Finding aid to the Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection BANC PIC 1974.029
Lori Dedeyan
The Bancroft Library
June 2017
The Bancroft Library
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-6000
bancref@library.berkeley.edu
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
The Bancroft Library
Title: Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection
Creator:
Wurster, Catherine Bauer, 1905-1964
Identifier/Call Number: BANC PIC 1974.029
Physical Description:
1.45 Linear Feet
1 carton, 1 slim document box
Date (inclusive): circa 1920-1964
Abstract: The Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection primarily contains black and white photographs related to Wurster's work
with public housing and planning. A large portion are images of housing projects undertaken in the United States by the Federal
Housing Authority, Farm Security Administration, United States Housing Authority, Tennessee Valley Authority, and defense
housing by the Public Housing Administration. Other images include public and private housing, public buildings, and housing
cooperatives in Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S.S.R. Also includes a
photographic survey of housing in San Francisco (San Francisco Real Property Survey) from 1940; images of various buildings
in American cities and some images of Pueblo housing in New Mexico; images of Catherine Bauer Wurster; photographs from William
Wilson Wurster's sabbatical tour in Japan; and images from the Museum of Modern Art's Architecture Exhibition in 1932. Predominantly
exterior views, some aerial. Also included are photographic copies of architectural drawings and plans as well as postcards.
Language of Material: Collection materials are in English.
Physical Location: Many of the Bancroft collections are stored offsite and advance notice may be required for use. For current information on
the location of these materials, please consult the library's online catalog.
Collection is open for research.
Materials in this collection may be protected by the U.S. Copyright Law (Title 17, U.S.C.). In addition, the reproduction
of some materials may be restricted by terms of University of California gift or purchase agreements, donor restrictions,
privacy and publicity rights, licensing and trademarks. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond
that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively
with the user.
All requests to reproduce, publish, quote from, or otherwise use collection materials must be submitted in writing to the
Head of Public Services, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley 94720-6000. See:
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/libraries/bancroft-library/rights-and-permissions
[Identification of item], Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection, BANC PIC 1974.029, The Bancroft Library, University
of California, Berkeley.
There are no alternate forms of this collection.
Catherine Bauer Wurster Papers, BANC MSS 74/163.
Wurster, William and Catherine Bauer Papers, 2008-15, Environmental Design Archives, University of California, Berkeley.
Transferred from the Catherine Bauer Wurster papers (BANC MSS 74/163 c).
No additions are expected.
Arranged to the folder level.
Processed by Waverly Lowell and Lisa Monhoff in 2017. Description and finding aid for photograph collection created by Lori
Dedeyan in 2017.
Considered one of the founders of American housing policy, Catherine Krouse Bauer Wurster (CBW) was born in Elizabeth, New
Jersey in 1905. Her parents were Jacob Louis Bauer, a transportation engineer and Alberta Krouse. She attended Vail-Deane
School and then Vassar College. In her junior year she transferred to the School of Architecture at Cornell University, but
returned to Vassar to graduate in 1926.
The next few years were devoted to research and writing about housing and city planning and travel abroad to study European
housing. For the next decade in the company of Mary Simkovitch, Lewis Mumford, Clarence Stein, and many others engaged in
the study of housing and city planning, she found that concern for the underprivileged, interest in the relationship between
man and his environment, and a fervor for reform in public policy was to guide her active and influential life.
During these years she served as executive secretary of the Regional Planning Association of America, of the Labor Housing
Conference, and of the Housing Committee of the American Federation of Labor, and wrote her now classic 1934 book Modern Housing.
Its synthesis of social, economic, political, technological and architectural insights, established her as an authority in
housing and a leader in New Deal housing policy. In 1936 she won the first Guggenheim Foundation award made in architecture
or housing. She participated in the preparation, promotion and passage of the U.S. Housing Act of 1937 and served as the first
Director of Research and Information for the new United States Housing Authority and as adviser to numerous other federal
and local agencies.
