Palmer Home

The Palmer Home is being nominated under Criterion A because it is an outstanding example of buildings constructed to house indigent elderly during the Progressive Period when women's organizations such as The King's Daughters were building homes for the aged and settlement houses for urban immigrants to address the problems of the poor in this country. The Palmer Home is the only home for the aged dating to this period remaining in lower Delaware. For eighty years, from its construction in 1907 until its last resident left in 1987, the Palmer Home provided room and board for elderly Delawareans. It is also being nominated under Criterion C because architecturally it is a significant example of Colonial Revival institutional architecture so popular in the first decades of the twentieth century, both in the country as a whole as well as in Dover. It also remains much as it was when it was first built; indeed the only major alteration was the addition of a two-bay, two-story, brick wing in 1930. The wing matches the original building.

The Palmer Home was built by the Ever Ready Circle of the King's Daughters of Dover, Delaware, in 1907, as a home for elderly men and women who were no longer able to care for themselves. It represented the true spirit of The Kings Daughters, a philanthropic society founded in 1886 by four wealthy New York City matrons to aid the urban indigent population and to provide rich women with a service outlet.

Between 1880 and 1920 a "New Woman" appeared in America. She was "decidedly middle-class, if not upper-class...usually a town or city dweller, the wife or daughter of a business or professional man, and better educated than the average." (Woloch, 269) It was such women who raised money to buy the land and to build the Palmer Home. The sphere of the "New Woman" expanded visibly through her participation in single-sex associations through which she began to participate in public affairs. The Palmer Home is an excellent example of this change in women's involvement in society.

The late nineteenth century witnessed a proliferation of women's associations like The King's Daughters which enabled "thousands of conventional middle-class women to learn from others, share female values, and work toward common goals." (Woloch, 187) Normally based on the concept of self-help and social mission, these women's associations sought to alleviate the pain and suffering in a changing world and exemplified and benevolent gospel of the Progressive Period.

The Dover Circle was organized in 1892 by twenty Dover women "to develop spiritual life and to stimulate Christian activities" especially among the poor. They were particularly concerned about the growing number of older people who were no longer able to maintain themselves. Indeed without assistance, many would become homeless. The indigent elderly poor in downstate Delaware were typical of a growing nationwide trend.
Businesses were beginning to discharge employees after they attained a certain age without retirement plans and pensions. The number of Americans living beyond the age of sixty increased steadily between 1870 and 1920. (Achenbaum 60-61) And too, as America became more industrialized and people moved from the country to the towns and cities, the elderly no long necessarily lived in close proximity to their children. Thus when the elderly were unable to maintain themselves they had to turn to society for help. Only during the 1930s under the New Deal did government address the problem of the elderly in America with the introduction of Social Security and other programs. Until the government became involved in the concerns of the elderly, it was groups such as The King's Daughters that gave the needed assistance.

Originally the Dover Circle helped to pay the rent and to provide fuel and food for the elderly. In 1898 they organized the Birthday Box to provide Christmas Dinners for the worthy poor. During the first year, they provided fourteen baskets. The following year they began to accumulate funds for a home for the aged. Each member of the circle pledged to raise $5.00 for the home.

Representatives of the circle contacted a former Kent Countian, General William H. Palmer, who had made a fortune in the Colorado silver mines. He pledges to match them dollar for dollar in their efforts to build the home. He was typical of the "newly self-conscious businessmen" of the early twentieth century who provided money and prestige to implement social change. After receiving assurance of Palmer's support, the group involved the entire community in their fundraising efforts by holding sociables, auction sales, rummage sales, newspaper collections, and different entertainments; they even had a coin tape along Loockerman Street and collection boxes in local stores. In December of 1901, the circle purchased six lots numbered 38, 39, 40, 52, 53, and 54 in the "Bradford City" section of Dover for $2000 from Edward S. Beswick and his wife Hattie E. Beswick of Milford, Delaware. The property consisted of 46,800 square feet.

Once the contributions began to accumulate, representatives of the circle went to Philadelphia to get William S. Vaux, an architect whose offices were at 1218 Chestnut Street, to design the home. Vaux was a young engineer and architect who had received his degree in engineering from Haverford College and had studied architectural drawing at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. From 1895 to 1898 he worked for the architect Walter Smedley, but in 1898 began his own engineering firm which lasted until 1900 when he entered a partnership with George Spencer Morris. Their firm was called Morris and Vaux. From 1905 until his early death from tuberculosis in 1908 just two years after he designed the Palmer Home, he practiced independently. Because he died so young there are few buildings other than the Palmer Home which he designed. Most of his work included alterations and additions to buildings. Because of his work on the Palmer Home, he was commissioned by the New Century Club of Dover to do the alterations and additions to their building on the Dover Green rendering it more in line with the more up-to-date Colonial Revival style of the period.

Vaux's final plans for the building were submitted on August 22, 1906, and include fifteen single rooms, three double rooms for married couples, two sitting rooms, a small entrance hall, a large reception hall, a small reception room, a large dining room and kitchen, and smaller linen closets and bathrooms. The home, as drawn, could house approximately twenty residents.

The home was constructed by Frank P. Collins and John Cohee according to Vaux's specifications. The heating and plumbing systems were installed by T. K. Jones and Bro. Co. of Dover. The heating system was required by Vaux to be "of ample capacity to warm all the rooms specified to seventy degrees in zero weather/" to accomplish this, a low-pressure, direct, one-pipe steam heating system was used.

