suffering people, those upon whom most of the experiments of the
benevolent are tried, is not, as I have already said, entirely
discouraging. In all their dealings with them, they always seem to have
had a latent consciousness at least that they had minds and souls, and
not bodies only. I think women have seldom been responsible for the
“charities” which were satisfied to give one meal to a hungry
fellow-being and then turn from him with no further sense of
responsibility for any subsequent meal. They have usually sought to
enter into some sort of human relation with those they tried to help, to
make material relief the vehicle for moral and spiritual relief, and
even when the material relief was actually doing far more harm in
undermining character and self-dependence than could be counteracted by
all the teaching given, still this sad fact was not recognized, or at
least not realized, and the intention was far better than the
performance.
Within the past ten or fifteen years, all over the country, an awakening
of conscience in regard to these subjects has been taking place, and in
almost all the larger cities and in many of the towns of our country
there are already formed associations whose object it is to cure and
prevent pauperism. This movement is in this country due in a great
degree to women, and in all the sixty or seventy societies which now
exist men and women work together, and in many of them women take the
lead. The “old charity” sought mainly to relieve physical suffering by
physical relief; the “new charity” seeks to relieve physical suffering
by raising the character of the sufferer and by discovering the
underlying causes of the suffering both in himself and in his
surroundings.
IV. The fourth class whom we can serve are the people who are generally
thought to need no “charity” at all, and who indeed get but little of
it, either by word or deed—the wage-earners of the world—those who dig
and hammer, who sew and scrub, who toil and sweat, to feed and clothe
themselves and all the world besides.
Fortunately, there has, within the past few years, grown up a strong
conviction among those who seek to serve their kind, that to help these
men and women, to strengthen them, to teach them, is the real means of
lifting the race, and hence have been developed (especially by women,
and for women and children) many plans for making their lives not only
easier, but richer and nobler, and more what a human life should be.
In all such plans education is involved, and there are many inspiring
instances of really great changes wrought by women in the system of
education in our large cities, whose influence for good will never
cease. The introduction of kindergarten teaching for little children,
which many of those who study the dark problems of pauperism and crime
believe will do more to destroy the misery of mankind than any other one
educational agency, was due to Miss Elizabeth Peabody, herself a teacher
in her youth, who in her middle age was filled with enthusiasm by the
beautiful new teaching, and has lived to see it, in her old age,
incorporated, mainly by the exertions of women, into the public school
system of many of our large cities, where the need of the reform was
greatest.
In St. Louis, the first city to adopt the kindergarten, it was a woman
who proposed it. In Boston, one woman herself established and maintained
for nearly ten years thirty-one kindergartens, and finally, having by
this long experience proved their value, persuaded the Board of
Education to accept them as part of the public school system.
In Philadelphia, another woman, inspired by the good she saw
accomplished in Boston by the kindergartens established by her friend,
in 1879 opened one in that city, and gradually, following her example
and under her leadership, others were opened; and in 1881 the
Sub-Primary School Society was incorporated for the purpose of
establishing and maintaining kindergartens in Philadelphia, and
continued its work until in December, 1886, this was consummated, when
it presented to the Board of Education thirty-two kindergartens, to be
in future carried on as part of the school system.
In California, the Golden Gate Association has founded, by the help of a
few rich people who have given money, and of many devoted women who have
watched over the enterprise and given time and thought to its success, a
large number of free kindergartens, and the same is true of many other
cities in the country.
In other ways, also, the public schools have been benefited by the
volunteer work of women, not only as members of School Boards, which
position they have accepted in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, but
especially in leading the way in demonstrating the possibilities and
value of industrial education.
In New York, the Industrial Education Association was founded by men and
women for the purpose of bringing this most important subject before the
public, and of training teachers for all branches of manual education.
Industrial schools have been established and carried on by women in many
different localities,[192] and all over the country church societies
conduct sewing classes, and classes in domestic training for girls. In
many of our cities, women have established vacation schools to save the
children from the demoralization of the long summer idleness, and have,
in some places, obtained the use of the public school buildings for this
purpose. In Boston “The Emergency and Hygiene Association” (composed of
men and women) has a “Committee on Playgrounds,” which, in the summer
vacation of 1888, opened seven of the public school yards as play
grounds for children, and three more as “sand-gardens.” In each a matron
was present to oversee the games of the children, and in the playgrounds
they were supplied with “sand-heaps and shovels, balls, tops, skipping
ropes, sand bags, building blocks, flags to march under, and transparent
slates to draw on,” while in the “sand-gardens” there was only the
pleasure of digging in sand heaps. Thus for three hours a day, on four
fair days of each week during the vacation, hundreds of children spent
happy and healthful hours.
