Meeting places like the Mason’s Hall and the Northside YMCA were critical to a Black social structure. But informal opportunities were also needed. Denied access to the hotels, restaurants, and recreational facilities of the Southside, enterprising Blacks created their own places of amusement. The first known amusement house where Blacks could gather to drink and socialize was established by M. E. Coats in 1879. Another early café and dance hall was Fitzgerald’s Auditorium on North Kentucky Avenue. Built in 1890, Fitzgerald’s grew in popularity, becoming a bar, restaurant, nightclub, and gambling room. During the Depression, Fitzgerald’s was renamed “Club Harlem” and became one of the most chic and talked about nightclubs in the Northeast, frequented by stylish Blacks and Whites. In 1919, the “Waltz Dream,” a large recreation center and dance hall at North Ohio Avenue, was established by a Mrs. Thomas, a White woman from Philadelphia. There were weekly wrestling and boxing tournaments, as well as basketball games, to sold-out crowds. The Waltz Dream was the site of many Black charity events and when dances were held at the hall, popular Black orchestras played to capacity crowds of more than 2,000, young and old alike.
In time, the Northside became a self-contained, vibrant community with a wide range of successful Black-owned businesses. The main street of the Black community was Kentucky Avenue. In addition to night spots like Club Harlem, the Northside had its own retail stores, boardinghouses, restaurants, funeral homes, and theaters, which provided a rich life serving most of the Blacks’ needs. As for the fire safety needs of the densely populated Northside, there was an all-Black fire company. Engine Company #9 with two platoons and Truck Company #6 with two platoons had their own segregated firehouse at Indiana and Grant avenues. Engine Company #9 earned a national reputation for excellence throughout the country. It played a major role in fighting all the city’s fires and held the city record for efficiency six years in a row.
Blacks had developed their own city in response to the racism of Atlantic City’s White population. However, there remained two areas where Blacks were unable to build their own institutions and continued to be the victims of racial prejudice: education and healthcare.
There was no discrimination in the school system during the early years of the resort. As long as their numbers remained small, Blacks posed no threat. But as the White community hardened its stance on integrated neighborhoods, so too did it shrink from integrated schools as the number of Black pupils grew.
Prior to 1900, the resort had a single school system with Black and White children being educated together, entirely by White teachers. In 1881, community leader George Walls organized a Literary Society and used it as a vehicle to push for improved education for Black children. Walls presented the local school board with a resolution of his group demanding the hiring of a Black teacher. The board responded by adopting a resolution of its own supporting the idea, but waited 15 years until 1896 before finally yielding and actually hiring a Black teacher.
The lengthy gap in time between the resolution and hiring was in large part a product of the controversy in the Black community caused by Walls’ proposal. Walls wanted Black teachers for Black children. He was, in effect, promoting an early Black nationalistic policy of separation of the races, which many Black leaders rejected. Those Blacks favoring integration believed that if the cost of securing Black teachers was the loss of integration, then the price was too high. Walls had his opponents. M. E. Coats, owner of a popular Northside amusement house, and C. Williams, secretary of the Price Memorial AME Zion Church Literary Society, were bitterly opposed to Walls’ idea. They feared that Walls’ proposal would do more harm than good.
As the controversy raged, Coats and Williams organized a mass meeting of all Blacks. According to historian Herbert J. Foster, Walls might have been physically attacked but for several articles in support of Walls, which appeared in the Atlantic City Review. One such article stated:This young man is right. The child is at a disadvantage with a white teacher because she does not know his history and environment. She does not have the patience and understanding. When a boy’s mother leaves home at six o’clock in the morning, her child is not out of bed, at school time he jumps up, rushes to school without his face washed or his hair combed, a white teacher does not take that boy aside and make him wash his face, she just goes on with the lesson, ignoring that boy, because she does not know that he is not able to get attention from home. If Negro children have Negro teachers, they will have an inspiration, they will have members of their own race, for ideals and not white ideals that are so diligently instructed about in the schools.
Over time, Walls’ proposal gained acceptance and the school board hired Hattie Merritt. Merritt was born in Jersey City and was a graduate of Jersey City Teachers Training School. She was assigned to teach an integrated class at the Indiana Avenue School. Things didn’t go well.
Miss Merritt found teaching in an integrated system more than she had bargained for. Her problem wasn’t the children but rather the parents. The White parents made her job impossible by coming to school and standing outside the classroom, glaring and taunting her as she tried to teach. Many of these parents demanded that the school board remove their children from her class. Merritt complained to Walls and he in turn complained to the school board. The end result of the controversy came in 1900 when the board decided on a policy of separate education for Black children and the employment of additional Black teachers to instruct them.
With the school board’s decision made, Black children were moved out of the city school system and into the basement of the Shiloh Baptist Church. This didn’t work out, and the following year the Black students were moved into the Indiana Avenue School, one of the older school buildings, which was converted to an all Black school. As the resort’s population grew, the building wasn’t large enough to handle the number of school-age Blacks. The next move was to divide the New Jersey Avenue School; half for Whites and half for Blacks. There was a door for “White” and a door for “Colored,” and separate play yards to keep the children from mingling.
