Literature
It is not alone in such more or less spectacular educational work as exhibits of various kinds, that women have participated with such success. They are helping to create the scientific literature of social service which is based upon accurate observation and generalization. To enumerate even the important contributions of women to this literature would be impossible here, but by way of illustration we may cite simply the contributions made by women to the studies issued under the auspices of the Russell Sage Foundation:
The Evening Post of New York said of “Women and the Trades,” by Elizabeth B. Butler, who made her study in the Pittsburgh Survey, that it “represents the most complete and careful study ever made in any country of the actual working conditions of the wage-paid women of a great city.” Miss Butler has also made a study of saleswomen in mercantile stores.
The Scientific American said of “Work Accidents and the Law,” by Crystal Eastman, who made this important study in Pittsburgh and who was formerly the secretary of the New York State Commission on Employers’ Liability: “The book is one of the finest exponents we have ever seen of this twentieth century humanitarian interest.”
The Literary Digest said of “Homestead: the Households of a Mill Town” by Margaret Byington: “Miss Byington brought to the task excellent training and made her studies after the most approved methods. It is a book legislators, ministers, editors, and story writers should ponder before they preach to, or write at or about, the wage-earners and their wives, from apprentices to superintendents.”
“The Delinquent Child and the Home” by Sophonisba P. Breckinridge and Edith Abbott, according to the Boston Evening Transcript, is “a storehouse of information to the individual or society seeking to know better the needs of children and to provide them with decent homes, fresh air, education and recreation.”
“Fatigue and Efficiency” by Josephine Goldmark furnishes the basis for arguments in favor of governmental control over health conditions in industry and has already produced results.
“Among School Gardens” by M. Louise Greene is a valuable propaganda for open-air exercises for children.
“One Thousand Homeless Men” by Alice Willard Solenberger, until her death an active leader in the Chicago Bureau of Charities,—a study of original records—is approved by Ernest P. Bicknell, director of the American Red Cross as follows: “A confidence-impelling power was hers which often led to the most unexpected results. Beggars and tramps, confirmed in their manner of life, gave her the real facts about their homes and families and transgressions. More than one hardened fellow became her ally, and helped her search out the young boys and persuade them to go home to their parents. She had so many sources of information that her power of securing hidden facts from the lodging houses and saloons and dark places seemed almost uncanny.”
“Women in Various Trades in New York” by Mary Van Kleeck maintains the standard set by all the Russell Sage publications.
“Our Slavic Fellow Citizens” by Emily Greene Balch is thus praised by the Chicago Record-Herald: “Miss Balch has given us one of the most valuable books on immigration that we know of, a work full of guidance, of truth, of understanding.”
“Visiting Nursing in the United States” by Ysabella Waters completes these studies at present and is a “convincing argument,” according to the Nurses’ Journal of the Pacific Coast, for nursing and educating in their homes some of the sick who will not or cannot go to hospitals.
Wherever social welfare work reaches the stage of legislation we find women supplying data for intelligent action, arguing before legislative committees, and impressing upon lawmakers their competence to deal with social problems in a large way. Moreover, in every important battle over legislation, women have their own special contributions to make. Space forbids anything like a survey of the legislative work of women in social service, but some notion of their interest and labors is to be gathered from the current discussions of mothers’ pension laws.