Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1911 edition. Excerpt: ... Ne1ghborhood. "The South End. The people are mostly Russian Jews; they, and their homes and yards, having all the characteristics of those found in New York. Seventy-five per cent of those who come to the settlement are German; others Irish, I talian, Syrian, Jewish, Scotch, French, Polish, English, and Swedish. The girls are employed in laundries, knitting mills, tablet, potash, box, tobacc0, candy, and shirtwaist manufactories, stores, millinery and dressmaking rooms, printing offices and in families; while the boys and young men are employed in banks, ice houses, cars, paint and carpenter shops, fish markets, stores, ash wagons, and potash factories. The fathers run ice carts (hand ones), ash wagons, candy booths, junk places, sew on men's goods, manufacture caps, or work in coal yards, ice houses, etc.; the mothers scrub, wash, and clean. Saloons flourish on every hand; stores and business places are open seven days each week, and many forms of evil are rampant. Children are sent to work when so young that their labor exhausts body, mind, and nerve. Girls in stores or manufactories drift toward the theatre, dance hall, saloon parlor, and similar public resorts." Ma1nta1ns study room for school children; classes in sewing, cooking, dressmaking, millinery, embroidery, basketry, etc.; clubs with athletic, musical and social aims for children and young people; also girls' prayer meetings and King's Daughters' Circles; relief and medical social service. Summer Work.--The clubs are maintained during the summer months. The sewing classes meet at the homes of teachers, on lawns, and at parks. Picnics, boat and trolley rides, etc. Some of the members have worked in the country at farm houses or camps, and gained thereby health and strength....