The “fresh air work,” the “country week,” the excursions of every kind,
are chiefly carried on by the devotion of women, and all will
undoubtedly accomplish a greater good than the temporary benefit to the
health and spirits of city children, by implanting a love for country
life in many of the little visitors, which may prove in the future an
influence to counteract the strange taste which now leads so many people
to prefer a crowded tenement to a farm-house and makes them “feel
lonesome” within a stone’s throw of a dozen neighbors.
Nor have women, although devoting so much of their time to the training
of children, neglected those past the age of schooling, those who have
grown up without privilege or advantage, especially the young girls who
have to work for their living and struggle with untrained hands and
brains to support themselves and perhaps many others dependent on them.
In almost all our cities women have formed associations especially to
help self-supporting young women and girls, and the aim of all is to
give happiness and added pleasure, besides the opportunity of
development in every direction. The Women’s Christian Associations,[193]
of which there are more than fifty in the country, open rooms for
evening entertainment and study, give instruction in intellectual and
manual branches, find situations for those who need them, help working
girls in every way, and many are the women who have leisure and
education who devote both to efforts to help and succor women who have
neither. Most of these associations have Homes for working women, where
the inmates are guarded and watched over with kindly care. In other
cities the Young Women’s Christian Association have no Homes of their
own, but select safe boarding places for young women, and direct them to
them, and keep boarding registers.
One of the women who knows most of the condition of working women in our
cities, says of the “Homes:” “The few hundreds sheltered are in most
cases really friendless and deserving women to whom the chief boon is
not the cheap board, but the respectable surroundings, which could not
be had at all in ordinary lodgings.... The safeguards thrown about women
in these Homes are most desirable.... My objections to them are that
they are not radical enough in their reforms, and really bar the truly
needy factory girl of the slums; and that by furnishing so many comforts
and privileges at low rates they create false expectations and
standards. Were the advantages made dependent on co-operative
management, were the inmates themselves responsible for the adornment
and conduct of the Homes, suffering for extravagance and bad judgment,
profiting by foresight and experience, valuable educational training
would be secured, and a far more home-like interest.”
The Boston Young Women’s Christian Association (founded in 1866) in its
twenty-third annual report, after describing the employment department,
gymnasium, library, entertainments, the travelers’ aid, the industrial
training department, the evening classes for intellectual work, says:
“Another important work, which has been carried on for some years, is
the training of girls for domestic service.... They remain three
months.... They are instructed in the best possible way, practically, by
doing all varieties of domestic work. As this educational work
progressed, there opened out another need, and this was an opportunity
for preparation on the part of women of intelligence and education, by
which they could fit themselves for positions as matrons, housekeepers,
teachers of domestic economy, etc. For this end a normal class has been
organized, and they are now pursuing a course of instruction.”
The New York Young Women’s Christian Association, founded in 1872,
offers to self-supporting women the following privileges:
I. The Bible class.
II. Free concerts, lectures, readings, etc.
III. Free classes for instruction in writing, commercial arithmetic,
book-keeping, business training, phonography, type-writing, retouching
photo-negatives, photo-color, mechanical and free-hand drawing, clay
modeling, applied design, choir music, and physical culture.
IV. Free circulating library, reference library, and reading-rooms.
V. Employment bureau.
VI. Needlework department, salesroom, order department, free classes
in machine and hand-sewing, classes in cutting and fitting.
VII. Free board directory.
In the year 1883 was incorporated the Baltimore Young Women’s Christian
Association, “having in view the improvement of the condition of the
working women of Baltimore by providing for them a reading-room, and
such other departments as may be found necessary.”
I quote from a description, lately written, some account of the work of
this association:
“The educating influences of the Young Women’s Christian Association has
been chiefly social and practical.... Classes in reading, writing,
book-keeping, and singing were early instituted.... English literature
has been taught in simple and effective ways by reading aloud from good
authors to appreciative groups of young women, and also by introducing
the co-operative method of reading, one girl taking one book by a given
author, another girl another, and all reporting on their individual
readings to the assembled class....
“Another excellent branch of committee work is to see that girls who
come to the lunch-rooms have proper boarding places. Ladies visit girls
in their lodgings. A female physician has lent her services in caring
for the sick, and has made herself very useful by keeping a careful
watch upon the sanitary condition of shops where girls are employed....”
