Big Tech and Housing Sustainability

                    

I love Amazon.  I’m a Prime member.  I shop from them several times a week.  I buy most of my groceries from them.  I buy books and bulbs and beauty supplies from them. Amazon Music makes life easier for at my job.

Amazon is a pioneer in electronic commerce.  They make products accessible to people who otherwise may not be able to find truffles or socks for plantar fascitis or DVDs or magazines or make-up from South Korea.  The breadth of their inventory is stunning. 

Amazon is also an advertising, technology business conglomerate.  They are not only an e-commerce business,  but also offer a dizzying amount of services through Amazon Web Services (AWS)  especially cloud storage.  “Amazon controls more than a third of the Cloud market, almost twice its next closest competitor.” (Page, 2021).

Just taking a cursory look at the AWS website, you will find services as diverse as  Robotics; Game Tech; Security, Identity and Compliance; Blockchain; Analytics; and VR and AR.  Needless to say Amazon is a powerful entity.  One of the most controversial services they provide includes Facial Recognition AI software to police departments allowing users to make critical decisions about the lives of others. (Hao 2021)

  When you take a look at Amazon’s SEC filings their mission states:

“We are guided by four principles: customer obsession rather than competitor focus, passion for invention, commitment to operational excellence, and long-term thinking. In each of our segments, we serve our primary customer sets, consisting of consumers, sellers, developers, enterprises, and content creators. In addition, we provide services, such as advertising to sellers, vendors, publishers, authors, and others, through programs such as sponsored ads, display, and video advertising.”        

 

The public is important to them, they aim to please the customer with their “obsession rather than competitor focus...” And, like other big technology companies,  Amazon provides services the public wants, otherwise, they would not have flourished as much as they have in our capitalist society. 

With all of this money, power and influence how does the presence of Amazon  and other Big Tech companies affect changes in housing and housing costs?  Has Big Tech had a more damaging effect on the public, especially on housing and standards of living than have past industrial revolutions?

Who is Big Tech?  When we say Big Tech Companies who are we talking about?   In the process of writing this paper, I was surprised to learn what companies scholars considered to be Big Tech – Facebook (now MetaVerse) Pinterest, Symantec, AirBnB, Apple, Alphabet (Google), Dropbox – names most of us may know.  But there are also companies we may have never heard of like ServiceNow, NetApp, Western Digital or Palo Alto Networks.  These are companies that have caused most of the sales of home to increase once they relocate or expand. (Chapple and Jeon, 2021)   These companies also make a lot of money.  NetApp for example, in 2019 had revenue of $5,412,000,000.   As of September 2021, Western Digital’s revenue was over $5,000,000,000. 

 

Chapple and Jeon focus on the effects of Big Tech’s presence in the San Francisco Bay Area (2021).  Chapple and Jeon acknowledge that housing prices increase when Big Tech companies come to town, however, they are cautious about blaming or assigning responsibility to these companies completely.  They assert that city governments are not doing enough about housing - “…cities have typically failed to enact policies to preserve housing affordability when tech firms relocate or expand.”  But even they find “…a few (towns/regions) result in a premium twice as high or more.”

 Using a variety of tools including the ZTRAX database from Zillow (what Chapple and Jeon describe as a “data set” used to analyze real estate sales transactions), the U.S. Census Bureau, DID models (Difference in Difference “typically analyze the impact of a new housing investment or new infrastructure…using concentric rings to compare impacts within an inner ring with those in an outer ring.” (355)) and studies of several other scholars they conclude:

“Due in part to its boom-bust nature, the tech industry has a notable impact on local housing markets.  This study confirms that, even when controlling for local amenities, density and existing tech concentrations, the arrival of a tech company increases housing prices disproportionately in its immediate vicinity, with a small but significant price premium of 7.1% over a two year period.”  (364)

They also find that the higher the number of employees the companies plan to hire, the more disruptive to housing the effect is. 

Chapple and Jeon also cite a study by Kemeny and Osman (2018) regarding the effects of Big Tech on non-tech related jobs. While this is not a study specifically about housing costs, obviously employment and housing are linked.  Kemeny and Osman find “…stable and consistent evidence that growth in local tech employment augments the real wages earned by workers in nontradable sectors.  However, the influence of tech is minor” – nontradables being lower paid, less skilled jobs and employees. (p. 1730).  They ultimately find that although wages in towns with a strong Big Tech presence are higher by 0.1% and 0.7%, these rates are not substantive enough to make any real difference to the non-tech employees. 

Also,  the so called nontradable jobs are in services such as fine dining, dry cleaning, health care and other rich amenities.  Kemeny and Osman also agree that the housing security of  nontradable employees is tenuous.    Although they find that Big Tech companies moving into a town is positive for job growth, per se, the jobs themselves do not pay as well as cities and governments believe or advertise them to be.  Snagging a high tech firm to your city will not increase wages for your citizens in any real way.     

Amazon is based in Seattle, Washington where nearby Redmond is home to Microsoft.  Randy Shaw’s book, Generation Priced Out includes a chapter that focuses mostly on Seattle and how the housing crisis manifested itself there.  He considers if building affordable housing is the answer to the housing crisis caused by the increased growth of Amazon.  He explores how the housing market has changed Seattle, even after the presence of other big companies in the area including Microsoft and Starbucks:

“The despair expressed by residents over the pricing out of the City’s working and middle class and small businesses was new for Seattle.  Longtime residents of San Francisco and New York City have talked this way since the 1980s.  But Seattle was different.  It was a more laid-back big city.” (106)

Shaw too cites the physical growth of Amazon in Seattle as one of the main causes of housing problems.  In 2017 before his book was published, Shaw states that Amazon grew from 5,000 employees in 2010 to 40,000 in in 2017.  Today, in fact, that number is 75,000 (Geekwire)

