Closet space was limited in the Greenbelt homes. Families did not own many artifacts because they did not buy much of anything in the Depression Era. Therefore, they would not have needed extra storage space.
So why were there so many closets? It appeared to be that the city wanted to encourage residents to keep a tidy home. Closets could have provided a place for things to be hidden away, living rooms free of clutter. Or perhaps, planners wanted to encourage residents to by new things to fill their closets with. This would have helped revive the ailing economy. (3)
There are three specific closets that I will take you through:
3) Linen Closet
Closets of the Depression Era, in Greenbelt, were mainly used because of its easy access and for storage purposes. The Greenbelt Museum gives a spectacular closer look at some closets and may give you a better understanding of the actual amount of space. Not every item that was actually used and stored in the closets back then were found in the closets today, so it is hard to discuss every object that was located in these closets.
I asked my mom, "Why do we need so much closet space? What do you use it for? She basically explained to me that because we have so much extra things, we needed somewhere to put it so it would not clutter our living space nor make it look unpresentable to company. My mom is a very neat person and likes the house to be kept tidy. Haley Bonica agrees with my argument in that for her project on kitchens, that space was used for storage, such as kitchen utensils, which is the same as my project on closet space. Storage is needed in all homes for different purposes for different objects. For example, in the linen closet, my mom keeps things like towels, cosmetics, nail polish and remover, medicine, soap, feminine hygiene products, and a sewing kit. Since she just reorganized the closet, she moved things around so that there would be more space in the linen closet. This particular closet is located right next to the bathroom in a corner.(4)
Another closet that mom uses in the house is the coat closet. In this one, she hangs up the coats of any guests that happen to pass by. She usually gets a lot of visitors so there needs to be a place to hang up their coats, and this is the one. Aside from coats, the also keeps bed sheets on the shelf up on top. She has them stacked in a neat order in three separate piles. This closet is located in front of the bathroom in the hallway that leads to the three bedrooms on that floor.
Moving right along to the master bedroom is her closet. This closet is meant to be for the husband and wife but since my parents are divorced she gets the entire closet to herself. There she keeps suits, dresses, pants, shoes, and important documents that are filed away in cardboard boxes. These boxes are put on top of the shelf to fill up the space that is not taken up by anything else. Just by observing her closet, one could see that my mom is a very organized and tidy person. She keeps all her shoes together on a shoe rack, all her suits are together, pants, dresses, etc. A closet can tell a lot about a person.
As you walk into my little sister's room her closet is located directly to the right. This I can compare to a child's closet because she is a child. In her closet, she has clothes that are neatly hung by my mother, board games on her shelf that are stacked one on top of the other, and a shoe rack on the bottom with her shoes in it. She is not a very tidy person nor does she use the closet space nearly as much as my mom does. I believe that kids are so much more different than adults and do not think about the specifics. A child will play with a toy and leave it laying around the room unless the parent/guardian tell them otherwise. They do not realize how much space the toys are taking up.
As you go downstairs to the basement, you find other closets as well. One of which I think is the most important down there is the storage closet where my mom keeps the luggage, vaccum cleaner, old photo albums, and expensive dresses that are sitting on hangers. This closet is the biggest because it keeps all of our extra stuff that we have no where else to put. The other two closets are found in my older sister's room, and the computer room.
The closet in the computer room is an interesting one because my mom keeps old extra clothes that no one really uses. I am not sure why she still has it but she is convinced that someone will use some of that stuff some day. She also keeps old purses filled with documents such as our green card, birth certificates, and pass ports, so I would say that those are pretty important.
The differences seem to appear in the amount of items found in these closets and the items found in the master bedrooms. During the Depression Era, people were not buying much of anything because of the economic costs and Greenbelt was a place that people could afford, so in other words people did not have much money. This leads to the amount of items found in a closet which was not much. Today, all people do now is shop and waste thousands of dollars on clothing items. There is also more space available in homes to keep other artifacts elsewhere. Kay Muttat states how, "The bathroom in Greenbelt was very small and used exclusively for practical purposes," (Kay). This is similar to the closet space in Greenbelt and how they were pretty small because the house structures back then where built a lot smaller than today.
In the master bedroom of Greenbelt, one would find typewriters, sewing kits, and space heaters. This obviously did not exist in the master bedroom of my own house. There are extra closets in my house to store items such as those. Again, this also leads to the fact that there was more space available in homes today. However, one must realize that since the Depression Era, the economy has changed as well as the style of living. People pay more for more space.
The way one presents their home has seem to be an issue throughout time. The way one keeps their home says a lot about a person. They could be classified as dirty and disorganized, or clean and organized. It is always good to keep your home clean because you never know who may stop in.
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