Several of the Women’s Christian Associations have under their care
other branches of charitable work than those above enumerated, and as a
rule their benefits seem to be confined more or less strictly to
Protestants. There are other organizations for the befriending of young
women and girls (helping hands, girls’ friendly societies, church
societies in great numbers, etc., etc.) which have the same limitation,
but there are still others intended to receive all who will join them.
The “Women’s Educational and Industrial Unions,” existing in
thirteen cities of the United States, have for their objects
“increasing fellowship among women, in order to promote the best
practical methods for securing their educational, industrial, and
social advancement.”[194]
The following are extracts from a circular issued by the original Union,
founded in Boston, in 1877:
This institution may be regarded as a social centre, a place of
welcome. Any woman, resident or stranger, by coming to the Union will
find herself among friends. Its placards in railway stations often
bring to us strangers from various parts of the country and from
abroad. It invites all women to its reading-room and parlors. It
provides lectures, classes, and entertainments. Some of the classes
are industrial. It has “Mother’s Meetings” and “Talks with Young
Girls” from women with high reputation. It affords opportunities for
interchange of thought upon the vital questions of the day. It
receives and preserves reports of women’s associations both near and
distant. It is a centre of local information. It gathers in the best
ideas and suggestions, and weaves them into plans for the benefit of
humanity. It befriends the friendless. It is a tower of strength for
the helpless. It secures dues unjustly withheld from working women. It
investigates fraudulent advertisements, and publicly warns women
against them. So far as practicable, it secures situations for the
unemployed. In its salesrooms are found the products of women’s
industries.... Wise thinkers have the opinion that for removing the
ills of humanity primary work is better than after work. The methods
of the latter are charities, reformatory crusades, and penal
enactments. The evils contended with,—pauperism, drunkenness, vice,
crime,—are simply inward conditions becoming apparent in conduct.
These conditions are ignorance, selfishness, undeveloped faculties,
false rating of values, lack of self-respect and of self-restraint.
The effective work is to change such conditions by a kind of education
that shall develop the highest and best, thus enabling the individual
to stand upright of himself, instead of being held in position by
charities, reforms, or penalties.
In New York, in 1879, was founded a Girls’ Club, which consisted of the
founder, a woman of education and wealth, and ten or twelve factory and
shop girls, who met in an upper room in a Tenth Avenue tenement house.
During the past ten years, that club has increased to a membership of
several hundred, and twenty-two kindred clubs have been formed in New
York, eleven in Brooklyn, and eight in Boston and in other cities. These
clubs are mainly self-supporting, and their work is the education and
elevation of the members in every possible direction—physical,
industrial, mental, and moral. They supply a common ground of meeting
for young women who have had the privileges of education, money and
leisure, with those who have had the privileges of self-denying,
hard-working lives, and the benefits are mutual.[195]
Women have, in various cities, opened restaurants where good food is
provided at moderate prices, for the purpose not only of saving money to
those who patronize them, but to give decent and attractive surroundings
and a freedom from temptation to drink. In some of these restaurants are
rooms where working-girls may eat lunch which they bring from their own
homes, and in some the decent toilet provision is spoken of as a great
boon to these girls, who work in shops and factories where every
requirement of decency is neglected or violated in that particular.
In New York City a small band of educated women have jointly hired a
tenement house in the very worst district of the city, politically and
morally, and there they intend to live, for the purpose of doing what
they can to elevate the tone of the neighborhood. Most of them have
their daily avocations, but in the evenings they will give their time to
such efforts as they find best suited to attain their end.[196] Some of
them have already taken part in the work of the “Neighborhood Guild,”
the spirit of which is thus described in its last published circular:
We do not look upon our work as done by one class of society for
another class of society; not as up-town residents, nor from the
height of proud superiority to our fellow-men in any regard do we go
down to labor in the tenement-house district. All sorts and conditions
of men are brought into contact in the Neighborhood Guild. All both
give and receive; all are both teachers and taught; and the lesson for
all is the brotherhood of man. The Guild is not connected with any
church or society, whatsoever. But persons of various beliefs are
connected with the Guild, and the sense of the brotherhood of all men
is their bond of union. The work of the Guild, except in the
kindergarten, is done by faithful volunteers, several of whom have
resided for many months in the tenement-house district. The spirit of
the Guild is against unnecessary absenteeism in good works. It would
bring all sorts of men together close enough to feel one another’s
heart-throbs. It believes in a communism of mental and spiritual
possessions.
