BACK YARD POSSIBILITIES IN HOMESTEAD—I.
This instance illustrates the fact, more or less true of the whole town, that local conditions are such as to lay too large a responsibility for providing enjoyment on the skill of the wife and mother. Where she succeeds, the home becomes the center of the family's happiness, yet even so, we should look to the town itself for those wider opportunities for mental and physical relaxation which help maintain a normal life. But to the stranger approaching Homestead, the town speaks more eloquently of toil than of pleasure. The river, elsewhere so often a source of endless enjoyment, is muddy and swift. Moreover, one bank is preempted by the railroad, the other by the long and unsightly stretches of mill yard. In the second ward, near the river, which is almost solidly built up, the only place for the children to play is the street or the alley. That the boys do not find these a wholly satisfactory playground is shown by the following clipping from the local newspaper:
Boys Claim Their Rights Are Being Interfered With.
The boys of Homestead want to know why they cannot play basketball on the street, and they want to know what they can do. Burgess please answer in Monday's Messenger.
On the top of the hill there are open places where the bigger boys find room for recreation, but it is a long climb, too long for the small children in the section where a place for play is most needed.
The two recreation parks within a five-cent fare of the town, owned by the street railway, are the scenes of many school and church picnics and lodge gatherings. Here the young people find the skating rinks and dancing pavilions and the shrill music of the merry-go-rounds, while tired mothers seek quiet grass plots where they may sit and watch the children play, and where they may have the rare chance to gossip with their neighbors.
In Homestead itself the two popular forms of amusement are the skating rink and the nickelodeon. The former fills the papers with advertisements for moonlight skating parties, a "marriage on rollers," and other devices for attracting patronage. The gaiety and swing of this pastime, which appeal to the young and vigorous, have made it in general very popular. It offers, however, those dangers common to the indiscriminate meeting of young people, which make some mothers hesitate to let their girls go unless with "our own crowd."
BACK YARD POSSIBILITIES IN HOMESTEAD—II.
The nickelodeon, whose small cost brings it within the financial reach of most families, is perhaps the most popular entertainment. You are admitted to a room the size of a small store, with rows of chairs, a small stage, and an atmosphere that is soon unbearably close. Here you witness for five cents a show lasting about fifteen minutes. On the Saturday afternoon when I attended, there was a series of moving pictures illustrating a story on the same theme as Camille, and two sentimental songs illustrated by colored slides. While none of them was of a high grade of amusement they evidently really entertained the audience, at least half of whom were workingmen. To them the nickelodeon seems to make a special appeal since it offers the variety they crave after long days in the mill. This limited range of amusement offered is almost the only entertainment which is available for older people, or which can be enjoyed in common by them and by the young and active members of the community. While this lack is met, in a degree, by the entertainments which lodges and churches give, the latter are rather sedate. The festivities which appeal to young people are all money-making enterprises, with the abuses likely to result under such conditions. Many of the clergymen expressed their belief that there was need of a better kind of amusement, a need which might be met by such institutions as the public recreation centers of Chicago.