NEW HOMES FOR OLD

Americanization Studies

Schooling of the Immigrant.
Frank V. Thompson, Supt. of Public Schools, Boston

America via the Neighborhood.
John Daniels

Old World Traits Transplanted.
Robert E. Park, Professorial Lecturer, University of Chicago
Herbert A. Miller, Professor of Sociology, Oberlin College

A Stake in the Land.
Peter A. Speek, in charge, Slavic Section, Library of Congress

Immigrant Health and the Community.
Michael M. Davis, Jr., Director, Boston Dispensary

New Homes for Old.
Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, Professor of Social Economy,
University of Chicago

Adjusting Immigrant and Industry. (In preparation)
William M. Leiserson, Chairman, Labor Adjustment Boards,
Rochester and New York

The Immigrant Press and Its Control. (In preparation)
Robert E. Park, Professorial Lecturer, University of Chicago

The Immigrant's Day in Court. (In preparation)
Kate Holladay Claghorn, Instructor in Social Research,
New York School of Social Work

Americans by Choice. (In preparation)
John P. Gavit, Vice-President, New York Evening Post

Summary. (In preparation)
Allen T. Burns, Director, Studies in Methods of Americanization

Harper & Brothers Publishers

THE COMING OF NEW AMERICAN HOME MAKERS

AMERICANIZATION STUDIES
ALLEN T. BURNS, DIRECTOR

NEW HOMES FOR OLD

BY
S. P. BRECKINRIDGE
PROFESSOR OF SOCIAL ECONOMY
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
NEW YORK AND LONDON
1921

New Homes for Old
Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

The material in this volume was gathered by the Division of Adjustment of Homes and Family Life of Studies in Methods of Americanization.

Americanization in this study has been considered as the union of native and foreign born in all the most fundamental relationships and activities of our national life. For Americanization is the uniting of new with native-born Americans in fuller common understanding and appreciation to secure by means of self-government the highest welfare of all. Such Americanization should perpetuate no unchangeable political, domestic, and economic regime delivered once for all to the fathers, but a growing and broadening national life, inclusive of the best wherever found. With all our rich heritages, Americanism will develop best through a mutual giving and taking of contributions from both newer and older Americans in the interest of the commonweal. This study has followed such an understanding of Americanization.

FOREWORD

This volume is the result of studies in methods of Americanization prepared through funds furnished by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. It arose out of the fact that constant applications were being made to the Corporation for contributions to the work of numerous agencies engaged in various forms of social activity intended to extend among the people of the United States the knowledge of their government and the obligations to it. The trustees felt that a study which should set forth, not theories of social betterment, but a description of the methods of the various agencies engaged in such work, would be of distinct value to the cause itself and to the public.

The outcome of the study is contained in eleven volumes on the following subjects: Schooling of the Immigrant; The Press; Adjustment of Homes and Family Life; Legal Protection and Correction; Health Standards and Care; Naturalization and Political Life; Industrial and Economic Amalgamation; Treatment of Immigrant Heritages; Neighborhood Agencies and Organization; Rural Developments; and Summary. The entire study has been carried out under the general direction of Mr. Allen T. Burns. Each volume appears in the name of the author who had immediate charge of the particular field it is intended to cover.

Upon the invitation of the Carnegie Corporation a committee consisting of the late Theodore Roosevelt, Prof. John Graham Brooks, Dr. John M. Glenn, and Mr. John A. Voll has acted in an advisory capacity to the director. An editorial committee consisting of Dr. Talcott Williams, Dr. Raymond B. Fosdick, and Dr. Edwin F. Gay has read and criticized the manuscripts. To both of these committees the trustees of the Carnegie Corporation are much indebted.

The purpose of the report is to give as clear a notion as possible of the methods of the agencies actually at work in this field and not to propose theories for dealing with the complicated questions involved.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

INTRODUCTION

The following study is the result of effort on the part of several persons. Miss Helen R. Wright, formerly research assistant of the Chicago School of Civics and member of the staff of the Massachusetts Immigration Commission of 1914, had much to do with the planning of the inquiry, the framing of such schedules as were used, and the organization of certain portions of the information gathered. Through Miss Laura Hood, long time a resident of the Chicago Commons, it proved to be possible to obtain many intimate views with reference to the more subtle questions of family adjustment in the groups that are of special interest in such an inquiry as this.

Certain questions of uniformity in method and style of presentation were determined by the editorial staff of the Study of Methods of Americanization. For the final drafting of a considerable portion of the study, especially in the earlier chapters, the members of this editorial staff are responsible, though the writer is glad to acknowledge full responsibility for all conclusions drawn or recommendations offered.

Sophonisba P. Breckinridge.

April 15, 1921.

NEW HOMES FOR OLD

I

FINDING THE NEW HOME

The great westward tide of immigration has again begun to rise. Annually to the ports of entry and to the great inland centers of distribution come thousands of immigrant families, strange men and women with young children, unattached girls, and vigorous, simple lads. With few exceptions no provision by native Americans has been made for their reception in their new places of residence. Communities of kindly-intentioned persons, because of their lack of imagination and their indifference, have allowed the old, the young, the mother, and infant to come in by back ways, at any hour of day or night. Frequently they have been received only by uncomprehending or indifferent railroad officials or oversolicitous exploiters.

THE FIRST ADJUSTMENTS

It is not strange that in most American communities there is no habit of community hospitality. Communities are in themselves transitory and fluid. Many of the native born have as yet become only partially adjusted to their physical and social environment. At least the childhood of most of our older generation was spent under the influence of those who had either migrated or immigrated. "Nous marchons tous." We are all "pilgrims and strangers." Some have come sooner, and some have come later, and except for the colored people and those in territory acquired in 1848 and in 1898, all have a common memory of having come deliberately either from something worse or to something better. All have come from where they were into what was a far country.

While the earlier arrivals are making their own adjustments, there are knocking at their gates strangers from a more distant country speaking a foreign tongue, accustomed to totally different ways of living and working. Their reception, however, need not be an impossible task. On their arrival they are formally admitted, and information as to their origin and destination must be supplied. Methods could be devised for receiving them in such a way as to make them feel at ease, and for interpreting to them the changed surroundings in which they must find a home and a job in the shortest possible time.

If discomfort and confusion were the only distress into which the strange group fell, the situation might be only humiliating to our generous and hospitable spirit and could be easily remedied. But the consequences of failure to exercise hospitality at the beginning endure in lack of understanding on the part of both groups. The immigrant fails to find natural and normal ways of sharing in the life of the community, and becomes skeptical as to the sincerity of perfectly well-meaning, but uninformed, professions on the part of the older residents. Spiritual barriers as definite, if not as easily perceived, as the geographical boundaries of the "colonies" formed in the different sections of our cities, develop.

This is often true in connection with the foreign-born men and tragically more true of the women. One Italian woman in Herrin, Illinois, for example, who had lived nineteen years in this country, told an investigator for this study that she had never received an American into her home as a guest, because no American had ever come in that spirit. A Russian woman had lived in Chicago for nine years and had, so far as she knew, not become acquainted with any Americans. Several instances were found in which efforts have been put forward to secure the united effort of the whole community, and yet large groups of immigrants have remained substantially unaware of these efforts and were entirely untouched by them.

There are several other attitudes, too, that have perhaps blinded some to the need of provision for community hospitality. One attitude might be characterized as that of the "self-made man." Hardship may have either of two different effects. In one person it will develop sympathy, compassion, and a desire to safeguard others from similar suffering. In others it may lead to a certain callous disregard of other people—a belief that if one has been able to surmount the difficulties others should likewise be able. If not, so much the worse. This kind of harshness characterizes the attitude of some of those immigrants who have come at earlier dates toward those who have come later.

A RAILROAD CAMP FOR IMMIGRANT WORKERS IN A PROSPEROUS SUBURBAN COMMUNITY, 1920

AN IMMIGRANT RAILWAY WORKER LIVES IN THIS CAR WITH HIS WIFE, SIX CHILDREN, AND THREE DOGS

It is like the occasional successful woman who is indifferent to the general disadvantages of her sex, and to the negro who makes for himself a brilliant place and argues that color is no handicap. In talking to women about bringing up their children, it was a significant fact that some of the women who had had no trouble with their own children said that where there is trouble it is the fault of the parents. The following comment, for example, was on the schedule of Mrs. D., a Polish woman who has been in this country since 1894, and has three children, aged twenty-five, twelve, and six. "If a child is not good, Mrs. D. blames his mother, who does not know how to take care of children. She thinks they are too ignorant."

There is also the sense of racial, national, or class superiorities. The virtue of the Anglo-Saxon civilization is assumed; the old, as against the new immigration, is valued. There are many who crave the satisfaction of "looking down" on some one, and it makes life simpler if whole groups—"Dagoes," "Hunkies," "Polacks," what you will—can be regarded as of a different race or group, so that neither one's heartstrings nor one's conscience need be affected by their needs. The difficulty is increased by a similar tendency of immigrants to assume the superiority of their people and culture and so hold aloof from the new life. This assumption of superiority on both sides tends to hinder rather than to further mutual understanding.

Clearly, if we are to build up a united and wholesome national life, such attitudes of aloofness as have persisted will have to be abandoned. If that life is to be enriched and varied—not monotonous and mechanical—the lowly and the simple, as well as the great and the mighty, must be able to make their contribution. This contribution can become possible, not as the result of any compulsory scheme, but of conditions favoring noble, generous, and sympathetic living. The family is an institution based on the affection of the parents and their self-sacrifice for the life and future of their children. Of all institutions it exemplifies the power of co-operative effort, and demands sympathetic and patient understanding. This is perhaps especially true of the foreign-born family.

This discussion of the family problems of the foreign-born groups in relation to the development of a national consciousness and a national unity is based on the belief that no attempts at compulsory adjustment can in the nature of things be successful. Sometimes the interests of the common good and of the weaker groups demand for their own protection the temporary exercise of compulsion, but the real solution lies in policies grounded in social justice and guided by social intelligence.

HOMES STUDIED

The material in this study is of a qualitative sort. No attempt has been made to organize a statistical study. The problems of family life do not lend themselves to the statistical method except at great cost of time and money.

A large body of data with reference to conditions existing during the decade just prior to the Great War, exists in the reports of several special government investigations, especially the report of the United States Immigration Commission, that of the United States Bureau of Labor relating to conditions surrounding women and child wage earners, and that of the British Board of Trade on the "Cost of Living in American Towns." The regular publications of certain government bureaus, especially the United States Children's Bureau, the Bureau of Home Economics in the United States Department of Agriculture, and the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, were found useful. These publications have been studied so far as they discuss the problem of family life. Their contents are presented only in illustration or in confirmation of statements made.

The material collected is of two kinds. First, there are facts dealing with the different agencies organized to help in solving these problems. This information was gathered largely by correspondence. Questionnaires were sent to case-work agencies dealing with family problems, which are members of the American Association for Social Work with Families and Home Service Bureaus of various Red Cross Chapters, asking their methods for attacking these difficulties and their advice as to the best methods worked out. The supervisors of Home Economics under the Federal Board for Vocational Education were asked to what extent they had included foreign-born housewives in their program and the special plans that had been worked out for them; the International Institutes of the Young Women's Christian Association were asked to describe their work with married women.