When the house was dedicated on October 1, 1907, its purpose was given by the Ever Ready Circle as a place "where food, warmth, gentle care, and friendly hands make life's evening peaceful, restful, and secure." The interior was described as "homelike, with wide halls and bright airy, sunny rooms furnished as memorials." Some of the rooms were furnished by Delaware families such as the Pennewills, Magees, and Richardsons. Other rooms were furnished by King's Daughters circles from Camden, Laurel, and Smyrna, Delaware. There was a live-in staff of four, including a matron, nurse, cook, and janitor to provide for nineteen residents. Most of the residents were from Kent and Sussex, but some were from Wilmington.

The Palmer Home was controlled by a Board of Managers elected yearly from the Ever Ready Circle of The King's Daughters of Dover "to provide a home for the aged people of Delaware when needy circumstances" required. They supplied a comfortable home, clothing, employment, and religious privileges.

To be admitted to the Palmer Home a person had to be sixty years of age and a resident of Delaware for five years unless he or she was a native Delawarean. The original admission fee was $400. Each person admitted was required to bring clothing sufficient for a year. All of the individual's furniture and other possessions except for small heirlooms became the property of the Palmer Home. In addition, all real property was turned over to the Palmer Home; the interest helped to provide maintenance for the resident. resident decided to leave the home on his own accord, he or she could get his or her property back, minus room and board already expended. No insane or idiotic person could be admitted, and if a resident became insane he or she had to be removed to a state institution or to the care of a family member.

If there were strict rules for the residents. All had to, when able, attend meals and go to family prayers and all other religious services in the home to sow what was "only a slight recognition of the Heavenly Father, from who cometh all blessings.: The residents were required to make their own beds and keep their rooms neat. No one was allowed to leave the home to work or to solicit funds. Breakfast was at 7 in the summer and 8 in the winter. There was a large dinner at noon and a light supper at 5 in the winter and 6 in the summer. The residents were not allowed to have "spirituous liquors or stimulants' unless prescribed by their physician and dispensed by the nurse.

The matron was in charge of the home, and her authority could not be challenged; if there was a complaint, a resident could go to the Board of Managers. The matron was supposed to be "kind and respectful to all and attentive as their circumstances may require, never let partiality be shown in any instance, but maintain the respect due her station." At 9 at night, she was to make rounds to make sure fires were in order and the lights extinguished except for one in each hall. She also read a portion of Scripture daily before the residents retired. The residents were not allowed in the kitchen except with special permission and "tattling, ridicule, unkind and uncharitable remarks" were forbidden and could be reported to the Household Committee of the Board of Managers. Persistent misbehavior could be cause for dismissal from the home.

Local donations filled the pantry shelves. There were two donation days a year--one in April and one in October--when circles in the towns of Delaware collected food and money for the Palmer Home. A garden to supply food as well s flowers was on the grounds. Chickens were raised in the yard.

In 1924 a Palmer Home Auxiliary was formed by forty-five young Dover women to raise money for the home and to serve as volunteers. In addition, doctors in Dover provided their services free of charge to the home, and the ministers of the town visited the home frequently.
In 1930, Mary E. Saulsbury, the first President of the Ever Ready Circle, donated funds for an addition to the home to house an assembly room on the second floor and two infirmaries on the first floor--one for men and one for women. This addition was built in a style similar to the main building.

The home continued to be operated in much the same way as it was originally organized until 1987 when the last resident moved out. Shortly thereafter, it was sold by The King's Daughters to two Dover men who plan to renovate it and turn it into apartments or condominiums for older residents of Dover.

Architecturally, the building is significant because it is an outstanding example of Colonial Revival institutional architecture designed by the Philadelphia architect William S. Vaux who also designed the Colonial Revival alterations and additions to the New Century Club on the Green in Dover. The Palmer Home was constructed in the Colonial Revival Style in imitation of the other buildings in Dover either being remodeled in the stylish Colonial Revival Style such as the Old State House, the New Century Club, Christ Church, and the Ridgely House or constructed in the new style such as the growing complex of state office buildings including Legislative Hall. Colonial Revival Architecture remains to this day a popular style in Dover. The Victorian town hall was torn down in the early 1970s and replaced by the Colonial Revival building The Kent County Romanesque style brick courthouse was converted into a Colonial Revival building in 1920, just over thirty years after it was constructed, by the removal of an entire floor and the alteration of the door and window openings. In like manner, Old Main Hall at Wesley College was torn down, and a New Colonial Revival complex of buildings was constructed during the same period.

The original blueprints for the Palmer Home survive and reveal that the building has been little altered since it was originally constructed. Outstanding exterior details include the pedimented dormer, the double partially exterior chimneys, the brick quoins, the brick belt course, and water table, the front porch, and the brick arched windows. The interior includes institutional plain detail except for the main staircase.

The Palmer Home represents an early philanthropic endeavor by a woman's group in Delaware. The late nineteenth century saw a rise in Delawarean's concern for the social welfare of disadvantaged groups. Most of these efforts were concentrated in northern Delaware with the establishment of boarding schools for delinquent boys or for delinquent girls as well as mission efforts among newly arriving immigrants. The Palmer House is a rare central Delaware example of a tradition that would later become more highly developed in this part of the state.

The Palmer Home is located in the Upper Peninsula zone. It represents two themes. The first is that of community organizations for the type of activity which it houses. The second is that of architecture as a good example of Colonial Revival architecture. Its date of construction places it within the urbanization/suburbanization period of Delaware's history.

As a property type, it represents retirement homes. Its architectural characteristics of a brick, group home built in the Colonial Revival style make it an example of that style.