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58 chapters
ROADTOWN
ROADTOWN
ROADTOWN BY EDGAR CHAMBLESS NEW YORK ROADTOWN PRESS 150 NASSAU STREET All rights reserved Copyright , 1910 BY EDGAR CHAMBLESS This book is dedicated to J. Pierpont Morgan, a straight player of a crooked game, who, it is said, played his usual role in the Wall Street manipulations of the Central Railroad of Georgia securities, which adroitly and legally absorbed the small savings and happiness of many unsophisticated investors—an action which, in my case at least, proved to be a blessing in disgu
48 minute read
FOREWORD
FOREWORD
Nineveh, Babylon, Rome, London, New York,—all cities from the twilight of the past to the high noon of the present have been constructed on one plan, which is no plan at all. Like Topsy, they jest growed, with no further aims in view than to huddle together for the sake of companionship and self-protection against enemies. A map of the haphazard streets straying crookedly through them looked like cracks in an earthenware dish. The siege-walls which until recently surrounded them emphasized the p
3 minute read
THE MAN CHAMBLESS
THE MAN CHAMBLESS
BY JOHN HAYNES HOLMES It was about two years ago that a tall, gaunt, pale young man entered my church study and said, in quite confident terms—“I want a long talk with you, sir, for I’ve got something that I believe will interest you.” Being not wholly unused to the ways of agents, promoters, inventors and various kinds of visionaries, I felt somewhat impatient at this unhesitating demand for a liberal share of my time; but I told my visitor, as pleasantly as possible, to be seated and to descri
5 minute read
How I Came to Invent Roadtown.
How I Came to Invent Roadtown.
In my business as a dealer in patents I became acquainted with all manner of inventions and inventors. I found that most inventions were worthless, that a very few were practical and were promoted and utilized in the usual fashion. Another group I found to be practical and workable in themselves, but not available for use because their adoption would throw into the junk heap millions of dollars worth of old machines, and hence they were bought up and “shelved” by the vested interests. And still
3 minute read
Transportation in Nature.
Transportation in Nature.
The game of life in wild nature is but the getting of food and water to the consuming plant or animal, or getting the more adaptable animal to the food or water or some warm spot, or the society of his fellows. So the life of man, whether it be the family with the single house or the city with its many houses, shows a similar relation—things needed by the inhabitants, things taken from the place where they are and to a place where we want them—that is transportation. Start out in the morning, nu
3 minute read
Our Disjointed Civilization.
Our Disjointed Civilization.
Our factories and our farms—the places of production—our houses and cities—places of consumption, and our railroad trucks, delivery wagons and dumb-waiters, means of transportation, have been developed by separate minds—they work together—clumsily—wastefully. Civilization is a black cabinet of plates and doughnuts, arms and legs, and consuming mouths dancing around in an uncoördinated fashion, occasionally getting together and serving each other, but more often missing the mark—two hands going t
4 minute read
Transportation Determines the Form of Cities.
Transportation Determines the Form of Cities.
As time and the expense of transportation rather than distance were the elements that governed the distance from the heart of the city that could be used for workers’ homes, the utilization of fixed lines of traffic resulted in the city building out along main streets, trolleys and railroads. Along main lines of traffic, as between two important cities, the population began to group itself into lines. This is the state of the distribution of population to be found in the world to-day. But the pr
2 minute read
Building in One Dimension.
Building in One Dimension.
The Roadtown is a scheme to organize production, transportation and consumption into one systematic plan. In an age of pipes and wires, and high speed railways such a plan necessitates the building in one dimension instead of three—the line distribution of population instead of the pyramid style of construction. The rail-pipe-and-wire civilization and the increase in the speed of transportation is certain to result in the line distribution of population because of the almost unbelievable economy
2 minute read
A Line of City Through the Country.
A Line of City Through the Country.
The Roadtown will start at the end of the present subways or other rapid transportation systems of present cities or tap these lines far enough out to get comparatively cheap land and build out in the direction of other cities, passing near enough to the smaller cities, towns and villages to summarily attract much of their renting population. This movement will surely mark the “beginning of the end” of such wasteful loafing centers for the few, and the stagnant pools of wasted energy for the man
1 minute read
To be Built of Cement.
