The foreign-born housewife finds this work particularly difficult for
many reasons. In the first place, housekeeping in the country from
which she came was done under such different conditions that it here
becomes almost a new problem in which her experience in the old
country may prove of little use. The extent to which this is true
varies from group to group. To understand the problems of any
particular group, careful study should be made of the living
conditions and housekeeping practices in the country from which it
came.
Some of the women with whom we have conferred have described
housekeeping as they knew it in the old country. These descriptions
are suggestive of the character of the change and the difficulties
involved. Mrs. P., a Polish woman from Posen, for example, said that:
Houses in the village in which she lived were made of clay,
with thatched roofs, clay floors, and about ten feet high.
They were made in rows, for four families or two families,
with one outer door opening from a hall into which the doors
from all the dwellings opened. Each dwelling had one small
window, and a fireplace. Water was out of doors. In the
four-family house there were two chimneys. The outside door
did not open into the road.
[Illustration: FLOOR PLAN OF HOUSES IN POLAND]
The floors were covered with sand, and new sand was put on
when the room was cleaned. The fireplace had a hook from
which hung the kettle, and in one corner was the oven, a
little place set off by a board covered with clay. Walls were
whitewashed. Mrs. P. said that the housework is much more
difficult in this country, with the cleaning of woodwork,
washing windows, care of curtains, carpets, and dishes, and
more elaborate cooking. In the old country the family washing
was done only once a month, except in cases where there were
small children. Then it was done weekly; and if the family
lacked sufficient clothing, the washing had to be done
oftener. There the meal was one dish, from which the entire
family ate; here there is a variety of food and each person
has his own plate and eating utensils, so that even the
dishwashing is a greater task. In coming to this country many
women do not see that the windows need washing or that the
woodwork should be cleaned, etc.
The beds were made of boards covered with straw, not as a
straw mattress. Sheets were laid over the straw to make it
softer. Each person had two pillows, very large and full, so
that they sleep in a "half sitting" position. Feather beds
are used for warmth, and no quilts or blankets were known in
the old country.
Lithuanian women, likewise, have pointed out that at home most of the
women worked in the fields, and that what housekeeping was done was of
the simplest kind. The peasant house consisted of two rooms, one of
which was used only on state occasions, a visit from the priest, a
wedding, christening, or a funeral. In summer no one sleeps in the
house, but all sleep out of doors in the hay; in winter, women with
small children sleep inside, but the others sleep in the granary.
Feather beds are, in these circumstances, a real necessity. Thus the
bed that is found in this country is unknown in Lithuania, and the
women naturally do not know how to care for one. They not only do not
realize the need of airing it, turning the mattress, and changing the
bedding, but do not even know how to make it up properly.
Other processes of housekeeping--dishwashing, scrubbing, and
washing--prove equally difficult, and it is said that most of the
women do things in the hardest possible way, chiefly because the
processes are different here and they lack the technique to do their
work in the easier way. Naturally, too, when work in the fields has
occupied most of their time, they lack also habits of order and
routine in their household tasks.
The Italian women, especially those from southern Italy and Sicily,
have also spoken of their difficulties in housekeeping under new
conditions. In Italy the houses, even of the relatively well-to-do
peasants, were two-room affairs with earthen floors and little
furniture. The women had little time to give to the care of the house,
and its comfort and order were not considered important.
The experience in doing the family washing is said to typify the
change. In Italy washing is done once a month, or at most, once a
fortnight, in the poorer families. Clothes are placed in a great vat
or tub of cold water, covered with a cloth on which is sprinkled wood
ashes, and allowed to stand overnight. In the morning they are taken
to a stream or fountain, and washed in running water. They are dried
on trees and bushes in the bright, Italian sunlight. Such methods of
laundry work do not teach the women anything about washing in this
country, and they are said to make difficult work of it in many cases.
They learn that clothes are boiled here, but they do not know which
clothes to boil and which to wash without boiling; and as a result
they often boil all sorts of clothing, colored and white, together. In
Italy washing is a social function; here it is a task for each
individual woman.