The methods of certain agencies in Chicago—the United Charities, the Immigrants' Protective League, some of the settlements—were studied more carefully through interviews with their workers and through a study of individual records. Officers of the national racial organizations were interviewed about their work on family problems. In addition to these a limited number of co-operative stores in Illinois were studied. Mining communities in Illinois, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia were visited, as well as certain of the newer housing projects, such as Yorkship Village in New Jersey, Hilton Village in Virginia, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lowell and North Billerica, Massachusetts and several towns in New Mexico.

The government investigations already referred to had made certain needs of the foreign born very clear. It seemed unnecessary to go over that ground again, but it was necessary to know whether those needs still existed. An attempt was made to learn this through interviews with leaders of various national groups and by obtaining schedules from a limited number of selected families. A word should be said as to the information obtained from these sources. The leaders selected were, in the first instance, men and women whose leadership in their own group had been recognized by election to important offices in their national organizations. These men and women then frequently suggested others whose position was not so well defined to an outsider, but whose opinion was valued by members of the group.

Most of the persons interviewed were able to speak English readily. They were people who were close enough to the great mass of immigrants to be familiar with their problems, their needs, their shortcomings, and their abilities, and at the same time were sufficiently removed from the problems to be able to view them objectively. Some were persons of more educational and cultural background than the majority of immigrants, some of them had been born in this country or had come when they were young children; but there were more who came to this country from the same Old-World conditions as the majority of their countrymen and had worked their way through the same hard conditions. They were probably exceptional in their native ability.

No attempt was made to fill out a questionnaire from these interviews. An outline was prepared of points to be covered, but frequently no attempt was made to adhere to the outline. Rather, these persons were encouraged to talk on the family problems in which they were most interested, and to which they had given most thought—to enable us to see them as they saw them with their knowledge of the Old-World background from which their people had come. They were also asked to suggest possible ways of meeting the more pressing needs of their people.

Adequate expression can never be given to the obligation under which those busy men and women who gave so generously and graciously their time and their thoughts have placed us. Our very great indebtedness to them is acknowledged, as without their aid this study in the present form would have been impossible. The demand made upon them could be justified only by the hope that the contacts thus established may prove in some slight degree profitable to them if only in giving them assurance that there are those to whom their problems are of real interest.

The women from whom family schedules were obtained were slightly different, and the information sought from them was obtained in a different way. They were for the most part women who did not speak English well enough to carry on an extended conversation in it. While they were not very recent immigrants and hence were not going through the first difficulties of adjustment, most of them were women who had not yet worked their way through to the same place reached by the women with whom the more general interviews were had. They were, in general, very simple people, too absorbed with working out their problems to have had much time for reflection. We asked them to tell us of their early experiences and difficulties as they recalled them, and of their present ways of treating some of the problems. This information was taken in schedule form.

Not enough schedules were obtained to be of statistical value—there were only ninety in all—but the families chosen are believed to be more or less typical. They were selected with the advice of leaders of their group or were known to our foreign-speaking investigators, who had a wide acquaintance in several groups. That is, we have tried so far as possible to see the problem with the persons, if not through the eyes of the persons whose fellow countrymen we wished to know.

We do not mean to suggest that other and very important groups might not have been studied, but we tried to learn of others; and sometimes because we could not find the clew, sometimes for lack of time, it proved impossible to go farther. We feel that we have obtained an insight into the situation among the Polish in Chicago and in Rolling Prairie, Indiana; the Lithuanians, Bohemians, Slovaks, Croatians, Slovenians, nonfamily Mexicans, Russians—both family and nonfamily—and Italians in Chicago; Italians in Herrin and Freeman, Illinois, and Canonsburg and Washington, Pennsylvania; and the Ukrainians in Chicago and in Sun, West Virginia.

Besides the large body of evidence with reference to these groups, we have suggestions from many interested and kindly persons of other groups. The Magyars and the Rumanians, particularly, we should have liked to know better, and we have had most suggestive interviews with certain of their leaders. We were not able, however, to follow the leads they gave, and therefore do not claim to speak for them, except to express the feeling of the need for greater understanding and appreciation.

With reference to those groups discussed, it should be noted that some, such as the Polish, Bohemian, Lithuanian, Italian, are among the largest of the great foreign colonies in Chicago, the growth of a long-continued immigration. They live in the different sections of the city, in crowded tenement districts, or in more recently developed neighborhoods for whose growth they are responsible. The Croatian and Ukrainian groups are newer groups, and are therefore poorer. The Croatians are moving into houses which the Bohemians are vacating. In the Russian and Mexican groups we have the current evidence that the old problem of the nonfamily man is still with us.

The Poles in Rolling Prairie, Indiana, are a prosperous farming community living in modern farmhouses with yards and orchards. There are women still alive who can tell of the earlier days, when just after their arrival they lived in one-room houses made of logs and plastered with mud. Then they helped their husbands to fell trees and clear the land. Like other pioneer women, these women have contributed to the "winning of the West." The grandmothers tell of these things. The mothers remember when, during the winter, the children went to school for a few months, they were laughed at because of their meager lunches, their queer homemade clothes, and their foreign speech. The young people now go to school at least as long as the law requires and sometimes through high school.

The mining towns in Illinois and Pennsylvania need not be described. Their general features are familiar. Although extended information with reference to the life of the various groups was not obtained, mention will be made of certain facts that are of importance to this study.

While the numbers are not great, it is hoped that certain methods may be worked out for approach to the problems of the groups studied, that will prove suggestive in attacking the problems of other groups not included here. No two groups are alike; but the experience with one or with several may develop the open-minded, humble, objective attitude of mind and that democratic habit of approach that will unlock the doorway into the life of the others and exhibit both the points at which community action may be desirable and the direction such action should take.

DISSOLVING BARRIERS

The purpose of this book is to help in the adjustment of immigrant family life in this country. The immigrant will feel America to be his own land largely to the extent that he feels his American home to be as much his home as was his native hearth. To define what makes a home is harder even than to achieve one. Perhaps more than any other human institution the home is a development, the result and component of innumerable adjustments. This growth comes about largely spontaneously, without conscious effort on the part of its members, except that of living together as happily as possible.

There is among most housewives, whether native or foreign born, a certain complacency about housekeeping and bringing up children. Housekeeping is supposed to come by nature, and few women of any station in life are trained to be homemakers and mothers. The native born, in part consciously through their own choice and in part blindly moved by forces they do not understand, have been gradually moving away from the old tradition of subordination on the part of the wife and of strict and unquestioning obedience of children. In the general American atmosphere there are suggestions of a different tradition.

In the old country the mother knew what standards she was to maintain and, moreover, had the backing of a homogeneous group to help her. In this country she is a stranger, neither certain of herself nor sure whether to try to maintain the standards of her home or those that seem to prevail here. As a matter of fact, these difficulties are usually surmounted, so that by the time the foreign-born housewife has lived here long enough to raise her family she has learned to care for her home as systematically and intelligently as most of her native-born neighbors, who have not had her difficulties. Sometimes they have learned from the members of the group who have been here longer; and sometimes they have learned by going into the more comfortable American homes as domestic servants.

In the American domestic evolution a scientific and deliberate factor has been introduced. Students of family life have conducted inquiries into domestic practices, needs, and resources, and applied the researches of physiologists, chemists, economists, and architects. The result has been the discovery of certain standards and requirements for wholesome family life. It must be admitted that the attempt at formulation of standards for family life encounters difficulties not found in the field of education or of health, where the presence and service of the expert are fairly widely recognized. For many reasons the subject of the minima of sound family life has been more recently attacked and is, in the nature of things, more difficult of analysis and especially of formal study. The impossibility, for example, of applying to many aspects of the family problem the laboratory methods of study or of examining many of the questions in a dispassionate and objective manner, must retard the scientific treatment of the subject.

There are, however, some aspects of family life with reference to which there may be said to be fairly general agreement in theory if not in practice in the United States. The content of an adequate food allowance is generally agreed upon by the students of nutrition, and the cost and special features of an adequate diet for any group at any time and place can therefore be described and discussed. In the matter of laying the responsibility for support of the family on the husband and father, at least to the extent of enabling the children to enjoy seven years of school life and fourteen years free from wage-paid work and the resulting exploitation, there is wide agreement embodied in legislation.

Such standards are becoming gradually adopted and incorporated into domestic life through the slow processes of suggestion, imitation, and neighborly talks already mentioned. While the slow establishment of social standards is required for a complete and adequate adjustment of family life on the basis of specialists' discoveries, many systematic and formal efforts can be made which will forward and accelerate the process. These efforts can help to remove the feeling of strangeness, perhaps the greatest obstacle in adjusting home life; they should seek to connect with the appreciations and sense of need already felt by the women who are to be influenced.

There is necessity for thorough inquiry into what are the points of contact in these problems for immigrant women; what are their present customs and standards in which the specialists' knowledge can be planted with the prospect of a promising combination of seed and soil. This study indicates how great is the need of search for the possibilities of just such organic connections. Pending such further studies, this report can do two things:

First, it can exhibit, so far as possible, the difficulties encountered by foreign-born families in attaining in their family relationships such satisfaction as would constitute a genuine feeling of hominess, and make the immigrant home an integral part of the domestic development in this country.

Second, the report can suggest the deliberate and systematic methods which can be effective in introducing the immigrant family and specialists' standards to each other. The services of social agencies have been largely in this field, and it is hoped that they may find in this book lines for increased usefulness. Incidentally, evidence will be presented to show that, in allowing many of these difficulties to develop or to remain, the community suffers real loss, and it is hoped that in the following chapters suggestion will be found of ways by which some of these difficulties may be overcome and some of the waste resulting from their continued existence be eliminated.

II

FAMILY RELATIONSHIPS

It is impossible to discuss the problems of adjustment of the family life of the immigrant to life in this country without taking notice of several factors that complicate the problem. There is first the disorganization in family life that is incident to the migration itself. The members of most of the families that come to this country are peasants who are almost forced to emigrate by the fact that the land they own will not support the entire family as the children grow up and establish families of their own.

There was, for example, among the families visited for this study, a family from the Russian Ukraine. The man's father was a peasant farmer with six acres of land and a large family of children. The income from this small property was supplemented by hiring out as laborers on the large estates near by. As the boys grew up they left home. Two had already come to America when the father of this family left in 1910. At the time he left there were thirteen people trying to get their living from six acres of land.

Another family from the same country were trying to live on the income from the farm of the man's father, who had four acres of land and five sons.

SEPARATED FAMILIES

In such families, and even in less extreme cases, it is evident that the cash needed for the emigration of the whole family is difficult to secure. It often happens, therefore, that the family does not emigrate as a group, but one member—usually the man—goes ahead, and sends for the rest as soon as he has earned enough to pay their passage. It is then some time, usually from two to four years and occasionally longer, before he is able to send for his family.

One Ukrainian man interviewed in this study came in 1906, leaving his wife and four children in the old country. He had difficulty in finding work he could do, wandered from place to place, never staying long in one place, and it was eight years before he had saved enough to send for his family. Another man, a Slovenian, came in 1904, and was here seven years before he sent his wife money enough so she could follow him.

