_Country. Country._
Store keepers 20 20
Craftsmen 37 28
Laborers 4 7
Peddlers 10 17
Hucksters 4 16
Factory workers 1 9
Factory owners 1 5
Restaurant keepers 2 4
Lumber dealers 3 ..
Gardeners, farmers, etc. 7 ..
Clerks 1 4
Travelling Salesmen .. 2
Miscellaneous 2 7
NOTE.--Under miscellaneous were classed a foreman, manager,
agent, contractor, collector.
The meaning of this table will be made clearer by telling two stories,
one of a man who is succeeding, and one of a man who has known the keen
anguish that to the great masses of men is involved in the words "hard
times." For the results of an industrial depression show themselves with
promptness in such an immigrant neighborhood. One man, married and the
father of three children, was employed as a porter in a downtown store.
He was thrown out of work, and to the terrors of rent was added the
fact that his wife was soon to give birth to another child. Four weeks
afterward, the landlord levied on the furniture for the unpaid rent and
the weak, under-nourished mother became temporarily insane. She was
placed in a sanatorium, two of the children were sent to a day nursery
and the youngest child,--too young to be taken by the nursery,--was
sent to a private family. And then, for the man, began the struggle
to get work. He bought a small quantity of fruit and peddled it in a
basket from house to house. He was arrested one morning, in a freight
yard where he was charged by the yard policeman with stealing. He was
acquitted at the trial and the police sergeant claimed that cases of
injustice of this kind were not infrequent. Next, he secured work
as janitor in a hospital at five dollars a week, and after a time,
his wife's condition improved and he was able to reunite his family.
Thereupon, he borrowed ten dollars and bought a second-hand pushcart
with a license, and now he is once more trading in fruits and vegetables
in his struggle against odds to care for them. Another man, forty-eight
years old and the father of eleven children, had spent his early life in
a small town. His first job on coming to New York was that of a clothing
operator. The over-strain of the sweatshop caused the only too frequent
breakdown in health. Two years later he came to the Pittsburgh District,
where, as a peddler in the country towns, he gradually regained his
strength. To-day, he owns his home and has a paying grocery business.
Of the 263 non-Jews in these blocks, nine out of ten were Negroes; and
among them four questionable houses were found. Such an environment,
with the change from former surroundings and conditions, does not
always work out satisfactorily; the higher cost of living, the severe
struggle for existence, the sudden transition from oppression to
freedom, often have a deteriorating influence. They result in cases of
wife-desertion, in laxity of religious observances, in gambling sessions
at the coffee-houses, in occasional moral lapses, and in contempt for
the ideals, customs and beauties of the traditional family and religious
life of the old country. Yet, as a whole, we know the people of these
blocks, and of the hill, as immigrants who have suffered oppression
and borne ridicule; who in the face of insult and abuse have remained
silent, but who have stamped on their countenances a look of stubborn
patience and hope,--always hope,--and of capacity to overcome.
[Illustration: HOMESTEAD FROM THE HILL BEHIND THE TOWN.]
[Illustration: THE STREET--HOMESTEAD'S ONLY PLAYGROUND.]
[Illustration: MUNHALL HOLLOW.]
[Illustration: HOMESTEAD.]
HOMESTEAD
A STEEL TOWN AND ITS PEOPLE
MARGARET F. BYINGTON
ASSOCIATE SECRETARY FIELD DEPARTMENT FOR THE EXTENSION OF ORGANIZED
CHARITY
Seven miles from Pittsburgh, up the valley of the Monongahela River,
lie the town of Homestead and the largest steel plant in the world.
