Sociological Practice

Volume 8
Issue 1 Community Development and Other Article 4
Community Applications

January 1990

Community Development in America: A Brief

History
Bryan M. Phifer

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Community Development in America:
A Brief History

Bryan M. Phifer
ABSTRACT

This article traces community development from early self-help efforts through com-
munity organization, university, social work and government thrusts to the field as we
know it today. It describes the roles of key individuals, organizations, and literature in
the growth of the field. The author looks ahead to crucial issues facing community
development in the future. The references cited in the article are a rich source of
information for anyone interested in the history and current status of community devel-
opment.

Community development in America as an organized, purposeful, self-help

activity has its roots in late nineteenth century rural life. Some may argue that
its roots go back to Jamestown since its very survival depended upon self-help
and almost total reliance on local resources. However, Jamestown, like many
early American communities, was directed in a very authoritarian manner with
survival as the main objective. There was little democratic participation until
the coming of the New England town meeting.
During his tour of America in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville observed
both democracy and a desire for self-improvement in action. In one of the most
quoted passages from his book Democracy in America, he observed:

This article is based on the chapter "History of Community Development in America," in Community Development in
Perspective (1989).

18
 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA 19

Americans of all ages, all stations in life, and all types of dispositions
are forever forming associations. There are not only commercial and
industrial associations in which all take part, but others of a thousand
different types—religious, moral, serious, futile, very general and very
limited, immensely large and very minute.

Americans combine to give fetes, found seminaries, build churches,

distribute books, and send missionaries to the antipodes. Hospitals,
prisons, and schools take shape in that way... In every case, at the head
of any new undertaking, where in France you would find the govern-
ment or in England some territorial magnate, in the United States you
are sure to find an association. (Tocqueville, 1966:485)

Undoubtedly, self-help and self-reliance were mainstays of early American

history. However, community development as we know it today—a purposeful
attempt to improve communities through democratic participation as well as
self-help—did not begin to appear until the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries. A number of influences formed the roots of this emerging field.

Early Roots of Community Development

Numerous organizations and movements devoted to improving rural life

emerged in the post-Civil War era. Summers (1986:348) points out that the
radical agrarian mood and proposals of the Populist party "had grown increas-
ingly ugly in response to the farm crisis that had escalated during the last
quarter of the 19th century. . . . The Country Life Movement emerged as an
urban-sponsored alternative to the radical economic proposals of the Populists."
The movement, along with Pres. Theodore Roosevelt's Country Life Commis-
sion, were major forces in urging the U.S. Department of Agriculture and land-
grant colleges to play a more active role in the improvement of rural life.
"The report of the Commission covered thoroughly the most prominent
features of rural life in America and the nature of remedies available" (Bailey,
1945:246). Its most urgent recommendation was the "establishment of a nation-
wide extension workforce . . . without which no college of agriculture can ade-
quately serve its state" (Senate Document 705, 1909:56).
Of equal importance to these growing demands for extension was the
pioneering farm demonstration work of Dr. Seaman A. Knapp who Bailey
(1945) called the "Schoolmaster of American Agriculture" in his book about his
work. Knapp successfully demonstrated the control of the cotton boll weevil
which was devastating the South's most important cash crop. His work received
national acclaim and greatly influenced the Congress.
20 SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE/1990

The fruition of effort by these many forces was the passage of the Smith-
Lever Act of 1914. It established the Cooperative Extension Service as a joint
endeavor of the U.S. Department of Agriculture and state land-grant colleges
with matching federal and state funding. In submitting its bill authorizing ex-
tension work, the House Committee on Agriculture stated:

The theory of the bill is to extend this system to the entire country by
providing for at least one trained demonstrator or itinerant teacher for
each agricultural county, who in the very nature of things must give
leadership and direction along all lines of rural activity—social,
economic, and financial ... He is to assume leadership in every
movement, whatever it may be, the aim of which is better farming,
better living, more happiness, more education, and better citizenship.
(U.S.Congress, 1915:5)

Rural Community Organization

In its 1909 report, the Country Life Commission found that a major prob-
lem of rural people was lack of organization. Consequently, following passage
of the Smith-Lever Act, several states, including Georgia, Kentucky, Mississip-
pi, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, West Virginia and Virginia began com-
munity organization work under the direction of their Extension Services.
Extension agents in the South began organizing community clubs in the early
1920s. By 1923 C.B. Smith, Director of the USDA's States Relation Service,
could state in his annual report of extension work:

