Playgrounds

Essay

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, children’s play became an important concern of urban reformers, who regarded playgrounds—outdoor environments designed, equipped, and sometimes staffed, to facilitate children’s play—as essential components in shaping behavior and ordering urban space. Many public and semipublic playgrounds established as a result of their efforts became permanent features of the Philadelphia landscape, and were (and remain) deeply valued by residents and city leaders.

A black and white photograph of a group of children playing on a large piece of playground equipment. Two girls are standing in front of the equipment.
Outdoor playground recreation was incorporated into the curriculum of school across the Philadelphia area, including the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind (later renamed the Overbrook School for Blind Children). (Library of Congress)

Philadelphia’s earliest playground advocates were groundbreaking leaders in what became known as the American Playground Movement. Nationally, the movement was institutionalized in 1906 when the Playgrounds Association of America (PAA)­—later, the Recreation Association of America—formed.  One of many Progressive Era child-saving reforms, the playground movement was a response to a variety of problems that resulted from rapid immigration, industrialization, and urbanization. At the same time, new theories in child psychology, education, and medicine claimed that play was essential to child development. The impact of these combined forces linked play to childhood in unprecedented ways. Key players (in the movement and on playgrounds) changed over time as the field of recreation professionalized nationally and locally, but goals connected to making the city a place that nourished healthy, happy, and productive citizens remained a core value for proponents of these spaces and programs, whether they were wealthy philanthropists, idealistic reformers, professional educators, or neighborhood residents.

Historians have commonly viewed Boston as the place where the American Playground Movement originated when, in 1885, reformers dumped a few piles of sand outside of the Parameter Street Chapel and West End Nursery to facilitate young children’s play.  However, the establishment of Starr Garden Park—the seed of what would become Philadelphia’s first municipal playground and recreation center—in 1882 demonstrates that Philadelphia was also a forerunner in the playground movement. Locally, members of the City Parks Association (est. 1888), the Civic Club (a women’s club, est. 1894), the Philadelphia College Settlement (est. 1892), and the Philadelphia Board of Education all established playgrounds well before 1906.  Nineteenth-century precedents for the design and construction of twentieth-century playgrounds included a few American versions of German outdoor gymnasiums and designated play spaces within large urban parks, such as the Children’s Quarters in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park (est. 1888) as well as outdoor playgrounds affiliated with day nurseries (early childcare facilities), kindergartens, and schools. One of these was Starr Garden, which was created in conjunction with a free kindergarten program.

For Progressives, effective playgrounds were not just spaces with a few swings and slides, but places where equipment was complemented by professionally designed programs in which children were taught “how to play.”  This definition, though prevalent among reformers for several decades, was never accepted by the general public. Playgrounds  more typically have been defined primarily as physical spaces, not programs, and  by the mid-twentieth century three main types of playgrounds had become commonplace: community playgrounds, located in residential neighborhoods; school-yard playgrounds, affiliated directly with educational institutions; and “destination playgrounds,” impressive, multi-acre properties often situated on the edges of city limits that were in some ways sanitized versions of increasingly popular commercial amusement parks like New York’s Coney Island. The Philadelphia region had all three types.

Community and School-Yard Playgrounds

In a pattern that became typical in the early twentieth-century playground movement, philanthropists established Starr Garden in a “slum” neighborhood, where children would otherwise be forced to play in cramped apartments or on city streets.  Initially located on a tiny lot on a back-alley street (St. Mary Street, now Rodman, between Sixth and Seventh), under the leadership of several privately funded organizations—the St. Mary Street Library (est. 1884), the Philadelphia College Settlement (est. 1892), and the Starr Centre Association (est. 1900)—Starr Garden expanded through the condemnation and demolition of nearby homes and buildings, a common method of playground development. By 1905, when philanthropist Susan Wharton (1852-1928) and other associates of the Starr Centre Association claimed Starr Garden as “Philadelphia’s first real playground,” it encompassed an entire city block. The Starr Center directors transferred control to the Playgrounds Association of Philadelphia (est. 1907) and then to municipal control under the Philadelphia Bureau of Recreation (est. 1911). In comparison to other early playgrounds, Starr Garden’s equipment was typical as well.  Initially, it included swings and a place for playing ball; later, a sandbox and gymnastics equipment.  When it became the Starr Garden Municipal Recreation Center on July 7, 1911, it gained a state-of-the-art recreation building and outdoor wading pool.