Seventeen years ago, Homestead was, for a time, the center of national
interest, while the men and the Carnegie Steel Company fought to the
finish one of the most dramatic battles in the history of the labor
movement. The men failed,--public interest died out,--but the mill
has gone on growing steadily and the town has kept pace, until now it
numbers about 25,000. Throughout this time, the corporation, through its
practically unquestioned decisions as to wages and hours of labor, has
in large measure determined the conditions under which the men shall
live. There is only one other industry in the town, the Mesta Machine
Company, and little other work except in providing for the needs of the
mill workers. We may consider then that the conditions resulting when a
great organized industry creates about it, without a definite plan, a
town dependent solely upon it for development, are fairly represented
in Homestead. For, after all, the town is to be considered in part as
a product of the steel industry, as well as the rails and armor plate
shipped in the great freight trains that puff away down the river, and
the success of the corporation must be estimated, in part, by its share
in creating the homes and moulding the lives of the workers.
Thirty years ago, two farms occupied the land now covered by the vast
plant and the homes of hundreds of workers. In 1881, when Klomans built
the mill, now a part of the United States Steel Corporation, the change
began. The very aspect of Homestead shows how during the twenty-seven
years that have passed, the plant has been the unifying and dominating
force in the town. The mill has now stretched itself for over a mile
along the river and the level space between the river and a hill rising
steeply behind, which was the original site of both mill and town,
has been entirely shut off from the water front. The smoke from the
many furnaces and from the two railroads which cross the town settles
heavily, making the section gloomy even on the brightest days. Wash day
for some must wait for a west wind, if the clothes are not to come in
blacker than when they went into the tub, and mothers find it a problem
to keep children even reasonably clean in a place where the grass itself
is covered with oily dust.
This level space was originally large enough to accommodate the houses
as well as the mill, but with the growth of the town, the homes have
spread up the hill, and even out into the region beyond. For the
English speaking people who were earlier comers, have been glad to
leave the level, smoke-hidden section to the more recent immigrants.
Here, in houses huddled together, where the totally inadequate sanitary
provisions and overcrowding are comparable to the worst sections
of a great city, we find now the homes of the Slavs. Courts where
seventy-five, or even in a few instances more than a hundred people, are
dependent for water supply on one hydrant, and houses with an average
of four or five persons to each room are frequent. These facts will be
considered more in detail in another article, exemplifying as they do
conditions existing in many small industrial centers.
Though there are no definite figures available as to the composition of
the population of Homestead, the nationality of the men employed in the
mill in July, 1907, will serve as a clue to the make up of the town as
a whole. Of 6,772 employes, 3,601 or more than half were Slavs, 1,925
were native whites, 121 colored, 397 English, 259 Irish, 129 Scotch, 176
German, and 164 were of other Europeans.
Aside from the Slavs, there is almost no tendency among the different
nationalities to live in separate sections. The more desirable part of
the town, which includes aside from the upper part of Homestead proper
the politically independent boroughs of West Homestead and Munhall, is
occupied by the whole English speaking group and it is with their life
that this paper deals.
Parallel to the main thoroughfare, along the side of the hill, runs
street after street lined with simple frame houses. These stand detached
from one another, though often with only a passageway between. There
is usually a porch in front and a small yard where growing flowers or
shrubs give a cheerful homelike air. The streets are full of merry
children, coasting in winter down the steep hillsides, or in summer
playing marbles and jumping rope. The hill lifts this section out of
some of the smoke, but even here the sky is seldom really bright, and
the outlook is over the stacks of the mills with their plumes of smoke.
In general arrangement, the town shows an absence of interest in future
development on the part of its original planners. The avenues, which run
parallel from east to west with alleys between, are crossed at right
angles by the main streets, cutting the town into rectangular blocks.
Here and there are beds of old water courses down the hillside, on whose
banks small houses, hardly more than shanties, have been built. The
narrow lots of the original plan have had, moreover, a bad effect on
the houses built on them. These houses are small, usually consisting of
four or five rooms, but the middle room in the latter case opens only on
the passage between the buildings, which is of necessity very narrow,
and is never reached by sunshine. Moreover, the narrow lot which limits
decidedly the choice in plans has resulted in a uniformity of design and
a lack of artistic quality in the houses. This, especially in winter
when there are no flowers to relieve it, gives to the streets an air of
monotony.