The maxim that all programs of extension work should be based on an

analysis of local or community needs has been given increasing sup-
port, as shown by the greater number of community programs
developed throughout the United States. More than 21,000 com-
munities ... have local committees or clubs which join with Extension
agents in developing and working out local plans of work. (True,
1928:175)

It didn't take long for pioneering extension agents to learn that their most
successful efforts were those involving local people in identifying needs and
developing appropriate educational programs. True (1928:175) states:

Extension forces were also realizing that they could not reach large
numbers of people effectively without the active cooperation of many
local leaders. They, therefore, increased their efforts to get beyond the
county organization supporting their work and to build their programs
on a community basis.
 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA 21

Frank Farrington was one of the first writers about community development.
His book Making the Small Town a Better Place to Live and A Better Place in
Which to Do Business, published in 1915, is a handbook and guide to community
organization. It emphasizes the economic aspects of community improvement,
business and commercial organization, and the function and importance of service
clubs. Although intended primarily for small towns, his book found a wide
audience among residents of large towns,

Educational Associations

Educational associations have long supported community development and,

in fact, were a major force in developing it into a field of study and practice. At the
first conference of the National University Education Association (NUEA) in
1915, President Charles Van Hise emphasized the importance of "informal com-
munity service." The term "community development" appeared in the
association's 1924 proceedings and in 1935 the association called for university-
sponsored community development workers. During the 1940s the community
development movement within universities was spearheaded by NUEA leaders
Howard McClusky at the University of Michigan, Jess Ogden at the University of
Virginia, and Baker Brownell at the University of Montana.
The NUEA established a community organization committee in 1948 and a
division of community development in 1955. Katharine Lackey of Southern Il-
linois University prepared an extensive report in 1960 about community develop-
ment work through member institutions of the NUEA. Her report highlighted
work in thirteen universities.
The Adult Education Association has long been a strong supporter and
advocate of community development. Among its various sections is one on
community development. The classic 1960 Handbook of Adult Education,
edited by Malcolm Knowles, includes a chapter on community development by
pioneer practitioner and scholar Howard McClusky.

University Efforts

In addition to the early work through extension services of the land-grant

universities, several universities have a distinguished history of community
development education and service. One of the early pioneers is St. Francis
Xavier University in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, whose program started in the
1920s. Known as the Antigonish Movement, it was started by Father M. M.
Coady who helped organize the United Maritime Fishermen Cooperative.
Coady later became the first director of Xavier University's extension
22 SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE/1990

department which gained international acclaim as the Antigonish Movement.

The Coady International Institute, with its emphasis on grassroots training in
community development, was founded in 1959.
Not all early university-based community development was practice
oriented. As Cary (1980:144) points out, "teaching community development
grew, in part, out of the earlier teaching in community organization in social
work and rural sociology and the early training of extension workers." He
mentions the paper presented in 1919 at the first National Country Life Con-
ference by Dwight Sanderson of Cornell University entitled "Community Or-
ganization for Extension Workers." Cary (1980:144-45) adds that "the teaching
of community organization in rural sociology placed its emphasis on the small
rural community and, with some notable exceptions, focused on the study of
community organization rather than the practice of it."
Dr. William Biddle's Program of Community Studies and Dynamics at
Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana began in 1947. It combined graduate
study with field experience until 1960 when the program was discontinued. Dr.
Biddle became well-known from his books and articles about community
development.
Baker Brownell's work at the University of Montana in the 1940s had a
profound influence upon the field of community development. Brownell con-
ducted a study aimed at determining the potential for revitalizing dying lumber
towns in the Northwest. Dr. Richard Poston's famous book, Small Town
Renaissance, published in 1950, was an outgrowth of this study and gained him
a national reputation. Poston later became director of the Bureau of Community
Development at the University of Washington. He and his staff worked with
small communities emphasizing citizen involvement, study and analysis, town
meetings, and action. In 1953 he joined Baker Brownell at Southern Illinois
University in Carbondale. Brownell had earlier moved there to begin an area
services unit and community development program. Southern Illinois' Com-
munity Development Institute was founded in 1959 and its Department of Com-
munity Development in 1966.
The University of Missouri's community development program began in
the 1950s as a response to requests for assistance from rural communities suf-
fering out-migration, economic stagnation, and reduction in essential services.
The program began as an extension effort utilizing both university funds and
special funds provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for rural develop-
ment. The Center for Community Development was established on the Colum-
bia campus in 1960 to provide formal training and supporting services to field
practitioners. In 1962 the Center became the Department of Community
Development, offering a master's degree and diploma program while maintain-
ing its extension work. Currently, the university has 20 extension field staff
 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA 23

