Seattle Apartment Operators’ Association records

Collection

Identifier: 1000-015

Scope and Contents

The bulk of this collection consists of correspondence, including telegrams, to and from Donald C. Haas. A small set of correspondence pre-dates the establishment of the Association and relates to J.C. Haas, father of Donald C. Haas. Meeting minutes, speeches and reports, much of it directed towards the cause of eliminating rent control, are included. Correspondence includes communication between Haas and the offices of Warren G. Magnuson and Harry P. Cain, U.S. Senators from Washington. Examples of legal documents include a rental agreement and contracts. In the Miscellaneous Documents folder is Apartment Journal, a publication dated December 1952-January 1953, which includes photos of the trustees and staff of the Seattle Apartment Operators’ Association.

Dates

Creation: 1924-1957

Creator

Seattle Apartment Operators’ Association (Organization)

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open and available for use.

Conditions Governing Use

Biographical / Historical

The Seattle Apartment Operators’ Association was organized in 1924 to guide Seattle’s apartment industry. The Association was involved in legislative activity on the local, state and federal level, particularly as it related to rent control, which they staunchly opposed.

One of the original organizers of the group was Donald C. Haas (1905-1992). Haas held every office within the organization, starting as assistant secretary and eventually serving as president on the local and state level, and was on the executive committee of the national association. Haas started in apartment operations in Seattle as owner of the Fionia, Harvard, Liberty Court, Hollywood, and Chelan apartments. The Seattle Apartment Operators’ Association is now known as the Washington Landlord Association.

Full Extent

.21 Linear Feet (1 box)

Language of Materials

English

Metadata Rights Declarations

License: This record is made available under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Creative Commons license.

Additional Description

Abstract

This collection contains correspondence, records and ephemera relating to the Seattle Apartment Operators’ Association and their varied activities. The bulk of the collection is centered on the business dealings of Donald C. Haas, organizer and long-time participant in the Association.

Arrangement

The records are arranged alphabetically by material type.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

Collection was purchased in 2017.

Processing Information

Acknowledgement of Harmful Content
The Seattle Public Library Special Collections Department is committed to creating an inclusive archive that documents the history of our diverse communities in a respectful manner. Our collections include historic materials that may contain images and outdated language which can be harmful due to issues such as racism, colonialism, sexism and homophobia. This content can provide important insight into the creator and context of the historic materials but can also reveal hurtful biases and prejudices.

We may decide to use or retain harmful language in our description when the terms have been used by the creator(s) of the materials to describe themselves or their community; when we have reused description created by the donor; when we have transcribed information directly from the materials; and when using national standards such as Library of Congress Subject Headings, which allow for standardized searching and retrieval of records. When including language from the original material in our finding aids or descriptions, we will indicate that this material comes directly from the original item by putting the language in quotes or prefacing it with a note that says the description is transcribed from the item or provided by the creator.

We will continually review our finding aids to identify harmful language and encourage you to contact us at specialcollections@spl.org if you find language that causes concern.