In January, 1940, she came to the University of California at Berkeley as Rosenberg Lecturer in the School of Social Work
and in August of that year married William Wilson Wurster, a prominent San Francisco architect. When they moved to Cambridge,
Massachusetts in 1944, C.B. Wurster became a lecturer in the Department of Regional Planning at Harvard University. She also
became Vice President of the National (Public) Housing Conference, and continued to serve as a board member or officer of
the National Committee on Housing, the Committee on the Hygiene of Housing of the American Public Health Association, the
Boston and Massachusetts Housing Associations, and the International Federation of Housing and Town Planning. During these
years, she presided over a joint committee that drafted “A Housing Program for Now and Later” for the National Association
of Housing Officials and the National (Public) Housing Conference, a significant document in the long campaign for the adoption
of the Housing Act of 1949.
In 1950 the Wurster’s returned to the west coast when William Wurster became Dean of the School of Architecture at The University
of California, Berkeley. Catherine became a lecturer and later professor, in the Department of City and Regional Planning,
a position she held until her death. During these years, she was consultant to the United Nations, travelled, wrote, and advised
on housing problems in India and other developing countries, consulted on projects related to California’s Central Valley
and Washington’s Columbia River Basin, and served as adviser to the U. S. Public Health Service, the U.S. Housing and Home
Finance Agency, and the U.S. Census Bureau. She also served in various capacities in the American Planning and Civic Association,
the Democratic Advisory Council, and was made an honorary member of the American Institute of Planners. In 1960 when President
Eisenhower appointed a Commission on National Goals, she was invited to prepare the section on the urban environment, which
appears in Goals for Americans. In 1963 she organized a major conference on “The Metropolitan Future” as a part of the U.C.’s
series on California and the Challenge of Growth. When she died in 1964, she was editing the papers of this conference, contributing
to the California Governor's Advisory Commission on Housing Problems, and serving as Associate Dean of U.C. Berkeley’s College
of Environmental Design.
Catherine Bauer (she used her maiden name for professional purposes) was a prolific writer and popular lecturer. “She accepted
honors with modesty and would turn quickly and cheerfully to her private business--discovering the facts, asking about the
policy, and urging action--always action which is the test of policy.” She commanded the respect and admiration of architects,
planners, sociologists, and economists for her ability to think sharply, clearly, and incisively, and for a far-reaching knowledge
in a wide range of fields.
Source: Finding aid to the Catherine Bauer Wurster papers, BANC MSS 74/163c,The Bancroft Library, University of California,
Berkeley.
The Catherine Bauer Wurster photograph collection primarily contains black and white photographs related to Wurster's work
with public housing and planning. A large portion are images of housing projects undertaken in the United States by the Federal
Housing Authority, Farm Security Administration, United States Housing Authority, Tennessee Valley Authority, and defense
housing by the Public Housing Administration. Other images include public and private housing, public buildings, and housing
cooperatives in Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the U.S.S.R. Also includes a
photographic survey of housing in San Francisco (San Francisco Real Property Survey) from 1940; images of various buildings
in American cities and some images of Pueblo housing in New Mexico; images of Catherine Bauer Wurster; photographs from William
Wilson Wurster's sabbatical tour in Japan; and images from the Museum of Modern Art's Architecture Exhibition in 1932. Predominantly
exterior views, some aerial. Also included are photographic copies of architectural drawings and plans as well as postcards.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Public buildings
Public housing--United States
Public housing
Real property surveys--California--San Francisco
Real property--California--San Francisco
Housing, cooperative--Europe
Architecture, domestic
City planning
Wurster, Catherine Bauer, 1905-1964
Carton 1, Folder 1
Carton 1, Folder 2
Portraits and images of Catherine Bauer Wurster circa 1930-1964
15 B&W photographs, 4 B&W negatives, and 3 color slides, including portraits, snaphots, and images of Wurster at events such
as a meeting with the Mayor of Nashville (Ben West), a conference for a Seminar on Urbanization in India held at UC Berkeley,
and a meeting with the Lake Michigan Region Planning Council, Inc.
