This does not apply to the Italian community. While benefit societies
among the Italians are very numerous, there has until recently been
little movement toward a national organization similar to those among
the Poles and Lithuanians. The deep division in dialect, custom, and
feeling between people from different sections of Italy accounts for
the number of societies as well as for the lack of affiliation among
them. Three of the largest societies in Chicago, in which membership
is largely Sicilian, are now affiliated, but no effort has been
discovered to make use of the organization as a basis for domestic
educational enterprise.
Women are admitted to many of the societies on the same terms as men,
but rarely attend meetings. There are many small self-assessment
societies for women alone, but they have no social or educational
feature; members seldom meet, and dues are often sent in by children.
The idea of using their own organizations as a means of carrying on
educational work among women is a novel one in the Italian community,
but it is being recognized as a possible method of attacking the great
need for education in maternal and infant welfare, in the care of
small children, and in sanitary housekeeping.
The Italian physicians, for example, realize that the women need
instruction, and the Italian Medical Association, in May, 1919,
planned a series of lectures for mothers, in Italian, on these
subjects, but found that there were great difficulties in reaching the
mothers with such material. It is therefore very important that every
device be tried for reaching the more intelligent women, who with the
helpful neighborliness that exists in all the neighborhoods would
share with their less-informed sisters the benefits of their aroused
interests.