Guide to the Clarence Stein Papers,
1905-1983.

Architect, city planner (lived 1882-1975).

Clarence S. Stein began his career as an architect, but turned his attention to planning by the early 1920s. From 1923 to 1926 he was chairman of the New York State Housing and Regional Planning Commission and was among the founders of the Regional Plan Association in 1923. With his partner Henry Wright, he was a leading proponent of the "garden city" concept of planning. He designed or participated in the design of Sunnyside Gardens, Queens, New York; Radburn, New Jersey; Greenbelt, Maryland; Greendale, Wisconsin; Greenhills, Ohio; and Baldwin Hills Village, Los Angeles, California. Stein was awarded the Gold Medal of the American Institute of Architects (1956), the Distinguished Service Award of the American Institute of Planners (1958), and the Ebenezer Howard Memorial Medal, honoring the British advocate of garden cities.

Includes job files, proposed jobs, writings and speeches, general files, research materials, and reprints and articles. Job files record Stein's involvement in the design of public buildings, places of worship, museums, and homes; his time as secretary of the Housing Committee of the New York State Reconstruction Commission under Governor Alfred W. Smith; and material on Radburn, New Jersey; Kitimat, British Columbia; Sunnyside Gardens, New York; Hillside Homes, Bronx, New York; and Chatham Village, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Proposed job files include plans and designs for jobs which never materialized. Writings include material related to the publication of his book, Toward New Towns for America, including photos, plans, and maps used in the book. Also includes copies of articles and speeches by Stein. General files include unpublished writings; reports on greenbelt towns; material on the Regional Plan Association of America and its successor, the Regional Development Council of America; and community planning and cost studies. Correspondence files include personal and professional correspondence with other planners, including correspondence with the American Institute of Architects (AIA), especially Carl Feiss of that organization; Canadian planners working on Metropolitan Toronto; English planners; personal friends such as Benton MacKaye, Albert Mayer, and Lewis Mumford; and his wife, Aline MacMahon Stein.

Also, correspondence and photographs pertaining to travels in China and the Far East. Reprints and articles include writings of other planners including Frederick Ackerman, Catherine Bauer Wurster, Russell Van Nest Black, Henry Churchill, Vernone De Mars, Arthur Glickson, Eugene Klaber, Benton MacKaye, Albert Mayer, Lewis Mumford, and Henry Wright. Collection also includes photographs and negatives, slides, plans, and maps of much of Stein's major work; and material concerning the work of Marjorie Sewell Cautley (Cornell University Class of 1917), landscape architect for Stein's projects at Radburn, New Jersey and Hillside Homes in the Bronx, New York. Photographs of Stein, friends, and family, and candid and publicity photos of Aline MacMahon Stein. Medals, certificates, and pins, including Stein's gold medal from the American Institute of Architects, are also included.

Also, a videotape of "Baldwin Hills Village: 'A Village in a City,' " 1942-1950, by Reginald D. Johnson, copied from the 16mm color original film (28 min.).

For some films of Radburn and Sunnyside, see the Marjorie Sewell Cautley papers, #4908.