We remind our young people from time to time that conventions established in sophisticated society have usually a sound basis in social experience, and the cultivation of the minor morals of good manners develops consideration for others.
We interpret the “coming-out” party as a glorification of youth. When the members of the young women’s clubs reach the age of eighteen, the annual ball of the settlement, its most popular social function, is made the occasion of their formal introduction and promotion to the senior group. As Head Resident I am their hostess, and in giving the invitations I make much of the fact that they have reached young womanhood, with the added privileges, dignity, and responsibility that it brings.
Intimate and long-sustained association, not only with the individual, but with the entire family, gives opportunities that would never open up if the acquaintance were casual or the settlement formally institutional. The incidents that follow illustrate this, and I could add many more.
Two girls classified as “near tough” seemed beyond the control of their club leader, who entreated help from the more experienced. On a favorable occasion Bessie was invited to the cozy intimacy of my sitting-room. That she and Eveline, her chum, were conscious of their exaggerated raiment was obvious, for she hastened to say, “I guess it’s on account of my yellow waist. Eveline and me faded away when we saw you at dancing class the other night.” It was easy to follow up her introduction by pointing out that pronounced lack of modesty in dress was one of several signs; that their dancing, their talk, their freedom of manner, all combined to render them conspicuous and to cause their friends anxiety. Bessie listened, observed that she “couldn’t throw the waist away, for it cost five dollars,” but insisted that she was “good on the inside.” An offer to buy the waist and burn it because her dignity was worth more than five dollars was illuminating. “That strikes me as somethin’ grand. I wouldn’t let you do it, but I’ll never wear the waist again.” So far as we know, she has kept her word.
Annie began to show a pronounced taste in dress, and gave unmistakable signs of restlessness. She confided her aspirations toward the stage. The young club leader, with insight and understanding, used the settlement influence to secure the coveted interview with a manager.
Promptly at the appointed hour on Saturday, when the girl’s half-holiday made the engagement possible, Miss B⸺ went to the factory to meet her. In the stream of girls that poured from it Annie, who had dressed for the occasion, was conspicuous. It required some fortitude on the part of her settlement friend to adhere to their original programme, but they rode on the top of a Fifth Avenue stage, ate ice cream at a fashionable resort, and finally met the theatrical authority, who gave most effectively the discouragement needed.
When Sophie’s manner and dress caused comment among her associates, her club leader, who had been waiting for a suitable opportunity, called to see her on Sunday morning, when the girl would be sure to be at home. Sitting on the edge of the bed in the cramped room, they talked the matter over. As for the paint,—many girls thought it wise to use it, for employers did not like to have jaded-looking girls working for them; and as for the finery,—“Lots of uptown swells are wearing earrings.”
Contrasted with the girl’s generosity to her family the cost of the finery was pathetically small. She had spent on an overcoat for her father the whole of the Christmas gratuity given by her employer for a year of good service, and her pay envelope was handed unopened to her mother every week.
Sophie finally comprehended the reason for her friend’s solicitude, and at the end of their talk said she would have done the same for a young sister.
It is often a solace to find eternal youth expressing itself in harmless gayety of attire, which it is possible to construe as evidence of a sense of self-respect and self-importance. It is, at any rate, a more encouraging indication than a sight I remember in the poor quarter of London. I watched the girls at lunch time pour into a famous tea-house from the nearby factories, many of them with buttonless shoes, the tops flapping as they walked; skirts separated from untidy blouses, unkempt hair,—a sight that could nowhere be found among working girls in America.
The settlement’s sympathy with this aspect of youth may not seem eminently practical, but when Mollie took the accumulated pay for many weeks’ overtime, amounting to twenty-five dollars, and “blew it in” on a hat with a marvelous plume, we thought we understood the impulse that might have found more disastrous expression. The hat itself became a white elephant, a source of endless embarrassment, but buying it had been an orgy. This interpretation of Mollie’s extravagance, when presented to the mother, who in her vexation had complained to us, influenced her to refrain from nagging and too often reminding the girl of the many uses to which the money might have been put.
