Woman's work in America

by Unknown

In New York City a small band of educated women have jointly hired a tenement house in the very worst district of the city, politically and morally, and there they intend to live, for the purpose of doing what they can to elevate the tone of the neighborhood. Most of them have their daily avocations, but in the evenings they will give their time to such efforts as they find best suited to attain their end.[^[196]] Some of them have already taken part in the work of the “Neighborhood Guild,” the spirit of which is thus described in its last published circular:

We do not look upon our work as done by one class of society for another class of society; not as up-town residents, nor from the height of proud superiority to our fellow-men in any regard do we go down to labor in the tenement-house district. All sorts and conditions of men are brought into contact in the Neighborhood Guild. All both give and receive; all are both teachers and taught; and the lesson for all is the brotherhood of man. The Guild is not connected with any church or society, whatsoever. But persons of various beliefs are connected with the Guild, and the sense of the brotherhood of all men is their bond of union. The work of the Guild, except in the kindergarten, is done by faithful volunteers, several of whom have resided for many months in the tenement-house district. The spirit of the Guild is against unnecessary absenteeism in good works. It would bring all sorts of men together close enough to feel one another’s heart-throbs. It believes in a communism of mental and spiritual possessions.

A somewhat similar society, established both by men and women, in Philadelphia, gives the following account of itself:

The object of this unsectarian association is to establish, in localities most needing them, and chiefly for the benefit of workingmen and their families, convenient centers for social intercourse, amusement, reading, study, restaurant accommodation, etc., without the accompaniment of any demoralizing features.

Our first experiment was to open, on Saturday evenings, the hall on the corner of Twenty-third and Hamilton streets, which seats nearly three hundred people. This was furnished with tables for refreshments, and here we gave a series of light entertainments, sometimes for five cents, sometimes ten cents admission. The next step was to open the house at 2134 Vine street, and start a neighborhood society under the title of Family Guild, No. 1. In order to secure to the house at the start the character desired, we admitted to its privileges, under proper conditions, men, women, and children, and instead of separating families, offered special inducements to father, mother, and children to come together.

The advantages of membership are a library, reading-room (with magazines, weekly and daily papers), rooms for games, music classes, accommodations for business and social meetings, etc. The price is one dollar a year for adults, fifty cents for those under seventeen, while a family ticket including father, mother, and all children under seventeen, is one dollar and fifty cents. Class instruction is extra, five and ten cents a lesson, except the manual training, which is free, and the dancing, which is fifteen cents.

The most popular classes last year were cooking, singing, and dressmaking. The cooking class numbered sixteen, dressmaking ten, singing thirty. The number of members enrolled last winter was one hundred and fifty. This does not include all attending classes, some of whom were not members of the Guild.

The experiment of associating the sexes both in study and recreation has proved a success. The class in manual training, which now numbers forty, is composed about equally of young men and women, and the teachers say it is much easier with such a class to keep order and to secure attention to work.

Besides the regular social evenings devoted to plays, singing, dancing, etc., it is not unusual for the members of the evening classes which close at nine to adjourn to the play-room and take a little time for amusement. The managers have naturally kept an anxious watch over these occasions and have found nothing to complain of in the conduct of the young people....

There will be certain hours of each afternoon devoted to the children of the neighborhood, with the object of teaching them quieter and less brutal ways of playing than they learn on the streets. We also hope to establish a day nursery, which shall obviate the dreadful necessity among working women of locking their children alone in a room for the day....