Greenbelt News Review: A History

On Nov. 24, 1937, six weeks after the first 197 families moved into Greenbelt, 19 volunteers from the Journalistic Club decided to jump in the water and learn how to swim. Thus began Vol. 1, No. 1 of the then Greenbelt Cooperator and the story of the longest running cooperative weekly newspaper in the United States.

The early editors weren't required to be specialists. They learned their craft in the process, and terms of service were short — generally under one year.

William Poole, editor of one month, from January to February 1938 wrote, "I took the reins of the Cooperator with little journalistic experience. … I wasn't afraid though because the Cooperator was just a hometown paper and if one switched his nouns and pronouns a bit it wasn't so bad a breach."

Like the residents of Greenbelt — the Roosevelt administration's experimental "Town of the Future," — early editors were treading upon new territory.

"I didn't know the first thing about running a paper," said Harry Zubkoff, the 19th editor in the paper's first 13 years. "I'd been dropping in … for a couple of months when the editor resigned, and somehow I found myself in charge."

The Cooperator, which changed its name to Greenbelt News Review in 1954, became a repository for Greenbelters' ideas, humor, celebrations and ever-present opinions. And its pages brimmed with plans to create a successful community as a model for the rest of the world.

"We are pioneers of a new way of living," Mary E. Van Cleave wrote to her neighbors in the first paper. "Our families and our children will live under laws of our own making. Only in our fondest and most youthful dreams have we imagined such a chance. What will we make of it?"

Though Greenbelters showed enthusiasm, the nation's press was not entirely convinced.

Outsiders viewed the experiment as socialistic and extreme, feeling discomfort over the federal government's town ownership. They also winced at its numerous rules, including the demand that residents have their laundry off the line by 4 p.m. and the prohibition against hanging pictures on home walls. An article in the Nov. 25, 1937, Baltimore Sun stated, "It is seriously to be feared that life in Greenbelt is going to be dull."

Urban legends abounded. There were rumors that all lights had to be out by 10 p.m. and that families had to get permission to have more children. But some of the criticism was fueled by Greenbelters' zeal for cooperatives and cooperation, like the sentiment expressed in the Cooperator's Sept. 5, 1940, editorial, titled "Greenbelt Parasites," that reprimanded residents who didn't volunteer.

Many citizens, however, thrived in the busy atmosphere, having gained entrance into Greenbelt with this in mind.

Of the 12,000 families applying for residence, the Roosevelt administration selected 885 based in no small part on their willingness to contribute to the community. So from on your mark, get set and go, Greenbelt had numerous volunteers, and the non-profit paper benefited from this early trend.

Every week, journalism volunteers gathered in each other's homes to write and staple the 16-page mimeographed sheets. Town children soon passed out the paper, beginning free home delivery on Sept. 7, 1939 — exactly 71 years ago today.

In 1938, the Cooperator found a home when the federal government, then town owner, gave the paper free office space in the town center.

Poole recalled it was not posh: "We had offices over the Food Store then and the heating system had not been installed. We looked like members of the Byrd expedition as we sat around punching typewriters, buried in heavy over coats."

In the beginning, the paper announced watershed events. The headlines from 1937 were in all caps, from "NEW GROCERY STORE TO OPEN HERE SOON" (Nov. 24) and "COUNCILMEN ELECT MAYOR!!" (Dec. 8) to "FIRST LADY MAKES SURPRISE VISIT HERE!!!!!" (Dec. 15) and "TRANSPORTATION BY JANUARY FIRST" (Dec. 22).

In the midst of headliner firsts and never befores, the Cooperator also recognized the importance the daily happenings that tied neighbor to neighbor. Its pages were filled with jokes, homespun poetry and talk of recipes and local get-togethers.

On Dec. 8, 1937, readers learned, "Mrs. Edna Benefiel of 60 B Crescent Road gave a 'Good Neighbor Tea' last Thursday afternoon for all the women residing in the court formed by the houses numbered 60 to 62." They also found cooking instructions for cranberry jelly and pecan pie along with the news that Reverend M.E. King had returned home to Chicago after visiting his daughter and son-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. George Barr of 39L Ridge Road.

The tradition continued on June 1, 1938, when the Cooperator announced the first baby born in Greenbelt, "Brought into the world at 3:05 a.m. Saturday, May 28, 1938 … The baby is Richard Lawrence Jones, son of Mr. and Mrs. Bernard Jones of 1-C Westway." The baby was born 10 days early, and James H. Lamb of 1-F Westway assisted in the delivery, improvising with "a string from his house keys and a string found around the neck of a toy dog."

As the news and daily conversation continued, the paper grew from a home-bound mimeographed version to today's electronic zeros and ones transformed into 9,600 free printed copies still delivered from door to door, neighbor to neighbor.

The second story in this series will run on Sept. 10.