To be Built of Cement.
The Roadtown will be built of cement, fire proof and vermin proof. Modern so-called fire proof buildings are frequently destroyed by fire. This is because they contain combustible material. If material in a large building gets on fire and through stairways and air shafts sets fire to other combustibles, the whole building is heated to the ignition point. The horizontal Roadtown house, only two stories high, cannot be destroyed in this fashion. Even if a Roadtown were built of Carolina pine, it w
1 minute read
The Railroad will be Noiseless.
The Railroad will be Noiseless.
The essential of the Roadtown being the combination of transportation and house construction, the Roadtown if invented in any age before the present one would have been worthless. The horse-pulled vehicle or the steam or gasoline engine would be a nuisance in any part of a building used for a dwelling. Electrical transportation, on the other hand, is a perfectly refined method of locomotion and well suited for indoor uses. Of the various systems of transportation devised and now available, I bel
2 minute read
Speed Possibilities.
Speed Possibilities.
I hesitate to make any predictions as to the speed attainable in the Boyes Monorail. As is generally known, the world’s speed records are now held by automobiles, not railway trains. The record to date is about one hundred and thirty-two miles an hour made by Oldfield, at Ormond Beach, Florida. It is the traction grip in the rubber tired wheel that makes this speed possible. The Boyes car will have this grip and instead of sand to run on will have a rail from which it will have to jump thirty in
6 minute read
The Street Upon the Roof.
The Street Upon the Roof.
Private stairs from each home will lead down to the monorail platform and up to the roof. In the center of the roof will be a promenade which will be covered, and in the winter enclosed with glass panels and steam heated. On the outer edges of the roof will be a path for bicyclists and skaters, who will use rubber tired roller skates. The monorail, which is the business transportation system of Roadtown, will be placed out of sight and run at high speed, but the roof promenade will be the “stree
8 minute read
Water.
Water.
The water systems of great cities are enormously expensive, as it is usually necessary to build great conduits dozens and even as much as one hundred and fifty miles long. The trouble with such cities is that a very large population must be supplied with water from a very limited area. The Roadtown with a population of about 1,000 to the mile will be able to get its water supply from suitable sources all along the way. The length of line to be supplied from one public station will not be great,
33 minute read
Sewerage.
Sewerage.
The sewage system of the Roadtown will, like the water system, be built in comparatively small units, and will require none of the large and expensive sewers seen in city systems. Wherever the Roadtown crosses a natural valley in the land the sewage can be led off to a reasonable distance from the house line in pipes and used in irrigating non-food crops. The income to be derived from the use of this sewage for fertilization and irrigation will be a considerable source of profit and wholly witho
35 minute read
Heating.
Heating.
The Roadtown heating system will be of hot water circulated by pumps. The heating plants will be located every two or three miles, which, according to the engineers’ figures will be more economical than to have them either at greater or less distance. The temperature will be regulated to suit each and every tenant by the use of the thermostat with a push button regulator in each room of every apartment. This simple, but marvelously useful device, is now in general use in thousands of first class
24 minute read
Refrigeration.
Refrigeration.
The refrigerating system of Roadtown which will be required for food and drinking water purposes could be turned into the radiators and a circulation of cooled water or brine pumped through the houses. I do not say that such house cooling will be established, for the Roadtown house, through which the breeze will have a full sweep, and in which the electrical fans will be plentiful, will have little need for a system of house cooling, but if the people in hot countries wish it and care to pay for
27 minute read
Drinking Water.
Drinking Water.
The next utility for the Roadtown house will be that of pure, cool distilled water for drinking purposes, cooled only to a healthful temperature. Because of the small expense for piping, this separation of the system of drinking water from that used for bathing and for spraying the lawn will mean that no method known to science for purifying the former need be spared. In present city life the peddling of so-called “spring water” in bottles, is a farcical affair, which would have about as much ch
47 minute read
Bath and Toilet.
Bath and Toilet.
