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Anthony R. Travis

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ABSTRACT

THE IMPULSE TOWARD THE WELFARE STATE:
CHICAGO 1890-1932

BY

Anthony R. Travis

By analyzing the social progressive coalition which

built and administered a welfare system in Chicago during

the years 1880-1932, this study lays bare the nature of
that system itself. By implication a better understanding

of the modern welfare complex is also gained, because many
of the post 1932 programs merely represent a quantitative

increase or a nationalization of programs previously

developed on the local level.

The dissertation is divided into two main sections.
The first establishes a framework of analysis by which the

Specific social reform programs contained in the second
section can be investigated.

The first chapter analyzes
Chicago's rapid industrialization and urbanization in the

years 1880-1900 which is an unstable situation/injhat/a
growing foreign working class was increasingly forced into

situations where its members were compelled to resort to

Anthony R. Travis

violence in order to prevent their already dreadful living

and working conditions from deteriorating even further.

The unrest of the workers was of concern to a new

upper class made up of the professionals and administrators

who owed their position to their technical skill in oper—

ating the emerging complex economic system. The majority

of this new elite strongly believed that, in order to pro—
tect its privileged position, strict law enforcement and
efforts to improve the character of the workers were neces-
sary. (art the other hand, a small but enlightened and grow-
ing minority of this same elite class became convinced that
the best device for achieving a stable society as well as
satisfyiJn; its humanitarian instincts was one that would
give the workers a stake in the present economic order by

moderating the worst aspects of their life and by insuring

that the best among them would move somewhat up the eco-

nomic and social mobility ladder. This upper—class group

was strengthened in its beliefs and directed to concrete
action by the teaching and example of social reformers who

first clustered around Chicago Commons, Hull House, and

other Chicago settlement houses.

The second chapter analyzes the nature of the
social-proqressive alliance as it developed after 1900.
An intensive investigation of the major contributors to

the various reform organizations confirmed the impression

that they were members of Chicago's upper class. In many

Anthony R. Travis

ways they were similar to Robert H. Wiebe's "New Middle

Class" that emerged in the nation's cities at the turn of

the century. This class comprised those with strong pro-

fessional aspirations in such fields as medicine, law,

economics , business administration, social work, and

architecture. It was a small enlightened minority of this

class which dominated the board of directors and financial

lists of the social reform organizations in Chicago, and

thus was influential in the fashioning of social welfare

programs and in their implementation.

The other half of the social progressive reform
coalition was made up of the full-time upper-middle class

reformers who staffed the administrative positions in the

various welfare organizations. Their career patterns

that included birth to middle-class parents in the rural
small town or a suburb to a major city, a Protestant
religious upbringing, a university education, and migration

to Chicago where they put their talents to work in the

cause of social reform. These elite decision-makers made

up a small tightly knit group which was united by a deep

trust and respect for each other. 'Not only did they think

creatively about the social economic maladjustments of a

mass industrial society, but they widely published their

view. They were all highly articulate, most of them hav—

ing had some college education with a majority possessing

at least a bachelor's degree. Finally, women played a

I1

in

.—~

 

 

 

Anthony R. Travis

role that was disproportionate to their activity in other
endeavors -

This progressive alliance of corporate business-
men, professionals, and social reformers acting not in
response to an upwelling of popular demand but out of a
desire to create a society that was congenial to its

interests and ideals, effected a wide variety of social

reforms in the years 1900 to 1932.

The remaining seven chapters deal with the specific

reforms, including housing reform, the Chicago School of

Civics and Philanthr0py: the juvenile court, mothers'

pensions, child and woman labor laws, and unemployment

relief, that were espoused by the progressives. These

chapters reveal the fact that the aim of the reformers was

not only humanitarian amelioration but also social control

of the working class.

The principle primary sources used in the study
were the papers of the major decision-making elite of the
social progressive reform coalition such as Julius Rosen-
wald, Victor Elting, Jane Addams, Graham Taylor, and

Sophonisba Breckinridge as well as the manuscript records

of the various reform organizations. Especially helpful

was Survey magazine with its vivid descriptions of social

reform activities in Chicago.

irHE IMPULSE TOWARD THE WELFARE STATE:

CHICAGO 1890-1932

BY

Anthony R.\Travis

A THESIS

Submitted to
Michigan State University
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
Department of History

1971

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page
PREFACE. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . iv
Chapter
I. CHICAGO 1890-1900, THE BIRTH OF NEW A
SOCIETY O O O O O O O O O O O O 1
II. "WHAT ARE WE GOING TO CALL OURSELVES
TODAY?" 0 O O O O O O I O O O O 47
III. HOUSING REGULATION IS NOT ENOUGH . . . . 84
IV. THE DEVELOPMENT. OF THE PROFESSION OF
SOCIAL ENGINEERING. . . . . . . . . 115
V. JUVENILE DELINQUENCY: A MIDDLE-CLASS
INVENTION? 0 I I O O O O O O I O 165
VI. MOTHERS' PENSIONS AS CHARITY AND SOCIAL
CONTROL . . . . . . . . . . . . 207
VII. CHILDREN AS SOCIAL CAPITAL . . . . . . 249
VIII. FEWER HOURS FOR LESS PAY. . . . . . . 292
Ix. UNEMPLOYMENT: A PLAGUE . . . . . . . 319
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY . . . . . . . . . . 365

ii

PREFACE

The study of progressive reform in the United

States has recently been invigorated by the development

of a new framework of analysis. Historians had been

severely confined by the older or liberal point of refer-
ence within which progressivism was perceived as a con-

flict between the business community and so-called tribunes

of the "people," who were political leaders representing

the interests of the farmers, workers, and small business-

men. In its View, these leaders acted in behalf of the

public interest to impose controls on the business com—

munity who fought such efforts out of greedy self-

interest. It pictured the reformers'

efforts to ameliorate

the worst working conditions Opposed by almost every

businessman. It analyzed the role of the parties, court

decisions, and legislation within this context. Finally,
because the liberal historian puts Special emphasis on the
rhetoric of the various progressive reform leaders, his

synthesis of the era were usually ones in which the

political structure was pictured as highly moralistic

and rationalistic .

iii

In order to escape the narrow boundaries of this

framework, Samuel P. Hays has suggested a new method of

historical-social analysis. Historians should refocus

their work on the "structure and processes of human

relationships." Society should be seen as a "network of

human contacts in which there are uniform and persistent

patterns , " the most important aspects of which are "their

structures and the processes by which they change over

time . “

(Ine such structure is the twentieth century Ameri-
can welfare system by which public and private groups
have supported in a variety of ways the economic casual-

ties of the free market economy. The nature of this

system is exposed in a study of the progressive coalition

that built and administered it.

There is a growing mass of evidence that a new

upper-middle class business and professional class, which

emerged as a result of the turn of the century industriali—

zation and urbanization, was responsible for political
proqressivism such as municipal reform and government

regulation of business practices. This group of reformers

was not responding to an upwelling of pOpular demands, but
was motivated by its own particular needs of the moment

in the face of an indifferent or even hostile public.

Thus, the role of the business community in reform,becomes

more ambiguous than in the liberal framework. As Robert

iv

 

 

Wiebe has pointed out, some elements of the corporate
business elite supported a particular reform when it was

to their benefit to do so, and Opposed it when it was not
in their economic and political interest.
III) light of this evidence and in the spirit of

Hayes' " social analysis of American History," this study

tested the hypothesis that it was also a coalition of
enlightened corporate executives, professionals, and
social engineers that were at the heart of the social
progressive movement to build and administer a public and

private welfare system in Chicago during the years 1880

to 1932. Although Roy Lubove (The Progressives and the

Slums, 1962), Irwin Yellowitz (Labor and the Progressive

Movement in New York State,

1897-1916, 1965), Jeremy P.

Felt (Hostages of Fortune: Child Labor Reform

in New York
State, 1965), and Roy Lubove (Twentieth-CenturyPittsburgff'
Government, Business, and Environmental Change, 1969) have
confirmed this thesis in certain areas of social reform,

this study has attempted to look at the reform movement

as a whole in Chicago from 1880-1932 in all of its varied

aspects. The validation of the hypothesis by this method

lends further weight to its essential accuracy and gives

it a broader spectrum of applicability.

In the research and writing of this dissertation,
I am deeply grateful for all the constructive criticism

and thoughtful advice that Professor Madison Kuhn has

given me - I would also like to thank Professor James
Soltow, in whose seminar I first became interested in the
topic, and Professor Donald Lammers for their helpful

suggestions .

Anthony Raymond Travis

East Lansing, Michigan
August 23, 1971

vi

CHAPTER I

CHICAGO 1890-1900, THE BIRTH

OF NEW SOCIETY

In Chicago during the years 1890 to l932.a coalition
of social engineer experts and farsighted elements among
the city's upper class corporate executive and professional
elite fashioégg a welfare system designed to ameliorate
the social-economic maladjustments of the newly emerging
industrial society. Its major focus of concern was the
cruel plight of the immigrant working class caught in the
rigors of a free market economy. The social progressive
reform alliance was drawn to this problem not only by
genuine humanitarian concern, but also by a keen desire to
see an efficiently operating social-economic system free
from working class unrest. Ultimately, its progressive
social welfare institutions, public and private, proved to
be major social control devices by which the upper class was
able to maintain its wealth, power, and humanitarian self-
respect, while at the same time gaining the willing

acceptance of the working class to its subordinate role

in society.

 

 

In order to understand the function of the welfare
system, it is necessary to trace its birth in the context
of the rapid urbanization, immigration, and industriali-
zation that was creating a new, complex, and unstable
society in Chicago.

In the period 1870 to 1910 Chicago was undergoing
tremendous socio-economic change. It was in the process

5

_Q£/being\tfénsformed from a center of western commerce in
grains, lumber, livestock, and meat packing to one of the
most important manufacturing, merchandising, banking,
finance, and p0pulation centers not only in the Midwest,
but in the country. By 1880 only New York and Philadelphia
surpassed it as a manufacturing point in terms of value
added by manufacture: by 1900 even Philadelphia had
dropped behind.1 Chicago's spectacular development was
measured in the increase in value-added-by-manufacture

from $70 million in 1880 to $270 million twenty years
later. Its industrial growth rate was almost 500 per cent
in a time when Philadelphia's was only 230 per cent. More
importantly for comparison purposes in 1880 the value added
by manufacture in Chicago was 38 per cent of New York's
but in 1890 it became 48 per cent and by 1900 rose to

62 per cent.2 So swift a rate of industrial expansion,

to second place among American cities, caused severe

cultural and economic dislocations.

 

Samuel Hays in his book, The Response to Indus-

 

trialism, has capably portrayed such manifestations not
only in Chicago but other growing urban centers. The
American by 1914 had suffered a severe cultural shock as
his old small community way of life began to give ground
under the impact of a "new factory-machine method of pro-
duction, with its specialized tasks, its large aggre-
gations of capital, and its advancing technology."
Anxious to achieve economic and social mobility, millions
of people, not only from Europe but also from rural
America, poured into the metrOpolitan centers that
formed the focus of the new economic order. Once there,
they were forced to make drastic changes in their work,
play, and even thought. In short, they had to cope with
a new impersonal economic environment, not always suc-
cessfully.

Chicago in this period was not only experiencing
a manufacturing boom but also a merchandising one, as it
reached out to serve half of the Middle West. As early
as 1875 the total sales of its dry goods' wholesalers
were $293 million making it the second only to New York
City. "Those engaged in the dry goods business," Pro-
fessor Bessie Louise Pierce has written, "were enjoying
a growing market, competing successfully with eastern
wholesalers not only because of proximity to the customer,
but often because of lower prices and easier terms of

credit."3

 

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It was during this period that such firms as
Field, Leiter & Co.; Carson, Pirie & Co.; and Mandel
Brothers established Chicago as the center of the dry
goods wholesale market for the West. The prime model
was Marshall Field who, building on the rich inheritance
of his partner, Potter Palmer, increased his wholesale
and retail sales two and one half times, from $17 million
in 1872 to $46 million in 1900, under the firm name of
Marshall Field and Co.4 In that same period net profits
trebled from almost $870 million to $2 1/2 billion in
1900. The other retailers and wholesalers increased
their business volume proportionately, making Chicago
a major merchandising center for the Midwest.5

Chicago's rapid economic growth created a large
new elite of high salaried lawyers, business executives,
architects, bankers, and stock brokers, mostly men who
had carried with them the self-help philOSOphy from the
middle class out of which they had risen. These men pre-
sided over the emerging corporations which were the organi-
zational structures in the manufacturing and merchandising
sectors of the Chicago economy, as well as of banking and
finance.6

Gaining more people in these years than any other
city, Chicago promised jobs and homes that it could not
always supply. The increasing opportunities drew people

not only from EurOpe, but also from the rural parts of the

United States. There was a flood of people into Chicago
looking for a better life. Between the years 1890 and
1900 Illinois had a 26 per cent increase in pOpulation,
while the national average was 20.7 per cent.7 More
significantly in that same period the rate of net
migration per 1,000 average population was 92 for
Illinois and only 42 for the United States as a whole.8
Most of this Illinois migration stopped in Chicago, making
it the second largest city in the nation by 1900 with a
population of over 1 1/2 million. This figure represents
a 150 per cent increase in population over 1880.9
Although its native stock grew rapidly and the
city attracted some old American elements, its greatest
growth came from recent European immigrants who were
employed in the meat packing industry and the expanding
mass manufacturing industries. In the period 1890-1900
the rates of net migration of foreign born whites per
1,000 average population show that Illinois and Chicago
had a significantly higher rate of foreign migration than
the national average.10 In Chicago the native white
of mixed or foreign parentage, foreign born, and Negro
made up 80 per cent of the city population by 1900, or

11

about 1,360,000 in absolute numbers. By 1900 the

arriving immigrants were predominantly Italian, Russian

12

Jewish, Polish, and Balkan. The number of wage earners

accordingly increased by 72 per cent during the period

1890 to 1900.13

By 1890 manufacturing and mechanical

work employed nearly half the labor force, giving evidence
not only that Chicago's economy was well on the way to
maturity, but also that much of this labor immigration

was being used in unskilled and semi-skilled jobs in the
expanding factory system.14

With the growth of the factory system in Chicago
there was the necessary growth of specialization. Complex
operations were broken down into easily learned components,
thus making it possible for employers to hire unskilled
persons, including women and children. In meat packing,
for example, a de-assembly line was set up. Each man
remained stationary while the carcasses passed hanging
from an overhead track. He made only one cut as the meat
passed by him.

On the other side of the coin, women and children
were forced to enter the labor market because the male
head of the household often could not earn enough to
support a family. Between 1880 and 1910 the number of
women holding jobs in manufacturing in Chicago increased
from 12,000 to 57,000. In that same period the number of
children remained at a relatively stable level, about
4,000. Chicago reformers believed that the reported
figure was low because it was difficult for the census

takers to get an adequate sample from businessmen who

did not wish to admit that they were employing children.

In addition, they also discovered that the vast bulk of
children worked outside of the manufacturing classifi-
cation.15

Another result of specialization in manufacturing,
with its recurring business cycles, was the oppressive
insecurity of the laborers whose only source of income
were their wages. Although real wages generally sloped
upward in manufacturing during the period 1880 to 1914,
the rise was marked by short but sharp declines that were
particularly severe for the unskilled and semi-skilled
hourly wage earner. Laborers in such situations were
presented with the grim choice of either toiling harder
and longer, if they were lucky enough to have employment,
or facing the loss of the modest social gains made pre-
viously.16

Even when real wages were rising, many workers
were not able to maintain a minimum standard of living
which can be defined as a "basket of goods thought to
constitute the material and psychological requisites of
some Specified level of welfare." Usually this basket
of goods was priced in a money sum and could be used to
separate the population into two classes, those above and
those below the specified welfare level.17

Perhaps one of the earliest statements in the

United States of a fair standard of living was formulated

by Father John A. Ryan in his book, A Living Wage (1906).

 

He estimated that to maintain a family of moderate size
in health and self-respect would require an income of
about $600 a year. This figure was confirmed by other
social workers such as Louise Bolard More and Robert Coit
Chapin. John A. Ryan asserted, in addition, that 60 per
cent of the adult male wage earners received less than
$600 annually. Although his figures were based on some
crude statistics by modern norms, most other economists
of the period who conducted independent investigations
discovered that on the average a worker's annual wage
was about $550 with a skilled worker making at the maxi-
mum $700 annually.l8 Thus, at least half of the workers
did not earn what was then defined as a minimum decency
standard of living or a just wage as it was more commonly
called in the early 1900's.

Eugene Smolensky in 1963 produced a comparative
study of poverty levels in the United States between 1903
and 1959. He collated New York City Budgets reflecting
Minimum Comfort per capita standards as contemporaries
defined them, and Gross National Product per capita
figures. In order to make the comparison meaningful,
he converted all monetary figures into 1959 dollars.
In 1903-1905 the figure for Minimum Comfort per capita
was $555 while the G.N.P. per capita was $1,096. In 1959
the figures were 1,082 and 2,721 respectively. In effect,

this means that the M.C. budget per capita had remained

at about one half of the G.N.P. per capita at a time when
the G.N.P. had more than doubled. Thus, to be defined as
poverty stricken in 1903-1905 meant that a person's
standard of living would have to be about one half of

what it would have to be today.19

Even taking into con-
sideration the fact that an automobile is included in the
basket today, the workers at the turn of the century must
have been forced by their low wages to live a life that
would seem to a modern observer to be unlivable.

In times of depression the situation became

almost intolerable. In his study of The Depression of

 

the Nineties, Charles Hoffman estimated that the national

 

unemployment in the winter of 1893-1894 ranged from 15 to
20 per cent of the total work force; and in 1896-1897,
another trough in the level of unemployment, "the rate

hovered around 15%."20

In Chicago more than 100,000, a
figure which represented perhaps 20-25 per cent of the
work force, were reportedly out of work during the winter
of 1893-1894, including thousands attracted to the city
by the promise of work on the World's Fair which had
opened in May, 1893, but failed to generate anything
beyond very short-term employment.21 These jobless men
along with those from Chicago's depressed manufacturing

industries, overflowed the corridors of the city hall

looking for food and shelter. In order to make sure that

10

no more men would come to the city looking for a means of
livelihood, police guarded the railroad stations.22

The men who found themselves without a job in
such a depression were lucky to survive. In each new
depression a smaller proportion of the unemployed could
return to the subsistence living of farm relatives. As
a result, there was little conception of an emergency
social welfare system that could absorb the shocks of a
downturn in the business cycle. Even though the 1890's
saw the beginnings of organized relief, it could not
serve the flood of the temporarily unemployed.

Although the unemployed and the underpaid remained
peaceful, searching for work, borrowing, and begging from
friends, relatives, and churches, there was a growing
current of violence. According to a statistical study
by Sheldon G. Levy, the period 1879-1908 was the most

23

violent in the United States up to that time. In the

words of this study based on weighted (for population and
the growth of newspaper reporting) frequencies of deaths
among attackers and targets for both individuals and groups
in politically violent situations:

The pre-and post-Civil War periods appear to have
been quite violent ones. However, the judgment of
the pre-Civil War period is greatly influenced by a
single reported event in the sample in which an
estimated 300 deaths occurred. Were it not for this
event, the post-Civil war period would be the pre-
dominantly violent one. This judgment is consistent
with historical analyses, such as those by Brown and
by Taft and Ross in this volume, that have examined
the post-Reconstruction period and the early labor
violence.

 

 

11

The largest single weighted reason for politically
violent events over time (1879-1908) was protests
based on group antagonism, especially labor violence.24
In Chicago such violence mainly took the form of
strike-related action. Z. E. Jeffrey, in his tabulations
from the Chicago Press, found no year in the 1870's com-
pletely free of labor strikes and attending violence. The
climax came with the railroad strike of 1877, toward the
end of America's widest depression to that time.25 Begin-
rung Monday night, July 23, and continuing into Thursday
rught, there were frequent clashes between the police and
large groups of working-class people who were trying to
enforce a city-wide sympathy strike not only in support
of the railroad workers, but also for a universal eight-
kmur day. At first these working people were successful

when business as usual came to a halt.26

On Tuesday,
July 24, a working-class assemblage methodically over-
turned railroad equipment at the Illinois Central, Balti-
more & Ohio, and Michigan Southern freight yards. Other
young workers forced the closure of the stockyards and
most businesses along Desplaines and Canal Streets.27 On
Wednesday the strike spread to mills and shops not only
on Canal Street but in the industrial districts on the
north and west sides, where workers joined the strike
either by persuasion or by violence. In fact most normal

business activity again came to a stand-still in the city.28

 
 

 

 

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That afternoon rioting and looting broke out as
police tried to break the strike action by the laborers.
This situation along with numerous police-workingmen
clashes continued Wednesday night and the next day. On
Thursday at the stockyards and the gasworks, employees
forced the company officials to sign papers promising to
raise wages to $2 a day for the next eighteen months. The
officials cheerfully signed, understanding that the pledges
could not be enforced in court once order was restored.
With special police and Illinois National Guardsmen pouring
into the city on Thursday, the organized violence seemed
to burn itself out by nightfall. On Friday things began
to return to an uneasy "normal."29

As bad as this violence was, "rumor magnified
every fray into a bloody slaughter." Throughout the city,
middle-class people, unnerved by fear and tension, believed
that gatling guns and sprays of canister shot had claimed
thousands in dead and wounded, and that Halsted and Six—
teenth Streets had become rivers of blood. Actually only
thirteen men were killed and only ninety-seven, including
fifty police, were injured.30

This turmoil, which grew out of the social-economic
maladjustments of the newly emerging industrial society at
a time when depression conditions forced wage cuts, was

very unsettling to the executive and professional elite

in the city. Their most immediate reaction seemed to be

I- may I

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13

to buy weapons, as gun stores did a brisk business.31

Once the violence ended, however, most business opinion
coalesced around the idea that strikes cause violence and,
therefore, must be prevented by the use of force personi-

fied by a larger police force and a much enlarged regular

army and state militia.32 Marshall Field, for example,

urged that a large mobile regular army be created and be

kept ready to move anywhere in the city to put down any

33

threat to the established order. This sentiment was not

limited to the city of Chicago as every state in the Union

between 1881 and 1892 revised its military code to estab-

34

lish or strengthen its organized militia. "The stimuli

to the formation of the various National Guard units were

the labor riots of 1877 as well as a more generalized fear

"35

of anarchists, nihilists and internationalists. An

Illinois colonel in the National Guard told the National
Guard Association Convention in 1881:

We have a battalion of five companies of cavalry, all
located in the City of Chicago. It grew out of our
riots of 1877, previous to which we had no cavalry in
the state. During the riots it was found necessary
to have cavalry, and we hastily organized a battalion
of cavalry service during the war. Our cavalry was
not equipped by the state. It belongs to the National
Guard, but was equipped and uniformed completely by
the Citizens' Association of the City of Chicago.
This association is composed of businessmen who look
after the best interests of our city.36

According to Martha Dorthick's study on the
National Guard, "officers of the Guard in all the states
appear to have been business and professional men, repre-

37

sentatives of the 'better classes.'" Thus, in large

 

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l4

measure the stimulus for the strengthening of the organized
state militia came from businessmen and professionals who
feared lower class violence.

This fear and the resulting inflexible attitude
on the part of businessmen of "force must be met with
force" was further strengthened when in 1886 an incident
that became known as the Haymarket Riot shook the middle
and upper-middle classes in Chicago. During a labor rally
to protest the death of workers in a McCormick company
strike for the eight-hour day, a bomb was thrown that
resulted in the death of a number of policemen and the
arrest, trial, and execution or imprisonment of a group
of anarchists for having advocated "propaganda by the
deed,” not for manufacturing or throwing the bomb.38

Although the majority of the people who came to
the labor rally belonged to the tOp level of the working
class, practicing the most skilled crafts, and probably
not parties to the bombing, the middle class of Chicago
responded hysterically. Fed by fear, vengeance, and a
feeling of bewilderment, they thought "'the immigrant
anarchists' were spilling out of the slums to kill the
police, in order to destroy the security of the middle
class." Such a fear was most likely shared by the upper-

class administrative elite. The Chicago Tribune, report-

 

ing on a saloon closing by police days after the Haymarket

Riot, described it as:

 

 

 

15

. . . the headquarters of the foreign-speaking popu-
lation, which flaunts and marches under the red flag,
and heretofore they were the centers of a great throng
of men who did little but drink beer and attend the
meetings in the halls above.

As late as May 7th the Tribune was announcing that middle-
class citizens continued to fear the eruption of further
violence in the working-class districts that would spill
out into the better neighborhoods.39
This fear reverberated through the newspapers in
headlines such as "Arming For War," and "Dying Police
Officers," and "Ten Thousand Rioters Attack Rosenfeld
Drug Store and Completely Gut It," and "The Meeting On
The 'Black Road' Leads to Riot of Serious Proportions,"

40

and finally "Anarchy's Red Head." The Dailnyews on

 

May 5/6 put out extras at 9:15 P.M., 11:00 P.M., 4:30 A.M.,
12:00 A.M., 1:00 P.M., 3:00 P.M., 5:00 P.M., 6:00 P.M.,
9:45 P.M. with such scare headlines.41 It is no wonder,
then, that the middle-class community feared that "lawless
marauders would again erupt out of the proletarian sector
of the city and terrorize people." It was the time of
a "reign of terror."42
In response to this violence the upper-middle class
again called for repression in the name of law and order,
and the next state legislative session passed the Merritt
Conspiracy Bill making any person, who conspired to perform

an act of force or violence that might endanger human life

or property, guilty even if he was not a party to the

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actual deed.43

In addition, anyone who had written or

spoken in such a way as possibly to incite others to an

unlawful act was declared guilty of that act even if it

could not be proven that the person who had committed the

actual deed had read or heard the statement. There was

no need to prove that the people actually had come together

to conspire if it could be proven that their act knowingly

advanced the illegal result.44 Further, the legislature

made any city or county where rioting destroyed property

responsible for three-fourths of the cost to individuals,

and it gave to the police even more latitude in the use of

means to suppress mass disorders.45
Anxiety was once again heightened in the depression

of 1893 with the Pullman Strike which began on Friday,

May 11, 1894, in protest against reductions in wages at

the sleeping car factory. The first day of the strike

was peaceful with the young workers playing baseball or

lawn tennis as if they were on a holiday for most of them

believed that the stoppage would be of short duration.

As the strike dragged on through the summer, it turned

into a bitter strike punctuated by violence. The scope

of the work stoppage widened when the National American

Railway Union joined in a sympathy boycott of all trains

with Pulean cars. President Grover Cleveland, Democrat,

decided to break the boycott on the grounds that it was

interfering with the mail. He accomplished his goal by

 

17

sending in troops to insure the movement of the trains
and by putting the leader of the boycott, Eugene Debs,
in jail for failure to comply with a court injunction to
end the strike.46

In the wake of the Pullman turbulence, Cleveland
appointed a three-man commission to investigate the cir-
cumstances surrounding the strike.47 It concluded that
the "cause" was the large concentrations of capital and
labor which, although not in themselves evil, encouraged
wasteful industrial warfare. Such conflict could be
avoided, it suggested, if capital would recognize the
right of men to form unions that would negotiate for
them. Grover Cleveland neglected the report, and ignored
its suggestions.48

Most Chicago businessmen refused to accept labor
unions because the militia and the courts could be trusted
to smash any strike picket line. Only a minority of
businessmen recognized that if some of the workers'
physical needs, including housing, were met there would
be less support for unions and less need to use force
against disgruntled employees.

One of the first experiments along such lines had
been George M. Pullman's model town where the 1894 strike
began. Basic to its construction was the hOpe that a

rationally planned community, created along business

lines of order and efficiency, would provide the workers

 

 

 

 

18

with decent housing and provide the Pullman sleeping-car
company with disciplined and loyal employees. In pros-
perity it flourished, although its paternalism was oppres-
sive and it was unable to solve the existing social prob-
lems of the workers. In the depression of 1893 it
actually contributed to a new dangerous unrest. While
the company reduced wages and layed off men, it made no
reduction in the rents that took so large a share of the
workers' incomes. Perhaps too hastily many contemporaries
concluded that the Pullman model town experiment was a
failure in that it had ended in a bitter strike of the
workers. They agreed that such a direct paternalistically
planned community should never be attempted again.49

Despite that failure, some progressive elements
among the business elite continued to search for alterna-
tives that would achieve the ideal of industrial efficiency
through a contented work force. These businessmen, although
they accepted George Pullman's conviction that the interests
of business and the larger community were identical, decided
that they should work through the social and political
agencies and organizations of the city to achieve their
goals rather than solely through the corporation.50

Such a social organization was the Chicago Civic
Federation. With the uncertainties generated by the
depression of 1893 with its high rate of unemployment,

which in turn produced thousands of vagrants, and with the

 

19

rising level of violence in Chicago an increasing number
of businessmen began to recognize the necessity of
ameliorating the conditions of the immigrant worker. As

an organization of the "best citizens who formed the public

conscience of Chicago," the Civic Federation filled that

need.51

The visible impulse for action occurred at a
meeting called by a group of concerned businessmen and
attended by a large number of wealthy people in the Central
Music Hall on Sunday, November 12, 1893.52 The spark that
ignited the fire was an emotional speech, "If Christ Came
to Chicago," by an Englishman, Gha;;es Stegd, on the prob-
lems of the poor.53 He suggested the need for an organi-
zation which, by extra-legal processes, would help carry
on the city's work of protecting those unemployed men
threatened with death from eXposure and starvation. Such
an organization could mobilize the new civic consciousness
that had been manifested in the organization and con-
struction of the Wbrld's Fair in 1893.54 Out of this
meeting the Chicago Civic Federation, embodying the
paternalistic philosophy of the upper-class executive
and professional elite,was organized by a small group of
businessmen led by Lyman Gage, a successful Chicago banker.
Many businessmen for the first time discovered within the

association that "social peace depends upon maintaining

something more like a balance between prosperity and

 

20

poverty." As one of them warned, "society must pick up
its own chips or the chips will clog the wheels."55
The Federation demonstrated through its wide range
of activities the manner in which "one part of civic
amelioration is inextricably bound up with the remainder

of corporate interests."56

Its activities included cam-
paigns not only for a more business-like local government,
but also for pure air and water, better street lights,
cleaner sanitation facilities, and security against con-
tamination and adulteration of food and drink, especially
milk. In addition, it worked for better schools and more
recreational and cultural facilities. Finally, and per-
haps most importantly, the Federation led a campaign for
business-like administration of private charities.57
In order to achieve this latter objective, the
Civic Federation launched a philanthropic committee with
Mrs. Potter Palmer, wife of one of the wealthiest mer-
chants and land speculators in Chicago, as chairman to
oversee the work of The Relief and Aid Society, which
had been founded after the 1871 Chicago Fire to dispense
aidole to the needy.58 Federation members thought that
it.was attracting the indolent and unworthy to Chicago
by its posting of notices in the city's newspapers, at
the onset of the depression, announcing its policy of

giving free food and lodging to all those who asked.

There were no checks on indiscriminate giving, and no

 

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attempt to coordinate the efforts of the other welfare
agencies in Chicago. In addition, the office was only
Open for two hours a day and closed most of the summer.
The Federation thought that it did too little to alleviate
the distress of unemployment, what it did do, it did
badly. 59
The philanthropy committee, whose members included
Charles Henderson, Graham Taylor, and Julia Lathrop,
quickly recognized that there was a need for a permanent
organization to assist the city's deserving unemployed
because private relief was uncoordinated and public relief
was not sufficient to ease the widespread suffering during
the winter of 1893. Applicants to the single public relief
office in the city ranged between 1,000 to 1,200 daily.
Once there, they must wait in a long line for hours in
the/biting cold. One day a man died from exposure while
a woman was crushed to death. Even when a person got
into the office, the year's appropriation of $125,000 was
not enough to assure him of any relief. Not only was The
Relief and Aid Society undermining the morale of the work-
ing class by its practices of hit or miss relief, but the
unemployed were beginning to engage in demonstrations in
the city's parks. The largest of these meetings was
addressed by Henry George and Samuel Gompers and attracted
over 10,000 people. Some of them resulted in clashes with

the police.60

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To meet this situation the philanthropy committee
led by Graham Taylor, Julia Lathrop, and Professor Hender-
son as well as Mrs. Potter Palmer, launched the Central
Relief Association on December 14, 1893, to raise money
and to coordinate the activities of existing private
agencies. In its first six months, the Association
received $135,268 in cash contributions, Spending $81,443
on work relief. In order to qualify for this relief, a
man must be the head of a family, pass a means test, and
be willing to work.61

The ideal of scientific charity was illustrated by
the Central Relief Association whose board members were
made up of businessmen such as Richard T. Crane of the
Crane Manufacturing Company and social reformers such as
Jane Addams in its operating procedures for a model relief
kitchen. At this relief station food was given only to
those who agreed to work on the city streets. In addition,
each one of the applicants was investigated by an agent
of the association. All of his friends, relatives, and
neighbors were closely questioned to see if the family
was truly destitute and, if so, whether or not his char-
acter warranted a work relief grant. Such an experience
must have been humiliating to the hapless men thrown out
of work through no fault of their own and forced to seek

aid to keep their families together.62

23

Out of this program of the Central Relief Agency
grew the Chicago Bureau of Charities in 1898. Among the
prime movers behind the organization were the successful
corporation lawyer,Charles L. Allen; physician and pro-
fessor of medicine at the Rush Medical School, Henry B.
Favill; wealthy merchant and director of Armour and
Company, Arthur Meeker; as well as banker and lawyer,
Leverett Thompson. Because the emergency of depression
unemployment was largely over, the new organization no
longer gave money directly to the poor or to other agen-
cies. Instead, it became a coordinating committee whose
main task was to preserve the records of applicants and
to strengthen the cooperation between the various societies
engaged in charitable work. It did this largely by main-
taining a registration bureau where each welfare agency
in the city listed the background of its clients. This
procedure made it less likely that there would be a dupli—
cation of services. In addition, the Bureau remained a
central referral agency to which a businessman might refer
an applicant who was, in turn, sent to an appropriate
charitable organization. This function was explained by
an open letter to its supporters dated January, 1899:

The result of a general understanding of this better
way will render house to house and street begging
unproductive employments, and while the really des-
titute and helpless of our city will be cared for and
helped, the tramps and criminals will find this city
less attractive as a winter resort. As our business
and professional men become acquainted with the aims

and purposes of this bureau, it will have generous
financial support.53

24

As time went on, the Chicago Civic Federation
became less important as a social mediator as it turned
its energies to the securing of business-like municipal
government in order to lower taxes. But in its early
days before the turn of the century, it provided the
essential support for much of the social reform legis-
lation that was proposed in the Illinois General Assembly
and in the City Council. Perhaps even a more important
function of the Federation was that it provided business-
men with their first organized attempt at social amelior-
ation and non-violent social control. Enlightened business-
men hoped to bring the classes together in a mutual recog-
nition of their roles in society.