Carton 1, Folder 3
Museum of Modern Art, Modern Architecture Exhibition 1931-1932
9 B&W photographs of architectural models, sketches, and structures, including The Healthhouse of Dr. P.M. Lovell in Los Angeles,
designed by Richard Neutra), and Project for a House on the Mesa, Denver, Colorado (1931) and R.L. Jones House in Tulsa, Oklahoma
(1931), both by Frank Lloyd Wright.
Carton 1, Folder 4
Carton 1, Folder 5
Carton 1, Folder 6
Federal Housing Authority projects circa 1934-1964
25 B&W photographs of housing projects, including:
Arizona: Matthew Henson Project (Phoenix Housing Authority)
California: Wyvernwood (Los Angeles, Witmer and Watson Architects), Baldwin Hills Village (Los Angeles, Reginald Johnson,
architect)
Pennsylvania: Jericho Manor (Abbingdon)
Maryland: Hilton Village (Baltimore), Veterans Housing Project (Kensington)
Virginia: Colonial Village (Arlington County)
Also includes Falkland Apartments (Louis Justement, architect); "owned homes" in Pittsburg, Pennsylvania and Portland, Oregon;
a "slum" in the Red Hook area of Brooklyn, New York; and North Hollywood houses insured by the F.H.A. and designed by Richard
Neutra. Plot plans for Chatham Village (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania); Interlaken Garden Apartments; Park Fairfax (Alexandria,
Virginia); and Longview (Cowlitz County, Washington).
Carton 1, Folder 7
Farm Security Administration housing developments circa 1937-1964
50 B&W photographs of Farm Security Administration housing projects. Includes sharecropper families in South East Missouri
(1938-1939); Chandler Farms project, Arizona (1938); Arizona Part- Time Farms (Maricopa County, Arizona, 1939-1940); Yuba
City Farm Workers Community (Sutter County, California, 1940); South East Missouri Project (1940); Coal Miners' shacks (Scotts
Run, West Virginia, 1938); Irwinville Farms (Georgia); Casa Grande Valley Farms (Arizona); Tulare Camp (Visalia, California);
farm family in Gee's Bend (Alabama); "Rammed earth" houses in Gardendale (Alabama, 1937); the Granger Unit of the Washington
Farm Workers Camp; Casa Grande Valley Farms (Pinal County, Arizona, 1940); dormitory structures for single defense workers.
Also includes plan for a duplex farm worker's house in Ceres, California and a community center in Granger, Washington.
Carton 1, Folder 8
United States Housing Authority projects circa 1937-1964
38 B&W photographs of United States Housing Authority projects. Includes the following:
California: Harbor Hills (Los Angeles), Ramona (Los Angeles)
Florida: Brentwood Park (Jacksonville), Edison Courts (Miami),
Georgia: Tindall heights (Macon)
Massachusetts: Old Harbor Village (Boston)
New York: Red Hook Houses (Brooklyn, New York)
Ohio: Lakeview Terrace (Cleveland)
Pennsylvania: Hanover Acres (Allentown)
Wisconsin: Parklawn (Milwaukee)
Also includes stills from USHA film, "Housing in Our Time." Also includes newspaper and magazine images of housing.
Carton 1, Folder 9
United States Housing Authority projects circa 1937-1964
44 B&W photographs of United States Housing Authority projects. Includes the following:
Maryland: Falkland (Silver Spring), Hilton Village (Baltimore), Dundalk, Northwood Apartments (Baltimore)
Massachusetts: Towne Court (Cambridge), private construction near Old Harbor Village (Boston)
New Jersey: Clement T. Branch Village (Camden)
New York: Willert Park (Buffalo), Red Hook Houses (Brooklyn), Yonkers, Willert Park (Buffalo), Queensbridge, Pioneer Homes
(Syracuse), Eastern Project (Syracuse), Lakeview (Buffalo), Mulford (Yonkers)
Pennsylvania: Skyland- Anacostia, Hill Creek (Philadelphia), Bedford Dwellings (Pittsburgh)
Virginia: Buckingham (Arlington), Larchmont (Norfolk)
Washington, D.C.: Langston, Greenacres
Also includes plans for Tyler Gardens (Washington, D.C.) and Riverside Buildings (Brooklyn, N.Y.).