Separations of this kind are often destructive of the old family relationships. What they mean in suffering to the wife left behind has been revealed by some of the letters of husbands and wives in a collection of letters in The Polish Peasant,[1] especially in the Borkowski series. These are letters written by Teofila Borkowski in Warsaw, to her husband, Wladek Borkowski, in America, between the years 1893 and 1912. During the early years the letters usually thanked him for a gift of money and referred to the time when she should join him in America. "I shall now count the days and weeks. May our Lord God grant it to happen as soon as possible, for I am terribly worried," she wrote in 1894.

As time goes on the intervals between the gifts grew longer, and she writes imploring him to send money if he is able, as she is in desperate need of it. In 1896 she had been ill and in the hospital. "When I left the hospital I did not know what to do with myself, without money and almost without roof ... so I begged her and promised I would pay her when you send some money" (p. 353). And in 1897 she wrote:

For God's sake what does it mean that you don't answer?... For I don't think that you could have forgotten me totally.... Answer me as soon as possible, and send me anything you can. For if I were not in need I should never annoy you, but our Lord God is the best witness how terribly hard it is for me to live. Those few rubles which you sent me a few times are only enough to pay the rent for some months.... As to board, clothes, and shoes, they are earned with such a difficulty that you have surely no idea. And I must eat every day. There are mostly days in my present situation when I have one small roll and a pot of tea for the whole day, and I must live so. And this has lasted almost five years since you left (p. 353).

She is pathetically grateful when money is sent. Thus in 1899 she writes:

I received your letter, with twenty rubles and three photographs, for which I send you a hearty "God reward!" I bear it always in my heart and thought and I always repeat it to everybody that you were good and generous, and you are so up to the present (p. 358).

Her sufferings are not confined to financial worries and lack of a place to eat and sleep. There is apparently a loss of social prestige and a falling off of friends. The letters also show what was evidently a real affection for her husband, and that at times his silence was even worse than his failure to send money. Thus in 1905, when the money and the letters were very irregular, she writes a letter (p. 362) in which no reference is made to her economic situation. After asking if he received her last letter, she continues:

It is true, dear Wladek, that you have not so much time, but my dear, write me sometimes a few words; you will cause me great comfort. For I read your letter like a prayer, because for me, dear Wladek, our Lord God is the first and you the second. Don't be angry if I bore you with my letters, but it is for me a great comfort to be able to speak with you at least through this paper.

Her financial situation grows steadily worse, and in 1912 she writes that she is "already barefooted and naked." The series closes with a letter from a friend stating that she is ill and in the hospital, "not so dangerously sick, but suffering very much ... and very weak from bad nutrition and continuous sorrows." He closes: "And please write a little more affectionately. Only do it soon, for it will be the best medicine for your wife, at least for her heart" (p. 368).

KEEPING BOARDERS

The life of the man who has come ahead has been made the subject of special study from time to time,[2] especially with regard to the housing conditions in which he lives—as a lodger or a member of a nonfamily group of men. It has been shown in all these studies that whatever the plan worked out, he adapts himself either to a life of intimate familiarity with women and children not his own, or to a life in which children and women have little part.

In connection with the present study, the living conditions of some of the Mexicans and Russians in Chicago were studied. As in the past, the men were found living in one of the following ways: as a lodger in the family group, as a boarder paying a fixed sum for room and board, or as a member of a group of men attempting to do their own housekeeping. The Mexicans studied included 207 men, of whom 197, or 95 per cent, are unmarried. The Russians included 112 men, of whom 65, or 58 per cent, had wives in Russia. It is interesting to note that 136 of the 207 Mexican men were boarding, usually with a Mexican family, 37 were lodgers, and 34 were doing co-operative housekeeping. Among the Russians, on the other hand, there were 25 doing co-operative housekeeping, and 85 living with family groups, of whom only a few paid a fixed sum for room and board, while the others paid a fixed rate for lodging and the food bill depended on the food that was consumed.

EVEN A BOARDING HOUSE OF EIGHTEEN BOARDERS IN FIVE ROOMS IS MORE CHEERFUL THAN A LABOR CAMP FOR MEN ALONE

Four variations were found in the method of paying for food: (1) The landlady buys all the food for the group and her family on one account. The total bill is divided by the number of boarders plus the head of the family, the wife and children getting their food as partial compensation for her services. (2) Each lodger has his own account book, in which is entered only the meat purchased for him. He pays this account himself. The other food purchased is entered in the landlady's book, and divided in the same manner as before. (3) Each lodger has his own account and buys what he wants. Instead of paying for what he has bought, he pays his share of the total food bought during the week. (4) Each lodger has his own account, the family has its own, and each pays his own.

Whatever expedient is adopted as a substitute for normal family life, the result is unsatisfactory. The men studied almost without exception preferred living as boarders with a family group, if possible. This preference is easily understood, as it meant less work for the men, who, in co-operative groups, had to do women's work as well as their own, and it also seemed a closer approximation to normal living. For the sake of these advantages they were willing to put up with housing conditions that were worse than those of the men who tried co-operative housekeeping. Thus 56 per cent of the Russian men in co-operative groups had the four hundred cubic feet of air per man that is required by law, and only 35 per cent of those living with family groups had this requirement.

The presence of a lodger in the family, moreover, is attended with great discomfort to the family. He is given the best accommodations the house affords and the family crowds into what is left. Thus, in the family groups with whom the Russians were living, only 18 per cent of the adult members of the family had the four hundred cubic feet of air required by the city ordinance for a person over twelve, as compared with 35 per cent of the boarders or lodgers, and forty of the fifty-three children in the groups were deprived of the two hundred cubic feet of air space that is prescribed for them.

The people with whom we have conferred in this study have said again and again that the lodger in a family meant restriction and deprivation for the family, and especially for the children. One Lithuanian woman who came to this country when she was two years old, says she well remembers the "utter misery" of her childhood, due to the lodgers. They were given all the beds and any other sleeping arrangements that could be contrived, and the children slept on the floor in any corner. Their sleep was often disturbed by people moving about. Sometimes they were wakened and sent to the saloon to get beer for a group of lodgers who sat up late playing cards and drinking. She remembers, too, the constant quarreling over the food bill, and thinks that is very common.

The complicated system by which the accounts are kept, to which attention has already been called, makes suspicion on the part of the lodger only too easy. Several people have spoken of the unsteady character of the lodger and the practice of staying up late, drinking. One of the women interviewed said that the family life was much easier, now that it was no longer necessary to keep lodgers, for when there were lodgers in the house they always had beer, and her husband would drink with them. Other people have spoken of the women drinking with the lodgers, and it was said that anyone who read the foreign-language newspapers would see many such advertisements as: "I am left alone with my three children; my wife has gone off with a lodger. Anyone having information, please communicate with..."

THE MAN WITHOUT A FAMILY

Life in a men's co-operative housekeeping establishment is usually more difficult, for upon them falls the burden of maintaining cleanliness in the household, and in many cases preparing their own meals. Some of the Mexican men visited at nine o'clock in the evening were preparing food for the next day's lunch. An important consideration here is the high cost of living under such conditions. The immigrant woman may not be a skillful buyer, but the immigrant man is evidently a most extravagant one. Among the Mexicans, for example, it was found that the men living in co-operative groups paid practically as much for the food which they themselves prepared as the men living in boarding houses paid for board and room. Their food cost seven to eight dollars per man per week.

These studies showed the same lack of opportunities for wholesome recreation and for meeting nice girls, as well as the same restlessness of the men as did earlier studies. This was especially noticeable among the Mexicans, who spoke with longing of their Mexican dances that lasted two days and were held almost every week-end, and of the band concerts to which they could often go. No matter how poor their furniture, most of them had one or two musical instruments which they played, and usually there was one phonograph for the group. They found these poor substitutes for group music, where they could have not only the music but the social time.

In brief, these studies of nonfamily men in 1919 show that the problem of adequate housing and some form of normal social life for the men who come ahead of their families is a recurring one. The nationality of the group changes as one immigration wave succeeds another. With the change in nationality come minor changes in the needs and desires of the group, but the main problem remains the same. It should never be forgotten that the impressions these men receive during their early life in the United States form the basis of their judgment concerning American life. Moreover, the life they lead during this period of separation from their families must inevitably affect their family relationships when family life is re-established, whether it be in this country or in the country from which they come.

The first national recognition of the needs of the men was evident in the plans of the United States Housing Corporation.[3] These provided for separate lodging houses for men, where each man had a room of his own, with an adequate amount of air space, and where bathing and toilet facilities were provided. Recreational needs were met by having a smoking room, reading room, and billiard room in each house, and, unless provided elsewhere in the community, bowling alleys in the basement. It has been repeatedly emphasized to us that the men would not be satisfied unless a lodging house for them were run by some one who could speak their language, knew their national tastes, and could understand their problems. The availability of houses of this type to the immigrant men in nonfamily groups would depend to a great extent on their administration, but it is apparent that such a housing plan is not impossible of attainment.

THE SINGLE WOMAN

It is not always the man who comes alone to this country. Often the girl comes in advance of the others and sends money back to bring over her parents and younger brothers and sisters. Attention has been called again and again to the hazards for the girl thrown on her own resources in a strange country among people she does not know, whose language she does not understand.[4]

She has, in fact, the same problem to solve as the man who has come alone, but she is further hampered both by economic and social handicaps. She is probably from a country where the life of a woman has been protected and circumscribed, and to find herself in a country where the conditions and status of women are freer, makes both for confusion and complications. A false step is of more serious consequence to her than to a man, and without guidance and assistance she may sometimes take this in ignorance or thoughtlessness.

Equally changed are her living conditions here. She has the same ways of living open to her that are open to the man—boarding or lodging with a family group or setting up a co-operative household with a group of girls. The girl living in the latter way does not have as many difficulties as the man in the same situation, for women are used to doing housework. Yet if men find it too difficult to be both wage earners and housekeepers, it is surely too hard for girls.

If, on the other hand, the girl finds lodging with a family group, life is not much easier, for she is expected to help with the household tasks, even though she is charged as much as the man lodger, who usually is exempt from any household responsibility. The inevitable assumption that any extra tasks of housework or sewing should fall to the women may make for a disproportionately long and tedious day for the woman lodger. The compensation of having the protection and sociability of a family group may thus be outweighed by the burden of overwork. Added to this, the prevalent necessity of overcrowding the households with boarders, puts a hardship upon women that often is not felt by men.

The need of providing adequate and safe lodging for the girl away from home has been felt in many places and by numerous organizations. Too often facilities have appealed only to the native born or thoroughly initiated immigrant girl. The International Institute of the Young Women's Christian Association has helped immigrants to find suitable homes. This has local branches in more than thirty cities, many of which are helping to meet the housing problems of the immigrant girls.