One such businessman was Lyman Gage, president of
the Chicago Civic Federation and of the First National
Bank of Chicago.64 In a speech referring to the Haymarket
Riot of 1886 and later violence, he stated that "it was
evident that the social fabric was being torn by mutual
mis-understanding; this might be stopped or at least miti-
gated by a better comprehension of the ideas and motives
which activate men in their relations to each other in

65 The Civic Federation fulfilled that

the society."
function on terms acceptable to the business and pro-
fessional elite of the city.

Perhaps one of the most important achievements of

the Bureau, and in a larger sense of the Chicago Civic

25

Federation, was the close collaboration between business-
men and the middle—class social reformers who were begin-
ning to cluster around the new settlement houses located
in the working-class districts. Some businessmen saw in
the settlement house leaders a means for the study of
Chicago's social problems. The settlement movement had
grown out of the early humanitarian reaction by middle-
class reformers to the worst social maladjustment of the
turn of the century urban—industrial society. Jane Addams
and Ellen Starr, for example, early in 1889 founded Hull-
House, the model for later settlement houses. Located
in the heart of an immigrant working-class district on
South Halsted Street a mile west and three-fourths of a
mile south of the city's center, its original structure
is now an island on the University of Illinois Chicago
Circle Campus. Designed on the theory "that the dependence
of classes on each other is a reciprocal relation," the
settlement was to show the lower class that the upper
class cared about their problems and at the same time
bring the poor's sorry condition to the attention of the
wealthy. This function was to be performed by middle-
class men and women who would live in the immigrant dis-
tricts in a house that served as a center of their activi-
ties.66
Jane Addams saw four subjective and objective

reasons for the existence of settlement houses. The

26

subjective reasons for a middle—class man or woman to
choose living in a social settlement were: desire to
make the entire social organism more democratic; the
”impulse to share the race life, bringing as much as
possible of social energy, and the accumulation of civili-
zation to those portions of the race which have little";
and, finally, a wish to accomplish a "renascence of
Christianity," particularly of its humanitarian aspects.67
The objective value of the social settlement
rested in its ability to articulate the needs of the
immigrants to the public authorities and, when necessary,
to formulate private programs to meet the community's
needs on an interim basis until the public authorities

68 To that end such Hull House residents in the

acted.
late 1890's as Florence Kelly, Julia Lathrop, and Ellen
Gates Starr conducted a number of studies on nationality
characteristics, wage levels, the sweating system, wage-
earning children, and art for the laborers.69
It was through these studies, as well as by living
in the working-class districts, that many early middle-
class reformers began to understand some of the effects
of the industrial system on the laboring class. Mary E.
McDowell, the founder of the University of Chicago Settle-
ment, was an "immigrant" from Evanston, Illinois, who

landed in the stockyards district on September 17, 1894.

After moving into a small house with a co-worker, she began

27

to comprehend through direct experience the industrial and
social life of her working-class neighbors. What she saw
was shocking to a woman of her high social standing.
Families sent sons and daughters of eleven and twelve

to the meat packing companies to add to the home income.
Housing conditions were deplorable, contributing to a
high infant mortality rate as well as high rate of disease
among all elements of the population. The streets were
dirty, but still provided the only play areas for young

70 To these early pioneers the settlements

children.
such as the University of Chicago and Hull House were
"a center for a higher civic and social life." They
were also a hub from which "to initiate and maintain
educational and philanthropic enterprises," as well as
”to investigate and improve the conditions in the indus-
trial districts of Chicago."71
Thus, the settlement houses provided an institu-

tional framework within which those concerned with the
amelioration of social conditions, including those who
were not independently wealthy, could learn about the
needs of the working class, and pursue "efficient" pro-
grams that would ease the suffering. Graham Taylor in a
letter to Mr. J. J. Scott, a lawyer for Mrs. Cyrus
McCormick, wrote:

The settlements are not only important in interpret-

ing America to our great immigrant population and the

newly arrived immigrants to our citizens, but in
affording facilities for training both paid and

28

volunteer work for more efficient civic and social
work in the service of the state and the community.
Efficiency is as much required in those who are
helping peOple help themselves, as for the success
of our industrial . . . training.
As the social welfare system grew, different organizations
sprang up that filled the various early functions of the
settlement house. It was, nevertheless, one of the first,
and most durable of the institutions making up the welfare
system.

Almost from the beginning, businessmen became
interested in the work of the settlement houses not only
because of their humanitarian concern with the plight of
the working class, but also because of their desire for
non-violent social control over the immigrants. The extent
of their interest is seen in their heavy contributions to
the settlements' financial upkeep and their positions on
the board of trustees. Participation in the movement
brought them even more deeply within the teaching circle
of Jane Addams and her followers.

Thus, very early in the development of the welfare
system there was a wedding between middle-class social
reformers with their plans for ameliorative projects and
businessmen with their financial resources to make those
plans a reality. Both the social workers, the businessmen,
and the professionals, acting out a variety of motives,

worked within the framework defined by each others' goals

and values as well as their vision of a "better" society.

29

Their motivations included humanitarianism, nostalgia for
the simplicities of small town life, guilt, and the fear
that if the harshness of the working men's lot was not
made lighter they might attempt to overturn the entire
system. Their common bond, on the other hand, was the
conviction not only that something should be done, but
that something actually could be done to alleviate the
social maladjustments caused by industrialization, urbani-
zation, and immigration. To the business and professional
contributors, action must take place within a bourgeois
capitalist framework; to most of the reformers there
seemed no other practical means.
An excellent example of an early progressive
social reform measure that was a result of the alliance
of social engineers and enlightened elements of the
upper class was the Sweat Shop Act of 1893.73 An out-
growth of the widespread exposure of the inhuman working
conditions in the garment industry in Chicago, it owed
much to the 1892 investigation of sweat shop conditions by
Mrs. Florence Kelley, an early resident of Hull-House.74
It was sponsored by the Illinois Bureau of Labor Statistics,
which had been set up by the state legislature in the wake
of the labor violence of 1877.75
According to the Kelley report, there were three

organizational structures in the garment industry: inside

shops, outside shops, and cutters' shops. The inside

30

shops were those conducted on a factory basis by the manu-
facturers themselves, while outside shaps were those in
which contractors manufactured garments in shops of their
own, but used materials owned and cut by the manufacturers.
Both the inside shops and the outside shops sent their
garments to be finished by poor immigrants in their tene-
ment apartments. Some manufacturers maintained cutters'
sheps, giving out all their unfinished garments to the
contractors for sewing. Almost all the textile manu-
facturers gave out a substantial number of their unfin-
ished garments.76
Conditions in the inside shops were dreadful
because any demands by the employee for better wages or
working conditions were met immediately by dismissal or
transfer from the factory to the contractors' shops, known
as sweat shops, where conditions were even more foul in
that they were over-crowded, dirty, unheated, and often
lacked the most elementary sanitary provisions. Florence
Kelley found 800 sweat shops in Chicago and believed this
to be a conservative estimate. In these shops almost
13,000 women, men, and children labored for long tedious
hours for pitifully inadequate wages. Because wages were
much lower than those paid in the factories, the garment
trade was able to exploit only those not able to work
elsewhere. This group included high proportions of

women and children.77

31

Even worse than the contractors' shops were the
home shops which consisted usually of a single room that
served as an impoverished immigrant family's work room
and living quarters. The room was usually poorly venti-
lated, small, over-crowded, and located in the basement
or attic. The piece-rate being so low, this was the best
accommodation a family forced into such endeavors could
afford, even after long hours of toil. Many of these home
shops were operated by people who, because of disease,
physical handicap, or other such problems, could find no
other employment.78

When the governor submitted the Kelley report to
the Illinois General Assembly, it appointed a special
committee of seven members, three senators and four
representatives, to investigate the sweating problems
in Chicago and to recommend necessary remedial legis-

lation.79

The committee spent five days in Chicago
visiting various tenement quarters and sweat shops. They
were genuinely shocked by the conditions they found.
Ironically, they were less upset by the inhuman working
conditions than by the fact that many of the home shops
were infested with diseases that could be transmitted to
the retail buyer of the garments. It was this threat to
public health that attracted the interest of Chicago's
newspapers.80 The Chicago Times ran a story concerning

the sweat shops and the investigation under a headline

32

reading, ”Shops Where Disease Is Stitched IntO the Clothes

We Wear."81

According tO physicians who testified before
the commission, diseases were often spread by tenement—
made garments, and epidemics Of contagious diseases had
been traced tO the sweat shops. It was this factor per-
haps more than others which aroused public opinion against
the system, although genuine humanitarian concern for the
plight of the unfortunate workers, especially the women
and children, was also an element.82
Having filed its report, the committee recommended
the passage Of a bill tO regulate the manufacture Of
clothing and the other articles in Illinois. The bill
passed as the Sweat Shop Act Of 1893 with little contro-
versy. The state legislature was under public pressure
to do something to protect it from the threat Of disease
contracted through the purchase Of garments made in unsan-
itary conditions. Jane Addams and Florence Kelley, as
well as other social reformers, journeyed to Springfield
tO articulate this public outcry for changes in the gar-
ment trade. In addition, the bill had the powerful
support Of the reform Democratic governor, John Peter
Altgeld. There was little Opposition among the manu-
facturers because under the law they would be required
only to keep a list Of their contractors. They were not,

however, responsible for anything that went on in their

contractors' shops. Thus, the clothing manufacturers

33

had little reason to block the bill. The bill only pro-
posed tO regulate the contractor, usually an immigrant
Operating on a shoestring budget, and the home finisher,
an even poorer immigrant. Neither had political leverage
outside his own precinct. Thus, the bill in nO way dis-
turbed the economic interests Of corporations in the
state.83
The first three sections Of the Sweat Shop Act
Of 1893 were designed tO protect the community from the
diseases which inevitably accompanied the manufacture Of
clothing under the sweating system, while the rest Of the
law was designed tO protect the health Of the women and
children who, as exploited workers, were troublesome to
the middle-class conscience. The law applied not only to
those employed in the clothing industry, but also in
other manufacturing.84
In the area Of child labor this law was the first
to contain even a semblance Of enforcement provisions. It
became unlawful tO employ any child under fourteen years
Of age in any manufacturing establishment, factory, or
workshop within the state. Any child between the ages
Of fourteen years and sixteen years tO be employed in
any Of the above establishments must have an affidavit
signed by parent or guardian stating age, date, and

place Of birth. The affidavits were tO be kept on file

by the employer so they could be seen by the state

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factory inspectors, three Of whom were created by the
law. In addition the employer must present on demand Of
the inspector, a certification Of physical fitness made
out by a physician for each employee. Violation was tO
be punishable by fine and imprisonment. The significance
Of child labor reform will be discussed in a later chapter.
The same law prohibited the employment Of any
female in any factory or workshop for more than eight
hours in any one day or forty-eight hours in any one
week. Although the state legislature made no provision
for poverty-stricken families tO gain an alternate source
Of income, the conscience Of the middle class was satis-
fied by this simple negative action.85
The Illinois Bureau Of Factory Inspectors with
its small staff was able tO police with relative effec-
tiveness the provisions Of the Sweat Shop Act in the
factories Of the major manufacturers. These manufacturers
were stable members Of the community with a physical plant
that could be inspected with ease. In addition, they
usually had a reputation to protect and avoided involve-
ments in legal proceedings. Thus, most Of the violations
outside the sweat shops were concentrated in only eight
factories across the state whose owners had decided that
the profit Of employing children outweighed the risks Of
doing 80. Most Of them were located in small towns where

the local community supported their activities.86

35

The situation in the garment trades was entirely
different. Besides employing large numbers Of children,
nearly one-fourth Of all women engaged in manufacturing
within the state worked in the sweat shops. Because Of
the law, large numbers Of violations took place in these
shops. Engaged in a marginal business where entry was
easy and failure was common, the contractor usually
Operated a small shop employing a few women and children
tO stitch garments for the manufacturer. He could only
afford the use Of foot power machinery and usually was
forced to pay more rent per person employed than a
rationally arranged factory.87

In order to make a profit, the "sweater" paid
relatively lower wages tO his employees, and worked them
longer hours than those in the manufacturing shops. Wages
were so poor that only poverty-stricken recent immigrants,
women, and children were attracted tO the jobs. In
addition, the employer could hire and lay Off easily
because his employees did not blame him, but rather the
wholesaler or the market. He could also lay Off more
easily than could the garment manufacturer because his
machinery was foot powered; thus, there was no steam
to turn Off or other costly equipment standing idle.

The employee took his power with him. Finally, he did
not have tO worry about sanitation conditions as did the

larger manufacturer because there was no large visible

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36

figure against whom reformers could arouse public opinion.
If public Opinion did become aroused by the practices Of
a single small sweater, he could simply pack up and move
his Operation to a new place.88
All attempts tO regulate the garment industry met

89 The manufacturing company was

indifferent success.
only required tO keep a list Of its contractors, and was
not held responsible for the conditions in its contrac-
tors' shops. Thus, enforcement had tO begin with regu—
lation Of the contractors' shops. NO staff Of ten deputies
could possibly keep up with all the violations Of the law
in the thousands Of small sweat shops located in tenement

basements and attics.90

Throughout the 1890's the number
Of sweat shops continued tO increase despite numerous
convictions. In 1895, for example, there were thirty
sweaters convicted on 34 charges Of employing children
under fourteen and 129 charges of employing children
under sixteen without an affidavit. Yet, between 1894
and 1895 the shops increased from 1,413 to 1,715.91
If the contractors' shops were hard to police,
there was no way at all to regulate the uncountable
numbers engaged in home finishing for piece rates.
Although the contractor was required tO keep a list of
those tO whom he gave garments tO be processed, there is

no record Of his ever doing so. In addition, the inspec-

tors did not really want to haul before the court a

.
w or;

p
oil to.

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37

poverty-stricken widow and her children who were engaged
in the business only from sheer economic necessity and
were forced tO live and work in filthy conditions. There
seemed tO be no way to get at the problem.92
There were other defects in the Act Of 1893. It
was impossible, for example, tO prove that a child found
in a workroom was employed there. In addition, many
children, although they had affidavits which indicated
that their parents had sworn tO the fact that they were
Of legal age to work, appeared to the inspectors tO be
under fourteen years Of age. Finally, the law applied
only tO manufacturing occupations, and the schOOl authori-
ties continued tO issue work permits tO children under
fourteen, as they were impowered to dO, in hardship cases
for other occupations.93
Because Of these defects, a new bill was drawn up
by Chicago social reformers in accordance with the recom-
mendations Of Florence Kelley, and introduced into the
General Assembly Of 1895. The bill contained provisions
to extend the child labor sections Of the 1893 law tO
include mercantile stores, Offices, and laundries. It
also contained provisions regulating the garment manu-
facturers in the details Of contracting out their garments
to be finished.94

In spite Of widespread publicity concerning the

health hazards to the middle class who brought clothes

38

stitched in unsanitary conditions, the bill failed.
Florence Kelley was careful tO point out, for example,
that the "risk run by the purchaser Of a costly cloak
or a custom-made suit is precisely the risk run by the
working man buying a cheap ready-made suit and by the
poor woman who got a bargain counter knee pants for
her boy." The combined Opposition Of the retail garment
merchants who wanted nO government interference in their
business was enough to defeat the bill. In order tO pla-
cate public Opinion, the state legislature did set up a
special commission tO investigate the scope Of child
labor. Out Of this commission eventually came a new
child labor law in 1897. This law and later legislation
will be discussed in the chapter on child labor.

Perhaps the most important aspect Of the Sweat
Shop Act Of 1893 was that it provided another Opportunity
for concerned upper-class business executives and pro-
fessionals to cooperate with middle-class social reformers
tO rectify a serious distortion Of the capitalist system.
Together they moved against the abuses Of marginal busi-
nessmen who were acting outside the pale Of acceptable
conduct in the treatment Of their employees. Such con-
duct was intolerable to many corporate businessmen on
humanitarian grounds, as well as practical grounds. The
thought Of women and children toiling long hours in

unsanitary conditions for low wages, lower than those

39

Of the average unskilled worker, was hard for a Christian
conscience tO bear. On the practical side, the sweat
shop posed a very real health threat tO the middle-class
consumer. In addition, such injustice could lead tO
instability in the society as a whole as those who were
so grossly exploited became totally alienated from the
capitalist system. The coalition Of businessmen and
social workers who were beginning tO build the welfare
system in Illinois were determined to prevent such a
situation from developing. Jane Addams wrote in 1892
that a settlement was a protest against class division
and a means Of bringing the classes together that were
being driven apart by the pressure Of social and economic

maladjustments.95

The social reformers hoped tO dO this
by ameliorating the worst conditions experienced by the
working class and by training the best among the lower

class tO rise into the middle class.

I
o.‘.

0",

 

 

FOOTNOTES--CHAPTER I

lU.S., Bureau Of the Census, Twelfth Census Of

the United States: 1900, Manufacture, Part I, VII,
ccxlix, ccliii.

 

2Ibid.

3Bessie Louise Pierce, A History Of Chicago.
III: The Rise of a Modern City, 1871-1893 (New York,
1957), p. 176.

 

 

4Robert W. Twyman, History Of Marshall Field
and CO., 1852-1906 (Philadelphia, 1954). p. 175.

51hid., p. 177.

6Pierce, pp. 192-233.

7Everett S. Lee, et al., ngulation Redistribution
and Economic GrowthLUnited States, 1870-1950 (Memoirs
Of the American Society, 19577, III, 16, A 1.5; III, 247,
A 1.7.

 

 

8Ihid., III, 247, A 1.7.

9U.S., Bureau Of the Census, Twelfth Census Of
the United States: 1900. Statistical Atlas, Plate 40;
Lee, et al., III, 259, A 1.19.

 

 

 

 

10Lee, et al., III, 259, A 1.19.

11U.S., Bureau Of the Census, Twelfth Census Of
the United States: 1900. StatisticaI_Atlas, Plate 44.

 

 

 

40

41

12Ernest Ludlow Bogart and John M. Mathews,

The Modern Commonwealth 1893-1918 (Chicago, 1922),
p. 17.

13U.S., Bureau Of the Census, Twelfth Census Of

the United States: 1900. Manufacture, Part I, VII,
ccxlix.

 

 

l4U.S., Bureau Of the Census, Eleventh Census Of

the United States: 1890. ngulation,-PartII, I, 68.

 

 

15U.S., Bureau Of the Census, Tenth Census Of the

United States: 1880. Population, I, 870; Elevegth Census
3? the United States: 1890. Manufacture, Part II, V, XXI;

Thirteenth Census Of the United States: 1910. Manufacture,
IX, 296.

 

 

 

 

16Illinois Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Second
Biennial Report, 1882, pp. 288, 351; Clarence D. Long,
Wages and Earnin s in the United States 1860-1890 (Prince—
ton, 1960), p.633 Albert Rees, Real Wages in Manufacturing
1890-1914 (Princeton, 1961), p. 121.

17Eugene Smolensky, The Concept Of Povergy (Wash-

ington, 1963), pp. 35-67.

18John A. Ryan, A Living Wage (New York, 1906);

Louise Bolard More, Wa e Earner's Budget (New York, 1907);
Robert Coit Chapin, The Standard Of Living Among Working
Men's Families in New York (New York, 1909).

19Smolensky, pp. 35-67.

20Charles Hoffman, The Depression Of the Nineties,

An Economic History (westport, Connecticut, 1970). PP. I07-
10.

21Carlos C. Closson, Jr., "The Unemployed in

American Cities,” Quarterly Journal Of Economics, XVIII
(January, 1894), 257158.

22"The Relief Of the Unemployed in the United
States During the Winter Of 1893-1894," Journal Of Social
Science, XXXII (November, 1894), 6-12.

 

h' AD!
In."-

a
t";
CAI‘UI

~
h“.

42

23Hugh Davis Graham and Ted Robert Gurr, The
History Of Viglence in America (New York, 1969), 57-804;
Ernest Ludlow Bogart and JOhn M. Mathews, The Modern
Commonwealth 1893-1918 (Chicago, 1922), p. 97?

 

24Sheldon G. Levy, "A 150 Year Study Of Political

Violence in the United States," The History Of Violence in
America, A Report tO the National Commission Of the Causes
and Prevention Of Violence, ed. Hugh Davis Graham and Ted
Robert Gurr (New York, 1969), pp. 84-100.

252. E. Jeffrey, "The Attitude Of the Chicago

Press Toward the Local Labor Movement, 1878 to 1879"
(unpublished M.A. Thesis, University Of Chicago, 1936),
pp. 77-84.

26Robert V. Bruce, 1877: Year Of Violence
(Indianapolis, 1959), pp. 236-53; J. A. Dacus, Annals
Of the Great Strikes (St. Louis, 1877), pp. 327—42.

 

271bid.

 

28Ihid.

29Ihid.

 

3oPierce, p. 251.

311bid.

32William H. Riker, Soldiers Of the States (Wash-
ington, 1957), p. 47 and passim.

 

 

 

 

33The Chicago Times, July 26, 1877, p. 1.

34Martha Derthick, The National Guard in Politics
(Cambridge, 1965), p. 160.

35Ibid.

36

National Ggard Association Preceedings, 1881,
pp. 13-14 [quoted in Derthick, p. 17].

 

37Derthick, p. 17.

43

38Henry David, The History Of the Haymarket Affair
(New York, 1963), passim.

39Richard Sennett, "Middle-class Families and
Urban Violence: The Experience Of a Chicago Community
in the Nineteenth Century," Nineteenth Century Cities,
ed. Stephan Thernstrom and Richard Sinnett (New Haven,
1969), pp. 391-93.

40The Chicago DailyiNews, May 3-5, 1886, p. 1.

41Ibid.

42Sennett, p. 392.

43Pierce, p. 289.

44Illinois, Laws, 1887, pp. 168-69.

451bid., pp. 167-68.

46Stanley Buder, Pullmagy An Experiment in Indus-
trial Order and Community Planning 1880-1930 (New York,
19671, PP. 157-201.

47Re rt on the Chicago Strike Of June - July,
1894 by the United States Strike CommiSSIOn (Washington,
1895), PP. I-lS.

 

48lhid., XLVI - LIV.

49Buder, pp. 228-34.

50Robert Ozanne, A Century_of Labor Management
Relations OchCOrmickland International Harvester
(Madi§On, 1967): pp. 29-31.

51Graham Taylor Letter, November 17, 1893, Graham
Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

52Albion W. Small, "The Chicago Civic Federation,"
American Journal Of Sociology, I (July, 1895), 79.

44

z,yLTT

53Charles W. Stead, If Christ Came tO Chicago
(Chicago, 1894).

 

54First Annual Report of the Central Council,
May, 1895, Graham Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

55Small, p. 92.

56Ibid.

57First Annual Report Of the Central Council,
May, 1895, Graham Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

58Minutes Of the Meeting Of the Philanthropic
Committee Of the Civic Federation and the Committee in
Charge Of the Bureau Of Charities, December 18, 1895,
Chicago Bureau Of Charities MSS., Chicago Historical
Society Library; Alexander Johnson, Adventures in Social
Welfare (Fort wayne, Indiana, 1923).

 

59Minutes Of the Meeting Of the Committee in
Charge Of the Bureau Of Charities, January 22, 1897,
Chicago Bureau Of Charities MSS. Chicago Historical
Society Library.

60Leah Hannah Feder, Unemployment Relief in Periods

 

Of De ression (New York, 1936), pp. 95—97; ReportReIative
to t e Removal Of Beggars from the Streets Committee,
January 8, 1896, and April 15, 1896, Chicago Bureau Of
Charities MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

61Ihid.

62Ihid.

 

63An Open Letter from the Committee in Charge Of
the Bureau Of Charities, January 17, 1899, Chicago Bureau
Of Charities MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

64Lyman J. Gage, Memoirs Of Lyman J. Gage (New
York, 1937), pp. 68-70.

 

65Ibid.

 

45

66Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House
(New York, 1910): pp. 75-89.

67Jame Addams, Philanthropy and Social Progress
(New York, 1893). p. 1026.

68Ibid., pp. 27-40.

69Hull-House Maps and Papers, A Presentation Of
Egtionalities and Wages in a Congested District Of Chicago
TO ether with Comments and'Essays on Problems Growinngut

93 the Social Conditions by the Residents Of Hull—House,
§_Settlement at 335 South Halsted Street (New York, 1895),

gassim.
7oMiriam G. Rappe, "Mary McDowell," 1936, Mary

Bkznowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library; "Mary

M<3-Dowell, How the Living Faith Of One Social Worker Grew,"
(April 1, 1928), pp. 40-43; Mary E. McDowell,

'Sttrve
Beginnings," February 10, 1914, and December 15, 1927,
Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

Bulletin, VOl. I,

71Hull House Publications:
University of

N0 . l, p. 1; January 1896 Hull House MSS.
Illinois at the Chicago Circle.

(3 72Graham Taylor to J. J. Scott, March 19, 1909,
raham Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

73Illinois, Laws, 1893, pp. 100-02.

 

3!. 74Illinois, Factory Inspectors, First Annual
-4§E£53rt: 1893, p. 7.

75Illinois Bureau Of Labor Statistics, First

igéiifiénnial Report: 1881, p. 9.

76Illinois Bureau Of Labor Statistics, Seventh

£§£§Esgnnia1 Report: 1892, pp. 357-443.

77Ibid.

 

78lbid.

 

I
'u

.
AAA
_\
‘b‘..

 

.

I
1“,
.~Q

 

46

79Earl R. Beckner, A History Of Labor Legislation
in Illinois (Chicago, 1929), pp. 254-68.

 

 

8°lbid.

 

81The Chicago Times, March 1, 1893, p. l.

 

82Ibid.

83Eugene Staley, History Of the Illinois State
Federation Of Labor (Chicago, 1930), pp. 15-159}

 

 

84Ibid.

85Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge,

Truancy and Non-Attendance in Chicago Schools (Chicago,
' pp. 72—740

86Illinois, Factory Inspectors, Third Annual
Report: 1896, pp. 8-13.

 

 

87Ibid., pp. 13-55.

88Illinois, Factory Inspectors, Seventh Annual
Rpport: 1900, pp. 7-15.

 

89Ibid., p. 7.

90Illinois, Factory Inspectors, Third Annual

 

 

91Ibid.

92Ibid.

 

93Ibido' pp. 20-22.

94Abbott and Breckinridge, pp. 74-87.

95Jane Addams, Advance (February 18, 1892), Hull
House MSS. University of IIIinOis at the Chicago Circle.

CHAPTER II

"WHAT ARE WE GOING TO CALL

OURSELVES TODAY?"

After 1900 the coalition Of middle-class reformers
and progressive elements Of the upper-middle class began
to solidify into a unified whole. One Of the distinctive
characteristics Of the alliance was the commonly held
belief system Of its members. Although they disagreed
over particular reform issues, most believed that if the
bourgeois industrial society was to be made viable a
certain amount Of fine tuning had tO be applied tO the
free market economy. They held, for example, that when
-the normal structure Of supply, the family and the market,
proved inadequate to sustain a minimum standard Of living,
a substitute mechanism should come into play. Within such
a belief system they developed relief programs for the
unemployed, especially during depression troughs. For
the unskilled workers, ill-housed because Of low wages,
they urged tenement regulations so that their housing
would at least meet minimum health and comfort standards.
For widows with children they develOped a mother's pension
plan.

47

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48

The social reformers and their upper-class allies
were also convinced that the immigrant unskilled workmen
were potential members Of the middle class. In order to
help them achieve this ideal, they formulated social
programs to train them to compete more effectively in
the economic market place for the necessary income tO
live a comfortable and respectable life. The immigrant
had to be taught not only job skills, but also a set Of
values such as thrift, sobriety, competitiveness, indi-
vidualism, acquisitiveness, and deferred gratification.
Most Of all he had to be convinced that the bourgeois
industrial system was relatively Open and that one rose
in the economic hierarchy through personal merit. TO
meet this need the social workers developed programs Of
adult education in the public schools and clubs, as well
as lectures, meetings, classes, and discussions in the
settlement house.

The main targets Of their attempts tO modify the
behavior patterns of the working class so as tO make them
functional in a middle-class capitalist economy were the
children. The Juvenile Court Of Chicago, for example,
was founded on the principle Of taking the even most
deviant children, from a middle-class perspective, and
turning them into model citizens. Child labor laws and
compulsory education were aimed at preventing the exploi-

tation Of the child by marginal businessmen tO such an

‘
PI . D II
Gil on

 

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49

extent that they could not function effectively later
on the labor market.

Another commonly held belief was that all social
welfare programs should be designed in such a way so as
to reduce tension by bringing the classes together in
a recognition Of mutual dependence. Andrew A. Bruce,

a resident Of Hull House during the 1890's, later
described Jane Addams, the personification Of the
humanitarian aspect Of social welfare, as one whose:
. . great advantage lay in the fact that she
could sympathize with the problems Of employers
as well as those Of the employee and the unem-
ployed . . . and at the same time reveal to those
who were less fortunate or perhaps less burdened
with the responsibility Of business management, the
real heart Of those favored classes.

Jane Addams put it more simply when she said,
"Capital and labor should join hands."2 Graham Taylor,
a prominent Chicago social reformer and founder Of the
Chicago Commons as well as the Chicago School Of Civics
and Philanthropy, saw the settlement worker as a mediator
between the classes. He lived in the immigrant slum and,
thereby, came tO understand the life and labor Of workers.
On the other hand, he was articulate enough to interpret
their experience and needs tO the upper-middle class
elite Of corporate executives and professionals.3

By bringing the classes together the social

reformers were in a sense abolishing classes all together.

Everyone would be middle class, a few in the upper-middle

50

and the rest in the lower-middle. Although everyone
would share the same ideals, values, and life style, the
upper-middle class minority would still administer the
economy for the benefit Of all on the basis Of their
expertise and be rewarded accordingly. The lower-middle
class, on the other hand, would enjoy a modest, but
healthful and fulfilling, life with the knowledge that
the very best among them might rise into the ranks Of
the upper-middle class.

Businessmen interested in social welfare echoed
the same belief. Julius Rosenwald, President Of Sears,
Roebuck and Company, stated that "the social workers'
delicate mission . . . is to take from the rich and give
tO the poor, for the benefit Of both, without Offense to
either."4 On another occasion he explained tO a group Of
businessmen that "the best investment any community can
make Of its money is to take prOper care Of the families
in it that are below par and to keep them and others from
dropping down to dependency. . . . "5

The progressive alliance began tO take shape at
a time when there was a gradual transition from ethical
philosophy to a more scientific explanation Of human
behavior. In the area Of delinquency, for example, more
advanced reformers were beginning to view the wayward
child as a product Of its unfavorable environment rather

than as a victim Of heredity. The environmentalist approach

51

made behavior modification seem possible for, if a
child's conduct was molded by his surroundings, it

could be changed by altering them. Such a principle
could also be applied to other situations where behavior
modification was deemed beneficial.

The scientific method, as it applied tO social
phenomena, included an Objective study of the social
conditions by the use Of sampling techniques, statistics,
and systematic investigation. On the basis Of facts
gathered in such a way, programs could be formulated
that would precisely fit the needs Of middle-class
society and Of the poor. The watch words for each step
in the process were scientific, business-like, and
efficient.

At a memorial service for a social welfare edu-
cator, Edith Abbott, a reform-minded professor teaching
at the University Of Chicago, Charles E. Merriam, recalled
that "to the general impulses Of philanthropy she had
added the values Of organized and disciplined knowledge.
She combined Observation, professional analysis, and
mature reflection. This kind Of endeavor led to informed
and oriented action to solve social problems."6 More was
needed than humanitarian ideals.

Julius Rosenwald was also a passionate advocate
Of the environmentalist and scientific vieWpOint. Speak-

ing before the Advertising Association Of Chicago in 1913,

52

he persuasively argued that "in this age Of expert ser-
vice, philanthropy is being reduced tO a science admin-
istered by paid experts." He went on to point out that
”it is just as impossible for the general public to
intelligently handle the growing, menacing problems Of
poverty and distress as it is for the general public tO
run your business or mine."7 Many businessmen apparently
agreed, as they channeled their contributions through such
organizations as the Chicago Charity Bureau. In addition,
the Chamber Of Commerce had set up by 1910 a registry Of
all approved charities to which businessmen could give
with confidence, knowing that their contribution would

be used wisely.

These progressives also accepted, from their own
experiences in the business and professional world, the
values Of efficiency, organization, planning, and tech-
nology. Thus, reform activity tOOk place within organi-
zational structures that were managerial and administra-
tive in nature. The working class was to be directed,
but not consulted, by these organizations so as to
repress their unruly, random, spontaneous, non-functional
behavior, and substitute instead a new consciousness
which conformed to the needs Of the emerging corporate
economy.

These progressive reform associations were

usually non-partisan in nature because the professional

53

social reformers had tO make them acceptable to business-
men who provided much Of the economic support. Graham
Taylor warned his fellow social reformers not to express
a party preference, especially in national elections.8
This tactic was important because outside the area Of
social welfare most Of the businessmen and professionals
interested in reform were basically conservative and
Republican. Julius Rosenwald, for example, had supported
with conviction all the Republican presidential candidates
since the 1890's.9 Years later Graham Taylor recalled
that he had warned Jane Addams that, by supporting
Theodore Roosevelt's third party bid for the presidency
in 1912, she might alienate the most generous financial
contributors tO social welfare activities. He was con-
fident that social reformers by being non-partisan were
in a position to "swing the balance Of power in the
large independent vote Of Chicago and Illinois for the
public welfare, irrespective Of party lines."10
Working together, reformer and philanthrOpist
persuaded existing clubs tO undertake welfare activities
and created a host Of committees and associations to
focus support on particular social goals. These various
organizations provided the formal structure through which
the social progressive coalition operated. Most Of the
committees and associations were concerned with one par-

ticular reform. The City Homes' Association, for

54

example, focused on housing reform while the Chicago
Consumers' League worked for better working conditions
for women and children.

Even in its own small area Of interest a reform
organization could not be totally self-sufficient in
pursuing its goals. Typically, it depended on others
for one or more Of its basic functions which included
information gathering, theory and program planning, prOpa-
ganda and pressure design, and program actualization.
For example, one organization might be primarily inter-
ested in information gathering and theory and program
planning, depending on another organization for lobbying
the bill through the state legislature.

