History of the All-America City Program

In 1894, more than 100 educators, journalists, business leaders, and policy-makers met in Philadelphia to discuss the future of American cities. Attended by Theodore Roosevelt, Louis Brandeis, Marshall Fields, Charles Eliot, and Frederick Law Olmsted, the two-day conference would serve as a nationwide call for action.

American society had undergone a dramatic transformation since the years before the Civil War. What had been a primarily agrarian nation was emerging as an urban, industrial power. At the same time, political corruption, inferior housing, overcrowding, crime and poverty threatened to make American cities unlivable.

Before adjourning, the conference delegates resolved to form a national organization to help local reform groups learn from each other's successes and failures. The new organization was also charged with developing specific proposals for making city government more honest, efficient, and effective. So began the National Municipal League (now the National Civic League).

For more than 50 years, the League was known primarily for its publication of model city charters and research on local governance. Then, in 1949, Gideon Seymour, managing editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, assigned reporter Jean James to cover the League's annual National Conference on Government (now known as the National Conference on Governance) in St. Paul. In addition to covering the event, Seymour charged James with asking Alfred Willoughby, chief executive of the National Municipal League, whether the League would support an award to recognize the best-governed cities in America.

Willoughby responded that it would be an impossible thing to do, since so many factors determine whether a community is well governed. Instead, he suggested the League recognize cities where citizen action has succeeded in making the community a better place to live. Thus was born the All-America City Award.

From the outset, the award was sponsored by publications owned by Cowles Publications, first the Star-Tribune, then Look Magazine, which remained the program's sponsor until its demise in 1971. At the time, Look sponsored an annual All-America Football Team. In the same spirit, the first All-America Cities were called a "team" and eleven were named each year.

George Gallup, Sr., the renowned public opinion pollster and Director of the American Institute of Public Opinion, played a key role in the early success of the awards. Gallup served as president of the National Municipal League and chairman of the jury that selected the winning cities.

Until the early 1980s, competition for the award was held in conjunction with the League's annual meeting held in November. Winners were announced by Look Magazine the following March, complete with articles and photographs of each winning city. Today, 30 finalist cities are named in April and ten winning All-America Cities are announced immediately following the competition in June after presentations to a jury of experts by the finalists. In the mid-1980s, when USA Today sponsored the awards, a tradition began of recognizing All-America Cities in a December White House ceremony.

Like America itself, the All-America City Award has changed over the years. In the beginning, the winning cities were often those that demonstrated local government reform and efficiency, as well as improvements in the city's infrastructure, including housing, public works and education.

More recently, the focus has shifted to broader community initiatives such as economic development, health and social service projects and efforts to improve race relations. Following the President's Summit for America's Youth, the Allstate Insurance Company, the sponsor of the All-America City Awards from 1988 - 2001, and the National Civic League, began requiring that all winners be able to demonstrate community-wide youth enrichment initiatives.

Ranging in population from 5,221,801 (North Texas Region, Texas) to 1,412 (City of Gravette, Arkansas), the 2001 AAC applicants tackled such issues as crime, affordable housing, high risk youth, and neighborhood revitalization with community leadership, multi-sector cooperation, and plain old good citizenship.

Winning the All-America City Award reinvigorates a community's sense of civic pride. All-America City winners and finalists also experience heightened national attention - a proven boost for the recruitment of industry, jobs and investment to an area. But, perhaps as important as the tangible benefits of being named an All-America City are the benefits a community derives from completing the All-America City Award application. The application process presents a unique opportunity for communities to evaluate themselves and foster new community partnerships. And most importantly, All-America Cities teach and inspire communities throughout the nation who are struggling with similar issues how to face difficult situations and to meet those challenges in innovative and collaborative ways.

« About the All-America City Program