ECONOMIC CONDITION OF THE FAMILIES
Our 65 girls came from 55 different families. Forty-one of these families had at some period in their lives been aided, or investigated, or disciplined by some sort of private philanthropic or protective agency. Of these, all but one had records with some relief agency. In a very few cases the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the Charity Organization Society records show that the family received no relief, but only visitation and advice. Usually, however, actual relief was given. Thirty-nine had records in the registration bureau of the Charity Organization Society. Eleven had Charity Organization Society records only; 15 had records with the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor only; one had been helped only by the church. Thirteen had records of relief from or intervention by more than one society; as, the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor and the St. Vincent de Paul Society, or the Charity Organization Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, or again and again both the Charity Organization Society and the Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor. One had been under the care of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and the Board of Health.
Often, of course, families such as these must turn to an agency for help only in time of crisis; and when the crisis is past and the aid they have received has put them on their feet again, they no longer need support. Such, at least, is the ideal of “family rehabilitation.” Of a different sort are the cases of chronic, wasting poverty and misfortune, which no charitable aid can ever render self-supporting. These are the poor who are always with us; and it was to this group, we found, that most of our families belonged. In analyzing the relief cases, it seemed to us that where a family had been under the care of an agency for less than two years it could be put in the former group, where relief was given because of emergencies. Of the 40 cases, 10 were in this class. The other 30 had records for two years or more; and of these 30 cases, 17 had records for two years and less than six years, and 13 for six years or more. The average period of intermittent care for the 30 families whose relief records extended over more than two years was nine and a half years. The average is startling enough, but a few cases stand out as more startling than the rest. One family had applied for aid in 1899 and the case had been “closed” and re-opened[88] at intervals ever since. One record extended from 1892 to 1908, one from 1895 to 1911. One case had been opened and closed eight separate times since 1899.
It must be borne in mind that no figures can be given to show the help these families had received from private sources; clothing from women for whom the mothers had done day’s work or washing, money for rent or doctor’s bills from relatives, food from neighbors,—all these things help stave off the dreaded appeal to “charity.”
We have tried to analyze the immediate causes of need at the time the family was first referred to the relief society. The first application is the most significant, for after help has been obtained once, it is likely to be sought again. Of our 40 relief cases, one family had been deserted by the chief wage-earner, in five he was dead, and in 34 the wage-earner was living. Very few of the first applications, therefore, were due to the death of the father.
The number of children born to the family, whether living or dead, often determines the extent of its poverty,[89] and contributes to the necessity for relief. We have estimated, roughly, that three or four living children was the average for these 40 families at the time of the first application. In some cases there was only one child, but in many cases there were six or seven. The records do not tell us how many had been born, nor how many had died, thus adding their quota to the family’s share of illness, expense, and sorrow.[90] In the cases that were opened and closed again and again we find that child after child was born after the family was far below the line of self-support,—six or eight or 10 children born into homes that could support in decency only one or two at most. But “too many children” never appears as the cause of an application for relief in the records of a charitable society.
It is true that need is rarely due to any one circumstance. Usually where one kind of misery exists, other kinds are found also.[91] The most common causes that the records for this group of 40 show were lack of work, casual work, illness, or drink; and these were combined and coupled together in story after story. Taking in each case what seems to have been the chief immediate cause, though we cannot claim that our division is strictly accurate, we found that in five cases the need was due primarily to illness; in three primarily to drink; in 10 the causes were scattering or could not be ascertained; in 22 the distress was due most of all to lack of work. Time and again the entry appears: “The father has been out of work for ten weeks”; or “It is the slack season in the man’s trade and he has been unable to get a steady job for three months”; or “The mother has recently been confined and the father has been out of a job for several weeks and there is no food in the house.” It is repeated over and over—out of work, out of work, out of work—till we can only wonder that drink and despair do not more inevitably accompany the loss of a job. These were the conditions that brought 40 of our families to the point of seeking relief at various times in their lives.