Members Of the faculty Of the Chicago School Of
Civics and PhilanthrOpy and later Of the School Of Social
Administration Of the University Of Chicago were very
influential in the design Of the legislation tO control
juvenile delinquency, but were dependent on the Juvenile
Protective Association tO lobby the bills through the
City Council and the state legislature. In addition,
these groups were tied together into a functional whole
because they shared a small common fund Of financial
and executive talent. Their members, by virtue Of
financial and executive contributions, formed the elite

decision-makers Of the social progressive movement.

55

These organizations depended for their existence
on the gifts Of relatively small numbers Of contributors.
By going through records Of the various social welfare
and reform organizations in the sample, one can draw a
composite picture Of the typical major contributor who
may be defined as one who gave enough money tO make his
withdrawal from the organization a serious matter in terms
Of the survival Of that organization. TO be classed as
a major contributor to a large settlement house a person
would have to donate at least $500 tO $2,000 a year over
a period of three years, considering the size Of its
budget. On the other hand a contributor to a small
budget organization such as the Illinois Committee on
Labor Legislation could have given considerably less and
still be indispensable. At the Chicago School Of Civics
and Philanthropy the extremely small number Of contribu-
tors made them crucially important.

Graham Taylor complained in 1921 that there were
tOO few givers. That same year he expressed regret that
"Americans had suffered from the lack Of such men Of the
leisure class in England who have been so loyal in serv-
ing the higher interests Of their country."11 By 1921 some
Of the most generous had died that he warned that "the
higher interests Of Chicago will surely suffer seriously

unless there is a rally to fill the break."12

56

The seriousness Of the situation is reflected
in a 1924 study Of the financing Of social agencies in
Chicago. Although at least 100,000 people had given
more than $2 to any or all Of the agencies, most Of the
funds came from a handful Of nO longer young contributors.
Ninety-five per cent had given between $2 and $100, but
together they supplied only 22 per cent Of the total dol-
lars. Those who gave $500 to $1,000 made up .5 per cent
Of the total contributors, but donated 9 per cent of the
total contributions. The figures for those who contributed
$1,000 to $5,000 were .4 per cent and 24 per cent respec-
tively and for those who gave over $5,000 the figures
were .8 per cent and 25 per cent. Thus, less than 5 per
cent Of the contributors gave almost 80 per cent Of the
donations to these 123 Chicago welfare agencies.13

In addition, several hundred thousand had given
less than $2, mostly to three broadly based organizations.
TO one Of them, a quarter Of a million people had given
an average Of 24 cents. Many Of these small contributions
may represent duplications because there is no evidence
as to whether or not a giver donated more than once on
different occasions. But if these contributions were
included in the summary, the contribution curve would be
further slowed with "barely one-tenth Of one per cent Of
the total contributors giving 40% Of the total charitable

budget Of the city."14

57

 

 

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58

Out Of a random sample Of fifty major contributors
to the social reform organizations, three-fourths were
men, and Of them one-half were top level executives of
large- and middle-sized corporations. It was also deter-
mined that Of the others a fourth were in finance and a
fourth were doctors, lawyers, and architects. The women
were all wives or widows Of prominent and wealthy Chicago
businessmen. The vast majority Of the persons in the
sample were Protestants, although there were a few Jews.
One Of the most striking features Of this group was that
almost three-fourths had graduated from high schOOl while
over two-fifths graduated from college. Only a small
percentage were born in a foreign country. This was at
a time (1910-1912) when a typical Chicago citizen was
an unskilled laborer, Catholic, foreign born, and had
eight years Of schooling or less.

More significantly, perhaps these "major contribu-
tors" were members Of Chicago's "elite." Almost three-
fifths were listed in either the first (1905), the second
(1911) or the third (1926) editions Of Albert Nelson

Marquis' The Book Of Chicagoans. These books were bio-

 

graphical dictionaries containing almost 6,000 entries.
Richard Jensen in an article, "Quantitative Collective
Biography: An Application tO Metropolitan Elites," found
that Marquis' work was a "fair, accurate, and comprehen-

sive," guide tO Chicago's elite class.15

and

did

is

0
OE!

59

Using Marquis' books, Richard Jensen made a
quantitative study Of the characteristics Of Chicago's
elite or upper class.16 If one compares the attributes
Of the "major contributors" to social reform organi-

zations with Jensen's elite it becomes clear that they

are similar:

Major Contributors

 

 

 

I
Characteristics Jensen S TO Soc. Reform
elite-% . .
Organizations-%
1. Foreign born 14 10
2. Protestant (declared 35 85 (Prot.
3. Catholic Prot.) 4 0 back-
4. Jewish 3 15 ground)
5. High School or Above -- 75
6. Some college 60 50
7. Finance (occupation) 26 18 Of those
8. Manufacturing/Trade/ known
Transportation 48 60 in the
9. Medicine/Law/Other sample
professions 32 22

[9% occupations
not known]
It is clear that these "major contributors" to the social
reform organizations were members Of Chicago's upper
class. In many ways they are similar to Robert H. Wiebe's

"New Middle Class" that emerged in the nations' cities at

the turn Of the century.17 This class comprised those with

strong professional aspirations in such fields as medi-
cine, law, economics, administration, social work, and
architecture as well as specialists in business corpor-

ations. What distinguished this class was their

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"consciousness Of unique skills and functions, an aware—
ness that came to mold much Of their lives."18

These "major contributors" were also important
because they usually gave tO more than one organization.
Julius Rosenwald, for example, contributed tO almost the
entire range Of the major social welfare groups in Chi-
cago. Most Of the others did not give so widely, but
they tOO spread their contributions tO many organizations
and could be essential to the survival Of several.

By virtue Of their contributions, most Of the
major contributors held influential seats on the boards
Of directors Of the social welfare and reform organi-
zations. Out Of the fourteen members Of the Board Of
Trustees Of the Chicago School Of Civics and Philanthropy
in 1920, ten were major contributors. They included top
business executives such as Charles R. Crane Of the Crane
Manufacturing Company, Edward L. Ryerson Of the Ryerson
Steel Company, Julius Rosenwald Of Sears, Roebuck and

Company, and Victor Lawson, publisher Of the Chicago

Dailnyews. With them were equivalent men from the pro—

 

fessions, Victor Elting, a prominent Chicago lawyer, and

Allen B. Pound, an equally successful Chicago architect.19
The Chicago School Of Civics and Philanthropy was

almost totally dependent on such men for contributions.

In 1911, for example, it received $2,000 from Victor

Lawson, $2,000 from Charles R. Crane, $2,500 from Julius

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Rosenwald, $1,000 from Edward L. Ryerson, and $1,000
from the Russell Sage Foundation, a national philan-
thropic enterprise controlled by businessmen. These
contributions made up almost the total income Of the
Chicago SchOOl Of Civics and Philanthropy.2

The pattern was similar for the social reform
organizations. The board of directors Of the Housing
Association Of Chicago was made up entirely Of business
and professional men. It included such people as J. Ogden
Armour, the meat packer; Julius Rosenwald; and Benjamin J.
Rosenthal, a successful banker.21 The other organization
concerned with working-class housing reform was the City
Homes' Association whose membership totalled about 100 in
1901. Almost all Of these are identifiable as successful
businessmen, mostly corporate executives or professionals.
Among these men were meat packer, J. Ogden Armour; Cyrus,
Harold, Robert, and Stanley McCormick of International
Harvester; Martin A. Ryerson, a manufacturer; Marshall
Field and Company executive, John B. Sheed; Marshall
Field; and William J. Chalmers, Of the Chalmers Manu-
facturing Company.22

In the Immigrant Protective League the influence
Of businessmen contributors was indirect as well as
direct. Out Of a total budget Of $3,150 almost $2,500

was donated by five individuals or organizations:

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1. Chicago Association Of Commerce (Business-

men's Club) $1,000
2. Chicago Community Trust (Businessmen's

Charity) 500
3. Harold Swift (meat packer) 250
4. Albert D. Lasker (banker) 250
5. Martin D. Hull (a successful lawyer and

state representative) 400

Total $2,40023

In some cases, such as the Immigrant Protective
League, contributions and influence were wildly dis-
tributed throughout the business community. The more
usual pattern, however, was the Chicago School Of Civics
and Philanthropy with a few large contributors who also
sat on its board Of directors. There was a pattern Of
interlocking directorships with one wealthy businessman
serving on many boards.

The archtype of these businessmen contributors and
board directors was Julius Rosenwald. His career was
marked both by the accumulation Of great wealth in the
mail-order business and by the disposal Of much Of that
wealth in philanthropic enterprises. It has been esti-
mated that he gave away sixty-three million dollars. The
figure is given additional importance by the fact that
he used his grants to rouse large donations by other men.
He usually required the recipient Of his benefaction to
match a certain percentage Of it by donations from dif-

ferent sources. By this method he was able tO raise

63

much more money for his philanthropic endeavors than he
actually possessed. Thus, his influence in the social

‘ . 24
welfare movement was immense.

Born to middle-class Jewish German-American
parents in Springfield, Illinois in 1862, Julius Rosen-
wald went tO New York City at the age Of seventeen with
only a grammar school education. After a six-year
(apprenticeship with his uncle, a wholesale clothier, he
entered the same business in Chicago in 1885. In a city
()f great business opportunities and with the financial
laacking Of his New York uncles, he was moderately suc-
<:essfu1, supporting his family in middle-class comfort.25

Julius Rosenwald's fortune tOOk a turn for the
better when in August, 1895, he and his brother-in-law
went into an active partnership with Richard Sears who
needed new capital to expand his mail-order business.
A new Illinois corporation was formed later that year
with Sears as President Of the company with one-half of
tile stock, while Julius Rosenwald became Vice-president
with one-fourth Of the stock upon the contribution Of
$37,500 toward a total capitalization of $150,000. With
the rapid and steady increase in the sales Of Sears,
R‘Debuck and Company, Rosenwald's personal fortune grew
a<=cordingly. Annual sales Of about one and a half

u"illion dollars in 1897 had risen to more than eleven

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million dollars in 1900. In 1909, when he became Presi-

dent Of the company, they were close to fifty-one million

dollars.26

As his wealth grew the President Of Sears believed

he had an Obligation tO society tO use it for the benefit

Of mankind. Such people as Judge Julian W. Mack, Miss
Jane Addams, Doctor Graham Taylor, Miss Mary McDowell,
(and Minnie Low, all part Of the social welfare and reform
Imovement, had a deep influence on his charitable activi-
taies. They convinced him that contributing his money tO

the movement for social welfare reform was one Of the best

outlets for his charitable impulse and his pragmatic

sense.27

He gave to such organizations as the Illinois
JWIvenile Protective Association, Illinois Branch Of the
N<‘='ltiona1 Child Labor Committee, Playground Association
of Chicago, City Homes' Association, Mary McDowell's
HOusing Project, Chicago Housing Association, Women's
Trade Union League, Businessmen's Relief Committee (1908) ,
'thll House Association, Illinois Immigrant Protective

1\Eisociation, the Chicago School Of Civics and Philanthropy,

and the Chicago Commons' Settlement.28

Julius Rosenwald contributed to a cause only after
carefully investigating its beliefs in order to make sure
t1'lat they were in accord with his own: orderly reform

and amelioration within the corporate bourgeois framework.

65

In a letter to a business friend regarding the WOmen's
Trade Union League, Rosenwald stated:

I contributed because after a thorough investigation
I was convinced the people back Of the movement were
moderate in their attitudes. While I could not sub-
scribe tO everything in their program, I felt it

was a good deal better that capital should not indi-
cate a spirit of aloofness or what might be construed
as an antagonistic attitude. Furthermore, I found
that men like Victor F. Lawson [publisher Of the
Chicago Daily News] were assisting the League. . . .
Our later inquiries gave further evidence that the
women back Of the movement belong tO the conservative
group.29

 

(Tulius Rosenwald was referring tO women like the upper-
Iniddle-class reformers Mrs. Raymond Robgins, Miss Mary
McDowell, and Miss Sophonisba Breckinridge, all Officers
cxf the WOmen's Trade Union League in Illinois. They were
iJatent on guiding working women into conservative business
unions.

These large varied contributions gave Julius
ROsenwald a good deal Of influence in the social welfare
mOVement which he exercised through his position on the
board Of directors Of a number Of organizations, including
‘tlwe Hull House Association and the Chicago School Of
Civics and PhilanthrOpy. It is apparent that the leaders
(315 the various organizations were aware Of his influence
t1lrough the power Of the purse. The head Of an organi-
zation which wanted tO give free milk to poor children,
lathented to a friend that Rosenwald had refused to make
a contribution. "I am really awfully sorry about this

because we wanted the prestige Of having him on our list,

 

66

30

as well as the contribution." It is clear that other

businessmen looked tO him for guidance in their contri-

butions.

Another example Of Rosenwald's influence in the
social welfare movement came when Mary McDowell and
fins. Bowen, two social welfare leaders, were mounting
a drive for a minimum wage for women. He wrote them
a letter stating his opposition to it at that time. They

vwrote back telling him that most likely he misinterpreted

tdie nature Of the minimum wage legislation they wished.31

He wrote tO them again:

I did not misunderstand in the least your attitude
nor the attitude Of Mrs. Bowen in the matter. I
merely felt and still feel that any agitation for
the minimum wage at this time will only redound tO
the credit Of those unscrupulous politicians, who,
to my mind, have done more harm by connecting vice
with wages and justifying immorality in the wage-
worker than would be cured by a minimum wage law
in a generation. . . . In my Opinion you would be
paying an awful price for the purpose Of getting a
minimum wage law, if it had to be secured at the
cost Of the good name Of the women you were fight-

ing for.

‘Jtllius Rosenwald ended his letter with an invitation tO
b0th women to come tO lunch with him and then tO tour
'tlwe plant. It is not recorded what happened at the
lllnch, but Miss McDowell and Mrs. Bowen drOpped the idea
of minimum wage legislation until the 1930's.

Another businessman who had tremendous influence
1‘1 the social welfare system was Charles R. Crane, first

vice-president Of the Crane Company, and Director Of the

67

National Bank Of the Republic. This persuasiveness was
due to his large and varied contributions tO social reform
and welfare organizations and the resulting policy-making
positions tO which he was appointed.33 His power was
clearly recognized by others in the social welfare system.
On a trip to sthington D.C. Agnes Nester, President Of
the WOmen's Trade Union League Of Chicago, was urged by
Olive M. Sullivan, Secretary Of the League, not to neglect
seeing Mr. Crane who was also in Washington at the same
1:ime because "he would feel quite offended if you dO not
trie up with him." Miss Sullivan went on to say:

If you personally do not need his financial assistance

perhaps he will be willing tO let something come to

the League. . . . He [Mr. Crane] would be glad to

guarantee your salary and then you would be free to
go where and when you will.3

Born in Chicago in 1858, Crane had joined after a
high schOOl education the family's Crane Company that
manufactured iron pipe fitting and plumbing fixtures,
so profitable now that peOple were moving indoors. Con-
cerned with social injustices, he contributed tO Chicago
(:Cummons and the Chicago School Of Civics and PhilanthrOpy,
Eirhd served on their boards Of trustees. Through his
experience with welfare capitalism at Crane Company and
‘tlle Crane Elevator Company and through his settlement
“RDrk, he became convinced that the social condition Of
tdie workers must be ameliorated if the bourgeois society

fli‘om which he had benefited was to remain viable. At

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the Crane Company, for example, he was instrumental in
establishing a sick benefit and pension plan for the
relief Of deserving workmen and their families. Shortly,
the company added a medical department.35
The McCormick family at International Harvester

Company also instituted a corporate welfare program in

the early 1900's. The major motivation was tO gain the
workers' loyalty and prevent unionization. It was also

a way for them tO reduce industrial accidents, absenteeism,
and labor turnover which contributed tO higher costs.
Workers' benefits included sickness and accident insurance,
and counseling services. The McCormicks, from their exper-
ience with welfare capitalism, came tO the realization
that in order tO insure a healthy happy working force

they must be concerned with the community from which it
“His recruited. In addition, because International Har-
Vester controlled such a large percentage Of the agri-
cultural implement business, it was vulnerable tO anti-
trust sentiment. The concern Of the family with welfare
Programs could help tO blunt this Opposition tO the large
cOrporation.36 Thus the family, especially Stanley and
Mrs. Anita Bair McCormick, became interested in such
things as housing reform in Chicago.

Such businessmen felt a social responsibility
that was compatible with their business interests. They

aPpreciated the value of public respect and confidence

69

if the corporate structure Of the economy was tO be

maintained.37

Julius Rosenwald recognized before 1915
that ”in a modern complex society the state must assume
increasingly the burdens Of education and health and not
leave them only tO private charity or initiative."38
These men believed that corporate capitalism, because
it rested on the narrow base Of the gOOd will Of the
Ininority Of enlightened executives working solely with
'their own employees, was not enough. TO be effective
‘velfare programs must work through the state so that they
lielped those who needed it most, the workers who were
employed by marginal businessmen for longer hours at
Slower wages in less healthy surroundings; or worse yet,
Ivere unemployed. In addition, women and children who
Vwere not employed Often needed aid. Only the state could
act in such situations.

Although businessmen made up a majority Of the
1dist Of large financial contributors tO reform, upper
IRiddle-class professionals and their wives were also
ianortant. This group included such men as Allen B.
FHDnd, one Of the great architects Of the city Of Chicago.
5Six years after his graduation from the University Of
hiichigan in 1880 he came to Chicago where he bagan a
successful practice; but he spent much time in the

Social welfare movement, especially as a trustee of

Hull House Association, Grads Hill Center (a social

70

settlement), as well as the Housing Association Of Chi-
cago. One Of his prime concerns was better housing for
the working class. Another contributor from the pro-
fessions was Julian W. Mack, an attorney and Judge Of
Chicago's Juvenile Court, which was itself a major instru-
ment Of social reform. There was also Victor Lawson, pub-
lisher Of the Chicago Daily_News, who not only made his
paper the mouthpiece of social reform in Chicago, but
gave generously to the Chicago School Of Civics and
Philanthropy and tO numerous welfare agencies.

These professional men were a product Of the
newly emergent urban industrial bourgeois society in
Chicago. They realized, as will be demonstrated in the
Succeeding chapters, that to maintain the present social
and economic relationships without violent conflict the
Workers must be given a stake in the new society. In
effect, the workers would have to be converted from an
alienated lower class into a satisfied lower-middle class.
These progressive professionals and their colleagues in
the big business believed in the essential rightness Of
the corporate system with its benefits tO them in terms
of power and wealth. Public and private action was
necessary only to put some restraints on the abuses Of
that economic power, and to correct the most flagrant
l“aladjustments Of the society that by its very nature

offended their sense Of humanity.

71

The question naturally arises as tO who the
smaller contributors were, for up tO this point we have

only talked Of the major contributors on whom the social

welfare system so heavily depended. The composite char-

acteristics Of the lesser donors are harder to put
together but, from the sketchy financial records Of

the various social welfare and reform organizations,

they appear tO be upper-middle class peOple. The wel—

:fare organizations did not take up collections on a mass
scale, but were financed through appeals to large con-
tributors and selected smaller ones. Often pleas tO
cnontributors Of moderate means were made through middle
and upper middle-class women's clubs and church organi-
zations. For most organizations contributions were
reirely under $25. A typical example is the financing

(Di? the University of Chicago Settlement. Its budget for

1929 was:

$10,000 - earnings Of the Settlement House
4,000 - membership contributions
7,500 - the League for U. Of C. Settlement
6,800 - Wieboldt's Foundation

3,000 - Students' Settlement Night
4,500 - Offerings at religious service

The list of names for the invitations tO the
Students' Settlement Night indicate that those who were
IJTVited lived in upper-class areas Of the city. Simi-

1Eirly, the twenty-nine League members were invited tO

E1 1929 tea at the Settlement House. If they were typical

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of the membership, they gave about $300 a year. Thus,

it is clear that the social welfare institutions were

financially fueled by a business and professional middle
41

class even when smaller contributors are considered.

Within this framework, then, the social reform

leaders must work, for many Of its policy-makers were

corporate businessmen or professionals who, because they

benefited from the economic and social relations Of the

society, tended to favor reform that would preserve those

relations without endangering the whole system. On the

Other hand those policy-makers that did not actually fit

this category were dependent on financial backers who

did.
The contributing board members were recruited by

Charismatic people like Jane Addams; people whose idealism

and zeal gave them major influence. She was a unifying

force that everyone in social work lOOked tO for inspir-

a‘tion. Her charisma in part was due to her own personal

magnetism, but in a larger sense it was due tO her total

conunitment to helping others. James Weber Linn in his

biography Of his aunt, Jane Addams, remembered her as one
who "had given all her sympathy, all her time, all her
energY: and most Of her money to the cause Of reform."

He": courage and her devotion tO the poor made her a symbol
42

Q many Americans Of the true humanltarlan splrlt.

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Because she became a dynamic symbol tO those

«outside and inside the welfare system, she had con-

:siderable influence in the decision-making process of

tune social progressive alliance. The extent to which

she exercised that influence is seen in the fact that
she held executive positions in at least fourteen local
Social reform associations and in innumerable temporary

<3Cnnmittees.43 Adding to her importance was the fact

tllat she not only reflected deeply on the social malad-
jllstments Of her time and the possible remedies for them,

btit also expressed her conclusions in over 500 books and

EiIrticles.44 Attention was also focused on her because

She founded and headed the pioneer settlement house in

45

(Illicago. She was:

God-driven in her enthusiasm for righteousness, her
wide human affection, her willingness to learn Of
life, her insight into complicated situations, her
faith in human nature which enabled her to form new
and hopeful combinations with the most unpromising
materials and suggest solutions for problems which

the community had long accepted as insoluble.46

In addition tO Jane Addams, there was a small
fiilroup Of men and women who also devoted their lives tO

£3<>cial reform and were prime decision-makers in the pro-

g3l=essive social reform alliance. Like Jane Addams,

‘zlleir pervasive influence did not come primarily because

‘:1Wey held a particular executive Office in a social

welfare organization, although they were usually Officers

jfin a variety of such groups. Their dominions, instead,

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(came from their acknowledged pre-eminence in the social

welfare movement as a whole.

First Of all, these elite decision-makers were
a: small tightly knit group. They corresponded and met
vvith one another in order to discuss strategy and goals.
By coming tO know each other well on the personal level,
tflneir relationship bred a deep trust and respect. The
group was so small that one time when Jane Addams entered
ii Ineeting called to work out some social problem she

found the same familiar faces and remarked "What are

We going to call ourselves today?"47
This elite included:
1:
1.- Edith and Grace Abbott - educators at the Chi-

cago School of Civics
and Philanthropy, social
workers

1:
2 - Mrs. Emmons Blaine - philanthrOpist and
leader of various reform

organizations, espe-
cially Juvenile Protec-
tive Association

*
3 - Julia C. Lathrop - social worker

‘4'- Mary E. McDowell - settlement worker, Head
Of University Of Chi-
cago Settlement House

*
S - Florence Kelley - reformer, Head Of Illi-
nois Factory Inspection
Bureau 1892-1896

*
‘ Sophonisba P. Breckinridge - educator at the Chicago
School Of Civics and

Philanthropy

i.‘
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75

7. Louise Bowen - philanthropist, social
worker, especially
juvenile delinquency
and child labor

8. Dr. Alice Hamilton* - medical reformer
9. Lucy Flower* - social reformer
11). Minnie Low - settlement worker
1J1. Graham Taylor - settlement worker,

Head Of Chicago Commons
Settlement House

12. Charles R. Henderson - sociology professor at
the University Of Chi-
cago

113.. Charles Ball - chief tenement house

inspector for Chicago

Ju4.. Charles E. Merriam - political science pro-
fessor at the University
Of Chicago, political
reformer

15- Mr. and Mrs. Raymond
Roogins* - social reformers

*
Hull House resident at some time in life

Another characteristic Of the top policy makers
jJrl this group was that they not only thought deeply about
the social economic maladjustments Of a mass industrial
s<><‘-‘:I'.ety, but published their views and their proposed
Sc3111tions. As a group, these men and women were highly
literate. Everyone was a regular contributor to maga-
==ines ranging from the pOpular tO the scholarly. All
of them had some college education and most had their
LtDEi‘zhelor's degree; some had advanced degrees. This is

e8Iiecially significant as women played a rOle in the

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76

social welfare movement disproportionate tO their activity

in other endeavors. These women were better educated

than their peers in the general population.

The over-all career pattern for most Of these

women and men was birth to middle-class parents in a
rural small town or suburb, a protestant religious
upbringing, a university education, migration to the

big city where they put their talents tO work in the

cause Of social reform. By virtue Of their education

and values, they tOO might be described as part Of

Chicago's new upper class.48

Typical in these respects was Sophonisba Preston

Breckinridge.49 She came from a very distinguished

Kentucky family. Her father, seeing that she enjoyed

and did well at school, sent her tO Wellesley College

Where she found mathematics so interesting that she

Inajored in it. After graduating she taught high school

13111:, tiring Of it, she elected to study law in Lexington,

Kentucky. Although she was so competent that she became

the first woman tO be admitted tO the Kentucky Bar Associ-

at-:i.on, clients did not flock to her. In 1897 she entered

the University Of Chicago as a graduate student in politi-

cal science and economics. After earning the doctorate,

she added the degree Of juris doctor in the law school

”In 1904. Along the way she was admitted to Golf, an

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honorary legal fraternity similar to the liberal arts
Phi Beta Kappa, of which she was already a member.

While in graduate school, she had not been a
library monk, for she had responded eagerly to the appeal
:for her to face the great social question of the day,

'the inequalities and injustices of the new mass urban

:industrial society. In this area, at least, a woman

unauld be welcome to apply her talents.

On the basis of her experience with the poor at
.Hhill House, where she lived while going to the University

Of Chicago, Miss Breckinridge decided to devote her life

‘t&> social reform. She became a charter member of the

(Illicago WOmen's Trade Union League and joined the staff

(>1? the State Bureau of Labor in order to conduct a survey

(>15 conditions among Chicago unskilled working men. Her

IPEirt of the report was published as a book on workmen's

<=<>nditions in the Chicago Stockyards. She not only wrote

ITfiiports, but was also an activist, participating in the

garment workers' strikes in 1911 and 1915.

In 1907, urged by her friend Julia Lathrop,

£3(DIPIhonisba Breckinridge accepted an offer to join the
£3":Eiff of the newly created Chicago School of Civics and

Philanthropy. Here the faculty and students studied

t:11€3 social problems of the city and formulated programs

‘1‘) solve them. In addition, the students were trained

to be professional social workers. Miss Breckinridge

78

became the Dean of the School and remained in this
position when it became the School of Social Service
Administration at the University of Chicago.

In addition to her academic pursuits, she was a
tireless crusader for the abolition of child labor,
improvement of housing conditions, better working con-
ditions, minimum wage, and shorter hours. She tried to
achieve her goals through convincing enough people that
action was needed. She did this through speeches and
organizational work and, most importantly, through her
Writing and teaching.

Although these professional reformers were pri-
marily motivated by a religious and compassionate concern
for the plight of the poor, they were forced to operate
within a framework defined and limited by their source of
financial backing, the other half of the progressive
Social reform coalition: the enlightened upper class.
In addition, they were limited by their own value system

which in many ways was similar to the one ascribed by
Rebert H. Wiebe to the "New Middle Class." The reformers,
for example, believed in the bureaucratic, administrative,
manipulative, tOp-down approach to social problems.50 The
working class was to be guided to a better life, but was
to have no part in the development of the programs designed
to accomplish this task. The best example of this outlook

is the develOpment of the Chicago School of Civics and

DIIilanthropy .

FOOTNOTES--CHAPTER II

1Andrew A. Bruce, "Jane Addams," The Illinois

Voter, XII (June, 1932), p. 4.
21bid., p. 3.
3Graham Taylor to Albert J. Kennedy, September 20,

11312, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; Graham Taylor
't<> Albert J. Kennedy, March 8, 1918, Graham Taylor MSS.

Newberry Library .

4Speech by Julius Rosenwald, "In Sherwood Forest,"
~3111ius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

5Speech by Julius Rosenwald to the Advertising
Association of Chicago, October 30, 1913, Julius Rosen-
wald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

"A Member of the University

6Charles E. Merriam,
University

Conununity," n.d., Edith and Grace Abbott MSS.
of Chicago Library.

7Speech by Julius Rosenwald to the Advertising
3\£3£30ciation of Chicago, October 30, 1913, Julius Rosenwald
”45353. University of Chicago Library.

8Graham Taylor to John P. Gavit, October 16, 1916,

G:c‘aham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

9M. R. Werner, Julius Rosenwald, The Life of a
292-95}

salafafiitical Humanitarian (New York, 1939)! 99'

3L5; 10Graham Taylor to Mr. John V. Farwell, October 10,
25, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

79

1921

A"

hilt

Y.
.‘r
M:

80

11Graham Taylor in the Daily News, December 3,
1921, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

12Graham Taylor to Mrs. Buttle, December 31, 1921,
'Chicago Commons MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

13Lea Taylor, "The Financing of Social Agencies,"
1924, Lea Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

l4Ibid., pp. 74-75.

15Albert Nelson Marquis, The Book of Chicagoans
«Chicago, 1905, 1911, 1926); Richard Jensen,—“Quantitative
Challective Biography: An Application to MetrOpolitan
lilites," in Quantification in American History, ed. by
Ilichard Swierenga (New York, 1972), pp. 384-405.

 

l6Ibid.

17Robert H. Wiebe, The Search For Order 1877-1920
(New York, 1967), pp. 111-37.

 

laIbid.

19Victor Elting to Emmons Blaine McCormick,
~Jfialy 12, 1920, Emmons Blaine McCormick MSS. Wisconsin
Piistorical Society Library.

2OMemorandum by Graham Taylor, Graham Taylor M85.
1920, Newberry Library; Victor F. Lawson to Graham Taylor,
QIEInuary 11, 1911, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

21"Housing Association of Chicago," Survey, XIII
(IXugust 2, 1919), p. 674.

22List of Associate Members, May 11, 1901, Emmons
BJ.~aine McCormick MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society
lbrary.

23Contributors' List of the Immigrants' Protective
Irۤague, 1920, Immigrants' Protective League MSS. Chicago
H lstorical Society Library .

I? 24M. R. Werner, Julius Rosenwald, The Life of a
~.&5gctica1 Humanitarian (New York,fil939), pp. 3-106.

 

 

‘ v

81

251bid.

26Ibid.

27Ibid.

28Annual Reports, 1910-1930, Juvenile Protective
Association MSS. University of Illinois at the Chicago
Circle; Esther L. Kohn, "Illinois Child Labor Committee,
History and Origin," December, 1952, Esther L. Kohn MSS.
University of Illinois at the Chicago Circle; Mary McDowell,
Form Letter, July 11, 1913, Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago
Historical Society Library; M. R. Werner, Julius Rosenwald
(New York, 1939), pp. 274-76; Julius Rosenwald to E. J.
werner, October 12, 1925, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University
of Chicago Library; W. M. Kelley to Julius Rosenwald,
May 18, 1908, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago
Library; Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House; Immigrant
Protective League, Finances, September 1927 - June 1928,
Chicago Historical Society Library; Victor Elting to Anita
Blaine McCormick, July 12, 1920, Anita Blaine McCormick
MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society Library; Sophonisba P.
Breckinridge to Graham Taylor, July 3, 1920, Chicago
Commons Association MSS. Chicago Historical Society
Library.

 

 

29Julius Rosenwald to E. J. Werner, October 12,
1925, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

30Miriam G. Shephard to Mr. Graves, March 22, 1924,
Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

31Mary McDowell to Julius Rosenwald, March 18,
1913, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

32Julius Rosenwald to Mary McDowell, March 19,
1913, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

33Who was Who in AmericaL71897-l942, I (Chicago,
1943), 272.

 

34Olive M. Sullivan to Agnes Nestor, January 24,
1918, Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical Society
Library.

W“
\‘J

5‘]
r (h

3.... d _

fl». Ur.

82

35Richard Teller Crane, The Autobiography of
Richard Teller Crane (Chicago, 1927), p. 223; Edith Abbott
to JuIia Lathrop, August 7, 1920, Edith Abbott MSS. Uni-
versity of Chicago Library; Graham Taylor to Julia C.
Lathrop, June 4, 1907, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry
Library.

 

 

36Robert Ozanne, A Century of Labor-Management
Relations at McCormick andflnternational Harvestor (Madi-
son, Wisconsin, 1967), pp. 29-170, 245.

 

 

37Morrell Head, The Social Responsibilities of
Business Company and Community, 1900-1960 (Cleveland,
), pp. 20-53; Gerard Korman, Industrialization, Immi-
grants and Americanizers: Tthiew From Milwaukee, 1866-
1921 (Madison, Wisconsin, 1967).

 

 

 

38Werner, p. ix.

39Who Was Who in America, 1897-1942, I (Chicago,
1943), 42, 980, 537; Charles H. Dennis, Victor Lawson:
His Time and His Wbrk (New York, 1935), pp. 429-31.

 

 

 

40Paper: "The Relationship of the University of
Chicago Settlement to the University," 1929, Mary McDowell
MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

41List of Board and League Members Invited to
Miss McDowell's Tea, December 1, 1929, Mary McDowell MSS.
Chicago Historical Society Library.

_ 42James Weber Linn, Jane Addams, A Biography (New
York, 1935), p. 193.

 

43Juvenile Protective Association, Annual Reports,
1919-1945, Juvenile Protective Association MSS. University
of Illinois at the Chicago Circle Library; Survey, XXVI
(April 1, 1911), 11; Joseph T. Bowen to Lea D. Taylor,
January 18, 1927, Lea D. Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical
Society Library; Minutes of the Tenement Committee of the
City Homes Association, Nov. 2, 1900, Anita Blaine McCor-
mick MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society Library; Chicago
Tribune, April 22, 1910, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry
Library; Letter Head, The Women's Trade Union League of
Illinois, July 30, 1908, Agnes Nestor, Chicago Historical
Society Library; Graham Taylor to Jane Addams, February,
1913, Graham Taylor MSS., Chicago Historical Society

83

Library; "The Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy,"
Survey, XLII (September 1, 1920), 686-87; Harold L. Ickes
to M188 Jane Addams, January 6, 1912, Jane Addams MSS.
University of Illinois at the Chicago Circle.

44John Q. Farrell, Beloved Lady: A History of

Jane Addams' Ideas on Reform and Peace (Baltimore, 1967),
pp. 220-41.

45Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House (New

York, 1961); Cornelia Meigs, Jane Addams[_Pioneer for
Social Justice (Boston, 1970), pp. 48-78.

 

 

 

46Graham Taylor, "Jane Addams," Survey, XXIV
(July, 1936), 338-41; A. M. Rich, "Mary E. McDowell,"
XXXC (November, 1936), 332.