The government, in its housing projects, provided accommodations for the single girls similar to those provided for single men. They built boarding houses for from seventy-five to a hundred and fifty girls, with separate rooms and adequate toilet and bathing facilities. Each floor had a matron's office, so placed as to overlook the entrance and access to the sleeping quarters, and there was either a reception parlor or alcove for every twenty women, or a large parlor with furniture arranged for privacy in conversation. An assembly hall was provided with movable partitions and set stage. Kitchenette, sitting room, and sewing room were provided on at least alternate floors, and the building contained an infirmary and laundry for the use of the girls.[5]

Information is not at hand as to whether any of these houses were used by groups of immigrant girls. Similar houses could, however, easily be made useful for them if care were taken to put them in charge of some one who understood the problems of the foreign-born girl. More desirable still are projects undertaken by groups of foreign-born women themselves.[6] In this way the problems and tastes of the different nationality groups are taken into consideration, confidence and co-operation on the part of the girls more easily won, and an independent and ultimately self-directed plan will be realized.

ALMOST AT THE END OF THE JOURNEY

THE MIGRANT FAMILY

Even when all the family has reached this country the problems of migration have not always ended. Many families do not establish a permanent home in the first place in which they settle, but move from place to place, and in each place there is a new set of conditions to which to adjust themselves. Of the ninety families visited in Chicago for this study, information on this point was obtained from only forty-two. Nineteen of these came directly to Chicago, but twenty-three had lived in other places. Five of them had been in the Pennsylvania mining district around Pittsburgh, two had been in North Dakota on a farm, two had been in a New Jersey manufacturing town, and the others had been at widely different places in other cities—New York, Philadelphia, Galveston, Texas, Boston—in small towns in the Middle West, and on plantations in Louisiana.

Some had moved several times. A Polish family, for example, had lived first in Boston, then in New York City, then somewhere in Canada, before they finally settled in Chicago. Another Ukrainian family, from Galicia, lived first in one mining town in Pennsylvania, then in another in the same state, and later moved to Chicago. The mother, who is a very intelligent woman, described her first impression of America when she, with her four children, arrived in the little mining town. She said that immigrants were living there, everything was dirty and ugly, and she was shocked by the number of drunken men and women she saw on the streets, "having not been accustomed to see them in the old country." She wished to return immediately and did not even want to unpack her belongings. For a whole year she lived amid these squalid surroundings, until her husband got work in another town where conditions seemed a little better.

Sometimes these changes mean family separations, as the man again goes ahead, as he did in coming to this country. The experience of a Polish family is typical. When the family first came to this country they went to Iron Mountain, Michigan, where the father worked in the ore mines until he lost his health. Then a sister of his wife, who was living in South Chicago, invited him to visit her family, and offered to get work for him in the steel mills. He came, living with his sister-in-law, and after a few months obtained work in the mills. Then the mother and children followed him.

FROM FARMING TO INDUSTRY

Another fact to which attention should be called is the adjustment in family life required by contact with the modern industrial system. Some of the immigrant groups come from countries more developed in an industrial way than others, but none of the newer groups come from any country in which the factory system has become so prevalent as in the United States. In the old country the family still exercised productive functions as a unit. It had access to tillable land, and was an essential part of an industrial system that is still organically related to the stage of development of the country. It had, therefore, within itself, the sources of self-support and self-determination. The civilization of which it was a part may be a declining civilization; but the conditions of life were those to which the wife and mother were accustomed. She took them for granted, felt at home among them, and was not conscious of being overwhelmed by them.

In the modern American industrial community, however, the family as a whole is generally divorced from land. It is not a unit in relation to the industrial organization, but in its productive function is usually broken up by it. For the family must live, and yet its income is dependent, not upon its size nor the volume of its needs, but upon the wage-earning capacity of the man under the prevailing system of bargaining. That the resulting income has often been wholly inadequate, even according to the modest standards set by dietetic experts and by social investigators, is testified to by an enormous body of data gathered during the decade preceding the Great War.[7]

It is unnecessary to review these studies in detail, but attention may be called to the findings of the Immigration Commission. Of the foreign-born male heads of households studied, 4,506, or 34.1 per cent, earned less than four hundred dollars a year at a time when dietetic experts agreed that five hundred dollars was a minimum below which it was dangerous for families to fall. Seventy per cent earned less than six hundred dollars.

These figures may be said to come from "far away and long ago," but while there has not been time for widespread inquiry, there is a considerable body of evidence indicating that the same condition prevails to-day. Wages have increased greatly during the war, but with the increase in prices there is doubt as to whether real wages have increased or decreased. Certainly the increase has been irregular and uneven, affecting the workers in some industries much more than in others.

The New York State Industrial Commission made a study of the average weekly earnings of labor in the factories of the state. They found that between June, 1914, and June, 1918, wages had increased 64 per cent.[8] The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics made a study of food. Taking the year 1913 as the base, or 100, wages in 1907 were 92 and the retail prices of food, 82, and in 1918 wages were 130 and food 168. That is, the price of food increased much more rapidly than the average union wage scale between 1907 and 1918.[9]

As a result of these low earnings, the wife and children in many immigrant families have been forced into the industrial field and even then the resulting incomes have often been inadequate. The Immigration Commission found that almost one third of the foreign-born families studied had a total family income of under five hundred dollars, and almost two thirds had incomes less than seven hundred and fifty dollars.

Not only is the family income often inadequate and composite, but precarious and uncertain. The need for food is a regularly recurring need; the demand for labor may be seasonal, periodically interrupted, and in time of crisis wholly uncertain.

Although child labor laws have been enacted in many states and by the United States Congress, they are comparatively recent. Their absence in earlier years has had its inevitable effect on many foreign born. Many of the leaders in the immigrant groups who came here when they were still children, tell of stopping school and going to work. One Lithuanian woman, who is among the more prosperous of the group in Chicago, said that she stopped school when she was twelve, and went to work in a fruit-packing concern, working ten hours a day and earning five dollars a week, which she gave to her father. Another worked as a cash girl in a downtown store at the age of thirteen. Similarly, in one of the Russian families now living in Chicago, the girls were fourteen and nine when they came to this country and settled in a New Jersey town. The older was sent to work at once, and the younger a year later. Now, after nine years in this country, neither girl can speak English.

The present laws are not always efficiently enforced, and the child of the foreign born suffers especially from such failure to enforce the law. In one of the mining communities of Illinois, visited in the spring of 1919, Italian boys as young as twelve were found working in the mines. In New Mexico, children of twelve and ten, and even younger, were taken out of school each year in the spring to go with their fathers to work on other men's farms or to herd sheep. Our investigator was impressed, in Rolling Prairie, with the need of including agriculture among the occupations from which young children are prohibited as wage earners.

THE WAGE-EARNING MOTHER

Of the mother's work, notice must be taken. People interviewed in this study were almost unanimously of the opinion that immigrant women were adding to the family income in many cases. If the children are too young to be left alone, the father's inadequate income is supplemented by taking lodgers. Too often, however, the mother works outside the home for wages.

Indeed, a number of people were of the opinion that the employment of women has increased during the war. Among the more recently arrived Bohemians, for example, it was said that mothers of small children were going to work as never before, because taking lodgers was not possible, as single men have not been coming in such large numbers since the war. The older settlers felt that they must take advantage of the relatively high wages offered women to make payments on property. Lithuanian observers say that partly because of prejudice against it, Lithuanian married women have not gone out of their homes to work until recently. With the war, the increased cost of living, the higher wages offered to women, and the appeal that was made to their patriotism, many women had gone into industry, especially to work in "the yards." Ukrainian and Slovenian women are also said to be working in large numbers, but Croatian women are still said to stay in their homes and contribute to the income by taking lodgers.

In addition to this testimony, which was obtained from leaders of the national groups, there is also the information obtained from individual families. Of the ninety women from whom information was obtained in Chicago, twenty were working outside their homes and twenty-four had lodgers at the time of the study. When it is remembered that these families were those who have worked their way through the first difficulties, these figures become doubly significant.

There is, for example, a Ukrainian family from the Russian Ukraine. It consists of the parents and four children between the ages of three and fifteen. Ever since the family came to the United States they have had one or more lodgers to help them pay the rent. At present they have three men paying four dollars a month each; and as the father, who had been working in the stockyards for nineteen dollars a week, was discharged two months ago, the wife has been working in a spring factory to support the family.

Then there is a Polish family, composed of the parents and four children under fourteen, two of them children of the man by a former wife. The father has been in this country since 1894, but his wife has been here only since 1910. For two years after their marriage the wife worked at night, scrubbing from 6.30 to 9.30 p.m., and received twenty-four dollars a month. Then there was an interval while her children were babies, during which she did not work, but the family lived on the earnings of the father. For the last two years, however, his work has been slack, first because of a strike, and later due to an industrial depression in his trade, and the mother is again at work, this time in a tailor shop, earning ten dollars a week.

The effect of the mother's work in decreasing the child's chances for life has been made clear by the studies of the Children's Bureau in Johnstown,[10] Montclair,[11] and Manchester,[12] in all of which a higher rate of infant mortality was shown for children of mothers gainfully employed.

The effect of the mother's work on the family relationship and the home life of the family group is, of course, not measurable in absolute terms. The leaders of the various national groups, however, have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the absence of the women from the home has created entirely new problems in the family life. They have pointed out that while the peasant women have been accustomed to work in the fields in the old country, their work did not take them away from their homes as the work in this country does. If they were away there was usually some older woman to take care of the children. Here the work of the mother frequently results in neglect of the children and the home.

In recognition of this fact attempts have been made to solve the problem. Among Slovenians it was customary, before the war made it impossible, to send the children back to the old country to their grandmothers to be cared for. One priest said he had seen women taking as many as twelve children to a single village. The Ukrainians in Chicago have talked of establishing a day nursery to look after their children, but the people are poor, and it has not been possible to raise the money. In the meantime children are not sent to the day nurseries already established, but are commonly taken to neighbors, some of whom are paid for taking care of ten or twelve children. This arrangement constitutes a violation of the city ordinance requiring day nurseries to be licensed, but is evidently a violation quite unconsciously committed by both parties to the transaction.

A group of nonworking Lithuanian women heard that neglected children were reported to the settlement in the neighborhood. One of the women investigated, and found many children locked in houses for the day, with coffee and bread for lunch. One child, too small to shift for himself, was found with his day's supply of food tied around his neck. The women decided to open a nursery in charge of a Lithuanian woman who would be able to speak to the children in their own language, as few children below school age spoke English. The original plans were to accommodate ten or twelve children, but as soon as the nursery opened there were so many women wanting to leave their children there that it took as many as thirty children. The nursery was maintained for about eighteen months, and was then closed because of the difficulty of raising the necessary funds.

Some such plan must be developed that takes care of the foreign-born mother's work if she is forced to supplement the family's income outside of the home. The organization of family life that has grown up parallel with the industrial system assumes her presence in the home. When misfortune makes this impossible some provision for caring for the children must be found.

CHANGED DUTIES OF A MOTHER

Another changed condition in the life in this country is that the family group is usually what the sociologist calls the "marriage" group, as distinguished from the "familial" group, which is generally found in the old country. The grandmothers and maiden aunts, who were part of the group in the old country, and who shared with the mother all the work of the household, are not with them in this country. The older women are seldom brought on the long journey, and the maiden aunt is either employed in the factory system, or she sets up a house of her own, so that in any event her assistance in the work of the household can no longer be relied on. It is perhaps the grandmother that is missed the more, because it was to her that the mother of a family was wont to turn for advice as well as assistance.