It goes without saying that every home in Roadtown will be provided with good bath and toilet facilities. Because of the fact that the house is of cement and has no lath and plaster ceiling to get soaked, shower baths will probably be much in vogue in Roadtown. If at any time it proves desirable to give up the space for the purpose there can be shower baths installed in every sleeping-room at a cost of only a few dollars for each. The soap for bath and wash basin will probably be liquid, and whi
45 minute read
Vacuum.
Vacuum.
During the last few years a great vacuum sweeper craze has swept the country. We are literally deluged with every type of apparatus, from systems for installation in hotels and office buildings, or wagon outfits that chase about the street and run a hose into the parlor window, to the little pop gun arrangement that is worked by hand. The ease of adaptability of the best features of vacuum cleaning systems to Roadtown is too apparent to need comment further than to say that a small pipe, with an
42 minute read
Electric Power.
Electric Power.
Electricity will be used for fans, vibrators for massage, shoeshining, and other household devices that may demand it as time rolls on. Besides this there will be an industrial use for power which I will discuss in a later chapter. [A] [A] Until some cheaper source of power is developed electric heating will remain an expensive luxury....
17 minute read
Telephones.
Telephones.
Electric buttons and signals and bells can be used for the “top” and “bottom” doors of the house, signaling to central stations when preferable to the telephone. The telephone, the cheapest of the pipe and wire group of civilizing agents, common though it is, has not yet come into universal use. In New York City alone there are over three million people who have no telephones and in the United States there are 60,000,000 deprived of that great necessity. In Roadtown the cost of installing teleph
49 minute read
Dictograph.
Dictograph.
At the present date there is in practical operation a loud speaking telephone called the dictograph. If this modern invention is installed in the Roadtown home, it will be possible by simply pressing a button to talk over the telephone while sitting in a chair or lying in bed. This instrument has been most successfully utilized in conveying music, which, if received through a horn can scarcely be told from the first-hand product. This wonderful invention, as many other similar ones that now exis
56 minute read
Telegraphone.
Telegraphone.
The telegraphone, or recording telephone, is also a most wonderful invention. The telegraphone records any sound sent over a telephone by means of magnetic changes in a disc or wire. These steel disc records or wire records can then be reproduced any number of times with no loss of distinctness. As the dictograph may be used to give a sermon, lecture or piece of music to any number of people at one time, so the telegraphone may be used to record and repeat it any number of times. I could add oth
1 minute read
Woman’s Work not Specialized.
Woman’s Work not Specialized.
Industrial progress has not yet applied to this work of women the specialization and labor saving machinery that has sent forward the general work of the world at such a rapid pace. Another way of expressing the same idea is to say that in at least nine-tenths of the households, the woman is the household servant. If the work be assigned to outsiders, then the privacy of the family circle is broken up and the dearest ties of earth are disturbed by intruders. At present there are two ways out of
1 minute read
No Laundry Work at Home.
No Laundry Work at Home.
The first function, washing and ironing, has long since been made an industrial function by the rich everywhere, and also by the middle class in our cities. Farmers’ wives and the wives of the city laborers still do home laundrying. In the Roadtown, with its perfect system of transportation, the trouble of sending soiled clothes to the coöperative laundry will be very simple as compared with the present wasteful method of city collection of laundry. The service will indeed be so cheap that I fan
1 minute read
Dusting and Sweeping.
Dusting and Sweeping.
Dusting and sweeping must be done at home, we cannot send the house out, but we can pipe the house for suction sweeping and discard forever the broom, clothes brush and that arch nuisance, the feather duster, which is used to chase the dust from room to room without getting rid of it. Scrubbing and mopping will be greatly simplified by the cement construction and the convenience of water and sewage. These periodic tasks will be grouped into trades, so that they can, when desirable, be given over
27 minute read
Making Beds by Machinery.
Making Beds by Machinery.
The care of the beds is the next item on our list. The Roadtown sleeping-room will in the daytime have the appearance of a sitting-room or library. One essential piece of furniture will be a couch or divan with good springs upholstered with fire proof material. Plush, leather and linen divan and chair covers will be used alternately to suit the seasons and varying requirements. The divan forms the foundation of the bed. The bedding including a light pad or mattress will be made about a foot long
1 minute read
Coöperative Cooking Practical.