Carton 1, Folder 10
Unites States Housing Authority projects circa 1937-1964
54 B&W photographs of United States Housing Authority projects. Includes the following:
Alabama: Wm. B. Paterson Courts (Montgomery)
Florida: Dixie Court (Fort Lauderdale), North Boulevard Homes (Tampa), Edison Courts (Miami), Brentwood Park (Jacksonville),
Dunbar Village project (Palm Beach), Durkeevile (Palm Beach), Liberty Square (Miami), Jordan Park (St. Petersburg), Fellwood
Homes (Savannah)
Georgia: Pearces Alley (Augusta), Sunset Homes (Augusta)
Kentucky: East End (Louisville)
Louisiana: LaFitte Avenue Housing Project (New Orleans)
North Carolina: Country Club Apartments(Greensboro)
South Carolina: Gonzales Gardens (Columbia), Cromwell Alley (site of Robert Mills Manor, Charleston), Robert Mills Manor (Charleston),
Meeting Street Manor and Cooper River Court (Charleston)
Texas: Santa Rita (Austin), Rosewood (Austin)
Also includes private developments in Memphis, Tennessee; Univeristy Terrace (unknown location)
Carton 1, Folder 11
United States Housing Authority projects circa 1937-1964
57 B&W photographs of United States Housing Authority projects. Includes the following:
California: Sunnydale, Potrero, Holly Courts, and Holly Park Low Rent Housing Projects (San Francisco), Carmelitos (Long Beach,
Los Angeles), Peralta Villa (Oakland), Harbor Hills (Los Angeles), Gardena Project (Gardena)
Hawaii: Kamehameha Homes (Honolulu)
Illinois: Park Forest (Cook County), Trumbull Park Homes (Chicago), Jane Addams Houses (Chicago)
Indiana: Major Bowman Terrace (Vincennes), Taylor Street (Fort Wayne)
Minnesota: Lakeland Manor (St. Paul)
Montana: Parkdale (Great Falls)
New Jersey: Westfield Acres (Camden)
Ohio: Poindexter Village (Columbus), Olentangy Village (Columbus), Lakeview Terrace (Cleveland), Cedar- Central Apartments
(Cleveland), Chas F. Weiler Homes (Toledo)
Tennessee: Dixie Homes (Memphis)
Washington: Edgewater Park (Seattle), Telocaset Heights (Vancouver)
Wisconsin: Parklawn (Milwaukee)
Carton 1, Folder 12
Unites States Housing Authority and National Capital Housing Authority projects circa 1937-1964
25 B&W photographs and 2 negatives of USHA and NCHA projects, including:
National Capital Housing Authority: James Creek Dwellings, Preston E. Wire Development, Highland Dwellings, Fort Du Pont,
and other projects
California: Peralta Villa (Oakland)
New Jersey: Westfield Acres (Camden)
New York: Clasen Point (NYC), Fort Greene Houses (Brooklyn)
Pennsylvania: Carl Mackley Houses (Philadelphia)
Also includes housing specifications, reprints of plans, and publicity material
Carton 1, Folder 13
Tennessee Valley Authority, regional planning circa 1940
38 B&W photographs of Tennessee Valley Authority projects and public structures. Includes Norris Dam, Norris Powerhouse, Wheeler
Control Building, Pickwick Landing Dam Power Plant, Norris- Knoxville Freeway bridge, Norris stone quarry, Pickwick Park,
Norris dam construction quarry, Norris Park, Guntersville Dam in Alabama, and Wheeler Dam campground in Alabama. Also includes
small blueprints for houses owned by Tennessee Land Company and used by American Steel and Wire Company, Fairfield, Alabama.