It would not be fair to judge the usual standing of our group entirely by these records of the families which had sought relief. We have therefore taken a kind of cross section of all the families of our 65 girls to show their earning capacity and general economic status at the date when our acquaintance with them began. Of these 55 families, only 21 were normal groups. By this we mean that the father and mother were both living, that they were together, and that the father was physically able to be the wage-earner and the mother the housewife. The other 34 were “broken” families. In 15 the father was dead, in six the mother was dead, and in three both father and mother were dead. In one the father had deserted, and in one the mother was in prison. In four of them there was a stepmother or stepfather. In eight families the father was incapacitated, either by old age or illness, so that he was not able to be the chief wage-earner.
In 29 of our 55 families, the mothers were wage-earners.[92] In nine of these, the father was dead; in six, he was incapacitated; in 14, the mother worked because the father’s income was not enough to support the family without her aid. Where the father was dead or disabled the mother’s work was more constant and regular than where she worked to supplement the husband’s earnings. Of these 29 mothers, 10 went out for “day’s work” sometimes only one or two days a week. Ten worked more regularly, washing or scrubbing several days a week, sewing at home, and so on. Thirteen were janitresses of the tenements in which they lived. Payment for this service varies from $3.00 off on a month’s rent to the whole rent and $1.00 besides, depending on the size of the house or houses cared for. Four of the janitresses also took in washing or did other work.
It must be remembered that the very presence of these women on our list means that they were mothers of adolescent girls and of families of children averaging about five in number. Considering this we realize more clearly the truth of their saying, “It’s hard bringin’ children up in New York.” More than half the mothers of our girls were forced to do other work than that of caring for a good-sized family.
The explanation of this situation is found in the low-paid unskilled work done by the girls’ fathers. Of the 40 living fathers and stepfathers, we can give the occupations of 34.
| Teamster | 14 |
| Machinist | 4 |
| Laborer | 3 |
| Dock worker | 2 |
| Hotel worker | 2 |
| Slaughter-house man | 2 |
| Railroad flagman | 2 |
| Laundry worker | 1 |
| Proprietor of trucking business | 1 |
| Street cleaner | 1 |
| Peddler | 1 |
| Janitor | 1 |
| Total | 34 |
Very few of these occupations are what can properly be called skilled work, many of them are extremely irregular and casual, and many of them pay less than a living wage.
The housing of these families is such as would be anticipated by those who know them and the facilities the district offers. There are very few new-law tenements in this part of New York, and little good can be said of the best of the old-law houses. Really good housing is practically unknown. For example, but two of our 55 families had bathrooms in their apartments. Many apartments contained small toilet rooms, and other families used toilets in the hall on the same floor. Some still had only an old-fashioned yard toilet. One house furnished for its tenants a cellar toilet used also by the men who patronized the ground floor saloon adjoining it, and this horrible situation made the children of the house afraid to go to the cellar alone or after dark.
We have housing records for 53 of our 55 families. Thirty of these lived in apartments containing one or more dark rooms, with no windows to the outer air, or to anything more than a tiny air-shaft. Of these 30 families, 10 had one dark room, 18 had two dark rooms, one had three dark rooms, and one had four dark rooms. The number of persons in household and the number of rooms occupied were as shown in the following table:
| Persons in household | FAMILIES OCCUPYING | All families | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | ||
| Two | 1 | 1 | .. | .. | .. | 2 |
| Three | 1 | .. | 3 | .. | .. | 4 |
| Four | .. | 2 | 2 | .. | .. | 4 |
| Five | 1 | 2 | 4 | 1 | .. | 8 |
| Six | .. | 2 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 11 |
| Seven | .. | 5 | 4 | 2 | .. | 11 |
| Eight or nine | .. | 3 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| Ten or eleven | .. | .. | 1 | 1 | .. | 2 |
| Twelve and less than seventeen | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| Total | 3 | 15 | 21 | 9 | 5 | 53 |
[a] Information is not available as to the number of persons in or number of rooms occupied by two of the 55 households.