Coöperative Cooking Practical.
Coöperative cooking, in spite of the first natural antipathy, has gained considerable ground in city life. We find it in two forms, the dining-out habit and the delicatessen habit. The first is expensive of time and money, and destroys the most delightful hours of home life. The second is likewise expensive and results in a diet consisting chiefly of bread, cheese, cold meat and pickles. The weakness in both systems is in the matter of imperfect transportation. In the first case the people must
2 minute read
The End of Household Drudgery.
The End of Household Drudgery.
In such an environment with the baby cared for by experts in the nursery or kindergarten only a thousand feet away, the mother will have time to operate an electric sewing, knitting, or one of many other automatic and noiseless machines, work in the garden, read, visit, or attend the theater, lecture hall or church. Indeed the Roadtown woman will be free to do anything and everything she chooses except home drudgery. The Roadtown idea will at first produce a long low wail from the thousands of m
3 minute read
CHAPTER VII THE SERVANT PROBLEM IN ROADTOWN
CHAPTER VII THE SERVANT PROBLEM IN ROADTOWN
T HERE will be no servant problem in Roadtown, as there will be no need for servants. M ARKET gardens near our cities are worth several hundreds of dollars per acre. But there are millions of acres of land more fertile than a Brooklyn market garden that cannot be used because there is no way to get fertilizer to it or products away. Transportation is more important to land values than fertility. A modern city of a hundred thousand inhabitants is about six miles in diameter, within “an air line”
2 minute read
Sufficient Land to Support Population.
Sufficient Land to Support Population.
In the first place, the locations of Roadtown will be through districts where there is little loss through uncultivatable soil. With twenty-one foot houses, there would be almost two and one-half acres per family for each mile one goes back from the Roadtown line. Thus within a mile (counting both sides) of the house line will be five acres per family. But in no section of the Roadtown will all the families be engaged in agriculture. In typically agricultural sections of the country to-day about
5 minute read
Elimination of the Middleman.
Elimination of the Middleman.
The markets of Roadtown can hardly be compared to present conditions at all. Where the farmers of to-day go to the railroad station with their produce, Roadtown farmers will leave theirs in the warehouse of the food department. The 25 to 75 per cent of the price that now melts away between the producer and consumer will of necessity be divided between the producer and the consumer. The Roadtown, either through its central coöperation or in the form of individual citizens will be a great consumin
46 minute read
Coöperative Ownership of Farm Tools.
Coöperative Ownership of Farm Tools.
Well managed coöperation will also find another field in Roadtown agriculture in the form of coöperatively owned tools. I fully believe in the electric plow, for instance; an invention which the writer worked out some years ago in the form of a flexible cable which would unwind from a cylinder on the plow as the plow moves out from the electric plug, and will rewind as it returns. Such a device as I propose is entirely practicable and has simply failed to be developed because of lack of cheap el
2 minute read
Wage-slavery Doomed.
Wage-slavery Doomed.
The ideal—and as I believe—an attainable ideal in a large number of Roadtown manufacturing industries is coöperation in the use of land, machines, power supply and transportation of products, and individualism in the actual operation of the machines and working the land. This will forever solve the labor question by abolishing the wage-system. Let us look at the details as they will be worked out in the Roadtown. The first essential in such a system of coöperative individual producers is power.
1 minute read
A Work Room in Every Home.
A Work Room in Every Home.
Every room in Roadtown will be wired for light and power, but the general building plan will presume that all regular industrial operations are to be conducted in a room on the lower floor of the house which will be equipped with power sockets and bolt plates in the floor and a non-vibrating foundation installed for machines. This room will be located where it will have ready access to the transportation lines, probably by a trap through the floor through which a case of goods can be dropped to
4 minute read
A New Type of Factory.
A New Type of Factory.
I believe there will develop in Roadtown a form of factory that is intermediate between the large privately owned factory as it exists to-day and the individual work room of Roadtown. I refer to the small coöperative factory, organized by a band of workers whose separate operations are needed to complete a single article. For illustration, suppose a group of employés of a shoe factory are dissatisfied. Instead of going on a strike they would organize a coöperative Roadtown Association and move i
1 minute read
A Special Message to Women.