A somewhat similar society, established both by men and women, in
Philadelphia, gives the following account of itself:
The object of this unsectarian association is to establish, in
localities most needing them, and chiefly for the benefit of
workingmen and their families, convenient centers for social
intercourse, amusement, reading, study, restaurant accommodation,
etc., without the accompaniment of any demoralizing features.
Our first experiment was to open, on Saturday evenings, the hall on
the corner of Twenty-third and Hamilton streets, which seats nearly
three hundred people. This was furnished with tables for refreshments,
and here we gave a series of light entertainments, sometimes for five
cents, sometimes ten cents admission. The next step was to open the
house at 2134 Vine street, and start a neighborhood society under the
title of Family Guild, No. 1. In order to secure to the house at the
start the character desired, we admitted to its privileges, under
proper conditions, men, women, and children, and instead of separating
families, offered special inducements to father, mother, and children
to come together.
The advantages of membership are a library, reading-room (with
magazines, weekly and daily papers), rooms for games, music classes,
accommodations for business and social meetings, etc. The price is one
dollar a year for adults, fifty cents for those under seventeen, while
a family ticket including father, mother, and all children under
seventeen, is one dollar and fifty cents. Class instruction is extra,
five and ten cents a lesson, except the manual training, which is
free, and the dancing, which is fifteen cents.
The most popular classes last year were cooking, singing, and
dressmaking. The cooking class numbered sixteen, dressmaking ten,
singing thirty. The number of members enrolled last winter was one
hundred and fifty. This does not include all attending classes, some
of whom were not members of the Guild.
The experiment of associating the sexes both in study and recreation
has proved a success. The class in manual training, which now numbers
forty, is composed about equally of young men and women, and the
teachers say it is much easier with such a class to keep order and to
secure attention to work.
Besides the regular social evenings devoted to plays, singing,
dancing, etc., it is not unusual for the members of the evening
classes which close at nine to adjourn to the play-room and take a
little time for amusement. The managers have naturally kept an anxious
watch over these occasions and have found nothing to complain of in
the conduct of the young people....
There will be certain hours of each afternoon devoted to the children
of the neighborhood, with the object of teaching them quieter and less
brutal ways of playing than they learn on the streets. We also hope to
establish a day nursery, which shall obviate the dreadful necessity
among working women of locking their children alone in a room for the
day....
In Illinois, women have organized associations for the protection of
women and children which seem to be more far-reaching than any such in
other States.
The second article of “The Protective Agency for Women and Children of
Chicago” reads as follows:
Its objects are to secure protection from all offenses and crimes
against the purity and virtue of women and children; protection
against any injustice to women or children of a financial character,
such as withholding of wages, exacting of exorbitant interest,
violation of contract, or fraudulent advertisements of any kind;
enforcement of existing laws, and efforts toward the enactment of
better ones, for the protection of women and children against wrongs
and abuses, of whatever nature; the extension of a wholesome moral
support to women and children who have been wronged, discriminating
wisely between misfortune and guilt.
For three years the agency has fulfilled its objects and has carried out
the wish expressed in its first annual report in the following words:
“Justice is better than charity, and we wish to be a terror to
evil-doers as well as a good Samaritan to the unfortunate.”
The Agency is carried on by a governing board consisting of delegates
from sixteen different associations of women in Chicago, and it has
taken its stand by the side of the poor and oppressed and demanded and
obtained justice for them in the courts. In its third annual report it
publishes the following extracts from a letter of John P. Altgelt, Judge
of Superior Court of Cook County: “... I wish to express my high
appreciation of the work the Agency is doing.... You have rendered a
double service to the courts and have materially aided in the
administration of justice.” In Peoria, Ill., there is also such an
Agency, and a National Association has been formed “for the purpose of
establishing, or helping to establish, similar societies in different
parts of the country.”
Another important woman’s society is the “Illinois Woman’s Alliance,”
which declares its objects to be: “1. To agitate for the enforcement of
all existing laws and ordinances that have been enacted for the
protection of women and children, as the factory ordinances and the
compulsory education law. 2. To secure the enactment of such laws as
shall be found necessary. 3. To investigate all business establishments
and factories where women and children are employed, and public
institutions where women and children are maintained. 4. To procure the
appointment of women as inspectors and as members of boards of education
and to serve on boards of management of public institutions.”
The Woman’s Alliance has already been “largely instrumental in procuring
the passage of a compulsory education law, and has secured the
appointment of women factory inspectors.”