serving a multi-county area throughout the state. The department also conducts
an annual Community and Rural Development Institute in which more than 800
persons from 69 countries have participated.
By 1976, some 63 colleges and universities offered majors in community
development (Cary, 1976). The 1987 directory of institutions providing com-
munity development training or education lists 52 programs in U.S. and
Canadian institutions plus several in other countries (Robertson, 1987). Al-
though there appears to be a significant decline between 1976 and 1987 in the
number of majors or degrees offered, the actual change, if any, is unknown. In
both the 1976 and the 1987 survey, only those institutions responding to the
survey were listed. Lack of a response may be attributable to the survey being
sent to the wrong person and not forwarded to the right person.
Community development extension work is carried out by all land-grant
universities. Some states call it community resource development, some
resource development, and some rural development, depending upon its focus.
The University of Wisconsin Extension Service, for example, has 40 resource
development agents. The latest data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's
Extension Service shows approximately 949 staff-years devoted to this work
nationally.

Institutionalized Community Development

As mentioned earlier, community clubs and "organized communities" be-

came a major vehicle for rural community development in the 1920s. Prior to
that, community organization was more related to sociology and social work
than to community development. As early as 1887, Stanton Coit founded a
settlement house in New York City. The famous Hull House was founded in
Chicago in 1889 by sociologist Jane Addams and Ellen Starr (Deegan, 1988;
Fritz, 1989).
Settlement houses focused their efforts primarily on helping immigrants to
large cities adjust to their new culture and environment. A high priority was the
Americanization of immigrants who generally could not speak English, lived in
crowded and unsanitary conditions, and often worked in sweat shops. English
and other adult education classes, day care, baths, recreation, and savings banks
were provided through the houses which became community centers.
According to Fritz (1989:99):

Addams was definitely an organizational development specialist.

Within five years of the establishment of Hull House, some forty clubs
were based there, eleven kinds of community activities were connected
with the settlement and over 2,000 people came into the facility each
24 SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE/1990

week. ... Addams' years of work and writing in the interest of peace
earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 1931.

As important as the settlement house movement was, its focus was more on
providing services for people as opposed to people providing for their own
needs. Many modern-day community centers grew out of settlement houses.
A more participatory approach to community development was the "Back
of the Yards" movement begun in Chicago by clinical sociologist Saul Alinsky
in the 1930s (Alinsky, 1969). Its major purpose was neighborhood stabilization.
Polish stockyard workers were not so much trying to keep others out, Alinsky
maintained, as they were trying to keep their own in. In 1940 Alinsky started
the Industrial Areas Foundation whose aim was to empower people through
their own organized efforts. Known as the conflict or confrontation approach,
Alinsky's work grew beyond Chicago as he directed major projects in several
large cities. His community organizing skills gained him national recognition in
the turbulent sixties (Fritz, 1989:82-83). Alinsky demonstrated that major or-
ganizational work could produce power as well as local participation. Institu-
tional barriers to change often crumbled when confronted with such power.
The first major American city to have a community development depart-
ment was Kansas City, Missouri. Its Division of Community Development was
established in 1943, primarily to combat juvenile delinquency. Following
World War II, the division focused its work on citizen participation through
community and neighborhood associations. The division remained highly ac-
tive until the early 1980s when its role was diminished.
Almost all major cities and many smaller communities now have departments
or divisions of community development. Their primary focus is that of generating
and administering government grants such as the Community Development Block
Grant program, rather than initiating locally-based community development ef-
forts. Although citizen participation is a requirement of the federal Community
Development Act, interpretation of what this means varies widely. This ranges all
the way from true citizen involvement in problem identification and decision
making to perfunctory public hearings and legal notices published in newspapers.
The community education movement, carried out primarily through local
school systems, has played a major community development role since its in-
ception in the mid-1940s. Greatly stimulated through grants from the Kellogg
and Mott Foundations, the movement encourages communities to use their
schools for a variety of after-school community functions. The National Com-
munity Education Development Act passed in 1974, which provided seed
money to initiate such programs, grew out of this effort. In addition to tradi-
tional adult education and recreational roles, community education emphasizes
citizen involvement in community issues.
 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA 25

