Woman's work in America

by Unknown

I. Those who have already reached the lowest depths, who have given up even the pretense of independence, who are housed in “public institutions,” in poorhouses, prisons, insane asylums. Much may be done for these to render their lives more bearable, to help them to accept the hard lessons of their purgatory, and to learn, before they die, that one lesson which no other experience of life has succeeded in teaching them, the lesson of self-control. This has been recognized by women for years, and they have carried comfort and help, both physical and spiritual, to these unhappy beings. It has not been common, however, for women, until within a few years, to concern themselves with the management of the public institutions themselves, and although Miss Dorothea Dix began very early to devote herself to this work and spent her life in bringing about reforms in the insane asylums of many different States, still it is scarcely twenty years since such work has been generally considered to be within the sphere of women. There are now four States, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and Wisconsin, in which women have accepted positions on the State Boards of Charity, and they have in these positions been very useful in bringing their critical and criticising powers and their knowledge of detail to bear upon the management of State and County institutions, besides forcing into prominence the moral aspects of the questions dealt with by the official Boards of which they are members.

The first volunteer association established to visit and improve the public institutions (as distinguished from the individual inmates), and the agency which first turned the attention of women generally to their duty in this direction, and convinced men that it was one which women were competent to perform, was the State Charities Aid Association of New York, founded in 1872 by a woman, who, during the war, had discovered and proved the working powers of women in the societies auxiliary to the Sanitary Commission. The Association consists of a central body of men and women, giving much time and thought to the study of the theory and history of all questions relating to the public care of the suffering and dependent, and of an associated committee in each county of the State, engaged in active inspection of the local method of caring for these unfortunates. These County Committees appeal to the central body for advice and instruction as to the best means to overcome the evils they discover, and furnish it with facts and figures to aid its study of general principles.

An immense good has been accomplished all through the State of New York by the Association by means of the public opinion aroused in relation to matters concerning which, before its formation, the public conscience seemed to be dead. All matters relating to the causes and prevention of pauperism are dealt with by it; it deserves the thanks of the whole country for having been the means of establishing the first training-school for nurses ever opened here, and it was very active in securing the passage of the New York law forbidding the detention of children between the ages of two and sixteen years in poorhouses.

In New Jersey there is a similar association, working upon very much the same plan, and modeled upon that of New York.

In Pennsylvania the saving of children from the contamination of the vile associations of the poorhouse was also due to women, and they have founded a society to take charge of those children who would, but for their labors, be public dependents.

The following extracts from the reports for 1885 and 1886 of the Pennsylvania Children’s Aid Society will suffice to show its objects and methods, and also, let us hope, to incite other women in other States, where it is still neglected, to take up the work of gathering together and turning into the noble river of working humanity the little rills, which, if left to trickle into the great slough of pauperism and vice, only serve to increase its slimy foulness, and require deep and expensive channels to carry them off after they have become corrupt and poisonous in its depths.

The object of the Children’s Aid Society is to provide for the welfare of destitute and neglected children by such means as shall be best for them and for the community. Our method of accomplishing this object is:

1. By placing such children in carefully selected private families, mostly in the country, paying a moderate rate of board where necessary, and following up each case with such inquiry and supervision as may secure to the child the conditions of physical and moral well-being.

2. By utilizing existing institutions for children as temporary homes, while permanent family places are being sought.

3. By putting, so far as possible, the support of a child upon its relatives or parents, legitimate or otherwise, and by preventing the needless separation of mothers and children.