Even though Shaw does not believe Seattle will ever get as expensive as New York or San Francisco, $2000 for rent in 2017 in a city that was never as competitive for housing had to have a negative effect.  Housing costs doubled in just a few years according to the National Mortgage News.   "…Seattle home values have almost doubled and rents have increased by half, straining affordability," said Terrazas in a press release. "Of course, Seattle's tremendous growth and some of the tensions it has created can't all be laid at Amazon's doors alone." (2018)

Big Tech companies have integrated quietly in many cities including New York (Google), Naples (Apple, but via a school, not production or moving thousands of employees for engineering positions), Las Vegas, and Nashville to name but a few. Stefano De Falco in his article, From Silicon Valley to Vesuvius Valley: Dismantled industrial farms to a knowledge-and creativity hub in Naples, Italy, insists that the kind of city where tech companies operate is the actual problem.  Housing, public transit, and good schools are not necessary.  In fact a hard scrabble city in decline, constantly struggling to survive, like Naples, is better. This is where Apple chose to initiate its latest venture Apple Univerity, to teach a new generation of developers. This has been a positive move for Naples even though much of  its intellectual talent is still migrating elsewhere.  This goes along with the research of Chapple, Kemeny, et. al., who also believe in-migration from other parts of the country to cities where tech companies are located also influence the kinds of jobs that will come to a city, as well as the kinds of workers it can afford.

However, some cities have loudly protested the presence of Big Tech including Berlin and Toronto, and they won.  Ahmed (2019) documented how Alphabet, owner of Google,  tried for several years to woo Toronto through a project they call Sidewalk Labs.  This would have created a “city within a city” in an isolated area of Toronto’s waterfront, ostensibly increasing income inequality as well as segregating sectors of the city. 

 

Sidewalk Labs also promotes “Smart Cities” (another nebulous, futuristic term) that promotes the use of electronic surveillance to ostensibly improve cities, or improve the monitoring of its citizens.  In fact, Sidewalk developed “an app called CommonSpace, which collected data on people who visited R.V. Burgess Park in the Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood, where most residents tend to be Black and brown new immigrants.”  This example demonstrates the kind of power a company like Alphabet wields in local communities. They also secretly expanded the size of their footprint on the city.    Thorben Wiedtz, one of the Torontonians who was part of the group #BlockSidewalk is quoted, “We’re not engaging people anymore, we’re sitting on a computer and calculating sidewalk use…You’re not dealing with a rational opponent—they can lose millions of dollars if they want to.”

 

Ahmed, Chapple and Jeon, and Kemeny and Osman all cite the extraordinarily publicized results of Amazon’s search for a second headquarters.  In 2017 Amazon put out a call to the world to help them choose a city for its so called HQ2.  Amazon reported they needed space for 25,000 employees and required cities to bid for the prize of the company locating its business in one of these cities.  238 cities ultimately bid and 20 finalists were chosen. (Chen, Wilkoff, Yoshida 2021)  The process was highly contentious and reportedly one city bid up to $7B for the honor.

Amazon chose New York and Arlington, VA as its two choices.  New York City was prepared to give Amazon up to $3 billion in incentives. (McCartney, 2019)  There was much debate about what would happen if Amazon came to NYC, specifically could Long Island City, the neighborhood in Queens, handle such a huge influx of employees.  Could the subway system handle all of the traffic?  What about the schools in the area with all the new pupils?  But mostly, why were we paying Amazon, one of the most profitable businesses in the history of the United States, to come to our city?    

Chen et. al. believe that just the announcements in drips and drabs from Amazon about the potential move to New York and Arlington were enough to cause real estate prices to rise,  in New York by 17.5% and in Arlington, by 7.5%, but not in any other city being considered other than Jersey City in New Jersey.  They state, “The result for other finalist cities implies that the effect we find for housing prices in VA and NY is due to information rather than speculation.”

McCartney in his article for the Washington Post after Amazon chose to abandon New York City and go exclusively with Arlington, wrote “…business and political leaders need to focus as well on solving problems of gentrification that the new jobs will exacerbate, including housing costs, overcrowded schools and displacement of longtime residents.”  He also points out that Arlington had been searching for a tenant for space that was abandoned by the Pentagon ten years prior.  Virginia only bid $750 million, but “Labor unions are more powerful in New York than in Virginia, a right-to-work state.”  (McCartney)

 

Amazon did not choose these cities because they were the best places for them to operate. It wasn’t like they went to Arlington and  looked at their hard infrastructure – roads, bridges, railways and soft infrastructure – economic, health and social standards, laws and financial system – and decided “you know what?  We think this is the best fit for our company.”  Instead, the 20 finalist cities were asked to prepare proposals requiring incentives from each city – what each city was willing to give in return for Amazon opening shop in their town. It was all transactional.

 

McCartney is up front about gentrification, or basically, discrimination, and the exacerbation of income inequality as one of the reasons why Amazon failed to snag New York City.  Chapple and Jeon, and Chapple in other writings (Chapple, Thomas, et. al. 2004) mentions almost dismissively the importance of race in price appreciation, in the latter as it concerns housing in the Twin Cities and technology companies relocating there. In Chapple and Jeon’s article, race is mentioned as a factor almost as an afterthought (p.360). 

McCartney is almost militant by comparison: “Companies could be asked to accept smaller subsidies, or none at all, and to agree to do more to support affordable housing and local infrastructure” two aspects of infrastructure that help lower income citizens, unfortunately many of them, people of color. 

In fact, Amazon is doing this, as are a few other companies.  Amazon Attacks Housing Crisis Via $2B Loan Fund shouts one headline. (Post, 2021) Amazon to Help Fund Affordable housing Near D.C. Mass Transit touts another. (Amus and George, 2021)  And another, Amazon to Donate Undeveloped Crystal City Land to Arlington for Affordable Housing. (Amus, 2021)

Microsoft pledged $500 million in loans for developers to build low and middle income housing.  (Coleman and Rosenberg, 2019)  Google also pledged $1 billion to ease the housing crisis in the Bay Area where they used to pay $1,750 a month to rent space  for their company in San Francisco in 1998.  (Wakabayashi and Dougherty, 2019)  Why are they doing this? What has changed? What have they realized?

