Introduction | West Side Neighbors | Dr. Juliet Saltman | National Neighbors | Conclusion
Dr. Juliet “Julie” Saltman (1923-2022)
Dr. Juliet “Julie” Saltman was a sociologist and leader in the fair housing movement. Her research focused on housing and racial discrimination, neighborhood change, and urban social movements. She was a co-founder of the Fair Housing Contact Service (FHCS), an organization to promote racial integration in housing in Akron, Ohio, and West Side Neighbors, Inc. A number of materials from Saltman’s research and work, particularly with WSN, are found in the West Side Neighbors, Inc. Records at The University of Akron Archives and Special Collections.
Saltman was born in 1923 in Haifa, Israel. Her family moved to the United States when she was two years old. Saltman earned her B.A. from Rutgers University, M.A. in Sociology from the University of Chicago, and Ph.D. in Sociology from Case Western Reserve University. Her Ph.D. dissertation, “Open Housing as a Social Movement: A Sociological Study of Challenge, Conflict, and Change,” later became her first book, Open Housing as a Social Movement: Challenge, Conflict, and Change (1971). She authored two additional books, Open Housing: Dynamics of a Social Movement (1978) and A Fragile Movement: The Struggle for Neighborhood Stabilization (1990) and numerous articles. Her first two books featured FHCS as a case study while her third book featured West Side Neighbors.
Saltman and her husband, Dr. William Saltman, moved their family to West Akron in the mid 1950s when William got a job as a chemist for The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company. Julie was a lecturer of sociology at The University of Akron for twelve years and later at Kent State University until her retirement.1
Fair Housing Contact Service (FHCS)
Before co-founding West Side Neighbors, Inc., Saltman was instrumental in creating the Fair Housing Contact Service (FHCS). In 1964, Akron city council had passed a fair housing ordinance, but it was overturned by a referendum a few months later. In response, a group of concerned residents formed FHCS the following year as a volunteer-run local listing service for homes being rented or sold. They also helped people looking for homes and those willing to sell their homes to Black families, with a goal of promoting equal opportunity in housing.
Similar to WSN, FHCS’s board of directors was biracial and interfaith, and was initially run by a 21-member executive board of directors. Saltman was involved with FHCS in various roles as a board member and volunteer until 1974.2
The West Side Neighbors, Inc. Records contain some materials pertaining to the Fair Housing Contact Service, including a draft of Saltman’s second book, Open Housing: Dynamics of a Social Movement.
West Side Neighbors (WSN)
FHCS was initially meant to promote integration in Akron, but it was realized shortly after the creation of FHCS that another organization was needed to maintain integrated neighborhoods. This led to the creation of West Side Neighbors, Inc. two years later. The overlapping work of the two organizations led them to be considered sister organizations.
Saltman served as a steering committee member, advisor, and consultant to WSN at various times over more than two decades.
Saltman’s Other Work
Some of Saltman’s other consulting work and research can be found in the West Side Neighbors, Inc. Records. Examples include reports and notes from her work as a regional coordinator for a housing market practices survey funded by the National Committee Against Discrimination in Housing in the 1970s and from her work as a consultant and witness in court cases on school segregation, both locally and in other U.S. cities.
In 1989 or 1990, Saltman and her husband retired to San Diego, California. She passed away in 2022.
This exhibition was created in Fall 2024 by Melanie Mohler as part of her capstone project for the MA in the Applied History and Public Humanities program at The University of Akron.
If you would like to consult the West Side Neighbors, Inc. Records for research and study, please schedule an appointment to visit The University of Akron Archives and Special Collections.
Do you have information you can share about the West Side Neighbors, or any of the other people or organizations represented in this digital exhibition? If so, please contact The University of Akron Archives and Special Collections at 330-972-7670 or archives@uakron.edu.
- “Biographical Sketch, Dr. Juliet Saltman.” West Side Neighbors Collection, Box 50, folder 7, University of Akron Archives and Special Collections; “Juliet Saltman,” Akron Beacon Journal, March 10, 2022.; Juliet Saltman, A Fragile Movement: The Struggle for Neighborhood Stabilization. (New York: Greenwood Press), 1990. ↩︎
- Juliet Saltman, Open Housing: Dynamics of a Social Movement. (New York: Praeger. 1978), 123-125, 142 ↩︎