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GIFT OF
iREATION SURVEY
OF
CINCINNATI
JUVENILE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
DECEMBER 1, 1913
RECREATION SURVEY
OF
CINCINNATI
JUVENILE PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION
DECEMBER 1, 1913
0
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
INTRODUCTION .
GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS , 4
SECTION A. RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES 10
Activities of School Children 10
Activities of Adults 15
SECTION B. THE VARIOUS FORMS OF RECREATION.... ..... 15
Home Recreation 15
Private Recreation (Social Clubs, Church and Philanthropic Agencies) 21
Commercial Recreation 25
Public Recreation. 35
The Colored Child and Youth 41
SECTION C. ADMINISTRATION 42
Present Administration 42
Defects in the Present System of Administration 43
Suggested Administration ....... v 44
SECTION D./.S$£'ti&STipNS if Q-R • AX ADEQUATE RECREA-
TION PROGRAM FOR CINCINNATI: 4ii
General Recreation Program for the Future 4(»
Immediate Recreational Needs of Cincinnati . . 47
Juvenile Protective Association
of Cincinnati.
ESTABLISHED 1912.
(Endorsed by the Council of Social Agencies.)
PURPOSE.
1. To investigate and to suppress and prevent the conditions and
to prosecute persons contributing to the dependency, truancy, or de-
linquency of children, and to promote the welfare of children in every
respect.
2. To co-operate with the Juvenile Court, Compulsory Education
Department, State Factory Inspector, and all other child-helping
agencies, and to increase their efficiency wherever possible.
3. To promote the study of child problems, and by systematic
agitation, through the press and otherwise, to create a permanent public
sentiment for the establishment of wholesome agencies, such as parks,
playgrounds, gymnasiums, free baths, vacation schools, communal
social centers and the like.
OFFICERS AND EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
DR. ALBERT H. FREIBERG President
REV. FRANK NELSON Vice -President
MR. RICHARD CRANE V ice-President
MR. FRANK BELL Vice-President
MR. CLIFFORD B. WRIGHT Treasurer
Miss HELEN S. TROUNSTINE Secretary
DR. BORIS D. BOGEN, MR. GUY MALLON,
Miss EDITH CAMPBELL, MR. WM. J. NORTON,
MRS. MARTIN FISCHER, PROF. W. H. PARKER,
MRS. CLARENCE MACK, MR. J. O. WHITE,
Miss HELEN S. TROUNSTINE, Director,
Office, 804 Neave Building.
The Association is supported by voluntary subscription and
contributions.
393420
INTRODUCTION.
Purpose of Report.
. This report embodies the results of a six months' study of local
recreational conditions. It is given to the public with the hope
that it will stimulate interest in recreational matters, and establish
the importance 'of an adequate recreation program in any plan for
a better and finer Cincinnati or for a happier and more successful
life for the least of its citizens.
The part played by recreation in the daily routine of every in-
dividual of the community has often been discussed theoretically.
Social workers have frequently spoken of the sacial -significance of
uncontrolled pleasure. Xo one knew definitely, however, the recrea-
tional conditions of the city as a whole. Believing that knowledge
based on facts is the basis of all intelligent action, the Juvenile
Protective Association undertook to secure this information through
careful investigation as its contribution toward public welfare.
Scope of the Survey.
The scope of the survey included the collection of a certain
amount of information relative to present recreational conditions,
and the formulation of a plan to develop facilities for recreation
in Cincinnati so as to adequately meet the needs of all the people.
Material in the Report.
The report is divided into four sections. The first section sets
forth the data collected concerning recreational activities ; the
second describes the existing facilities and extent of the various
forms of recreation; the third discusses the present system of gov-
ernmental administration of recreational matters and suggests a
new and improved method; and the. fourth outlines a comprehensive
recreation program for Cincinnati, and points out immediate recrea-
tional needs.
Acknowledgment of Help.
During the field work and in the preparation of the report in-
valuable suggestions as to method and form were secured from
a study of the published ''Recreation Survey'' of Kansas City.
Acknowledgment of thanks is also clue the Superintendent of Schools,
the Board of Park Commissioners, and to the heads and subordi-
nates of the various departments of the municipal government for
their courteous assistance in the gathering of the necessary infor-
mation, and to Mr. Maurice Hexter for the generous contribution of
his services in investigating the public dance halls.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
GENERAL SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS.
For the benefit of the casual reader the general information
and recommendations contained in the report are here briefly sum-
marized.
Activities.
From a study of 1,178 papers written by school children living
in all parts of the city on what they did in their spare time, it was
ascertained that 23.3% of the spare time of boys and 24.2% of that
of girls is taken up with some form of work. Only 14% of the
boys' and 26.2% of the girls' recreational life is filled by home
amusements.
Outdoor games secure from the boy larger interest than any
other form of recreational activity. Boys think twice as much of
outdoor sports as girls do, while girls think twice as much of talk-
ing to and calling on friends, and nearly three times as much of
inactive recreational occupations. Boys, therefore, need better facili-
ties for outdoor play, and girls for wholesome sociability.
Of 1,124 children observed out of doors, 41% were playing,
while 45% were doing nothing. More boys than girls were doing
nothing, and 50% of the children observed were between ten and
fifteen years of age — a significant fact when the Juvenile Court
reports that 47% of the total number of children brought before it
are between ten and fifteen years of age. The playgrounds within
a reasonable distance from where these children lived were well
filled with children. As idleness has no recreational value, it ought
to be checked by placing play leaders in charge of the certain streets
in the congested districts.
Various Forms of Recreation.
There are four kinds of recreation ; namely, home recreation,
private recreation, commercial recreation, and public recreation.
1. For the majority of people there is practically no 'opportunity
for home recreation. A study of the density of population by
wards shows that one-third of the twenty-six wards have a
density of population from six to thirteen times as great as the
density of population of the whole city. The fifteenth ward has
the greatest congestion, with 129.9 persons per acre ; the neigh-
boring seventh ward comes next with 110.9 persons per acre.
The average population per acre is 8.8. A house-to-house study
in three "Soundings-1 in different parts of the city showed that
the average number of rooms to a family are 2.3, and the
average number of persons to a room are 1.9. No "living"
rooms were found, except in a very few instances. No facilities
for outdoor home play in the three "Soundings" were found. An
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. O
engineer's survey of the neighborhood showed that there was
scarcely any space for private outdoor play, even including in
the count lawns and ungraded spaces which might be converted
into play space, and that from 30% to 70% of the land in the
neighborhood is occupied by streets and alleys. Answers from
twenty school principals relative to their pupils' opportunity for
home recreation show that in the majority of homes the facilities
for recreation are few. As a result of the lack of opportunity
for home recreation, the child is forced into the unsupervised
street to play, and the youth and the adult become dependent
upon commercial recreation and other outside sources for their
diversion. Healthy family life is impaired, and the individual is
placed beyond the moral control of the family.
2. Private recreation is of two kinds, that supplied by co-operative
clubs and that provided through philanthropic effort. A record
was obtained of 214 "Pleasure," "Social," "Outing" and "Fish-
ing" clubs. Fifteen of them report a total membership of 580
men between twenty-one and forty years of age. Some of these
clubs are organizations for the promotion of public dances for
the sake of profit, and most of the public dances at the wrorst
dance halls in Cincinnati are given as such club affairs. Many
of these clubs meet in connection with saloons; a few have their
own club rooms.
Four thousand eight hundred and twenty-five boys and men
are reported as belonging to five of the largest athletic organiza-
tions in the city. Considerable athletic activity is carried on
among the public school children.
Over 1,850 boys and men played baseball in regularly organ-
ized teams every Saturday and Sunday throughout the summer.
In addition, 360 public school boys played 100 games during the
season, and the Catholic Churches had a baseball league with
eight teams. Grounds on which to play are hard to secure, and
public athletic fields are altogether inadequate.
According to the school census of 1913 there are 36,054 un-
married youths between 14 and 21 years of age in Cincinnati.
The number of young people between 12 and 21 years of age
reached by the recreational work of the churches and philan-
thropic agencies as reported by them is 9,095. These figures are
incomplete, of course, as much of this recreation is of an occa-
sional nature. The attendance of girls between 14 and 18 years
of age at these recreational activities falls off decidedly, probably
because we have not yet learned the needs of the adolescent girl.
On Saturdays and Sundays, when the most people seek diver-
sion, practically no opportunity for recreation is offered by these
private agencies.
3. Commercial recreation provides for fully two-thirds of the play
life of the community. One hundred thousand two hundred and
twenty-nine (100,229) people attend the moving pictures daily.
The quality of recreation they afford is on the whole very good,
but the posters advertising the productions are lurid and sensa-
O RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
tional and ought to be censored as well as the films. Eleven
theaters have a seating capacity of 17,739. Two of the burlesque
theaters and one of the vaudeville houses give -performances of
extreme vulgarity.. Four-fifths of the patrons of these places are
men, 25% of whom are between 18 and 25 years of age. For the
protection of the public these productions ought to be censored
and the city ordinance amended so as to make unlawful sexually
suggestive acts and speeches in any performance or exhibition.
There are 781 public pool rooms with 1,275 tables, three shoot-
ing galleries, and 21 bowling alleys. The quality of recreation
these places. offer is good only as a result of constant supervision.
Twenty-seven public dance halls and dancing academies pro-
vide recreation for about 6,000 people on Saturday and Sunday
evenings. The quality of recreation provided by four-fifths of
the places is of 'the lowest order. There are two skating rinks
in the city with a total capacity of 1,280 couples. One rink is
patronized wholly by colored people. Amusement parks are vis-
ited by about 950,000 people during the summer. The quality of
recreation they offer is poor, as the management is usually in-
different to the character and general conduct of the patrons.
Persons who operate amusement parks ought to be required to
secure a license so as to come under public control. The bathing
beaches on the Kentucky shore accommodate about 240,000
people during the season. Better supervision would increase
their recreational value. Commercial recreation, if supervised,
provides splendid facility for amusement; unsupervised, it is a
menace to the wholesome life of the community and is easily
turned into an instrument for the furthering of vice. Cincinnati
needs new and better methods for supervising its commercial
recreation.
4. Cincinnati has G8 public school buildings, only twelve of which
have been used to their fullest capacity. Only occasional use
heretofore has been made of the school buildings for recreational
purposes and only two schools have had anything approaching
social center activity. A Social Center Director lias just been
appointed to work under the direction of the Superintendent of
Schools. Nine of the public library buildings have auditoriums
which are used by the public for recreational purposes. Not
counting small plots of land laid out solely to beautify the city,
the city has 30 public parks and parkways with a total area of
•1,879.6 acres. A great deal of this land is at present unimproved.
Public recreation to be beneficial to the community must be ade-
quately supervised. The public parks were insufficiently policed.
This past summer thirteen playgrounds were maintained by the
Park Board -with a total of 14.9 acres, five tennis courts, two golf
links and nine athletic fields, with a total area of 87.9 acres. In
the section of the city in which 50,003 children live (reckoning
on the basis that 300 children are the maximum number who
can play on a acre) public play space is provided for only 3,360
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 7
of them. Although in the adjoining Seventh, Tenth, and Fifteenth
wards 11% of the total child population of the city between 6
and 17 years of age live in s/io% of the total area of the city, the
public play space provided totals only 3.1 acres. The play-
grounds are kept open only four months during the year. The
western section of the city is not properly provided with athletic
fields. Five small school playgrounds were kept .open during
the summer months. Public play space is altogether inadequate
at the present tinre.
5. Two large colored settlements are located on Walnut Hills and
the western part of the downtown residential section, respec-
tively. Recreation for the colored youth on the hill is partly
provided for by the social-center activities of the Douglass School.
The young people who live downtown, .however, have absolutely
no opportunity for wholesome recreation. Except the Y.M.C.A.,
no social agency has yet concerned itself with this grave situa-
tion, although 15% of the delinquent boys and 29% of the delin-
quent girls are colored, when only 5.4% of our entire population
is colored. A social center in the center of the colored settle-
ment (about Eighth and Mound streets) is urgently needed.
Administration.
