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 |