The Reading Room

The Sewing Room

Ingleside Model Camp

[Table 116] shows that for many years the foreign born have been more than twice as numerous in the almshouses as in the general population of the city and county of San Francisco. The proportion of foreign born found in the Ingleside figures would undoubtedly have been materially larger than the 53.8 per cent reported if it had been possible to distribute Ingleside’s 29.1 per cent “unknown” between native and foreign born. This result corresponds to the figures for the whole country in which the foreign born whites have a much larger representation in the dependent than in the general population. It must not be overlooked, however, that dependence may be due quite as much to the fact of belonging to the unskilled wage-earning class as to being a foreigner.

TABLE 116.—NATIVITY OF INMATES OF INGLESIDE MODEL CAMP, COMPARED WITH NATIVITY OF INMATES OF SAN FRANCISCO ALMSHOUSE DURING A TEN-YEAR PERIOD, AND OF THE GENERAL POPULATION OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO IN 1900

Country
of birth
Inmates of
Ingleside
Model
Camp
Inmates of
San Francisco
almshouse
during 10
years, 1894-
1906[268]
General
population
of city and
county of
San Francisco,
1900
Number considered1,1567,433342,782
Per cent born as specified—
United States17.127.165.9
Foreign countries
Canada.91.61.5
China.2.33.1
England4.25.12.6
France1.63.01.4
Germany9.99.810.3
Ireland24.037.24.7
Italy1.11.32.2
Mexico.9...4
Norway.6.7.6
Scotland2.01.3.9
Sweden1.42.01.5
Switzerland.91.3.6
Other foreign countries6.19.24.3
Total53.872.834.1
Unknown29.1.1..
Grand total100.0100.0100.0

[268] No report was published for the year 1900-1901.

The proportion of Irish in the Ingleside camp was about five times as great as in the general population of San Francisco, but only about two-thirds as great as in the San Francisco almshouse. The Germans, on the other hand, constitute a slightly larger proportion of the general population than of either the Ingleside inmates or inmates of the San Francisco almshouse. The English have contributed considerably more than their proportionate quota to Ingleside and to the almshouse.