At present the administration of recreation is divided between
four departments of the government, sometimes in no way con-
nected with each other. The School Board establishes and main-
tains school playgrounds and social centers; the Park Board estab-
lishes and maintains parks and playgrounds; the Mayor has regu-
latory powers over certain forms of commercial recreation ; and the
police have general supervisory powers. The chief defects of this
system are:
1. Lack of unity. Although both the School and Park Boards
establish and maintain public facilities for recreation, their
efforts are not correlated.
2. No specific department of the government fs responsible for the
development of facilities for public recreation. The Park Board
is primarily interested in the furthering of a park and boulevard
system.
o. Lack of adequate supervision of commercial recreation. Although
the Mayor has supervisory powers, no machinery is provided for
adequate inspection and control.
4. Opportunity for friction. Under the present division of respon-
sibility, there is constant opportunity for friction between de-
partments of the government. To do away with these defects,
it is suggested that all the administrative powers be centered
in one board, known as the Park and Recreation Board, to be
composed of five members — four to be appointed by the Mayor,
(one to be a member also of the Board of Education) and the
Superintendent of Public Schools.
o RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
The duties of the Board should be :
1. The acquisition and management of property for use as public
parks and playgrounds.
2. The establishment, management and supervision of all other
facilities for public recreation, exclusive of public school
buildings used as social centers.
3. The supervision of commercial recreation, which shall include
the power at present vested in the Mayor of granting and
revoking licenses which are required by law. They should
have the power to appoint salaried executive officers and such
other assistants as may prove necessary to efficiently carry
out the three functions of the Board. As school property is
not under the control of the municipal government, a Recrea-
tion Board, to be able to prosecute successfully an adequate
recreation program, must be composed in a way to insure the
closest co-operation of the Board of Education.
General Recreation Program for the Future.
The School Board should hereafter not erect public school
buildings without making ample provisions for school playgrounds.
School playgrounds should be kept open in each neighborhood
for the use of children from 2 to 13 years of age.
The Recreation Board should establish playfields within a rea-
sonable distance of each other, especially adapted to the needs of
young people between the ages of 13 and 17 vears, and large athletic
fields in different sections of the city for afiults.
The School and Recreation Boards should jointly employ a
Playground Supervisor, so as to unify methods of supervision.
The system of public parks and parkways as a part of a broad
recreation system should be developed to keep pace with the growth
of the city, but not at the expense of adequate facilities for active
outdoor play.
After school playrooms should be established by the School
Board and maintained by the Recreation Board, if necessary to con-
tinue the work of the playgrounds during the winter months.
A director of Girls' Clubs and a director of Boys' Clubs should
be appointed to study the needs of the adolescent youth and stimu-
late the establishment of social clubs in every section of the city.
These clubs could meet either at social centers or public libraries.
Social rooms equipped with facilities for games of various sorts
should be open nightly in the schoolhouses in congested districts
for the convenience of young girls and young men.
Social center activities conducted by the School Boards should
be along the broadest lines and should include the giving of neigh-
borhood dances at regular intervals.
Where the School Board is unable to maintain and conduct a
social center in a neighborhood lacking sufficient facilities for recrea-
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 9
tion, the Recreation Board should establish and maintain recreation
centers, as it is done in Chicago-, Seattle and other cities.
All forms of commercial recreation should be under constant
supervision.
This supervision should in no way check the free development
of commercial recreation, but should increase its recreational value.
Immediate Recreational Needs.
A playground should be established in the northern section of
the Seventh Ward or the southern section of the Tenth Ward.
An athletic field should Jbe located east of Millcreek to meet the
needs of the western section of the city.
Until an adequate number of playgrounds are provided certain
streets, least used -by traffic, should 'be shut off in the congested
sections of the city to be used,, under supervision, for play purposes.
The present playgrounds in the congested sections of the city
should be open twelve months in the year. Seventy-one cities in
the United States keep 299 centers open throughout the year.
The public parks should be better supervised.
A social center for colored people should.be established as near
Eighth and Mound streets as possible.
A social center should be opened in either the Sixth District
or Webster schools. Neither of these buildings are new and espe-
cially equipped for social center purposes, but the congestion of
population is so great in that locality that the need is urgent. No
private agencies provide means for recreation in that neighborhood.
A social center should be opened at the Washburn School, where
the density of population is 129.3 persons per acre; at the Sands
School, where the density of population is 89.3 persons per acre;
at the Chase School in Cumminsville, where the density of popula-
tion is 83.4 persons per acre. The Guilford School, although the
newest building and best equipped for social center activities, is
located in a district where the density of population is only 30.3
persons per acre. There are, moreover, two social agencies in its
immediate vicinity affording good opportunities for recreation.
Steps should be taken to secure the censorship of theatrical
posters.
Section 879 of the Codification of Ordinances should be amended
so as to make it unlawful to permit suggestive acts and speeches
in any performance or exhibition.
Persons who wish to conduct amusement parks ought to be
required to secure a license.
An ordinance empowering the city to forbid steam vessels
which are not sufficiently supervised or lighted to make use of the
public docks should be passed to provide for control of recreational
conditions on excursion boats.
A new ordinance for the control of public dance halls should be
passed, providing special machinery for the inspection of public
dances by the municipal authorities.'
10 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
SECTION A. RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES.
I. ACTIVITIES OF SCHOOL CHILDREN.
Papers of School Children.
In order to ascertain the recreational activities of children, with
the co-operation of the Superintendent of Schools, the children of
the Sixth, Seventh and Eighth grades of forty-five of the district
schools and the First and Second grades of two of the high schools
of the city were asked to write for fifteen or twenty minutes on
what they did with their spare time. A careful study was then
made of 1.178 of these papers — 589 from boys and 589 from girls.
The papers were selected at random from the total number, but an
attempt was made to keep the proportion of the papers written by
boys and girls the same from each school. The papers were all
written during the first week in October.
Table I summarizes the number of children mentioning each
form of amusement as well as the number of times each form of
amusement was mentioned. This "mention" column is thus a truer
index to the importance of each kind of pastime in the recreational
life of the child. For instance., a child who writes of playing an out-
door game in both the afternoon and evening would count only as
one in the number of children mentioning outdoor games and sports,
but this form of recreation would figure as two in the "mention"
column.
Table II gives the results of the papers in percentages.
TABLE I.
Activities of School Children.
Activities Boys Mention Girls Mention
Outdoor games and sports 437 718 291 393
Walking, shopping, going downtown 173 209 :>S7 335
Watching, games, loafing outdoors 174 184 88 91
Home games, home amusements, clubs 68 74 104 122
Reading 181 204 249 294
Fancy work, music, drawing, etc 45 58 222 288
Calling on friends, talking, loafing indoors. . . 89 112 210 233
Theaters, picture shows 236 267 197 231
Gymnasiums and outside clubs 29 36 34 44
Parties, d-ancing school 3 3 12 13
Home work, chores, errands, etc 298 409 400 632
Outside work, office, store, carrying papers,
lamplighting 1:21 155 13 16
RECREATION Sl'RYKY OF CINCINNATI.
11
TABLE II.
Activities of School Children.
Activities ^
Outdoor games and sports
\Valking, shopping, going downtown
Percentage of
'umber of Papers
Boys Girls
72.5 49.4
29.4 48.8
29.5 14.9
11.5 17.6
30.7 42.3
7.6 37.6
16.8 35.6
40. 33.4
5. 5.7
0.5 2.
50.6 67.9
30.7 2.2
\Vatching games loafing outdoors
Home games, home amusements, clubs..
Reading
Fancy work, music, drawing, etc
Calling on friends, talking, loafing indoors
Theaters, picture shows
Gymnasium ?nd outdoor clubs. . . .
Parties, dancing school '
Home work, chores, errands etc
Outside work, office, store, carrying
naners. lambli&rhtincf .
Percentage of Mentions
Boys
Girls
29.7
14.5
8.6
12.5
7.5
3.4
3.1
4.5
8.5
10.9
2.4
10.8
4.5
8.7
11.
8.6
1.2
1.6
.2
.3
16.9
23.6
6.4
.(•»
100.0 100.0
As care was taken to select papers written by children living
in all parts of the city, the following facts are true regarding the
average Cincinnati child.
Work After School Hours.
23.3 per cent of a boy's and 24.2 per cent of a girl's time out
of school hours is occupied with some form of work. This Avork
for both boys and girls is usually in the nature of housework, run-
ning errands, going to market or the grocery, assisting with the
dinner, or scrubbing floors and steps. Some write of helping in the
store or shop, watching the younger children, and the boys speak
of selling papers, shining shoes and driving on delivery wagons.
One little fellow complains : "Had to saw wood nearly every ten
minutes (seemed to me), and had to go to the store nearly every
time I got my wheel out to ride." A girl writes of having nothing
to tell of what she did for fun outside of school last week, as she
had no time to play.
Home Recreation.
Even if it is taken for granted that reading, fancy work, music
and drawing are home recreation, only 14 per cent of the recrea-
tional life of the boy and 26.2 per cent of that of the girl is filled by
home amusements. Of the games played indoors, checkers, authors,
and similar card games are mentioned. One girl writes of ''playing
house in the attic."
Reading.
Both boys and girls are fond of reading. A few notes were
made while classifying the papers of books which were mentioned.
Fairy tales are popular with both boys and girls. One boy writes :
"I go to the Public Library and get me a book about war or fairy
tales." Bovs also are fond of history, and both bovs and skirls like
12 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
tales of adventure. One boy writes : "When I got home I read the
'Literary Digest' and the 'Appeal to Reason/ " while yet another
tells, "When I came home I sat down and read about Harry Thaw."
A girl writes : "I read 'Vanity Fair' and liked it very much. Later
I saw it in the moving pictures."
Moving Pictures.
Moving pictures provide 11 per cent of the recreation of boys
and 8.8 per cent of that of girls.
Attendance at moving picture theaters is mentioned much more
frequently by the children living in the congested districts. A girl
writes, "I go to the picture show about three times a week," and a
boy, "After I eat my supper, I ask my father for a dime to go to
the show." Another says, "On Saturday and Sunday evenings I
generally go to the show."
Some of the children went into detail as to the story shown in
the picture films. A boy writes : "I saw the 'Glove and the Lion,'
which pleased me very much, because last year in the Sixth Grade
it was in our readers."
Other films are not as healthfully amusing. A boy tells : "They
had about the 'Jail Bird.' There was a man who had a wife and a
little girl. When the man went to his office, his wife telephoned
another man whom she loved. But a friend of the man's wife saw
.them, and went and told it to him what she had done. He didn't
want to believe it. Then the man took a revolver and shot that
man dead whom his wife loved. He was sentenced for ten years.
When they were working, Prisoner 13 told him to escape, and he did
so. When he was over, the other one wanted to get over the wall, too ;
but the stick broke and he was captured. He had many adventures
until he was set free. In the evening I went to another show."
Another paper tells: "In the evening, I make my lessons and then
go to the nickel theater .and see a fine show. . . . The picture was
about John Bunny as a woman. The other one was about a robber
entering a house and stealing silverware and gold and other jewels
while the people were sleeping. In the morning when they looked
for their jewels and silverware they were gone. They notified the
police, and they came and looked for the thief, but could not find
any one."
Outdoor Games.
Outdoor games secure from the boy greater interest than any
other form of recreational activity. Boys think twice as much of
outdoor sports as girls do, while the girls in turn better enjoy quiet
sociability, and think twice as much as boys of talking to and call-
ing on friends, and nearly three times as much of inactive recrea-
tional occupations.
In tabulating the papers, outdoor games and sports were given
the broadest possible interpretation. Every form of outdoor fun
was classified under this head. Frequent mention is made, however,
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 18
by both boys and girls, of group games. Hop-skotch, blind man's
bluff, hat thief, puss-in-the-corner, steps, and go-sheepy-go, seem
popular. Quite a large number of children, including those living
in the downtown districts, speak of walking to Eden Park and
Burnet Woods and other woody places to gather buckeyes.
An interest in games imitating activities of primitive life is
occasionally expressed. A boy writes of "building a furnace on the
hill." Another says, "In the afternoon I played 'Indians and Cow-
boys' in the woods." And yet another, "I went down to the bottoms
and helped the boys put a stove in our tree-house," while a girl
tells of helping "build a fort for the younger boys."
Lack of Outdoor Play Space.
Mention is sometimes made of the lack of outdoor play space.