Change and technology go hand in hand. New technologies have always been disruptive to every day life.  Television disrupted Radio.  Automobiles disrupted horse-drawn carriages.  Airplanes disrupted train travel. When a company like Amazon comes to town, there will be disruptions. As Ahmed says “This disruption looks like a deeper form of quantified technocratic governance, enabled by Big Data.”  Similarly to railroads, automobiles, gasoline, and film,  Big Tech has been disruptive to other industries.  They have also changed American society and global societies, changing how we live our lives, and what we expect regarding services. 

 

But, is Big Tech more invasive and destructive than earlier industries on a more intimate level?  In one specific area of life, I say it is.  The effects of Big Tech on communities where they are located can devastate housing availability, housing costs and can even increase homelessness.   This is obvious in Seattle Washington, the original home of Amazon, and especially in the San Francisco Bay Area where many companies are located in Silicon Valley.

 

In their mission statement, one of  the first things Amazon is adamant about is “long term thinking.” Is it the responsibility of business to think of the long-term needs of the public, a public that most likely will be their customers who fuel and maintain their growth and existence?  Housing is one of those needs. Are housing and homelessness a government problem?  Is housing a necessity, a right or a privilege?

 

Cities where tech companies plan to relocate or expand should take the initiative as Chapple and Jeon suggest and create affordable housing or expand their housing stock prior to any move so that  their towns can absorb the newcomers without pricing out its original citizens.  This will reduce the homelessness that is now plaguing the Bay area and Seattle.

 

Santa Clara County, California, in 2013 had a homeless population of 7000, at that time the fifth largest per capita in the country. (Potts, 2016)  Santa Clara County is home to ServiceNow, Apple, PaloAlto Networks and Seagate Technologies, all of the areas where these companies have had over 30% increase in housing after they opened (Chapple and Jeon)   We all know rising rents and homelessness is a national problem, but doubling home prices in a 5 year period cannot be helpful.

 

Salvatore Settis poses a sobering question in his book If Venice Dies: What if we all knew that after we died, the entire world would be completely destroyed within a month? (2014) Would we change our behavior? His purpose in asking this question involves the tremendous growth of cities in the last 100 years. A city in China like Chongqing in 2014 had 32 million inhabitants from six hundred thousand in 1930!  He reminds us the word megalopolis really belongs to the present not just futuristic sci-fi movies.  Could we make different choices if we knew the end date of this planet and humanity as it stands?  Settis reminds us of the importance of a sociable city, a manageable city. 

“Designed to accommodate a social way of life and built to last, the city is the appointed optimal place for the planning of the future.  Thus, the dissolution of the historic city, and the one track thinking of the megalopolis, and the abolition of the diversity of urban models have affected the behavior of men and women, imposed new ways of practicing one’s citizenship, and profoundly transformed not just cities themselves, but also all kinds of public discourse on subjects like democracy, economics, and inequality.” (p. 112)

 

Venice has a problem.  It is not Big Tech companies who go there to start factories or decamp there with thousands of software engineers that are problematic.  But like all of these cities in the U.S. that are now hosts to companies like Amazon, Tourists and Tourism is an entity that is made up of many  but behaves as one and has great power, influence and money.   

Settis complains vociferously at the mayor of Venice who allows huge cruise ships to enter the Grand Canal on a routine basis.  Why does the Venetian Government allow these ships to get dangerously close to the coast and therefore to some of the World’s finest treasures in the floating city?  Money and power are the root of it all.  The Venetian problem is a different one from the problems of housing and Big Tech, but money and power are inexorably linked in our ever more intimate, yet paradoxically larger world.  

 

 

Are Big Tech companies to blame for the housing crisis in the cities where they are located?  Not completely, but their presence has exacerbated housing costs in several areas where affordable housing is already in short supply. Some of these companies are now either realizing they have a moral duty to the cities they descend upon, or they are being shamed into helping cities retain its current citizens.  Whatever the reasons, the help is needed.

Can there be such a thing as too much money, or making and spending money responsibly?  These companies wield much influence in local and national politics.  No politician, other than possibly Alexandria Ocasio Cortez,  wants to be accused of not being friendly to business.  Commercials on television routinely accuse American politicians (sometimes by other politicians)  of “shipping our jobs to China”, and preventing technology companies from expanding by charging too much in taxes. 

Big Tech has benefitted from the tax cuts implemented a few years ago by the U.S. They are some of the wealthiest most profitable and successful companies in the U.S, if not on Earth, paying very low corporate taxes. They should reinvest their savings in housing and services for the communities where they are located.  Sometimes even the well paid employees of their own companies cannot afford to live in these cities.

Businesses such as these need customers to use and purchase their products a) to make more money,  and b) to continue to use their products so that they can mine, study and sell that same customer information. It is in the best interests of the same Big Technology companies to preserve and protect their customers .  If we are cynical about it, they need us so that they will be able to continue to make a profit off of us. Is it not in their own best interests to promote a benevolent image?  One that exudes care and compassion for their customers regarding everyday life. A happy, thriving, well paid customer is one who will spend more at your businesses.  

I have a hard time understanding what this topic genuinely has to do with information and libraries, other than the business side of it.  However, if we take an expansive view of library and information science then it is possible to believe that more areas of study are part of information studies than not.  And library and information studies is an interdisciplinary field that has to do not only with computers and literature, but also psychology, film, journalism, feminism, architecture, race and data science to name but a few.  It was not until I read their 2018 annual report to the Securities and Exchange Commission that I realized how involved Amazon is in the information industry.  I really had to see it on paper.

