The material in this study is of a qualitative sort. No attempt has
been made to organize a statistical study. The problems of family life
do not lend themselves to the statistical method except at great cost
of time and money.
A large body of data with reference to conditions existing during the
decade just prior to the Great War, exists in the reports of several
special government investigations, especially the report of the United
States Immigration Commission, that of the United States Bureau of
Labor relating to conditions surrounding women and child wage
earners, and that of the British Board of Trade on the "Cost of Living
in American Towns." The regular publications of certain government
bureaus, especially the United States Children's Bureau, the Bureau of
Home Economics in the United States Department of Agriculture, and the
United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, were found useful. These
publications have been studied so far as they discuss the problem of
family life. Their contents are presented only in illustration or in
confirmation of statements made.
The material collected is of two kinds. First, there are facts dealing
with the different agencies organized to help in solving these
problems. This information was gathered largely by correspondence.
Questionnaires were sent to case-work agencies dealing with family
problems, which are members of the American Association for Social
Work with Families and Home Service Bureaus of various Red Cross
Chapters, asking their methods for attacking these difficulties and
their advice as to the best methods worked out. The supervisors of
Home Economics under the Federal Board for Vocational Education were
asked to what extent they had included foreign-born housewives in
their program and the special plans that had been worked out for them;
the International Institutes of the Young Women's Christian
Association were asked to describe their work with married women.
The methods of certain agencies in Chicago--the United Charities, the
Immigrants' Protective League, some of the settlements--were studied
more carefully through interviews with their workers and through a
study of individual records. Officers of the national racial
organizations were interviewed about their work on family problems. In
addition to these a limited number of co-operative stores in Illinois
were studied. Mining communities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and West
Virginia were visited, as well as certain of the newer housing
projects, such as Yorkship Village in New Jersey, Hilton Village in
Virginia, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lowell and North Billerica,
Massachusetts and several towns in New Mexico.
The government investigations already referred to had made certain
needs of the foreign born very clear. It seemed unnecessary to go over
that ground again, but it was necessary to know whether those needs
still existed. An attempt was made to learn this through interviews
with leaders of various national groups and by obtaining schedules
from a limited number of selected families. A word should be said as
to the information obtained from these sources. The leaders selected
were, in the first instance, men and women whose leadership in their
own group had been recognized by election to important offices in
their national organizations. These men and women then frequently
suggested others whose position was not so well defined to an
outsider, but whose opinion was valued by members of the group.
Most of the persons interviewed were able to speak English readily.
They were people who were close enough to the great mass of immigrants
to be familiar with their problems, their needs, their shortcomings,
and their abilities, and at the same time were sufficiently removed
from the problems to be able to view them objectively. Some were
persons of more educational and cultural background than the majority
of immigrants, some of them had been born in this country or had come
when they were young children; but there were more who came to this
country from the same Old-World conditions as the majority of their
countrymen and had worked their way through the same hard conditions.
They were probably exceptional in their native ability.
No attempt was made to fill out a questionnaire from these interviews.
An outline was prepared of points to be covered, but frequently no
attempt was made to adhere to the outline. Rather, these persons were
encouraged to talk on the family problems in which they were most
interested, and to which they had given most thought--to enable us to
see them as they saw them with their knowledge of the Old-World
background from which their people had come. They were also asked to
suggest possible ways of meeting the more pressing needs of their
people.
Adequate expression can never be given to the obligation under which
those busy men and women who gave so generously and graciously their
time and their thoughts have placed us. Our very great indebtedness to
them is acknowledged, as without their aid this study in the present
form would have been impossible. The demand made upon them could be
justified only by the hope that the contacts thus established may
prove in some slight degree profitable to them if only in giving them
assurance that there are those to whom their problems are of real
interest.
The women from whom family schedules were obtained were slightly
different, and the information sought from them was obtained in a
different way. They were for the most part women who did not speak
English well enough to carry on an extended conversation in it. While
they were not very recent immigrants and hence were not going through
the first difficulties of adjustment, most of them were women who had
not yet worked their way through to the same place reached by the
women with whom the more general interviews were had. They were, in
general, very simple people, too absorbed with working out their
problems to have had much time for reflection. We asked them to tell
us of their early experiences and difficulties as they recalled them,
and of their present ways of treating some of the problems. This
information was taken in schedule form.
Not enough schedules were obtained to be of statistical value--there
were only ninety in all--but the families chosen are believed to be
more or less typical. They were selected with the advice of leaders of
their group or were known to our foreign-speaking investigators, who
had a wide acquaintance in several groups. That is, we have tried so
far as possible to see the problem with the persons, if not through
the eyes of the persons whose fellow countrymen we wished to know.
We do not mean to suggest that other and very important groups might
not have been studied, but we tried to learn of others; and sometimes
because we could not find the clew, sometimes for lack of time, it
proved impossible to go farther. We feel that we have obtained an
insight into the situation among the Polish in Chicago and in Rolling
Prairie, Indiana; the Lithuanians, Bohemians, Slovaks, Croatians,
Slovenians, nonfamily Mexicans, Russians--both family and
nonfamily--and Italians in Chicago; Italians in Herrin and Freeman,
Illinois, and Canonsburg and Washington, Pennsylvania; and the
Ukrainians in Chicago and in Sun, West Virginia.
Besides the large body of evidence with reference to these groups, we
have suggestions from many interested and kindly persons of other
groups. The Magyars and the Rumanians, particularly, we should have
liked to know better, and we have had most suggestive interviews with
certain of their leaders. We were not able, however, to follow the
leads they gave, and therefore do not claim to speak for them, except
to express the feeling of the need for greater understanding and
appreciation.
With reference to those groups discussed, it should be noted that
some, such as the Polish, Bohemian, Lithuanian, Italian, are among the
largest of the great foreign colonies in Chicago, the growth of a
long-continued immigration. They live in the different sections of the
city, in crowded tenement districts, or in more recently developed
neighborhoods for whose growth they are responsible. The Croatian and
Ukrainian groups are newer groups, and are therefore poorer. The
Croatians are moving into houses which the Bohemians are vacating. In
the Russian and Mexican groups we have the current evidence that the
old problem of the nonfamily man is still with us.
The Poles in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, are a prosperous farming
community living in modern farmhouses with yards and orchards. There
are women still alive who can tell of the earlier days, when just
after their arrival they lived in one-room houses made of logs and
plastered with mud. Then they helped their husbands to fell trees and
clear the land. Like other pioneer women, these women have contributed
to the "winning of the West." The grandmothers tell of these things.
The mothers remember when, during the winter, the children went to
school for a few months, they were laughed at because of their meager
lunches, their queer homemade clothes, and their foreign speech. The
young people now go to school at least as long as the law requires and
sometimes through high school.
The mining towns in Illinois and Pennsylvania need not be described.
Their general features are familiar. Although extended information
with reference to the life of the various groups was not obtained,
mention will be made of certain facts that are of importance to this
study.
While the numbers are not great, it is hoped that certain methods may
be worked out for approach to the problems of the groups studied, that
will prove suggestive in attacking the problems of other groups not
included here. No two groups are alike; but the experience with one or
with several may develop the open-minded, humble, objective attitude
of mind and that democratic habit of approach that will unlock the
doorway into the life of the others and exhibit both the points at
which community action may be desirable and the direction such action
should take.