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Wilkes-Barre Times - June 14, 1895
Town Improvement
At last our meeting to discuss town improvement is arranged. We have our chairman, our speakers, and I think it is safe to say we have our audience. If all the people come who say they are coming, it will be a very lively meeting indeed. We shall "make things hum". But things are going to hum anyway. Let no one dream that having put our hand to the plough, we improvers are going to turn back, even in the face of discouragements. I don't like to use the word discouragement, so very cheerful and unanimous has been the reception of our new idea. I can't say there are no blankets in soak for us, but the first wet one has yet to be cast. The extended hand, the ready smile, the hearty words, "I am with you" , these are the outward and visible signs which betoken the inward and spiritual condition of mind on the part of all whom we encounter.

Yes, Wilkes-Barre is just pining to be clean. She has long suffered in silence though why I can't imagine, or she has only whispered her distress, hoping that somebody would boldly shout it out. Now that it has been shouted out, the echo is prompt, loud and endlessly reverberating. This is not an exaggeration. The same thing is heard everywhere. The yields are white for the harvest, and the reapers promise to be many.

We are constantly asked what are plans are. It is yet to be organized, but it is safe to say that at the start, we shall direct our efforts toward tidying up what we have, and then go on to acquire more.

What's the use of getting more parks while the River Common remains in its present state? It might be worse, that's is the best word I can speak for it now. And that word I cannot speak for the Public Square park (?) O ye city fathers and ye city mothers, and ye city sons and daughters, what are you all thinking of that you can tolerate such a spot for one day? I ask myself what have I been thinking of that I did not cry aloud sooner. I am mortified to the depths of my being every time I cross that park of Public Disgrace.


I was called a "Town Improvement crank" the other day. If things don't mend soon, I shall become a Town Improvement fiend. There are several friends ready to join me, both men and women. I wonder, tell me, Mr. Editor, do you really think it very cranky in me to insist that after having a fine, hard expensive pavement and going all over it and mending it, it is barbarous and not civilized to them to allow it to be torn up again? We have just endured the unpleasantness of a street strewn with picked-up dry asphalt and smelling wet asphalt, lumbering, noisy machines and a noisy crew of laborers, and now we see those dreadful steam pipes laid along the curb and know that for weeks, perhaps months, one must undergo the same unpleasantness and worse. Is it cranky to complain of this?

The people of our county are wonderfully quick at inventions of all sorts and at finding new ways of doing things. But we are woefully slow and obstinate in learning things the old world has learned and could teach us. What European city would permit a fine, permanent pavement to be laid in its streets, without first looking out that adequate underground facilities were provided for carrying all necessary pipes for the various needs of a large community? I repeat it, our methods of procedure in the management of our streets are barbarous and not civilized.

Yours in righteous indignation,
Edith Brower
June 13, 1895



Paper: Wilkes-Barre Times - June 29, 1895
An Appeal for Citizens to Turn Out to Next Meeting
At the meeting on June 19, one of the speakers on Town Improvement said that it was like Castoria. Children would cry for it. The children have begun to cry. We rather like their impatience, especially when it is expressed publicly. One kind of advertisement is just as good as another, in such movements as ours. The chief thing is to keep it before people's minds. But if people think that the Town Improvement society has been folding its hands and snoring, people are mightily mistaken. As far as I am concerned, the past ten days have been the busiest of my life; Town Improvement business has been my chief concern. But the details of organizing such a business are not as simple as preparing for a moonlight picnic at Mountain Park.

Through, deliberation, caution, and kindred qualities are quite necessary as energy and expedition.

But I ought not to be obliged to explain this, it is as self-evident as the nose on your editorial face.

If everybody who can, will come to our next meeting which is to be on Tuesday evening, July 2, in St. Stephens parish building, he and she will gain further enlightenment as to the doings and plans of the society. We particularly desire that all of those who were present before should come. Some of them are now away, but there are plenty left in town.
Edith Brower



Wilkes-Barre Times - February 20, 1897
"Where Are the Twelve?"
Miss Brower Make some Suggestion for Spring Work
The sun, even on these cold days, is growing very warm; the sparrows are making believe they are song-birds, and chirping almost musically. Seed catalogues are flying about the country; winter bonnets and gowns are just beginning to look a little seedy, and the T. I. S. are going to paint their rubbish cans green! If all this does not mean that Spring is coming than I'm no weather prophet. The last item means something more. It means that the T. I. S. has no mind to give up the fight it has waged with more or less success these two years past. No, sir, the fight is on yet, and we have two watchwords: Patience and Perseverance. Very "chestnutty", are they not? Well, the words are common enough, but where, oh tell me, do you find the things very plentiful and flourishing.? At the headquarters of the Wilkes-Barre Improvement Society. Full stock on hand, always of fresh quality, given away to anybody who lacketh the same and who will take the trouble to come begging.

