NEW HOMES FOR OLD

Harper & Brothers Publishers

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

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New Homes for Old

Copyright, 1921, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America

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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.

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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.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

align="left">Introduction xvii CHAPTER     I. Finding the New Home 1   The First Adjustments 1   Homes Studied 6   Dissolving Barriers 14 II. Family Relationships 19   Separated Families 20   Keeping Boarders 23   The Man Without a Family 27   The Single Woman 29   The Migrant Family 32   From Farming to Industry 34   The Wage-earning Mother 39   Changed Duties of a Mother 43   Paternal Authority Passing 47 III. The Care of the House 54   New Housekeeping Conditions 54   Demands of American Cookery 58   Water Supply Essential 60   Overcrowding Hampers the Housewife 62   Women Work Outside the Home 65   Housing Improvement 66   Government Building Loans 75   Instruction in Sanitation 80 IV. Problems of Saving 85   Present and Future Needs 85   Unfamiliarity with Money 88   Irregularity of Income 91   Reserves for Misfortunes 92   The Cost of Weddings 98   Christenings and Fête Days

tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">103   Buying Property 105   Building and Loan Associations 109   Postal Savings Banks 111   Account Keeping 115 V. The Neglected Art of Spending 117   The Company Store 119   Shopping Habits 122   Modification of Diets 130   Furniture on the Installment Plan 134   New Fashions and Old Clothes 135   Training Needed 138   Co-operation in Spending 141 VI. The Care of the Children 149   The Unpreparedness of the Immigrant Mother 150   Breakdown of Parental Authority 153   Learning to Play 157   Parents and Education 159   Following School Progress 163   The Revolt of Older Children 169   Relations of Boys and Girls 174   The Juvenile Court 181 VII. Immigrant Organizations and Family Problems 187   Safety in Racial Affiliations 188   Local Benefit Societies 192   National Croatian Organizations 196   Care of Croatian Orphans 199   Organizations of Poles 201   Polish Women's Work 203   Lithuanian Woman's Alliance 209   Ukrainian Beginnings 215   Growth of National Organizations

href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@41291@[email protected]#Page_218" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">218 VIII. Agencies of Adjustment 222   Immigrant Protective League 223   A National Reception Committee 227   The Public School 230   The Home Teacher 236   Settlement Classes 238   Co-operation of Agencies 240   International Institutes 243   Training for Service 248   Home Economics Work 254   Government Grants in England 263   The Lesson for the United States 266   Mothers' Assistants 268   Recreational Agencies 272 IX. Family Case Work 277   The Language Difficulty 280   Standards of Living 286   Visiting Housekeepers 289   Knowledge of Backgrounds 298   Training Facilities Needed 301   The Transient Family 304   Need for National Agency 307         Appendix 313   Principal Racial Organizations 313   Czech 313   Danish 314   Dutch 315   Finnish 315   German 316   Hungarian 317   Italian

class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">318   Jewish 319   Jugoslav 324   Lithuanian 326   Polish 327   Russian 329   Slovak 330   Swedish 331   Ukrainian 331   Menus of Foreign Born 333   Bohemian 333   Croatian 335   Italian 335   Slovenian 340         Index 343

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LIST OF TABLES

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

align="right">150 Immigrant Children Acquiring Individual Initiative in a Montessori Class at Hull House " 160 Who Will Welcome Them? " 192 Lithuanian Mothers Have Come to a Settlement Class " 238 A Case-work Agency Found Four Girls and Eighteen Men Boarding with This Polish Family in Four Rooms " 288

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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.

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NEW HOMES FOR OLD

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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.