One boy, who does not even live in a congested neighborhood,
writes : "It seems just about the time we begin (playing ball in a
side street), the policeman comes and chases us away. If we go
.in the neighboring lot or field the owners are after us. If we play
football, the people come out, and we have to get away or they
send for a policeman. After school Thursday we were playing
'Slim Jim' in a lot, and the policeman came and took our names in
his book, and said, 'If we don't stay out of the lot, he would take
us down to the Juvenile Court.' Where would you advise us to
play?"
Conclusion.
Boys need to be provided with better opportunities for outdoor
play, and girls with facilities for wholesome sociability.
14
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
II. OBSERVATIONS OF CHILDREN OUT OF DOORS.
A further study was made of children's recreational activity by
making observations of what they were doing out of doors. Three
sections of the city were selected for intensive study, and these
"Soundings"* were visited during the afternoon and evening and the
number, age, sex and occupation of the children noted. Table III
gives the results of this -study.
TABLE III.
Observation of Children Out of Doors.
What the Children Were Doing
Sounding
No. Per Ct.
Working 49 13
Playing 173 46
Doing nothing 149 41
Total
371
Sounding
No. Per Ct.
78 16
191 38
231 46
500
No.
20
100
133
253=
Sounding
Per Ct.
8
40
52
Ages of Children —
Under 6 ..................... 26 7
6 to 10 ..................... 132 35
10 to 15 ..................... 176 49
15 to 18 ..................... 37 9
Over 18 .................... 0 . 0
Number of children in near-
est playground .......... 500
Area of playground ......... 1.77 acres
50
165
247
38
0
10
33
50
31
79
125
18
0
13
29
50
8
0
900 No playground
(2 playgrounds)
2.21 acres
Children Who Are Doing Nothing.
Of the 1,124 children and young people observed out of doors
only 41 per cent were playing, while 45 per cent were doing noth-
ing. The habitual difficulty of engaging in active play in congested
districts may be a partial cause for this waste of opportunity for
profitable relaxation and pleasure. Another reason may be lack of
imagination in conceiving recreational activities or lack. of initiative
in prosecuting them. In all events, idleness has no recreational
value, and the child who is doing nothing because he does not know
what to do easily falls into mischievous habits. Play leadership
would probably materially check this enervating idleness and be a
strong preventive of juvenile delinquency. More, boys than girls
were doing nothing", and 50 per cent of the children observed were
between ten and fifteen years of age. It is significant with regard
to this fact that 47 per cent of the total number of children brought
before the Juvenile Court'1' are between ten and fifteen years of age.
* Sounding I (12 blocks) bounded by Cutter, Freeman, Richmond and Barr streets.
Sounding II (9 blocks) bounded by Liberty, Findlay, Central and Race streets. Sounding III
(8 blocks) bounded by Celectial, Ida, Monastery, Lock and Third streets.
** Many of the children in Sounding III play along the railroad tracks just to the west
of it, or go down to the river; and this accounts for the smaller number of children observed
in that locality.
* Juvenile Court Report for 1912.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 15
Lack of Playgrounds.
Play leadership, such as was suggested above, is found in the
playgrounds. No playgrounds, however, were located in the three
Soundings : Sinton Park adjoined Sounding I on the east, and
Hanna and McKinley playgrounds were about" equally distant from
Sounding II, while no playgrounds were near enough to Sounding
III to be counted as neighboring on it. These playgrounds, how-
ever, were found to be well filled with children from their immediate
neighborhoods, and could not possibly accommodate the number
of children whom observation showed needed direction in play. To
adequately reach such children play leaders would have to be placed
in charge of the streets themselves, as has been done in New York,
Chicago, Baltimore and other cities.
III. RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES OF ADULTS.
It has been impossible to ascertain the recreational activities
of adults in the same way as those of children were secured. A
study of the following chapters, however, describing the extent and
facilities of the various forms of recreation, will give some idea of
the importance of the different'kinds of pleasure in the life of every
individual of the community.
SECTION B. THE VARIOUS FORMS OF RECREATION.
There are four different kinds of recreation ; namely, home
recreation, or the pastimes enjoyed in or under the supervision of
the home ; private recreation, or the diversions provided through
co-operative or philanthropic effort ; commercial recreation, or the
amusements furnished on a commercial basis; and public recreation,
or the recreation supplied by the government for the benefit of all
members of the community. This section of the report discusses
the existing facilities and value of each of these four forms of
recreation.
I. HOME RECREATION.
Home recreation is, of course, the best kind of recreation for
both the adult and the child. • It lends itself to family solidarity, to
the safeguarding of the pleasures of the younger members of the
family by the kindly supervision of their natural guardians.
For home recreation to be possible, however, there must be in
the home a certain chance for privacy for each individual in the
family group and a certain amount of space which will permit for
active or even passive plav.
Density of Population by Wards.
An approximate indication, therefore, of the facilities for home
recreation is secured by a study of the density of population by
wards. Table IV gives this information. It will be noticed that
one-third of the twenty-six wards have a density of population from
16
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
six to thirteen times as great as the density of population of the
whole city. The neighboring Fifteenth and the Seventh wards are
the most congested in the city. The density of the Seventh Ward
is even greater than is indicated, because a portion of its small area
is taken up by Music Hall, Washington Park and the Canal. The
Sixteenth and Tenth wards come next for density ; the congestion
in the latter is largely in the southern portion adjoining the Seventh
Ward.
TABLE IV.
Density of Population.
Ward
Area in Acres Population*
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
6,900
3,580
1,380
720
220
260
115
460
610
165
500
310
3,560
170
110
- 160
520
240"
1,660
20 ...................... ........ 3,250
21
22
23
24
25
175
870
1,440
4,500
6,510
26 6,520
Total 44,905
17,728
21,345
20,404
15,764
14,216
15,396
12,7.60
13,980
15,052
15,001
17,579
16,807
12,936
15,287
14,290
16,264
13,646
14,965
17,781
19,288
14,600
11,728
15,284
15,196
12,256
8,800
398,353
Population
Per Acre
2.5
5.9
14.7
21.9
64.5
59.1
110.9
30.3
24.6
90.9
35.1
54.2
3.6
89.3
129.9
101.5
26.2
62.3
10.4
5.9
83.4
13.4
10.9
3.
1.9
1.3
Population Per
Acre above or
below City aver-
age of 8.8 per-
sons per Acre.
fi.3 —
2.9—
5.9+
13.1+
56.2+
50.3+
102.1+
32.5+
15.8+
82.1+
26.3+
45.4+
5.2—
80.5+
121.1+
92.7+
17.4+
53.5+
1.6+
2.9—
74.6+
4.6+
2.1+
5.8 —
7.1 —
Housing Study with Reference to the Possibility for Home Recrea-
tion.
To ascertain further the possibility for home recreation, a house-
to-house study was made in a part of each of the Soundings already
described.
In Sounding I the investigation covered four blocks (bounded
by Linn, Eighth, Freeman and Barr streets) ; in Sounding II, seven
blocks (bounded by Findlay, Logan, Green, Pleasant, Liberty and
Central Avenue) ; in Sounding III, six blocks (bounded by Lock,
East Third, Oregon, and East Fifth street). The result of this in-
vestigation has been summarized in Table V.
Figures supplied by the Board of Elections, October, 1913.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 17
TABLE V.
Study of Home Conditions.
Sounding Sounding Sounding
I. II. III.
Number of homes 3 1G . 12
Number of tenements 61 96 150
Number of individuals 614 826 1681
Number of families 128 171 374
Average number of families to a tenement 3 5 3
Average number of rooms to a family 3 3 2
Average number of people to a family 5 5 4.5
Average number of people to a room 1.7 1.7 2.3
Average number of children under 15 to a family. . . 2 2 2
It can be readily seen from these figures that home recreation
is practically impossible. No such thing as a living room was found
by the investigator except in the few "homes" noted. Even in those
rooms which by better furnishing or arrangement seemed to be
pressed into service as a center for the social activities of the family,
none were found without the folding bed or couch, which showed
for what purpose they were really used. No child could play any-
thing but the quietest of games at home under such circumstances,
arid for the young girl and the youth to receive their friends with the
rest of the family crowded about, and younger children underfoot,
is impossible.
These tenement homes, moreover, are often dreary and un-
attractive. Few of them provide those mechanical means for enter-
tainment which are such important accessories to the successful
social intercourse of youth. In Sounding I only five per cent of the
homes had pianos and two per cent had talking machines or musical
instruments. In Sounding II only one per cent of the homes were
provided with pianos and one per cent with talking machines or
musical instruments, and in Sounding III two per cent had pianos
and five per cent had musical instruments or talking machines.
Outdoor Home Recreation.
Play in private yards, being under direct supervision, is another
form of home recreation. The extent of this outdoor home recrea-
tion is, of course, circumscribed by the adequacy of 'physical facili-
ties. To determine the amount of private outdoor play space, an
engineer was employed to survey the three Soundings. Table VI.
gives the results of his study.
18
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
TABLE VI.
Outdoor Play Space.
General Distribution of Land.
Street and alleys
Other land .
Sounding
Acres Per Ct.
Sounding
Acres Per Ct.
Sounding
III.
Acres Per Ct.
17.8
33.3
Total . 51.1
52
48
100
15.5
19.6
35.1
79
21
100
9.4
30.6
40.
30
70
100
Distribution of Land Not in Streets and Alleys.
Usuable for play 59
Usable for play but grading
needed
Not usable for play
Lawns, play not allowed. . . .
.24
None
1.5
.35
None
None
None
None
Storage yards
Occupied by houses and inter-
spaces less than 25x25 ft. .. 20.48
.5
19.1
None
1.
9 2*
No laws of
•any size
.2
About 27.2
It will be seen from this table that opportunities for outdoor
home play practically do not exist in three neighborhoods selected
so as to represent the conditions under which the majority of the
people of Cincinnati live. This condition increases the significance
of the fact, previously noted, of the large number of children and
young people who loaf about the streets with nothing to do. Suf-
ficient public play space and the leadership and "supervision already
suggested would remedy this serious state of affairs. How ade-
quately Cincinnati is provided with public playgrounds will be dis-
cussed under the chapter on Public Recreation.
Letters to School Principals.
To estimate the home conditions in all parts of the city along
the lines indicated by the intensive studies just described, a letter
was sent to the principals of forty-five public schools of the city,
requesting them to answer the following questions :
1. In your opinion what are the general home conditions of the
majority of your pupils?
2. What facilities and opportunities have your pupils for recreation
in their own homes?
3. When there is opportunity and facility for recreation at home,
do many parents pay proper attention to recreation for the chil-
dren?
4. How many of the children have yards in which they can play?
Approximately, what per cent?
5. Any other information which you can give us along the same
lines will be of value to us.
The twenty replies received are tabulated in Table VII.
* Steep hillside.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
19
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RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
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RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 2J
Conclusion.
The facilities for home recreation are poor for the majority of
the people. This condition forces the child into the unsupervised
street to play, and makes the youth and adult dependent on com-
mercial recreation and other outside sources for their diversion.
Healthy family life centers in similarity of interests, and is impaired
when recreation becomes an individual and not a social concern to
members of the family group. In other words, the most serious
result of the lack of opportunity for recreation at home is that it
places the individual beyond the family's moral control.
II. PRIVATE RECREATION.
Social Clubs.
A definite part of the social life of the community is furnished
by co-operative neighborhood clubs. They are most frequently
organizations of young men who join together for the purpose of
sociability and the giving of entertainments. Some of these clubs,
under the guise of seeking pleasure for their members, are organi-
zations for the promotion of public dances for the sake of profit.
Most of the dances at the worst dance halls in Cincinnati are given
as such club affairs, although the general public is admitted.
The Directory of 1913 gives a list of 190 "Pleasure," "Social,"
"Outing" and "Fishing" clubs, while a further list from the Mayors
office brings the number up to 214. If to these are added the choral
and singing societies which are often organized along -social lines,
and the bowling clubs, there are 356 co-operative organizations re-
corded. Fraternal and similar organizations are excluded from this
count, as well as the many mutual benefit associations, which very
often give social affairs, and the many small clubs of which there is
no record.