On the 2nd of March we hold our annual meeting. there will not be quite as much to report of progress this year as there was last year, but this does not indicate a going backward. The work has gone on all the time in various quiet ways that perhaps are more practically effective than much horn-blowing, processions, etc. A great many people have privately asked to do thing which they have promptly done. Others have been asked to do things which they have not done at all, but at least these individuals have been set thinking, also, they know what other people think of them!

Nearly a thousand badges have been given to as many school children, the distribution always being accompanied by addresses on the subject of improvement to streets and homes such as is possible for children to accomplish.

I will say again what I have said often before, that we consider the least work done among the little ones worth twice as much as the greatest work done among the grown-ups. Perhaps the "twelve men" the "Times" was clamoring for last evening are now in knickerbockers, chewing gum and doing "sums". I hope we shall not have to wait for this particular twelve to come of age before many desirable reforms are established, many desirable acquisitions made, such as Riverside Park on the opposite bank.

Truly, no joking, we ought to have that land. If we do not get it, we shall never cease to regret our indifference. Every year it is a harder task to accomplish, for the land will be sold out in bits and grow dearer. Its possession or its loss will make all the difference to Wilkes-Barre between a charming and a common place town. If shouting would do any good, I would strangle my pride and go shouting at every well-to-do citizens' door until he should come out and say "Take my purse and go buy the land but stop your noise!" Fortunately, for my pride, and my reputation, and the citizens' comfort, shouting won't do any good.

Let us leave public spirit out of the count, let us consider selfishness merely, a thirst for the praise of our fellow citizens; a desire for everlasting glorification. What., I ask, could better satisfy these lower lusts in the hearts of the wealthier men and women of Wilkes-Barre (I take it they are human enough to have a few of the lower lusts) than a generous expenditure of their surplus wealth in the purchase of that strip of land across the river? That pretty bank is our face, so to speak. Build it over with ugly houses, they are sure to be ugly, and it is as if some one threw vitriol in our face, our beauty is gone forever. If I were worth a million or two, you should see ______!. But such a promise is in vain. What is not in vain is my determination to adopt the character of a gad-fly. and my song shall be, Buy that land across the river, and the only way to stop my singing will be to listen to my singing and do what it urges. It isn't a poor little song of my own invention, I've been pit up to singing it. There's a chorus to it, and I know a number of men who are nearly ready to join in the chorus. Here's a few of them: Mr. Charles Miner, Mr. Bedford, Mr. E. H. Chase, and yourself, Mr. Editor. I can be sure of your voice. I know a lot of women too, who will swell the harmony of this strain, but their names shall not be thus publicly exposed.

I can't close this long letter without a word about the trees of our city. This is to tree year, we intend giving especial attention to the preserving of those we already have, moreover we wish to encourage people to plant more where they are lacking. Shade can be too dense, but this is no reason for not having any shade at all. Those who do plant out new trees this spring are particularly enjoined to protect them with wire or other frames. Tie posts are remarkably scarce in some parts of our village. To use a tree for a tie post is barbarous, it is cruel. I believe that the man who is reverent of the life of a tree will be more kind, respectful and reverent to his mother, wife, child, than one who minds not at all seeing a horse gnaw a young sapling to death. Be kind to the trees.
Edith Brower
February 20, 1997

Wilkes-Barre Times - November 18, 1897
Town Improvement
Miss Brower Writes some of some Things She Saw in Europe
It has for a long while been my intention to write you something about Town Improvement, as that subject appears to one lately come from the Other Side. I will state broadly at once that my views on the matter were not changed in the least by my glimpses of Europe. Wilkes-Barre looked neither better or worse to me for having seen Paris, Geneva, etc. I knew perfectly well before going away that our town might easily and without additional expense of money, but only an expense of just pride exhibiting itself in a reasonable carefulness on the part of individuals, be fifty percent better looking than it is. I knew this by instinct, let us say, and no additional experience was needed to rub the knowledge in deeper. But there are many who do not appear to know this instinctively or in any other way. To them, possibly, my experience may be of some use.

On leaving home I resolved to forget that such a place as Wilkes-Barre existed, that is, a place to be improved. In keeping this resolve, I succeeded so well as to learn much less than I might have learnt regarding those Transatlantic methods of making and keeping cities clean and beautiful. Only the very patent things such as fairly thrust themselves in my face, so to speak, were noted by me. But general impressions are often as good as particular ones and sometimes they last longer, because, being general, they are more broadly applicable. Hence they go on applying themselves when the particular impression, applicable to a few cases only, fades away from disuse.