At the hearing of the Factory Investigation Commission in New York during the winter of 1914-15 a witness testified regarding the dreary and incessant economies practiced by low-paid working girls. This stimulated discussion, and an editorial in a morning paper queried where the girls were, pointing out that the working girls of New York presented not only an attractive but often a stylish appearance. I asked a young acquaintance, whose appearance justified the newspaper description, to give me her budget. She had lived on five dollars a week. Her board and laundry cost $4. She purchased stockings from push-cart venders, “seconds” of odd colors but good quality, for ten cents a pair; combinations, “seconds” also, cost 25 cents. She bought boys’ blouses, as they were better and cheaper. These cost 25 cents. Hats (peanut straw) cost 10 cents; tooth-paste 10 cents a month. Having very small and narrow feet, she was able to take advantage of special sales, when she could buy a good pair of shoes for 50 cents. Her coat, bought out of season for $7, was being worn for the third winter. Conditions were exceptional in her case, as she boarded with friends who obviously charged her less than she would otherwise have been compelled to pay; but there was practically nothing left for carfares, for pleasure, or for the many demands made upon even the most meager purse; and few people, in any circumstances, would be able to show such excellent discretion in the expenditure of income.
In the tenements family life is disturbed and often threatened with disintegration by the sheer physical conditions of the home. Where there is no privacy there is inevitable loss of the support and strength that come from the interchange of confidences and assurance of understanding. I felt this anew when I called upon Henrietta on the evening of the day her father died. The tie between father and daughter had been close. When I sought to express the sympathy that even the strong and self-reliant need, so crowded were the little rooms that we were forced to sit together on the tenement-house stairs, amid the coming and going of sympathetic and excited neighbors, and all the passing and repassing of the twenty other families that the house sheltered. It would have been impossible for anyone to offer, in the midst of that curious though not ill-meaning crowd, the solace she so sadly needed.
Emotional experiences cannot be made public without danger of blunting or coarsening the fiber of character. Privacy is needed for intimate talks, even between mother and daughter. The casual nature of the employment of the unskilled has also its bearing upon the family relationship. The name or address of the place of employment of the various members of the family is often not known. “How could I know Louisa was in trouble?” said a simple mother of our neighborhood. “She is a good girl to me. I don’t know where she works. I don’t know her friends.”
And the wide span that stretches between the conventions of one generation and another must also be reckoned with. The clash between them, unhappily familiar to many whose experiences never become known outside the family circle, is likely to be intensified when the Americanized wage-earning son or daughter reverses the relationship of child and parent by becoming the protector and the link between the outside world and the home. The service of the settlement as interpreter seems in this narrower sphere almost as useful as its attempts to bring about understanding between separated sections of society.
One evening an eloquent speaker addressing a senior group dwelt upon the hardships of the older people and the obligations of their children to them. The young women lingered after the speaker had gone, discussing the lecture and applying it to themselves. Though sensitive to the appeal, they were loath to relinquish their right to self-expression. One girl thought her parents demanded an impossible sacrifice by insisting on living in a street to which she was ashamed to bring her associates. The parents refused to leave the quarter where their countrymen dwelt, and although the daughter willingly gave her earnings and paid tribute to her mother’s devotion and housekeeping skill, she said she felt irritated and mortified every time she returned to her home.
Quite naturally it came about in the beginning of our understanding of the young people that we should take some action to protect them from the disastrous consequences of their ignorance; for it is difficult for the mothers to touch upon certain themes of great import. They are not indifferent, but rather helpless, in the face of the modern city’s demands upon motherhood. Rarely do they feel adequate to meet them. Yet they desire that their girls, and the boys too, should be guarded from the dangers that threaten them.
Years ago we invited the school teachers of the neighborhood to a conference on sex problems and offered them speakers and literature. The public has since then become aroused on the subject of sex hygiene, and possibly, in some instances, the pendulum has swung too far; but we are convinced that this obligation to the young cannot be ignored without assuming grave risks. Never have I known an unfavorable reaction when the presentation of this subject has been well considered. It is impossible to give directions as to how it should be done; temperament, development, and environment influence the approach. The girl invariably responds to the glorification of her importance as woman and as future mother, and the theme leads on naturally to the miracle of nature that guards and then creates; and the young men have shown themselves far from indifferent to their future fatherhood. Fathers and mothers should be qualified, and an increasing number are trying to take this duty upon themselves; but where the parents confess their helplessness the duty plainly devolves upon those who have established confidential relations with the members of the family.
At Riverholm.