A Special Message to Women.
The Roadtown has a message not only for men, but for women, and most especially for young unmarried women who are looking forward to the time when they can fulfill their highest mission on earth, that of establishing a home and raising a family. You need not put off the wedding any longer than the time when you can pay a couple of months’ rent on a Roadtown home, a deposit on a machine, enough to buy raw material to keep you and the machine busy for a couple of weeks and enough seed to plant the
2 minute read
The End of Monotonous Labor.
The End of Monotonous Labor.
Thus far we have discussed agriculture and manufacturing as industries to be engaged in by different sets of workers. In practice, I believe they will be bountifully intermingled. A man may work at a shoe stitcher for three hours, turn off the power and go out and hoe potatoes. Likewise his wife may run the same machine, or a lace machine for a while, and for a change of occupation operate the electric hoe (something on the order of a dentist’s drill, only much larger) in the vegetable or flower
1 minute read
A Mecca for the Individualist.
A Mecca for the Individualist.
The Roadtown corporation will stand ready to sell the product of the individuals or that of the coöperative producers, but it will not prohibit them from selling individually if they so desire. If, for illustration, a man should wish to complete the making of a glove, though he accomplished but one-fifth of the combined work of four men, yet if this man prefers to take less pay or work longer hours in order to have the satisfaction of working for himself and seeing one piece of work completely t
1 minute read
The Roadtown Department Store.
The Roadtown Department Store.
The Roadtown will supply the wants of the people through coöperative stores. This does not mean that Roadtowners will be prohibited from buying outside of Roadtown or from selling his own product inside or outside of Roadtown, but it does mean that the general game of private merchandising will in Roadtown be a coöperative function and that the wasteful multiplication of the small shops will be eliminated. The various departments of the Roadtown department stores will not all be in one place, bu
4 minute read
Roadtown Athletics.
Roadtown Athletics.
The Roadtown community, because of the spirit of coöperation and mutuality which will pervade all phases of life, will extend into mature years the institutional patriotism which forms such a large part of modern school and college life. Under such conditions we may expect to see developed a grand series of meets in all manner of competitive arts and sports. The winners of the local meets or exhibitions will again compete at the grand athletic and art centers. The Roadtown will bring the opportu
50 minute read
Education for Old as Well as Young.
Education for Old as Well as Young.
Roadtown education will apply to all ages of both sexes. The whole living scheme of Roadtown will be a vast school. The modern school, a place where we send our children to be herded in immense droves under the care of girls who use the teaching profession as a makeshift until an opportunity of marriage arrives, is far from perfection as a means of child development. The disciplinarian system of education which crushes out individuality and molds all children in the industrial-political virtue o
1 minute read
Eyes to be Used Less and Ears More.
Eyes to be Used Less and Ears More.
Excessive reading is hard on the eyes and it lacks much of the efficiency that auditory methods have of conveying ideas. Our education has been entirely too much from the printed page and too little from the use of the ear. The Roadtown dictograph and telegraphone will change all this. The child who has not yet learned the letters can be taught to speak German and told stories of nature and history. And in all this education the parent will learn along with the child and become fascinated by suc
2 minute read
Mothers for Public School Teachers.
Mothers for Public School Teachers.
To these instructors the children will go at hours as arranged for. One woman will take little tots into her home to amuse and care for them while their mothers are away or at work. Another will instruct the children in mathematics. The man skilled in botany will instruct groups of children in his garden, and the chemist and mineralogist in their laboratories. Instead of grade schools we will have child universities; instead of college degrees there will be citizenship examinations, with rewards
1 minute read
Lowest Death Rate in History.
Lowest Death Rate in History.
The Roadtown death rate will be the lowest in the history of the world. Roadtown will give the freedom to choose from the work and play of city and country, the exercise and rest, which is necessary to the development of a good physique. The Roadtowner will eat pure food, drink pure water, breathe pure air. His bedding and clothes will be aired and when necessary fumigated. His laundry will be disinfected. His house will be made germ proof. The result will be that consumption and typhoid and pne
3 minute read
A Home in the Truest Sense.