A letter was sent out to 100 of these clubs asking for general
information as to their membership and purpose. Only fifteen re-
plies were received. These fifteen clubs report a total membership
of 580 men. The minimum age limit in all but one instance was
21 years, and the majority of their members are reported to be
between 21 and 40 years of age. Only three of the clubs report the
giving of dances since January 1, 1913; outings, socials, picnics, boat
excursions, entertainments and parties were mentioned. From
records at the Mayors office, it was found that 337 dances were
given by social clubs and several church organizations from January
1, 1913," to September 10, 1913.
Several of the co-operative clubs have their own club rooms;
a large number of them, however, meet in connection with cafes and
saloons. The recreational value of these clubs is probably good
except in those instances where the club is used as a cloak for the
promoting of vicious pleasure.
22 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
Athletic Organizations.
Athletic organizations supply a splendid form of recreation, par-
ticularly for young men. Information as to the total number of
athletic clubs in the city was not obtainable. The Department of
Physical Training of the Y. M. C. A., the Men's Club of Christ
Church, the Advent Memorial Club, the St. Paul Gymnasium and
Athletic Club, and the Cincinnati Gymnasium and Athletic Club
report a total membership of 4,825 boys and men. Some of these
athletic organizations are part of the recreation work of philan-
thropic agencies, which is described at the end of this chapter.
Considerable athletic activity is carried on among public school
children under the auspices of a Games Committee. Last February
an indoor meet was held at Music Hall in which there were nearly
500 entries. Four field meets were held in June, with a total of 601
entries, excluding the children taking part in relay races. Every fall
an Athletic Button Contest is held in all the schools, and each school
does its own work on its own grounds. Last year 307 boys and 228
girls qualified for the Athletic Buttons. Soccer football is also ex-
tensively played, but great difficulty is experienced by the team in
finding facilities to play the game, as grounds are hard to secure,
and the park playgrounds do not provide for soccer or association
football.
Base Ball Teams.
In the summer one of the most active forms of recreation among
men and boys is baseball. Aside from professional baseball, which
has a National League club here, there are a large number of ama-
teur teams among men and boys. The largest booking agency in
the city reports that over 50 teams were playing baseball every
Saturday and over 150 teams every Sunday ; that the National Amer-
ican Amateur League has 16 teams and the Church League has three
teams. In all it is estimated that about 1,850 men and boys play
baseball in these regularly organized teams on Saturdays and Sun-
days. In addition, there were thirty public school ball teams with
twelve to thirteen boys to a team. These teams played 100 games
during the season. * The Catholic churches also had a baseball
league composed of eight teams.
Great difficulty was experienced by the teams in securing grounds
on Saturday. Because of this fact most of the Sunday games of the
National Amateur League and other leagues are played out of town,
but on Saturday the men and boys work until noon and must con-
sequently play in the city. Private grounds are often prohibitive in
price, $10.00 for an afternoon, and public athletic fields are altogether
inadequate.
Philanthropic Agencies.
Philanthropic agencies and churches, realizing of late the neces-
sity for healthful recreation in a well-rounded life, have provided
various forms of recreation as a part of their social or parish work.
To ascertain the extent and character of the recreational facilities
which these social organizations offer, and the number of young
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 23
people they reach, the following questions were sent to every philan-
thropic and social agency in Cincinnati, whose purpose might even
remotely include a recreation program, and to all of the churches,
which during the winter of 1912-1913 replied to a general inquiry
sent out by the Y. M. C. A. concerning their recreational activities.
Questions Sent to Philanthropic Agencies and Churches.
1. How many young people between the following ages does your
recreational work reach?
Boys ...... 12 to 14 14 to 16 16 to 18 18 to 21
Girls ...... 12 to 14 14 to 16 16 to 18 18 to 21
2. Are the majority of the girls and boys from 14 to 16 still attend-
ing school, or are they working? What class of work?
3. Do they come from your immediate neighborhood? If not, wrhat
parts of the city do they come from?
4. What forms of recreation do you offer? Social clubs? Dancing?
Entertainments?
5. How many nights a week do you supply some form of recreation
for those young people?
6. Are you open on Saturday and Sunday evenings? If so, what
entertainments do you have then?
7. At what time do your activities close every night? Are you open
all the year round?
8. What special activities from your recreation program for the
summer season?
9. What is the average attendance of your clubs, dances and enter-
tainments? Is the individual boy or girl allowed to join more
than one club and attend all the entertainments? Is the average
attendance of each boy and girl more than one evening a week?
The answers received are hard to tabulate, as some organiza-
tions seem unable to state how manv young people make use of their
recreational facilities and these facilities vary so in extent and char-
acter. Moreover, the recreational work of many of the churches is
confined to occasional entertainments and socials.
Number of Young People Reached.
The total number of unmarried youths in Cincinnati from 14 to
21 years of age, according to the last school census, is as follows:
11,159 from 14 to 16 years of age, and 24,895 from 17 to 21 years
of age.
The total number of young people reached by the recreational
work of the philanthropic organizations and churches, as reported
by them, is shown in Table VIII.
TABLE VTTT.
Age Boys Girls Total
]2 to 14 ........................................ :,:;i; i. <>:,<; 1. :><.»:>
14 to 16 ........................................ 4:14 :;:>:, :s<i
16 to 18 ........................................ «»s«i ?(>:_• 1.»)'.)1
18 to 21 ........................................ 2.4sr, 2,537 m 5.o:>:j
Total . ...... . 4.445 4.650
24 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
There is shown a decided falling off in the attendance of girls
between 14 and 18 years of age. This may be only partly accounted
for by the girls' enrollment at night school. It is probably due in
a large measure to the fact that social organizations have not yet
learned the recreational needs of the adolescent girl. It was inter-
esting to note while reading the replies the lack of purely recrea-
tional provisions made for the girl and the emphasis laid upon them
for the boy. The girl is supposed to content herself largely with
sewing, cooking and literary clubs, and occasional socials and dances
of a mild variety, while regular social club rooms for the adolescent
boy are open nightly, if possible, and equipped for all sorts of games.
Again, all kinds of athletic activity is organized for him. This fact
is particularly significant when it is remembered that the study of
the papers of school children (12 to 16 years of age) showed that
girls value sociability twice as much as boys.
As instances of this tendency to underemphasize the needs of
the girls several can be cited. Four Catholic parishes conduct social
clubs for .boys from 14 to 17 years of age. There are no such clubs
for the girls of the same age. Again, fifteen parishes have social
club-rooms for boys 17 years of age open every night except
Sunday, while they provide no such facilities for the girls. The
young men have pocket billiard leagues, basket ball leagues, and
baseball teams, while the young women use the parish hall only for
some specially arranged euchre or dance. In the same way a Protest-
ant institutional church reports a social clubroom for young men,
open every night except Sunday, and all the year round, while the
girls are provided for only on the average of one night a week dur-
ing the winter months.
Sixteen organizations report the maintenance of gymnasiums
and ten provisions for calisthenics. Aside from the Catholic par-
ishes only three other organizations report pool and billiard rooms
and one a bowling alley. Two settlements have moving pictures
and six organizations give dances, one regularly every Saturday
night. These dances, however, are usually for the young people
eighteen years of age and over. Eighteen regularly organized social
clubs for boys and four social clubs for girls are reported. A number
of other boys' organizations exist, such as the Boy Scouts, with an
enrollment of 400 members. Other forms of recreation offered are
dramatic clubs and minstrel shows, lectures, choral classes, music,
walking clubs, summer camps (five for boys and three for girls),
river trips, picnics, swimming and tennis.
On Saturday evening, when the most young people try to find
recreation, very few places offer facilities for amusement, and on
Sunday, the day when again the most people seek diversion, the
social organizations make practically no provisions for their enter-
tainment. The Catholic parishes do, indeed, have social gatherings
and walking trips, and five other places have social hours with music
and refreshments.
Of course, a lot of occasional recreation is provided by churches
and social organizations of which there is no record. Opportunity
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 25
for recreation, however, as supplied by those organizations working
for social welfare, is pitiably small and cannot in any way compete
with commercial recreation. The vast majority of adolescent boys
and girls, at the period when they are most impressionable and most
easily demoralized by vicious influences, must turn to commercial
recreation to find those amusements which they crave as a means
of self-expression.
III. COMMERCIAL RECREATION.
The largest and most important facilities for recreation in any
city are those amusement places conducted for the purpose of profit.
When the character of modern industry forced men to live together
in cities, and crowded housing conditions prevented the participation
of the family in recreation at home, it was commercial enterprise
alone which realized the value of the people's unsatisfied need for
relaxation and pleasure. Today commercial recreation provides for
fully two-thirds of the play life -of the community.
Up to very recently no one considered whether this arrangement
was good or bad ; commercial recreation was looked upon as any
other form of private business undertaking in which the public had
no concern. Lately, however, a new appreciation of the importance
of healthy recreation in virile individual or community life has devel-
oped the conviction that commercial recreation to fill adequately a
social want must submit to social control.
During the survey, therefore, special attention was given to
commercial amusement places in Cincinnati. Their utility in grati-
fying man's deep-rooted play instinct has been judged solely on the
basis of whether or not they provided opportunity for sound and
wholesome pleasure. Investigators were told to disabuse their
minds of the idea that good recreation must necessarily have an
educational flavor.
All recreation, of course, whether good or bad, has a definite
educational value. It either rounds out or warps character, develops
or demoralizes the will, stimulates or enervates for complete living,
but too long has play just for play's sake been looked at askance,
and the recreation provided by those interested in human welfare
been tainted with the spirit pervading "uplift" work. In the follow-
ing paragraphs, therefore, which describe the various forms of com-
mercial amusement in our city, their social worth has been estimated
altogether from the standpoint of their recreational efficiency.
Moving Picture Shows.
Foremost in popularity among the forms of commercial recrea-
tion is the moving picture show. In September, 1913, Cincinnati
had eighty-one moving picture houses (three of which were still in
the process of construction) and six airdomes. The location and
seating capacity of the regular moving picture houses is shown in
the following table :
26 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
Location Number Capacity
Downtown business district 13 5,797
Downtown residential district 33 14,136
Suburban residential district • 35 28,859
Total 81 48,792
The structure of the moving picture houses has improved greatly
in the last two years. Through the activities of the City Building
Inspection Department all have been made safe in case of fire. The
ventilation also has been materially improved, but more must be
done in that line. By the time the second audience comes in the
air is frequently vitiated, and as the performance is continuous there
is no opportunity to let in fresh air. Some of the better theaters
have moving picture apparatus which will work satisfactorily in a
room not altogether darkened, but the greater number of places are
still insufficiently lighted for proper supervision of the patrons.
Theaters in the residential districts, except on Saturdays and
Sundays, usually remain closed during the day, and run from three
to four shows in the evening; the shows in the business district are
open continuously from 9 a. m. to 11 p. m., with two exceptions,
when the theaters open at 1 :30 and 2 :30 p. m., respectively. Admis-
sion is usually five cents, and a few houses charge ten cents for adults
and a nickel for children.
During the survey an actual count of the attendance at sixty-
three of the moving picture theaters was made on a Monday early
in October, and it was found that they were patronized by 55,593
persons in one day. The combined seating capacity of these theaters
was 25,796, the attendance a little over two persons to a seat. Not
counting the incompleted' theaters, or five picture shows which were
found closed on the day of the investigation, on this average of two
persons to a seat, 44,636 people went to the theaters which were not
covered in the count. This means that a total of 100,229 persons,
or over one-fourth of the city's population, attended moving picture
shows in one day. On this basis, 701,603 people enjoy this form of
amusement in one week ; a conservative estimate, as it does not
allow for the extra shows and larger audiences on Saturdays and
Sundays.
While the investigators were taking the count, facts were noted
in many instances concerning the attendance of children and young
people and the character of the films which were shown.
Character of Audience.
A large majority of the people who make up moving picture day-
time audiences are adult men. An occasional woman on her way
from shopping or market, sometimes accompanied by little children ;
a small number of boys and youths, and a few young girls about
fifteen years of age (evidently out of work or playing truant from
school), who come to the theater in the hope of picking up new
acquaintances, are the other patrons. During the noon hour this
order varies for a little while and the places are crowded with young
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 27
people from store and factory and youths from the downtown high
school. In the evening the character of the audience changes again
and the theaters in. the business district have evenly mixed audi-
ences, while in the residential districts the audiences are often largely
composed of women and children. About 33 per cent of these audi-
ences were under 21 years of age, about 11 per cent of whom were
under 10 years of age. The children, however, were found in attend-
ance chiefly at the early performances, and were noticed in only
small numbers at the last show.
