Three schools of thought

Living in the Past
By Dr. Harry C. Silcox
and Jack McCarthy
For the Times

The current construction of a contemporary Abraham Lincoln High School at Ryan and Rowland avenues provides us an opportunity to reflect on the construction of the original Lincoln High School in 1949.
With the end of World War II in 1945, the building of so-called "air-lite" rowhomes (a reference to roomier interior layouts) exploded throughout the Mayfair community. They were crowded together on small streets east of Frankford Avenue, selling for less than $9,000.
On the west side, the streets remained slightly wider and the houses sold for $10,000. The end home of the air-lite row usually featured offices occupied by lawyers, doctors and dentists. The area around Frankford and Cottman saw the opening of new appliance stores, large food markets, real estate offices and television repair shops. Everything that was needed was nearby.
Realtors advertising homes found that this new neighborhood attracted a higher price than the older homes in Holmesburg and Tacony. It became the practice to advertise homes in the Holmesburg and Tacony communities as being in Mayfair.
This did not sit well in these older communities. The hard feelings among the three communities would come to a head when choosing a name for the first high school built in Philadelphia after World War II.
The Mayfair Improvement Association exerted the original pressure on the city board of education to build the school. The organization recommended the Rowland and Ryan site that was left vacant by a 1941 public-housing dispute.
The plan and location won approval without much public notice.
The decision to build the school exacerbated feelings among the three communities. Holmesburg was by far the oldest community, home to many residents who had lived there for more than 60 years. Tacony, a factory town begun by industrialist Henry Disston in 1872, was inhabited by many English and Irish steel-makers and their families. Mayfair was composed mostly of people who had moved there from Kensington, Olney and South Philadelphia.
Different communities, with differing ideas of what the new high school should be named. The building planners called it "Mayfair High School," since every high school built recently in Philadelphia had been named after a neighborhood.
The school board assumed that the practice would continue. Charles H. Williams, principal of Benjamin Franklin High School, accepted that job at the new school and also the task of opening it.
The process, however, was interrupted when a group of Holmesburg residents concerned about the school’s name asked for a hearing before the school board.
At the meeting it became clear that the three communities located closest to the school had different ideas of what it should be named. As one Holmesburg resident said at the time, "There is no such community as ‘Mayfair’, it is nothing more than a builder’s trade name."
The Tacony community, though less vocal, let it be known that in 1936 the Henry Disston family had donated land — today the site of Vogt Playground — for the Jacob Disston High School. The school was never built, because of the Depression, and the site remained vacant.
Given this gift, neighborhood residents felt the new high school should be built in Tacony and named for the founders of the community, the Disston family.
Mayfair residents, meanwhile, insisted that the school be named after their community. They weren’t all that concerned that Mayfair wasn’t a historic community; they believed that Mayfair was the community of the future.
The school board, during a discussion in private session, sensed how the issue was creating a deep split among the communities. So the board members crafted their own solution. They chose a name that surely no patriotic American could find objectionable: Abraham Lincoln High School. Who could find fault with naming a school after one of America’s greatest presidents?
Mayfair leader Thomas Donahue did. "We’re proud of our community. Why should this school be named for Lincoln or any other man?" he protested.
Another Mayfair resident, Adeline Welsh, also didn’t buy the Lincoln pitch. "We’re proud and disappointed by the switch. We’re going to do everything we can to fight it," she told the board. "It’s just an example of jealousy on the part of some of the older communities."
Mrs. Thomas B. Everest, who lived in Holmesburg, was getting impatient with the squabbling over a name.
"Everybody had an opportunity to submit a name. ‘Abraham Lincoln’ was one of several names submitted by Holmesburg. Why all the fuss?" she demanded. "The main thing is that the whole section will have a high school."
The school board stayed with its decision; the building would be called Abraham Lincoln High School. Donahue and the Mayfair Improvement Association were so dismayed that they took the case to court on Sept. 19, 1949. In one of the rare lawsuits ever filed over the naming of a school, judges George Gowen Parry and Joseph L. Kin ruled in favor of the school board, criticizing the motives of those in Mayfair who objected to the name Abraham Lincoln.
"As much as the plaintiffs and many other residents of the Mayfair section are to be admired for the strong sense of local pride," said the ruling, "they show an utterly untenable conviction of the purpose of a public educational system. Such a system is not intended to promote the business or economic interest in any locality."
After the court decision, Donahue and his followers were informed in private session by the school board that an elementary school planned for construction at St. Vincent and Hawthorne streets would be called the Mayfair Elementary School.
The dispute was settled, but the issue raised by these Northeast Philadelphia communities did change school district policy. In the past, the names of high schools had reflected the communities where they were built. Whether it was Frankford High, Overbrook High, West Philadelphia High, Kensington High, Olney High or Roxborough High, all were named for their communities.
From that point on, however, high schools in Philadelphia would be named for famous Americans like George Washington and Thomas Edison.
The feud over Lincoln High reflects historic developments in each of the three neighborhoods. The proud people of Holmesburg simply did not like the idea of a new community, carved out of their boundaries, lending its name to the new high school in their original territory. Tacony folks felt just as strongly about use of the name "Mayfair," especially since the city had taken ground from the Disston family years before and never fulfilled its commitment to build the Jacob Disston High School.
Ultimately, the real estate industry had the final say. Mayfair had newer homes, with rear parking spaces for cars. Everyone was buying cars in the postwar period, unlike the war years when they were not produced in quantity.
This was an attractive perk to homebuyers. Tacony became "Lower Mayfair," and homes in Holmesburg were advertised as being in Mayfair, blotting out the uniqueness of each of these early communities.
Today, the name Mayfair has largely triumphed, encompassing much of the areas formerly called Holmesburg and Tacony.
As one looks back nearly 60 years ago to the dispute over the name Mayfair High School for that new building, it is easy to imagine a future that could have given us Burholme High School (Northeast High School) and Somerton High School (Washington High School).
The name Lincoln High School was a clear victory for the School District of Philadelphia over local control and input by communities, a trend that continues to define school issues today. ••
To reach Harry C. Silcox, send e-mail to silcoxh@axs2000.net