An American Urban Residential Landscape, 1890–1920: Chicago in th ...

were conducted by a multitude of NIAs comprising white male and female protestant members of the middle class, though in some instances African Americans were also members. Most historians have produced teleological accounts of NIAs based on synchronic analyses of the reactionary, antiblack agendas of some associations during the late 1910s and after. However, this narrow assessment belies the complexity and dynamism of NIAs and their earlier contribution to the core objectives of progressivism. For example, NIAs played a crucial role in legitimizing, financing, and reforming the process of street paving described by historian Jon Teaford as the “unheralded triumph” of the city-building process during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.⁴⁰ For a time, most NIAs pursued multifaceted programs that were motivated by a commitment to the reformist theory of social ethics emphasizing social mutuality and civic engagement. These programs also constituted part of a broader effort to achieve what the Woman's City Club of Chicago described as the “ennobling of that larger home of all—the city.”⁴¹ Chapter 3 provides a systematic description and analysis of NIA objectives, activities, membership, politics, and organizational structure. Although their practical impact was typically limited to select sections of the city, NIAs actively contributed to an expanded concept of local government responsibility and challenged the historical and cultural conception of the city as a place dominated by its industrial and commercial constituents.

One of the most hopeful, positive NIA practices was the planting and maintenance of neighborhood “street trees.” During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the tree planting of grassroots improvers effectively greened parts of Chicago beyond its parks and boulevards and provided an additional impetus to the nascent, urban environmental movement. Many grassroots improvers treated their tree-planting work as a local contribution to a broader, citywide campaign to establish street trees throughout the entire city, thereby extending the benefits of an idealized nature to all Chicagoans. The commitment to citywide planting and preservation was particularly evident in efforts to control insects and diseases that threatened trees throughout Chicago and in support for the