 

I take an existential view of life, meaning we are all in the world together, we have a responsibility to each other, but we as individuals have to choose to be responsible to others.  I believe the government should create and maintain housing for everyone like they do in Socialist countries, but I also appreciate and enjoy Capitalism and some minor luxuries.  Companies like Amazon and all the other Big Tech companies may see themselves divorced from the government and the public, married instead to their systems, computers, software, source codes, and computer languages - but they need us.   

 

Big Tech companies do not have to behave like mini kingdoms in medieval Europe living in their own self-made bubbles (literally in the case of Amazon in Seattle) and campuses, separate from all of Us out here, somewhere. We coexist, and for them to be profitable they may need to invest in the actual humans who work for them and whose information they use to improve their algorithms, and who shop from them.   There is no Big Tech without the people, or any business. They need us as much as we need them.

 

 

 

 

References

 

Amazon HQ2 Cities Should Brace for 'Arrogance' Effect on Home Prices; Amazon's

second headquarters facility could be both a driver of and hindrance to the home sales market in the city that ends up with it. (2018, March 1). National Mortgage News, 42(8),4

 

Ahmed, N.  (July-August 2019).  The city vs. big tech. Briarpatch 48(4), 1-8. 

 

Amus, T.  (July 13, 2021). Amazon to donate underdeveloped Crystal City land to

Arlington for affordable housing.Washingtonpost.com

 

Amus, T. & George, J. (June 16, 2021).  Amazon to help fund affordable housing

near D.C. mass transit. The Washington Post.

 

Chapple, K., & Jeon, J. S. (2021). Big Tech on the Block: Examining the Impact of

Tech Campuses on Local Housing Markets in the San Francisco Bay Area. Economic Development Quarterly, 35(4), 351–369. https://doi.org/10.1177/08912424211036180

 

Chapple, K., Thomas, J.V. Belzer, D., & Autler, G. (2004).  Fueling the fire:

Information technology and housing price appreciation in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Twin Cities.  Housing Policy Debate, 15(2), 347-383. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511482.2004.9521505

 

Chen, Y., Wilkoff, S. & Yoshida, J.  (2021).  Amazon is coming to town: Information

and housing market efficiency. SSRN.  https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3762672

 

Coleman, V. & Rosenberg, M.  (January 24, 2019).  Microsoft pledges $500 million

to tackle housing crisis in Seattle, Eastside. The Seattle Times.

https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/microsoft-pledges-500-million-to-help-develop-affordable-housing-in-seattle-and-on-eastside/

 

DeFalco, S. (2019).  From Silicon Valley to Vesuvius Valley: Dismantled industrial

farms to a knowledge-and-creativity hub in Naples, Italy.

Journal of Urban Regeneration and Renewal, 12(2), 177-195.

 

Hao, K. (2021). The fight to reclaim Ai. MIT Technology Review, 124(4), 48–52.

 

Kemeny, T., & Osman, T. (2018).  The wider impacts of high technology

employment: Evidence from US cities. Research Policy, 47(9), 1729-1740. https://doi.org/10.1026/j.respol.2018.06.005.

 

McCartney, R.  (Feb 16, 2019). Amazon’s New York ‘disaster’ reminds leaders to

address gentrification. The Washington Post.

 

Page, V. (August 12, 2021).  What is Amazon web services and why is it so

successful?   Investopedia.com  https://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/011316/what-amazon-web-services-and-why-it-so-successful.asp

 

Post, N. M.  October 11/18, 2021.  Amazon attacks housing crisis via $2B Loan

Fund.  Enr.com. p 10

 

Potts, M.  (Jan/Feb 2016). Dispossessed in the land of dreams: Those left behind

by Silicon Valley’s technology boom struggle to stay in the place they call home. New Republic 18 – 27. 

 

SEC.gov. (2018).  Amazon.com, Inc. Form 10-K

 

Settis, S.  (2015). If Venice dies.  (A. Naffis-Sahely, Trans.).  New Vessel

Press, New York. (Original work published 2014).

 

Shaw, R. (2018). Can Building Housing Lower Rents?: Seattle and Denver Say Yes.   

In Generation Priced Out: Who Gets to Live in the New Urban America (1st ed., pp. 103–126). University of California Press.

 

 

Soper, T. & Nickelsburg, M.  (January 6, 2021).  Amazon tops 75,000 employees in

Seattle area as company looks elsewhere in region for growth.  Geekwire.com

https://www.geekwire.com/2021/amazon-tops-75000-employees-seattle-      area-company-looks-elsewhere-region-growth/

 

 

 

RESEARCH and USER CENTERED SERVICES

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prof. Janine Biunno

Archives Appraisal, Acquisition and Use

Pratt Institute School of Information

 

 

Spring 2023

Wednesdays, 6:30 - 9:30

 

 

 

 

 

The Players Foundation For Theatre Education

Zeneida Disla

 

 

May 5, 2023

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Repository Overview

The Players Club

In 1886 American Shakespearean actor, Edwin Booth, the son of another famous American actor Junius Brutus Booth decided he wanted to start a club for actors.  Booth was a cerebral person who believed actors should have a well-rounded education and interests beyond the stage.  On the website of The Players Club Booth is quoted,   “We do not mingle enough with minds that influence the world,” Edwin Booth said of his fellow actors. “We should measure ourselves through personal contact with outsiders…I want my club to be a place where actors are away from the glamour of the theatre.” [1] 

 

The Players was incorporated in 1888.  He and 13 others, among them actors Joseph Jefferson and John Drew, writer Mark Twain, lawyer Stephen H. Olin and critic Brander Matthews were the original co-founders.  Booth bequeathed all of his books, papers and property, including the townhouse where The Players was founded at 16 Gramercy Park South in New York City.  He lived in the house, and died there, in 1893.  Booth stipulated the importance of founding a library at The Players;  “…a library relating to the history of the American Stage and the preservation of pictures, bills of the play, photographs and curiosities.”[2] 

