Woman's work in municipalities

by Mary Ritter Beard

The Society for Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis in New York City is one of the local societies that is doing much to arouse a public sentiment of a constructive character. While the officers are men, the list of members includes 579 women, a large number of whom are either physicians or school teachers and active and valuable members. The lecturers for the society are chiefly women and the work done is more among women than among men. Olive Crosby is the office secretary.

The New York Society is one of twenty branches similarly organized in different cities and states. The work carried on by it is educational; through lectures, conferences, pamphlets and agitation for better legislation and proper sex instruction. Among its educational pamphlets are some prepared by women, like that for teachers on “Instruction in the Physiology and Hygiene of Sex” by Dr. Helen Putnam, of the American Medical Association.

The Juvenile Protective Association of Chicago, of which Mrs. Louise De Koven Bowen is the head, emphasizes the need of labor and other legislation as a basis for some solution of the social evil. Among the preventive measures suggested are: the minimum wage law; publicity for the owners of disreputable houses by means of the tin-plate or card in the hallway; a law similar to the Albert Law in Nebraska which declares property used for purposes of prostitution a nuisance and the owner punishable for maintaining such; better regulations of hotels; medical certificates before the issuance of marriage licenses; and wider labor legislation. Mrs. Bowen has made a special study of the department store girl, among other types of workers, and she agrees with the Illinois Vice Commission that the economic conditions which surround the department store girl tend to her moral as well as her physical breakdown and need remedying as the basis for greater stability.

In November of 1912 a federation was effected in Chicago of nearly forty societies interested in social well-being and united against the social evil.

While concentrating on preventive measures, women are not neglecting what is known as “rescue work.” The name of Dr. Kate Waller Barrett is known to thousands of girls who have passed through the Florence Crittenton homes scattered throughout the country. Twenty-two thousand girls, it is claimed, entered these homes last year. In these places of temporary refuge, efforts have been made by the women in charge to accomplish the individual reformation of the girls under their care. Some effort is also made in these missions, under the direction of Dr. Barrett, to give industrial training to their occupants. The equipment, however, largely provides for the traditional cooking, sewing, cleaning and nursing. It is a question whether domestic service or nursing are the most suitable occupations for this type of girl.

Miss Maud Minor, of New York, who is head of Waverly House, a detention home for girls, is another woman deeply interested both in the probationary character of her work and in some of the larger preventive aspects of the social evil problem.

Literature

Recognizing that ignorance in matters of sex is one of the leading causes of prostitution, women working on the problem of the social evil have decided that the conspiracy of silence shall be broken all along the line and that we shall have all the light we can get. They are not unaware of the danger that comes from quacks and overhasty action, but they do not intend to be daunted by the collateral evils that seem to accompany every good. Women are therefore seeking to educate public opinion to an abhorrence of the social evil and to a realization of the menaces to health which result from it. Jane Addams by her articles in the magazines and by her more recent books has done a vast deal to draw public attention to the social evil. Anna Garlin Spencer has made a study of state efforts to deal with vice by regulation instead of abolition and “to protect monogamy by putting vice on a legal footing.” Miss Lavinia Dock’s “Sex and Morality” has also been widely read and quoted. There has been a large output of books dealing with woman’s relation to the problem of prostitution, seeking, on the one hand, to arouse woman to her own status and to inspire her to enforce right conduct on the part of man; and, on the other, to arouse men to a sense of their responsibility toward womanhood. Both English and American books are widely circulated and read in this country and suffragists may frequently be seen upon the streets or in meeting halls in various cities selling such importations as “My Little Sister” by Elizabeth Robbins or “Plain Facts about a Great Evil” by Crystabel Pankhurst.

By the drama also women and men have sought to teach sex health and morality. They have supported the Sociological Fund of the Medical Review of Reviews in presenting “Damaged Goods,” by Eugene Brieux, to large audiences in the greater towns and cities. At first presented timidly to audiences carefully selected from ministers, teachers and social workers, on which occasions the performance was opened with prayer, the powerful lesson taught by this play has led to braver adventures and “Damaged Goods” has been witnessed by many thousands of people who have not only come to see it through invitations but who have bought their seats at popular prices.

Of course the moving-picture promoters have been quick to seize upon the popular interest in the white slave traffic and to exploit that interest at times in a way that may easily be harmful to young boys and girls. Women have been blamed in the press by other women and by men for promoting an unholy craving for red-light films but it is difficult to see how this charge can be substantiated in view of the well-known commercial methods of the day. Certainly, the exploitation of woman’s work against the social evil by moving-picture show concerns will not deter their efforts for an instant.