47Allen F. Davis, Spearheads for Reform, The
Social Settlements and the Progressive Movement: 1890-
1914 (New York, 1967), pp. 33-36, 267.

 

48
174, 183.

Wiebe, pp. 112, 120-21, 128, 131, 154, 157, 165,

49Edith Abbott, "Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
Over the Years," Social Service Review, XXII (December,
1948), 418-23; Charles E. Merriam, wA—Member of the Uni-
versity Community," Social Service Review, XXII (December,
1948), 424-29.

 

 

50Wiebe, pp. 133-63.

CHAPTER III

HOUSING REGULATION IS NOT ENOUGH

Until the 1890's few peOple in Chicago held that
the city had a housing problem comparable to New York's
where much of the working class lived in sub-standard
apartments as typified by the "dumbbell tenements."1
This type of building was essentially a front and rear
apartment connected by a hall. It usually covered the
entire space of a 25 x 100 foot lot and contained four-
teen rooms to a floor, seven on either side running in
a straight line. One family lived in the first four of
the seven rooms, measuring about 15 x 10 feet, while the
remaining three rooms to the rear were occupied by a
second family. In this way four families were housed on
each floor. Water closets were located opposite the
stairs, one for each two families. Of the fourteen
rooms on each floor only four had windows that Opened
on anything but an air shaft. This air shaft formed

by the indentation of two building sides was usually not

larger than twenty-eight inches wide. It was inadequate

84

Ih

in

”U

85

in terms of providing light and air. These were the very
best in working-class accommodations.2

Unlike the dumbbell pattern in New York, Chicago's
working-class districts were made up of small frame houses
constructed after the 1871 Chicago Fire for one or two
middle-class families. With the Spread of the factory
district near the center of Chicago, their middle-class
occupants fled toward the boundaries of the city. As
they did so, working-class families moved into the
frame houses. An unskilled workman was severely limited
in his choice of rental apartments as he had available
a relatively small amount of money for his housing needs.
He often was forced to crowd into these inadequate houses
with other working families, sharing the total rent. By
the 1890's these homes were very over-crowded with four
families living in the space designed for one family.
Adding to the discomfort was the general disrepair and
weathering of the frame houses over the years. Because
of the shortage of housing, the landlord found few profit
incentives to clean and repair his holdings. Chicago's
poor were no better housed than New York's poor; they
were only less visible.3

Another factor which made it difficult to arouse
public sentiment in favor of housing reform was that
there was no rich absentee landlord on whom to focus a

political attack. A typical rental house in the poorer

,St

R.\U
l

16

he

a. Q
at

hm

86

districts was owned by an immigrant working-class family
just a shade better off than its tenants, and occupying
the worst part of the house.4 Because the landlord was
permanent, a taxpayer, and able to influence a vote
besides his own--the tenants--he enjoyed some influence

in the local political machine, which in turn controlled
the city government. It was highly unlikely that housing
reform would be initiated by the local political structure.

A final factor limiting public concern over
working-class housing was the general self-righteousness
of the middle class, the belief that the working class
got exactly what it deserved, and that bad housing was
only a reflection of a defective character. Accordingly,
there was little that could be done about the situation
except to teach the working class how to achieve a moral
life.

In response to a severe outbreak of cholera and
smallpox in 1867, the state legislature authorized the
creation of a Board of Health in Chicago. This board in
turn set up an annual "Sanitary Survey" of the city.
Although the first report and all the subsequent ones
emphasized that one of the most important factors in the
spread of disease was the lack of drainage facilities
and of flush toilets, especially in poor districts,
little was done to correct the situation.5 PeOple in

the middle class, once the immediate health crisis

passe

9901
l
v and

1...
M‘W’r

H.313

».: m
45 hi

U)
. . .
Lalo
(D;

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as

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that
can

:t- .L

'3»:

44
a; V

87

passed, quickly sank back into traditional thinking con-
cerning poverty, bad housing, and moral character.

Enough citizens became interested, however, in
building regulations after a fire that destroyed much
of Chicago in 1871 to pressure the City Council to con-
sider a tenement house ordinance which applied to dwell-
ing places where more than one family lived. Although it
was primarily aimed at the prevention of fire by setting
certain standards for the construction of new homes, the
ordinance was not passed.6 The old individualistic idea
that man should be able to do what he wanted with his
own land was still too strong to permit the passage of
such legislation even in the face of the evidence that
it was not viable in the crowded urban environment.

Such an individualist approach could not survive
the interdependence engendered by urbanization. So many
unskilled immigrant families crowded into Chicago looking
for a better life that the population was enlarged by.
120 per cent in the years 1880-1900, a growth rate larger
than any in its history or its future.7 In order to meet
this influx, landlords added rooms for another family or
built a second house at the back of the lot, crowding
land and houses alike. In many of those houses, families
supplemented the father's low wage by taking in garments
to be finished at a piece rate. The contract system in

the garment trade provided the bridge by which diseases

lK‘
9'17
LC
6‘
M '
U“:

mun. C 4
e :d

88

like smallpox, consumption, diptheria, typhoid, scarlet
fever, and scabras could be transmitted from the slums
to the best neighborhoods in the city.8

The social reformers played on the rising middle-
class fear of contracting various diseases through the
medium of the garments they wore in order to focus attention
on the living conditions in the working-class districts
of the city. In the face of public concern the City Council
passed in 1879 an ordinance which in part was aimed at the
regulation of families engaged in garment finishing in
their tenements. The law required that clothing be made
only in sanitary surroundings.9 One year later the Health
Department authorized the Chicago Health Department to
make inspections to be sure that the provisions of the

I I 10
earlier law were carried out.

Although the law only
affected those tenements which contained families engaged
in the garment trade, it did set the principle that the
Health Commissioner could be empowered by law to inspect
slum housing and enforce a code of standards. Neverthe-
less, the middle class, when they thought of it at all,
continued to see the housing question as a health matter
particularly as it related to them.

Awakened by the squalid crowding in America's
large cities and by books as shocking as Jacob Riis, Hg!
the Other Half Lives, Congress directed Labor Commissioner

Carroll D. wright to study the slum.11 Mr. Wright invited

n‘- 1....)
-

.0}
w

T

'0

la-

89

Mrs. Florence Kelley, a resident at Hull House, to draw

up the report on Chicago, chosen as a representative inland
city. Her report, published in the 1893 labor report,
described Chicago's slums not only as practically unlivable
for their inhabitants, but also as a threat to the well-

being of the city as a whole:

 

 

Chicago As A Chicago Slum Districts
Whole Studiedlz

l. Saloons One for Every One for Every

212 persons 127 persons
2. Arrests One for Every One for Every

11 persons 4 persons
3. Foreign born 51% 57%
4. Illiteracy 10% 25%

The investigation graphically demonstrated to
Chicago's progressive upper-class elite of corporate
executives and professionals, who either read it or had
it interpreted to them by social reformers, that the city
had a dangerous slum filled with foreigners prone to
drink, violence, crime, and disease. Worse still it was
becoming increasingly clear that this condition endangered
the stability and health of the entire city. The effects
of lower-class crime and disease, for example, were often
felt in the best of neighborhoods.

Sensitive members of the upper class were also
shocked by the wretched living conditions of Chicago's
poor. The survey had rated slum houses as excellent,

good, fair, or bad according to a criteria that included

r1

90

light, air, ventilation, cleanliness, and sanitary con-
ditions. The greatest proportion of houses were only
fair with 15 per cent judged to be bad. Only one-fourth
of the slum district tenements had water closets, while
the rest relied on privies. Only one person in twenty-
five lived in a house with a full bathroom. To the
upper class these figures represented more than a matter
of aesthetics; privies were a means for the spread of
diseases. The fly did not stay within the confines of
the slum district. 13

It was only natural that the upper class and many
social reformers drew a causal connection between the two
most prominent features of the slum, bad housing con-
ditions and socially disruptive behavior. The only dis-
agreement was over which factor caused the other. The
more enlightened members of the upper class agreed with
the social reformers that it was the environment that
was the root cause.

Adding to the mounting evidence that Chicago like
the older cities had a growing housing problem were the
annual reports of the Illinois State Factory Inspection
Bureau under Florence Kelley. Although these reports were
concerned with working conditions, they frequently spot-
lighted the plight of the very poor when they focused on
tenement house manufacture. Because the poor did most

of their work in their living rooms, the living conditions

91

of these people were as bad as their working conditions.
The 1896 report was eSpecially descriptive of the inhuman
surroundings of clothing manufacture in the living rooms
of the tenement houses:
On the same street, a few doors away, reached by an
outside wooden stairway, narrow, steep and shaky, is
the home of another capmaker. There are three rooms
and caps and cap material is strewed over them all.
In one room the contractor, his wife, three small and
very dirty children, and three workmen each at a
machine, were found. The whirr of the heavy machines
did not cease while the inspector's questions were
answered. The lounge and unmade bed were piled with
cap-boxes and caps, and a little investigation
revealed vermin in and on both . . . (The caps are
of fine corduroy, silk lined, handsome--not for
workman's wear).

The theme that the clothes manufactured in the
tenements and sweat shops were not only made for the poor,
but also for the rich appears throughout the reports.

This fact leads to the speculation that the reports were
aimed at least in part at the upper-class' fear of trans-
mission of disease from the slums to the better neighbor-
hoods in the hope that they would be motivated to take
action to ameliorate the foul conditions in the slums of
the city.14

Florence Kelley related many other examples of
the unsanitary conditions in tenement sweat shops. A
rather typical one concerned a man and wife who made caps

together under contract and who had been followed through

the year from one bad location to another:

92

The visit found them . . . in a one-story wooden
cottage in the rear of a tenement house of several
stores. The cottage, containing four low, dark and
damp rooms, stands below the street level, and the
ground under it is water soaked. The man and woman
eat, sleep and work in one room, surrendering the
others to dirt and vermin: even in the one occupied
the bed was standing with posts in saucers containing
a mixture for destroying vermin. The man complained
of rheumatism and the woman's face was swollen with
neuralgia. Just outside the windows of this living
and work room were three vaults, used by tenants of
three houses.
In addition to these studies, the residents of
Hull House, because of their location in the slums, had
first-hand experience with the miseries of slum conditions
that were in part obscured by the statistical approach of
the federal study. They published their thoughts on the

problem in 1895 in a book entitled Hull-House Maps and

Papers.15

The study was modeled on Charles Booth's Maps of
London. In essence it was an investigation of the social
and cultural conditions of the working-class district
whose boundaries were from Halsted to State Streets and
from Polk to 12th Streets. Nationality composition,
wages, the sweating system, child labor, poverty, and
recreation were all objects of study.16

Half of the district, according to the report,
was made up of rear tenements facing dirty alleys. In
these dwellings, the most wretched and destitute congre-

gated in great numbers. Most of them were frame houses

in very bad repair because they brought in such high rents

93

that there was no business profit in destroying them to
build new ones. Living conditions were dreadful, as
many of the houses were allowed to "literally rot away
and fall apart while occupied." When this happened,
brick tenements were often built, but these were usually
more crowded and had a "more stifling atmosphere . . .
[and a] denser darkness. . . . "17
It was also discovered that families moved around
constantly going from tenement to tenement in line with
their economic condition. If the immigrant worker was
upward economically mobile, he usually moved into better
accommodations. If on the other hand he was downward
mobile through illness, enforced idleness, or "bad luck,"
he would be forced to seek quarters that were worse, but
more in line with his income. Thus, the lower-class
experience in the slums was a mixture of discouragement
at the foul conditions presently suffered, as well as
a hope in the future for better and fear of worse, depend-
ing upon economic circumstances.18
In studying the wages of the unskilled worker, the
authors described an Italian employed on the railroads
as a fairly typical example of the plight of the unskilled
workman. With no other source of income his yearly average
wage was $225. In effect this meant that he had available

$2 or less a week for rent even if he spent half his

income on this item. Clearly his $2 would buy him, if

94

he had a family, only a very inadequate apartment in the
worst part of the slum. The earlier federal study of
Chicago found that one-third of the people in the slums
paid less than $2 a week for rent while two-thirds paid
less than $4, a sum that would purchase only slightly
better housing.19

In addition to these studies there were exposes
on the slums in the city's newspapers. These articles
performed the function of stirring up middle- and upper
middle-class fear and humanitarian concern over the slum.
The stories played up the violence and crime centered
in the working-class districts, as well as the problem
of disease and inadequate housing conditions. As the
Sunday Times-Herald put it on April 12, 1896, in a full-
page article: "The condition of the slums is a public
concern, a menace by pestilence and fire, and a breeder
of crime and pauperism." The story went on to describe
the threat to the rest of the city from the slums.20

Enlightened members of the upper class were firmly
convinced that inadequate housing conditions were one of
the major causes of the seeming propensity of the lower
class for crime, violence, and disease. Social reformers
like Jane Addams also persuaded them that it was possible
to modify this behavior pattern by providing the lower
class with a more adequate physical environment. To

accomplish this task the social welfare groups at Hull

95

House united with progressive elements of the upper class
such as Mrs. Charles Henrotin, wife of a wealthy Chicago
banker and broker, and Mrs. Emmons Blaine, a daughter of
the first Cyrus McCormick. They were firmly convinced
that inadequate housing conditions were one of the major
causes of the seeming propensity of the lower class toward
crime, violence, and disease. To modify this behavior
pattern, a better physical environment would have to be
provided.21
The first step in the campaign for better housing
conditions was taken in 1900 when the Improved Housing
Association, which had been formed after the WOrld's
Columbian Association by prominent businessmen concerned
with the slums, called for a housing conference. In
response to this call Mrs. Charles Henrotin urged the
Executive Committee of the Chicago Bureau of Charities
on April 6, 1900, to consider this idea. Most of Chicago's
social welfare organizations agreed to cooperate in the
conference. The Chicago Bureau of Charities, The Con-
sumers' League, The Chicago Department of Health, as well
as most of the settlement houses decided to work together.22
In order to draw public attention to the conference,
the social welfare groups agreed that an exhibition graphi-
cally illustrating the unsatisfactory housing conditions

for the poor should be brought from New York City to Chi-

cago. Although the affair was to be open to the public,

96

special invitations were sent to influential citizens
who might be helpful to the cause of reform.
Most of the cost involved in the project was

underwritten by the McCormick family.23

They were inter-
ested in the project for a variety of reasons conditioned
by historical circumstances. Their fear of workers,
especially if they organized, had been kindled in their
own 1886 strike and reinforced by the Pullman Strike and
Boycott of 1894. In order to undercut organizing attempts
by employees at their plants, they initiated beginning in
the middle 1890's a series of social amelioration programs.
At the same time the family, especially Stanley McCormick
and Anita McCormick Blaine, became interested in improving
the environment from which the workers came.24
While the exhibition was in progress, a conference
of businessmen and social workers interested in housing
reform was held. They decided, as a result of the meeting,
to organize the City Home's Association in late April,
1900. The Association's self-appointed task was to study
the physical conditions of life in Chicago, especially in
the ”more thickly settled districts of the city," and to
make recommendations on how they could be improved.25
The membership of the first Executive Committee,
which was elected by the general membership of the City

Home's Association, included such prominent people as

Mrs. Emmons Blaine; Mrs. Cyrus McCormick; Mrs. Joseph T.

97

Bowen, a wealthy widow; Miss Jane Addams; Edward B.
Butler, a trustee of Hull House and a prosperous merchant-
executive of Butler Brothers, a wholesale dry goods house;
Cyrus Bentley, a successful lawyer in the firm of Bentley,
Burling and Swan, one of the most prominent law offices in
the city; Chester M. Dawes, a corporation lawyer who
became general counsel in 1910 for the Chicago Burlington
and Quincy Railroad; and, finally, George Vincent, an
educator with a Ph.D. in Sociology, Dean of Faculties,
Arts, Literature, and Science of the University of Chi-
cago. He later became President of the University of
Minnesota and of the Rockefeller Foundation.26
Once the Executive Committee was organized, it
immediately appointed a committee on tenements on Decem-
ber 7, 1900. This committee was composed of Jane Addams,
Mrs. Cyrus McCormick, Mrs. Harold McCormick, and Mr. Charles
Hutchinson, a wealthy banker and grain merchant, among
his many offices the Presidency of the Corn Exchange
National Bank, Director of Northern Trust Company, and
President of the Chicago Board of Trade. The membership
of both these committees are good examples of the pro-
gressive upper-class executive and professional elite
which were concerned with Chicago's social problems.27
One of the first acts of the Committee on Tenements

was to form a sub-committee to investigate the extent of

the housing problem in Chicago by conducting a survey.

98

The Sub-Committee on Investigation had as members Jane
Addams; Miss Julia Lathrop; Mrs. Cyrus McCormick; and
Mr. Robert Hunter, a resident at Hull House as well as
the person in charge of the actual investigation. It was
this committee which produced in 1901 a comprehensive and
authoritative study of housing conditions in Chicago.
The social reformers involved in the study were firmly
convinced that the social problems of the United States
would be solved through the administration by experts of
a prescribed cure formulated on the basis of a scientific
investigation of the problem. This investigation was to
be the first step in improving the living conditions of
the poor.28
The investigation centered on workers' housing in
three west Side districts, selected because the social
reformers thought them fairly typical of slum conditions
in the city. They included a Jewish and Italian quarter
in the ninth and nineteenth wards, a Polish area in the
seventeenth ward, and a Bohemian ghetto in the tenth ward

29 Blacks were not

with a total population of 45,000.
included because in 1900 they made up such a small per-
centage of the population.

The final report concluded after interviews and
statistical analysis of the resulting data that housing

conditions were "growing steadily worse, and that the

slum now building is likely to repeat the history of

99

those in other cities." The growth of slums, it explained,
was the result of the natural desire on the part of land-
lords to cover every inch of their ground space with large
tenements without sufficient provision for light and venti-
lation. Unless checked by city regulation the profit
incentive would lead to "the kind of slums that New York
already endured." The day of the double-decker or dumb-
bell tenement was beginning to arrive in Chicago as old
frame houses collapsed and were replaced with these new
dwellings. Most of the lots still contained, neverthe-
less, frame houses, usually a two-story house with a
basement. On the rear part of the lot was usually another
tenement fronting on an alley with its windows directly
over manure boxes and garbage containers. The privies
were normally nearby with the filth of rear yards and
alleys strewn around. It was in these foul rear tenements
that the poorest people lived.30
Although the Hunter Report found the rear tenement
to be the worst kind of housing, the entire area surveyed
was thought to be "oppressively dense." The typical
house was divided into three apartments with three or
four rooms. Of all the apartments investigated 40 per
cent had under 300 square feet of floor area which was
considered to be the bare minimum of healthful living
for a family of four. Considering the fact that the

average number of people per apartment was about five,

100

there was very little "breathing space." The statistics
gave some idea of the misery of overcrowding which faced
the unskilled immigrant worker, but they did not convey
the horror of these families that fell below the average.
A fairly typical example of such a family was portrayed
by the chief investigator, Robert Hunter:

One day the writer visited the family of a man who
had been prostrated by heat while at work with the
street-paving gang. They were a family of seven,
living in a two-room apartment of a rear tenement.
The day was in August, and the sun beat down upon
one unintermittently and without mercy. The husband
had been brought home a few hours before, and the
wife, in a distracted but skillful way, found path-
ways among the clamoring children. The air was
steamy with a half-finished washing, and remnants

of the last meal were still upon the table. A
crying baby and a sick husband occupied the only
bed. The writer had known before of five people
sleeping in one bed, so he supposed the father and
the oldest child usually slept on the floor. As he
watched the woman on that day he understood a little
of what it meant to live in such contracted quarters.
To cook and wash for seven, to nurse a crying baby
broken out with heat, and to care for a delirious
husband. To arrange a possible sleeping-place for
seven, to do all these things in two rooms which
open upon an alley, tremulous with heated odors and
swarming with flies from the garbage and manure
boxes, was something to tax the patience of a Job
and the strength of a Titan.31

In addition to over-crowding the study found con-
ditions in the houses to be unsanitary because of darkness,
lack of air, uncleanliness, and poisonous gases. For
example, poorly ventilated rooms with walls overshadowing
the windows made the rooms musty, which inevitably led
to accumulations in the dark corners of dirt, mold, and

vermin. The situation was made worse by over-crowding,

101

miserable constructions, ill-repair, defective plumbing,
privy vaults, and the lack of baths.32
Outside sanitary conditions were also sub-standard.
The sidewalks were often broken, with the streets unpaved
and lined "with rows of foul garbage boxes standing before
the doors." The alleys were found to be littered with
rubbish as were many of the vacant lots.33
Perhaps, according to authors, "the most serious
of the evils which result from the tenement house system
are various forms of individual and social degeneration."
These "evils" included poverty, pauperism, intemperance,
crime, sickness, high death rates. The survey tied most
of these problems to the horrible environment in which
the residents of the slums found themselves.34
The chief investigator, Robert Hunter, concluded
that the City Council must enact a new housing code aimed
at wiping out the worst aspect of working-class housing.
Such action was necessary because "Chicago has no intel-
ligible, well-planned building and sanitary code." In
its absence there was no way, as the ground became more
valuable and the old frame dwellings became uninhabitable,
to prevent landlords from building more and more dark,
overcrowded, unsanitary double-deckers or dumbbell tene-
ments in order to maximize their profits. In addition,

there was the question of overcrowding and unsanitary con-

ditions in the decaying frame houses.35

102

The new building and sanitary code should set
minimum standards of light, air, and cleanliness with
which landlords conform. The problem of overcrowding
could be eliminated by defining the number of cubic feet
of air space per person necessary in each apartment. A
landlord would not be allowed to rent to more peOple than
for which there was adequate air space. The problem of
the spreading double-decker tenement house was to be met
in a very simple way; it would be outlawed. As for the
decaying frame houses, they would be torn down. In order
to enforce these laws the Hunter Report recommended that
the city set up a vigorous inspection system under a cen-
tralized board of control.36

Although most of these recommendations were pro-
hibitions against actions that were thought to cause slums,
the Report did have some positive ideas to improve life
in working-class districts. The city should, according
to Hunter, set up public baths, small parks, and gardens
that would serve both the recreational and educational
needs of the poor. The report also counseled that busi-
nessmen should build low-cost tenements on a large scale
for the unskilled workers who could not afford adequate
housing in the regular market. Such efforts could provide
low-cost housing by applying large amounts of capital to
massive projects, thereby taking advantage of the econo-

mies of scale. (The first of these model tenements was

103

built almost twenty-eight years later.) The investigation

ended with a warning to the people of Chicago that "the

city's location alone will not save it but that public

Opinion and legal enactments are essential if Chicago

is to escape the housing evils of New York and London."37
Armed with their comprehensive survey of housing

conditions in three working-class districts, the City

Home's Association, made up of social reformer experts

on housing and concerned members of the upper class,

turned its attention to the framing of a proper tenement

ordinance. The model ordinance drafted by the Association

was widely publicized and gained citizen support as an

important antidote to the disease and fire hazard posed

by the poorer districts to the rest of the city. The

City Council was pressured to take action by public

opinion whipped up by the various welfare organizations.

The City Home's Association also supplied witnesses to

the City Council to testify to the need for action. (In

December, 1902, by a vote of 47-7 the legislative body

of Chicago passed a housing ordinance which embodied to

a large extent the City Home's Association recommendation.38
The ordinance regulated fire security, light, air,

and sanitary conditions in Chicago's tenements. Most of

the provisions were vague and, thus, left much of the

enforcement to the health inspectors. The tenement

house, however, was carefully defined as "any house or

104

building or portion thereof which is intended or designed
to be occupied or leased for occupation as a home or
residence of two or more families, living in separate
apartments, and including all apartment houses, flat
buildings, and residential hotels.39
The weakest part of the law was its enforcement
provisions for there was no central tenement law authority.
Instead, the City Building Department was to issue the per-
mits necessary to construct a tenement house. The Health
Department on the other hand was to issue a certificate
after an inspection of homes already built to see if they
conformed to the requirements of the ordinance. This
split in authority, as well as the lack of adequate funds
to staff both departments, led to a lack of enforcement
in the law. In addition, the wide discretionary power
given to the inspectors left the way open to corruption.40
In 1903 this lax enforcement became public knowl-
edge when Chicago experienced a typhoid epidemic. The
most crowded neighborhoods were heavily affected, the
nineteenth ward (Hull House's ward) being the worst hit.
With a serious epidemic on their doorsteps, Hull House
residents decided to investigate. The main conclusion
of their investigation was that the privy outlawed since
1897 was the chief source of the outbreak of disease and

the common housefly the carrier. The fact that the privy

vault still flourished was charged to the Chicago Health

105

Department which, according to the reformers at Hull
House, was either criminally inefficient or actually
corrupt in that the departmental inspections had pro-
duced no remedial action.41
The middle class and upper class, fearing the
spread of the epidemic to their neighborhoods by way of
the fly, panicked and took the Hull House Report to heart
demanding action against the Health Department. As a
result the Department was reorganized, the chief sanitary
inspector was fired, and criminal charges were brought
against some of the inspectors.42
In order to take advantage of the public pressure
demanding protection against the outbreak of future epi-
demics, the executive committee of the City Home's
Association quickly moved to put forward a candidate
for the vacant chief sanitary inspectorship. The major
requirement for such a candidate in the eyes of the
City Home's Association was that he possess technical
competency and share their ideals concerning housing
reform. Mrs. Emmons Blaine and Jane Addams, acting for
the executive committee, first asked Robert de Forest,
a New York City housing reformer, to become a candidate
for the position of chief sanitary inspector. Although
he declined to come to Chicago, he recommended Charles

A. Ball, an engineer from New York with experience in

tenement regulations.

106

Although Charles Ball tried to enforce the law
by having his inspectors rigidly apply its provisions, he
could not stem the tide of slum-making. His staff was
too small to make adequate inspection visits, and the
corruption too great above him to get convictions on vio-
lations. In a way this corruption may have made the life
of the working class more livable because, if Ball had
succeeded in eliminating all sub-standard housing, the
poor may not have had the funds to live anywhere.43

The documentation of his lack of progress came
from a series of periodic studies of housing conditions.
The first of these was a 1905 re-survey of housing con-
ditions in the same districts covered in the Hunter
Report. Like the earlier report this new investigation
was conducted with the cooperation of the City Home's
Association. Miss Sadie T. Wald, a social reformer in
Chicago who was interested in slum conditions and their
effect on juvenile crime, gathered the material. The
major improvement, according to wald, in the three dis-
tricts was that the yard privy vaults had largely dis-
appeared, and the garbage was more frequently collected.
Charles Ball could take some of the credit for this
advance for he had skillfully used the public fear of
a typhoid outbreak and his employer's fear of another
scandal to force convictions of those landlords who

refused to install water closets in their tenements.

107

Thus, he was able to make spectacular progress in this
area because the rest of the city felt directly threatened
by the continued existence of the slum privy.44
In other areas where such a direct connection
between middle-class well-being and slum condition was
not so apparent, the alliance of social reformers and
enlightened members of the upper class had a more dif-
ficult time forcing change. The Wald Report, for
example, discovered that when tenement conditions were
compared to those found in 1900, the same density of
population was squeezed into unfit and foul habitations.
The only improvement in the situation, Miss Wald reported,
came when a tenement was torn down to make room for a
school house or factory.45
Sadie Wald's classification of this as an improve-
ment is very revealing of the general attitudes of the
housing reformers. There was no mention of the cost of
this so-called improvement; that is, the dispossession
of the poor who had lived in the condemned tenement.
Everytime a school or factory replaced a tenement, the
housing available to the very poor was thereby propor-
tionately reduced. The reformers never seemed to recog-
nize this fact. They were forced to look for new housing

that they could barely afford in an already over-crowded

market.

108

Despite the fact that the condemnation of sub-
standard tenements would have the same effect, this
latest report ended with a plea for the stricter enforce-
ment of the existing sanitary ordinances and the enactment
of new ones, as well as the creation of an independent
tenement house department. In order to rouse public
opinion in support of such action and to "grapple intel-
ligently with the situation," the report went on to demand
the creation of a new expert committee to investigate the
housing problem faced by the poor working class. The
results of this study could then be distributed to the
people through the press and pamphlets. Once these
reforms were put into practice by the city, Miss Wald
was convinced that "we will have a forward movement
that must make a radical improvement in our local
housing conditions."46

By 1907 the City Home's Association had made only
a small beginning in the area of housing reform. It had
carried out two studies that clearly demonstrated the need
for improvements of living conditions in the working-
class districts. The City Council had responded with
tenement regulation ordinances that were not completely
enforced at first due to lack of funds as well as lack of
will. When Charles Ball began enforcing the laws, the
conditions of living inside these tenements did not seem
to improve, although outside conditions did become some-

what better.

109

Thus, the upper-class housing reform organization,
the City Home's Association, made little progress in
arresting the spread of slum housing as thousands of
immigrants poured into the city looking for jobs, as
will be demonstrated in the next chapter. The major
reason for this failure in the early housing reform
movement was that, as there was little profit in pro-
viding decent housing for the poor, little was supplied.
Given the free-enterprise ideology of many of the sup-
porters of the housing reform movement, nothing could
be done except to make studies and regulate the resident
landlords who turned a profit by providing sub-standard
housing to their own class.

This approach could not really help the poor
obtain better living conditions because, if the law was
too stringently enforced, it would cut the profit margin
of the immigrant, working-class landlord by forcing him
to make improvements. His response most likely would be
to raise the rent. If on the other hand he refused com-
pliance or if the house had too many violations, the only
alternative was condemnation proceedings. Both alter-
natives resulted in a shrinking number of houses that
poverty-stricken peOple could afford. Luckily for the
poor this did not happen because the city machines which
ruled Chicago were corrupt enough to make sure that the

law was not completely enforced in return for bribes from

110

the landlords. As the bribes cost less than the fines

for the violations or for making the repairs, the rent

was not hiked by the resident tenement landlord as much
as it would have been if the law had been enforced.

As for large-scale private capital investment in
the construction of model tenements, the other half of
the reformers' program, no such ventures were undertaken
until the late 1920's. Although social reformers and
businessmen argued that such investment could bring pro-
fitable returns, it is apparent that no businessmen
decided to take the risks involved in pioneering low-cost
decent working-class housing. Neither did employers
raise wages enough for the unskilled workers to compete
on better terms in the housing market.

It is fair to conclude that the social reform
engineers could not provide better living conditions for
the poor, given the conservative framework within which
they were forced to operate by their dependence upon a
progressive upper-class elite as well as their own middle-
class mind set. Regulation of tenement houses was not

enough.

FOOTNOTES--CHAPTER II I

1Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge,
The Tenements of Chicago: 1908-1935 (Chicago, 1936),
pp. 7-30.

 

2Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives: Studies
Among the Tenements offiNew York (New York, 1890).

 

 

3Abbott, pp. 7-30.

4Jane Addams, "Housing Conditions," Charity
Review, X (September, 1900), 292-97.

5City of Chicago, Report and Handbook of the
Department of Health of the City of’Chicago, 1911-I918
YEhicago, 1919), p. 601.

 

6City Council Proceedings 1880-1881, p. 157.

 

7Homer Hoyt, One Hundred Years of Land Values in
Chicago: ThefiRelationshipof the Growth of Chicago to
the Rise in Its Land ValuesL71830-1933 (Chicago, 1933),
p. 284}

 

8Joseph Kirkland, "Among the Poor of Chicago,"
The Poor in Great Cities, Robert A. Woods, et al. (New
York, 1895), pp. 196-200.

 

9City Council Proceedings 1880-1881, p. 157.

 

10City of Chicago, Report and Handbook of the
De artment of Health of the City of Chicago, 1911-1918
C icago, 1919), p. 601.

11

1890).

Jacob Riis, How the Other Half Lives (New York,

 

111

112

le.S., Commissioner of Labor, Seventh Special

Repgrt . . . The Slums of Baltimore, Chicago, New York
and Philadelphia (Washington, 18947) pp. 14-102.

 

 

13Ibid., pp. 13-14.

14Illinois, The Third Annual Report of the Factory
Ingpectors (1896), pp. 48-49.

 

 

15Hull-House Maps and Papers--A Presentation of

Nationalities and Wages in a Congested District of Chicago
TogetherWith Cgmments and Essays on Problems Growing Out
of’the Social Conditions (New York, 1895), pp. 6-13.

 

 

 

 

16Ibid., pp. 3, 10-11.

17Ibid., pp. 10-13.

18Ibid.

 

19Ibid., pp. 20-23.

20Sunday Times Herald, April 12, 1896, p. 15.

 

21Abbott and Breckinridge, pp. 45-59.

22Executive Committee, Chicago Bureau of Charities
MSS. April 6, 1900, Chicago Historical Society Library.

23Robert Hunter, "Housing Reform in Chicago,"
Conference of Charities and Correction 1902, p. 343.

 

24Robert Ozanne, A Century of Labor, Management
Relations at McCormick and International Harvester (Madi-
son, 1967), pp. 1-51.

 

 

25Executive Meeting Minutes of the City Home's
Association, [no date], Emmons Blaine MSS. Wisconsin
State Historical Society Library.

26Executive Meeting Minutes of the City Home's
Association, December 7, 1900, Emmons Blaine MSS. Wis-
consin State Historical Society Library.

113

27Minutes of the Meeting of the Sub-Committee on
Investigation of the Tenement House Committee of the
City Home's Association, November 18, 1900, Emmons Blaine
MSS. Wisconsin State Historical Society Library.

281bid.

29W. R. Patterson, "Tenement Conditions in Chi-
cago," Municipal Affairs, VI (June, 1902), pp. 285-87.

 

30Robert Hunter, Tenement Conditions in Chicago
(Chicago, 1901), pp. 11, 21-43.

 

31Ibid., pp. 51-67.

32Ibid., pp. 100-10.

331bid., pp. 111-43.

34Ibid., pp. 144-60.

35Ibid., pp. 160-79.

361bid.

37Ibid.

38Abbott and Breckinridge, pp. 59-61.

39Ibid.

4oIbid.

41Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull House (New
York, 1960) ' p. 210. '.' - '

42Ibid., pp. 210-12.

43Robert de Forest to Emmons Blaine, November 3,
1903, Emmons Blaine MSS. Wisconsin State Historical
Society Library; Robert de Forest to Emmons Blaine,
December 10, 1903, Emmons Blaine MSS. Wisconsin State
Historical Society Library; Robert de Forest to Emmons

114

Blaine, November 25, 1903, Emmons Blaine MSS. Wisconsin
State Historical Society Library.

44Sadie T. Wald, "Chicago Housing Conditions
1900-1905," Charities, XV (January 6, 1906), 455-61.

 

451bid.

461bid.

