in the state, being more than $10 above the average.
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Yet no one could blink the worrisome fact of growing unem- ployment in the city and throughout the country as the number of jobless rose to the highest point since our entry into World War II eight years before.
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XI
Pittsfield: 1950-1955
W ITH THE ECONOMY SAGGING, the Korean War, which began in June 1950, set the faltering wheels of industry and commerce to spinning once more. It is a sad commentary upon the management of human affairs that prosperity is so often based upon the organized slaughter of man by man, and the massive preparations therefor.
A few hours after the forces of Communist North Korea in- vaded non-Communist South Korea, President Truman ordered American air and naval units to support the South Koreans in what was officially termed a "police action." Shortly, American ground forces were sent to help the retreating South Koreans. Fearing that this might be the beginning of World War III, Washington quickly initiated a huge rearmament program, with war orders placed in thousands of factories, including the GE plant and others in Pittsfield.
Meantime, in the voluntary absence of the Russian repre- sentative, who therefore could not exercise his veto, the United Nations Security Council had denounced North Korea as an aggressor and called upon UN members to help resist and repel the aggression. About a dozen nations responded, offering aid in one form or another. But almost the whole weight of the war fell upon the United States, which furnished more than nine- tenths of UN troops and equipment, placing a heavy strain upon the emotions and resources of the country.
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Within three months after the outbreak of hostilities, four Pittsfield men had been killed in Korea. Scores of local men in the military reserves were called to service. The quota of those inducted under selective service was increased.
In 1948, as the "cold war" developed, selective service had been placed in operation again. All registrants from Berkshire County were listed in the records of a single board, #2, with Leon L. Riche as chairman. When decentralization was effected in 1951, Riche became chairman of Pittsfield draft board #41; draft board #2 was placed in charge of Nelson A. Foot, Jr.
Preparing against sudden atomic attack, the city established a Civil Defense Department in October 1950. With William H. Cooney as director, local Civil Defense called for hundreds of volunteers to undergo police, first-aid, fire-fighting, and other training requisite for leading rescue work in an emergency.
The generally unpopular Korean War was a major issue in the 1952 presidential election. As their candidate, the Repub- licans named General Dwight D. ("Ike") Eisenhower. One of our greatest soldiers, he had played a brilliant role not only as a commander-in-chief but as a strategist-statesman in World War II. When President Truman declined to run for re-elec- tion, the Democrats nominated Adlai E. Stevenson, governor of Illinois. In his campaign, General Eisenhower pledged himself to go to Korea, where the armies of Communist China had in- tervened, and do his utmost to arrange a truce there on ac- ceptable terms.
In the presidential balloting, Pittsfield and Berkshire County went Republican for the first time since 1924. Massachusetts followed most states in voting for Eisenhower, who was given a popular majority of more than 6,000,000, the largest since Roosevelt's sweep in 1936. But the Republicans just barely man- aged to win the Senate and the House, losing control of both to the Democrats two years later in the Congressional elections of 1954.
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