According to the Hampden-Booth Theatre Library website, which was hacked earlier this year, and subsequently taken down, the library included several collections.  The Edwin Booth Collection includes promptbooks, diaries, Shakespeare editions, as well as ledgers, and account books from his theatres and tours.[3]   Booth’s collection of books numbered 1000 at the time of his death.[4] 

The Art Collection, mostly of portraits of actors and actresses of the theatre from the past, predominantly from the  19^th Century, includes three paintings by John Singer Sargent, portraits of Booth and of his father Junius Brutus Booth, and of many others including John Barrymore, Walter Hampden as Cyrano de Bergerac (Hampden would later be the longest serving president of The Players, thus the naming of the library after him.)  Included in the art collection are jewelry, properties, and death masks belonging to several actors including Sarah Bernhardt, Eve La Gallienne and Richard Mansfield. Other collections include the Walter Hampden Collection, the Union Square Theatre Collection from 1872-1883 from Players co-founder Albert Palmer, the Maurice Evans Collection, the Sothern and Marlowe Collection, the Charles Coburn Collection, and, the William Henderson Collection of English Playbills.

Sometime in the 2000s the Players Foundation for Theatre Education was founded by The Players Club, their histories inexorably linked. [5]   The Players Foundation for Theatre Education is a non profit 501(3)C organization. 

 

The Players Foundation for Theatre Education

Today the Librarian/Curator of The Foundation is Amelia Bathke.  I met with her in late March 2023 at The Players Club.  She is also a member of the board serving as its Secretary, although she does not see this as a position of power.   

 

At the time of our meeting, my understanding of the archive was through its now defunct website, www.hampden-booth.org.  On that website was their entire card catalog.  For each item there was a call number,  author, title, collection, description, dimensions, and notes.  Although when one searched this site, on the top of the results there was a line –

Sort by:  Author  Recipient  Title  Format  Box#  Call# 

 

I did not see box numbers on the results during searches.  In the card catalog one could also find results for autographs, and letters.  Those were the main search criteria one could enter on the site.  You could not search by box or by container. 

Ms. Bathke showed me some of their most important collections including a copy of a book of Shakespeare from the 16^th or 17^th Century.  (I didn’t write the name down!)  The cover was made of parchment and I could feel the wooden boards and the leather used to keep it together with the binding.  There was a copy of Edwin Booth’s Prompt-Book of Hamlet, edited by William Winter, one of Booth’s best friends.[6]  There was a very badly beaten copy of English Restoration comedy The School for Scandal by Richard Sheridan. It had no cover, its spine was exposed, and the pages were torn and cracking.  There was a copy of The Importance of Being Earnest autographed by its author, Oscar Wilde. I was also shown a copy of a bill from The Players belonging to 20^th Century member Humphrey Bogart.  It is possible that although the two organizations are separate, the Foundation may receive deaccessioned records from The Players Club from influential or famous members.

This is the Acquisitions Policy Statement that was on the Hampden-Booth website:

“The Hampden-Booth Theatre Library collects primary and secondary materials relating to Edwin Booth and his family, as well as relevant 19^th century American and British theatre.  Primary and Secondary source material relating to the 20^th century theatre will be collected from those persons who continued the actor-manager tradition into the 20^th century (such as Walter Hampden) or who were known mainly for their interpretations of classical roles (such as Maurice Evans).

Other material will be added to the collection if it is deemed pertinent to the librarian or by the Library Committee.  In addition, significant published materials relating to The Players and Gramercy Park will be collected. “

According to Ms. Bathke, as far as acquisitions, she looks at donations by Club members first.  She has chosen to turn down some that do not go along with the mission of the archive.  However, she does not turn down items that are not specifically about Booth or 19^th century theatre.  For an example, she may accept donations that are peripherally connected to theatre history, drama or NYC history such as anthologies of plays from the 1950s. She also has bid on items on Ebay.

The Access Policy, that was also on the old website:

“The library is open to the public by appointment on weekdays 9A.M. to 5 P.M. Actual examination of specific materials is limited to persons with a demonstrable need to see them.”

 

Ms. Bathke seems to have a very relaxed view of access. She said anyone who would like to see the collections can call her and they can look at what they need.  She also said, I for example, could return any time to the Library or that I could ask for any specific items in the collection that I needed.  She said writers of historical plays have used the archive for their research. 

The Mission Statement of the Foundation is on the current Foundation website:[7]

“The Players Foundation for Theatre Education was established to foster an understanding and appreciation of American Theatre, utilizing the history of The Players and its illustrious members who have contributed to that legacy. It is a nonprofit organization whose mission includes the preservation of its fine art holdings, costumes and theatrical ephemera, and rare book, manuscript, and playbill collections. The Foundation acts as a resource for scholars interested in researching theatre history and the history of nineteenth century New York. An active docent tour program and the sponsorship of lectures and play readings round out the activities of the Foundation.”

 

As per the mission statement, The Foundation has events at The Players including a lecture about Legerdemain (magic tricks) and Edwin Booth this past March by the lead archivist of the Society of American Magicians.  In November of last year, they had an exhibition of the set designs and drawings by Players member Eric Pape from early in the 20^th century. And Ms. Bathke also holds monthly discussions in the Players Library. 

In December of 2021 the Foundation had a stained glass window of Shakespeare restored with funding from a Player. In March of 2022 the Foundation partnered with the Fashion Institute of Technology and welcomed one of their graduate students to study the costumes owned by Booth. 

Currently, there is no Acquisitions or Access policy on the Foundation website.  It is also important to mention that both the Hampden-Booth website and the Foundation website were up concurrently without any reference to the other, and, with no links between them. 