CHAPTER IV

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROFESSION

OF SOCIAL ENGINEERING

During the discussion after a paper on class
conflict in America given by Professor John R. Commons
at the 1908 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological
Association, Jane Addams put forward the idea that aca-
demics and working men were uniting in a demand for
social legislation.l There was, she thought, great
hope in this development for it might lessen class
conflict through the amelioration of the sorry con-
dition of the laboring class.2

The nature of this cooperation between academics
interested in social reform and the workers was not seen
as one of equality. Scholars would not act as advisors
to organizations of working men giving them the necessary
data and theory on which to build programs that would
meet their needs as they themselves defined them. Rather,
the academics had in mind a relationship in which pro-
fessionals would collect the data, formulate the programs

to aid the working class, and create the necessary

115

116

bureaucracies to carry them out. To these reform scholars
the laborer became objects of study, the content of a
problem, and subjects to be manipulated through admin-
istered programs.3 The objective of all this was the
betterment of the working class, but the direction was

to be controlled by the appropriate middle class, native,
professionally trained expert who worked for organizations
funded by a business and upper-middle class.4 The model
of such a union of scholars and working men was the
Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy.

The School had grown out of Graham Taylor's desire
to communicate his experience and ideas to others. In
April, 1895, he had organized the Chicago Commons School
of Social Economics at the Chicago Commons Settlement
House where he was the head resident. At first it was
little more than a series of informal seminars for those
interested in the social and economic problems of the
day. In the seminars, Graham Taylor was joined by such
prominent social reformers as anti-monopolist, Henry
Demarest Lloyd; social gospel minister, Washington
Gladden; and Professors Charles Henderson and John
Dewey.5

Under the pressure of current needs in the field
of social welfare, the school quickly took on new tasks.
By the turn of the century the principles of scientific

philanthropy and the rigorous application of systematic

117

postulates to charitable work began to be widely accepted
among social reformers as the best means to combat mount-
ing expenditures for public and private chairty.6 Although
the charitable impulse is as old as recorded history, the
organization of efficient charity through business-like
administration was a product largely of the industrial
revolution of the late nineteenth century with its rising
relief role during depression periods.

The Chicago Bureau of Charities organized in the
middle 1890's by the Chicago Civic Federation was an
excellent illustration of the principles of scientific
charity with its mean tests, reports, files, and case
workers. In the 1890's there was some antagonism between
the settlement houses and the charity movement, but in
Chicago at least Graham Taylor recognized the need to
train social workers for their calling no matter who
employed them.7 The apprenticeship system was no longer
sufficient educational experience.8 Graham Taylor's
realization came no doubt from personal experience as
well as his reading of the contemporary literature on
the subject.9

What was needed became clear to Taylor at the
Provincial Settlement's Conference held at the WOmen's
Settlement in Birmingham, England in 1903. At one of
the sessions he heard the suggestion that the proper

training of social workers required the help of educational

118

institutions in such specialties as economics, sociology,
law, and political science. Only the college and the
university could equip social workers with the necessary
academic tools to perform their duties most adequately.lo
On his return to the United States, Graham Taylor
convinced William R. Harper, President of the University
of Chicago, to provide limited support to him so that he
might realize his desire to give social workers a more
satisfactory training. In addition to Mr. Harper's
small cash grant, the University of Chicago provided
a classroom in its downtown extension division and space
for announcements of classes in its catalogue. In this
way Graham Taylor's Social Science Center for Practical
Training in Philanthropic and Social Work came into

11 The school was to replace the hit-

existence in 1903.
or-miss training methods of individual social welfare
organizations then in practice.

The first course offered by the Center was entitled
"Dependency and Preventive Agencies." It ran one evening
a week for twelve weeks with a staff of two volunteer
instructors: Graham Taylor and Professor Charles R.
Henderson. It attracted twelve students, all of whom

. 12
were soc1al workers.

In its second year the school
expanded to four instructors, including among them Miss
Julia C. Lathrop and Robert Hunter. It now had an

enrollment of forty students taking seven courses.

119

Emphasizing vocational needs of the profession, the
courses included "Public Charities," "Industrial Relation-
ships," ”Dependency and Charity," "Care of Dependent,
Delinquent, and Defective Children," and "Correctional

and Reformatory Measures." In summary, the courses were
designed to train people in the techniques of administer-
ing both public and private welfare programs.13

The titles of these courses as well as those
offered later in the life of the school seem to indicate
an emphasis on manipulation of the individual to fit the
prevailing social-economic environment rather than the
other way around. Few were aimed at helping the working
class fight for a decent share of the wealth, goods, and
services of the American society. This may well have
been a result of a natural concurrence of views between
the middle-class teachers of the school and its wealthy
business and professional financial backers. One course,
for example, entitled "Industrial Social WOrk" trained
persons in techniques that made the workers more satis-
fied on the job and, thus, more efficient.

The four original volunteers are typical of the
background of the later expanded staff of the school.
Graham Taylor was born to a middle-class family in
Schenectody, New York in 1851 that contained four
generations of Dutch Reformed Church ministers. After

his ordination in 1873, he served as pastor of a small

120

church in Hopewell, New York. Even at this early date
he emphasized the Christian duty to serve those less
fortunate. The twelve years spent in Hartford, Connecti-
cut as a professor at Hartford Theological School and
minister of a Congregational Church mark Graham Taylor's
full conversion to the social gospel. He became very
interested in the settlement house movement as a way to
put his ideas concerning Christian responsibility for the
poor into practice. In 1892 he accepted a position at
the Chicago Theological Seminary on the condition that
he would be permitted to found a social settlement. Two
years later Graham Taylor announced the opening of Chicago
Commons.14

Robert Hunter was born in Terre Haute, Indiana to
middle-class parents. After graduating from Indiana Uni-
versity he served as organizing secretary of the Chicago
Bureau of Charities. In the 1890's he was a resident of
Hull House and later of Northwestern University Settle-
ment. In 1900 he wrote the study of Chicago's housing
situation which was discussed in the previous chapter.15

Charles R. Henderson also had a middle-class
religious small-town background. He was born in Cov-
ington, near Tere Haute, Indiana in 1848; his father was
a lawyer. After attending the old University of Chicago

and the Baptist Union Theological Seminary, he was

ordained a Baptist minister. While serving as a pastor

121

in Detroit from 1882 to 1892, Henderson became interested
in the social gospel and enrolled in the University of
Leipzig to study sociology. After receiving the Ph.D.

in 1901 he returned to the United States to accept a
sociology professorship at the University of Chicago.
Besides writing a score of books and articles on social
problems, he was an associate editor of the American
Journal of Theology and of the American Journal of

Sociology. At one time or another during his life he

 

was President of the National Conference of Charities,
Chairman of the executive committee of the United Chari-
ties of Chicago, President of the Chicago Society of
Social Hygiene, as well as an associate member of the
American Medical Association.16

All these teachers, including Julia Lathrop, born
in Rockford, Illinois, had a middle-class rural background
with a strong religious impulse that must have made it
difficult to relate to the immigrant experience despite
their desire to do so.

As the years went on the school continued to grow
by adding courses and lecturers. Much of this early
growth was financially underwritten by William Harper
from private sources. After he died in 1906 the trustees,
mostly businessmen and upper middle-class professional

men of the Chicago Commons Association, took over the

financial responsibility for the school. They in turn

122

appointed Edward L. Ryerson, a high-level executive of
the Ryerson Steel Company, to be its Treasurer. His
main job was to solicit contributions. The extent of
contributions is indicated by the fact that his great
solicitation achievement of 1906 lay in persuading
Victor Lawson, the wealthy progressive publisher of the
Chigggg_Daily News, to contribute $1,500 for administra-
tive expenses in 1906 and to give an additional $2,000
a year for two years.17
The future of the school seemed assured when the
Russell Sage Foundation of New York with a board of
directors dominated by businessmen agreed to contribute
$10,000 a year to Graham Taylor's school on the condition
that the grant be used to establish a department of inves-
tigation and research.18 This requirement was met when
Taylor hired Miss Julia Lathrop of Hull House to supervise
a newly created research department. At the same time
Miss Lathrop became the co-director of an expanded school

19 She in turn recruited SOphonisba

of social work.
Breckinridge, a friend of Jane Addams, born in a small
city, and a holder of a Ph.D. in economics from the Uni-

20 Considering the prejudice against

versity of Chicago.
women at the time in the academic profession, it was only
natural that Sophonisba Breckinridge would accept a
position at the school. Her alternatives were extremely

limited if she did not wish to teach at a small women's

college.

123

The next step in the growth of the school was
taken on May 10, 1908, when Graham Taylor incorporated
it under the name "The Chicago School of Civics and
Philanthropy" to reflect its wider goals. According
to the articles of incorporation its purpose was to
"promote through instruction, training, investigation,
and publication the efficiencies of civic, philanthropic
and social work, and the improvement of living and work-

21 It thus had two main objectives,

ing conditions."
to conduct research on social problems with the view
of formulating social reform programs, and to train
social workers in the techniques necessary for them to
maintain the emerging welfare apparatus.

Serving on its board of trustees and responsible
for its direction were wealthy executives and professionals
Julius Rosenwald of Sears, Edward L. Ryerson of Ryerson

Steel, and Charles Crane of Crane Company, along with

architect Allen Pound, the Daily News editor Victor
22

 

Elting, and jurist Julius Mack. Each was eminently
successful in his chosen career. Joining the men on the
board were wealthy and socially prominent women: Mrs.
Joseph T. Bowen, Mrs. Emmons Blaine, and Mrs. William
F. Dummer, whose husbands commanded fortunes in banking,
manufacturing, and law. Other trustees included Jane

Addams, Julia Lathrop, Graham Taylor, and representatives

of some of the mid-western state schools, such as the

124

University of Wisconsin. The professors on the board
gave the school academic respectability, but they were
outnumbered and too distant to be as effective as the
men and women of wealth and social influence.23
Not only were executives, professionals, and
wealthy women heavily represented on the board of trus-
tees, but they were also the chief financial backers of
the school. Apart from the Russell Sage Foundation, the
chief contributors were Lawson, Crane, Rosenwald, Ryerson,

banker Alfred L. Baker, and Mrs. Dummer.24

In addition,
the school was housed from 1915 to 1920 in the South
Michigan Avenue residence of Charles Crane, one of the
city's leading manufacturers of plumbing fixtures.25
Given these facts one can assume that no instructional

or research programs were instigated that would be con-
sidered by these businessmen to be hostile to their long-
term interests. In fact, most of the school's work
revolved around training students to gain the knowledge
necessary to administer existing social welfare programs,
rather than to reform society. In 1910, for example,
among the eighty-five part-time students of the school
twenty-six were probation officers of the Juvenile Court,
and eight were probation officers from the Juvenile Pro-
tective Association. Those students who completed the
one-year courses found positions with municipal, county,

and state welfare agencies as well as private agencies.26

125

All of these organizations were conservative in that they
devoted most of their efforts to amelioration and social
control of the working class. Thus, their efforts had a
stabilizing effect on the working class.

Avoidance of class conflict with a minimum of
shifts in the power and wealth distribution was certainly
in the interest of the businessmen and their wives on
the board. Such social amelioration made it possible for
them to discharge humanitarian impulses without endanger-
ing their long-range economic interests.

Wbrking within a framework acceptable to the
board were the instructors who taught the courses. They
added an additional dimension onto the orientation of the
school because they were primarily middle class, Protes-
tant, native, social workers who viewed the working class
through the lens of social scientific theory and middle-
class bias. There was no greater defender of the use of
social scientific theory than Sophonisba Breckinridge
who became director of the Research Department when
Julia Lathrop resigned in 1909 to assume other duties.27
In the same year Edith Abbott, who had joined the staff
earlier as a social statistician, became Miss Breckin-
ridge's assistant. These two women became very close
in their professional relationship, collaborating not
only on the administration of the school and on various

research projects, but also on the philosophical direction

126

of the school. In fact, their relationship was so close
that their students often referred to them as "A&B."28
Both Miss Breckinridge and Miss Abbott agreed
that the training of social workers should lead to the
kind of professionalization promoted by the American
Economic Association and the American Economic Statis-

29 The

tical Association of which they were members.
advantage lay in the ideology of times, because profes-
sionals were thought to have a body of knowledge which
made them experts in a certain area of endeavor. Edith
Abbott expressed her mature thoughts on the subject in
an address delivered at the National Conference of Social
WOrk in 1928 when she stated, "The real issue is that
there is a science and art of social welfare adminis-
tration worthy of the best teaching, worthy of the best
students."30
In order to establish social work as a profession
certain steps were taken by Abbott and Breckinridge at
the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy. First of
all, a body of knowledge had to be gathered that would
form the basis of their expertise. This was accomplished
primarily by borrowing freely from other academic disci-
plines whatever was thought to be relevant to the needs
of social workers. Courses at the school were developed
around sociology, economics, history, political science,
31

law, and administrative techniques. These courses were

designed to provide social workers with the tools to

127

investigate and solve social maladjustments of society by
working through public and private welfare agencies as
well as reform groups. This was to be done through aiding
the casualties of the economic system and through modify-
ing the environment to lessen the number of casualties.

Once a social worker mastered this body of knowl-
edge, she became a professional expert who knew what was
best for her clients who were to be considered not as
whole human beings but as maladjusted victims that were
being held back from rising on the social mobility ladder
by artificial restraints imposed by an unfavorable environ-
ment. This was especially true of those members of the
working class who appeared to the social workers to be
capable of rising into the middle class if some aid was
given. To accomplish such social-economic mobility the
worker would have had to adapt and accept the fundamental
social and economic system that prevailed in the society.
The client, not being an expert, had no voice in his
adjustment program.32

The model for most social workers was the doctor-
patient relationship. The doctor was to consider only
the illness of his client; his only professional duty
was to cure the patient's illness and, thus, restore him
to health. Being an expert on illness, he consulted his

patient only as to his symptoms so as to make a diagnosis

128

and prescribe a cure. Unlike the public health officer, he
did not seek to arrest the spread of disease.

So it was to be with the social worker: consult
his clients, the working class, as to his symptoms, make
a diagnosis, and prescribe a cure. The working class in
this model was turned into an impersonal object that was
to be guided for his own good. On the other hand, if
his problem was common to a wide group, the decision might
be to manipulate the environment in such a way as to
adjust this wider group to society or to adjust the

society.33

The method of changing the environment was
more popular in the era 1900-1915 than in the later 1920's
when the emphasis was on the individual.

The next step in turning social work into a pro-
fession of social engineers was undertaken by Breckinridge
and Abbott when they set up a certification process. It
was imperative that the general public be able to distin-
guish between the professional social worker and imitation,
between the doctor and the quack. The School of Civics
and Philanthropy accomplished this task by instituting a
prescribed curriculum and issuing a certificate to grad-
uates upon its completion. This certificate was the
ticket to expertise and professionalism. In addition,
Breckinridge and Abbott attempted to make the certificate
the entrance requirement for positions in the city's

34

various welfare agencies. This was done directly in

129

the case of private welfare agencies and indirectly in
the case of public ones.

A good example of how social workers proceeded
indirectly in regard to public welfare agencies appeared
in the juvenile court. The judges of that court set up
a panel of professionally trained social workers to make
recommendations to them concerning the hiring of pro-
bation officers. This panel, convinced as it was of the
need for professional probation officers, looked to the
Chicago School of Civics and PhilanthrOpy's certificate
of accomplishment as an extremely important piece of
evidence of professional competence in theoretical social
science knowledge and the practical work of administrative
techniques and casework.35

The ultimate goal of the leaders of the Chicago
School of Civics and Philanthropy was to put as many
public social welfare positions as possible under civil
service. As the required civil service examinations were
either prepared by the staff of the School of Civics and
Philanthropy or by others with similar ideals, the pro-
fession of social work was able to control access to
these positions and eliminate "political considerations."

In order to endow the certificate of expertise
with more prestige both Miss Breckinridge and Miss Abbott
desired to affiliate with one of the universities as an

autonomous professional school. "Only in a university,

130

and only in a great university," Edith Abbott wrote,
"could a school of social work get the educational
facilities that advanced professional students must have
if they were to become the efficient public servants of

democracy."36

Their opportunity for such affiliation
came in 1920 through a set of favorable circumstances.
From the day of its founding the major threat to
the school was its lack of adequate financial support.37
As it had expanded, the cost of instruction, administration,
and maintenance rose faster than income from tuition and
contributions. Although Graham Taylor was constantly
looking for additional contributions, he never seemed
to be able to keep up with the annual deficit.38
Sophonisba Breckinridge, taking advantage of the
annual budgetary problem, continually suggested from 1905
to 1920 that the Board of Trustees open negotiations with
either Northwestern University or the University of Chi-
cago. Apart from the appointment of a committee in 1905
to study the question, no action was taken until 1920.
The major reason for this lack of action was the determi-
nation of Graham Taylor to keep the school independent.
He believed that university affiliation would mean the
end of any religious or moralistic approach to social

39 As founder and president of the school, he

problems.
also realized that this union would mean a lessening of

his authority over it.

131

By 1920 the financial condition of the school
became impossible with the contraction of contributions
during the war and post-war era of anti-foreign and anti-
reform sentiment. Faced with the insufficient funds to
keep the institution going, the majority of the trustees
now welcomed Sophonisba Breckinridge's report in the
Spring of 1920 that the University of Chicago would
accept the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy
into its academic community as an independent profes-
sional school. The only major stipulation was that it
had to bring with it a dowry of $25,000 a year for the
first five years. The Board of Trustees agreed when
Rosenwald, a trustee also of the University of Chicago,
Crane, Ryerson, and Blaine, as well as the Red Cross,
the Jewish Charities, and the United Charities pledged
the requisite amount. The latter groups, employing many
of the school's graduates, had a vested interest in its
continuation.4o

On August 10, 1920, the University of Chicago
took over the responsibility for its operation and
finance, renaming it the Graduate School of Social
Service Administration. It was now primarily a graduate
school leaving the general undergraduate education of
future social workers to other departments of the Uni-

41

versity. Abbott and Breckinridge now had their

coveted certificates of expertise enhanced by the

132

prestige of a graduate degree from the University of
Chicago. There the trends in social work described

above intensified in the 1920's. With the introduction
of psychiatry to social work, there was an even greater
emphasis on the understanding and control of behavior.
Both psychiatry and social work began to account for
behavior in functional historical terms. Considering

the environment as a constant, the new psychiatric social
worker explained deviant behavior by studying the indi-
vidual's personality. Why, she asked, could one indi-
vidual achieve in an unfavorable social-economic environ-
ment while another individual could not. She found the
answer in personality defects.

If poverty caused deviant behavior only in those
who were in some way defective, then the remedy lay not
in economic reform, but in psychological rehabilitation.
The use of psychiatry could correct this behavior.
Deviance, of course, was defined as disruptive behavior
either actively as juvenile delinquency or passively as
a refusal to work. This type of social reform was
designed to achieve stability through social control.
Such social reform was somewhat analagous to the doctor
who during a typhoid epidemic tries to decide why some
people who drink contaminated water die while others
merely get sick, instead of attempting to clean up the

water supply. Roy Lubove and Clark Chambers, scholars

133

on the history of social work, have shown that the pro-
fessional schools of the 1920's, including the one at the
University of Chicago, were primarily concerned with the
deviant individual and his rehabilitation.42
The importance of such attitudes within the con-
text of schools of social work took on considerable sig-
nificance as the Graduate School of Social Service Admin-
istration at the University of Chicago and similar
institutions which had been developed by other Illinois
universities became the chief suppliers and controllers
of the develOping social welfare bureaucracy. The
positions for which they trained personnel were increas-
ingly located in the public sector of the welfare system,
finding careers as directors, supervisors, and inspectors
for the state welfare department, probation officers,
parole officers, attendance officers on the municipal
level as well as directors and social workers of Chicago's
and Cook County's welfare boards.43 During the New Deal
these schools of social work enlarged their range of
activities when they were called upon to provide pro-
fessional personnel for federal agencies.44 Thus, the
early attitudes shaped by the pioneer School of Civics
and Philanthropy were transferred in modified forms to
the modern welfare bureaucracy.
On another level the Chicago School of Civics
and Philanthropy was important because of its research

function. Many social reformers believed that the

134

gathering of data on social problems was a necessary pre-
lude to the solution of them. It provided not only the
means to conduct the vital research, but also the oppor-
tunity to train students in the methods of gathering and
classifying scientific facts.

After Julia Lathrop's resignation in 1908 in
order to devote more time to her other reform projects,
Miss Sophonisba Breckinridge directed the research depart-
ment with Miss Edith Abbott assisting her. Their investi-
gations, which largely concerned housing problems and
juvenile delinquency, were financed by Russell Sage
grants.45 The studies of housing conditions serve as
an excellent example of the basic philosophy underlining
such inquiries, as well as the operating procedures for
them.

In 1908 Chicago's Chief Sanitary InSpector,
Charles Ball, asked the Department of Social Investigation
to study a series of inquiries concerning housing con-
ditions in the city as part of his program to better the
living conditions of the working class. Abbott and
Breckinridge agreed to conduct the investigations not
only to advance knowledge in the area and to improve
housing conditions, but to train their students in the
techniques of conducting such surveys. The results of
these studies were published between the years 1910 and

1915.46

135

The usual method for conducting these investi-
gations was for a student, as part of his educational
requirements for graduation, to be assigned a research
project under the guidance of one of the staff. He then
selected a particular geographical district, usually
with a homogenous gathering of ethnic groups or dis-
tinctive housing type. The next step involved the
formulation of a set of questions aimed at gathering
a certain kind of data. The student would soon send
out a group of observers armed with these pre-printed
questions. Some of the questions were answered by the
visitor on the basis of observation ("Does the house con-
tain a flush toilet?"), while others were answered by the
residents ("How often is the garbage picked up?").47

On the basis of such data properly categorized,
quantified, and analyzed, plans to improve slum housing
were formulated. At no point were the objects of the
study asked their opinion on what should be done about
housing conditions. Because they were not professionals,
their opinions were considered to be those of an unin-
formed layman. Like the patients of a doctor, the poor
were to be examined and then told what was best for them
by the respective professional middle-class reformer.

These studies were published as journal articles
under such titles as "Housing of Non-Family Groups in

Chicago," "Chicago Housing Conditions: South Chicago at

136

the Gates of the Steel Mills," "Chicago Housing Conditions,
the Problem of the Negro," "The Color Line in the Housing
Problem," "Chicago Housing Conditions: Two Italian Dis-
tricts," "Chicago Housing Conditions: The Lithuanians
in the Fourth Ward," "Chicago Housing Conditions Among
the Slovaks," "Chicago Housing Conditions: Greeks and
Italians in the Neighborhood of Hull House," and finally
"Chicago Housing Among the Hungarians."48
The authors of each of these housing studies, made
between 1910 and 1915, all agreed that no phase of com-
munity life was more closely connected with its welfare
than was housing. The student who conducted the investi-
gation in the Hull House neighborhood wrote that "the
root cause of low educational standards, high mortality
and morbidity, crime and industrial inefficiency are all

49 All the studies

rooted in poor living conditions."
agreed that the only direct way to improve physical
housing conditions was "for the Chicago City Council
to enact a stricter housing code and set up a better
enforcement mechanism."so
Miss Breckinridge and Miss Abbott also proposed
an indirect procedure to deal with the housing problem:
employers should pay a higher wage so that the workers

could buy or rent more adequate housing. As they

explained in a 1911 report:

137

We have called attention in other articles to the
fact that the community is not doing its part: first
because the housing code is inadequate; second, be-
cause of the failure to provide the Department of
Health with a staff of inspectors sufficient for the
enforcement of such as has been enacted. . . . But it
must be acknowledged that no building law, however
comprehensive and well enforced, can meet the needs
of this neighborhood . . . [There is a] necessity of
so altering industrial conditions that decent standards
of family life may be maintained.51

The raising of wages represented the ultimate goal
to Breckinridge and Abbott if the problems of the working
class were to be solved. It was an ideal, given the frame-
work within which the social welfare system Operated, that
was extremely difficult to achieve. Thus, the social re-
formers would have to be content to work for more immediate
ameliorative reforms. Until the late 1920's, when the
concept of privately financed housing projects and later
federally financed ones became popular among Chicago social
reform leaders, the Chicago School of Civics and Philan-
thrOpy seemed limited to conducting innumerable studies of
the housing question and to the turning out of students by
using the surveys to reach them the scientific techniques
of fact gathering.

Perhaps part of Breckinridge's and Abbott's
pessimism can be traced to the efforts of Charles Ball to
use his position as Chief Sanitary Inspector to better
the living conditions of the working class by strictly

enforcing the tenement house laws. In September 1908 he

authorized the creation of a Board of Survey composed of

138

a medical inspector, a sanitary inspector, and a building
inspector, whose task included the examination of any
building alleged to be a public nuisance.52

By 1911, 125 buildings had been investigated by
the Board, of which 62 had been demolished and 36 had been
repaired by order of the Health Department.53 The owners
were assessed the cost of demolition or of repair. As no
record was kept concerning the question of alternative
housing for the tenants of the demolished homes, it may
be assumed that they found equally wretched housing for it
was the only available accommodations for their income
level.

As part of his clean-up campaign, Charles Ball
added twenty inspectors to his staff between 1907-1908.
Although there was only moderate improvement in the hous-
ing stock for the unskilled working class, there were
dramatic increases in the appropriations for the in-
spection work. For example, the Chicago City Council's
annual apprOpriations grew from $71,000 to $112,000 in
1908 and to $772,000 by 1916. Most of the increase in
funds was used to increase the number of inspectors. The
fact that Charles Ball was extremely receptive to the
ideal of a "professional staff and civil service" makes
it exceedingly likely that the jobs under him were filled
by middle-class "professionals." The chief outcome of

his better housing campaign was to decrease the housing

stock (landlords either refused to make improvements and

139

had their property condemned or raised rents to cover the
cost of improvements) and to provide some jobs for the
middle-class civil servant. It did, on the other hand,
accomplish some improvements in exterior conditions in
the working-class neighborhoods. There was less garbage
in the alleys for example.54
To provide proper housing, in quantity, some
leaders proposed large-scale financing to replace the
two- or three-family enterprises that were commonly owned
by resident landlords. Although never taken seriously by
the social reformers at the Chicago School as the defini-
tive answer to the housing problem, the idea of attracting
bulk private capital into the low income housing market
proved alluring to many progressive businessmen and to
some social reformers despite its earlier failure in many

55 To the

Eastern cities, most notably in New York City.
businessmen it offered an opportunity to take action
against a widely acknowledged problem within their free
enterprise ideology. They knew that poor housing existed
in Chicago and that it interferred with the industrial
efficiency of their workers. In 1909 the Commercial Club,
composed of some of the most respectable and prominent
businessmen in the city, issued a report that concluded:

. . . good workmanship require a large degree of

support on the part of the workers in their homes

and their surroundings and ample Opportunity for

that rest and recreation without which all work

becomes drudgery. . . . Noises, ugly sights, ill

smells, as well as dirty streets and workshOps or
offices, tend to lower average efficiency.56

140

In 1912 Mary McDowell, head resident of the Uni-
versity of Chicago Settlement, became interested in such
a project.57 Her first step was to send out a series of
exploratory letters to sympathetic men such as Allen B.
Pound, W. F. Dummer, Clarence Buckingham, H. B. Highie,
Julius Rosenwald, Edward Swift, all prominent and wealthy
professionals or executives of large corporations.58
In the letters she asked "On what basis were rents to be
figured, philanthropy or business?" A typical response
was Buckingham's reply of June 24, 1912:

It strikes me that the rents should be based a
good deal on what apartments will fairly be worth,
taking into consideration location and other apart-
ments in the same district. I do not think the
surplus, if any, should be used for lectures and
other things or to run moving picture shows. It
strikes me that any surplus left over should be put
in a sinking fund for some unusual expenses and
repairs, which are bound to occur in every build-
ing.59

William F. Dummer summed up the consensus of the business-
men when he said, "Don't mix business and philanthropy."60

Mary McDowell accepted the advice of the business-
men who responded to her letter when she decided to build
a model tenement house on strictly business principles
for low-income families in the neighborhood back of the
stockyards. She expected a return of 4 or 4 1/2 per cent
on the investment capital.61

The first hurdle was overcome when she received

$35,000 in pledges from E. A. Butler, Buckingham, Rosen-

wald, Swift, Dummer, Mrs. Samuel Dauchy, and Mrs.

141

William T. Johnson. With these promises in her pocket,
Mrs. McDowell sent out a form letter to area businessmen
asking them to invest in the project, informing them of
those fellow businessmen who had already invested. Pro-
jecting the total outlay at $85,000, the model tenement
was to be three stories high with forty flats of two,
three, four, and five rooms. There would be a common
laundry as well as bathing facilities. In addition, the
building would contain a lodging dormitory for young un-

married foreign working men.62

The project was to be a
demonstration of the idea that through the use of large-
scale financing and mass production techniques, working-
class housing could be built cheaply and efficiently.
Their hOped-for result would be low rents, but decent
housing.

Although the model tenement never got beyond the
planning stage, the project set a precedent for cooper-
ation between social workers and businessmen concerned
with the question of increasing the housing supply for
the low income family. Julius Rosenwald became inter-
ested in such an enterprise in 1919. He and some fellow
businessmen underwrote a fund of $800,000 which Benjamin J.
Rosenthal, a wealthy investment broker, was raising for
a low income housing project to stretch from 87th to 89th
streets between State Street and Indiana Avenue on Chicago's

63

South Side, a working-class district. By using the

economies of large-scale construction and by selling them

142

as close as possible to cost while still making an ade-
quate return on capital investment, it was hOped to sell
the homes on time to thrifty working-class peOple at con-
siderable savings over the cost in the open market. The
builders would also offer the individual buyer low cost
life, health, and fire insurance.64
To carry out this proposal a group of Chicago
businessmen and professionals set up The Chicago Housing
Association with a total raised fund of $600,000. Among
the original subscribers to the stock of The Chicago Hous-
ing Association were J. Odgen Armour ($100,000), Julius
Rosenwald ($100,000), Swift and Company ($100,000),
Benjamin J. Rosenthal ($100,000), Thomas E. Wilson
($50,000), Morris and Company ($50,000), William P.
Wrigley, Jr., a gum manufacturer ($50,000), The Consumer
Company ($25,000). These eight men and companies repre-
sented $575,000 of the total capitalization. The
contributors set up a Board of Trustees to direct the
day-by-day affairs of the Association.65
In turn, the Board of Trustees appointed a social
service committee to investigate each application to insure
that potential buyers had the proper characteristics to
be trusted with the responsibilities of owning his home.66
The social service committee was composed of such promi-

nent social workers as Graham Taylor, SOphonisba Breckin—

ridge, Mary E. McDowell, and Harriet Vittum, a settlement

143

worker.67 Each was dedicated to the administrative

philOSOphy of social work as taught at the Chicago School
of Civics and Philanthropy and its successor, the School

of Social Administration at the University of Chicago.

The general rule was that the potential home owner was to
be "thrifty"; that is, a good credit risk.68 One can well
imagine that then, as now, one characteristic of being a
good credit risk was long service to a single company.
Although not necessarily intended to do so, such a require-
ment provided an effective mechanism of social control, for
the employer was the normal source of a character refer-
ence.

Another requirement for the right to become a buyer
was the necessity to fit into an ethnic quota system. The
planners of the project saw the quota as a way to American-
ize the immigrant workers by having a prOper mix of differ-
ent groups. This mixing would disrupt clanishness, the
desire to seek the company of their own nationality.69
Once again men and women were being manipulated as objects
without their active consent for some greater good of
society as determined by the social workers and their
backers, the businessmen.

In this year of the Red Scare and the most massive
strikes in the nation's history, some businessmen were also
interested in the project's potential for social control.
In a clearly articulated letter soliciting support for the

project, Benjamin Rosenthal wrote that "the more we work

144

on the problem, the more convinced we are that the
solution for unrest lies in the building of homes along
the line we are working and sale of them at cost to
worthy [as defined by upper-middle class businessmen
and middle-class social reformers] working peOple who
cannot afford to buy homes in the usual way that they
are sold. . . ."70
This low-cost housing project, like the others
attempted during this period, was not successful after
the initial investment was depleted. By 1925 Harold
Swift was already discouraged, reporting that the Associ-
iation had not been able to re-finance itself through re-
tained earnings. As a consequence it could not continue
new home construction without the issuance of new bonds
which would be an admission that the plan had not worked

71 Even earlier disenchantment was expressed by

out well.
E. J. Buffington of the Illinois Steel Company who com-
plained that "so much of the material was purchased at
special prices, based on the philanthrOpic appeal, and
the business lots which were sold were largely disposed
of on the same basis, so that if this attempt should work
out well, it would not necessarily indicate that the next

72 This problem never had to be faced

one would also."
because the project was not successful enough to sustain
interest. After the original lot of fifty homes was built
and sold, the project for all practical purposes came to

an end.73

145

Julius Rosenwald was also interested in better
housing for Blacks in Chicago. In general Rosenwald was
very sympathetic to the welfare of the Blacks not only in
the city but also in the nation as a whole.74 In this he
may have been stimulated to action by Sophonisba P.
Breckinridge who in a 1913 article ruxi demonstrated that
Blacks usually paid more for identical accommodations than
whites.75 He may not have read the article, but he surely
saw her often enough for her to tell him about it. In
pursuit of his ideal, Rosenwald purchased land in 1914 but,
before any further progress could be realized, the country
was involved first in a depression, and then in a world
war.76 His attention was directed elsewhere until the
Chicago race riots of 1919. A Commission of which he was
a member reported that the tumult was greatly intensified
by the crowded and disreputable housing facilities among
the working class. His interest in better housing for
Blacks was rekindled, but not to the point of action.77

Rosenwald was finally prodded into action by the
election of the reform Mayor Dever in 1924 who won with
the support of the social workers of the city. In return
for this the Mayor appointed Mary E. McDowell director of
the city's Department of Public Welfare. She in turn
commissioned a series of housing studies which when com-
pleted in 1925 pointed to the need for more adequate low-

income housing.78 In response to the surveys the Mayor

called, in April 1926, a City Housing Commission made up

146

of prominent citizens to discuss the situation. Out of
this Commission came two concrete plans for limited divi-
dend housing; Julius Rosenwald's plan for Negroes and
Marshall Field Estate's plan for low-income whites.79
In 1928 Rosenwald's son-in-law, Alfred K. Stern,
induced him to begin the project. As the price for his
involvement, Rosenwald demanded that the enterprise be
built as a practical business venture, so that it could
be used as a yardstick to determine the possibilities of
the use of large-scale private financing for satisfactory

80 As the first step, Mr. Rosenwald

low-cost housing.
invited a group of business associates to invest in what
would become the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments.
They invested approximately $270,000, purchasing a six-
acre city block between 46th and 47th streets, between
Michigan and Wabash avenues. It was determined that about
60 per cent of the land was to be devoted to gardens,
courts, and playgrounds with the remaining 40 per cent
given over to the construction of a five-story walk-up
apartment house with 421 apartments of three, four, and
five rooms.81
Finally opening in late 1929, the net profit for
the year amounted to approximately 5 per cent on the common
stock outstanding after full allowance had been made for

operating expenses, interest, taxes, insurance, and

depreciation. The average occupancy for the year was

147

97.5 per cent while the loss arising from default of rent
due amounted to only 1.2 per cent of the total.82 As the
depression worsened, disaster struck in the form of a
declining rate of occupancy and rents combined with a
relatively stable overhead. The 5 per cent net profit
earned the first year could not be maintained, so the
trustees in 1936 sold the prOperty to avoid losses. Under
its new owners, it became just another slum tenament as
they tried to squeeze a profit from it.