In spite of the lack of space, light, and air, and the poor sanitary conveniences, six of the families in apartments, as shown in the following table, paid rentals of $20 or over per month, four paid from $16 to $20, 20 paid from $12 to $16, 17 paid from $8.00 to $12, and only three paid less than $8.00. One family lived in furnished rooms for which they paid $3.50 a week; one family owned the house they lived in; for three we had no records of the amount of rent paid. The distribution of rentals according to number is shown by the following table:
| Rooms occupied | FAMILIES PAYING MONTHLY RENTAL OF | All families | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Less than $8 | $8 and less than $12 | $12 and less than $16 | $16 and less than $20 | $20 and over | ||
| Two | .. | 2 | .. | .. | .. | 2 |
| Three | 2 | 8 | 4 | .. | .. | 14 |
| Four | 1 | 7 | 10 | 3 | 1 | 22 |
| Five | .. | .. | 5 | 1 | 2 | 8 |
| Six | .. | .. | 1 | .. | 2 | 3 |
| Six and bath | .. | .. | .. | .. | 1 | 1 |
| Total | 3 | 17 | 20 | 4 | 6 | 50 |
[a] This item was not secured for three of the 55 families; one family owned the house in which they lived, and one lived in furnished rooms, paying $3.50 a week.
Life insurance is almost universal in our district except for families in the most abject poverty. Often every member is insured, the rate varying from 5 cents a week for children to 25 cents or more for adults. One family spent $52 a year for insurance out of a possible maximum income of $806 for seven persons. Another family of seven spent $2.40 a week out of an income which probably did not average more than $20 a week at the most. The benefit seldom does more than cover the cost of the funeral, and often barely that. The baby may have been insured for $30 and the undertaker’s bill is likely to be $40 or $50. One wife received $141 at her husband’s death, and the funeral expenses were $155, leaving a debt of $14, the cost of an illness, and a family of children to support. Such a funeral, of course, indicates lack of judgment on the part of the family, but it must be remembered that from time out of mind and in all ranks of society, a fine funeral has meant respect for the dead; and burial in the Potter’s Field is still a sign of the lowest economic stage to which a man can fall.
Twenty-five of the 55 families, or nearly half, had been in the past, or were at the time of our investigation, affected by excessive drinking on the part of one or both parents. Of this we were sure, either from records of philanthropic agencies or from our own knowledge. Some of the remaining 30 families had no cases of alcoholism, but concerning others we were unable to get any definite information. To summarize: In 25 families either the father or mother, or both, were subject to excessive drinking; in 13 of these the fathers drank to excess; in four the mothers drank; in eight of the 25 families both the father and the mother drank. “Excessive drinking” does not necessarily mean habitual drunkenness. Such cases are not frequent. On the other hand, it never means merely taking either an occasional or a regular drink, unless this is done to excess. It means at the least drinking of the sort which makes the mother unable to keep her home together without interference from the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children or makes it impossible for the father to “hold down” a job. In all 25 of these cases, the families had relief records.
To sum up, we have divided our families on a basis of prosperity and poverty as Miss Breckinridge and Miss Abbott have done in their book on The Delinquent Child and the Home.[93]
Class I represents the very poor, the “submerged tenth,”—the broken family, ill fed, ill clad, ill supported, aided by charity month after month and year after year, sick, wretched, truly poverty stricken. To this class we have judged that 20 of our 55 families, containing 25 of our 65 girls, belonged.
Class II are the poor, those with whom it is a constant struggle to make ends meet, who seldom have comfort but who seldom are on the verge of starvation. In this class we have placed 23 of our families, containing 28 of our girls.
Class III represents the fairly comfortable, those whose chief wage-earner has steady work or in which the children are contributing a fair share of the income; where food is sufficient and overcrowding is not very great. In this class were 11 of our families, with 11 of our girls.
Class IV is the very comfortable group, those who can afford a little more than the minimum of education and of care for their children, and who are never likely to know pressing want. In this class there was one family, containing one of our girls. This child’s grandfather was an early district settler, an Irish builder and contractor. When he died he left to the mother three or four tenement houses, in one of which the family were living, while the rents from the others rendered them, according to local standards, positively affluent.
Thus, to separate poverty from prosperity, roughly though it must be, only 12 of the 55 families could be called comfortable. The remaining 43 families were poor, some of them wretchedly poor. This condition, whatever may have been its cause, was the dominating factor in the lives of all but 12 of our 65 girls.