As of last week, the Foundation updated its current website to include searchability for some of the items in their collection.  On their Learn tab there is now a dropdown menu with two items. One is Books, which leads to a page with two books that are for sale through their website – Artwork at the Players and Eric Pape and the Players. The second item is Catalog which leads to a different page with Online Collections.  There you will find tabs for Keyword Search, Advanced Search,  Archives, and  Library.  If you click on the Archives tab you will be directed to a page where you can search in numerical order the 445 items that have thus far been entered.  Most of the items cataloged in the Archives tab seem to be letters.  There are no autographs, books or photographs listed so far. Those items were listed on the card catalog in the old website.   If you click on the Library tab, likewise you will be directed to a page with all 197 books that have been entered to date.  Of those books cataloged, 153 are from the Edwin Booth Collection proper.

As far as what exactly or how many items the Foundation owns at this time, that is unclear.  It was not stated on the old site, and it is not stated on the current one.  And as far as accessions, Ms. Bathke said their collection is not fully processed, however, I do not know how many boxes are still unprocessed.    

The Players Club and The Players Library

You cannot separate the collections from the building; the building is part of the collection.  The townhouse is replete with items from their collections. It exudes grand theatricality and luxury.  There are vitrines of swords used by Booth and other members in theatre productions, cases of costumes, awards, and posters from the life of The Players and of its members. There are also paintings of literary, cultural and theatrical icons and members.  There are paintings of Toni Morrison, playwright Edward Albee, actors Richard Thomas, Morgan Freeman, Martha Plimpton, and former NYC mayor David Dinkins, among hundreds of others. And those are just the small ones.  There are large paintings of historic American actors Alfred Drake, James Cagney, Christopher Plummer and Jose Ferrer (former president of the club).   The interiors of the building are beautiful and an art piece in and of itself, designed by Stanford White.

 

I went to the Library room on the second floor of the building.  The library is stocked with books written by and about members, as well as theatre and literary scholars.  They have anthologies of dramas, histories, biographies, and many plays by a diverse range of playwrights and authors including women. 

In the library, there stands a table with a glass top.  Under the glass there are dozens of photos of actresses.  Most of these are from the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries.  They include photos of such stage and screen performers as Maud Adams, Ethel Barrymore, Ellen Terry, Julia Marlowe, Mae Murray, and Billie Burke. 

The Booth Room

Although I did not get to see the Booth Room, Ms. Bathke talked of the need to restore it and get it “environmentally stable, including the bedding and the wallpaper.”  The room has been basically untouched since he died about 130 years ago. 

 

 

Relevant Literature and Collections Evaluation

In Principles and History of Archival Accessioning, Yun discusses the influence of the 1898 Dutch Manual for the Arrangement and Description of Archives on American archivists and the importance of context to an archive.[8] The fact that the Players Foundation for Theatre Education was founded and is located in the house of its founder and major donor provides a great deal of context, right there in the building and in the neighborhood. Can the Foundation be a neutral space where items that are not consistent with the Club’s mission find room as well?  “Accessioning is not a neutral act” as Yun also states.[9]  The Librarian at the Players is not completely focused on acquiring new items, it seems she needs to work on preserving the items they have.  And, because their mission is very focused on the 19^th century and theatre, there does not seem to be a huge inventory of items the Foundation can acquire. 

 

Is the Players Foundation an institutional repository or a collecting repository?  Is it possible for it to be both?  The mission of an institutional repository is inward; “not to document the world around the institution, but rather the institution itself.”[10] The Foundation has documents related to the Players Club as an institution, including records related to members, and property of members who have given these to the Foundation. They are housed in the home of its founder, and even if The Players Club (and not the Foundation) owns the house outright, part of the Foundation’s mission is to acquire papers or items related to the house.  It is possible they have or may desire to have blueprints of the house, or drawings by the architect Stanford White who designed the interiors.  These are records of the institution. 

 

Conversely, the Foundation may be viewed solely as a collecting repository, especially because of the recent separation on paper from the Players Club.  As Boles states in Selecting and Appraising Archives and Manuscripts, “Collecting repositories have no formal responsibility for documenting their own organization or those individuals served by the organization, but rather look outward and seek material from some other documentary universe.”  The mission of the Foundation, and the acquisitions policy both mention the desire to obtain items related not only to Edwin Booth or the Players Club, but also items related to American and British theatre, as well as New York City in the 19^th century as well as Gramercy Park.  In other words, they also want collections related to the context of the life of this organization and where it is situated physically and historically.

 

Although the Foundation seems to focus mainly on textual objects, they own many non-textual items including photographs[11] and many costumes, props, and other ephemera. Just as Paton states that audio recordings can be considered “primary resources” so too can some of the non-textual objects at the Foundation be considered primary resources for researchers of theatre history, material culture and cultural studies.[12]   For example, a scholar may be writing their dissertation on the history of prop use in theatre productions of Greek Drama. The only props used in Greek theatre in the 5^th century BCE were masks.  Today, Greek dramas are presented with costumes, and all kinds of props and sets.  How did this evolve throughout theatre history?   The text of the drama is not the only thing worth studying.  The Foundation’s recent collaboration with F.I.T. is an indication of how they may be looking at their non-textual items in a more expansive light.

 

Access

The Foundation is a glimpse at the world of theatre and the elite in New York City from the late 19^th century to the present.  It is emblematic of a man’s world where only wealthy, white, well connected men were asked to join.  Women were not allowed to become members until 1989 when thirty women were honored with induction.  (I asked Ms. Bathke about the history of Black men and other men of color at The Players, but she referred me to the Club itself.  I did not try to contact them. That would have been an awkward conversation and I am not a member.)  Although they are different organizations, the Foundation would not exist without The Players Club and its history.   

 

Entering The Players presented me with some conflict.  When I was a junior in college, in 1988, I had to interview a professional stage manager.   I interviewed the female stage manager of the Broadway production of Burn This.  One of the questions I asked her who was “what has it been like to be woman in this position?”  She clearly said it wasn’t a big deal at all.  “If you just do your work, they respect you and take you seriously.” 