Less typical, but historically significant, the lot was situated near two institutions of great importance to black Philadelphians: the James Forten School (Sixth and Lombard, northwest corner), named for the prominent African American sailmaker and abolitionist, and Mother Bethel A.M.E Church (Sixth and Lombard, northeast corner). In 1882 several kindergarten advocates, including a white Quaker Anna Hallowell (1831-1905), Philadelphia’s first female school board member, and a black Episcopal priest, Rev. Henry Phillips (1847-1947), rector of the Church of the Crucifixion, encouraged Starr Garden’s namesake philanthropist Theodore Starr (1841-84) to transform a “trash heap” into a small park/playground to serve  Philadelphia’s African American residents. Later, the Playground Association of Philadelphia (PAP) established a temporary play space, Coxe Playground (Eighteenth & Bainbridge), for African American children primarily. Despite this initiative, children of color remained generally underserved on playgrounds even after World War II when the PAA added a Colored Workers Bureau.

Alongside private investors, the Board of Education played a central role in Philadelphia’s playground movement. Beginning in 1894, leaders of the Philadelphia public schools, including later Pennsylvania governor Martin G. Brumbaugh (1862-1930), provided widespread support for the development of supervised “summer playgrounds” situated on public school grounds. The provision of outdoor space in affiliation with schools was not unusual, for the existence of school-yards in neighborhoods with little available open space was what made them so appealing to play advocates. What was new was the provision of planned activities, specialized equipment, and professional supervisors. With these changes, further supported by the integration of play-centered kindergarten programs and physical education into the public schools, the provision of play and play space for children outside of school hours became, to some extent, an accepted role of the school.

A black and white photograph of a he central garden of a park. Pathways lead to and from the central garden, and tress line the pathways.
Neighbors surrounding Dickinson Square Park at one point in its history rejected the construction of sports fields and playground equipment in the square, wishing to retain the traditional park landscape. (PhillyHistory.org)

As the twentieth century progressed, neighborhood playground development in the Philadelphia region expanded into wealthy neighborhoods and suburbs, and movement leaders expanded their mission to include adults as well as children.  Initially, both reformers and residents thought that playgrounds were unnecessary and even unwelcome in economically advantaged communities and that they might pose a threat to real estate values. In 1898, for example, attempts to transform Dickinson Square Park (Fourth and Tasker) into a playground were successfully thwarted by neighbors who preferred a more traditional park. The establishment of the Philadelphia Bureau of Recreation in 1911 (it became the Department of Recreation in 1952), however, demonstrated that residents and city authorities had accepted play and playgrounds as a public good. Locally and nationally the playground movement became the recreation movement. In addition to children’s playgrounds, recreation centers featured swimming pools, athletic fields, extensive programming, and recreation buildings open year-round.

Destination Playgrounds

Much larger and more remote than community playgrounds, the Philadelphia region’s earliest and most distinctive destination playgrounds were the Sanitarium Playground (nicknamed “Soupy Island”—a reflection of both its original location on Windmill Island in the Delaware River near the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the soup served daily to those who attended) and the Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse, located in Fairmount Park. Both were understood by their founders to be charitable entities, though they served very different populations initially.

Established in 1877, Soupy Island provided fresh air, nutritious food, medical care, and fun to poor, sick children from Philadelphia. The city’s plans to remove the island to allow better access for large ships combined with the limitations of the island space prompted a move to Red Bank, New Jersey, where managers purchased over eighty underdeveloped acres of land in 1887.  From that summer until 1984, ferries transported children from Philadelphia to this location. Over the years attendance at Soupy Island expanded to include a wider range of children and families, including New Jersey residents. When the ferries stopped running, they arrived by bus or car. Soup continued to be served daily to all those in attendance.  In 2007 the Campbell Soup Company provided support, donating soup and facilitating improvements to the property.

A sepia-tone photograph of a two story building surrounded by fields and bushes. The building is rectangular, with a peaked roof, pillars near the middle of the building, and a balcony on the end of the building.
Smith Memorial Playhouse, a three-story, 16,000-square-foot building in Fairmount Park, was designed to provided space for various children’s activities. (Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries)

Philadelphia’s Smith Memorial Playground and Playhouse (the Children’s Playground and Playhouse in the Park) was founded by Richard Smith (1821-94), whose brother John F. Smith had donated one of the earliest boats for the Soupy Island project, and his wife Sarah A. Walker Smith (1826-95). It opened in 1899 on six acres in Fairmount Park. Designed for use by children aged ten and under and their caregivers, Smith was not limited to the poor, and there was no transportation provided.  As a result, middle and upper-class families tended to dominate the space, including some well-to-do African American families. Thus, even during time periods when exclusionary admission practices were common in recreational settings across the region, Smith Playground served as one of the few places in the city where wealthy, working class, and poor residents of all races and religions might meet.