This decrease in the number of people in the household is not compensated for by the diminution in the amount of work, which is another fact of changed conditions. For in this country the housewife no longer spins and weaves, or even, as a rule, makes the cloth into clothing. She does not work in the fields, or care for the garden or the farm animals, all of which she was expected to do in the old country. The loss of the older women in the group, however, means that what tasks are left must all be done by her.

The duties of the housewife may not be as many, but the work they involve may be more. This is true, for example, in the matter of feeding the family. In Lithuania soup was the fare three times daily, and there were only a few variations in kind. Here the family soon demands meat, coffee, and other things that are different from the food she has cooked in the old country.... Occasionally the situation is further complicated by the insistence of dietetic experts that the immigrant mother cannot feed her family intelligently unless she has some knowledge of food values. In other words, the work of the housewife was easy in the old country because it was well done—if it was done in the way her mother did it—and conformed to the standards that she knew. It could thus become a matter of routine that did not involve the expenditure of nervous energy. Here, on the other hand, she must conform to standards that are constantly changing, and must learn to do things in a way her mother never dreamed of doing them. And there is the new and difficult task of planning the use of the family income, which takes on a new and unfamiliar form.

In spite of all that has been taken out of the home the duties of the housewife remain manifold and various. She is responsible for the care of the house, for the selection and preparation of food, for spending the part of the income devoted to present needs, and for planning and sharing in the sacrifices thought necessary to provide against future needs. She must both bear and rear her children. The responsibilities and satisfactions of her relationship with her husband are too often last in the list of her daily preoccupations, but by no means least in importance, if one of the essentials of a home is to be maintained.

The enumeration of the tasks of any wife and mother throws into relief the difficulties of the foreign-born mother. The all too frequent cases where homes are deprived of her presence emphasize how indispensable she is. All case-work agencies have had to grapple with the problem of families suffering this deprivation. It is these motherless families that make us realize how many tasks and responsibilities fall to the lot of the mother.

There was a motherless Russian family, consisting of the father and six children, the oldest a girl of thirteen and the youngest a five-month-old boy. For a time the family tried to get along without asking advice of an outside agency. The baby was placed with friends, and the thirteen-year-old girl stopped school to care for the five-room flat and the other four children. In a short time the family with whom the baby was placed wanted to adopt him, and refused to keep him longer on any other condition. At this time the Immigrant's Protective League was appealed to for help in placing the baby where he would not have to be given for adoption. They found the father making a pathetic attempt to keep the home and children clean, and the oldest girl, Marya, trying hard to take her mother's place. The best plan they were able to work out for the family was institutional care for the youngest two children, nursery care outside of school hours for the next two, and the two oldest left to take care of themselves, although given lunch at the school. Marya, of course, was sent back to school, and she and her father share the housekeeping.

PATERNAL AUTHORITY PASSING

A third change should be taken into account. There is a marked difference between the general position of women and children in relation to the authority of the husband and father in this country and that in the old country. It is indicated in both general opinion and express statutory amendment in this country, although not in the so-called common law. The latter, in common with practice in the native lands of immigrants, provided that marriage gave the husband the right to determine where the domicile should be, the right "reasonably to discipline" wife and children, the right to claim her services and to appropriate her earnings and those of the children, the right to take any personal property (except "paraphernalia" and "pin money") she might have in full ownership, the right to manage any land she might become entitled to, and the right to enjoy the custody of the children, regardless of the maintenance of his conjugal fidelity, in the absence of such obscene and drunken conduct on his part as would be obviously demoralizing to the young child.

There existed no adequate provision for enforcing the father's performance of either conjugal or parental obligations, and the result has been the development of two bodies of legislative change. One of these has granted to the wife certain rights as against the husband, on the theory that the wife retains her separate existence after marriage and should retain rights of individual action. The other body of statutes imposes on the man the duty of support, making abandonment or refusal to support punishable by fine or imprisonment, or both.

The theory of this legislation is that the support of wife and children is to be a legally enforceable duty, which may rightly be laid upon the man because of his special interest and special ability. Moreover, through the establishment of the juvenile court, the community has undertaken, not only to say that support must be given, but to set a standard of "proper parental care" below which family groups are not to be allowed to sink and still remain independent and intact. By creating the juvenile probation staff, an official assistant parent is provided. In the same way, by authorizing commitment of children to institutions, the dissolution of the home that falls persistently to too low a standard is made possible.

The common law, as accepted in the various states, was not entirely uniform, but it was substantially the universal family law; now the states differ widely in the body of statutory enactments developed in this field. All have some laws recognizing the claims of children to have their home conditions scrutinized—though they may have no express juvenile-court law, all recognize to some extent the separate existence of the married women—though only twenty-one have given the mother substantial rights as against the father over their children, and they all recognize the parent's duty to secure the child's attendance at school, and have imposed some limitation on the parent's right to set his young child to work. In other words, in all the states the idea of the separate existence of the wife and of the interest of the community in the kind of care given the child has been embodied in legislation.

These statutes have been enacted by legislatures composed largely, if not exclusively, of men, and register the general change in the community attitude toward the family group. An unlimited autocracy is gradually becoming what might now be termed a constitutional democracy. But the law of the jurisdictions from which most of the immigrant groups come, undoubtedly represents a theory of family relationship not widely different from that underlying the common law. The South Italian group, in which the right of the father to discipline wife and daughter is passed on to the son, may represent an extreme survival of the patriarchal idea; but almost all the foreign-born groups hold to the dominion of man over woman, and of parents over children.

Immigrant groups evidence their realization of the changed conditions in different ways. Among the Ukrainians in Chicago, for example, it is said that, whereas in the old country the men kept complete control of the little money that came in, here they very generally turn it all over to their wives. Some of them have laughed, and said that America was the "women's country." Among other groups, notably the Jugo-Slav and the Italian, there is said to be a general attempt to keep the women repressed and in much the same position they held in the old country. Sometimes the woman perceives the difference in the situation more quickly than her husband. Then if he attempts to retain the old authorities in form and in spirit, she may submit or else she may gradually lead him to an understanding. But she may not understand and yet may rebel and carry her difficulty to the case-work agency.

One of the settlements in Chicago is said to have become very unpopular with the men in its neighborhood, as it has the reputation of breaking up families, because women who have been ill treated by their husbands have gone to the settlement to complain, and have there been given help in taking their complaints to court.

The Immigrant's Protective League in Chicago receives many complaints from women who have learned that their husbands have not the right to beat them or their children. One Lithuanian woman, who had been in this country six years, came to the league with the statement that her husband often threw her and their eight-year-old son out of the house in the middle of the night. Another Lithuanian woman living in one of the suburbs took her three children and came to Chicago to her sisters, because her husband abused her, called her vile names, and beat her. When the husband was interviewed he agreed not to do so again, and his family returned to him.

Of course, the theory underlying even the feminist "married woman's property laws" included not only her enjoyment of rights, but her exercise of legal responsibility; but the restrained exercise of newly acquired freedom is evidence of high social and personal development. And the women in the foreign-born groups come from the country, the village, the small town. They have had little education, their days have been filled with work, so that there has been little time for reflection, they come from a simple situation in which there was little temptation to do wrong. They find here, on the other hand, a situation which is complex in the extreme, and in which there are elements that tend to make matters especially difficult for women.

Attention has already been called to the confusion created by the lodger in the home and the special temptation to the woman to desert her husband for the lodger. The relative scarcity of women in the group, the presence of large numbers of men who cannot enter a legal marriage relationship because they have wives in the old country, the spiritual separation that often results from physical separation caused by the man's coming ahead to prepare a place—all these are undoubtedly factors that enter in to make difficult the wise use of her freedom. Native endowment, moral as well as physical and mental, varies among these women as among other women. Confronted with this confused and difficult situation, the change from the old sanctions, the old safeguards, even the old legal obligations, is difficult.

It is inevitable that a few will find themselves unequal to the task of readjusting their lives. The father of one family came to the Immigrant's Protective League in Chicago, asking help because his wife had turned him out of his home. He said that she drank and was immoral. Instead of caring for the home and the two-year-old child, she spent her time behind the bar in her brother's saloon, having "a good time" with the customers. She had deserted six weeks before, but he had found her and had had her in the Court of Domestic Relations, where he had been persuaded to take her back. He said she was still drinking and still neglecting the child. Shortly after asking the help of the league, the father ran away, taking with him the child whom the mother left alone in the house while she went to the "movies."

The women who assert themselves in their new rights are in a small minority. A young Polish woman complains that the women of her group are too submissive even in this country, and "bear beatings just as their mothers did in the old country." In the great majority of foreign-born families, as in all families, the question of the legal rights of the woman is never raised. The habits and attitudes formed under the old system of law and customs are carried over into the life in the new country, and are changed so gradually and imperceptibly that no apparent friction is caused in the family group. Moreover, in many cases where the woman perceives her changed position she is able to make her husband see it too, and she herself is able to work her way through to a new understanding. It is interesting to note that the women of the foreign-born groups who have worked their way through are now bending their energies toward helping the women who have not yet started.

III

THE CARE OF THE HOUSE

The work that the housewife must do in the care of the house is the maintenance of such standards of cleanliness and order as are to prevail. It includes the daily routine tasks of bedmaking, cooking, sweeping, dusting, dishwashing, disposing of waste, and the heavier work of washing, ironing, and periodic cleanings.

NEW HOUSEKEEPING CONDITIONS

The foreign-born housewife finds this work particularly difficult for many reasons. In the first place, housekeeping in the country from which she came was done under such different conditions that it here becomes almost a new problem in which her experience in the old country may prove of little use. The extent to which this is true varies from group to group. To understand the problems of any particular group, careful study should be made of the living conditions and housekeeping practices in the country from which it came.

Some of the women with whom we have conferred have described housekeeping as they knew it in the old country. These descriptions are suggestive of the character of the change and the difficulties involved. Mrs. P., a Polish woman from Posen, for example, said that:

Houses in the village in which she lived were made of clay, with thatched roofs, clay floors, and about ten feet high. They were made in rows, for four families or two families, with one outer door opening from a hall into which the doors from all the dwellings opened. Each dwelling had one small window, and a fireplace. Water was out of doors. In the four-family house there were two chimneys. The outside door did not open into the road.

FLOOR PLAN OF HOUSES IN POLAND

The floors were covered with sand, and new sand was put on when the room was cleaned. The fireplace had a hook from which hung the kettle, and in one corner was the oven, a little place set off by a board covered with clay. Walls were whitewashed. Mrs. P. said that the housework is much more difficult in this country, with the cleaning of woodwork, washing windows, care of curtains, carpets, and dishes, and more elaborate cooking. In the old country the family washing was done only once a month, except in cases where there were small children. Then it was done weekly; and if the family lacked sufficient clothing, the washing had to be done oftener. There the meal was one dish, from which the entire family ate; here there is a variety of food and each person has his own plate and eating utensils, so that even the dishwashing is a greater task. In coming to this country many women do not see that the windows need washing or that the woodwork should be cleaned, etc.

The beds were made of boards covered with straw, not as a straw mattress. Sheets were laid over the straw to make it softer. Each person had two pillows, very large and full, so that they sleep in a "half sitting" position. Feather beds are used for warmth, and no quilts or blankets were known in the old country.