The next day, I discovered that one of my fellow students had interviewed the same person.  Her interview went very differently from mine.  Jennifer asked her the same question I asked about gender, but she told Jennifer it was horrible.  “Men treat you like shit, they think they know everything, you have to fight back.”  She even took Jennifer out for drinks!  I was stunned.  I said out loud, “I wonder why the interview was so different?” All my classmates, all of them white or white passing, looked at me incredulously! “Zeneida! Its because you’re Black” was the unanimous answer. 

That was a long time ago, but honestly when I found out about this assignment, that stage manager came back to me, and I was very tense. When I called the archive I originally wanted to view - The Shubert Theatre Archive - I got some uncomfortable vibes. The second time I spoke to them, I decided to use as “white” a voice as I could to make myself seem proper and competent.  When I was on my way to The Players Club, I was so conscious of myself on that street, Gramercy Park South – so chi chi, so exclusive, so white.

Although my experience at The Players was positive, I was always aware that I was a Black woman in a white space.  Furthermore, the librarian did not show me around, but afforded me the privilege of walking around the space freely. It was early afternoon and there were no patrons there.  I roamed around the building alone taking photos, looking at glass cases of costumes, paintings lining the staircase, and finally the library.  I put my stuff down in the library and was always concerned that someone would storm into the room to demand why I was there.  I was so preoccupied with this that I could not really take in what they had.  I did not feel comfortable until I walked out of the building. 

No one there did anything negative to me. No one approached me, or accosted me, or reprimanded me or even, really looked at me.  Was this just paranoia on my part? Possibly, but it also speaks to the exclusivity built into archives and rare book libraries.  In Gentleman’s Ghost: Patriarchal Eurocentric Legacies in Special Collection Design, Erickson emphasizes the importance of the past reputation of archives and rare book libraries to the experience of visitors who happen to be people of color:[13]

It is not only the awareness that we are being watched, or the perception that we are being watched more closely than our white male peers, that is at work here; it is the multitude of subtle aesthetic details that together convey the message that “we do not belong.”

The fact that women and racial minorities were barred access to these spaces for so many generations in the history of higher learning resonates in a way that requires removing oneself from culturally comfortable space….The remoteness of these archival research spaces, which are often walled off or geographically distant from communities of color….helps to create this atmosphere.[14]

 

There may not be much that an archive can do to ease the perceptions of a visitor.  The Foundation is not about to move out of 16 Gramercy Park South because as Ms. Bathke said, they are tied to the building.[15] This particular building is more imposing once you walk inside.  It is very bright, opulent and gives the impression one is underdressed without pearls on. And the glitz and glamour of the place is part of the mission – this is how the place looked when Booth lived in it; that is the point.  The fact that the librarian allowed me to walk around alone was itself assurance that my presence was welcome.

 

The only way to combat this unease, in my opinion is for archives like these to throw its doors open to a more diverse public.  Focus a few monthly talks on a Black performer like Paul Robeson – the Foundation owns one of his letters and one of his promptbooks from Othello.  Or ask current Black members who are actors to give a talk about their life in the world of theatre.  Another idea would be to explore events that occurred in the Gramercy Park area where Black people were involved, like the 1863 New York City Draft Riots. There is a first hand account of how at least one Black man was murdered by an angry mob during the Draft Riots on 28^nd Street and Lexington Avenue, a stone’s throw from the Players Club itself.[16]   They could build an entire program around that.  They could invite a PhD student to write a paper about the topic just for this presentation.  They could make it a yearly event exploring topics about a variety of performance topics from diverse populations. If I found out about a competition like that, even for no money, I might apply.   These are relatively painless ways to engage a more diverse visitor who may then feel more at ease the next time they encounter a predominantly white space, or indeed the Foundation itself.  

 

Digital Access

 

These are images from the newly expanded website of the Foundation.  To get to page below, you will click on the learn section of the website.  This was generated with PastPerfect Museum Software.  There is no information about where one can find this record.  No box number, no level of documentation, no series.  Is this even a finding aid? Its not as clear or informative as an ArchivesSpace record.

 

       

 

Below, when you click on the image, this page opens up.  If you click on the View Image Metadata on the lower left hand corner, the following page….

 

 

…is this.  This image metadata links back to the original archive record.

 

 

Below is a search of the Edwin Booth Collection.   I only searched for a record with images from the library, not the archive. Notice only 1 result was found.

 

  

Below is another search conducted on their new site.  For this one I broadened the categories of records I was looking for – objects, archives, but not the library. 

 

 

 

And I chose the second item, Letter-EBALS1 shown below.  Again, there is no indication of where the items are located.

 

    

Conclusions

The most glaring omissions in their collection has to do with women and Black and non-white actors.  Although it is true that there were very few Black actors in the 19^th century performing Shakespeare or Classics, there were some, and they were outstanding – James Hewlett and Ira Aldridge among them.[17] These two were members of the African Theatre in New York City and therefore, offer multiple points of access for the Foundation – Shakespearean acting, diversity, and New York City history.  They were active prior to Edwin Booth’s time, so they were not members, but others who were never members such as British actor-manager Colley Cibber and British playwright Ben Jonson are both represented in the collections at the Foundation.[18]

 

Even more astounding, than the low profile of African American male actors at the Foundation collections, is the glaring lack of documents about women actors. Although they have a collection of papers from Julia Marlowe and her husband Edward Hugh Sothern, there seems to be a minimal focus related to the work of women in the theatre.  The table in the Library with photos of women is an unimpressive tribute to the contributions of American white women in the theatre of the 19th and early 20^th centuries.  This omission is the most surprising to me because there is so much documentation available and possibly material to acquire.  