Even in its first good year, in order to achieve
5 per cent on invested capital, the project charged rents
too high a price for low-wage semi-skilled workers to
afford. A three-room apartment, for example, was renting
at the Michigan Boulevard Garden Apartments for $42.13 a
month at a time when the vast majority of the unskilled
and semi-skilled workers were paying only $5 to $20.83.
Considering their income, this figure was near the maximum
that they could afford. The project attracted a white
collar clientele. It was apparent that superior privately
financed housing must carry rents too high for the workers
or offer a return too low to attract investors. By 1930
in the onset of depression, many social reformers, as well
as progressive businessmen and professionals, believed that
public aid was essential, particularly in a depression.

84

It seemed that altruism and profit did not mix, as

Dummer had warned.

148

Julius Rosenwald summed up the lesson learned from
the failure of the project in the 1930's:

Although the Michigan-Boulevard Garden Apartments
were self-supporting, the project demonstrated clearly
that low cost housing for low income groups was abso-
lutely impossible. . . . The return on investment was
not great enough to attract private capital . . .85

The Marshall Field Garden Apartment Homes were

built under the same principles and with similar results.
When the 2,908 apartments were finished in April 1929,

they filled two city blocks on the north side in a working-
class district. In order to make way for the project, the
homes in the area were torn down. No effort was made to
find new residences for these displaced persons. If they
could not afford to move into the new housing, the project
had worsened rather than bettered their conditions.86

Ranging in size from three and one-half to six

rooms, they rented for $12 to $15 per room per month with
an average of $13.55. Based on an investment of $5,679,000
the gross returns were projected at 8 1/2 per cent. Such
returns were never realized because of the high rate of
vacancies, which were caused in part by depression con-
ditions. The project was located in a neighborhood where
only the poorest of the poor lived, the unskilled worker,
and they could not afford the rents. If they became more
affluent, they moved to a better neighborhood, not into

the new housing. Thus, the plan never met the needs of

the lowest income groups for which it was designed. In

149

fact, it narrowed slightly the housing supply available
to them by tearing down the sub-standard, but cheap, hous-
ing previously located on the land. Even with the econo—
mies of a massive housing project, private capital simply
could not realize enough profit to attract additional
capital, at least during the depression era. They did
serve to provide two functions: they were a model for the
erection in the cheapest manner possible of housing for
low income families in huge impersonal projects, and they
demonstrated the essential role of government-financed
housing projects.87
Based on the experience of the social workers and
progressive businessmen to attract capital toward this
low-cost housing project, it is not hard to understand why
Edith Abbott in the economic paralysis of 1935 concluded
that the private sector of the economy could not meet the
needs of such a market.88 The answer, according to Edith
Abbott, was for the federal government to build low-cost
housing with the social workers administering the program.89
The source of capital changed during the New Deal Era and
after, but the concept of huge housing projects containing
hundreds of apartments presided over by social worker-
administrators did not, as the housing reformers assumed
key positions in the Federal Housing Administration.
' From the housing experience, a clear picture emerges

of the framework within which progressive social reforms

Operated. On the one hand there was the manipulative

150

scientific social engineering philosophy of the Chicago
School of Civics and Philanthropy, and on the other the
philoSOphy and interests of the progressive business com-
munity. Perhaps the most important positive result of
working within such a framework was the accumulation of a
great amount of accurate quantitative data on housing
conditions among the working class. The failure of pri-
vately financed low-cost model tenements and low-cost home
building projects opened the way for the acceptance of
public housing projects among many progressive businessmen
including Julius Rosenwald, as well as most social re-
formers. On the other hand, by treating the working class
as clients who needed help in one area or another so that
they could lift themselves up into the middle class, many
social workers never understood the immigrant experience.
For this reason, the progressives were not able to develop
a program that not only met the immigrant's housing needs,
but also fitted his total life style. To make matters
worse, the reformers produced programs that, because they
were administrative and bureaucratic, dehumanized the immi-
grant by attempting to place him in huge impersonal hous-
ing projects that broke his web of community relationships.
Many immigrant working families looked upon sub-
standard tenement housing as the first step up the social
and economic ladder. Usually a newly arrived unskilled

immigrant found housing in such a dwelling. As soon as he

151

saved up enough money, he would move into a relatively
better neighborhood. Sometimes this step was only achieved
by the second generation. This view was confirmed by
sociologist Paul Frederick Cressey who, in a study of
Chicago immigrant housing patterns, found that between

1898 and 1930 newcomers in each foreign influx shifted

from central-city areas toward peripheral residential
communities at the same time that they moved upward eco-

nomically and socially.90

In another study conducted by
the Chicago Department of Public Welfare in the Italian
district of the 17th ward, it was found that by 1915 there
was a large-scale movement from the areas around Chicago

91 These

Commons as the residents became more prosperous.
studies confirmed earlier impressionistic observations by
Sophonisba Breckinridge.

In a more recent work focused on the Italians,
Humbert S. Nelli discovered that the "movement of both
the colony and the individual generally proceeded outward
from Chicago's core area toward the periphery . . . but
there were outer areas of settlements." That movement
was usually accompanied by economic mobility within the
working class, from unskilled to semi-skilled and skilled
jobs, as well as increases in land and home ownership.92
In the eyes of the immigrant, ownership of one's own home

was an essential part of upward social mobility.93

152

This part of the mobility process was often
achieved by buying a two- or three-family tenement on
credit through a local Savings and Loan Association or
through a real estate contract. As a rule the ethnic
owner would live in one of his building's apartments and
rent the rest of them. The tenement house was one of the
few outlets for accumulated savings that were within the
immigrant's range of understanding.94 The struggle to
make the monthly payments was a real battle. In order to
keep his investment viable the immigrant father often had
to ask his wife and children to work in order to bring in
additional income.95

A 1894 United States Bureau of Labor investigation
of the working-class district in the area east of Hull
House found that 10 per cent of the residents owned their
own homes. Significantly, of this 10 per cent, 80 per cent
were living in multi-family houses. By 1930 twice as many
immigrants were home owners with the percentages running
even higher in better neighborhoods. The normal pattern
of ownership, nevertheless, remained a three flat, two to

96 Thus,

rent and one for the landlord in which to live.
the vast majority of ethnic workers rented from resident
landlords, and aspired to the eventual ownership of their
own tenement. Until they could afford to buy, many

tenants lived in buildings owned by relatives or friends,

creating a close bond between tenant and landlord.97

153

Thus, while middle-class social reformers looked
on the housing conditions in working-class districts in
terms of sanitation, congestion, and low-quality physical
environment, many ethnic workingmen viewed the tenement as
one of the few available investments for his hard-earned
savings, accumulated at great sacrifice. It was a dis-
agreeable but temporary way of life necessary to accumulate
the investment capital to begin his upward social and
economic mobility. Such a movement appeared highly de-
sirable to the workingman for psychological as well as
economic reasons. Owning property was one of the few ways
an immigrant could gain self-respect not only in the eyes
of his countrymen, but also in the eyes of the prOperty-
conscious native middle class. More importantly, economic
mobility meant a possible escape from the economic in-
security that threatened him on all sides. Finally, a
man who owned his own home, even if mortgaged, was more
secure than an apartment dweller in hard times simply be-
cause foreclosure was a long drawn out affair while
eviction was a relatively swift Operation.

Even Jane Addams, perhaps the most compassionate
of the social workers, misunderstood the housing situation.
In her book, Twenty Years at Hull-House, she recognized
the existence of the widespread phenomenon of immigrant
workingmen buying real estate. However, she attributed

it to their "Slavic land hunger" acquired in the "old

154

country." She went on to condemn mildly this land hunger
because those afflicted "had become so absorbed in money
making that all other interests had apparently dropped

98 She was able to make such a statement because

away."
she did not understand the necessary drive of the immigrant
for security in a threatening economic environment. Never
having personally faced economic insecurity or even living
in an apartment house, she overlooked it as an important
motive to own income prOperty. Like the man being strangled
to death who struggles for air and realizes its importance
for the first time, the immigrant struggled to be free from
the grinding fear of absolute destitution. He understood,
as Jane Addams did not, the primary value of economic
security, the lack of which could be physically as well

as psychologically painful. To the immigrant clean alleys,
flush toilets, and uncrowded living conditions were worthy
goals for reform, but not as important as protection
against the very possibility of absolute destruction which
would spell the end of his dreams of achieving the good
life. If he could achieve economic mobility, clean alleys,
flush toilets, and uncrowded living conditions, it would
come as part of his higher standard of living in a better
neighborhood. The fact was, however, that such ameliora-
tive reforms such as housing codes, as well as model tene-
lnents, meant higher rents. More expensive payments would

"Kbst.likely have slowed the economic and social mobility

155

of the immigrants if the other factors in the situation
such as wage levels remained constant.

It is only fair to point out that this aspect of
the housing situation was understood by some of the leaders
of social reform such as Edith Abbott. It is interesting
to note that even with this knowledge no programs were
proposed to Operate within the framework of the immigrant
workman's needs. One such program might have been some
form of subsidy to tenement landlords making it profitable
for them to provide better conditions for their tenants.
Instead, much of the pattern of thought concerning the
housing of the poor develOped during the Progressive Era
was carried over into New Deal liberalism. One of the
few changes was the publically financed massive housing
projects. Although the source of the funds changed, the
administrators of the projects and their ideas did not.
The University of Chicago continued to turn out pro-
fessionally trained manipulative bureaucrats who had the
tenants of the projects at their mercy. There was still
little communication except through the poll and survey
between the social workers and the low-income wage earner.
In addition, slum clearance projects consisting simply of
tearing down sub-standard housing with little regard for
the future Of the tenants living in the condemned apart-
ments still continued to be a popular reform measure.

Perhaps the outcome might have been different if the New

156

Deal's Federal Housing Administration had insured loans
to small landlords as it did to single family owners.
Even this small step in the direction of working within
the immigrant experience was never tried, so pervasive
was the reliance on mass public financing of huge imper-
sonal housing projects presided over by a small army of
bureaucratic administrators.

Housing reform has not been too successful eco—
nomically or socially, not even in the eyes of social
reformers themselves. In analyzing the reasons for this
failure during the Progressive Era, a good insight into
the weaknesses and dangers of the philosophy which moti-
vated the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, and
through it much of the reform movement in Chicago, can be

gained.

FOOTNOTES--CHAPTER IV

1"Discussion on Class Conflict in America,"
American Journal of Sociology, XIII (May, 1908), 766-70.

21bid., p. 770.

3Roy Lubove, The Professional Altruist: The

Emergence of Social Work as a Career, 1880-1930 (Cambridge,
1965); Ralph E. and Muriel W. Humphrey, The Heritage of
American Social Work (New York, 1961).

 

4Robert H. Wiebe, The Search for Order 1877-1920

(New York, 1967), pp. 136-95.

5Louise C. Wade, Graham Taylor Pioneer for Social
Justiceyrl851-l938 (Chicago, 1964), 161-62.

6Robert H. Bremner, "Scientific PhilanthrOpy 1873-
1893," Social Service Review, XXX (1956), 168-73.

7Philip W. Ayres, "Training for Practical
PhilanthrOpy," Review of Reviews, XIX (1899), 206.

8Graham Taylor, Pioneering on Social Frontiers
(Chicago, 1930), pp. 306-07.

9Mary E. Richmond, "The Need of a Training School
in Applied PhilanthrOpy," National Conference of Chari-
pies and Correction Proceedings (1897), pp. 181-86.

loTaylor, pp. 306-07; Ayres, pp. 205-06.

11

Ibid.; University of Chicago, Annual Register,
1903-04.

 

157

158

12"The Institute of Social Science, Chicago,"
Charities, XIII (January 28, 1905), 393-94.

 

13Wade, pp. 167-68..

14Graham Taylor to Albert Kennedj September 20,
1912, Graham Taylor MSS. Chicago Newberfy Library.

15Peter d'A Jones introduction to Harper Torch-
book edition (New York, 1965) to Robert Hunter, Poverty
(New York, 1904).

16Albert N. Marquis, The Book Of Chicagoans
(Chicago, 1911). p. 318.

 

17Wade, pp. 167-68.

18JohnM. Glenn, Lilian Brandt, and F. Emerson
Andrews, Russell Sage Foundation 1907-1946 (New York,
1946), I, 30.

 

19Edith Abbott, "Twenty-One Years of University
Education for the Social Service 1920-41," Social Service
Review, XV (December, 1941), 670-72; Jane Addams, “Great
Public Servant, Julia C. Lathrop," Social Service Review,
VI (June, 1930), 280-81.

 

 

20Edith Abbott, "Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
Over the Years," Social Service, XXII (December, 1948),
419-20.

 

21Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy,
Articles of Incorporation, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry
Library.

22Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy: List
of Board of Trustees, 1908, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry
Library.

231bid.

24Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy, List
of Donors 1909-1910, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

25"The Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy,"
Survey, XL (September 1, 1920), 686-87.

159

26§2£zgy. XXIV (June 18, 1910), 480-81.

27Edith Abbott, "Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
Over the Years," Social Service Review, XXII (December,
1948), 442; Helen R. Wright, “The Debt of the School of
Social Service Administration," Social Service Review,
XXII (December, 1948), 448.

28Elizabeth Wisner, "Edith Abbott's Contribution
to Social Work Education," Social Service Review, XXXII

29Edith Abbott, "Sophonisba Preston Breckinridge
Over the Years," pp. 442-46.

30Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, "Public Charitable
Service as a Profession," National Conference on Social
Work, 1917, Proceedings, pp. 370-71.

 

31Taylor, p. 309.

32Mary E. Richmond, Social Diagnosis (New York,
1917), pp. 5-11; Edward T. Devine, flSocial Forces: The
Friendly Visitor," Charity and the Commons, XXI (1908),
321-22.

33Ibid.

34§g£ygy, XXX (June 21, 1913), 388-89.

35Helen R. Jeter, The Chicago Juvenile Court
(Washington, 1922), pp. 5-25.

36Edith Abbott to Julia Lathrop, August 7, 1920,
Julius Rosenwald MSS. Newberry Library.

37Board of Trustees, Minutes of Meetings, April 27,

1917, Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy: Graham
Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

38Wade, pp. 172-73.

39Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy,
President's Report, May 5, 1916, Graham Taylor MSS.
Newberry Library; Wade, p. 174.

160

40Chicago School of Civics and PhilanthrOpy,
Minutes of the Meeting of the Board of Trustees, July 9,
1920, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; Taylor, p. 310;
Victor Elting to Emmons Blaine, July 12, 1920, Emmons
Blaine MSS. Wisconsin Historical Society Library; Graham
Taylor to Victor F. Lawson, October 1, 1920, Graham Taylor
MSS. Newberry Library.

41Wade, p. 177.

42Lubove, pp. 55-84.

43Julia Lathrop to Edith Abbott, August 10, 1920,
Abbott MSS. University of Chicago Library.

44Edith Abbott, "Twenty-One Years of University
Education for the Social Services, 1920-1941," Social
Service Review, XV (December, 1941), 670-77.

 

45Edith Abbott, Social Welfare and Professional
Education (Chicago, 1942), pp. 10-11; Taylor, p. 309.

 

 

46Graham Taylor in the Daily News, May 4, 1929,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; Wade, p. 171.

 

47Question from Survey, Edith Abbott MSS. Uni-
versity of Chicago Library.

48Milton B. Hunt, "Housing of Non-family Groups
of Men in Chicago," American Journal of Sociology, XVI
(September, 1910), 145-70; Sophonisba Breckinridge and
Edith Abbott, "Chicago Housing Conditions: South Chicago
at the Gates of the Steel Mills," Amerigan Journal of
Sociology, XVII (September, 1911), 145-76; A. P. Comstock,
"Chicago Housing Conditions: The Problems of the Negro,"
American Journal of Sociology, XVIII (September, 1912),
241-57; Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, "The Color Line in the
Housing Problem," Survey, XXIX (February 1, 1913), 575-76;
Grace P. Norton, "Chicago Housing Conditions: Two Italian
Districts," American Journal of Sociology, XVIII (January,
1913), 509-42; Elizabeth Huges,“Chicago Housing Con-
ditions: The Lithuanians in the Fourth Ward," American
Journal of Sociology, XX (November, 1914), 289-312; Helen
Wilson, Eunice W. Smith, "Chicago Housing Conditions Among
the Slovacks," American Journal of Sociology, XX (September,
1914), 145-69; Natalie Walke, "Chicago Housing Conditions:
Greeks and Italians in the Neighborhood of Hull House,"
American Journal of Sociology, XXI (November, 1915),

 

 

161

285-316; Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott, "Chicago
Housing Conditions: The West Side Revisited," American
Journal of Sociology, XVII (June, 1911), 1-34.

49Wa1ke, p. 315.

50Breckinridge and Abbott, "Chicago Housing
Conditions: The West Side Revisited," p. 176.

51Ibid.

52Graham Taylor in the Daily News, May 4, 1929,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

53Report of the Dgpartment of Health of the City
of Chicago 1907-1910, p. 215.

 

 

55Lubove, pp. 8-9, 33, 34, 100-02, 175-76, 246.

56George C. Sikes, "New Chicago," Outlook, XCII
(August 28, 1909), 1003.

57Mary McDowell Form Letter, After January 1912;

Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

58A11en B. poind to Mary McDowell, May 20, 1912;
Clarence Buckingham to Mary McDowell, June 24, 1912; W. F.
Dummer to Mary McDowell, July 1, 1912; H. B. Highie to
Mary McDowell, July 1912; Julius Rosenwald to Mary '
McDowell, July 1912; Edward Swift to Mary McDowell, June
1912; Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

59Clarence Buckingham to Mary McDowell, July 1,
1912, Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

60W. F. Dummer to Mary McDowell, July 1, 1912,
Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

61Mary McDowell Form Letter, After January 1912,
Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

62Ibid.

162

63Julius Rosenwald to Miss Stinson, 1919, Julius
Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

64Benjamin Rosenthal to Julius Rosenwald,
January 22, 1919; Julius Rosenwald MSS. University
of Chicago Library.

65Original List of Subscribers of the Stock of the
Chicago Housing Association, 1925; Julius Rosenwald
University of Chicago Library.

66Herman H. Helter to Julius Rosenwald, April 28,
1920; Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago
Library.

67Ibid.

68Ibid.

69Benjamin J. Rosenthal to Julius Rosenwald, June

13: 1919: Julius Rosenwald.Mss. University of Chicago
Library.

7OBenjamin Rosenthal to Julius Rosenwald, January
22, 1919; Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago
Library.

71Harold H. Swift to Julius Rosenwald, January 9,
1925; Julius Rosenwald MSS. University Of Chicago
Library.

72E. J. Buffingham to Julius Rosenwald, August 13,
1920; Julius Rosenwald MSS. UniverSity of Chicago
Library.

73Harold H. Swift to Julius Rosenwald, January 9,
1925; Julius Rosenwald MSS. University.of Chicago
Library.

74M. R. Werner, Julius Rosenwald (New York, 1939),
pp. 107-36.

75Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, "The Color Line in
the Housing Problem," Survey, XXVIX (February 1, 1913),
575-76.

163

76Werner, p. 274.

77Chicago Commission: The Negro in Chicago
(Chicago, 1922); Minutes of the Commission's Meetings,
Julius Rosenwald MSS. Newberry Library; Mimeographed Draft
Copy of the Chicago Commission's Findings, Fictor Lawson
MSS. Newberry Library; William M. Tuttle, Jr., Race Riot
(New York, 1970).

 

 

78Miriam G. Rappe, "Mary E. McDowell," (1936),
p. 15, Mary E. McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

791bid.

80Werner, pp. 274-78.

81Ibid.

82"Satisfaction and Dividends from Modern Housing
DevelOpment," American City (May, 1931), p. 125.

83Seven-year Report of the Michigan Boulevard
Garden Apartments' Building Corporation, Chicago, May
1937, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library;
Werner, pp. 274-78.

84Ibid.; Edith Abbott, The Tenements of Chicggo
1908-1935 (Chicago, 1936). p. 276, Table 45.

 

85Seven-year Report of the Michigan Boulevard
Garden Apartments' Building Corporation, Chicago, May
1937, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

86Edith Elmer Wood, Recent Trends in American
Housing (New York, 1931), pp. 234-35.

 

87Ibid.

88Edith Abbott, The Tenements of Chicago, pp.

 

491-92.

89Ibid.. pp. 493-94.

164

90Paul Frederick Cressey, "Population Succession
in Chicago: 1898-1930," American Journal of Sociology,

91City of Chicago, Department of Public Welfare,
"Housing Survey in the Italian District of the Seventeenth
Ward," First Semi-Annual Repgrt to the Mayor and the Alder-
man of the CiEy of Chicago (Chicago, 1915), pp. 74-75.

92Humbert s. Nelli, Italian in Chicago 1880-1930
(New York, 1970), pp. 43-54.

93Abbott, The Tenements of Chicago, pp. 379-84.

94Ibid.

95Sophonisba P. Breckinridge, New Homes for Old
(New York, 1921), pp. 100-15.

96Abbott, p. 371.

97U.S. Seventh Special Reportjof the United States
Commissioner of Labor (Washington, D.C., 1894).

98Jane Addams, Twenty Years at Hull-House (New
York, 1960), p. 95.

CHAPTER V

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY: A MIDDLE-

CLASS INVENTION?

One of the central concerns of the social reformers
at the turn of the century was the child. They were
anxious to make sure that childhood would be a time when
a potential adult learned to be well-adjusted, productive,
civic-minded, and happy. Although middle-class families
could be trusted to strive to meet these ideals, working-
class families, because of harsh environmental conditions
and ignorance, could not be counted upon to conform to
such expectations.1 These youths were, in many cases, not
prepared by their parents to function in a bourgeois, in-
dustrial, urban society. As one social reformer put it:

We are all the product of our environment and
live the life that is shaped and moulded for us in
our early years. The boys and girls of our wealthy
and prominent citizens, as well as the children of
the poor, are made out of the same material, and it
depends on the moulding they receive in youth what
they will become later on. The children of the
rich make mistakes and often trangress the law, but
there is always sufficient influence at hand to save
them from the error of their way, while the children
of the poor have but few friends to take their part,
otherwise they, like the others, might live down
their wrong-doing and names untarnished attain
positions of usefulness and honor.2

165

166

Social workers viewed it as their task to help the working—
class child overcome his environmental handicaps as well
as protect society from his "errors."3
To meet this need a series of programs was formu-
lated by the social engineering eXperts with the backing
of progressive elements of the upper-middle class. Such
programs included child labor laws, women's labor laws,
compulsory education laws, mothers' pensions, organized
recreation, and control of deviant behavior. These pro-
grams were designed as a way of giving social workers a
legal wedge by which they could intervene in the affairs
of lower-class families so as to give them the requisite
life style that would fit them for the industrial system.
The most obvious need for such intervention
occurred in the area of the anti-social behavior mani-
fested by so many children of the poor. Armed with scien-
tific studies of pauperism and crime, as well as their own
practical experience, social welfare reformers, many of
them working out of the settlements, came to realize that
much of what they termed juvenile delinquency could be
traced to the effects of an unsatisfactory environment.
Clark Kelsey expressed this concept skillfully in the
Annals of the American Academy. He wrote, "In dealing
with children whose spirit of mischief or lack of appreci-
ation of the law has led them to commit some offense,

there is a tendency to recognize other causes than natural

167

depravity." It was ridiculous, according to Kelsey, to
allow a child to grow up in ignorance of the reasons behind
social customs and then, when the child went wrong, to
attempt to remedy matters by repressive and punitive mea-
sures. Instead, the aim should be to prevent the crime

by catching the child in the early stages of delinquency.4
Many social reformers such as Jane Addams also believed
that they were shielding children who had gone wrong from

a cold-blooded legal system.

Before 1899 in Illinois there was no mechanism for
solving this problem. A boy who was between the ages of
ten and sixteen was dealt with in the same court as an
adult offender. In such cases the judge had only two
options, to sentence him to a period of confinement and
punishment or to acquit the boy of all charges. If the
Offense was major, the boy would be sent to a reform
school operated by sectarian groups but financed by the
state, or as a felon he would be dispatched directly to
prison. If, on the other hand, the offense was small,
the judge usually dismissed the case with a warning,5
although on occasion the judge sent the boy to the
county jail.

Social workers charged that such procedures
encouraged anti-social behavior in youth. By punishing
children with reform school, or worse with jail, the

goal of rehabilitation was not likely to be reached. As

168

one social reformer pointed out, "We make criminals out of
children who are not criminals by treating them as if they
were criminals."6 In those cases where the child was let
off with a warning his respect for the law was lowered
because he thought he was getting away with something.
A series of such experiences could condition him to a
life of crime. To the social reformers in Chicago, there
was a clear need to prevent juvenile crime rather than to
punish it; to form rather than to reform the child.7
Although private reform schools in Illinois had
been subsidized by the state since the 1870's, most of
these were rather harsh institutions founded on the idea
that the way to correct the wayward child who committed
minor crimes was corporal punishment. Perhaps the first
concrete step toward a more humane way of treating young
offenders came in 1893 when the jail school committee of
the Chicago Women's Club, headed by Miss Florence Haw-
thorne, began to conduct classes for juveniles in the
county jail. Members hOped that the idle time of these
youths could be turned to useful educational effort. In
that same year the legislature set up an Illinois Home
for Juvenile Offenders under pressure from Chicago re-
formers. Instead of sending a youth to prison or to a
private reform school, the court could send a boy or
girl to this Home unless convicted of a felony. In 1895

the law was changed so that all juveniles could be sent to

169

the Home, where the emphasis was on positive reform rather
than punishment.8 Although this institution was an im-
provement, the number of children it could accept was
extremely limited by the minimal size of legislative
appropriations.

In addition, despite these improvements law
breakers between the ages of ten and sixteen were still
subject to all the criminal processes applicable to adults
so far as arrest, detention, and trial were concerned. If
convicted of a particular crime, they could still be com—
mitted to a house of correction or to a county jail at
the discretion of the court. If the goal of rehabilitation
was to be reached, this entire procedure would have to be
changed.

The impetus for Juvenile Courts came in February
1896 when the various child welfare agencies held a con-
vention in Chicago. A joint committee made up of the
original jail school committee along with the reform and
philanthropy committees of the Chicago Women's Club was
the spearhead of the campaign.9 They agreed on the need
for a special local court that could deal with youthful
offenders on a basis other than strict adversary pro-
ceedings. They were also in accord that an educational
campaign, aimed at the general public as well as the
state legislature, to convince them both of the necessity

for a juvenile court, should be undertaken. The reformers

170

justified their project on humanitarian, as well as better
and more scientific crime control, grounds.

The chairman was Julia Lathrop, who was an active
member of the Chicago Women's Club and a social reformer

10 Her father was a prominent

from the upper-middle class.
lawyer and public official in Rockford, Illinois. After
Julia LathrOp took an A.B. degree from Vassar in 1880, she
joined her father's law office as a secretary. Apparently
she was not completely satisfied with her career, for when
Hull House was Opened by Jane Addams she went to live and
work there. In 1893 the reform-minded Governor Altgeld
appointed Miss Lathrop to the Illinois State Board of
Charity where she remained with brief breaks in tenure for
thirteen years. While on the board she became very con-
cerned over the demoralizing effects of prison on children
who, because of minor crimes, were caught in the legal
system with its emphasis on retributive justice.11
The committee's first step was to persuade the
State's Attorney in Chicago to allow one judge of the
municipal court to hear all the cases concerning youths
under eighteen. Judge Tuthill agreed to hold a morning
session once a week every Friday morning, for boys only.12
This court Operated on the assumption, as did the later
juvenile court, that a child who committed a crime did

so because of an unfavorable social environment, and thus

he was in need of education and care, not punishment. In

171

order to prescribe the necessary medicine that would re-
store the erring youth to moral vigor, a good deal of
knowledge concerning his background was needed.13
The task of collecting environmental data was
undertaken by Miss Hawthorne, a member of the joint com-
mittee for court reform. She spent each week collecting
the facts concerning the backgrounds of the deviants who
were to be arraigned at the end of the week. At the trial
on Friday morning she would present the results of her
investigation to Judge Tuthill. He, in turn, would use
these studies as one basis for his decision in each case.14
In the eyes of the social reformers, the major
drawback of this system was the fact that as in an earlier
children's court in New York a child was forced to endure
a criminal trial. He was formally accused of a crime in
open court and after adversary proceeding declared inno-
cent or guilty. This system of justice was unfair to
youthful offenders for two basic reasons, according to
social reformers. First of all, a guilty verdict meant
a life-time record as well as punishment. If the crime
was minor the punishment would most likely be a few days
in the House of Correction. If the crime was more serious,
a jail sentence was mandatory. Secondly, a conviction on
a specific charge was often difficult to obtain even in

the face of the fact that there was often clear evidence

that the defendant was heading for a life of crime because

172

of his anti-social behavior in general. In each case
rehabilitation was made difficult.15
It was these shortcomings of Judge Tuthill's court
that convinced many persons, including the Chicago Bar
Association, that special treatment for children in the
judicial system was imperative. Seeking a new form of
justice for youthful offenders, social reformers proposed
a courtroom where the aim would be to change the behavior
of the child by positive action rather than by punishing
him. To achieve this goal they must develOp a new model
of conducting the preliminary procedures as well as new
methods of administering the hearings on a non-adversary
basis. In addition, they hoped to broaden the concept of
admissible evidence to include the child as well as the
social and personal facts that made up his environment.
New techniques such as interviews by trained observers with
neighbors and relatives of the child to gather such facts
would also have to be worked out. Finally, to avoid costly
institutionalization they had to find new methods of
supervising delinquent children in their homes.16
The Chicago Bar Association, Illinois State Board
of Public Charities, Illinois State Conference of Chari-
ties, Chicago Women's Club, and Hull House Association as
well as such individuals as Jane Addams, Mrs. Lucy Flower,
and Julia Lathrop began to put pressure on the state

17

legislature to create a formal juvenile court. The

173

legislature in 1899 responded to this lobbying effort by
passing without much controversy an act which empowered
any county to set up a juvenile court.18
The lack of controversy over the act may be
explained by the fact that the juvenile court bill, which
was drawn up by the Chicago Bar Association, was presented
as an anti-crime measure, law and order being a popular
issue in those days. It was pictured by reformers as a
way of dealing humanely and effectively with youthful
crime. Considering that the "youths of today are the men
of tomorrow" it was also a preventive measure that could
cut down on adult crime in the future.19
Another reason for the lack of any extended debate
over the bill in the state legislature may well have been
the fact that the final act did not include appropriations
to cover the cost of the operation of this new court.
Individual legislators may have seen this as a way to hold
the line on the increasing costs of state reform insti-
tutions by providing a mechanism by which delinquents
could be treated in their own homes at little cost to the
state. As most juvenile crime was recognized as occurring
in populous Cook County, the rural dominated legislature
could pass the burden of control of such crime to Cook
County.20 Even many of the reformers were not unhappy at

the lack of appropriation for, if private agencies had to

be called on to subsidize the Juvenile Court, these

174

agencies would have an effective voice in the decision-

21 The court could thus be saved from the

making process.
machinations of corrupt politicians.

Once the state law became effective on July 1,
1899 the chief judge of the circuit court of Cook County
brought the Chicago Juvenile Court into existence by
appointing Judge Julian Mack to hear cases under the new
judicial proceeding pertaining to youths. Because Julian
Mack was a close friend of Julius Rosenwald and was in
sympathy with most of the aims of the social reformers, it
was only natural that they had great influence in the
future direction of the court.22

A case in the new juvenile court could begin with
the filing of a petition by any person who had some reason
to believe that a child was delinquent, dependent on the
public for support, or lacked fit parents. The parents
and the child were summoned directly to the court because
there was no indictment and thus no need for a grand jury.
The child was brought in to be helped, not judged. The
arrest of a child for a criminal offense was the only
other way a case was initiated. The justice of the peace
court either dismissed the case or handed it over to the
juvenile court for further action.23

Once the case of an individual child got under

way, the standard procedure was based on the question,

”What in view of all the circumstances surrounding the

175

child's life, is it best to do for him?" The child was
not indicted or accused of any crime, but rather was to
be helped to overcome his anti-social behavior in general.
During the proceeding there was no prosecutor or defense
attorney, for as one social reformer stated, "It was the
state for Johnny not the state against Johnny." As a
result there was no need to enforce the ordinary rules

of evidence. Thus, hearsay evidence of parents, neigh—
bors, policemen, school teachers, and employers was
commonly allowed in court. The probation officer, whose
job it was to collect the vital environmental data about
a child appearing before the court as well as form a
written evaluation of the character of the child, was also
charged with protecting the child's interests. Thus, his
role was split between those of prosecutor and defense
counsel in a traditional court. A jury was allowed at the
discretion of the court or at the request of friends of
the child. Few cases were tried with a jury because
parents were usually convinced by persons associated with
the court that it would not be in the interest of the
child. Finally, the child himself was asked to tell his
story to the court. In effect, he was often put into a
position where his own testimony was used against him
without the constitutional safeguards involved in such

situations.24

176

The result of the proceeding was not a verdict of
innocence of guilt, but rather the judgment whether or not
a child was delinquent. If in the Opinion of the judge
the child's general anti-social behavior would lead to
more serious crimes, the youth would be returned home under
the direction of a probation officer, sent to a foster
home, or dispatched to a reformatory to be rehabilitated.25

Most cases ended in probation for the juvenile
delinquent. This form of resolution was considered by
social reformers to be the best possible one because it
was natural. Its aim was to employ the social worker—
probation officer "to elevate and improve the home with-
out breaking it up." The key to this system was the role
of the probation officer who had charge of the child's
case. The officer began to familiarize himself with the
child when he collected the environmental background data
used by the judge as part of his decision. During the
trial the probation officer closely observed the child
and his parents. "He was, thus, able to gauge the
parental relation by noticing how the parents treated the
whole subject of their son's arrest, how often they
visited him and whether there was more sorrow or indig-
nation over the event." If they were more indignant then
sorrowful the court might decide to take the child away
from their influence. If they were, on the other hand,

cooperative the child would be paroled to their custody.