Lithuanian women, likewise, have pointed out that at home most of the women worked in the fields, and that what housekeeping was done was of the simplest kind. The peasant house consisted of two rooms, one of which was used only on state occasions, a visit from the priest, a wedding, christening, or a funeral. In summer no one sleeps in the house, but all sleep out of doors in the hay; in winter, women with small children sleep inside, but the others sleep in the granary. Feather beds are, in these circumstances, a real necessity. Thus the bed that is found in this country is unknown in Lithuania, and the women naturally do not know how to care for one. They not only do not realize the need of airing it, turning the mattress, and changing the bedding, but do not even know how to make it up properly.

Other processes of housekeeping—dishwashing, scrubbing, and washing—prove equally difficult, and it is said that most of the women do things in the hardest possible way, chiefly because the processes are different here and they lack the technique to do their work in the easier way. Naturally, too, when work in the fields has occupied most of their time, they lack also habits of order and routine in their household tasks.

The Italian women, especially those from southern Italy and Sicily, have also spoken of their difficulties in housekeeping under new conditions. In Italy the houses, even of the relatively well-to-do peasants, were two-room affairs with earthen floors and little furniture. The women had little time to give to the care of the house, and its comfort and order were not considered important.

The experience in doing the family washing is said to typify the change. In Italy washing is done once a month, or at most, once a fortnight, in the poorer families. Clothes are placed in a great vat or tub of cold water, covered with a cloth on which is sprinkled wood ashes, and allowed to stand overnight. In the morning they are taken to a stream or fountain, and washed in running water. They are dried on trees and bushes in the bright, Italian sunlight. Such methods of laundry work do not teach the women anything about washing in this country, and they are said to make difficult work of it in many cases. They learn that clothes are boiled here, but they do not know which clothes to boil and which to wash without boiling; and as a result they often boil all sorts of clothing, colored and white, together. In Italy washing is a social function; here it is a task for each individual woman.

DEMANDS OF AMERICAN COOKERY

Cooking in this country varies in difficulty in the different national groups. In the case of the Lithuanians and Poles, for example, the old-country cooking is simple and easily done. Among others it is a fine art, requiring much time and skill. The Italian cooking, of course, is well known, as is also the Hungarian. Among the Bohemians and Croatians, too, the housewives are proverbially good cooks and spend long hours over the preparation of food. Croatian women in this country are said to regard American cookery with scorn. They say that Croatian women do not expect to get a meal in less than two or three hours, while here all the emphasis is on foods that can be prepared in twenty or thirty minutes.

It is not always easy to transplant this art of cookery, even if the women had time to practice it here as they did at home. The materials can usually be obtained, although often at a considerable expense, but the equipment with which they cook and the stoves on which they cook are entirely different. The Italian women, for example, cannot bake their bread in the ovens of the stoves that they use here. Tomato paste, for example, is used in great quantities by Italian families, and is made at home by drying the tomatoes in the open air. When an attempt is made to do this in almost any large city the tomatoes get not only the sunshine, but the soot and dirt of the city. The more particular Italians here will not make tomato paste outdoors, but large numbers of Italian families continue to make it, as can be seen by a walk through any Italian district in late August or early September.

In general, in the groups in which cooking was highly developed, a great deal of time was devoted to the preparation of food. If the housewife wishes to reduce her work in this country, she finds that some of the ingredients which make our cooking simpler are unknown to her. The Bohemians, for example, do not know how to use baking powder, and the same is true of the women in Lithuanian, Polish, and Russian groups, where the art of cooking is less developed.

With this lack of experience in housekeeping under comparable conditions, the foreign-born housewife finds the transition to housekeeping in this country difficult at best. As a matter of fact, however, the circumstances under which she must make the change are often of the worst. She is expected to maintain standards of cleanliness and sanitary housekeeping that have developed with modern systems of plumbing and facilities for the disposal of waste that are not always to be found in the districts in which she lives. Even a skillful housewife finds housekeeping difficult in such houses as are usually occupied by recently arrived immigrants.

WATER SUPPLY ESSENTIAL

In the first place, there is the question of water supply. Cleanliness of house, clothing, and even of person is extremely difficult in a modern industrial community, without an adequate supply of hot and cold water within the dwelling. We are, however, very far from realizing this condition. In some cities[13] the law requires that there shall be a sink with running water in every dwelling, but in other cities even this minimum is not required. The United States Immigration Commission, for example, found that 1,413 households out of 8,651 foreign-born households studied in seven large cities, shared their water supply with other families. Conditions have improved in this respect during the last decade, but it is a great handicap to efficient housekeeping if water has to be carried any distance. Further inconvenience results if running hot water is not available, which is too often the case in the homes of the foreign born.

THIS PUMP SUPPLIES WATER TO FOUR FAMILIES

Cleanliness is also dependent, in part, upon the facilities for the disposition of human waste, the convenient and accessible toilet connected with a sewer system. These facilities are lacking in many immigrant neighborhoods, as has been repeatedly shown in various housing investigations. For example, in a Slovak district in the Twentieth Ward, Chicago, 80 per cent of the families were using toilets located in the cellar, yard, or under the sidewalk, and in many cases sharing such toilets with other families. One yard toilet was used by five families, consisting of twenty-eight persons.[14] The danger to health, and the lack of privacy, that such toilet accommodations mean have been often emphasized. In addition, it enormously increases the work of the housewife and makes cleanliness difficult, if not impossible.

There is also the question of heating and lighting the house. Whenever light is provided by the oil lamp, it must be filled and cleaned; and when heat is provided by the coal stove, it means that the housewife must keep the fires going and dispose of the inevitable dirt and ashes. In the old country the provision of fuel was part of the woman's duties; and in this country, as coal is so expensive, many women feel they must continue this function. Here this means picking up fuel wherever it can be found—in dump heaps and along the railroad tracks. A leading Bohemian politician said that he often thought, as he saw women prominent in Bohemian society, "Well, times have changed since you used to pick up coal along the railroad tracks."

OVERCROWDING HAMPERS THE HOUSEWIFE

The influence of overcrowding on the work of the housewife must also be considered in connection with housekeeping in immigrant households. That overcrowding exists has been pointed out again and again. Ordinances have been framed to try to prevent it, but it has persisted. In the studies of Chicago housing a large percentage of the bedrooms have always been found illegally occupied. The per cent of the rooms so occupied varied from 30 in one Italian district to 72 in the Slavic district around the steel mills. The United States Immigration Commission found, for example, that 5,305, or 35.1 per cent, of the families studied in industrial centers used all rooms but one for sleeping, and another 771 families used even the kitchen.

Crowding means denial of opportunity for skillful and artistic performance of tasks. "A place for everything and everything in its place," suggests appropriate assignment of articles of use to their proper niches, corners, and shelves. One room for everything except sleeping—cooking, washing, caring for the children, catching a breath for the moment—means no repose, no calm, no opportunity for planning that order which is the law of the well-governed home. Yet there is abundant evidence that many families have had to live in just such conditions.

The housework for the foreign-born housewife is often complicated by other factors. One is the practice to which reference has been already made of taking lodgers to supplement the father's wages. In discussing this subject from the point of view of the lodger, it has been pointed out that the practice with reference to the taking of boarders and lodgers varies in different places and among different groups. The amounts paid were not noted there, but they become important when considered together with the service asked of the housewife. Usually the boarder or lodger pays a fixed monthly sum—from $2 to $3.50, or, more rarely, $4 a month—for lodging, cleaning, washing, and cooking; his food is secured separately, the account being entered in a grocery book and settled at regular intervals.

Sometimes the lodger does his own buying, but the more common custom is to have the housewife do it. Occasionally he does his own cooking, in which case payment for lodging secures him the right to use the stove. More rarely, as in some of the Mexican families visited in Chicago in 1919, he is a regular boarder, paying a weekly sum for room and board.

Just what keeping lodgers means in adding to the duties of the housewife can be seen from the following description of the work of the Serbo-Croatian women in Johnstown, Pennsylvania:[15]

The wife, without extra charge, makes up the beds, does the washing and ironing, and buys and prepares the food for all the lodgers. Usually she gets everything on credit, and the lodgers pay their respective shares biweekly. These conditions exist to some extent among other foreigners, but are not so prevalent among other nationalities in Johnstown as among the Serbo-Croatians.

In a workingman's family, it is sometimes said, the woman's working day is two hours longer than the man's. But if this statement is correct in general, the augmentation stated is insufficient in these abnormal homes, where the women are required to have many meals and dinner buckets ready at irregular hours to accommodate men working on different shifts.

The Serbo-Croatian women who, more than any of the others, do all this work, are big, handsome, and graceful, proud and reckless of their strength. During the progress of the investigation, in the winter months, they were frequently seen walking about the yards and courts, in bare feet, on the snow and ice-covered ground, hanging up clothes or carrying water into the house from a yard hydrant.

WOMEN WORK OUTSIDE THE HOME

Another factor that renders housekeeping difficult is the necessity of doing wage-paid work outside the home, to which reference has already been made. Women interviewed have repeatedly emphasized the difficulties that this practice creates in connection with the housekeeping.

A recent study of children of working mothers, soon to be published by the United States Children's Bureau, carried on at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, obtained the testimony of the mothers as to the difficulties involved. This study showed that in many cases the household duties could not be performed at the proper time; 60 women, for example, of the 109 reporting on this question, said that they did not make their beds until night; 105 said their dishes were not washed after each meal, but in 41 cases were washed in the mornings, and in 56 not until night. Three washed them in the morning if they had time, and five left them for the children, after school.

Many women who worked outside the home did their housekeeping without assistance from other members of the family. This meant that they had to get up early in the morning and frequently work late at night at laundry or cleaning; 49 women, for example, washed in the evening; 25 washed either Saturday, Sunday, or evenings.

HOUSING IMPROVEMENT

Enough has probably been said to show that the work of caring for the house under the conditions existing in most immigrant neighborhoods, is unnecessarily difficult for the foreign-born housewife. The most obvious point at which these burdens might be lightened so that the housewife could have time for other duties, would appear to be through improvement of housing. With an awakened realization of this fact, both on the part of the foreign-born woman herself and the community of which she is an inevitable part, will come the solution of these difficulties. A protest, however inarticulate or indirectly expressed by her, will find its response in a growing realization that plans for improvement must be developed.

The several housing projects that have already been offered are suggestive of the problems and possibilities along this line rather than useful as hard-and-fast solutions. They not only meet the needs of the more inadequate immigrant housing conditions, but provide improvement upon most native-born conditions. In this connection interest naturally centers on the war-time housing projects of the United States government, on the experiment of the Massachusetts Homestead Commission at Lowell, and on certain enterprises carried out by so-called limited dividend companies. The first two are especially interesting, in that they recognize that supplying houses to the workers is not a function that can be wholly left to private initiative.

