Getting Kids off the Street: Chicago Motor Club’s Play Yard Contest for Cook County,Illinois,and the Use of the Street

For 17 of the years between 1934 and 1958, the Chicago Motor Club ran a summer contest for parents and the community to create play spaces for children in backyards and vacant lots in Chicago and Cook County, Illinois. This contest provides a glimpse into two overlapping trends in cities of that era: the rise of the automobile and changing theories on the provision of play space in cities. For the Chicago Motor Club, the stated objective was to address the alarming numbers of child injuries and fatalities caused by children playing in the street. But underlying the contest was an evolving relationship between roadway users and between both private and public play space in the city and determination of responsibility for providing this space. This paper examines this relationship to explain the origins and context of the Chicago Motor Club’s play yard contest and its role in a collective response to midcentury urban health, safety, and transportation.