As Homestead grew, houses were built to the east of it on property
outside the borough limits, owned by the Carnegie Land Company, a
constituent part of the United States Steel Corporation. This district
and a section including most of the mill property were formed into
the separate borough of Munhall, said to be the richest one in
Pennsylvania. From the beginning the mill officials have taken a marked
interest in its development, and the general effect of Munhall shows
the results. In the center stand side by side, the imposing library
with its little park, the gift of Mr. Carnegie, and the handsome
residence of the superintendent of the mill. Behind are the houses of
the minor officials, whose wide lawns are kept in beautiful condition
by men in the employ of the company. On the streets farther back,
where the employes live, are many attractive houses, and on Sixteenth
avenue cottages of varying design set back from the street, show the
possibility of securing effective yet inexpensive plans.
But neither the presence of the mill nor the dull sameness of the
streets can hamper the sense of home-likeness which the workmen feel
as they step across their own doorsteps. The burden of creating this
falls on the shoulders of the housewife. Usually in these homes there
is that proof of an upward social trend, a "front room," which with its
comfortable furniture and piano or other musical instrument is the real
center of the life and amusement of the family. As one woman said, "The
children don't realize how much it costs to keep up the parlor, but
they want it to look nice so they can bring their friends in, and as
long as it keeps them home I'll manage it somehow." And no outsider can
understand the sacrifices involved, the ceaseless economies if parlor
curtains and pianos are to be evolved from a wage of fifteen dollars a
week.
[Illustration: SIXTEENTH AVENUE, MUNHALL.]
Of course extremes of thrift and inefficiency are met. In one home,
where the man earns but $1.65 a day and there are six to feed, they had
not only managed to buy an organ and give one of the girls lessons, but
had saved enough to tide them through the hard winter of 1908. But the
wife, the daughter of a Pennsylvania farmer, had learned the thrifty
ways of such a household. For this is skill amounting to genius and
cannot be expected of all. I remember, in contrast, a kitchen where all
is wretched, the children unwashed, the woman untidy, the room unswept.
In such a scene, it is not surprising to have the woman complain that
the man always goes to Pittsburgh with a crowd to spend the evening.
Though he earns nearly twice what the other man does, his wife, who had
been trained as a servant in a wealthy home and had learned extravagant
ways, realized in a helpless sort of way her inability to "get caught
up" financially, or to display any efficiency in managing her home and
training her children. Between these two types is that of the average
family, where the effort to make life wholesome meets with mingled
successes and failures.
[Illustration: GLEN ALLEY, HOMESTEAD.]
The recognition among the people of the value of home life, finds
perhaps no more striking proof than the zeal shown by many of them in
purchasing their houses. According to the census figures of 1900, 567
families owned homes in the borough, 27.3 per cent of the entire number
of houses, and 268 of these were free from encumbrance. Such business
organizations as the Homestead Realty Company have met the needs of
those wishing to buy on a slender income by a system of selling on the
instalment plan, which in large measure takes the place of building
and loan associations. The initial payment is small, sometimes as low
as $150 for a house of four rooms, the real estate company assumes the
obligations for insurance, taxes, and interest on the mortgage, and
the buyer pays a monthly instalment large enough to cover all this and
make a small reduction on the principal. For example, one family I know
bought a four-room house worth about $1,750. Of this, they paid down
$150, and thereafter a monthly instalment of sixteen dollars, which was
little more than they would have had to pay for rent. Though it has
taken fifteen years to buy the house, they now have a home of their own;
and without unreasonable sacrifice.