Funded through endowments and private donations, Soupy Island and Smith Playground avoided municipal control throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-first century.  Soupy Island remained in the care of the Children’s Cruise and Playground Society and Smith Playground was supported primarily by private trusts until it was incorporated as a nonprofit in 2004.

Ebbs and Flows

The creation of playgrounds continued in the Philadelphia region, as elsewhere, into the twenty-first century, in urban and suburban neighborhoods, on small and large scales. Increasingly playgrounds were built to allow adults and children of all ages and abilities to play together, one of the most noteworthy being Jake’s Place, Cherry Hill (est. 2011), the first fully accessible playground in southern New Jersey. Spray parks replaced wading pools as a common water feature at playgrounds like Seger Park (Tenth and Lombard, Philadelphia) and Herron Park (250 Reed Street). Other unique destination playgrounds developed, including Kid’s Castle (est. 1996) in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, and the Camden Children’s Garden (est. 1999).

Like many city programs, public playgrounds were rarely fully funded or adequately staffed to meet the needs of residents. Thus, neighborhood playgrounds more often reflected demographic trends than shifted them.  Community-led revitalizations are often connected to the gentrification of the surrounding neighborhood. In 2011, neighbors formed the Friends of Starr Garden in order to revitalize the neglected space, no longer situated in a slum, but in what had become known as Society Hill. Neighborhood residents also created new play spaces, as was the case with the volunteer-led effort to create Liberty Lands Park in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia in 1995. Unlike their nineteenth-century counterparts, in 2012, Dickinson Park neighbors aided and applauded the renovation and replacement of basketball courts and playground equipment by the city. The YMCA of Burlington and Camden Counties participated in the revitalization of the playground at Northgate Park in North Camden in 2012.

Historic preservation and playground support collided in 2012 around the revitalization of one of Philadelphia’s earliest playgrounds, Weccacoe. Initially championed by the Philadelphia College Settlement in the early 1900s, its improvement was delayed when research confirmed that it was located on a site of great importance to Philadelphia’s history, a nineteenth-century Bethel A.M.E. Church graveyard.  It was not unusual for early playgrounds to be established on graveyards; like school-yards, these open spaces were often viewed by reformers as wasted land.  However, given the particular significance of Bethel AME, this situation led to vexing questions about how to honor the value of the space as a community asset as well as the lives of those buried there.

Less impacted by changing demographics and purposes, aging destination playgrounds faced ongoing challenges as well. Both Soupy Island and Smith Playground deteriorated in the late twentieth century and required revitalization early in the twenty-first. The eight-level Doylestown Castle in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, closed due to safety concerns in early 2013 and required community financial support to avoid permanent closure.

Playgrounds did not solve Philadelphia’s social problems as many of their founders hoped they would, but they clearly had staying power. Perhaps in part because they have been symbols of idealistic visions of childhood and community, they could be the target of frustrations, as evidenced in incidents of arson and other forms of vandalism. Because they have been open spaces, they could leave users vulnerable to violence and provide gathering places for activities that tear down communities rather than build them up. Concerns about lawsuits related to playground injuries increasingly constrained playground design and use in the early twenty-first century. A perceived conflict between play and children’s academic progress left school-yards increasingly empty. Increased competition with more high-tech forms of entertainment posed a constant challenge for destination playgrounds.  However, when both the city government and neighborhood residents invest in them, Philadelphia’s playgrounds have been and can be places that significantly improve the quality of urban life. It may be necessary to let go of idealized visions of playgrounds as magical spaces that can solve social problems, but it is hard to imagine greater Philadelphia without them.

Deborah Shine Valentine is assistant professor of Early Childhood Education at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia.  She received a Ph.D. in Childhood Studies from Rutgers-Camden (2013).  She is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the history of playgrounds, race, and early childhood education in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Philadelphia. 

Copyright 2014, Rutgers University

Gallery

Smith Memorial Playground

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Children running along the hardwood floors and the grand halls of Smith Memorial Playhouse, dashing from room to room for different diversions, was exactly the environment that wealthy Philadelphians Richard Smith and Sara Walker Smith envisioned when they requested the playhouse's construction in their will. The couple named the Smith Memorial Playhouse in honor of their adult son, Stanfield, and construction of the building began in 1898, three years after a widowed Sara died. Philadelphia architect James H. Windrim designed the three-story, 16,000-square-foot building with enough interior space for a variety of children's activities. The Smith Memorial Playhouse opened in 1899 and expanded through the twentieth century to include a variety of outdoor playground equipment. Pictured here in 1925, outdoor recreation beyond the playhouse was limited to swings, slides, and walking trails. With free admission to children and their guardians, the Smith Memorial Playhouse operated through the generosity of volunteers and donors. In the early 2000s, the playhouse and playground equipment became increasingly dilapidated and did not meet state accessibility standards. After closing to the public, the nonprofit Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse Inc. took control of the property in 2004 and reopened the playhouse with updated equipment in 2005.