Carton 1, Folder 14
Public Housing Administration, Defense Housing 1941-1944
20 B&W photographs and one B&W transparency of Defense Housing projects. Includes Happy Homes (Southeast Los Angeles, Ed Krist
Company); Federal Works Agency housing in Vallejo, CA; McLaughlin Heights (Vancouver, WA); Groton, CT; Chicopee, MA; Sunnyvale,
CA; Newton D. Baker Village (Columbus, GA); Kearney Mesa Housing (San Diego,CA); Indian Head, MD; Radford, VA; and other projects
of the California Defense Housing Project. Also includes neighborhood plans.
Carton 1, Folder 15
Carton 1, Folder 16
Housing, England 1930s-1940s
76 B&W photographs,2 B&W negatives, and 1 color slide of public housing and other structures in England. Includes Sudbury
Town Station, Chiswick Park Station, Oaklands Estate, White City Estate (L.C.C.- London County Council), Nottingham Estate,
Browning Estate (London), houses built by Orlit Ltd., Bourneville Village Trust, rural public housing in Grantchester, council
houses, Loughborough Corporation houses, Tabard Gardens Estate, Welwyn, Horfield Estate (Bristol), King's Head Estate (Hackney),
and a series of photographs chronicling the struggle of the Stevenage Residents Protection Association against the development
of a new town at Stevenage, proposed by Mr. Lewis Silkin, M.P. the Minister of Town and Country Planning and undertaken by
Stevenage Development Corporation.' Also includes maps, plans, and magazine clippings about housing developments in Manchester,
Leeds, and Liverpool.
Carton 1, Folder 17
Carton 1, Folder 18
Housing, France 1920s-1940s
31 B&W photographs and 1 B&W negative of housing in France. Includes reconstruction projects in Vosges, Orleans, Maubeuges;
Maisons- Alfort (Seine, Paris); La Cite- Jardins de Chatenay-Malabry (Paris); Les Maisons préfabriquées Fillod; Cite Jardin
Joseph Depinay, les Lilas (Seine); Hotel Particulier, Rue Denfert- Rochereau (Le Corbusier); De Beistegui Penthouse (Le Corbusier);
Hotel de Mons (Andre Lurcat); Hotels Particuliers by Andre Lurcat. Also includes magazine articles about French housing and
maps, elevation plans, and aerial views for Cites Jardines Du Departement de la Seine, Cite de Tergnier, and a B&W postcard
of Cite du Plessis-Robinson (Seine).
Carton 1, Folder 19
Housing, Germany circa 1929-1949
50 B&W photographs and 11 B&W postcards of housing and other structures in Germany. Includes public housing in Stuttgart,
Hamburg, Dresden, Leipzig, Potsdam, Frankfurt, Nuremberg, and Berlin; architectural concept sketches by Bruder Rasch; Lange
House in Krefeld, Germany (Mies Van Der Rohe); Romerstadt Housing Development (Frankfort-on-Main); public buildings in Frankfurt
designed by Ernst May. Also includes two images of Villa Tugendhat in Brno (then Czechoslovakia), designed by German architect
Mies van der Rohe.
Carton 1, Folder 20
box 1, Folder 1
Housing, Holland 1930s-1940s
53 B&W photographs. 1 B&W negative, and 5 B&W postcards of housing and other structures in Holland. Includes municipal developments,
cooperatives, slums, apartments, and farm housing in Rotterdam, The Hague, and Amsterdam; Amstel Station; model towns in Wieringermeer
that were flooded during the occupation of WWII; a village in Walcheren destroyed by wartime flooding; Kief Hoek Housing Development
in Rotterdam. Also includes maps, renderings, plans, and magazine clippings about housing in Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
Carton 1, Folder 21
Carton 1, Folder 22
Housing, Norway 1930s-1940s
5 B&W photographs and 5 B&W postcards of housing and structures in Oslo, Norway. Includes the town hall, Lutheran Bible School,
house of the ship-owners, theatre, and housing by Oslo Bolig- og Sparelag (OBOS), including Galgeberg, Mapidalsveien, Frydenberg,
Balkeby, and Thorshang cooperative apartments.
