New Homes for Old Part 1

New Homes for Old.

by Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge.

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. Fosd.i.c.k, and Dr. Edwin F. Gay has read and criticized the ma.n.u.scripts. 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.

INTRODUCTION

The following study is the result of effort on the part of several persons. Miss Helen R. Wright, formerly research a.s.sistant of the Chicago School of Civics and member of the staff of the Ma.s.sachusetts 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 att.i.tudes, too, that have perhaps blinded some to the need of provision for community hospitality. One att.i.tude might be characterized as that of the "self-made man." Hards.h.i.+p may have either of two different effects. In one person it will develop sympathy, compa.s.sion, 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 att.i.tude of some of those immigrants who have come at earlier dates toward those who have come later.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A RAILROAD CAMP FOR IMMIGRANT WORKERS IN A PROSPEROUS SUBURBAN COMMUNITY, 1920]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 s.e.x, 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 cla.s.s superiorities.

The virtue of the Anglo-Saxon civilization is a.s.sumed; 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 a.s.sume the superiority of their people and culture and so hold aloof from the new life. This a.s.sumption 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 att.i.tudes 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 n.o.ble, generous, and sympathetic living. The family is an inst.i.tution based on the affection of the parents and their self-sacrifice for the life and future of their children. Of all inst.i.tutions 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 a.s.sociation 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 Inst.i.tutes of the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation 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 Yorks.h.i.+p Village in New Jersey, Hilton Village in Virginia, Bridgeport, Connecticut, Lowell and North Billerica, Ma.s.sachusetts 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 leaders.h.i.+p 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 ma.s.s 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 a.s.surance 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.