No phase of this attitude towards saving was to me more interesting
than the reasons given for and against buying. Two sisters were typical
of these different opinions. One with six children, whose husband made
something over three dollars a day, said: "I didn't try to buy, because
I wanted to give my children everything that was coming to them, and
I wouldn't stint them." So, as far as she could, she had given them
what the other children in school had, and truly three dollars goes
but a little way in a town where the rent is four dollars a room and
food-stuffs are said to be the highest in the country. The other,
wiser perhaps, had begun early to buy her home. Though she has been
married only five years, to a man whose income is about the same as the
brother-in-law, and there are two little ones to care for, they have
already made the initial payment on their home. It is a neat five-room
house on one of the good streets, with running water in the kitchen and
a bath-room, and is worth about $3,000. Of this they paid $300 down,
and their monthly instalment is twenty-five dollars. Since their family
is small, by subletting two rooms for eight dollars a month, they reduce
the monthly expenditure to about an ordinary rent. While it will take
some years to pay off the indebtedness, by the time that the children
are large enough to need the other rooms, they plan to be well on their
way toward accomplishing this.
With many, however, the initial purchase is only the beginning of their
home making, and, as soon as the house is paid for, the family take the
most genuine pleasure in its improvement. Sometimes it is the addition
of a bath-room; sometimes it is the repapering which the busy mother
finds time to do in the spring; sometimes the building of a wash-house
in the yard. But wherever such improvements are made it means always the
development of the sense of family life and its common interests.
In home buying there lurks, of course, an undeniable danger to the
workman: the danger of putting all his savings into a house, when
death, discharge, or a season of hard times may mean the necessity
of a forced sale with its inevitable loss. That the owning of a home
tends to lessen the mobility of labor is a factor to be considered in
upholding it as a desirable form of thrift. In Homestead, however, this
danger has been minimized by what has otherwise been a disadvantage to
the town, the lack of a sufficient number of houses.[12] Buildings have
not been erected fast enough to keep pace with the town's growth, and
consequently rents have risen and desirable houses are hard to secure.
This situation, while it stimulates people to buy their own homes, also
makes it possible to sell at almost any time.
[12] During the depression of 1907-8 there was an abundance of houses,
as families were doubling up to save rent, but this was only a temporary
situation.
There are many, however, to whom these real homes are not possible.
There rises to my mind, in contrast, a two-room tenement down in the
grimy corner where the mill joins the town. Here a woman was trying to
support four little children by sewing and washing. Her husband had died
after eight years of semi-invalidism resulting from an accident in the
mill. With his small wages they had not been able to save, and as the
injury had occurred so long ago, she was not eligible for a benefit from
the Carnegie Relief Fund. The kitchen was small and hot and the younger
children noisy, and the not unnatural consequence was that the oldest
girl drifted to the streets, mixed with a gay crowd, and eventually
became a charge of the Juvenile Court. The girl was not bad at heart,
and had there been a cheerful home where her friends could come, the end
might have been different.
[Illustration: BACK YARD POSSIBILITIES IN HOMESTEAD--I.]
This instance illustrates the fact, more or less true of the whole town,
that local conditions are such as to lay too large a responsibility
for providing enjoyment on the skill of the wife and mother. Where she
succeeds, the home becomes the center of the family's happiness, yet
even so, we should look to the town itself for those wider opportunities
for mental and physical relaxation which help maintain a normal life.
But to the stranger approaching Homestead, the town speaks more
eloquently of toil than of pleasure. The river, elsewhere so often a
source of endless enjoyment, is muddy and swift. Moreover, one bank is
preempted by the railroad, the other by the long and unsightly stretches
of mill yard. In the second ward, near the river, which is almost
solidly built up, the only place for the children to play is the street
or the alley. That the boys do not find these a wholly satisfactory
playground is shown by the following clipping from the local newspaper:
BOYS CLAIM THEIR RIGHTS ARE BEING INTERFERED WITH.
The boys of Homestead want to know why they cannot play
basketball on the street, and they want to know what they can do.
Burgess please answer in Monday's _Messenger_.