Character of Films.
The character of the filnijs. shown, except in three instances, was
unobjectionable and provided clean recreation. The subjects were
usually melodramatic or of a comic or farcical nature. The Wild
West pictures are still popular,. although not seen as frequently as
formerly. Films of distinctly educational and of high recreational
value are frequently shown. Slides of events of current interest,
pictures of noted people, interesting views of foreign places are often
seen as part of the program, while standard plays given by good
actors are now being performed for audiences of the moving picture
theater. There can be no doubt that the quality of recreation of-
fered by the moving picture show has vastly improved in the last
few years, and is still improving.
The objectionable films referred to above showed a coarse
gambling scene ; another revolved around the life of a dope fiend ;
the last gave a suggestive story of the life of a bad woman. It is
the possibility of films of this character being produced, which, of
course, detracts from the recreational value of moving pictures, par-
ticularly where children are concerned. In them is especially strong
that desire to participate passively in experiences of life beyond
their everyday routine, and active suggestions of evil acts or vivid
examples of demoralizing habits cannot but react on character
development.
Posters.
The posters displayed outside of the theaters cannot be as fa-
vorably commented on as the films. In most instances they are
sensational, drawn on exaggerated lines and luridly colored. The
films which they advertise are usually harmless enough; the posters
always exceed the performance. The number of children which
crowd the entrances of the picture shows each evening, particularly
in the residential districts, cannot be benefited or wholesomely en-
tertained bv a study of a poster portraying in lurid colors a woman
of nearly life size sprawling over a prostrate man ; or of a woman
in a man's bathing suit extended full length in the act of diving;
or of men stabbing each other, or similar subjects.
Supervision.
For several years most of the films shown in the United States
have been censored by a voluntary committee known as the National
of Censors. Ohio last vear created an official State Board
.28 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
which must pass upon each film. This step is undoubtedly a good
one if the board is broad in its views of what constitutes healthy
entertainment.
Conclusions.
The moving picture shows as a whole serve the public well in
providing good recreation. To absolutely safeguard the people from
abuse from this form of commercial amusement, however, certain
improvements in our method of control should be made:
1. A list of the rejected films and of the films in which the elimina-
tion of certain sections has been ordered should be mailed by the
State Censorship Board to some competent organization in each
community for checking purposes.
2. The proprietor of moving picture shows ought to be compelled
by law to keep the theater auditorium sufficiently lighted, and
to install the proper moving picture apparatus, if necessary, to
enable him to do so. This would facilitate proper ventilation of
the theaters.
3." The censorship of picture films ought to be extended to posters
advertising them. They are seen by more people, and afford
opportunity for longer perusal. The co-operation of the Motion
Picture Exhibitor's League ought to be secured to that end.
Theaters.
There are eleven theaters in Cincinnati ; ten are located in the
downtown business district and one in the suburbs. The type of
theaters and the total seating capacity is shown in the following
table :
Seating
Type Number Capacity
Drama (legitimate) 4 7,240
V-audeville 3 4,077
Burlesque 3 4,01.3
*Melodrama . 1 1,800
Total 11 17,739
During the survey no study was made of the legitimate drama.
In such investigations so much depends on the point of view of the
investigator in determining the recreational value of a play that any
conclusions arrived at cannot have real weight. The moral phi-
losophy is too subtle, dramatic interpretation too complex to permit
a definite classification. Visits were made, however, to the vaude-
ville and burlesque houses. . The type of performance which they
give is more crude and the dramatic presentation more elemental
in character, so that it is easier to determine the recreational merits
of the entertainment offered.
Two of the vaudeville theaters usually provide excellent amuse-
ment. On the whole, the entertainment is clean fun. The third
vaudeville theater gives performances of low character and extreme
Changed into a moving picture and vaudeville theater November 16, 1913.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 29
vulgarity. This house is patronized by prostitutes, and sexually
suggestive acts and speeches cater to the low moral desires of the
audience. Unfortunately, however, the audiences of this theater,
which has a seating capacity of 1,400, are largely composed of young
men whose mind and morals must be degraded by witnessing such
a vicious form of entertainment.
Two of the burlesque houses are uniformly bad. The whole
performance is of the crudest type and provides only a shallow shell
for suggestive acts and speeches to excite the sex instincts of the
audience. Very rarely the performance goes beyond the point of
vicious suggestion and indulges in openly immoral acts and obscene
speeches. To our minds, however, the thinly veiled allusions, the
salacious jokes and the vulgar physical contortions are far more
harmful than overt, obscene acts. They undermine more insid-
iously the character and moral viewpoint of the spectator.
Four-fifths of the people who frequent these theaters are men ;
about 25 per. cent of them are young men between the ages of 18
and 25. In one instance a child was noticed in the theater accom-
panying her mother.
Drinking and smoking is general in two of these theaters; and
the patrons frequently become intoxicated. At the end of a twenty-
minute intermission at one performance three boys under 21 years
of age were noticed in that condition. The ventilation in these two
theaters is poor and the sanitary facilities, as well as those in the
third vaudeville theater, are unsatisfactory and in poor condition.
The third burlesque house, being a newer theater, is better
equipped to provide for the comfort of its patrons. It provides
decent although crude amusement.
Conclusions.
In the interests of the public burlesque and vaudeville perform-
ances ought to be censored as well as the films produced in moving
picture shows. The city ordinance ought also to be amended so that
sexually suggestive acts and speeches may be repressed in the same
manner as overt, obscene words or acts.
Pool and Billiard Rooms.
Pool and billiards prove to be a popular amusement for men.
Xo attempt has been made to estimate the size of the patronage
of this form of commercial recreation, as the attendance varies
greatly from day to day and hour to hour. Some idea of its impor-
tance may be gathered, however, from the following table, which
shows the number and location of the various rooms and tables :
Location Rooms Tables
Downtown business district. 108 309
Downtown residential district 354 508
Suburban residential district 319 458
Total 781 1-27:.
30 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
The majority of these pool rooms are established in connection
with saloons. Many of them are really nothing more than a pool
table in the bar room for the convenience of the patrons of the
saloon. Some, again, are in connection with cigar stores, candy
stores, etc. The general price for a game is 2^ cents a cue.
The pool room is pre-eminently the meeting place of young
men. If not playing the game, they loaf about and watch the others
doing so. It is thus easy for a boy who frequents the pool room
to pick up undesirable acquaintances and to acquire the habit of
gambling. The State has recognized this danger, and although the
game itself has good recreational value, it has prohibited a minor
under 18 years of age from frequenting public pool rooms. During
the summer investigators discovered only nine boys under 18 years
of age in visits paid to over seventy pool rooms. Everywhere the
proprietors spoke of the 'vigilance of the police and their fear of
violating the law. The law, however, is effective only as a result
of constant supervision, and pool rooms would be improved by com-
ing under the official inspection of a special department of the
government.
Shooting Galleries and Bowling Alleys.
These forms of commercial amusement can be classed with pool
and billiard rooms. The tendency of these places to encourage
games of chance and to harbor persons of low character depreciates
their recreational value in the same way as it does that of the pool
and billiard rooms, and necessitates as strict a supervision. The fol-
lowing table shows their number and location existing on July
1, 1913:
Downtown Downtown Suburban
Amusement Business Dist. Residential Dist. Residential Dist.
Shooting Gallery 3 0 -0
Bowling Alley 8 5 8
Saloons and Beer Gardens.
The saloon as an important factor in recreation must not be
overlooked. Up to November 24, 1913, Cincinnati had 1,334 such
places; the new liquor license law'will limit the number to 802. The
saloon is the social club-house of the man of modest means. It is
there he meets his cronies, indulges in gossip and talks over the
political situation. It is in the saloon sitting-room that he enjoys
his card game, and, as already noted, many co-operative social clubs
use it for their meeting-place. As long as there has not been pro-
vided public facility for social intercourse, and free, easily secured
meeting-places for clubs and social groups, the saloon has performed
a valuable service as far as promoting recreation is concerned, and
the effect of degrading social activities by closely connecting them
with the sale of liquor must not be blamed altogether upon the
saloon.
In. the summer innumerable saloons with a little yard space,
especially if they are located on the hilltops, open beer gardens.
The quality of recreation furnished by these gardens during the past
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 81
summer was on the whole delightful. They are patronized chiefly
bv family groups who come to spend a quiet evening together.
With two exceptions, when the moral tone of the place was low, the
conduct of these gardens was quiet and orderly.
Public Dance Halls and Dancing Academies.
Next to dramatic entertainment, dancing probably makes the
strongest appeal to young people. To the adolescent girl especially
the rythm of the dance seems to afford an opportunity for self-
expression which no other means provides. To the young woman
who has gone to work it is the outlet for emotional excitement which
monotonous employment haS" stifled within her all day. It fills the
same part in her life as athletics does in that of the boy's, although
young men are also fond of dancing. At present, however, the only
method of gratifying this normal desire for the majority of people
has been to go to a commercial dance hall.
There are twenty-seven places in Cincinnati where public dances
are regularly conducted. Eleven of these might be termed dancing
academies where class instruction in dancing is given. Most of
these dancing academies, however, have public dances on Saturday
and Sunday nights ; in fact, a line cannot be easily drawn between
the two types.
A count was taken of the attendance at fourteen of these public
dances on a Saturday and Sunday evening in October. The attend-
ance on the Sunday night was 2,640 (and ticket takers in several
instances told the investigators that business was dull), and on
Saturday night was 4,239. Estimating the attendance at the dance
halls in which the count was not taken, according to their size and
location, at least 6,000 people dance on a Saturday evening in Cin-
cinnati.
A careful investigation was made of the conditions under which
these 6,000 people dance. Seventeen dance halls were inspected, and
a number of them were visited several times.
The quality of recreation provided by four-fifths of the commer-
cial dance halls in Cincinnati is of the lowest order. Many of them
are connected with saloons or have a bar. on the dance floor proper.
The dance in these places often degenerates into a drunken orgy ;
in any case it is used as a means to increase the sale of liquor. Even
in those dance halls where soft drinks only are served, except in
perhaps three instances, the supervision is inadequate and "tough"
dancing is the general rule.
Masquerade balls are frequent and are particularly pernicious,
as they serve to heighten the boisterous conduct. Minors are found
in many of the halls and they are frequently served with liquor.
Some very little children were noted, who played around the dirty
floors while their parents enjoyed the dance. Prostitutes and other
people of low character were found to frequent the larger dance
halls and mingle with the crowds of young working girls and men
who came to seek innocent pleasure.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
The dance halls are usually located on the second floor of a
building-, and there is only one really up-to-date dance hall in Cin-
cinnati. Many of the floors are poor, dirty, slopped with liquor and
littered with cards announcing future dances. The toilet facilities
are very bad, and in some places the toilets for both men and women
are in conspicuous places where they must be constantly passed by
the couples, and are usually in close connection with the bar-room.
In one instance patrons had to cross the length of a saloon sitting
room to be able, to check their wraps.
Among the few places which offer opportunity for wholesome
pleasure is the "popular supervised dance" conducted every Satur-
day evening in the north wing of Music Hall by the Woman's Civic
Commission. Although the admission charge is only fifteen cents,
when at the other halls it is a quarter, the dance is self-supporting.
A good band provides the music ; members of the Commission super-
vise in person, and ice cream and soft drinks can be secured at one
end of the hall. No return checks are given. This dance is patron-
ized largely by people who never attended public dances before,
and does not really compete with the bad commercial dance halls.
Nevertheless, it is a splendid public experiment and meets a need
in the community.
Aside from these regular dance halls and academies there are a
number of public halls which are rented out for special dances, and
operate under a one-day license.
Conclusions.
The dance halls in Cincinnati in most instances are vicious
influences in the recreational life of the community. But few of
them provide opportunity for wholesome pleasure. The sale of
liquor in connection with a public dance is prohibited by law and
ought to be strictly enforced. A new dance hall ordinance ought
to require better standards of supervision on the part of the man-
agers and a system of rigid inspection by the municipal authorities.