By 1901, W. M. Pollard, Superintendent of Atlantic City School, claimed proudly that separate classes for Black children was a good thing. In his annual report he stated:The employment of colored teachers for separate colored classes has worked very successfully in our city. We employ ten colored teachers. These teachers occupy rooms in the same building where white children attend. The separation is continued as far as the seventh grade, after that the colored pupils attend the same grades with the white children. This plan has been in many respects beneficial for the race.
It’s difficult to determine who was vindicated by the results—Walls or his critics. But the outcome was segregation for as long as it could be maintained.
Unfortunately, there was no one like Walls to lead the charge on healthcare for the Black community. Health services for Blacks were as segregated and meager as Whites could make them. Blacks were not permitted in White doctors’ offices and routine medical services were dispensed out of a separate Blacks-only clinic in a back room in city hall until 1899. In that year, the first public hospital was opened, but it would only treat Blacks in wards separate from Whites. While the hospital hired Blacks for cooking and cleaning, there were none to care for patients. As late as 1931, nearly 100 Blacks were employed as orderlies, cooks, janitors, waiters, and maids, but not one was employed as a nurse or doctor. The few local Black physicians there were could not see their patients in the hospital, and qualified applicants for training as nurses were turned away by the hospital’s administration, forced to go to other cities for their education. The message was clear: African-Americans were servants and that was all they could ever hope to be in Atlantic City.
While upper- and middle-class Blacks of the Northside prospered, the seasonal employment, squalid housing, and poor health services for a majority of Blacks took their toll on the quality of life. Without proper food, clothing, shelter, or medical care, many Black babies didn’t make it thr
ough the winter months. A large percentage of their parents contracted tuberculosis at a rate more than four times that of Whites.
A city that could host millions of tourists refused to provide facilities for combating tuberculosis among its Black population. To openly admit to such a problem would have been bad publicity for the tourist economy, and Atlantic City would have none of that.
4
Philadelphia’s Playground
Prostitution was a ticklish subject in the resort. The presence of brothels in turn-of-the-20th century Atlantic City was well known, but talked about little. That’s why the exposés on the local prostitution trade published in the Philadelphia Bulletin in early August 1890 caused such a stir.
August was the resort’s busiest month, and the locals felt the Bulletin’s timing was deliberate. The summer was going well for the entire community. The weather was cooperating and tourists flocked to town, spending freely. The Bulletin was Philadelphia’s most popular newspaper, and many of its readers were regular visitors to Atlantic City. The newspaper had tracked down the infamous Lavinia Thomas and Kate Davis, together with dozens of other veteran prostitutes. They had been chased out of Philadelphia for operating “disorderly houses” and found refuge in Atlantic City. In a series of front-page articles, trumpeted by banner headlines, the Bulletin listed the names and addresses of more than 100 local madams and their houses, and righteously condemned their presence. A page one editorial scolded the resort, “What community would hail, as a blessing, or as an evidence of prosperity, the establishment of a vile brothel in its midst?” The newspaper continued its scorn adding, “There are more than 100 of these dens of infamy in Atlantic City. Just think of it—100 such places in a city of this size!”
Resort merchants were upset with the coverage their town was receiving at the hands of the Bulletin. They worried it might scare away some of the family trade. Everyone knew the resort was a sanctuary for out-of-town whores, especially during the summer, but no one was comfortable reading about them. A few of the merchants panicked and suggested the brothels be closed temporarily until things calmed down.
Despite the uproar, level heads prevailed and business continued as usual amid reports that local police officers were confiscating the Bulletin from Boardwalk newsstands as quickly as the papers arrived. The Bulletin responded with more page one editorials demanding city government to wipe out public prostitution, close down the gambling dens, and shut off the illegal booze. The paper preached at Mayor Harry Hoffman and city council members, “Do you gentlemen realize that you are called upon in your official capacity to take some action in these cases that have been brought to your attention? Can you imagine that gambling houses and brothels will bring wealth and prosperity to your city?” But gambling houses and brothels did bring wealth and prosperity to his city, and the mayor knew something the newspaper’s editors did not: The coming of fall would fade the Bulletin’s exposés and by next summer everything would return to normal.
While Atlantic City could survive without prostitution, it was an important part of the resort’s entertainment package and there was no way the whorehouses would be closed. The Bulletin could condemn the peddling of flesh if it wanted, but most of the “johns” were from Philadelphia and Atlantic City was giving them what they wanted. Located only 60 miles from Philadelphia, it was inevitable the resort would be drawn into that city’s orbit. Despite present-day myths of the old Atlantic City’s grandeur and elegance, Jonathan Pitney’s beach village had become to Philadelphia what Coney Island would be to New York—a seaside resort dedicated to providing a cheap, good time for the working man. Cape May could keep the rich—Atlantic City welcomed Philadelphia’s blue-collar workers who came to escape Quaker Philadelphia.