Carton 1, Folder 23
Housing, Sweden circa 1930s-1940s
104 B&W photographs, 2 B&W negatives, and 6 B&W postcards of housing and other public structures in Sweden. Includes municipal
housing and housing created by cooperative unions and building societies in Stockholm, Goteborg, Kristineberg, and Inverness;
housing for workers in Gustavsberg porcelain factory. In Stockholm- Elfvinggarden, Akterspeglen. Includes buildings created
by the Union Building Producers for the Swedish Cooperative Wholesale Society, and by the cooperative housing association
HSB (Hyresgästernas sparkasse). Also includes plans and diagrams.
Carton 1, Folder 24
Carton 1, Folder 25
Housing, U.S.S.R. circa 1939-1949
65 B&W photographs, 39 B&W postcards, 1 color postcard of municipal housing, worker housing, prefabricated structures, public
landmarks and structures, and residents in Leningrad, Moscow, and Sochi. Includes postcards of buildings and pavillions for
the Society Agricultural Show, 1939.
Carton 1, Folder 26
Housing, European balconies circa 1930s-1940s
Carton 1, Folder 27
Housing, New Mexico circa 1930s-1940s
9 B&W photographs of housing in New Mexico. One image of Phillip House in Taos, one image of car encampment near Roosevelt
Field, one of Chimayo, and six images of homes of Pueblo people and Ancestral Puebloan structures, including Pueblo of Laguna,
Pueblo of Jemez, Cliff Palace in Mesa Verde, and Chetro Ketl. Also includes one print reproduction of an oil panting of the
restoraction of Chetro Ketl.
Carton 1, Folder 28
Housing, miscellaneous 1920s-1940s
11 B&W photographs, plans, and clippings of mostly unidentified buildings. Identifiable buildings include Land Ventilation
Building, New York City; storefront for H.A. Cassebeer; Peoples Savings Bank in Cedar Rapids, Iowa; plans for the Shoreham
in Washington, D.C.; illustration of Charles A. Pillsbury residence, Minneapolis.
Carton 1, Folder 29
Housing, miscellaneous circa 1930s-1940s
63 B&W negatives 70 B&W photographs of various locations. Includes a newly built town called George in Washington state,
with shots of nearby town Othello and other Washington locations; Arpaho Apartments in San Mateo, California. Also includes
clippings and a conceptual city plan.
Carton 1, Folder 30
Carton 1, Folder 31
Housing, miscellaneous circa 1930s-1940s
Carton 1, Folder 32
Carton 1, Folder 33
San Francisco Real Property Survey 1940
31 B&W photographs, separated into the following categories.
Modern: modern single and two-family homes; modern conversions from single to double family homes; conversion of basement
into modern dwelling unit; modern apartment house; modern homes built with business units.
Structures typical of San Francisco: single family house, double family house, three family three decker; six family double
three decker; mixture of modern apartment house with old type dwellings.
Comparative views showing how modern homes "dwarf" outmoded and sub-standard dwellings, which exist along side of them and
in the rear.
Panoramic view showing hillside shacks intermingled with modern homes.
Old style apartment houses.
Carton 1, Folder 34
San Francisco Real Property Survey 1940
36 B&W photographs, separated into the following categories.
Multi-family strctures, physically converted into small rooming and apartment houses.
Individual structures converted into dwelling units.
Views showing how industry is crowding out the residential utility of a locality.
"Back alley" structures unfit for habitation (but inhabited).
box 1, Folder 2
San Francisco Real Property Survey 1940
35 B&W photographs, separated into the following categories.
Section of Hunter's Point in which entire streets contain structures unfit for use.
A number of abandoned shacks, located along the bay-shore line, unfit for habitation.
Structures over fifty years old, [upon which] no improvements or rennovations have been made during the entire period of their
existence.