Skating Rinks.
There are two skating rinks in Cincinnati. Their season is from
the middle of October to the beginning of May. The large rink can
accommodate 850 to 1,000 couples and is open every afternoon and
evening. It is brilliantly lighted and well supervised. Only soft
drinks are served and the atmosphere is different than that of the
dance halls. It is patronized largely by boys and girls who are too
young to go to dances, and as partners are not required, many come
singly.
The other rink, which is attended only by colored people, can
accommodate 280 couples and is open three afternoons a week. Its
attendance is also largely made up of young boys and girls. The
place is adequately supervised.
Skating rinks provide splendid recreation ; the only danger con-
nected with them is the indifference on the part of the manager as
to the character of his patrons and the consequent opportunity for
making undesirable acquaintances.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 88
Amusement Parks.
In the summer amusement parks provide in a great measure the
amusements which dance halls, pool rooms and other forms of com-
mercial recreation supply during the winter months.
Three large commercial amusement parks are patronized by
Cincinnatians, although ©ne is located in Kentucky. Letters were
sent to the managers of those places requesting answers to the fol-
lowing questions:
1. What was your attendance for the season of 1912?
2. What was your average daily attendance for the season of 1912?
3. Of this number, approximately, what per cent were under 10
years of age? Between 14 and 18 years of age?
4. What was your largest attendance in a single day during the
season of 1912?
5. How many concessions and exhibitions have you in your park?
6. What was the length of your season of 1912?
Two incomplete replies were received. These two parks report
a total attendance of about 550,000. As the amusement park which
did not reply is considerably larger than the other two and has
about ten more concessions and exhibitions, it is estimated that at
least 950,000 people visit these places during the season, of which
about 15 per cent are under 10 years of age and 20 per cent between
14 and 18 years of age. The season is usually from Decoration Day
to Labor Day. The largest attendance on a single day was reported
by one manager as 12,000.
The quality of recreation provided by the amusement parks is
on the whole poor. Lack of strict supervision and the indifference
on the part of managers to the character and general conduct of
their patrons lowers the moral tone and makes the attendance at
these places dangerous for young people. Conduct is permitted in
two of these parks which would not be tolerated for a moment in
any public place. In one park a woman was seen sitting at a table
alone and openly soliciting, while private policemen and waiters
were near at hand. It is the custom in this same park for young
girls to walk around the lake until they pick up an acquaintance
with men, when the couples frequently leave the park together. To'
accomplish their purpose the girls may walk around the circle fifty
times and nobody interfere. As long as boisterous and disorderly
conduct is suppressed the management thinks it has done its duty.
Places which would be quickly open to criticism if unsupervised
receive strict attention. The open air dance hall, for instance, is
carefully supervised and no "tough" dancing is permitted. This
same park showed obscene pictures in a "Penny Arcade" all summer,
and the concession was always crowded with young men and girls,
often in couples.
In the second park open immorality takes place with the con-
nivance or through the indifference of the management. A stretch
of woody hillside beyond a lake walk is kept absolutely unlighted
84 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
and unsupervised, and it is current talk among the habitues of the
park that "anything goes" there.
In the third park the recreational conditions are fair, because
the management supervises more carefully.
All the three parks have darkened concessions and exhibitions.
As they usually are forms of amusement. which involve emotional
excitement, the moral danger is accordingly increased. Most of the
concessions provide crude or coarse amusement. One park, in a
concession called "Hilarity Hall" creates amusement by having the
skirts of the women blown about by puffs of air forced through
holes in the floor. In the same concession is located the "Dippy
House," a long 'dark passage with trick floors, moving stairways,
walls, and slides in which the patrons are jounced about and finally
emerge helter skelter at the other end into a small, dark room.
The most popular concessions in this park are "Hilarity Hall"
and the Cabaret shows. "The Thriller," or scenic railway, seems to
rank next in favor.
Conclusions.
Persons who wish to operate amusement parks ought to be re-
quired by law to secure a license so as to come under public control.
Excursion Boats.
One of the amusement parks can be reached by a river trip, and
two excursion boats make five round trips daily. During the past
summer the recreational conditions on these boats were much im-
proved over other seasons. In the early part of the summer one
of the boats was not properly supervised ; there was no matron in
the woman's retiring room and the decks were insufficiently lighted
and patrolled. Later, after several conferences with a representative
of the company, a matron was installed, and the captain or first
mate made halMiourly rounds of the decks. The lighting on one
of the boats, however, was never satisfactorily improved, the upper
deck remaining in total darkness throughout the season. The sani-
tary conditions on both boats were very bad ; common towels and
hair brushes were also in use. Later these were removed and the
places cleaned up.
A dance is conducted in the salon of the boat. Two private
policemen were in constant attendance and no "tough" dancing was
allowed. A bar is located on the deck below, and after each dance
the majority of young men left their, partners and went down to get
a drink. Very few of the young women frequented the bar-room.
During the season, however, fifteen prostitutes were noticed drink-
ing in the bar-room, where they usually remained during the whole
evening. On several occasions there was disorderly conduct which
had to be suppressed by the private policemen.
Other excursion boats make trips to farther points up and down
the river; these trips usually last three days. These boats were
not investigated.
RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. ;$5
Bathing Beaches.
Cincinnati has no bathing beaches of its own. The shore on the
Ohio side of the Ohio River is spoiled for recreation purposes by
its commercial use. On the Kentucky side of the river, however,
there is a fairly good, sandy beach. This beach is used by the people
of Cincinnati as well as by the smaller towns along the Kentucky
bank. It is hard, therefore, to estimate the number of people from
our city who use the bathing beaches each summer.
There are two large commercial bathing beaches, one with a
capacity of 500 rooms and the other with a capacity of 1,000 rooms,
and innumerable private houses along the river bank which will
take in and accommodate a few people. The manager of one of
these beaches reports that ht5 accommodates from fifteen to twenty
thousand people during the season, which is from June 15th to Sep-
tember 20th, and that the maximum number in one day was about
ten thousand. The manager of the other beach reports that he
accommodates fully 100,000 people during the summer and that the
maximum attendance was about 25,000. He thinks, however, that
the private houses along the bank accommodate fully half .of the
people who make use of the river. On this basis, about 240,000
people of Cincinnati and the neighboring towns in Kentucky use
the beach during the summer.
By closing the bathing beaches at 7 p. m. last summer, many
difficulties experienced in the past were overcome, and immorality
was reduced to a minimum. The moral tone of the beach, however,
could be greatly improved by effective patrolling and supervision.
Last summer there was only one private policeman on the beach,
who in emergencies sought the assistance of the Dayton and Belle-
vue police. This aid had to be called for on two occasions last
summer to put a stop to gambling.
The larger of the two commercial beaches has 'a saloon and
stand on beach property. Its dressing rooms are often very dirty,
and it had inadequate provisions for shower baths.
Conclusions.
Commercial recreation, if supervised, provides splendid facility
for amusement. Unsupervised, it is a menace to the wholesome
life of the community and is easily turned into an instrument for
the furthering of vice. Cincinnati needs new and better methods
for supervising its commercial recreation.
IV. PUBLIC RECREATION. .
The community has in late years recognized the inadequacy of
home recreation and the necessity of supplementing it. Home
recreation, however, was constantly safeguarded by the unconscious
or conscious supervision of each member of the family groups over
the other, and it was soon found that public recreation without
systematic and thorough supervision was as unhealthy as no recrea-
tion at all. This part of the report, therefore, which deals with the
facilities for public recreation emphasizes the present provision for
its supervision.
«5b RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
The School Plant.
There are sixty-eight public school buildings in Cincinnati main-
tained and managed by the Board of Education. Only twelve of
these buildings are used to their full capacity at the present time.
During the winter of 1912-13 nine school buildings were not used
at all except for regular day school purposes. Eight schools reported
that their gymnasiums were used once or twice a week by regularly
organized clubs or classes, and others that they were used occa-
sionally. Thirty-one schools report the meeting at the school build-
ing (usually once a month) of Mothers' Clubs; eleven that the
Neighborhood Improvement Associations make use of the school
once a month ; sixteen that they provide a meeting place for other
clubs and classes — i. e., Class in Folk Dancing, Woman's Art Class,
Band Practice, Children of the Republic, Woman's Millinery Class,
etc. ; fourteen the use of the school building for special neighborhood
parties, sales and entertainments ; and six the use of the auditorium
for occasional lectures.
Only two of all the schools have anything approaching regu-
larly organized social center activity. Both the Douglass and the
Washburn schools report clubs for men, women, boys and girls,
with social programs. These schools, however, are not used to their
fullest capacity. -
April 14, 1913, the Board of Education adopted a program for the
establishment of social centers. A Social Center Director has been
appointed, who is to work under the direction of the Superintendent
of Schools.
Public Libraries.
Aside from the opportunities for reading, the Public Library
and its branches provide facilities for recreation. The Main Library
and eight of the Branch Libraries have rooms or auditoriums which
can be secured for recreation purposes. These rooms are used fre-
quently for lectures, concerts, entertainments, social clubs, and
children's story hours. The Boy Scouts often meet in the Public
Libraries.
Public Outdoor Recreation.
Parks.
Not counting small plots of land laid out in parks solely to
beautify the city, Cincinnati has under the management of the Park
Board thirty public parks and parkways with a total area of 1,879.6
acres. Most of this property (in fact all but 254.3 acres of it) is
located, of course, in the suburban districts of the city. A great
deal of it is at the present time unimproved. The importance of
this form of recreation cannot be estimated in figures. The drives,
the walks and picnic grounds, the beautiful vistas and quiet nooks
in woody, places provide especially for the youth and the adult
valuable forms of recreation. Several of the newer parks are at the
present time rather inaccessible, necessitating quite a walk from the
nearest car line to the park proper. The Park Board reports, how-
RKCKKATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 37
ever, that general plans to facilitate their use are in progress or
will l)e consummated in the future.
Ault Park on the east is approached by a fifteen-minute walk
from the Madison cars. In the plan for the improvement of this
property, as well as in the improvement of surrounding private
properties, car lines are under consideration, and new roads and
entrances are being placed which will make the park accessible.
Mt. Echo Park is directly on the Elberon Avenue car line. A
new entrance is under construction at the present time which will
make this property most accessible. Mt. Airy, stretching from the
Colerain Pike to Westwood, will be easily reached as soon as the
Colerain car line is extended along the Colerain Pike ; in fact, it will
border the park on the nortft! Blackley Farm, in North Avondale,'
will not only be accessible by the construction of the new Bond
Hill car line along Reading Road, but will actually have a car line
running through the park.
Public parks do not need the same supervision as playgrounds.
They need, however, to be thoroughly policed to prevent rowdyism
and that disorder which is often the expression of crowd excitement
when a group of young people get together. They should, moreover,
be adequately lighted to make thorough policing possible and to
discourage improper conduct.
Our parks were not adequately supervised during the summer
of 1913. The responsibility for supervision was divided between
the Park Board and the Director of Public Safety through the
Police Department. The Park Board employed only one park
policemen at Eden Park, Washington Park, Inwood Park, Burnel
Woods, and Lincoln Park. The regular city policeman on the
beat was also supposed to patrol these parks. At each of its play-
grounds the Park Board employed one caretaker, and at Sinton,
McKinley and Mt. Echo Parks, one private wratchman in addition.
Supervision of all other park property depended solely upon the
occasional inspection of the city police in the neighborhood, and
investigation proved that it was not possible for them to do
more than to take a cursory glance into the parks. It is self-
evident that one private policeman, and an occasional visit from a
mounted officer of the city police, is inadequate supervision for
Burnet Woods and Eden Park. Lincoln Park suffered also from
lack of a sufficient number of supervisors. While the park police-
man was on one side of the lake, rowdyism wrent on unchecked on
the other. The park police force, however, was of necessity small
owing to the lack of funds at the command of the Board of Park
Commissioners for the supervision and maintenance of their numer-
ous properties. The Board had asked for ample funds for policing
park properties in 1913, but the necessity of cutting down the whole
city budget forced them to reduce their police force to six men.
During the summer one motorcycle man was instituted to increase
the efficiency of the supervision, and worked so well that more will
be used the coming season.
