Better Homes in America Movement

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In 1922 United States of America embraced a nationwide campaign of home ownership, modernization, and beautification because of a critical shortage of homes in the years right after World War I – America’s “Great War”. This was the Better Homes Movement. The Better Homes Movement was initiated in 1922 in the pages of the Butterick Publishing Company's household magazine, The Delineator^[1]. The campaign celebrated home ownership, home maintenance and improvement, and home decoration as means of motivating responsible consumer behavior that also expanded the market for consumer products. In cities and towns across the country, annual campaigns --or "better homes demonstration weeks"— encouraged citizens to own, build, remodel, and improve their homes and distributed advice on creating home furnishings and decorations.

President Warren G. Harding and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover kicked-off the first Better Homes Week in October 1922 for the National Better Homes Advisory Council. The campaign centered around national promotion of the 100th anniversary of song-writer John Howard Payne’s famous song Home! Sweet Home!.

To commemorate the Better Homes Movement, the federal government built a replica of Payne’s colonial Long Island, New York home on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C. Over 1,000,000 people visited the Payne House on the Capitol lawn and newspapers across America promoted other small Colonial Revival cottages like the 1923 Roy and Dora Bennett Home in San Diego at the National Better Homes Demonstration of “Home Sweet Home.”

San Diego Union Great Western Building Company, September 5,1920.

Without this national support, many families, including former soldiers returning from battle in war-torn Europe, would not have been able to afford a new home so soon after World War I, when shortages of building materials had virtually halted new home construction across America. This was America’s “Housing Problem.” Because of the patriotic and national sentiment behind these years so soon after WWI, many of the homes built exhibited various Colonial Revival architectural elements. Newspapers often published designs of modest homes that were affordable and attractive to encourage new home construction under the Better Homes program.

Oakland Tribune Builder's Page, August 9, 1922.

The Guidebook for Better Homes Campaigns in Rural Communities and Small Towns^[2] shows how the campaign sought to communicate its ideas. School Cottages for Training in Home-making^[3] shows how high-school courses incorporated the ideas of the campaign. The Better Homes Movement received broad support from both government and industry. President Calvin Coolidge served as honorary chairman of the Advisory Council of Better Homes in America, and Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover, a prime mover in that organization's formation, was president of its board of directors. The movement sought to educate consumers, but it also served the interests of powerful groups and organizations. The connection between the campaign's educational and commercial concerns is illustrated by Herbert Hoover's essay "The Home as an Investment," in the Better Homes in America Plan Book for Demonstration Week, October 9 to 14, 1922^[4]. See also: "Homemaker-Consumer Life in Washington, D.C., 1922-23"^[5] from the Anna Kelton Wiley Papers.