State-Sponsored Programs

Several states have community development recognition programs. Often

these programs include cash awards, recognition plaques, and achievement signs
which communities erect along highways leading into their community. Most of
the programs are based on achievement of prescribed goals set forth in the criteria
developed for measuring local initiative, participation, and accomplishment. The
Missouri program, known as Missouri Community Betterment (MCB), was started
in 1963. It encompasses six classes of cities based on population, plus neighbor-
hoods. Thus, communities of similar size compete for recognition. Judges visit
communities that make it to the finalist list for recognition to evaluate their
accomplishments. The Governor presents plaques and other prizes to winning
communities at the annual awards program.
Almost every state has a department of community and economic develop-
ment to promote the state's economy and to help local communities through
technical and financial assistance. Following the federal government's lead,
some states offer special incentives for development efforts in depressed areas,
including tax incentives to encourage investment. Missouri's Neighborhood As-
sistance Program goes further by providing tax write-offs to business and in-
dustry for investment in neighborhood and community development projects
regardless of location.

Community Development Literature

A distinctive body of community development literature began to emerge in

the 1940s. The Odgens published These Things We Tried: A Five Year Experi-
ment in Community Development in 1947. Ruopp's Approaches to Community
Development and Poston's Democracy is You: A Guide to Citizen Action were
published in 1953. The United Nations published Social Progress Through
Community Development in 1955. The International Cooperation Administra-
tion, forerunner of the Agency for International Development, began its Com-
munity Development Bulletin in 1956. This publication was known as the
Community Development Review from 1957 until its last issue in 1963.
Other literature began to follow, including Batten (1957, 1967), Sanders
(1958), Mezirow (1962), Warren (1963), the Ogdens (1964), Clinard (1966),
Biddle (1968), Cary (1970), Littrell (1971), Phifer (1975), Roberts (1979), and
Christenson and Robinson (1980, 1989). In 1964 and again in 1972 Sociologi-
cal Abstracts and Essay Press published Community Development Abstracts
covering the literature through 1972 as prepared by Alvin Lackey. The first
issue of the Journal of the Community Development Society was published in
the spring of 1970.
26 SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE/1990

Community Development Society

The Community Development Society was organized in Columbia, Missouri

in January 1969 to provide practitioners and teachers of community development
their own organization devoted to study of the field, improvement of practice skills,
and sharing of knowledge and experience.
The society grew out of a mid-continent conference on the role of the
university in community development sponsored by the NUEA. Many of the
participants were active in the community development division of the association.
The division was exploring the need for a separate professional association. During
the conference, seventeen participants met to further explore the value of such an
organization. After considerable discussion, which revealed that other national
groups were interested in community development, the group adopted the follow-
ing motion:

That a small committee be established to proceed with the organization

of a professional community development association, to explore the
sources of funds, and to take other action as indicated toward the
establishment of a professional association (Anderson, Cary, Gibson,
Houde 1989:2).

In subsequent meetings the committee agreed that membership would be open

to anyone interested in community development. In their history of the first 20
years of the society, Anderson, Cary, Gibson and Houde (1989:4,5) state:

In some ways it could be said that the establishment of the CDS was
that of an organization waiting to be born... There is little doubt that the
1960s was one of the most active periods for community development
through citizen participation both in the United States and throughout
the world. Though none of the events described (in the history) led
directory to the founding of the Community Development Society,
they surely helped to create the climate out of which CDS emerged.

The society was chartered on October 15, 1969, four days before its first annual
meeting. On October 19, 1969, nine months after the original organizational
meeting, the first annual meeting of the society convened at the University of
Missouri in Columbia. Meanwhile, plans for the society's journal were formulated
and Bryan Phifer of the University of Missouri's department of community
development agreed to serve as the first editor.
More than 200 persons from 30 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada at-
tended the first meeting. In addition to addressing major issues facing community
development, participants adopted a constitution and bylaws, and elected officers
 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA 27

and a board of directors. Dr. Lee J. Cary, chair of the department of community
development, University of Missouri, was elected first president of the society.
Dr. George Abshier of Oklahoma State University was elected president-elect, and
Dr. John Dunbar of Purdue University was elected secretary-treasurer. By the end
of 1969, there were 442 members of the society.
As stated in Article II of its constitution adopted on October 21, 1969:
The purpose of the Society is to advance the community development profes-
sion through educational and scientific means by:
1. Providing a forum for the exchange of ideas among the members of the
Society;
2. Providing media for the publication and dissemination of professional and
scholarly works;
3. Advocating excellence in community development scholarship, research
and practice, for the good of mankind; and
4. Providing an opportunity for the development of common interests among
the members of the Society.