A Home in the Truest Sense.
The only further sense that attaches to the idea of home is as a protection from the poverty of old age. A plan whereby the Roadtown corporation will give permanent rent to a person who has paid a sufficient sum into the corporation treasury may be developed co-operatively by the tenants. But a place to live in is only half insurance against poverty of old age, and we can hardly doubt that a community trained in coöperation, as the Roadtown community will be trained, will not only ultimately ins
4 minute read
Home Rule for Roadtowners.
Home Rule for Roadtowners.
The Roadtown management will have to grow and develop starting perhaps with one-half mile section and adopt such rules as are necessary to the protection and comfort of the tenants. They will be consulted about whatever concerns them directly and thus gradually evolve into a plan of self-government. When I say self-government I mean as regards the things that under our present system they haven’t a word to say. They go to the polls occasionally and vote for somebody but can seldom trace any bene
2 minute read
Detached Villas Practical but Undesirable.
Detached Villas Practical but Undesirable.
In my earlier work of planning on Roadtown I thought it would be necessary to cater to the wishes of the well-to-do by discontinuing the house line in some sections and breaking it up into detached villas. By carrying the monorails and all pipes and wires in a trench from villa to villa the full benefit of the co-operative functions could be attained, but of course with the additional expense of the extra land, extra length of the trench and its contents, the extra wall and the loss of the roof
2 minute read
Builders of Roadtown Take Minimum Risk.
Builders of Roadtown Take Minimum Risk.
The wonderful economies of the Roadtown construction, such as cheap building material, principally rock and sand from the farm, steam shovel excavation instead of hand shovel, work train instead of cart hauling and poured cement construction instead of hand labor, the economies of open piping and wiring, and the valuable patents that are being donated because of the humanitarian bases of promotion, will give a better building for the money than can possibly be made under present conditions anywh
1 minute read
The Cost of the First Mile of Roadtown.
The Cost of the First Mile of Roadtown.
With a view of answering this question I submit the following letters and figures from Frank L. Sutton, a consulting engineer of 80 Broadway, New York City. These figures are based upon the cost of the first mile of Roadtown. These figures show that it will not be necessary to build a long section of the Roadtown before it can underbid the rental of the isolated house or city apartment and thus secure population and begin business. It goes without saying that as the length of the Roadtown increa
3 minute read
Economy Increases with Length.
Economy Increases with Length.
The Roadtown becomes more efficient as it grows in length, but the argument that it cannot be started because it will be too tremendous an investment to build a house a hundred miles long is wholly without meaning, for a Roadtown of a hundred apartments would show an advantage over a box style apartment house of the same room capacity and this efficiency would increase with every added apartment. The first Roadtown bonds will be floated for a mile or half mile unit and will require funds well wi
2 minute read
A Real Remedy for Congestion.
A Real Remedy for Congestion.
But with the development of the Roadtown a new factor enters this fight against congestion. The suburbanite must depend upon the city for his livelihood, the Roadtowner need not. The result will be that the Roadtown as soon as built will begin to take people away from the city to work as well as away to sleep, and this means a real relief of city congestion, not simply the frantic piling up of humanity twice each day at the gates of the city. You might ask, what will be the ultimate place of the
3 minute read
Shall we Miss Them?
Shall we Miss Them?
The Roadtown is remarkable for the new things that it will add to civilization, but it is even more remarkable for the things that will be conspicuous for their absence. In the Roadtown there will be no streets, no street cars and no “subway air”; no kitchens, no coal bins, no back yards or back alleys full of crime and tin cans; no brooms, no feather dusters, no wash day; no clothes line, no beating the carpet or shaking the rug out the window; there will be no clothes brushes, no pressing clot
2 minute read
The Roadtown Religion.
The Roadtown Religion.
A tremendous step toward the perfection of civilization will be made when the world recognizes the two following principles: (1) That cities should be built in long continuous lines. (2) That housing, as a framework , and scientific transportation, as a compact mechanism to fit therein, should be developed as a single enterprise. The Roadtown will tend to perfect transportation as applied to people, commodities and intelligence. Highly perfected transportation means opportunity to get together o
3 minute read