To this keen observer and lover of human nature, the many years of contact with this vivid, arduous East Side life—reinforced and interpreted by constant reading and thinking—brought an ever-increasing sense of social interrelation and interdependence. Jane Addams’ books have, more than anything else, she says, helped to clarify and mould her vision of the constructive part the sculptor may play in social readjustment.
This growth of social consciousness has been reflected in her work.
THE LITTLE MOTHER
Just as The Windy Doorstep, with its fine feeling for the dignity of everyday homely tasks, outranks the Roller Skater which, she says, was done in a purely objective spirit, so the White Slave records a forward step which is a difference of kind even more than degree.
THE RAG PICKER
Here she has turned from her more objective work to the graphic interpretation of a social menace; and it is here, perhaps, that she finds herself with surest touch. Her conception of white slavery is as searching in its indictment, as ruthless, cruel and scourging as the fact itself. One visitor who saw those haunting figures at the International Exhibition said afterward:
“I was passing through that room of the exhibit when suddenly I faced it—I could not go on. I had vaguely realized that this horrible thing was in the world, but it had never touched me. I sat there for perhaps an hour, thinking—and thinking—”
This woman was one who has led what is called a “sheltered” existence, whose instinct would be to turn from any discussion or writing on this subject. It is this thought-compelling quality in such work which links it as a social force with, say, the dispassionate but terrible report of the Chicago Vice Commission, or with Elizabeth Robins’ My Little Sister.