Reference might also be made to a local society organized by Lithuanian women about twelve years ago on a mutual-benefit basis, for educational purposes, which were stated in the constitution to be:
... to provide sick and death benefit; to organize Lithuanian women for a better and larger education; to provide evening and day classes in reading, writing, sewing, sanitary housekeeping, and the care of children; to provide lectures, books, and programs to interest women in health and education; to encourage friendship among Lithuanian women, and provide social life; to provide scholarships for students seeking higher education; to encourage writers; to encourage women to read the newspapers in Lithuanian and English.
These women, who have all been in the United States for a considerable period, and know the needs of the newcomers, have fitted up a housekeeping center in the public park center in their neighborhood. They have a kitchen and dining-room equipment consisting of a stove, a set of cooking utensils, and a dining table with service. Here cooking classes are held once a week, the lessons given by the women who are skilled in cookery.
The attempt is made to create an interest in food values, in proper cooking, and in wise spending. In housekeeping lessons, washing, scrubbing, washing windows, and even dishwashing and the setting of the table are taught. Classes in English have been organized, but these women have suffered as others have suffered from a lack of teachers skilled in teaching this kind of a group, and from a lack of classroom material suited to their needs.
The Polish and the Lithuanian societies illustrate the organized effort of women in those groups in which the group life is highly developed, in which a number of women have become conscious of separate needs and undertake to assist in the development of others of their sex.
UKRAINIAN BEGINNINGS
Among the Ukrainian women the beginnings of this process can be observed, but in this case there is common effort on the part of the most progressive men and women in behalf of the more backward women. We are told that the Ukrainian women have much greater authority and responsibility in the United States than in the Ukraine, so that some men say that here "the laws are made for women." They spend the money, discipline the children, and direct the household life. Many of the women have been poorly fitted, by their inferior status at home, for their new duties, and the Ukrainian Women's Alliance was organized in 1917 by both men and women in an attempt to meet this situation.
This organization, too, is based on the benefit idea, which all the women can understand, but plans are already laid for a comprehensive educational program to be carried out not only through educational centers in the local lodges, but through a magazine of national circulation. This is a complete innovation, as there has never before existed among the Ukrainians a woman's association, nor has any attention been paid to their interests in Ukrainian publications. The organ of the Alliance had in October, 1919, put out four issues, and met with so cordial a response that its next number was double the size of the first numbers and the sales at news stands were sufficient to cover the cost of these first numbers.
The contents of one number indicate the purposes sought by its publication. Of the articles, one describes the organization of the Alliance, one discusses the relation of the institution of the home to the community, with special stress laid on the responsibilities of the mother in the home, one explains the woman-suffrage movement and urges the importance of woman's place in government. There is a department devoted to diet, food values, and recipes, and one devoted to hygiene, with special emphasis on child care.
In some of the other national groups the number of men is still so far in excess of the number of women that the energies of the group seem to have been absorbed in dealing with the problems of the men or of getting a foothold as a group.