177

In general, the probation officer was to assess whether
the family as a whole could be depended upon to help
rehabilitate the child.26
Once the boy or girl was found delinquent and
probation was decided upon, the probation officer under-
took a more detailed study that covered not only the
whole field of family relations, but the child's entire
environment including those agencies which might help in
the rehabilitation process, the school, church, and the
workshOp. His principle task was to earn the friendship
of the family through sympathy and cordiality in order to
gain its cooperation. This procedure was important be-
cause it increased the probation officer's authority over
the child and his home life. If the mother perceived the
officer as a welcome guest and counselor as well as an
ally in preserving order, he could not only directly aid
the child, but might also be able to raise the whole tone
of family life including its neatness, cleanliness, and
morality. If such a relationship was impossible to achieve
because of resistance of the family, the whole authority
of the court could be invoked to impose the requisite
conditions for the delinquent's reformation. If this
method also proved to be inadequate, the probation officer
usually recommended institutionalization of the child.

In effect, the probation officer through the courts had

the ultimate authority to take a child away from its

178

parents if he deemed it in the interest of the child as

he defined it.27

This was particularly true because the
court almost invariably followed the advice of the pro-
bation officer.

Judge Mack appointed Mrs. Alzina P. Stevens, a
social worker living at Hull House, to be the first pro-
bation officer. She had been recommended for the position
by a committee working out of the Chicago Women's Club
among whose members were Miss Jane Addams and Mrs. Charles
Henrotin, the wife of a successful stockbroker. As there
were no apprOpriations available, Mrs. Steven's salary
was paid by this same committee. When the number of pro-
bation officers was increased, their salaries were also
privately financed.28

Out of this early ad hog committee of the Chicago
Women's Club, organized to raise money for probation
officers' salaries, grew the Juvenile Court Committee.
The driving force behind this more formal and permanent
organization was Mrs. Lucy Flower, even though Mrs. Julia
Lathrop became its chairman with Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen as
vice-chairman. The wealthy Chicago businessman, Mr.
James H. Echels, became the treasurer with Mrs. Charles
Henrotin, assistant treasurer.29

The committee became an integral part of the

administration of the juvenile court. All nominations,

for example, for the position of probation officer were

179

made through a civil service examination formulated by the
committee. It raised, in addition, over $100,000 in the
years 1899-1907. The money was used to Operate the pro-
bation system which was not publicly funded. The two
largest contributors were Julius Rosenwald and Mrs.
Joseph T. Bowen. She was a member of one of the oldest
upper-class families in the city, one that claimed as an
ancestor a wealthy trader who was instrumental in the
founding of Chicago. Her personal fortune was widely in-
vested in such companies as Julius Rosenwald's Sears
Roebuck and Company. In addition to her inheritance, Mrs.
Bowen had married an affluent businessman. After his
early death, she became dedicated to social reform on a
full-time basis, especially as it concerned children.
Most of the other contributions came in large amounts
from well-to-do families.30
A great improvement was made in the probation
system in 1905. The state legislature was persuaded by
those who had founded the juvenile court to strengthen
it in Cook County by authorizing the commissioners to pay
regular probation officers out of public funds.31 In
response to this authorization, the county commission
voted $65 a month for public probation officers of the
court, the same amount paid the officers of the Juvenile

Court Committee. By 1906 thirty-three probation officers

were paid salaries, twenty-three by the county, seven by

180

the Juvenile Court Committee, and three by other private
institutions. Even with this improvement there were never
enough officers to carry out properly the tasks assigned
to them. In 1906, for example, each officer had 150 to
250 cases in his care, while most experts deemed 50 to
60 to be a prOper number.32
The Juvenile Court Committee continued to lend
financial assistance to the court until 1908. In that
year the Juvenile Court became a totally public financed
project, although the civil service examinations were
still drawn up by outside social reformers connected with
the Chicago School of Civics and PhilanthrOpy as well as
the Chicago's settlement houses. With the end of its
special financial relationship with the Juvenile Court,
the Juvenile Court Committee changed its name in 1909 to
the Juvenile Protective Association in order to reflect
its broader purposes. It has been concerned since then
exclusively with community problems affecting delinquency.33
The new Juvenile Protective Association divided up
the city into sixteen districts, each with a paid officer
to look after the children's morals. Most of the districts
were located in the immigrant ghettos of the city because
middle-class reformers believed that it was these children
who needed help the most. In 1909, for example, of the

2,593 complaints to the Association of children going

wrong, 2,329 were children of immigrants. It was

181

imperative that the pool halls, dance halls, theaters,
and the streets in general, be monitored to make sure that
immigrant children came into contact with as little evil
as possible.34
Over the years the Juvenile Protective Association
of Chicago has had varying success in its drives to censor
films, enforce the liquor and tobacco laws, close down
"lewd" dance halls, remove penny slot machines, and stop
the sale of obscene postal cards. If they failed, it was
not for a lack of trying. Usually failure came from the
conflict generated when middle-class morality as repre-
sented by the association officers who increasingly
reflected the values of the outer city's upper class
rather than the humanitarian social workers, clashed with
that of the immigrant worker ghettos. This conflict was
particularly evident in their differing views on the
acceptability of saloons and dance halls as means of
recreation for young men. In a way the excesses of the
Association, in trying to impose middle-class values on
the immigrant population, were only the exaggerated goals
of the juvenile court. For example, the Juvenile Pro—
tective Association on one occasion had cards printed in
various languages warning foreign parents that if they
sent their children to pick up coal, wood, or iron from
the railroad tracks they would be prosecuted by the

Association. There was in this affair a rather callous

182

disregard for the economic realities underlying such an
act on the part of a poor immigrant family.35
As with the Juvenile Protective Association, the
social reformers and their wealthy allies designed the
Juvenile Court to give the middle-class social worker a
mechanism for dealing with behavioral deviations among
the working class. The Juvenile Court gave the legal
power to the social worker to mold those children whom
they defined as maladjusted in such a way as to give them
an Opportunity to compete on the lower rungs of the
ladder of economic mobility within a bourgeois urban
industrial framework. Although the reformers recognized
the fact that this deviant behavior was a result of en-
vironment, the major thrust of their immediate program
was the effort to raise the delinquent above his back-
ground with a little help from his friends, the various
agencies of the social welfare system.36
The juvenile court system also functioned in the
interest of its upper-middle class financial backers.
Graham Taylor, for example, writing in 1921 observed,
after feeling the pulse of the upper-middle class, that
this group considered juvenile delinquency a major threat
to the stability of the society.37 Although its interest
in the problem waxed and waned between 1890 and 1932, its
basic fear of crimes committed by the lower class youths,
especially those committed against property, remained

intense.38

183

The general public, as well as the social re—
formers, had long suspected that most of the youths
arrested for crimes came from the poorer sections of the
city. This impression was confirmed by Sophonisba P.
Breckinridge in a 1910 study of the court records of
11,329 boys and 2,770 girls compiled during the first ten
years of the juvenile court's existence. She divided the
backgrounds of these youths into four categories: very
poor (not self-sustained), poor (father unskilled with
irregular work), fairly comfortable (skilled artisan), and
quite comfortable (skilled artisan). The study demon-
strated the close connection between crime and poverty
with 37 per cent of the youth in the first category, 40
per cent in the second, 20 per cent in the third, and only
a meager 1 per cent in the fourth.39

These findings were strengthened by a study carried
out in 1912 by Breckinridge and Edith Abbott which corre-
lated juvenile delinquency statistics with geographical
distribution. The data for the investigation were made
up of the cases of boys and girls brought before the
Juvenile Court of Cook County on petitions alleging de-
linquency during the years 1899-1909. From these data a
map had been drawn which showed the location of the homes
of these children. It visually displayed the fact that
most of the cases were located in the poorer immigrant

sections of the city. As the study summarized its finding:

184

. . . The West Side furnished the largest quota of

delinquency across the river. [Other areas included]

the Italian Quarters of the Twenty-second Ward on the

North Side; the First and Second Wards, which include

the district of segregated vice and a portion of the

so-called "black belt" of the South Side; and such

distinct industrial communities as the districts

near the steel mills of South Chicago and near the

Stockyards.40

To the upper-middle class youthful crime was a
threat to stability in the society not only because of its
source, but also because of its nature. According to an
exhaustive study of the criminal careers of juvenile de-
linquents between the ages of ten and eighteen carried
out in 1916 by Director William Healy of the Psychopathic
Institute of the Juvenile Court of Chicago, over 70 per
cent of the boys and 30 per cent of the girls had engaged
in stealing in which no violence occurred. This figure
represented the single largest category for the men with
burglary (17 per cent) the next highest serious offense.
If street robbery with violence (4 per cent) is added,
over 91 per cent of those boys classified as juvenile
delinquents engaged in crimes against prOperty. Such
crimes particularly offended middle class concern for
the sanctity of prOperty.41
As for the girls, the single largest category was

prostitution or promiscuity, a young prostitute, or a
girl on the verge of becoming one (73 per cent). Of the
boys who were judged delinquents, only 4.5 per cent had

engaged in sexual offenses. William Healy defended the

Juvenile Court against the charge that it discriminated

185

against young women by arresting them but not boys on the
same charges by showing that there was little veneral
disease among the boys in the sample. Perhaps if he had
tested among older upper-class men the story might have
been different because it was this group that used the

prostitutes.42

Middle class drives against prostitution
were always directed against the lower-class prostitute
and not against her upper-class patron. This was true
most likely because it was easier to get at the helpless
prostitute than her relatively more powerful patron. It
may have also been in part a result of the prevailing
double standard that boys will be boys, but women must be
pure and angelic. What is particularly interesting is the
fact that prostitution was usually treated as a moral
problem and not an economic question. In 1912 Julius
Rosenwald, President of Sears and Roebuck, became ex-
tremely upset when some social workers suggested that
there might be a connection between low wages paid to
sales girls working on State Street and the high rate of

43 As a moral problem, it could

prostitution among them.
be preached about, but as an economic problem some con-
crete action had to be taken if it was to be eliminated,
for example, the payment of higher wages. In addition,
if it was a moral problem it could be blamed on the weak

character of the participants, but if it was an economic

problem the blame lay squarely on those members of the

186

employing class who by low wages made it necessary for a
woman to engage in the practice.

Later studies have confirmed these earlier in-
vestigations into the class composition of male juvenile
delinquents and the nature of their crimes. A classic
study by Shaw and McKay, completed in the early 1940's
but still recognized as authoritative, concluded that in
the period 1922-1934 there was a definite relationship
between rates of juvenile delinquency and certain other
community problems. It found a direct correlation between
the rate of infant mortality, tuberculosis, mental dis-
order, relief (1934), dependent families (1931), per-
centage foreign born, Negro heads of families (1920 and
1930), and the number of cases of juvenile crime in a
given district. In addition, there was a negative corre—
lation between rates of delinquency and median rental
rates (1920 and 1930). All of these high correlations
indicate that there was a heavy concentration of crime
among working-class youth.44'

The study also examined a series of juvenile
court cases in the period 1917-1923 involving 8,141 indi—
viduals paying particular attention to the nature of the
crimes committed. It found that 70 per cent of all
juvenile crime involved "stealing." This figure broke
down into 29 per cent for burglary, 12 per cent for

larceny of automobiles, 21 per cent for petty stealing,

187

and 8 per cent for holdups, shop-lifting, and purse-
snatching. The remaining 31 per cent included crimes such
as incorrigibility, 17 per cent; disorderly conduct, 5 per
cent; and all sex offenses, 2 per cent.45

Thus, from the 1890's to the 1920's juvenile
delinquency was a cryptogram for anti-social behavior on
the part of lower-class youth that involved attacks on the
concept of private property. To the upper-middle class
such acts undermined the stability of a society based on
the sanctity of individual ownership. Such a refusal on
the part of lower-class youth to respect middle-class
conventions created an explosive situation.

Perhaps the major reason that juvenile delinquents
did not venerate the idol of individual ownership was that
they or their families had so small a share of the national
wealth. According to one study by Gabriel Kolko, the per-
centage of national income before taxes received in 1910
by the top one-fifth of the population was 48.2 per cent,
while the bottom received a meager 8.3 per cent. In
1918 the figures were 47.3 per cent for the tOp one-fifth,
while the bottom one-fifth received 6.8 per cent. In
1921 the percentages were 51.0 and 6.8 respectively, while
in 1929 they were 51.3 per cent and 5.4 per cent. Thus,
the lower class received throughout the period an in-
creasingly small and disprOportionate slice Of the economic
pie. If one takes into consideration the top two—fifths

of the pOpulation, it is clear from the figures that the

188

old saw "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer,"
was in a way correct.46
Assuming that the circumstances in Chicago re-
flected the national situation, it is possible that some
lower-class youth instinctively understood that the rules
of the economic game were stacked against them. They,
therefore, directed their anti-social behavior in a serial
and disconnected manner against this state of affairs. If
they could not win by the rules, they would break the
rules. Franz Fannon in his work has graphically demon-
strated that such criminal conduct can be the first step
toward a revolutionary situation where the Oppressed no
longer play by the code of the oppressors. What is defined
as a crime by a status-quo society may in the future be
declared a daring, if confused, act aimed at undermining
the old system by a post-revolutionary society.47 Take,
for example, the 12.2 per cent Of the total crimes that
revolved around larceny of automobiles. The youth of the
upper-middle class especially enjoyed riding in auto-
mobiles in the post World War I period. The automobile
became a way of life for these youths, a means of express-
ing independence, individuality, courage, and sexual
adventure. The automobile was in effect a ticket out of
the local neighborhood to the entertainment centers of
the city. The local neighborhood centers were suffering

by comparison with the new ones springing up around the

189

middle-class rim of the city. In short, the automobile
was a cultural symbol as well as a means of transpor-
tation.48

It is not astonishing to find the youth of the
lower class, stimulated by the movies, yearning for the
pleasures associated with the use of the automobile. The
catch was that because of the unequal wealth distribution
they were unable to purchase a car. As an alternative
they "borrowed" a car from the middle class for the fun
of "driving around." If these youth were caught before
they abandoned it, they became part of the 12.2 per cent
statistic that was charged with larceny Of automobiles.

It was the function of the juvenile court to con-
trol this dangerous situation. It did this by attempting
to eliminate all vestiges of anti-social behavior or to
prevent them from appearing among the lower-class youth.
Once the raison d'etre of the juvenile court is made clear,
its methods of operation become understandable. The non-
advocacy system of procedure made it possible for repre-
sentatives of middle-class institutions to directly inter-
vene in the child-rearing practices of lower—class families
at the slightest hint of anti-social behavior. There was
no need to convict him of crime, only of the potentiality.
The Shaw and McKay study very graphically, but unknowingly,
pointed out this facet of the juvenile court when they

found that 30.5 per cent of juvenile crime involved such

190

petty "crimes" as incorrigibility and disorderly conduct
during the period 1917 to 1923.49
For the earlier period of 1900 to 1906, juvenile
crimes were even more weighted toward less serious acts.
The authors, for example, of that study concluded:
With regard to offenses, it seems probable that
some boys were taken to court in these earlier years
on charges for which no petitions would be filed by
the police probation officers at the present time
[1942]. This is indicated both by the fact that the
number of cases in court was greater in proportion to
the population than at present and by the fact that
the classification of offenses indicated a somewhat
higher prOportion of less serious charges.5
Traditional legal procedures were unable to pre-
vent crime and to accomplish the rehabilitation of the
potential non-conformist youthful criminal. A good
example of such inability can be found in the records of
the Boys' Court of Chicago. Founded in 1914 by the Chief
Judge of the Circuit Court of Cook County under pressure
from the Juvenile Protective Association and the Chicago
Bar Association as well as by the Chicago Women's Club, it
was designed to deal with boys between the years of seven-
teen and twenty-one. Unlike the juvenile court, it followed
traditional legal procedures.51
In a study made of the first six months' Operations
of the court, the largest single category of cases (70.2
per cent) involved the violation Of city ordinances. Two-

thirds of these cases were for disorderly conduct. They

included such cases as:

191

S.T.: First Offender, seventeen years. "Found in
poolroom. Under age to be allowed there.
First time in this poolroom. NO evidence
of gambling. Several boys arrested."

D.S.: Nineteen years. "Playing cards in a vacant
store. Several boys arrested and discharged."
E.H.: "Did not move when officer spoke. Going into

dance hall 1:00 A.M. No evidence of disorder."

E.S.: "Was with a man who had a stolen bicycle."

M.S.: "With 16 boys over eighteen years in poolroom
raid. Only one gambling; others orderly and of
good character."

E.F.: "Playing ball on street."

6.8.: "With two men sleeping in wagon at 2:00 A.M.
at Liberty and Halsted Streets." All arrested.

E.F.: "Sleeping in barn."

L.S.: "4:30 A.M. on street." Has been arrested for
disorderly conduct numerous times before and
since.

"Flipping trains into town."

"Singing in Lincoln Park at the High Bridge."
"Girl said some remarks were made to her on
street by defendant. Defendant cannot Speak
English nor she his language."

D'Std
C208

P.K.: "Fight in saloon at Wells and Fugel streets.
Defendant had a lemon squeezer."

E.N.: "Ran away from home. Not working." Arrested
three times for similar offenses.

G.H.: "1.45 A.M. Western Avenue coming home from a
party."

J.G.: "Drinking beer on prairie on way from party."

Arrested following month for similar offense.

: "5:00 A.M. refused to move on 'quickly.'"

O.M.: Son and father arrested together. "Driving
a horse which ran away in their possession"
[sic].

A.F.: “Complainant says defendant throws a dog over
the fence."

L.J.: "In crowd over fight."

M.K.: "Fighting with man who refused to leave the
hallway, where defendant was working."

H.U.: "In freight yards of railroad."

J.B.: "Two boys sleeping in hallway." Both boys
arrested again within a few weeks for similar
Offense and discharged.

F.W.: "Sleeping outside Polk Street Depot."

F.L.: "2:15 A.M. on street at 44th and Montrose."

Three boys arrested.52
The study also discovered that most of these cases

of which involved what what we would call today young men

192

of seventeen to twenty-one, three-fourths were discharged.
Of the few cases (18.4 per cent) that resulted in con-
viction, about 30 per cent resulted in fines, 50 per cent
in institutionalization, and 20 per cent in probation.
Remarking on the high rate of discharge, the author of the
study stated "A new court procedure must therefore be
developed . . . if the vast number of trivial cases dis-
charged is to be reduced and if society is to be protected
from serious crimes these irresponsible boys sometimes
commit, outside treatment and custodial care must be pro-

vided."53

In other words, another juvenile court for older
boys should be created as a control device to get at anti-
social behavior that could not be controlled by normal
legal procedures which allow these trivial, but potentially
dangerous cases, to slip through its fingers.

The social control nature of the juvenile court
became very pronounced with the develOpment of the Juvenile
PsychOpathic Institute. Founded in 1909 by Mrs. William F.
Dummer who paid all the expenses of the Institute for the
first five years, it was directed by Dr. William Healy.

To discover how many were mental defectives, it gave
mental examinations to the children passing through the
juvenile court. Finding that very little juvenile de-
linquency was caused by mental defectives, the Institute

broadened its mandate to include the collection of data

that would be helpful in formulating a general theory to

193

explain juvenile delinquency in terms of personality
defects. Such evidence would enable the social worker to
identify the potentially anti-social lower-class youth
before he had a chance to commit his first act.54
In 1914 the County Commissioners took over the
Institute from its private financial backers. From that
point on, its expenses were paid out of public funds.
Although Dr. Healy resigned because of political inter-
ference, the issue of internal integrity was settled in
early 1917 to the social reformers' satisfaction with Dr.
Adlers' appointment. In order to obtain the services of
a man with such impressive credentials in psychological
circles as Dr. Adler, the Board of County Commissioners
was forced to agree to abstain from all political inter-
ference in the affairs of the Institute. In 1920 it was
taken over by the state government through an agreement by
the county and Judge Arnold of the Juvenile Court.55
Perhaps its main contribution was its studies of juvenile
delinquents and of the personality factors which made a
youth faced with the stress of poverty and deprivation
turn to crime. The effect, Of course, was to focus public
attention on the individual juvenile delinquent and his
"problem of adjustment" rather than on the environmental
stresses which caused the behavior in the first place.

It is quite clear then that the aim of the

Juvenile Court was not simply to protect the rights of

194

accused juveniles or even only to protect prOperty by
rehabilitating youths who failed to respect this con-
vention. The court was also a means of intervention by
the upper class through middle-class social workers in the
affairs of the lower class so as to forestall anti-social
behavior that was subversive to the status—quo economic
and social system; that is, one in which a number of
lower-class youth refused to play the economic game which
was beneficial to the upper class, but not as beneficial
to the lower class.

It is very revealing that the juvenile delinquent,
the one who did not accept the one-sided rules of the
economic game, was considered the "deviant" by social
reformers, while the youth who accepted his prOportionally
small slice of the pie, representing his share of the total
national wealth as the best he could do through the means
allowed him by the upper class, was considered "normal."56

Social workers did not understand their role in
these terms. They saw the juvenile court as "the natural
center in the community around which to group all the social
efforts made to remedy defective home conditions, to safe-
guard the health and morals of the young, and to insure
the children an atmosphere friendly to the development of

the highest citizenship."57

The purpose, then, was to
better adjust them so they could compete on the lower rungs
of social mobility in a bourgeois urban industrial society

that was economically controlled by the upper class.

195

It would be unfair to leave the impression that
all attempts at controlling anti-social behavior was com-
pletely negative. In the next chapter, mothers' pensions
will be described as a charity and as a behavior control
device.

Another such device was the building of what was
known as "socialized parks" in the working-class districts.
Henry 8. Curtis in his book, The Play Movement and Its

Significance published in 1887, stated that,

 

Probably more has been said and written about the
park playgrounds of Chicago than any other play
system in the world. It is doubyful if in any

other American city there has been another municipal
improvement that has been so splendidly conceived
and supported.

Curtis then described the pilgrimage by park boards and
businessmen of other cities to see Chicago's effort at
public recreation.58
Like those of many other cities, Chicago's park
system in the period immediately after the Civil War was
a scenic preserve. The parks were most often frequented
on Sunday afternoons by the wealthy, who would stroll
around the park to show off finery and to engage in social
conversation.59
The major problem from the perspective of the poor
was that these parks were built around the rim of the city.

They were inaccessible to the working class which mainly

lived in the fast growing inner city river wards. In fact

196

as late as 1904 one million people resided more than a
mile from any of these large parks.60

There was, therefore, a growing need for parks in
the high population density working-class districts. These
green oases with built-in recreational centers would re-
lieve the dull, drab, and overcrowded life of the poor,
especially the children, who needed some place to play
other than the street. Through such play, social workers
would gain the opportunity to teach children the neces-
sary values that would prevent anti-social behavior.

In order to meet the recreational privation of the
children of the poor, Hull House purchased in the early
1890's a vacant lot near the settlement and transformed
it into a fully equipped children's playground with a
trained director who organized play activities. Hull
House, Northwestern University Settlement, University of
Chicago Settlement, and Chicago Commons designed their
playground as models for publicly financed and small
parks.61

The first public contribution came in 1898 when
the Board of Education of Chicago granted six school yards
to the Vacation School Committee of the Chicago Women's
Club which it equipped and supervised.62 One year later,
in 1899, the Chicago City Council, under pressure from the
Chicago Women's Club and from various settlements in the

city as well as from many businessmen in the Municipal

Science Club, a business and professional group concerned

197

with the city and its problems, built five playgrounds in
the crowded districts of the city. A special park com-
mission was set up at the same time to study the advisa-
bility of setting up small recreational centers in the
working-class districts. By 1904 the system had grown to
fourteen playgrounds with two free bathing beaches on the

Lake Michigan shore.63

Encouraged by their success in
lowering juvenile delinquency in the areas of operation,
Chicago was about to embark on a multi-million dollar
experiment in social redemption and social control.

The case for a two and one—half million dollar
bond issue to build organized recreational areas for the
working class was presented to the middle class as an
anti-crime and anti-disease program. Mr. Perkins of the
Small Parks Commission pointed out that the poorer sections
contributed "most to the juvenile criminals and to con-
tagious disease. . . . We must reform the conditions that
lead to crime." His argument persuaded the voters to
approve the bonds. In the spring of 1904 the city began
construction of twenty-eight parks immediately by the
issuance of $2,500,000 worth of bonds. In addition, it
budgeted $12,000 a year for the maintenance of each
park.64

There were not to be scenic parks but the sites of
organized recreational activities. Most of them had

swimming pools, children's play areas, and playfields.

Some had large fieldhouses, usually with a gymnasia for

198

girls and boys, two small wading pools, three or four club-

rooms, a branch library, an auditorium and dancehall com-

bined, and a small restaurant where food was sold at cost.

The fieldhouses were used by school children in the after-

noon and by young men and women in the evening.65
Instructors organized activities, emphasizing

team sports as well as arts and crafts to teach children

to become responsible and productive adults. This aspect

of organized play was especially appealing to businessmen

who were beginning to be convinced by social reformers that

child labor did not teach children to be productive

adults.66
Team sports taught cooperation and the necessity

of working with others under higher direction, an important

quality for working in a factory or at any other common

enterprise. Arts and crafts encouraged attention to de-

tail and patience with close work as well as an appreci-

ation of beauty and skill. As an added dividend, organ-

ized play contributed to physical fitness while child

labor tended to break the health of the child. Another

result of organized play claimed by social reformers was

a reduction of the crime rate among children. By 1910,

for instance, it was estimated by Romeyn Taylor that in

neighborhoods where recreation centers were established

the cases of delinquency brought before the Juvenile

67

Court declined on the average of 28 per cent. All of

199

these advantages claimed by social reformers for the
socialized park made them extremely appealing to upper—
class businessmen.

An additional advantage of socialized parks was
one of providing social insurance for the economic, social

system. Henry S. Curtis in his book, The Planyovement

 

and Its Significance, explained it this way:

A part of the money that is spent on the maintenance
of playgrounds may properly be put down as social
insurance. There is a growing feeling of discontent
among the workers of the world, a feeling that the
worker has not had his just share of the product, that
present conditions of poverty, low standards of living,
and long hours Of labor that are demeaning to the
spirit are unnecessary and unjust. The worker not
only feels that he had not had his share, but he is
developing and enlisting leaders for his cause, and

he is feeling a new sense of power. . . . The reasons
for discontent are not industrial alone. The focus

of the whole matter is the difficulty under existing
circumstances of leading a life that is worth living.68

Considering the support of the executive and pro-
fessional elite for the play movement inside and outside
the Municipal Science Club, the advantages as described by
Curtis were not lost on them. Nor were the parks' tendency
to lower juvenile delinquency rates among working-class
youth forgotten. Speaking in June 1924, Republican
reform Mayor, William E. Dever, noted that:

The federal, state, county, and municipal govern-
ments are spending annually in Cook County not less
than $40,000,000 for supervision and correction of
crime. I wonder whether, if one-fifth of this sum
were set aside to provide preventive measures in the
way of parks, playgrounds, and organized athletics,
such constructive policy might not, aside from its

social and human value provide for an even more
efficient police service.6

200

Thus, the juvenile court and its probation system
was only supplemented by playgrounds where delinquency
would be forestalled rather than cured. It was one of
many programs designed to change lower-class disfunctional
behavior into functional conduct. That is, lower-class
behavior which allowed the upper class to continue enjoy-
ing the fruits of the unequal distribution of wealth, but
at the same time was structured in such a way as to give
a lower-class person a decent chance to gain a relatively
better life, within the established rules, than he pre-

viously enjoyed.

FOOTNOTE 3- -CHAPTER V

1F. H. Nibecker, "Education of Juvenile Delin-
quents," Annals of the American Academy, XXXIII (May,
1904). 483-92.

2J. J. Kelso, "Reforming Delinquent Children,"
Conference of Charities and Corrections: 1903, p. 237.

3L. D. Drake, "Juvenile Delinquency and Its
General Treatment," Conference of Charities and Corrections:
1900. PP. 208-11.

4Clark Kelsey, "Juvenile Court of Chicago and Its
Work," Annals of the American Academy, XVII (March, 1901),
298-30.

5Ibid.

6Helen R. Jeter, "The Chicago Juvenile Court,"
United States Children's Bureau Report No. 104 (Washington,
1922), p. 4.

71bid.

8T. H. MacQueary, "Schools for Dependent, De-
linquent, and Truant Children in Illinois," American
Journal of Sociology, IX (July, 1903), 1-23.

9Henriette Greenebaum Frank and Amelia Hofer
Jerome, Annals of the Chicago Women's Club (Chicago, 1916),
160-90; Minutes of the Executive Committee of the Chicago
Bureau of Charities, June 9, 1899, Chicago Bureau of
Charities MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library; Graham
Taylor in the Daily News, April 25, 1925, Graham Taylor
MSS. Newberry Library.

201

202

10Edith Abbott, Speech on Juvenile Court, Box
57-F2, Edith Abbott MSS. University of Chicago Library.

llWilliam Hard, "Chicago' s Five Maiden Aunts,"
American riMagazine, LXII (September, 1906), 480- 89; Jane
Addams, r'Julia LathrOp' 5 Services for Illinois," Social
Service Review, IX (June, 1935), 191— 211.

 

lerank and Jerome, 175-80; Memo by Julia c.
LathrOp, May 3, 1917, Juvenile Protective Association,
University of Illinois at the Circle Library.

131bid.

l4Ibid.

15Hastings H. Hart, "Distinctive Features of the
Juvenile Court," Annals of the American Academy, LV (June,
1923), 213- ~15; "The Legal Aspect of'the Juvenile Court,"
U.S. Children's Bureau Publication No. 99 (Washington,
1573), pp. 6-10; Julian W. Mack, "Legal Problems Involved
in the Establishment of the Juvenile Court," appendy to
Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott, The Delinquent
Child and the Home (New York, 1912), pp. 89-195.

17Kelsey, pp. 298-300.

18Laws of Illinois, 1899, p. 131.

19Drake, pp. 208-11.

20Anthony M. Platt, The Child Savers, The In-
Vention of Delinquency (Chicago, 1969), pp. 134- 35.

 

21Jeter, p. 5.

22Juvenile Court Committee, March l904-June 1909,
Juvenile Protective Association MSS. University Of Illi-
nois at the Circle Library; Julius Rosenwald to Anita
Blaine, July 25, 1912, Anita Blaine McCormick MSS. Wis-
consin State Historical Society Library; Julian W. Mack,
"The Law and Child," Survey, XXIII (February 5, 1910),
638-43.

 

23Ke1sey, p. 300.

203

24Ibid.; Hart, pp. 57-60; Juvenile Court Com-
mittee, March l904-June 1909, Juvenile Protective Associ-
ation MSS. University of Illinois at the Circle Library.

25Ibid.

26Ibid.

27Annie Ransey, "Work of Probation Officer Pre-
liminary to the Trial," Conference of Charities and Cor-
rections: 1906, pp. 132-36; MISS Lucy Friday,_“WOrk of
the Probation Officer in Court," Conference of Charities
and Corrections: 1906, pp. 136-38; Charles L. Chute,
1TJuvenile Probationfr—Conference of Charities and Cor-
rections: 1906, pp. 223-27.

 

 

 

 

28Frank and Jerome, pp. 188-89; Henry W. Thurston,
"Ten Years of the Juvenile Court of Chicago," Survey
(February 5, 1910), 656-66.

29Graham Taylor in the Dailnyews, December 4,
1909, Graham Taylor MSS. Chicago Newberry Library; Juve-
nile Court Committee Memo, October 24, 1903, Emmons Blaine
MSS. Wisconsin State Historical Society Library.

30Juvenile Court Committee, March l904-June 1909,
Juvenile Protective Association, University of Illinois
at the Circle Library.

31Jeter, pp. 9-10; Louise de Koven Bowen, Growing
Up with a City (New York, 1926): pp. 103-07.

32Juvenile Court Committee, 1906, Juvenile Pro-
tective Association, University of Illinois at the Circle
Library.

33Minnie F. Low, "Chicago's Juvenile Protective
League," Charities, XVIII (June 8, 1907), 300-02; Julian
W. Mack, l'Juven11e Court and the Probation Officer," Con:
ference of Charities and Correction: 1906, pp. 123-31.

34Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, "Delinquent Children Of
Immigrant Parents," Conference of Charities and Correction:
1909. PP. 255-60.

351bid.

204

36W. H. DeLacy, "Functions of the Juvenile Court,"
Annals of the American Academy, XXXVI (July, 1910), 61-63.

37Graham Taylor to Mr. Charles C. Cooper, Graham

Taylor MSS. Newberry Library, February 14, 1921; Stanley
Coben, "A Study in Nativism: The American Red Scare of
1919-1920," Political Science Quarterly, LXXIX (March,
1964), 52-75.

38Graham Taylor to Robert W. Kelso, Graham Taylor
MSS. Newberry Library, September 27, 1921.

39Sophonisba Breckinridge, "Neglected Widowhood
in the Juvenile Court," American Journal of Sociology,

4OSOphonisba P. Breckinridge and Edith Abbott,
The Delinquent Child and the Home (New York, 1912): PP.

41William Healy and A. F. Bronner, "Youthful
Offenders," American Journal of Sociology, XXII (July,
1916), 22-38. '

421bid.

43Julius Rosenwald to Mary McDowell, March 19,
1913, Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society
Library.

44Clifford R. Shaw and Henry D. McKay, Juvenile
Delinquengy and Urban Areas (rev. ed.; Chicago, 1969),
pp. 3-16.

45222§31 pp. 90-107, 140-69, 63-64.

46Gabrigl Kolko, Wealth and Power in America
(New York, 1962), pp. 14—16.

47Franz Fannon, The Wretched of the Earth (New
York, 1966).

48Frederick L. Allen, Only Yesterday (New York,
1931): pp. 73-101.

205

49Shaw and McKay, pp. 59-60.

5°1bid., pp. 63-64.

51Eveline Belden, "Boys' Court of Chicago: A
Record of Six Month's Work," American Journal of Sociology,

 

521bid.. pp. 736-37.

53Ibid.

54William Healy, "Psychological Work with Offenders
for the Courts," Eggference of Charities and Correction:
1914, pp. 298-305; Jane Addams, "Efforts to Humanize
Justice," Survey, CVIII (December, 1929), 275-78.

 

55Confidential statement in regard to the Institute
for Juvenile Research, May 1924, pp. 225-28, Julius Rosen-
wald and Addams MSS. University of Chicago Library.

56Frederic M. Thrasher, "Gang," Survey, LVII
(October 15, 1926), 71-74.