It is not possible to discuss these projects in detail, nor is it necessary.[16] It is sufficient to consider them here with reference to the contributions they might make in helping the immigrant housewife. In the first place, they provide for a toilet and a bath in every house, and a supply of running water that is both adequate and convenient. In the matter of kitchen equipment there is an attempt to provide some of the conveniences. Both provide a sink and set wash-tubs equipped with covers. They must be set at a minimum of thirty-six inches from the floor in the United States plans. Both make provision for gas to be used for cooking, although the coal stove is accepted. The kitchens in the Massachusetts houses are also provided with kitchen cabinets, with shelves under the sink, and with a drain for the refrigerator.

In other ways also consideration for the housewife is evidenced. Electricity is urged for lighting, passages through which furniture would not go are avoided, the size of the living room is adapted to the sizes of the most commonly purchased rugs, etc. Study of the Massachusetts plans reveals other interesting features, such as the care given to the location of the bathroom and the attention to the size of the doors, so that the mother at work in her kitchen can watch the children at play in other rooms.

Both projects are interesting also in that they realize the necessity of a "front room" or parlor, and prescribe a minimum number of bedrooms—three in the Massachusetts, and two in the United States experiment. Both require closets in every bedroom wide enough to receive the men's garments on hangers, and rooms of such size that the bed can stand free of the wall and out of a draught. It is evident that the plans for houses in both projects provide very definite improvements in the matter of the conveniences to which the immigrant is not accustomed in the houses at present available to him.

Some limitations, however, become apparent by comparing them with the recommendations of the Women's Subcommittee of the Ministry of Reconstruction Advisory Council, England. That committee emphasizes the importance of electricity for lighting, and urges "that a cheap supply of electricity for domestic purposes should be made available with the least possible delay." The American plans agree that electricity is the preferred lighting, but gas is accepted by the United States government, although not by the Massachusetts plan. There is no suggestion of developing a cheaper supply of electricity.

The English women also suggest the desirability of a central heating plant as a measure that would lessen the work of the household, afford economies in fuel, and render a hot-water supply readily available. They urge, therefore, further experimentation with central heating. The American plans have no suggestions to make at this point, but accept the coal stove or the separate furnace in the higher-priced houses as the means of heating. While they provide for hot water, no suggestions are made as to how this is to be supplied. It is presumably done by a tank attached to the range, which means that hot water is not available when there is no fire in the range; that is, in summer and during the night. It should also be noted that these plans make no suggestions for co-operative use of any of the equipment of the household.

There is another point at which the architects and builders failed to take sufficient notice of the problem of lightening the women's work—namely, in their attitude toward the separate family home as compared with the multiple family dwelling. The Massachusetts Commission was, by the terms of the Act creating it, limited to the provision of one or two-family houses; the United States government standards were definitely against the building occupied in whole or in part by three or more families.

Tenement and apartment houses are considered generally undesirable, and will be accepted only in cities where, because of high land values, it is clearly demonstrated that single and two-family houses cannot be economically provided, or where there is insistent demand for this type of multiple housing.

This judgment, however, has by no means met with universal approval. Those architects who think in terms of the woman's time and strength consider the merits of the group and of the multiple house. For example, those who planned the Black Rock Apartment House Group in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the open-stairway dwellings, the John Jay dwellings on East Seventy-seventh Street, New York City, and the Erwin, Tennessee, development, maintain that the advantages of the separate house in privacy, independence, and access to land can be secured by the multiple arrangement. Not only can economies in the use of the land be practiced, but protection and assistance for the women and children can be obtained, and there is the possibility of devices for convenient and collective performance of many tasks.

It is unnecessary to review the arguments for the one or for the other. It is evident that the group house, and perhaps the multiple house, offer such inducements in the economy of space and the possibility of assigning areas of land to definite and anticipated uses, that their further adaptation to family needs must be contemplated. It is generally assumed that the family group wants the separate house. The question of interest for this study is one of the desire of the immigrant groups in this respect. Their preference should be an indispensable element in the formulation of housing standards.

There is not, however, a great deal of evidence on this subject. The fact that immigrants live in the city in the congested districts may only indicate that they have had no choice in the matter. Most of the officers of certain immigrant building and loan associations interviewed for this study thought there was a preference for the single-family dwelling when it could be afforded. That also is the belief of the investigators in this study, who think that the use of multiple houses indicates not the immigrants' desires, but their acceptance of what is before them, and that the dream of almost every immigrant family is to have a house of its own, to which is attached a little garden.

How far the desire for the separate house is confused with the desire for the garden would be difficult to say. It is certain, however, that in general the immigrant has known only one way to have the garden, and that was by having a separate house. There is universal agreement that especially the foreign-born family desires access to land for whose cultivation they may be responsible, and whose produce both in food and in flowers they may enjoy. Recently, however, certain architects have been interested in working out plans by which this advantage might be retained for dwellers in group or tenement houses. They have pointed out that one advantage of the group and multiple house is the setting free of spaces to be more skillfully adapted to the size and composition of the family.

Attention may be called to certain devices that are urged by experienced architects in the matter of the use of land. For example, in the Morgan Park, Minnesota, development of the Illinois Steel Company, the architects have developed interesting plans in connection with their low-cost houses. These are all group houses, with a front space opening on an attractively planned street. At the rear of the house is a latticed porch—a small area graveled, but not grassed—and then the alley. Across the alley is the rear garden, which may thus be fenced in and kept separate from the house lot.

A COMMUNITY PLAN SUBMITTED BY MILO HASTINGS IN THE AMERICAN HOUSING COMPETITION, 1919, SHOWING THE U VARIATIONS, THE BACK SERVICE STREET, THE PROVISION FOR REAR GARDENS, AND THE OPEN AREAS ON WHICH ALL THE HOUSES WILL FRONT
(Reprinted by permission from the Journal of the American Institute of Architects, June, 1919)

Interesting suggestions on this point are to be found in the two articles, to which prizes were given by the American Institute of Architects in the June and July, 1919, numbers of their journal. There is much experimentation yet to be done, as the question of the separate house with its separate plot of ground is by no means a settled one. It is particularly desirable that the interest of the foreign born be enlisted, both that they may contribute to the solution of the question and that they may become acquainted with all the possibilities of access to the land which are being worked out.

In spite of some defects and the need for further experimentation along the lines suggested above, there is no doubt that the projects of Massachusetts and of the Federal government mark a very real advance. The most pressing need is to construct a sufficient number of these houses so that they may be available for immigrant groups. One means of doing this is by the employer's building houses for the workers to buy or to rent. Although this has sometimes been found to help solve the housing situation, factors may enter that limit its usefulness. The industrial relationships between employer and employee may be such that subsidy for housing by employer would hinder rather than help. Where a community is largely comprised of one industry it may be very unwise for the industry to go so far toward the control of community affairs. Labor unrest in the northern iron ranges can be traced in part to such company provision of housing and sanitation.

The limited dividend company, organized not for profit, and operating under the careful supervision of a governmental department, is another solution. This agency has been particularly successful in Massachusetts under the stimulus as well as under the supervision of the Massachusetts Homestead Commission, and is undoubtedly capable of further development.

GOVERNMENT BUILDING LOANS

Another possibility is that the local or state government advance the money and enable the worker to buy his own home. That is the plan adopted by the Massachusetts Homestead Commission in its experiment at Lowell. It is also one of the policies adopted by the Canadian government, which will loan money to provincial governments to be advanced for building houses on land owned (a) by the provincial or municipal government, (b) by the limited dividend company, (c) by the workman himself. This latter plan would probably commend itself most readily to the foreign-speaking groups.

Direct loans by the local government to the worker are advocated in the careful and thorough plan worked out by Mrs. E. E. Wood.[17] One suggestion is a proposed amendment to the Postal Savings Law, authorizing loans from postal savings deposits to workers with annual incomes not in excess of twelve hundred dollars. The investigation of the application is to be in the hands of the nearest local housing board. A suggested amendment to the Farm Loan Act is that housing loans be made by the Farm Loan Board on the same terms on which farm loans are now authorized. It is interesting to note that this plan contemplates the continued activity of the building and loan associations with which the foreign born are already familiar. It suggests that the first loan be given by the government and the association be content with a second mortgage, receiving in return the greater stability that is secured from a transaction carried on under governmental supervision.

According to Mrs. Wood's report, before 1915, 700,000 houses had been built or acquired in the United States through the aid of building and loan associations.[18] She thinks that the moderately paid wage earner, but not the unskilled worker, was benefited. This conclusion is disputed by officers of four building and loan associations in Chicago interviewed in connection with this study. That the associations reach the foreign-speaking groups seems to be evident from the names in the Annual Report of the auditor of the state of Illinois for 1918. The Bohemians had the largest number of societies, and the Poles were second. The Italians alone of the large national groups were unrepresented.

Mrs. Wood's plan also calls for a national housing commission in the Department of Labor, to be created under congressional act, with organization and powers analogous to those exercised by the Federal Board for Vocational Education. For the use of this commission it is proposed that a fund be created by the issue of bonds, from which loans could be made to certain designated agencies for the clearance of congested areas and the increase of housing facilities.

The Federal legislation is to be supplemented according to Mrs. Wood's plan by state legislation, including:

1. A restrictive housing law, a constructive housing law, and a Town Planning Act. This plan contemplates a state commission on housing and town planning through which the Federal aid for the state would be made available; to which should be intrusted the responsibility of investigating and approving or disapproving housing schemes proposed by local agencies and associations.

2. A state fund similar to the Federal fund is proposed, and definite suggestions for its use are worked out. For the local authorities, local housing and town-planning boards, probably with the county as the basis of organization, are proposed.

This housing fund, composed of the Federal fund, the state fund, and in some cases local funds, is to be used to make loans to municipalities, housing organizations that are not organized for profit, limited dividend companies, co-operative associations, or even employers. The plan contemplates that the lowest paid wage earners, among whom are numbered a large per cent of the foreign born, should continue to rent; but the landlord should not be a private individual seeking to make profit from providing the workers with shelter.

The plan also takes note of the plan for co-partnership ownership adopted by the United States Housing Corporation. The main features of this arrangement are:

1. Ownership vested in a local board of trustees bound to operate the property in the interest of the tenants and until the property is fully amortized in the interest of the government.

2. Formation of a tenants' association to which all residents of three months are eligible on payment of small yearly dues. This association to elect a tenants' council to act as directors of the association, to confer with the board of trustees, and to carry out such duties as trustees direct.

3. Any tenant may become a co-partner by applying for bonds to the amount of 25 per cent of the value of his dwelling, and accompanying his application with a cash subscription of one half per cent of this.

4. Tenant co-partners are given a voice in the management by the right to elect trustees, the number increasing with the amount of subscriptions to bonds.

5. Tenant co-partners granted remission of one month's rent a year.

6. Tenant co-partners leaving or desiring to discontinue as co-partners have the right to sell their bonds to trustees at par.

Mr. A. C. Comey, the author of the plan, says of it:[19]

Such a co-partnership scheme as this will present to workmen a unique opportunity for saving, for not only will they get as high a rate of interest as a safe investment justifies, but they will be to a large degree custodians of their own security and will thus be able to protect their investments in much the same way as actual home owners. On the other hand they will avoid most of the pitfalls of home owning, such as loss through deterioration of a neighborhood, forced sales in case of departure, and inability to realize on assets locked up in private homes. Moreover, they will tend to develop a high degree of community spirit, usually so lacking among apartment dwellers, and thus take more interest in public affairs and become better citizens generally.

