154 FLIGHT FROM THE CITY 



DAYTON MAKES SOCIAL HISTORY 



"Dayton, Ohio, is setting the stage for an important eco- 

 nomic, social, and educational experiment. Out of the 

 Production Units, established in the summer of last year, 

 is growing a movement to ring the city of Dayton with 

 what will be known as Homestead Units. The Homestead 

 Unit represents an attempt to solve the dilemmas of the 

 machine age along entirely new lines. 



"In one respect the Dayton movement is quite different 

 from the hundreds of self-help, barter, and scrip move- 

 ments which have sprung up all over the country. It is an 

 experiment in production for use as against production for 

 sale or exchange. From the very beginning the leaders of 

 the Dayton group have had in mind not only a temporary 

 solution for the problem of the unemployed but a perma- 

 nently better way of living for every man, woman, and 

 child now struggling for happiness in our industrial 

 civilization. 



"The original Production Units, of which there are now 

 ten, are located in various sections of the city. They now 

 have a membership of around 800 families and are the 

 principal source of support of nearly 4,000 men, women, 

 and children. The tenth unit was organized the week I was 

 in Dayton in the middle of January. A unit was also being 

 organized in one of the largest high schools in the city to 

 include boys and girls who have graduated from school 

 and who now find that the jobs in industry and business 

 for which they spent years in training do not exist. These 

 younger folk, like the adults in the older units, are being 

 made to see this movement not merely as a stop-gap for the 

 period of the depression but as an entirely new way of 