The lighting of the parks and playgrounds in general was fairly
good last summer.
88 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
Park Playgrounds.
The city of Cincinnati owns,- under the management of the
Board of Park Commissioners, thirteen playgrounds with a total
area of 14.9 acres ; five tennis courts, two golf links and nine athletic
fields with a total of 87.9 acres.
Three more small playgrounds, with a total area of 2.1 acres,
are in the process of construction. The playgrounds remain open
only four months during the year, from May 15 to October 31.
These playgrounds, with three exceptions, are very small and
have considerable space taken up with play equipment, such as
swings, slides, sand-piles, wading pools and rest houses. It is the
Park Board's purpose to provide opportunity for play for children
from two to sixteen years of a^e. The type of playground and the
form of equipment just described, however, are adapted only for
use of the child between two and thirteen years of age, and no
special provision is made for the boys and girls between thirteen
and sixteen, although the law prevents them from going to work.
Eight of the public playgrounds are in the downtown residential
or congested districts of the city, with a total area of 6.5 acres.
Eleven of them are in that section of the city bounded by McMillan
street on the north, the Ohio River on the south, McLean avenue
on the west, and Kemper Lane on the east, in which, according to
the census made by our Association of the child population from
two to eighteen years of age, live 50,003 children.
Reckoning on the basis that three hundred children are the
maximum number who can play on an acre, which is the figure
arrived at by the London School Board, the Playground and Recrea-
tion Association of America, and the Secretary of the local Board
of Park Commissioners, in the section of the city where these 50,003
children live, public playgrounds have been provided for but 3,360
of them to play at one time.
Only two athletic fields, with a total of six baseball diamonds,
are located in this section of the city on its eastern and northern
boundaries. To reach the nearest athletic field from the wrestern
boundary of this section would necessitate a street car ride of at
least twenty minutes or a walk of about three miles. This field has
space, for but one diamond, so even if the children had enough
energy to walk this distance in after-school hours they could not
possibly find opportunity to play.
Twenty baseball diamonds in all are provided in the various
athletic fields throughout the city. Permits for their use are re-
quired on Saturdays and Sundays. They are in general patronized
by the older boys and men. Only "playground baseball," played
with a large, soft indoor baseball, is permitted in the playgrounds.
Table IX shows the location of the public play spaces and their
adequacy in meeting the city's needs :
RKCRKATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
89
25
26
TABLE IX.
Density of Child Population and Public Play Space.
Ward
Per Cent of
Total Child
Population
of City from
Per Cent of Play
Total Area Play Ground
of City Grounds Acreage
Athletic
Athletic Fields
Fields Acreage
6 to 17 years $
1
4.1
15.4
Turkey Ridge 6.
2
4.3
8.
East End Ball
Grounds 7.
3
4.6 •
3.
Walnut Hills
1.2
Evanston
Ball Ground 5.2
4
. 2.4
1.6
Deer Creek
Common 12.8
5
4.5
.4
Sycamore
.4
6
2.3
^•5
7
. . 3.2
.2
Washington*
8 . .
. 2.3
1.
Lytle
.4
Pearl
.4
9
. . 3.2
1.4
Filson Out-
look
1.9
10
4.0
.4.
Inwood
1.3
McMicken
.6
11
4.4
1.2
Mohawkf
.6
'
Hanna
1.
•
12
3.8
.7
Western and
McLeanf
.3
13
. 3.1
8.
Pleasant Ridge
Woodward
2.5
14
4.3
.4
15
3.8
.2
McKinley
1 2
16
... 4.2
.4
17
4.6
1.2
Lincoln
1.8.
18
4.
.4
Sinton
1.7
19
4.1
3.7
Oyler*
20
. 6.0
7.3
Riverside*
DempseyParklO.
Warsaw and
Woodlawnf
1.1
Mt. Echo Park 7.
21
3.8
.4
Hulbert
.5
22
3.1
2.
Taft Field i:',.:>
23
. 4.9
3.2
Edgewood*
...
24
5.0
10.
N. Fairmount*
.3
Lick Run Ball
100.
14.5
14.:,
100.
Ground
Westwood
Commons
21.2
It will be noticed that the adjoining' seventh, tenth and fifteenth
wards, which have 11 per cent of the total child population of the
city living in s/10 per cent of the city's total area, are only provided
with public play space to the amount of 3.1 acres.
This intense congestion has been brought on several occasions
to the attention of the Park Board, with the suggestion that a play-
ground be established in the northern section of the Seventh Ward.
The general plan of the Park Board is to establish playgrounds in
the congested districts a half-mile distant from each other, thus
* Contemplated playgrounds,
t Playgrounds in the course of construction.
t Figures for Wards 2, 3, 12, 13, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 taken from the School Census,
1913; others from Police Census,, December, 1912.
40 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
covering the dense population of the city with a chain of play-
grounds. The Park Board reports that this plan also includes the
consideration of the more pressing needs of a neighborhood due to
congestion of population, and that its first contemplated action for
the partial relief of the children in this congested section is the
establishment of a playground in the northern end of Washington
Park. This Washington Park playground will not preclud'e, how-
ever, the establishment at some other time of an additional play-
ground further north in this over-populated district.
Present Supervisory Force.
The Park Board employed during the four months' season of
1913, twenty instructors and one supervisor. Three instructors re-
ceived a salary of $80 a month, three a salary of $75 a month, one
a salary of $70 a month, four a salary of $60 a month, and nine a
salary of $50 a month. The supervisor receives $100 a month. The
athletic fields are not supervised except at the greatest play periods,
namely, Saturday afternoons and Sundays.
The cost of maintaining the playgrounds under the Park Board
was $12,901.95 £or 1913.
Attendance.
Seven hundred and ninety-three thousand four hundred and
thirty (793,430) children attended public playgrounds during the
summer of 1913.***
School Playgrounds.
Ten after-school playgrounds (eight in the section of the city
covered by our census) were conducted in 1913 by the School Board
from April 15 to the close of school, and from September 10 to
October 31. Five school playgrounds were also kept open under
supervision for ten weeks during the summer. The school play-
grounds are in the majority of instances very small.
The School Board employed to supervise the playgrounds
thirty-nine teachers at $15 a week, one director at $39 a week, and
one assistant director at $30 a week.
It expended $1,354.25 on its after-school playgrounds for the
spring term, and $5,160.55 for maintaining the vacation playgrounds.
The attendance was 95,482.*
Streets.
From the survey of three soundings already mentioned, under-
taken to ascertain the amount of space usable for play, it was found
that streets and alleys take up from 30% to 70% of the total area
of a neighborhood. It has also been shown that many children are
solely dependent upon the facilities provided by the streets for any
form of outdoor recreation. The streets, therefore^ must be re-
garded at the present time as an important public provision for
recreation, and ought to be supervised accordingly. Plans for their
wider use can be worked out by the establishment of play zones in
congested districts to supplement inadequate play space/
** Reported by the Board of Park Commissioners.
* Reported by the Director of School Playgrounds.
RF.CRKA'I K)\ <l KYFY OF CINCINNATI 41
Conclusion.
Cincinnati lacks at the present time adequate public provision
for recreation. How its present facilities can be supplemented and
developed to meet the recreational needs of the city is discussed in
the last section of this report.
V. THE COLORED CHILD AND YOUTH.
We have so far considered the recreational facilities provided
for the people as a whole. Although provisions for amusenient may
be adequate in a locality for the persons of that neighborhood in
general, the needs of a particular group may not have been met.
Foreign immigrants -require special forms of recreation, adapted to
their customs and habits, and the same is especially true of the col-
ored people, where prejudice and the fundamental objections to
social intercourse between tfre white and black races excludes them
from the use of facilities for recreation patronized by their neigh-
bors. This condition is particularly disastrous to the growing col-
ored boy and girl.
Two big colored settlements in our city are located in Walnut
Hills and the West End. Recreation for colored children and
young people in Walnut Hills is somewhat provided for by the
social center activities of the Douglas School, with the Chapel Street
playground in close proximity. The children and youth who
live downtown, however, have absolutely no facilities for whole-
some play. There are two picture shows on Fifth street which are
wholly patronized by them, a colored dance hall on Sixth street, a
few pool rooms and saloons which are open to them, and a skating
rink on Poplar street, to which they come from all parts of the city.
No social agency has as yet been concerned with the recreational
life of the colored boy or girl, although 15 per cent ol delinquent
boys and 29 per cent of the delinquent girls * are colored while only
5.4 per cent** of our entire population is composed of colered people.
The Y. M. C. A., it is true, is working to secure a colored branch
of its organization, but it would solve none of the problems relating
to the lack of opportunities for recreation for the young colored
child, the adolescent colored girl or adult woman.
Density of Colored Child Population.
The center of the colored population downtown is about Eighth
and Mound streets. Table X shows the distribution of the colored
child population by wards.
TABLE X. Colored Children
between 2 and 18
Ward Colored Child Population. years of aget
6
209
7
64
8
.->
()
34
10
19
11
47
14
81
15
123
16
:>«:>
17
369
18
566
21
... :> i
* Juvenile Court Report of the year 1913.
** United States Census, 1910.
t Figures taken from the Poiice Census, December. 1912.
42 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
The adjoining Eighteenth, Sixteenth and Seventeenth Wards
(mentioned according to location) have 1,490 children and young
people without any means for wholesome play. In the Fifteenth
Ward, which adjoins the Eighteenth immediately to the north, are
123 more.
The sixty-four children in the Seventh Ward are nearly all on
Providence street, and those in the Sixth Ward are centered around
New and McAlister streets.
Sinton playground is the public play space provided in the WTest
End and is surrounded by the colored settlement. Every summer
there is friction 'in .the park between the white and black children.
Conclusion.
The colored child and youth in the downtown districts have no
wholesome means for recreation. The community ought, therefore,
provide them with public facilities by opening a social center for
their use.
SECTION C. ADMINISTRATION.
The development of adequate and wholesome recreation de-
pends in a great measure upon the government's method of fostering
and controlling it. Cincinnati has neither recognized the fact that
the people's pleasures are in their way as important as the people's
health, nor that the various forms of recreation are but. closely con-
nected parts of the same problem. In consequence the administra-
tion of recreation in our city today is handled by different depart-
ments of the government, sometimes in no way connected with each
other, and the city suffers from the lack of a suitable, closely co-
ordinated and systematically prosecuted recreation program.
This section of the report discusses the present method of ad-
ministration and suggests a way of improving its efficiency.
I. PRESENT ADMINISTRATION.
The duties of four of the divisions of the government which
touch to a greater or less degree the administration of public recrea-
tion in Cincinnati, are the Board of Education, the Park Board, the
Police Department, and the Mayor's office.
The School Board.
The School Board is an independent political body distinct from
'the municipal government and elected directly by the people. Its
administration covers the establishment and maintenance of school
playgrounds and social centers.
The Park Board.
The Park Board is another independent body, although under the
control of the municipal government. It consists of three members
appointed by the Mayor. Its duties involve the establishment, main-
tenance, control and supervision of public parks and playgrounds.
The funds used by the board are granted by appropriation, or se-
cured through special bond issues approved by the voters.
UKCUKATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 43
The Mayor's Office.
The Mayor is given power by law to grant or revoke the licenses
of public dance halls, pool rooms, theaters, picture shows, bowling
alleys and shooting galleries. He is, therefore, concerned in the
administration of recreation as far as control of its commercial form
is concerned.
The Police Department.
The function of the Police Department is to enforce the law,
to maintain order in public places, and to suppress immoral and dis-
orderly conduct. Its duties involve general supervision over places
of public amusement.
II. DEFECTS IN THE PRESENT SYSTEM OF ADMINISTRATION.
Lack of Unity.
The chief defect in the present system of administration is that
it lacks unitv. The Park and School Boards, although they both
establish and maintain public facilities for recreation, work inde-
pendently of each other and their efforts are not correlated. Each,
as it were, is patching the recreational needs of the city instead of
jointly carrying out a carefully formulated recreation program,
planned to meet the city's requirements for recreation every day in
the year. It was only last year that a working agreement was
reached between the two boards as to the establishment of play-
grounds.
The Park Board Not a Board for Public Recreation.