The City of Brotherly Love has never been known as a party town. Founded in 1681 as a religious experiment by William Penn, a wealthy Quaker from England, Philadelphia was envisioned as a place where Christians could live together in spiritual union. Penn dreamt of a city governed by the rules of a Friends Meeting. He was committed to liberating his new city from the divisive politics and religious wars of Europe and refused to set up a conventional government, relying instead on brotherly love. Penn’s vision never became reality, but the mix of Quakers, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Baptists, drawn to his city by the policy of religious tolerance, produced a God-fearing population with strict standards of social morality. Honesty and success in business, together with a virtuous life centered on one’s church and family, were the ideals of Quaker Philadelphia.
Among no group was the principle of blood being thicker than water more faithfully observed than with the Quakers. Persecuted throughout Europe for their religious beliefs, the Quakers were dispersed around the world and could be found in most seaports with which Philadelphia had commercial relations. Quaker tradition required them to share information on pricing and availability of goods, and their merchants prospered. It’s little wonder that Philadelphia, which did not exist until a half-century after the founding of Boston, had become the leading city of the colonies by the time of the Revolutionary War. It was also the most successful seaport in the New World. The city’s prosperity was in large part based on the exchange of Pennsylvania farm products for finished goods from Europe. During the Colonial period, Philadelphia was famous for its merchants, shipbuilders, and seamen. It was a major port and played a pivotal role in England’s relationship with the American colonies. Following the Revolutionary War, Quaker money transformed Philadelphia into America’s first industrial city.
The first half of the 19th century saw Philadelphia turn away from the sea, directing its energies inland. By 1825 the City of Brotherly Love was reaping profits from the coal and iron of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Philadelphia merchants cornered the market on the transportation of coal and were the first to excel in iron manufacturing, gaining notoriety for heavy machinery and ornamental cast iron. However, iron and coal were only part of the economy; finished cotton and wool were also major products of the city. By 1857 Philadelphia had more textile factories than any other city in the world. There were more than 260 factories manufacturing cotton and woolen goods. Cheap coal provided ready steam, giving Philadelphia a decisive edge over other cities in supporting its textile and garment industry. During the American Civil War, it was Philadelphia’s textile factories that clothed the Union Army.
The period from the Civil War into the new century saw William Penn’s experiment grow to be an industrial giant. In 1860 the city’s population stood at 565,000; by 1900, it had reached 1.3 million. Turn-of-the-century Pennsylvania was America’s foundry, the center of heavy industry—coal, iron, and steel. New York was the melting pot and Chicago the city of broad shoulders, but Philadelphia is where the Industrial Revolution was won in the United States. The factory mode of production was first introduced to America before 1840 in the cotton mills of New England. After the Civil War, the factory system came to full bloom in Philadelphia. For nearly three generations, Philadelphia had the most diversified and extensive economy of any American city. Its workers produced warships for foreign powers and steam engines for railroad companies around the world. They built tractors and trucks, knitted sweaters and dresses, refined sugar, and manufactured countless other products for the booming American economy.
Philadelphia was home to a staggering number of manufacturers in the iron and steel industry. Its foundries produced one-third of the country’s manufactured iron, turning out everything from nuts, bolts, rivets, horseshoes, machine tools, and power hammers to cast iron building fronts, ship plates, locomotive turntables, elevators, ice cream freezers, and sewing machines. In addition, the textile and garment industry continued to rank first in the world. By 1904 more than a third of the city’s one-quarter million industrial workers were employed in textile plants, processing one-fifth of all wool consumed in the United States.
A flood of unskilled immigrants was absorbed into Philadelphia through the jobs created by the city’s fa
ctories. The work wasn’t always pleasant, and for many employees the adjustment to the industrial age was traumatic. Mass production of the factory system involved the division of labor into a series of simple, repetitive tasks. This process contrasted sharply with the traditional European craft mode of production in which a single worker produced the end product out of raw materials. Bound in service to machines from dawn to dusk, these unskilled workers were part of a system that had no regard for the Old World order of apprentice-journeyman-master. No longer could a worker attain rank and status according to his skill and experience. For most employees, factory work was degrading, having lost all hope of ever gaining independence through being the master of a craft. The new industrial world broadened the gap between rich and poor by emphasizing the role that capital played in the control of one’s life.
As Philadelphia grew into an industrial powerhouse many immigrants made their fortunes. But it took more than money to break into Philadelphia society. As one British traveler noted, “The exclusive feature of American society is no where brought broadly out as it is in the City of Philadelphia … it is, of course, readily discernible in Boston, New York, and Baltimore; but the line drawn in these places is not so distinctive or so difficult to transcend as it is in Philadelphia.” While William Penn’s vision of a Christian community never materialized, the religious beginnings produced a conservative and traditional town.
Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City Page 8