These are advantages which it would be especially desirable for the foreign-born groups, as many of them have experienced the pitfalls of home ownership. It is a complicated system and would have to be explained in detail to the various groups. The medium for such explanations is at hand in the foreign-language press and in the immigrant societies, and the effort that it would involve is surely worth making. It should also be noted that it is not so complicated a system as the land tenure in many of the countries from which the immigrants come.

INSTRUCTION IN SANITATION

The subject of housing reform as a means of easing the housewife's task was considered first, as it is useless to talk of helping her in her work until she is given some of the conveniences with which to work. It is evident, however, that that is not all that is necessary for the foreign-born housewife. She is not accustomed to the use of a house of the size contemplated by the proposed plans—the Italians, Lithuanians, Poles, Russians, Hungarians, and doubtless others have known only the one and two-room house—and there is always the possibility that, given more rooms, they may be used to take in more lodgers. Such was the case, for example, in the relatively adequate houses provided by the United States Steel Corporation at Gary.

It is not necessary, however, to use the method of that corporation, and turn out of the houses persons who need instruction in the use of the house. Persuasion and instruction in the uses of the special features of the house could have been tried. It might have been possible for the rent collector or a sanitary inspector with a social point of view to establish friendly relations on their regular visits to the families. With confidence gained and tact displayed, much in the way of education could be accomplished. To construct houses so that each room can serve one and only one purpose would in part meet the difficulties. Above all, patience and a realization of the difficulties that the foreign-born housewife meets, are essential.

A point on which some architects lay special stress in the structure of low-cost houses is the devotion of the entire first floor to cooking and living uses—not sleeping. That is, the living room, dining room, and kitchen are either combined or so open into each other that no temptation is offered to close off part for sleeping purposes. The bedrooms are then on the second floor, each room having only one door, and the bathroom and the storage space are slightly elevated above the second and offer no temptation to be used for purposes other than those for which they are designed. If, then, families inexperienced in the use of modern accommodations come into the community, they may perhaps be helped to an understanding of modern devices by the experience of living in houses arranged in this way.

Both the rent collector, if it be a case of tenancy, and the building official, if it be a case of ownership, should not only understand the principles of sanitation and hygiene, but should understand the people they serve. To render the best service to immigrant groups, such officials must speak the language of the group and understand something of its peculiarities. They should, in fact, be public assistant housekeepers, through whose assistance the gradual and voluntary initiation of our foreign-born neighbors into community life can take place. New standards of efficiency and new amenities can be developed. Our community life might, then, be freed from the old physical dangers connected with human adjustment to physical surroundings, and take on new dignities suitable to a democratic and adequate life for the whole people.

There remain the difficulties described at the beginning of the chapter, which come from the fact that the processes of the work of caring for the house are different in this country from those in the country from which the foreign-born housewives came. These difficulties are not so easy to solve as those of housing. They are undoubtedly surmounted as time goes on, but it is a gradual process. Many forces are at work. Necessity is probably the primary one. The foreign-born woman early learns to use American cooking utensils and fuel because they are all she can get. She has to feed her family with the only food the store at the corner furnishes. American furniture and furnishings soon attract her attention, and she is curious as to their purposes and uses.

In part, the foreign-born housewives have learned from one another; that is, from the members of the group who have been here longer; and in part they have learned by going into the more comfortable American homes as domestic servants. Those who have done the latter are, usually, the girls who come alone or the elder daughters of the family. In some communities, such as a Bohemian community near Dallas, Texas, it is said to be well understood that the girl will learn domestic science by a kind of apprenticeship in the home of her employer. When she has learned what she thinks sufficient, she leaves to practice in her own home and to show her family how things should be done. The limitations and difficulties of domestic service for the inexperienced immigrant have been well set forth in the reports of various protective societies.[20] But the foreign-born women with whom we have conferred in this study have repeatedly emphasized the advantages that come from being shown how to do housework under the conditions in this country. Yet women of the "new" immigrant groups enter domestic service much less than those from the "old" ones.

In the end, no doubt, many foreign-born housewives have learned to care for their homes and raise their families as systematically as their American neighbors, who have had fewer difficulties to contend with. It is, however, a wasteful system which leaves the instruction of the immigrant housewife to the chance instruction she can gain from fellow countrywomen who have themselves learned only imperfectly. If the community only realized what the difficulties were for the housewife from a different civilization, it would undoubtedly stretch out a friendly and helping hand to assist her over the first rough path. Whatever form this help takes, it must be offered in the spirit of friendly co-operation, and not of didactic superiority, if the desired result is to be gained.

IV

PROBLEMS OF SAVING

There has been in the past much harsh and thoughtless criticism of the foreign-born groups, because of the extent to which they have seemed able and willing to subordinate present necessities and enjoyments to provide for certain future contingencies.

PRESENT AND FUTURE NEEDS

Many of those who come to this country are in debt for their passage. Others have left near relatives at home who must be helped to come over. Some have come, intending to establish themselves and to be married here. Some expect to take back a part of their earnings to better the condition of those left behind. Their coming, whether to stay permanently or to return, often does not relieve them of their obligations to the group in the old country.

One of the strongest impressions that the reader gets from the letters in The Polish Peasant is that of the frequency with which relatives in the old country ask for money from the one who has gone ahead. It is not only his wife and children, or aged parents, that ask for money, but all the members of the wider familial group, and sometimes even friends with no claim on the score of kinship.

The purposes for which they ask money are various; in the Borek series, for example, a son of the family is asked to send money because the family is in debt and has taxes to pay; to send money for the dowry of his sister; for a forge; for a sewing machine, and for a phonograph. He is also told that if he sends money home it will not be wasted, but will be put out at interest. Other claims for money are put forward in other series, possibly the most common one being a request for a steamship ticket. The letters show clearly that it is customary to send money for fête days, "name days," or birthdays, Christmas, Easter, and other occasions. A failure to do so brings reproach coupled with a reminder that others who had gone from the village had sent money. In the Wrobelski series the family ask money from the member in this country for a new church at home. Every Sunday the priest reads aloud the names of those who have contributed. It therefore seems to the immigrant imperative that from his present earnings certain amounts shall be set aside.

When the first hard times are past and the members of the immediate family are reunited, there comes the reaction to the experience of depending on the money wage. There arises the fear of disaster growing out of interruption of the income, or misfortune involving especially heavy expenditure.

The United States Treasury Department in its "Thrift" campaign lays down the doctrine save first and spend afterward.[21] This is what the members of the foreign-born groups have long been doing, and probably this policy is the only possible basis for a rational use of one's resources. Yet doing this gives rise to comment on the "low standard of life." And thrift often seems to border on miserliness.

Indeed, the problem is by no means so simple as the use of the categorical imperative would indicate. The whole question of deciding between the claims of the present and of the future is a very difficult one. The economist gives us little definite help. He lays down the so-called "rule of uses" and tells the housewife so to apply her resources that the utility extracted from any unit may be at least as great as if that unit were applied elsewhere. Now the foreign-born housewife, like other housewives, has certain resources of money and time and strength, and these she wishes to distribute wisely. But she labors under many disadvantages, of which it is only fair to take notice.

UNFAMILIARITY WITH MONEY

In the first place, her income is in an unfamiliar form. There is first the fact that the money units are strange to her. A woman who recently came over, being called on to make an unexpected payment, handed her purse to a fellow traveler, asking that the required amount be taken out. In the second place, for many there is the difficulty growing out of the exclusive dependence upon money payments, when before there were both money and the products of the land.

The fact should always be kept in mind that, to the extent to which the foreign born are from rural districts, they have the difficulty experienced by all who are forced to adjust themselves to an economy built on money, as distinguished from an economy built on kind. In the country where things are grown, there is little opportunity for acquiring a sense of money values.

It is then peculiarly difficult to value in terms of the new measure those articles with which one has been especially familiar under the old economy. For example, when vegetables and fruits have been enjoyed without estimating their value, it is difficult to judge their value in money. While meat was before thought out of reach, it may be purchased at exorbitant rates under the new circumstances, because one has no idea of how much it should cost. Evidence as to this kind of difficulty is found among all groups. It takes the form, sometimes, of apparent parsimony, sometimes of reckless and wasteful buying.

The Lithuanians seem, for example, to experience difficulties of this kind everywhere. The small farmer in Lithuania was accustomed to an irregular cash income at harvest time. Sometimes it carried over from one year to another, while young stock was growing. He had little need of money except for extraordinary expenses, such as those for farm machinery, or building. The local store, which was usually co-operative, carried only such imported articles as salt, sugar, spices, tea, and coffee. All other foods were produced at home or secured through neighborly exchange. All the clothing for the family was of home manufacture, even to the cloth. If a boy were sent to school in the nearest large town, his board was paid with poultry and dairy products.

The tenant laborer had house rent free, a garden, a cow, a few pigs, and all the poultry he cared to raise, in addition to the yearly wage of from 125 to 150 rubles a year.

Other farm laborers had board and clothing in addition to their wage of 25 rubles a year. Women received 3 rubles a year for farm labor, in addition to board and all ordinary clothing. The food provided by the farmers was coarse and monotonous, but it was plentiful and nourishing. Laborers were housed in two-room log or board houses, with thatched roofs; farm workers without families slept in the farmer's granaries and ate at a common table.

To the inexperienced peasant the daily wage of $1.50 and $2 in the United States seemed ample, but it was not long after the family arrived before it was found inadequate. The situation becomes still more confusing if employment is seasonal and irregular. In Lithuania, contracts were made by the year and unemployment was unknown. Through apprehension they begin to adopt a low standard of living in order to economize, a practice now common in many Lithuanian communities in this country. They have never paid rent in their native country, so one of their first instincts is to economize at that point in the new country by taking lodgers.

Among other national groups there are evidences of the same difficulties. Bohemian women, it is said, buy recklessly at first, spending money for jewelry and all sorts of things they see for sale in the neighborhood stores. Ukrainian women control the expenditure of the family income here, but in the village life in Galicia they never had much money to spend; the table was supplied from the farm, clothing was of home manufacture, furniture was seldom bought. They are, therefore, when they first come, little fitted by previous experience for wise expenditure of the family income.

IRREGULARITY OF INCOME

To these difficulties are added those connected with the uncertainty and irregularity of wage payments and with the length of intervals recurring between these payments. The ways in which periods of unemployment and consequent cessation of income are met are illustrated by the following experiences described by those with whom we have conferred.

The story of how the mother or children have gone out to work, of how boarders have been taken into the home, savings have been spent, money has been borrowed from friends, or charity has been accepted, occurs over and over in the experience of all the national groups. A Ukrainian mother tells how she and the older children at various times have worked during the father's unemployment. A few years ago, when it lasted for two years, she was no longer strong enough to work, and they sold their home in order to keep the children in school.

Another Ukrainian family has of late depended upon the earnings of the children and savings, but there have been times when they had nothing in the house but water, and could not buy food. A Polish mother borrowed money of the Jewish grocer when her savings were gone and her earnings insufficient. One Bohemian family had to draw on their savings in the building and loan association during a year of unemployment.

RESERVES FOR MISFORTUNES