Alfred Tredway White
Alfred Tredway White (1846 - 1921) was a prominent housing reformer and philanthropist born in Brooklyn, New York. He was the son of successful importer Alexander Moss White and Elizabeth Hart (Tredway) White, and he earned a civil engineering degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1865. White became deeply concerned about the living conditions of lower-income families in the early 1890s, prompting him to construct affordable, safe apartment buildings inspired by similar efforts in London. His notable projects provided housing for over 2,000 individuals and included the Riverside Tower and numerous one- and two-family homes. White’s commitment to improving housing conditions contributed to the passage of New York’s tenement-reform legislation in 1895, and his writings on the subject further influenced public discourse on housing for the working class. Additionally, he was actively involved in various charitable endeavors, including organizations focused on child welfare and education. White's lasting impact on urban reform and philanthropy is underscored by his substantial contributions to educational institutions such as the Hampton and Tuskegee institutes. He tragically drowned at the age of 74 in a skating accident.
Subject Terms
Alfred Tredway White
- Alfred Tredway White
- Born: May 28, 1846
- Died: January 29, 1921
Housing reformer, was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of an affluent importer, Alexander Moss White, originally from Danbury, Connecticut, and Elizabeth Hart (Tredway) White. His father was descended from early settlers of Massachusetts; his mother’s family came from Connecticut via Dutchess County, New York. After attending Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, White spent two years at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York, earning his civil-engineering degree in 1865. He was apprenticed to his father’s New York firm of W. A. & A. M. White and eventually became a partner. In 1878 he married Annie Jean Lyman; they had two daughters, Katharine Lyman and Annie Jean.
White became concerned in the early 1890s with the plight of the many thousands of lower-income families forced to live in crowded and unsanitary quarters. Learning of attempts in London to build apartment blocks that provided airy and safe housing at low rents, he built an experimental block of similar apartments in Brooklyn in 1876. In addition to satisfying his altruism, White realized a net profit of five percent each year from these buildings, whose tenants included many day laborers and women garment workers. His buildings housed more people, proportionately, than did their London counterparts. More than a decade after the construction of this project, the reforming journalist Jacob Riis commented that White’s tenements were “as good today as when they were built . . . for they were honestly built.” White wrote about this experience in Improved Dwellings for the Laboring Classes (1879) and Better Homes for Workingmen (1885).
White went on to build projects that, in all, housed more than 2,000 people, including the Riverside Tower and almost 300 one- and two-family homes. His example may have helped speed the passage of New York’s tenement-reform legislation of 1895. In 1912 he published Sun-Lighted Tenements: Thirty-five Years Experience as an Owner. Throughout, he worked in cooperation with other reform-minded groups and individuals in New York, including the Brooklyn Children’s Aid Society and the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities, which he helped lead from its founding in 1878. Other philanthropic interests included the Seaside Home for Children, the Brooklyn Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, and the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. A political independent, he was made commissioner of city works in 1893 by the Republican mayor of Brooklyn (then an independent city) and established a reputation for administrative effectiveness in this second most important municipal office. During his later years he contributed substantial sums to black education at the Hampton and Tuskegee institutes, and gave $300,000 to Harvard University for the study of social ethics. He drowned at the age of seventy-four in a skating accident on a lake in Orange County, New York.
For biographical material see The Dictionary of American Biography (1936); The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, vol. 23 (1933); Who Was Who in America, vol. 1 (1943); the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 31, 1921; Harvard Graduates Magazine, June 1921; and J. A. Riis, Battle with the Slum (1902).