Another grave defect in the present system" is the lack of re-
sponsibility on the part of any specific department to develop facili-
ties for public recreation. It may be argued that the Park Board
is supposed to fulfill this function. Our Park Boards, however, have
been primarily interested in the growth of a park and boulevard
system for the beautifying of Cincinnati.
Because of this concept of its duties, the Park Board has not
met the recreational needs of the city in all its aspects. It gives
too little consideration to and spends too little money on purely
recreational facilities. For instance, 34.1% of the original bond
issue of $100,000 was spent for the purchase and development of
playgrounds and athletic fields properties. Again, in November,
1912, the people of Cincinnati authorized a bond issue of $750,000
for parks and playgrounds. Up to September 1, 1913, bonds to the
sum of $240,000 were available for use. In spite of the fact that the
campaign to secure the passage of the bond issue was made largely
on the ground that playgrounds were urgently needed, only
$15,608.01, or 6.4 per cent of the sum available has been used for
playground purposes.
The Park Board reports that this expenditure does not cover its
plans for playgrounds out of this fund. They state that they have
44 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
practical plans now for additional Expenditures of $20,000 for a
playground house and pool at Walnut and McMicken streets ;
$20,000 for a house, pool, etc., in the Seventh Ward, to be located
probably in the northern end of Washington Park ; $20,000 to $25,000
on the Lincoln Park playground ; $12,000 for additional play facili-
ties and improvements at Inwood Park ; about $30,000 on nine other
smaller playgrounds ; $50,000 for the acquisition of land for a new
playground in the western part of the city, together with other
numerous improvements, such as dancing platforms, tennis courts,
croquet grounds.
Even counting these proposed expenditures only about 23 per
cent of the total bond issue will have been spent for playgrounds
and athletic fields. Further, an analysis of these proposed expendi-
tures shows that very little of the sum is to be used in increasing
play space, but will go for buildings and equipment.
The general tendency in playground construction has been to
get away from elaborate equipment. Playground apparatus pro-
vides recreation suitable only for the young child. Boys and girls
require actual space where under leadership and supervision they
have opportunity to engage in games and learn to co-operate among
themselves in securing active exercise and recreation.
The wisdom of using a limited sum of money largely for the
erection of buildings to cost nearly $20,000 in playgrounds which
frequently do not equal one acre in area, and for the further im-
provement of playgrounds already established and equipped, may
well be questioned, especially when a study of Table IX. will show
how inadequately public play space is meeting the needs of the
community.
Lack of Adequate Supervision of Commercial Recreation.
Although the Mayor is given the power to control commercial
recreation, no adequate machinery is provided with which to super-
vise it. The Police Department, which has general supervisory
powers, is not efficiently equipped to exercise this control. The
temperament and training for a successful policeman does not
necessarily fit a man to be an intelligent investigator of recreational
conditions. In any case the duties of the Police Department are too
general and too varied to include effective supervision of commercial
amusement places.
Opportunity for Friction.
Under the present system of administration there is continual
opportunity for friction. Friction results in lack of voluntary co-
operation between departments and in decreased administrative
efficiency.
III. SUGGESTED ADMINISTRATION.
The present administration of public recreation in inefficient.
The system is disjointed, lacks co-ordination and unity of purpose.
To do away with these defects it is suggested that the various
powers of administration be centered in one Department or Board.
This Board could be created by extending the scope of activities of
the Board of Park Commissioners. It should be known as the
RECRKATIOX SfRYHY OF CINCINNATI. 45
Park and Recreation Board and should consist of five members —
four to be appointed by the Mayor (one of whom must be a mem-
ber of the Board of Education), and "the Superintendent of Public
Schools.
As school property is not under the control of the municipal
government a Park and Recreation Board in Cincinnati, to be able
to prosecute successfully any adequate recreation program, must
be composed in a way to insure the closest co-operation of the
Board of Education.
The duties of the Park and Recreation Board should be three-
fold:
1. The acquisition and management of property for use as public
parks and playgrounds.
2. The establishment, management and supervision of all other fa-
cilities for public recreation, exclusive of public school buildings
used as social centers.
3. The supervision of commercial recreation, which shall include
the power at present vested in the Mayor of granting and revok-
ing licenses which are required by law.
Such a board, to be able to fulfill its duties, should have the
power to appoint salaried executive officers and such other assist-
ants, supervisors, inspectors, play-leaders and care-takers as may
prove necessary to efficiently carry out the three functions of the
Board.
In order to insure enough money for recreation purposes, the
present method should be amplified by a provision in the new charter
to permit the city to assess neighboring property owners for the
cost of improvement of their property by the establishment of public
playgrounds. This method is used successfully in Kansas City.
Methods of Administration in Other Cities.
The plan just set forth is not altogether a new one. In 1912
forty-seven cities in the United States had Playground or Recrea-
tion Commissions. These commissions vary greatly in scope of
functions. In some cities the Recreation Commission conducts and
supervises recreational activities, while other boards establish and
maintain them. In Columbus, Ohio, for instance, a Department of
Public Recreation was created "to study the recreational needs of
the city and to have charge and supervision under and with the
proper officers of the city of all such institutions (playgrounds,
recreation centers, baths, etc.) now or hereafter to be established."
In other cities this power is limited by the right of the boards estab-
lishing and controlling the recreational facilities, to veto plans to
use them.
To overcome this difficulty other cities so constitute their
Recreation Commissions that the co-operation of the various boards
controlling recreation facilities is to a certain extent insured. In a
recent recreation survey made in Detroit under the auspices of the
Board of Commerce, for example, it was recommended that the
revised city charter include provisions for a Recreation Commission
to consist of seven members — two citizens appointed by the Mayor.
46 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI.
and the Superintendent of Schools, 'the Park Commissioner, the
Librarian of the Public Library, the Police Commissioner and the
Commissioner of Public Work.
All of these methods have one great defect, however. The
Recreation Commission has no power to establish recreation facili-
ties and thus develop a consistent recreation program. The Park,
School and other boards are the landlords, as it were, of the Recrea-
tion Board. As it is the natural tendency of each board to seek to
secure as much of the money as possible to be appropriated by the
city for recreation, and to spend the funds at its disposal principally
for the special purpose for which it was created, the result is that
money expended for public recreation is not as 'fairly proportioned
to the city's broad recreational needs as it would be were one board
held responsible for the entire recreation program. No Recreation
Board, unless it has the power to establish parks and playgrounds
where they are needed, can carry out a comprehensive recreation
program, as a Park Board is interested primarily in the development
of a boulevard system, and in all likelihood would use its appro-
priations in a large measure for that purpose. To divide the respon-
sibility of establishing and conducting recreational facilities not only
offers opportunity for friction between various departments of the
government, but results in a less economical way of spending the
people's money and in a less comprehensive recreation program.
In Cincinnati the State law forces the establishment and super-
vision of social centers to be the function of an independent political
board, but in all other matters recreation ought to be treated as a
unit and the entire responsibility vested in one board.
SECTION D. SUGGESTIONS FOR AN ADEQUATE RECRE-
ATION PROGRAM FOR CINCINNATI.
I. GENERAL RECREATION PROGRAM FOR THE FUTURE.
A Park and Recreation Board would probably, after careful
study, formulate a plan to cover the recreational needs of Cincinnati.
It is not beyond the scope of this report, however, to point out
various policies and activities which should be included in a com-
prehensive recreation program.
A policy with regard to public outdoor recreation should include
the following provisions:
1. The School Board should hereafter not erect public school build-
ings without making ample provisions for school playgrounds.
2. School playgrounds should be kept open in each neighborhood
for the use of children from 2 to 13 years of age.
3. The Park and Recreation Board should establish playfields within
a reasonable distance of each other, especially adapted to the
needs of young people between the ages of 13 and 17 years, and
large athletic fields in different sections of the city for adults.
4. The Recreation and School Boards should jointly employ a
Playground Supervisor so as to unify methods of supervision.
5. The system of public parks and parkways as a part of a broad
recreation system should be developed to keep pace with the
R|-.( RKATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. 47
growth of the city, but not at the expense of adequate facilities
tOr active outdoor play.
Such a policy would- provide ample opportunity for public out-
door recreation for people of all ages. At present the situation with
regard to young people is well described in a teacher's report on
home conditions of the pupils. "The majority of the children have
yards in which they can play," she writes, "but they are very dirty
and dingy, and the children seem to prefer the sidewalk. There are,
however, three playgrounds in the neighborhood. These, however,
are patronized by children from eight to twelve years of age, while
both the younger and the older children seem to prefer the street.
There are girls and boys wlp are about fourteen years of age who
work part of the day only, that is, until about four o'clock. They
seem to be on the street standing around in groups."
The Recreation Boards' policy with regard to indoor recreation
should include the following provisions:
1. After-school playrooms should be established by the School Board
to continue the work of the playgrounds during the winter
months.
2. A director of Girls' Clubs and a director of Boys' Clubs should
be appointed to study the needs of the adolescent youth and
stimulate the establishment of social clubs in exery section of
the city. These clubs could meet either at social centers or
public libraries.
3. Social rooms equipped with facilities for games of various sorts
should be open nightly in the schoolhouses in congested districts
for the convenience of young girls and men.
4. Social center activities conducted by the School Board should
be along the broadest lines and should include the giving of
neighborhood dances at regular intervals.
5. Where the School Board is unable to maintain and conduct a
social center in a neighborhood lacking sufficient facilities for
recreation, the Park and Recreation Board should establish and
maintain recreation centers, as it is done in Chicago, Seattle and
other cities.
The policy of the Park and Recreation Board with regard to
the control -of commercial recreation should be along the follow-
ing lines:
1. All forms of commercial recreation should be under constant
supervision.
"2. This supervision should in no way check the free development
of commercial recreation, but should increase its recreational
value.
II. IMMEDIATE RECREATION NEEDS OF CINCINNATI.
\\V have just outlined a general recreation program. There are,
however, certain things which should be done at once to improve
our recreation system1. Throughout the report specific instances of
lack of recreational facilities and the lack of power for supervision
and control have been pointed out. They are gathered in this sec-
tion of the report into a recreation program to meet the immediate
urgent needs of Cincinnati.
48 RECREATION SURVEY OF CINCINNATI. .
With Reference to Pub-lie Play Space.
1. A playground should be established in the northern section of
the Seventh Ward or the southern section of the Tenth Ward.
2. An athletic field should be located east of Millcreek to meet the
needs of the western section of the city.
3. Until an adequate number of playgrounds are provided, certain
. streets, least used by traffic, should be shut off in the congested
sections of the city, to be used, under supervision, for play pur-
poses.
4. The present playgrounds in the congested section of the city
should be open twelve months in the year. Seventy-one cities
in the United States keep 299 centers open throughout the year.
5. The public parks should be better supervised.
With Reference to Public Indoor Rrecreation Facilities.
1. A social center for colored people should be established as near
Eighth and Mound streets as possible.
2. A social center should be opened in either the Sixth District or
Webster Schools. Neither of. these buildings are new and espe-
cially equipped for social center purposes, but the congestion of
population is so great in that locality that the need is urgent.
No private agencies provide means for recreation in that neigh-
borhood.
3. A social center should be opened at the Washburn School, where
the' density of population is 129.3 persons per acre; at the Sands
School, where the density of population is 89.3 persons per acre,
and at the Chase School in Cumminsville, where the density of
population is 83.4 persons per acre. The Guilford School, al-
though the newest building and best equipped for social center
activities, is located in a district where the density of population
is only 30.3 persons per acre. There are, moreover, two social
agencies in its immediate vicinity affording good opportunities
for recreation.
With Reference to the Control of Commercial Recreation.
1. Steps should be taken to secure the censorship of theatrical
posters.
2. Section 879 of the Codification of Ordinances should be amended
so as to make it unlawful to permit suggestive acts and speeches
in any performance or exhibition.
3. Persons who wish to conduct amusement parks ought to be re-
quired to secure a license.
4. An ordinance empowering the city to forbid steam vessels which
are not sufficiently supervised or lighted to make use of the
public docks should be passed to provide for control of recrea-
tional conditions on excursion boats.
5. A new ordinance for the control of public dance halls should be
passed, providing special machinery for the inspection of public
dances by the municipal authorities.
RE
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