Overbrook School for the Blind Playground

Library of Congress

Play-centered programs and physical education programs were considered an important part of a school's curriculum, and even schools such as The Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind (later renamed the Overbrook School for Blind Children) had playgrounds and set time aside for recreation and outdoor activities. The institute opened in 1832 to assist in the education of children with disabilities and constructed a permanent school building in 1835 at Twentieth and Race Streets. The school installed running tracks, playground equipment, and swings in the school’s playground in the late nineteenth century. By 1906, the institute expanded the outdoor recreational facilities to include a swimming pool, additional swings, and sturdier playground equipment. This image is from 1906, 40 years before the school changed its name to Overbrook School, and shows a group of female students on one of the newly installed pieces of playground equipment.

Dickinson Square Park

PhillyHistory.org

Located on the former site of an iron works stockyard, Dickinson Square Park was purchased by the City of Philadelphia in the 1890s to become a public square, with stone paths and landscaping modeled in the style of Washington or Rittenhouse Squares. The city shifted the focus of the square development to accommodate children's programming and recreation. Neighbors surrounding Dickinson Square Park, located in what is now the Pennsport section of South Philadelphia, later rejected the additional construction of sports fields or playground equipment in the square, wishing to retain the traditional park landscape. This image from 1910, ten years after the park officially opened, shows the walkways leading into the center garden of the square and the Vare Abigail School in the background. Adjustments to the square were made later in the twentieth century, adding modern playground equipment and sports fields, without protest from nearby residents.

Children Protesting Outside City Hall Annex

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Walking outside of Philadelphia's City Hall Annex on the evening of February 2, 1941, a large group of children and their parents marched and held signs demanding the city preserve a community playground. The group pictured here was fighting for the playground that once belonged to the Calhoun School on Tenth Street and Snyder Avenue. The school playground became a community playground after the school closed. A supermarket developer purchased the land and planned to raze both the school building and the playground. The pictured demonstration aimed, in part, to persuade Philadelphia's Zoning Board of Adjustment to change the classification of the playground, preventing the construction of a supermarket. Today, Tenth and Snyder is occupied by homes and businesses such as a convenience store, a car-rental agency, a discount variety store, and a credit union.

Starr Garden Park

City Parks Association

Developed as part of a late-nineteenth-century trend of designated play spaces within urban environments, Starr Garden offered children a variety of outdoor activities and entertainment to keep them off the city streets. Theodore Starr established Starr Garden after he purchased two plots of land near modern Lombard and Sixth Streets in the early 1880s. When Starr Garden was privately funded through a series of organizations in the 1880s and 1890s, the park had modest park equipment like swings, ball courts, sandboxes, and gymnastic equipment. The facilities and types of recreation in Starr Garden expanded when ownership of the park moved to the Philadelphia Bureau of Recreation in 1911 and organizations such as the City Parks Association provided additional funding and maintenance. The construction of a recreational building, a wading pool, and larger playground equipment increased the number of park visitors and set a standard for the Bureau of Recreation's future projects. The pool and the recreational building in this photograph from 1925 have since been replaced with new playground equipment, a smaller recreation building, and small metal sculptures by Harold Kimmelman.

Jam Session in a North Philadelphia Schoolyard

Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries

Activities at school-yard playgrounds were not limited to schoolchildren playing, physical fitness activities, or sports games. Playgrounds also acted as community hubs, bringing together people from around the neighborhood to participate in community events and special festivities. In this image from the 1950s, the William Dick Public School playground, at Twenty-Fifth and Diamond Streets, hosted a local jazz band to play for schoolchildren and their families before the fall school season started.

East Poplar Playground

PhillyHistory.org

Playgrounds in Philadelphia were often the target of community frustrations, leading to dilapidation and damage to playground equipment and unsafe conditions for children. Left understaffed and underfunded by the city of Philadelphia, some parks decayed for years before renovation. In this photo from 1971, East Poplar Playground was missing swings and chairs, had damaged playground equipment, damaged basketball courts, and graffiti. By 1975 the city began to fund a renovation of the playground, replaced broken equipment, painting over graffiti, and planned to build a community pool.

