By 1904 two new influences on the development of parks in Hamilton are evident. Park reformers had become dissatisfied with the concept of one or more pleasure grounds scattered throughout an otherwise drab and unhealthy city. In England Ebenezer Howard had published Garden Cities of Tomorrow in 1902. Howard proposed that small, planned cities of no more than thirty thousand people be set up. A ring of agricultural land would circle the city and provide for agricultural and recreational opportunities for the inhabitants. He hoped such communities would have the best of country and city life.[50] In the United States Olmsted had popularized the idea of the park system and the garden suburb.[51] Olmsted first developed a park system for Buffalo, New York and later for Boston, Massachusetts. At Buffalo six hundred acres had been developed by Olmsted as pleasure grounds, scenic drives and boulevards, and small park squares. The Buffalo and Boston prospects were designed to distribute the benefits of the park over the whole city. Olmsted was also involved in early planning development of the garden suburb. The Riverside subdivision in Chicago was laid out by Olmsted. The then prevalent grid survey was rejected in favour of winding streets, parks and recreation grounds were scattered throughout, and certain trees were allowed to remain on the property and others were planted where they were thought to be necessary. The houses were all to be built at at least a minimum distance back from the roadway. Boulevards were an important feature of the streets, these new ideas were widely accepted by 1904.
Real estate promoters recognized that there was a potential increase in their profits if they were to offer more attractive surroundings to their buyers.[52] They began to include boulevards and small parks in their surveys. These amenities were vigorously promoted in their literture and often included the word park in the name of the subdivision. Hamilton had the Mountain Park Survey, the Maple Leaf Park Survey, Beaconsfield Park, and St. James Park for examples.
Hamilton's strong commitment towards industrial growth led the city and ultimately the parks board into alliances with these private developers. In 1904 the parks board resolved to purchase land along the mountain brow designated as a driveway in the Hamilton Mountain Park Survey.[53] It was the board's responsibility to ensure that park land be preserved in new areas of the city but there appears to have been no threat to the road by any party. By purchasing the land the board is simply adding to the profit of the developer. The parks board continued to buy land from and generally cooperate with real estate promoters. In 1912 the Board bought the area of the Mountain face adjacent to the Delaware Park Company's lands.[54] In 1913 the St. Clair Land Company and the board agree to share the cost of constructing and maintaining a boulevard from Delaware Avenue to Cumberland Avenue.[55] In 1936 the board agreed to allow another developer to open a street in his survey onto the driveway they had acquired along the mountain brow as long as any houses fronting on the park land were built at least forty feet back from the street.[56] These agreements meant that the subdivisions in question could be surrounded as much as possible by pleasant surroundings. The park land served as a buffer zone between the residential areas of the city and its commercial and industrial activities. The city in turn used pictures of these areas in promotional material they published to attract more and more industries to the city. Such material asserted
| Hamilton streets are wide, well paved, and well kept. The parks are spacious and her people proud in their possession. In short, the ideal city for home or plant is this same Hamilton-- the city that grows for reasons which in part have here been set out.[57] |
The Board of Park Management further cooperated with the city in its campaign to attract industries to Hamilton by gradually acquiring land in the eastern industrial region of the city and later selling that land to interested companies. With the preamble ' whereas the Board of Park Management finds that they have more land than is required for park purposes' land along Sherman Avenue was sold to industrial concerns such as the Canada Steel Company and Mercury Mills.[58] Boosting the city's economy was a central concern of the parks board.
It can be concluded that providing parks for workingmen and their families was not a general concern of the board. A 1913 analysis of immigrant housing describes conditions in Hamilton.
| In the near north-eastern section of the city there is a large immigrant community opposite the International Harvester Company's plant and centring around Sherman avenue.[59] |
This community was close to only one park, Woodland, and it had been purchased and developed almost twenty years earlier. Former residents of the area were moving into newer subdivisions. They were benefitting from the acquisitions policy of the parks board. The immigrants and others who moved into the neighhourhoods they were abandoning were not.
Working class neighbourhoods were the concern of a new facet of the public parks movement which first surfaced in the United States and then spread to some Canadian cities. A campaign to include children's playgrounds in parks began with a letter from Dr. Marie Zakerewska in Berlin, Germany to the Massachusetts Emergency and Hygiene Association in Boston.[60] She enthusiastically described an aspect of Berlin's public parks which intrigued her. Each park had a sand box and children's play area. By the end of 1885 the Hygiene Association had placed sand boxes in three Boston parks. From this small beginning the playground movement expanded, quickly becoming an integral part of the parks movement.[61]
The campaign for public playgrounds was launched in Hamilton by a member of the Local Council of Women. Mrs. Frances Woolverton began advocating playgrounds following a visit to Chicago where she saw them in operation. On her return she encouraged the women's council to form a playgrounds committee to investigate establishing playgrounds in Hamilton. Largely due to their efforts the Hamilton Playgrounds Association was formed on May 27, 1909.[62]
The nineteenth century concept of parks as formal gardens and pleasure grounds was not in keeping with the rhetoric of playground supporters. Their arguments reflected a dramatic departure from previous park theory. They believed that parks must be useful as well as ornamental.[63] Given playgrounds parks could fulfill their practical function.
In Hamilton, however, the Playgrounds Association did not become affiliated with the Parks Board. This was in spite of an assertion by Mrs. Woolverton to a public meeting that
| it was needless to speak of the necessity of providing public parks and open spaces in the cities for the benefit of citizens and the desireability of establishing playgrounds within the parks.[63a] |
Playgrounds were presented as a panacea for urban ills. They were a safety measure because they provided an alternative play area tothe dangerous city streets. Because playground supervisors organized activities potential juvenile delinquents were kept occupied by legitimate pursuits. Games provided exercise that contributed to health and team sports fostered cooperation among children of different ethnic backgrounds. These reformist purposes were endorsed by the parks board as a worthy philanthropic opportunity but they were not the purposes of the board. To demonstrate their support of the playgrounds association they donated five hundred dollars to the group.[64] It is significant though that the association had asked for three times that amount and also that playgrounds were not located on park land.