Advancing the Kingdom

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Advancing T he Kingdom: Kingdom House
“…The devotional was conducted
by Dr. [Ivan Lee] Holt. After ‘Blest
Be the Tie That Binds’ was sung,
Dr. Holt, taking a portion of Matt.
25th as a text gave a most helpful talk
on the real meaning of social service,
the key-note being ‘forgetting one’s
self in service to humanity.” (From
the February 16, 1920 meeting of the
Women’s Board of City Missions).
Despite their successes overseas,
Americans were profoundly
disillusioned in the aftermath of
the Great War, and began a period
of isolationism that would not end
officially until December 7, 1941.
One significant expression of this was
the passage of laws restricting the
flow of migrants to the United States.
Beginning in the 1920s, immigration to
the U.S. was sharply curtailed through
the enactment of the Johnson (Quota)
Act in 1921 and further contracted by
the Johnson-Reid Act of 1924. Turning
sharply inward, Americans embraced
the Model T, surreptitiously drank in
speakeasies and listened to jazz. But
not all were caught up in the frenzy of
Fords and flappers. The 1920s were also
the formative decade for social service
agencies like the Community Chest – a
forerunner organization of the United
Way. The Stock Market Crash of 1929
dampened the ability of social agencies
to raise funds but did not diminish the
enthusiasm of those advocating for
social change. In fact, the Depression
that followed the crash dramatically
illustrated the need for additional
welfare agencies to stem the increasing
numbers of persons from falling through
society’s cracks. Never in modern
memory had the dearth of safety nets
been more apparent than after 1929.
It was to this St. Louis that Kingdom
House ministered.
The 1930 St. Louis census showed
a total population of 821,960. Of
this, some 645,000 were native white
Americans. Foreign-born citizens
constituted some 82,000 persons and
African Americans enjoyed similar
numbers. St. Louis had slipped from
fourth largest city to the seventh,
falling behind Detroit, Los Angeles and
Cleveland.
St. Louis had also entered into a
new era of racial separation. Unlike
other southern cities, St. Louis had an
inconsistent pattern of segregation.
Schools were racially delineated but
African-Americans could sit wherever
they wished on streetcars. Restaurants
and hotels did not allow African
American patronage but libraries did.
European immigrants who arrived
during the latter nineteenth century
found themselves competing for the
same jobs as African-Americans,
which served to only increase white
prejudices. By the nineteen-teens several
white neighborhood associations in St.
Louis that were in close proximity to
African American communities were
successful in legislating an ordinance
which prohibited those of any race
from moving to a block where seventy-
five percent of the residents were of
a different race. The U.S. Supreme
Court declared a similar ordinance
unconstitutional in 1918 and an
injunction was issued in St. Louis, but
private restrictive real estate covenants
still kept neighborhoods segregated. In
an ironic twist, it was after the adoption
of this legislation that the influx of rural
African Americans to urban centers
began in earnest. With immigration
virtually halted, the demand for
industrial labor came to African-
American migrants.1
That same era found St. Louis’s
City Plan Commission recommending
the adoption of city-wide industrial-
residential zoning. Of all the primary
U.S. cities, only New York had adopted
such districts. Mayor Henry Kiel signed
the zoning ordinance into law on July
16, 1918. Among other things, the
legislation created four area categories
that included residential and industrial
classifications and each of the divisions
had differing amounts of restrictions.
Kingdom House, in the Mill Creek
Valley, found itself in an unrestricted
sector that allowed factories which “did
not emit undue quantities of smoke, gas,
odors or noise.”2
In this mixed-use neighborhood, the
men and women of Kingdom House
ministered to the neighbors living and
working on and around South 8th Street.
Nell Barrell, a Washington University
student, wrote the following description
24
Never in modern memory
had the dearth of safety
nets been more apparent
than after 1929. It
was to this St. Louis
that Kingdom House
ministered.