Related Topics

Themes

Time Periods

Locations

Essays

Related Reading

Cavallo, Dominick. Muscles and Morals: Organized Playgrounds and Urban Reform, 1880-1920. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.

Cranz, Galen. The Politics of Park Design: A History of Urban Parks in America. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1982.

Howell, Ocean. “Play Pays: Urban Land Politics and Playgrounds in the United States, 1900-1930.” Journal of Urban History 34, no. 6 (September 2008).

Rosenberg, Janis.  “A Landscape of Enculturation: The Vernacular of Elementary School Buildings and Playgrounds, 1840-1930.” Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Pennsylvania, 1984.

Kadzielski, Mark A. “’As a Flower Needs Sunshine”: The Origins of Organized Children’s Recreation in Philadelphia, 1886-1911.” Journal of Sport History 4, no. 2 (1977): 169-188.

Knapp, Richard F., and Charles Hartsoe. Play for America: The National Recreation Association, 1906-1965. Arlington, Va: National Recreation and Park Association, 1979.

Mackenzie, Constance. “Playgrounds in Cities.” In The Work and Words of the National Congress of Mothers: First Annual Session, Held in the City of Washington, D.C., February 17, 18, and 19, 1897, 155-164: D. Appleton & Co., New York, NY, 1897.

Mergen, Bernard.  “Playgrounds and Playground Equipment, 1885-1925.” In Play and Culture: 1978 Proceedings of the Association for the Anthropological Study of Play, edited by Helen B. Schwartzman, 198-205. West Point, N.Y.: Leisure Press, 1980.

Rainwater, Clarence Elmer. The Play Movement in the United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1923.

Truslow, Arthur. “Stoyan Tsanoff and the Playgrounds Movement.” Outlook (1893-1924) 58, no. 13 (Mar 26, 1898): 772.

Tsanoff, Stoyan Vasil. The Educational Value of the Children’s Playgrounds: A Novel Plan of Character Building. Philadelphia: self-published, 1897.

Valentine, Deborah [Shine].“Playing Progressively?: Race, Reform and Playful Pedagogies in the Origins of Philadelphia’s Starr Garden Recreation Park, 1857-1904.” In Children and Youth During the Gilded Age and Progressive Period, edited by James Marten. New York: New York University Press, 2014.

Wojtowicz, Carol. “Play in Philadelphia.” Pennsylvania Folklife 24, no. 3 (1975): 17-23.

Related Collections

Starr Centre Association Collection, Barbara Bates Center for the Study of the History of Nursing, School of Nursing, University of Pennsylvania, 418 Curie Boulevard, Philadelphia.

Library of Congress, 101 Independence Avenue, Washington, D.C.

National Federation of Settlements Collection, National Recreation Association Collection, Albert J. Kennedy Papers, Social Welfare History Archives, University of Minnesota, 222 Twenty-First Avenue South, Minneapolis, Minn.

Settlements Collection, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, 7 Neilson Drive, Northampton, Mass.

Annual Reports Collection (Playgrounds Association of Philadelphia, Civic Club, Starr Centre, College Settlement, Sanitarium Association), Urban Archives, Temple University, 1210 Polett Walk, Philadelphia.

Free Library of Philadelphia Pamphlets Collection, Urban Archives, Temple University, 1210 Polett Walk, Philadelphia.

Records of the Civic Club of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Record Collection, Reports from the Smith Memorial Playground, Playground Association of Philadelphia and College Settlement of Philadelphia as well as a number of related books, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia.

Related Places

“How Philly Plays: 115 Years at Smith Memorial Playground” (opened October 9, 2014), Community History Gallery, Philadelphia History Museum at the Atwater Kent, 15 S. Seventh Street, Philadelphia.

Smith Playground, 3500 Reservoir Drive, Philadelphia.

Starr Garden, 600 block of Lombard Street, Philadelphia.

Soupy Island, 1718 Front Street, Thorofare, N.J.

Jake’s Place, 132 Borton’s Mill Road., Cherry Hill, N.J.

Dickinson Park, Fourth and Tasker Streets, Philadelphia.

Northgate Park, 600 Elm Street, Camden, N.J.

Camden Children’s Garden, 3 Riverside Drive, Camden, N.J.

Liberty Lands Park, 926 N. American Street, Philadelphia.

Doylestown Castle, 425 Wells Road., Doylestown, PA.

Seger Park, Tenth and Lombard Streets, Philadelphia.

Herron Park, 250 Reed Street, Philadelphia.

Weccacoe Playground, 400 block of Catherine Street, Philadelphia.

Mother Bethel A.M.E. Church, 419 S. Sixth Street, Philadelphia.

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