Since its founding, membership in the society has fluctuated between ap-
proximately 400 and 1,000 members. As of June 30, 1989, the society had 555
members in the United States and 15 other countries. The society publishes the
Journal of the Community Development Society twice a year and its Vanguard
magazine quarterly.

Christian Community Development Association

The Christian Community Development Association was organized in

Chicago in October 1989. It grew out of the congress of community ministries that
met there October 26–29, attended by more than 300 Christian leaders. Delegate
John Perkins said:

We are not forming the CCDA to patronize the poor, organize a protest,
or go over the facts of poverty again. We're not trying to help the poor
get more out of welfare, but to put an end to welfare. We want to help
people break out of the welfare system—and we're determined to do it
right along beside them.

Federal Government Thrusts

Major federal government involvement in community development came with

the Rural Development Program of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the
mid-1950s. Special funds were authorized by the Congress for the employment of
rural development agents through the extension services of the land-grant
28 SOCIOLOGICAL PRACTICE/1990

universities. This was followed in the early 1960s by the Area Redevelopment
Administration which was one of the first of many federal programs offering
financial incentives for community development. President Johnson's War on
Poverty, begun in 1964, created community action agencies funded through the
Office of Economic Opportunity. The remainder of the 1960s and the 1970s saw
a flood of programs providing funds for local, regional, state, and multi-state
development. By the time the first catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
Programs was published in the mid 1960s, more than 1,100 federal programs were
available. Many of these programs offered technical and financial assistance for
community improvement projects. They came to be known as "categorical grant"
programs since the grant was limited to a specific purpose, such as hospital, library,
or swimming pool construction.
Categorical grant programs often tended to work counter to true community
development in that:

1. Local funds which should have gone for priority needs often were used as
matching funds for projects which may not have been needed.
2. They discouraged citizen participation except in a perfunctory manner to
meet legal requirements.
3. They created a dependency on federal financing rather than encouraging
use of local resources.
4. They discouraged a holistic view of the community and an integrated
development approach based upon real community development prin-
ciples and practice.

Moreover, the proliferation of federal grant programs in the 1960s nearly

overwhelmed the capacity of communities to use them effectively. Consequent-
ly, it produced an explosion of so-called "planners," who often had neither
community development nor planning experience, and created a new science of
"grantsmanship."
In response to increasing demand for more local control over federal com-
munity improvement funds, President Nixon introduced his Revenue Sharing
Act which the Congress passed in 1972. It lasted until 1986. Special revenue
sharing and community development block grants let communities concentrate
on their own priorities within broadly defined national purposes. This allowed
for much greater flexibility and local control over the use of federal funds than
was the case with categorical grant programs. Community development block
grants also combined many of the categorical grant programs into six broad
categories, thereby eliminating much paperwork and red tape.
Today there is a hodgepodge of programs under the label of community
development. Most cities have departments of community development whose
 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA 29

primary purpose is to administer grant programs, and most states have regional
planning commissions or councils of government. The range of local, state and
federal development programs varies from true citizen participation and initiative
to those almost wholly directed by governmental units.

Looking Ahead
Community development has indeed become an in-word, but its meaning is
akin to what Humpty-Dutnpty told Alice when he said, "When I use a word it
means just what I want it to mean—neither more nor less" (Carroll, 1872, new
edition 1946:245). Our challenge is to recapture community development as a true
citizen effort emphasizing democratic participation and self-help and to make sure
that it conveys this meaning. It is indeed ironic that in many totalitarian countries
fresh winds of democracy and local control of people's destinies are blowing while
in the United States we have come more and more to look to the federal govern-
ment to do many things for us which we would best do for and by ourselves. How
well we recapture the spirit of local decision making and self-help will not only
determine the future of community development but of democracy itself.

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 COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT IN AMERICA 31

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