 

The Foundation would benefit from a two to three-year documentation strategy project focused on ethnically and racially diverse American actresses of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.   Although documentation strategy projects tend to be very expensive and time consuming, this kind of study may have a few benefits for the Foundation and for the Players as well.  One, the librarian may feel better supported in her role because she may gain a group of colleagues who are also librarians and/or archivists who may prop her up. I got the feeling she is very isolated.  She sees her role as an advocate for the profession, and she is eager to enhance the work being done at the Foundation.  Although this will bring a new project to Ms. Bathke’s already full calendar, it will hopefully raise her profile because of any new accessions or research that may arise due to the study.  Two, the research into the appraisals can be tied to exhibits at The Players.  Three, the multicultural dimension of the study may boost the collaboration The Players already started with BOLD[19]  and CAAPA (Coalition of African Americans in the Performing Arts).[20]   Both organizations advocate and support Black performers and educate Black audiences about opportunities in performance.   

The way I envision this study it would be a collaboration with a major American university with a theatre department and archive of its own, as well as the Smithsonian American Women’s History Museum.  The latter is not open yet, but this is an opportunity to work on possibly sharing acquisitions or long term loans.

The Foundation has just begun their work using PastPerfect so I want to believe that they will utilize a finding aid that will more clearly inform researchers of the exact locations of their items. The SAA even suggest that an external finding aid can be used with this software.[21]

The Players Club is an important institution in the history or the American theatre.  Without the collections cared for by the Players Foundation for Theatre Education, the Club would lose the life blood of their organization.  Edwin Booth was not only a star, he was an intellectual who saw the theatre’s potential for more than just entertainment. The Foundation needs to be supported in order that the Club may prosper.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

 

Boles, Frank. Selecting & Appraising Archives & Manuscripts. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2005.

Carlson, Marvin, and Yvonne Shafer. The Play's The Thing: An Introduction to Theatre. New York, NY: Longman, 1990.

Caust-Ellenbogen, Celia. “‘PastPerfect-Ion’ : Optimizing PastPerfect for Archival Description’ by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen.” archivists.org, n.d. https://www2.archivists.org/groups/public-library-archivesspecial-collections-section/finding-aids-and-cataloging.

Erickson, Jesse Ryan. “The Gentleman's Ghost: Patriarchal Eurocentric Legacies in Special Collections Design.” Essay. In Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation, edited by Mary Kandiuk, 121–57. Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2020.

Paton, Christopher Ann. “Appraisal of Sound Recording for Textual Archivists.” Archival Issues 22, no. 2 (1997).

Wemmlinger, Raymond, and Brooks McNamara. Edwin Booth's Legacy: Treasures from the Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection at the Players. Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, 1989.

Whitehorne, George A. “Their Rage Was Chiefly Directed Against Men.” Essay. In Black Women in White America: A Documentary History, edited by Gerda Lerner, 159–61. New York, NY : Vintage Books, 1992.

Yun, Eagle Audra. Essay. In Archival Accessioning. Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2021.

Zimmer, Amy. DNAinfo, March 15, 2013. https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130315/gramercy/players-club-danger-of-closing-finance-report-says/.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] https://theplayersnyc.org/web/pages/history

[2] Hampden-Booth Library website, now defunct. Copyrighted 2009 Hampden-Booth Theatre Library. 

[3] Hampden- Booth Library Website.

[4]Raymond Wemmlinger and Brooks McNamara, Edwin Booth's Legacy: Treasures from the Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection at the Players (Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, 1989). p. 15.

[5] According to Amelia Bathke, the current Librarian and Curator, and Board Secretary, the Foundation was officially created in the “early 2000s” to separate the library and archive duties formally from The Players Club. She said with this separation it would be “easier to raise money for projects that are historically minded.”

Personal communication.

[6] Raymond Wemmlinger and Brooks McNamara, in Edwin Booth's Legacy: Treasures from the Hampden-Booth Theatre Collection at the Players (New York: Hampden-Booth Theatre Library, 1989), p. 16.

[7] https://www.playersfoundation.org/

[8] Eagle Audra Yun, in Archival Accessioning (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2021), p. 9.

[9] Yun p. 2

[10]Frank Boles, Selecting & Appraising Archives & Manuscripts (Chicago: Society of American Archivists, 2005), p.44.

[11] According to Wemmlinger, in 1989 the Players owned 12,000 theatre related photographs, p. 15

[12] Christopher Ann Paton, “Appraisal of Sound Recording for Textual Archivists,” Archival Issues 22, no. 2 (1997).

[13] I hate the term “people of color”  or BIPOC, but I don’t know of any other terms that can accurately describe such a large group of people.

[14] Jesse Ryan Erickson, “The Gentleman's Ghost: Patriarchal Eurocentric Legacies in Special Collections Design,” in Archives and Special Collections as Sites of Contestation (Sacramento, CA: Library Juice Press, 2020), p. 133.

[15] In 2013 there was concern that The Players would have to sell the townhouse due to a deficit in their budget of $4 million dollars.  Since then, The Players created a preservation foundation in order to raise money for the organization. Amy Zimmer, DNAinfo, March 15, 2013, https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20130315/gramercy/players-club-danger-of-closing-finance-report-says/.

[16] George A Whitehorne, “Their Rage Was Chiefly Directed Against Men,” in Black Women in White America: A Documentary History, ed. Gerda Lerner (New York, NY : Vintage Books, 1992), pp. 159-161.

[17] Marvin Carlson and Yvonne Shafer, The Play's The Thing: An Introduction to Theatre (New York, NY: Longman, 1990), p. 379.

[18] Wemmlinger,  p. 15.

[19] https://www.iamaboldwoman.com/

[20] https://4caapa.org/

[21] Caust-Ellenbogen, Celia. “‘PastPerfect-Ion’ : Optimizing PastPerfect for Archival Description’ by Celia Caust-Ellenbogen.” archivists.org, n.d. https://www2.archivists.org/groups/public-library-archivesspecial-collections-section/finding-aids-and-cataloging.