Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

The Civic Club of Allegheny County has laundries in connection with its bath houses, but their use is a matter of gradual education as the masses are slow to give up cherished customs, however harmful and wasteful. Where day nurseries exist side by side with the public wash house or in close proximity the situation is more easily met as then the mothers can leave their babies in safe hands while they are at work in the laundry. Philadelphia, Buffalo, Baltimore and Elmira and a very few other cities have already these public wash houses.

Clean Streets

Woman’s historic function having been along the line of cleanliness, her instinct when she looks forth from her own clean windows is toward public cleanliness. Her indoor battle has been against the dirt that blew in from outside, against the dust and ashes of the streets, and the particles of germ-laden matter carried in from neglected refuse piles. Ultimately she begins to take an interest in that portion of municipal dusting and sweeping assigned to men; namely, street cleaning.

A volume itself could be written on the activities of women for clean streets and public places. Little towns have needed and received the treatment even as the great cities—not every little town nor every large city but countless numbers of them. Lack of space prevents the recounting here of many significant or typical cases of women’s work for public cleanliness as an aid to general health.

The Women’s Civic League of Baltimore originated in that city the idea of a “Clean City Crusade,” and its application was acknowledged by city officials to have been of great assistance to various departments: street cleaning, fire and health. Chief Engineer August Emrich of the Fire Department said, in 1913, that the fire losses for 1912 were less than they had been for the previous 34 years, and he gave much of the credit for this result to the Clean City Crusade which led to the removal of rubbish and other inflammable materials.

That Pennsylvania women generally are alert to the needs of greater public cleanliness is evidenced by the publication issued by the Civics Committee of the State Federation of Pennsylvania Women of which Mrs. Owen Wister was chairman. This is a list of suggestions for the “Observance of Municipal Housecleaning Day,” and consists of practical directions for this work with a list of civic activities closely allied with “housecleaning day” which should be undertaken as rapidly as possible.

The Civic Club of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, says: “It is no longer necessary for us to maintain at our own cost the practical experiment we began in street cleaning or to advocate the paving of a single principal street as a test of the value of improved city highways, nor is it necessary longer to strive for a pure water supply, a healthier sewerage system, or the construction of playgrounds for the pleasure of our fellow-citizens. This work is now being done by city councils or the Board of Public Works and by the Park Commission.” That was in 1906 and it proves that, after one or two demonstrations of the possibilities and practical advantages of cleanings, the city proves ready to assume the responsibility for them.

The next great problem is how to keep the city clean, for real health protective work is not a matter of annual and sensational hauling away of miscellaneous rubbish, but an every-day-in-the-year campaign for the elimination of disease-breeding germs and dust provokers. As they volunteered to show the wisdom of better disposal of rubbish and of street flushing and oiling, so women are volunteering to educate the people to desire permanent cleanliness. The inherited instincts of the cleanly housekeeper thus become a valuable municipal asset.

In Philadelphia, Mrs. Edith Pearce, a club woman, is a city inspector of street cleaning. The Woman’s Home Companion thus described the way she goes about her work:

First she planned for making the children her aids, teaching them not only to refrain from throwing fruit skins, paper and other rubbish into the street, but also to prevent others from so doing. She reached the children and awoke in them a wholesome interest in the city’s appearance by means of addresses in the public schools and the distribution of simple circulars. Then she urged clubs, neighborhood groups and whole communities to coöperate with the street cleaners. In one week she addressed ten of the city’s leading clubs for women on her chosen theme. In the crowded poorer sections she speaks from a soap box to corner gatherings of the housekeepers of the neighborhood, telling them, often with the aid of an interpreter, how to handle their waste, and inspiring them to do their part in keeping their surroundings clean and sanitary. She has found that the Italian, Polish, and Russian mothers whom she addresses become deeply interested in municipal housecleaning; some of them “point with pride” to alleys, formerly reeking with filth but now clean and orderly.