The strongest general impression I received in the European countries I saw, was this. That their ordinances are made for the purpose of being observed. This simple statement contains words of suggestion, it is hardly necessary to dwell upon it or expand it. Yet let us for one moment suppose that our own ordinances were made with the same end in view. It requires a violent straining of the imagination, but some of your readers will be capable of it. Well then, that being the case, would our merchants, say, for example, of East Market street, continue to sweep out their places into the street after the city sweepers have done their careful work? No, Mr. Editor, those gentlemen would be pounced upon by the authorities (Have we authorities here? If so, who are they?) and would be shortly reminded of the ordinance forbidding them at any time to make the street a receptacle for their refuse.

In Zurich and other places I saw carts with covers, observe please, with lid-like covers, that went about daily to take up rubbish. People would run out with boxes and baskets of scraps to be put in these carts which, by means of the lids carried away every kind of stuff through the city without any danger of its blowing off. Now Wilkes-Barre has an ordinance commanding that rubbish be carried in covered wagons. How many people know this? How many care whether they themselves or anybody else observes it?

And who that thinks is not aware of the moral effect of constantly violating known laws or permitting them to be violated?

In Paris I was told that since the Republic started, there has been a tendency to be easy with the people in some small regards. As one consequence of this leniency, certain parts of that fine city are not so clean-appearing as could be desired. Yet, even there, so slight comparatively are the signs of untidiness as hardly to merit notice, save that one looks for civic perfection in Paris above all other places. But the most notable thing of all is the regard for beauty everywhere. The minuteness of this regard, the details of it, that is, are sometimes amusing. The blocks of stone deposited along the Seine embankments for the next exposition buildings are piled as carefully and symmetrically as if they were to stand forever. If earth or sand of any such material is wanted in the streets, it is not simply dumped there, as with us. It is made into a smooth, well-shaped pile, and packed so as to keep it in form for some days. The very dirt sweepings are gathered into these compact pyramids, although they are to lie but a short time before being taken up. As a consequence of all of this acre, the streets never present an untidy or ugly appearance, since even the rubbish is made to assume a certain ornamental aspect. And the result of such attention to appearances is most educating to the people who are never allowed to grow accustomed to unsightliness. I know well what many Americans have to say to this. They will begin by the general sweeping assertion that it's all nonsense and then go on to say that such customs are child's play and would, if adopted by us, make us into old maids, that American citizens have too many important matters taking their attention to spend their time arranging dirt piles, etc., etc.

Well sometimes I think American citizens mistake the truest objects of importance in their haste to get ahead of somebody else they overlook the educative value of certain thing, of certain methods of doing things. They do not realize, for example, the direct influence for good upon a community which comes from a nice public care of public property. The direct effect of such an influence is distinctly seen in the few foreign cities I visited, most notable in Switzerland, where the respect shown by the authorities for streets, parks, and public places makes it easy to enforce regulations compelling respect from the public. In fact, helps to create a respect, on the part of all for that which is to benefit all. And this respect for common property easily and naturally extends to private property. Such as beauty in back streets I have never seen as in Geneva and Zurich, yet some of these streets are no wider than our pavements. But they are clean and every little French window, in those high, dark houses has its flower box. Try to picture a New York slum flower-decorated from pavement to cornice!

Such decorations hardly cost anything saving a little time and attention, yet what an intimate charm do they not add to a dark, dingy, poor neighborhood! Everywhere are these signs of a sense for beauty on the part of the common people. The arrangement of wares in their infinitesimal shops show it, the preparation of their market wagons show it. Would Wilkes-Barre applaud or hiss if Mr. Newett, for example, were to enter town some morning on a cart containing white turnips piled pyramidally and surrounded by a fringe of large green leaves neatly laid around and quite concealing the sides of his wagon. And suppose he was followed by another wagon similarly adorned with leaves and containing yellow turnips alone, or carrots? Methinks even now I hear the guffaws that would greet his attempts to "make things pretty" and the names he would be called by. I saw two such carts as this entering Paris. They made the lovely streets more lovely for they were objects of real beauty and it pleased me to imagine the loving care with which the marketman had made ready his contribution not only to Parisian stomachs, but to Parisians eyes.

Ah, my American friends and country men and fellow townsmen, there was a n old women, you know, who lived upon nothing but victuals and drink and yet, we are told, this old woman could never keep quiet. I am inclined to think her disquietude arose from this very fact. Had she had something else, something better, to live upon than victuals and drink (in other words, more spiritual and less carnal food) she would doubtless have been rid of much of that nervousness of hers. Mother Goose meant the American people when she wrote that rhyme, I am sure of it. They think more of their pockets and their stomachs than they do of anything else.

I am not a pessimist, Mr. Editor, you know I am not. I am criminally optimistic at times and refuse to look at evil tendencies or what appear to be such. I always believe that the best is going to happen, in the end. But the end is far off for some folk. "In quietness shall be your strength", says the Good Book. We have not learned that strength yet as a people, we are thinking too much how to get victuals and drink.
Yours hopefully nevertheless,
Edith Brower
November 18, 1897.