On the top of the hill there are open places where the bigger boys find
room for recreation, but it is a long climb, too long for the small
children in the section where a place for play is most needed.
The two recreation parks within a five-cent fare of the town, owned by
the street railway, are the scenes of many school and church picnics
and lodge gatherings. Here the young people find the skating rinks and
dancing pavilions and the shrill music of the merry-go-rounds, while
tired mothers seek quiet grass plots where they may sit and watch the
children play, and where they may have the rare chance to gossip with
their neighbors.
In Homestead itself the two popular forms of amusement are the
skating rink and the nickelodeon. The former fills the papers with
advertisements for moonlight skating parties, a "marriage on rollers,"
and other devices for attracting patronage. The gaiety and swing of
this pastime, which appeal to the young and vigorous, have made it in
general very popular. It offers, however, those dangers common to the
indiscriminate meeting of young people, which make some mothers hesitate
to let their girls go unless with "our own crowd."
[Illustration: BACK YARD POSSIBILITIES IN HOMESTEAD--II.]
The nickelodeon, whose small cost brings it within the financial reach
of most families, is perhaps the most popular entertainment. You are
admitted to a room the size of a small store, with rows of chairs, a
small stage, and an atmosphere that is soon unbearably close. Here
you witness for five cents a show lasting about fifteen minutes. On
the Saturday afternoon when I attended, there was a series of moving
pictures illustrating a story on the same theme as Camille, and two
sentimental songs illustrated by colored slides. While none of them
was of a high grade of amusement they evidently really entertained
the audience, at least half of whom were workingmen. To them the
nickelodeon seems to make a special appeal since it offers the variety
they crave after long days in the mill. This limited range of amusement
offered is almost the only entertainment which is available for older
people, or which can be enjoyed in common by them and by the young and
active members of the community. While this lack is met, in a degree,
by the entertainments which lodges and churches give, the latter are
rather sedate. The festivities which appeal to young people are all
money-making enterprises, with the abuses likely to result under such
conditions. Many of the clergymen expressed their belief that there was
need of a better kind of amusement, a need which might be met by such
institutions as the public recreation centers of Chicago.
Among the causes contributing to this lack of amusement is the
possibility for those with more money and leisure of securing the better
class of entertainment in Pittsburgh. Still as it is a forty-five
minutes' ride to the city, mothers tied down by the care of children,
and men wearied by the day's work seldom avail themselves of what
Pittsburgh offers. Another cause is found in the fact that the owners of
the mill are non-residents, and give neither money nor influence to help
the everyday normal development of the town. There is a marked contrast
in this between Homestead's situation and that of independent towns of
similar size. In the latter, where there is a larger proportion of the
well-to-do who are dependent for entertainment on what the town offers,
it is possible to secure fairly good theatrical performances, as well as
concerts and lectures.
[Illustration: EIGHTH AVENUE AT NIGHT, HOMESTEAD.]
Two additions to the opportunities for relaxation have, however, been
made by prominent officials of the steel corporation. At the Carnegie
Library there is a club providing classes for musical training which
give occasional concerts, as well as a gymnasium with a swimming pool,
bowling alleys, etc. This club, which is open to all on payment of two
dollars a year, is popular with the young men, especially those on
the clerical force. A series of entertainments, however, given during
the winter of 1907-8 under the management of a lecture bureau was not
successful.
[Illustration: A NICKELODEON AUDIENCE IN HOMESTEAD.]
The second, the gift from Mr. Frick of a small formal park transformed
from an ugly hole at the end of one of the ravines, is the source of
much pride to the town. A need which it does not supply, however, was
shown by a visit there one hot afternoon. Three or four men were sitting
in the sun on the benches set along the cement paths. The grass had
recently been cut and in a pile which lay on the edge of the street,
half a dozen little chaps were turning somersaults and revelling in the
coolness. For them, the park with its set flower beds and well-kept lawn
offered few inducements. They would prefer a real playground.