57Charles R. Henderson, "Theory and Practices of
Juvenile Courts," Conference of Charities and Correction:
1904, pp. 358-69.

58Henry 8. Curtis, The Play Movement and Its
Significance (New York, 19177) P. 63.

 

 

59Ibid.

60Graham Taylor in the Daily News, August 7, 1905,
Graham Taylor MSS. Chicago Newberry Library; Romelyn
Taylor, “Recreation Developments in Chicago Parks,"
Annals of the American Academy, XXXV (March, 1910), 304-
06.

61Frank and Jerome, p. 209; O. J. Miliken, "Chicago
Vocation Schools," Americantgpurnal of Sociology, II \
(November, 1893), 289-308; Charles Zueblin, Municipie
Playgrounds," American Journal of Sociology, IV (September,
1898), 145-58; Handbill on: Opening of the Public Play-
ground at Polk and Halsted Streets, May 2, 1896, Hull
House Scrapbook, University of Illinois at the Circle.

206

62ihid .

63Halsey, pp. 28-35.

64George L. McNult, "Chicago's Ten-Million Dollar

Experiment in Social Redemption," Independent, LVII
(September 15, 1904), 612-17.

65Ibid.

66W. J. H. Schultz, "Continued Progress of a
Pioneer Playground System," American C1321 XLIV (April,
1931), 138-39.

67Romeyn Taylor, pp. 304-06.

68Curtis, p. 63.

69Philip L. Seman, "Chicago's Program for Meeting
Its Recreation Needs," National Conference Social Work:
1925. PP. 493-509.

CHAPTER VI

MOTHERS' PENSIONS AS CHARITY AND

SOCIAL CONTROL

Perhaps one of the most controversial programs
developed within the context of the welfare system has
been mothers' pensions, or what is now called Aid to
Families with Dependent Children. Ideally, under such a
program the state assumed part of the cost of raising
dependent children in their own homes in cases of proven
need. It was designed as a substitute for the uncer-
tainties and inadequacies of public relief under the poor
law or care by charitable agencies or what had often been
called "orphan homes."l

One of the earliest programs of this kind was
instituted by the Juvenile Court Of California at the turn
of the century. It granted county aid to children in their
own homes if it could be demonstrated that such aid would
make it possible for the mother to spend less time working
and more time supervising her children.2 From the very
beginning it bore the flavor of social control and its
origins in the Juvenile Court classified it as a way of

dealing with juvenile crime. This is not to deny that

207

208

many of the supporters were motivated by the highest
humanitarian goals, but only to recognize that they were
forced to operate within a framework of social control in
order to translate their goals into concrete action. To
sell their programs of aiding dependent children to the
public, they linked them with juvenile crime and its sup-
pression. Such a combination was to have momentous conse-
quences later on.

Although the idea spread to some other parts of
the country, not much progress was made until the Con-
ference on the Care of Dependent Children was called by
President Theodore Roosevelt in 1909. One of its most
important subjects of discussion was the harsh and un-
systematic treatment of impoverished children by society.
Such treatment usually included either inadequate and un-
certain public relief or institutionalization in a cold
orphan asylum which lacked a mother's love or even indi-
vidual attention. It was even reported that in a few
cases a dependent child was indentured to work for a
master in return for his care until he reached the age
of sixteen.

Most of the social workers and reformers attending
the conference agreed that because "home life is the high-
est and finest product of civilization . . . the great
molding force of mind and character no child should be

deprived of his family by reason of poverty alone."3

209

Unfortunately, they could not agree upon the method by
which a dependent child and his family could be kept to-
gether. Causing special friction was the question of
control and financing. Some participants proposed public
financing of a program to be staffed by professional
social workers. Others thought that any family care pro-
gram should be completely private in nature.4

After the conference Professor Sophonisba Breckin-
ridge at the Chicago School of Civics and Philanthropy
investigated the relationship between juvenile delinquency
and the impoverished family, especially in cases where
poverty was caused by the absence of the father from the
home. Published in the following year through the school's
Department of Social Investigation, the report emphasized
poverty and the broken home.5

It studied the court records of 11,329 boys and
2,770 girls during the first ten years of the Juvenile
Court's existence from 1900-1910. It found that 26 per
cent of the boys and 36 per cent of the girls came from
broken homes in which one of the parents was dead or
separated from the family. It also studied the home con-
ditions of 580 boys who had been brought before the court
for the first time during a single year and 154 girls who
had been committed to the state training school for girls
at Geneva, Illinois.6 Of these, 23 per cent of the boys

and 25 per cent of the girls were fatherless. The authors

210

of the study considered this to be an unusually high figure
and, thus, an important factor in juvenile delinquency.
They reported that poverty was a major determiner, noting
that most of the boys taken before the juvenile court were
from poor families in which the income level was below
that which contemporaries defined as necessary for a decent
life sty1e.7

Actually these two factors, broken homes and
poverty, were interrelated in that the father's death or
separation from the family was usually accompanied by even
worse poverty and often disaster for the children because
the household had depended on him as its chief source of
revenue. Such a situation often meant that the mother
either had to go to work or increase the number of hours
she already labored. The kind of jobs obtained by these
working mothers usually involved long hours and low pay.
In those cases where the data were available the survey
found the single largest occupational category of mothers
of delinquent boys was washwoman (a person who cleans
clothes in her own home), with scrubwoman, laundry work,
keeping lodgers, and seamstress following closely behind.
All the rest of the occupations ranked by Breckinridge
were also menial tasks usually considered lower class.
The only exception was one mother of a delinquent son who
was a nurse. Of these women almost one-half had five or
more children but held jobs which required them to be

away from the home an average Of ten hours a day.8

211

Contrary to the common folk wisdom, Breckinridge's
research discovered that most of the widowed and deserted
mothers of delinquent children were judged to be "fit";
that is, they had no moral deficiencies. A Polish mother,
struggling to keep her family of six children together
after the father died of insanity, could find no job and
therefore "took in washing" at pitiful rates. An Irish
widow with twelve children, who took in washing to make
ends meet, saw her twelve-year-old boy arrested for break-
ing a plate-glass window. In an "American family" the
widowed mother took over the small family grocery store,
spending most of her time running it. One of her boys was
in court twice for truancy. It is interesting to note
that Breckinridge classified each ethnic group by name,
such as German, Polish, Italian, Irish, and Black, but
lumped those not so classified as "American." Who rated
the title "American" is not certain, but it is clear that
those with strong, new immigration characteristics did not.
In one last example a German mother was forced to work in
a tailor shop by day and as a scrub woman at night to sup-
port her family after the father deserted them. Her
fourteen-year-old son was arrested in the act of breaking
seals on a freight car and stealing the goods. The study
pointed out many more such examples of "fit" mothers who,
because they were forced to work long hours, could not

adequately supervise their children. SOphonisba

212

Breckinridge suggested that something be done for "Neg-
lected Widowhood in the Juvenile Court."9
Judge Merritt W. Pinckney of the Cook County
Juvenile Court was also acutely aware of the interrelation-
ship of broken homes, poverty, and crimes by young persons.

Under the juvenile court law the judge had the authority
only to commit dependent children to an institution if they
were to be supported at public expense. If a widowed
mother refused to part with her child, the state made no
provision in cases of need except for outdoor relief under
the pauper law. In Illinois, outdoor relief was not only
sporadic, but also inadequate in maintaining the minimum
standard of living recognized as necessary to live a
reasonably healthy and fulfilling existence.10
Public relief was a function of the county. In
Chicago's Cook County it was the responsibility of the
Board of County Commissioners which was made up of fifteen
members at large, ten from Chicago and five from the
suburban areas. Its major function was to levy, collect,
and apprOpriate money for all county departments, includ-
ing the Bureau of Public Welfare which administered public
outdoor relief; that is, aid not given in an institution
which included grants to the blind, war veterans, and the
ordinary poor. The last type of relief was divided into
four major categories: (1) investigation and transpor-

tation of aliens and non-residents to their prOper locali-

ties, (2) admissions to county and state institutions,

213

(3) medical corps, and finally (4) relief. In the years
1914-1915 the material relief department of the Public
Welfare Department gave $17,000 to poor families just over
$313,000, two-thirds in food, almost a third in coal, and
$6,000 in soap. These grants were for emergencies and
not continuous over a long period of time. For example,
over a fourth of the families were aided only once, and
80 per cent received less than five monthly "rations."
The average family received a total of $17. ‘Things had
not improved much by 1920 when prices were much higher but
the county agent spent only a third more dollars for public
relief.11
The monthly allowance in 1914-1915 per family under
this program was quite small, $1.10 for one person, $2.26
for a family of two or three, $2.67 for a family of four
or five. The list of rations for a family of four or five
for a month included four pounds of soup, four pounds of
beans, six pounds of rice, six pounds of rolled oats, two
pounds of coffee, one pound of tea, forty-eight pounds of
flour, six pounds of sugar, five pounds of lard, two and
one-half pounds of syrup, six pounds of bacon.12 Occasion-
ally shoes for children or other such grants would be
authorized by the county. The rations given under the
outdoor program never satisfied more than 35 per cent of
the monthly needs of a family. Therefore, private agencies

would usually be called upon to supplement the income of

214

the welfare recipient. From the figures it can be seen
that this type of county aid was designed to meet a family's
short-term needs caused by a temporary emergency.13

To screen applicants for public outdoor relief,

a procedure was adOpted that was similar to that used by
private charities. In 1916, for example, one central and
eight branch offices of the Public Welfare Department
served as distribution points for the rations. Forced to
line up in front of the Office to receive their meager
rations, the recipients were humiliated by the public
demonstration that they were receiving aid.

A county agent, with a professionally trained
charity worker or deputy, supervised eight assistant
deputies, operated the various branch distribution centers
and investigated each applicant to insure worthiness.

Using the case method, the assistant deputy visited and
examined the home and then asked questions of the neigh-
bors. As a final step he interviewed near relatives to
discover if they could contribute to the family's support.
Thus, "everyone" knew of the applicant's poverty and pre—
sumed disgrace.l4

Although procedures and appropriations were con—
stantly changing, the essential nature of outdoor relief
was not fundamentally altered. A judge of the juvenile
court might well hesitate to force a widowed mother with

children into such an inadequate and humiliating relief

program.

215

Faced with the dilemma of what to do to keep a
widowed mother's family together in the face of extreme
poverty, Merritt W. Pickney, presiding judge of the Cook
County Juvenile Court consulted with friendly social
workers, directed a study by his chief probation officer,
and then sent a proposal to the state legislature in 1911
that could enable him to deal with the situation.15

With minimal study it amended Section 7 of the
Illinois Juvenile Court Law prOperly known as the Funds
to Parents Act to provide for child support. It passed
without the usual preliminary report by an investigating
committee and with very little discussion. The lack of
controversy may have reflected a conviction that the
statute was a routine administrative matter dealing with
the juvenile court. Furthermore, the law contained no
provision for the funding of the program other than to
authorize any county boards to raise the necessary money
if its juvenile court wished to initiate such a program.
In short, there were no pressing reasons to refuse Judge
Pinckney's request.l6

As it passed, the amendment was extremely vague:

If the parent or parents of such a dependent or

neglected child are poor and unable to properly care
for said child, but are otherwise proper guardians
and it is for the welfare of such a child to remain
at home, the court may enter an order finding such
facts and fixing the amount of money necessary to
enable the parent or parents to properly care for
such child, and thereupon it shall be the duty of

the county board through its county agent or other-
wise, to pay to such parent or parents at such times

216

as said may designate, the amount so specified for

the care of such dependent or neglected child until

further order of the court.17
In essence it removed an elite group of dependent but
deserving children whose mothers were worthy widows from
the class of paupers which were subject to the horrors of
public relief. If aid was necessary to keep the family
together, the public, through the juvenile court and
county board, would support needy mothers. In return for
this succor the mother was obliged to maintain a suitable
environment, one in which the child would learn how to be
an asset rather than a liability to the society. What it
meant to be an "asset" was to be defined by those who
administered the program and represented the upper-middle
class and its concept of a well-ordered environment.

As it turned out, the law was so vague in the
administrative detail, that Judge Pinckney, presiding judge
of the Chicago Juvenile Court, turned to a citizen's com-
mittee for advice. He appointed prominent businessmen,
professionals, and social workers to a commission which,
after careful deliberations and numerous conferences,
formulated a set of rules to govern the program in Cook
County.18

Under these rules a mother who applied for aid
must demonstrate that she had no access to other funds,
either her own or that of relatives. Before being con-

sidered she must also be able to prove that her husband

was either dead or had been absent from the home for a

217

period of two years. There was, in addition, a county
residency requirement of one year. Finally, the dependent
child in question must be fourteen years or younger, the
age at which children were allowed to work under the state
law. The only exception was in the case of a child who
was seriously under-nourished, under-develOped, or actually
crippled. Aid in these instances could continue after the
child's fourteenth birthday.19
A conference of five representatives of the various
relief organizations in Chicago, as well as the chief pro—
bation officer and deputy, determined eligibility for aid
with the review power in the hands of the judge. The
Juvenile Court Committee, a private organization with con-
tacts among upper-middle class businessmen and profession-
als with an interest in social welfare programs, paid the
expenses of this advisory group. In addition, the Juve-
nile Court Committee with the approval of the judge
appointed a staff of social workers to investigate the
cases brought before the court.20
In the early stages of the program there was some
controversy over who had the right to appoint these pro-
bation or welfare officers, the county board or the judge
of the juvenile court. The issue was finally settled in
1913 when the courts allotted this power to the judge.
Judge Pinckney immediately selected a special committee

made up of men and women who understood and appreciated

"civil service" and "social service ideals." Thus, the

218

appointment of the social worker staff was controlled by
the welfare complex.21

A social worker visited the home of the applicant
to determine eligibility under the formal requirements of
the juvenile court and to evaluate the "suitability of the
home." Suitability was determined by applying the question
of what would better further the interests of a dependent
child and the state, to put him into an institution or to
keep him with his family. The power of the social worker
was relatively arbitrary in that she alone made the initial
decision on whether or not a child would be separated from
its mother. On the basis of her decision, the conference
committee reported to the judge either the amount of
monthly funds to be given or the dismissal of the case.
There was little check on the individual social worker's
evaluation other than a report to the judge by a visitor
from the county agent's office. As a general rule the
judge accepted the recommendations of the visitor's
report.22

As soon as the program was launched it came under
immediate attack not only from those who were usually
Opposed to most relief and reform measures, but also from
among those who were social workers. Of the latter
criticism, most of it came from social workers who lived

in New York, Baltimore, and Philadelphia which had

abolished public outdoor relief and substituted private

219

charity organizations. Many of the social workers who
were employed by these private agencies felt that the
propaganda used to promote the Illinois Funds to Parents
Act (mothers' pensions) was a criticism of the adequacy of
their own agencies' efforts. They also believed that
adequate salaries would not be provided for administration,
that there would be political interference, increased
pauperism, and the end to private charity in this field.23

That criticism exploded at the 1912 National Con-
ference of Social WOrk in Cleveland. Mary E. Richmond
charged that "no private fund for relief can successfully
compete very long with a public fund, whether the latter
is adequate or not." She went on to say that "inevitably
the sources of private charitable relief dry up."
Frederic Almy, Secretary of the Buffalo Charity Organi-
zation Society, flayed public programs arguing that "to
the imagination of the poor the public treasury is in-
exhaustible and their right; and they drOp upon it with-
out thrift, as they dare not do on private charity." In
summary, these poor widows might begin to look on their
pension as a right rather than as a charity.24 This
simply would not do.

The chief defender of the concept of mothers'
pensions at the conference was Julia C. Lathrop, a social
worker from Chicago later to become Chief of the United
States Children's Bureau. She believed that public

agencies should and could be used very effectively to

220

meet the social needs of the society. Going further, she
contended that the publicly sponsored "Mothers' Pension"
program was a step forward in treating the economic
casualties in society:
Are we not taking all this in too elderly a fashion?
We act as though we were in the afternoon time, and
our methods of progress almost finished, when in fact
we are in the gray dawn of time as to our expression
of public resggnsibility for the care of the young
of the state.

The controversy over the program spilled over into
the pages of the Survey. In two articles Mary E. Richmond
asked why widows were put in a class apart. Private agen-
cies were engaged very effectively in family work as a
whole. They were making great advances in the adjustment
of means to ends with child welfare in view. What was
needed now was more personal service, supervision, con—
tinuous oversight, and care as well as more adequate
material relief. This could not be accomplished through
the mechanism of public institutions.26

Perhaps the most devastating argument was offered
by Secretary C. C. Carstens, of the Massachusetts Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to children, after a six-
week investigation of the Chicago program. Although a
hostile critic, his study does yield some valuable in-
sights into its actual Operation. He found that families
were often made to wait a month or more for temporary aid

after requesting a grant, while the office processed the

application and the necessary investigations were made.

221

The entire waiting time for the actual pension was Often
as much as six months.

The separate investigation by the county agent's
department were often carried out, according to Carstens,
"with a brutality to which no applicant for assistance
should be exposed," partly because it was in the interest
of the county to limit the number of applicants who re-
ceived aid and thus keep taxes low. In one case he alleged
that the representative of the county agent, investigating
a widowed applicant among her neighbors, insinuated that
she was immoral. They were based, according to Carstens,
on neither facts nor suspicions but were simply put in the
report to arouse interest in his inquiry and, thus, stimu-
late a series of further investigations that might gather
incriminating evidence which would eliminate the appli-
cant.27

Even after a mother was granted a pension, there
were further problems. Instead of friendly supervision,
the probation officer's investigation Often degenerated
into an espionage system under which the welfare officer
tried to catch the recipient in an illegal act that
could terminate her child-support "'pension."28

As for the amount of aid, the average family in the
program received around $4.60 a week or $1.75 a week per

child, a sum which was so low that a mother was forced to

work to make ends meet. Father John A. Ryan and economists

222

in the early 1900's estimated that it took an income of
around $600 to maintain a decent standard of living. It
was also calculated that the amount of allowance per child
was one-half of the cost of institutionalization. Thus,
the state, by having the mother pay part of the cost of
bringing up the child, was actually saving money.29
Although the national controversy concerning
"mothers' pensions" did not impede the progress of the
program in Illinois, it did make the local administrators
extremely cautious so as to avoid criticism. To meet the
charge that the program did not screen its applicants
properly, Judge Pinckney appointed a special citizen's
committee made up of prominent businessmen, professional
men, and social workers to draft revisions to the state's
Funds to Parents Act. In accordance with their recom-
mendations, the Illinois General Assembly passed an
elaborate statute in 1913, separate from the Juvenile
Court Law, to put mothers' pensions on a more regular
basis. It left the administration of mothers' pensions
in the hands of the local juvenile court judges but set up
a more restrictive framework of rules for eligibility.30
Under the new statute widowers were not to re-
ceive grants for any reason, even disability. In addition,
thereafter no woman who was deserted, divorced, a prOperty
owner, or a non-citizen was to receive aid. A wife could

collect aid if her husband had been permanently incapaci-

tated for work, but all mothers must have lived in the

223

county for three years before they would be considered for
a child-care "pension." If she met all of these require-
ments she still must be found physically, mentally, and
morally "fit."31

This same law also stipulated that a special
county tax could be levied to fund the program but it
could not exceed three-tenths of a mill on the dollar of
the assessed value of real estate. This sum was adequate
to finance the program in 1913 but was a serious impediment
to its growth in the 1920's. In 1912, the year before the
passage of this law, Cook County spent $76,536 on the
mothers' pension fund. That figure had increased almost
five-fold by 1920 to $438,932. During the course of the
1920's, the amount spent continued to increase until 1929
when it reached over one million dollars. In fact, the
limitation on the amount that could be levied was one of
the prime factors that caused social reformers to look to
the state for aid in financing the program.

The state legislature also put a maximum rate on
the allowance. This was stipulated at $15 a month for
one child and $10 for each additional child up to a total
of $50. Representatives expected that the grant would be
small enough to force the mother to do some work for pay
outside the home. In the inflation of the late 1920's,
the maximum was raised to $60 but its prOportion of a
family's cost improved but little. This amount repre-

sented a reasonable ceiling considering the fact that the

224

average payments in Cook County before the law was passed
were well within these confines. Nevertheless, the effect
of this 1913 law was to control the number of recipients
and to set limits on the future growth of the mothers'
pension plan.32

The new provisions of the law, which represented
a restriction on eligibility, resulted in the withdrawal
of a large number of pension grants in Chicago. The June
1913 Cook County pension list showed 532 families with
1,753 children receiving pensions while the July 1913 list
drawn up after the new law became effective showed only
332 families with 1,075 children receiving aid. Expendi-
tures for the county program also dropped from $13,000
in June to $18,000 in July, a 65 per cent reduction. In
effect, between June and July 1913, 200 families with 678
children were dropped from the list largely because their
mothers had become technically ineligible. The largest
number of children (567) were dropped because the mother
was an unnaturalized alien. It was not until 1915 that
the law was amended so that alien women were made eligible
if they were mothers of American-born children under the
age of fourteen and had made a formal application for
their first citizenship papers.33

Considering the fact that the Cook County Juvenile
Court had proposed these restrictions to the state legis-

lature and must have been aware of the fact that the

225

restrictions would cut the size of the pension rule, it
might be suspected that part of the motivation of the new
law was just such a contraction. This suspicion is
heightened by the fact that the projected cost of the
program without these restrictions was over $200,000 or a
100 per cent increase over the previous year. This sug-
gests that the use of technicalities to limit the number
of those eligible for public relief has a long history.
In a way it may represent a trade-off in that, by cutting
the number of recipients, they could offer more adequate
aid to the remainder. It is clear that the program was
designed for a few very deserving widowed mothers.

Beyond this, the Chicago Juvenile Court adopted a
supplementary set of rules and operating procedures.
First of all, the court defined "permanently incapacitated
for work" to mean that a "doctor certified that a man
would not be able to work for six months or more." The
Court also decreed that a woman with one dependent child
was not to be eligible unless she was unable to do normally
hard work. A woman who had an illegitimate child was
barred from receiving aid for that child and for any
future legitimate Off-spring. Perhaps the most extreme
limitations, which must have caused great hardships, were
the ones which barred any aid to a family which had an
independent income of $50 or more a month, or in which
the husband had deserted but had not been gone for seven

years.34

226

All of these limitations based on technicalities
may have been necessary if the program was to remain
viable, given the framework in which it operated, but
they also must have done great violence to the widowed
mothers' sense of their own human dignity. The decisions
concerning eligibility could be changed from day to day
by the administrators of the program with the result of
loss of income for certain classes of women on mothers'
pensions. Widows under the program must have felt a keen
sense of powerlessness over their lives as well as a
dependence on the all powerful administrators who could
make decisions on near life or death importance.

As for the actual way the program operated, the
first step was taken when a mother desiring aid filed an
application with the Juvenile Court. The case was then
turned over to a social worker for investigation. The
social worker began her probe by making a confidential
inquiry at the Chicago Social Service Bureau. The bureau
kept a file on all aid, public and private, granted to a
person. It was, thus, possible to run a check on an indi-
vidual to see what aid had already been given him.

If it was found that insufficient funds had been
granted by private charity to keep the family together,
the social worker made a series of visits to the appli-
cant's home as well as those of neighbors, relatives, and
friends. The purpose of this investigation was two-fold.

The social worker first determined if these friends,

227

relatives, or neighbors could help support the applicant,
and in what amounts. If it was impossible to secure
enough funds from them, the social worker then investi-
gated the suitability of the home. Was the mother fit?
The answer to this question was made by the case worker
after observing and talking not only to the applicant
mother but also to her friends, neighbors, and relatives.
If the answer was yes a field supervisor, who was an
expert on budgets, determined the exact amount needed by
the family. This figure was included in the final report
sent to the conference committee. Because these investi-
gations usually took an average of four to six months to
complete, the waiting time seems to have increased dra-
matically over that of the original program.

Once the report was in the hands of the Con-
ference Committee, a separate investigation was undertaken
by the county agent's office. When its report was com-
pleted, the Conference Committee, made up now of the
chief probation officer of juvenile court, the head of
the aid-to-mothers' department, and the county agent,
made a final recommendation to the judge of the juvenile
court as to whether or not to grant the aid. Although the
judge held a formal hearing on the case with the mother
applicant present, he usually accepted the report Of the
Conference Committee.

After a pension was granted, the family was put

under the supervision of a social worker who made sure

228

that the grant did not pauperize the recipient by making
her unwilling to work for a living, and who aided the
recipient in learning to spend wisely. Each family which
received funds was expected to adhere to a budget drawn
up by a field supervisor which not only allocated pro-
portionately the money for rent, clothing, fuel, light,
household expenses, and food but also provided that the
family be returned as soon as possible to a completely
self-supporting condition. This was done through requir-
ing longer hours of work outside the home as the children
grew older.

During her calls on her dependent families the
social worker also suggested methods to improve the
physical and moral standards of the home and to increase
the domestic skills of the pensioned mother. If the
visitor decided the home was no longer "fit," the funds
could be cut Off. One of the major indicators of an
"unfit" home, other than evident moral transgressions,
was the children's school attendance and school progress
record. The case worker either had the report sent
directly to her or indirectly through blanks given to the
children by the school.35

Although there were endless variations in indi-
vidual cases, most contemporary observers agreed that the
program did Operate as a general rule along these lines.

Deviance in administration was caused by the lack of

229

enough trained probation officers as well as inadequate
budgets. Even granting that abuses would arise from time
to time due to such factors, the accepted methods of
operation bring to mind some reservations.

The first of these revolve around the significance
of the administering agency. The juvenile court was pri-
marily a social control agency. As was demonstrated in the
previous chapter, it was used by the upper-middle class of
the city to control deviant behavior among lower-class
youth, especially when such behavior was directed against
property. This association of mothers' pensions raises
the suspicion that the program had for its aim not only
humanitarian charity, but also social control of the
working class by the upper-middle class of the city through
the mediation of the social workers. In a sense this was
an improvement over the concept that crime was a result
of original sin. Whatever the motivations of the social
reformers such as Sophonisba Breckinridge, the program was
"sold" on this basis to the general public.36

Suppositions concerning the social control aspect
of mothers' pensions are strengthened by an analysis of
the way the program was administered. The nature of the
relationship between the granter of the pension and the
one who needed a pension was one of power and powerless-
ness. A needy widowed mother was forced to beg the

juvenile court for a grant so that her children would not

230

become criminals. She then was subjected to a humiliating
and time consuming investigation in which all her friends
and relatives were informed that she was in need. If she
met all the arbitrary rules, including whether or not in
the Opinion of a middle-class social worker she maintained
a "suitable home," the mother would be granted a pension
small enough to force her to work. In effect, the needy
widowed mother had to demonstrate that she was a member

of a "moral elite" among the poor who were manifestly not
poverty stricken because of the sins of indolence, irres-
ponsibility, or immorality.

Once the pension was granted the family was at the
mercy of the social worker. The mother must follow the
budget set up by the social worker, and was also obliged
to supply various pieces of evidence that she was bringing
up her family in a proper manner as defined by the welfare
system. In addition, she must be willing to allow the
social worker into her home so she could check to see if
the rules of pension grant were being followed. This,
perhaps, was the weakest part of the program, the inherent
conflict in the role of the visiting social worker. She
was to be a friendly advisor while at the same time the
enforcer of the rules with power of the ultimate sanction,
the elimination of the grant. Thus, the social worker
most likely appeared to the pensioned mother as someone
who had to be placated, not someone who could be trusted.

The social worker, in effect, became a mechanism of social

231

control of behavior in that she provided a positive reward,
the continuation of the pension, and a negative reward,
the withdrawal of a pension.37
In this process of social control the mother who
accepted the pension was forced in a way to become a child
herself. She was subjected to the probation officer's
directives. Her morals and personal life were regulated
not by herself but through a public agency in a way
different from those who were able to support themselves.
This development is a natural outcome of social control
aims of the program.
The reaction of the pensioned mother to such a
state of affairs is hard to determine because such a
question was never asked by the social worker who con-
ducted the surveys. What a poor person speculated about
the program was of no concern to the administrators of
the program. What they thought might be gleaned from a
recent (1968) study of the attitudes of the poor around
Hull House. Concerning outside relief agencies the study
concludes:
All the other bodies of social control Operate
somewhat like charities, dispensing their services
as if they were gratuitous acts of benevolence.
Thus, the residents either shy away from them or
receive their services without any sense of debt.
Most of the local welfare agencies complain
that the residents are ungrateful or exploitative.
Yet, these same agencies go to great lengths to
emphasize their liberality and the fact that local
residents "really" have no right to demand them.

In turn, the local residents can obtain these ser-
vices only by undergoing some humiliation while

232

submitting to the qualification of the particular.

So far as the residents are concerned, they owe

nothing to such institutions, and their own humiliation

more than compensates for whatever they receive.33

On the positive side, although the number of aided

families was small and one of the aims of mothers' pen-
sions was social control, the program might still have had
some beneficial effects if those families had been ade-
quately provided for in a material way. In 1921 Miss
Breckinridge and Miss Abbott completed a study to deter-
mine how adequate the pensions were. They formulated
three standards to test the adequacy of the pensions.
The first of these tests was the weakest. It consisted
of comparing the actual pensioned income with the estimated
essential budget prepared by the field supervisor. This
examination had a built-in bias in that the field super-
visor was careful to recommend only what she thought was
possible to receive from the court. If her suggestions
were consistently high in relation to what the court
actually granted, her competence might be brought into
question. Of the 116 families sampled in 1921, 56.6 per
cent had incomes below the budget estimate. The authors
of the study pointed out, however, that this statistic did
not indicate as bad a condition as might be thought upon
first looking at it. The great majority of deficits were
very minute. Sixty families, for example, experienced a
shortage of less than $5 a month while thirty-two families

experienced a deficit of more than $5 but less than $10.

233

There were, however, twenty-four families experiencing a
$10 or more monthly shortage.39
These deficits were explained in part on the basis
of temporary circumstances as well as the provision of the
law which fixed the maximum pension at $15 for a single
child and $10 a month for each additional child. In the
case where a mother was too ill to work and had only one
child, her income neared $15 a month. This figure was
simply not enough for subsistence in 1921, although it
was relatively adequate before the World War I inflation
set it. The provision of the law which set a $60 a month
per family maximum also caused hardship. In an extremely
large family the mother was often unable to work and at
the same time care for her children. The mother's pension
was the only source of income and usually inadequate to
support the family at a decent standard Of living.

On the basis of these data Professors Edith Abbott
and Sophonisba Breckinridge concluded that there was in-
deed a "certain percentage of pensioned families that may
not yet have adequate incomes, but there is a considerable
percentage of the non-pensioned families in the community
in the same position." Such an attitude is not as
acceptable today as it was then when the general welfare
level of the working class was much lower than it is
today. One might conclude that those privileged mothers

receiving pensions were not too much worse off than the

234

families of unskilled workmen in monetary terms and much
better off than families on food relief of public welfare.
The price in human dignity was, nevertheless, very high.

Further light was thrown on this subject when
Breckinridge and Abbott compared the present income of
pension families with that of the family when the father
was supporting them. In their sample they found fifty-
three families had a present income of within $10 of their
former income, represented by the monthly wages of the
father. Actually, if the income loss was less than $10 a
month, this amount represented a larger income per person
in the family because the pension was given on a more
regular basis than the father's wages, which were subject
to periods of unemployment. Another consideration was
that the father's wage supported himself as well as his
family. In certain circumstances this could total as
much as $10-$15 a week.

In addition to these families another 53 had a
larger income than that of the father's monthly wages.
When these families are added to the previous category,
the total of 106 families (59 per cent of the whole
sample) were better Off in terms of per person income.
The remaining 74 families with earnings that were $10 or
more below their previous income had a father whose
nominal income was $65 or more with 10 of these getting

$100 a month or more. Most of these men had been skilled

235

members of the building trades. The conclusion to be
drawn, according to the authors, was that "however in-
adequate the pension incomes may be, if measured by ideal
standards they nevertheless measure up satisfactorily to
the standard of wages in the groups of the community to
which these families belong." If one keeps in mind the
thought that the project was not designed to raise living
standards in general, but was only to aid a working-class
widow to bring up her children, the program seemed to
provide the necessary funds to make this goal physically
possible.

There were few alternatives open to a working-
class mother whose husband had died. Few such mothers
would willingly choose to go on public outdoor relief.
The horrors of relief were already described earlier.
Conditions had not materially improved by the 1920's.
Even as late as 1929 expenditures Of the Cook County
Bureau of Public Welfare were only $685,108 with the
average amount of relief per case a month totaling $7.95.
At the same time expenditures for mothers' pensions were
$1,063,369 with the average amount of relief per case
totaling $52.91 a month.40

This leaves only private charity as an alter-
native. To test how viable this alternative was,
Breckinridge and Abbott did a comparison study between
public and private relief. They focused their study on

the families that had been transferred from the mothers'

236

pension program in Cook County to private relief societies
when the state legislature tightened up the technical
requirements for eligibility in 1913. Most of the mothers
were dropped because they no longer met the technical re-
quirements such as the prohibition against aliens receiv-
ing aid. Of the families on which information was avail-
able (69 out of a total of 172) fifty-five received
smaller allowances and most of these reported that they
were working at outside jobs more hours than they had been
on a mother's pension. Of this number 42 per cent suffered
real deprivation to the point of impairment of the family's
health. Private charity, when compared with the mother's
program, also did not appear to be a viable alternative.41
As for the question of the public pensions being
supplemented by private agencies in order to give the
family a higher standard of living, the United Charities
took the position that, when it turned over a case to the
Juvenile Court, the court was to assume the entire responsi-
bility. The Jewish Charities, on the other hand, took the
position that all agencies, public and private, should
COOperate to bring family income up to an acceptable mini-
mum. This minimum was to be enough for the Jewish mother
to remain in her home and devote her entire time to bring-
ing up her children. In line with this philosophy the
Jewish Home Funding Society was to make a contribution

not less than the amount the mother was expected to earn

237

by the Juvenile Court. Thus she could stay at home. It
would seem that there was no viable alternative to mothers'
pensions which was superior to it.42

The only conclusion possible is that the program
was monetarily beneficial to the limited number of peOple
it aided, especially when the options are examined. In the
end the mothers' pensions program in Illinois may have
been the best that could be formulated given the nature
of the alliance between the social reformers and the pro-
gressive elements of the executive and professional upper
class. This elite, which provided the mainline financial
support of the various social welfare organizations in-
volved, saw the program as a moderate solution to the
dilemma of keeping working-class families, consisting of
a mother and her children, together in such a way as to
enhance their function of raising useful citizens.

Mothers' pensions accomplished this task more
cheaply than the institutionalization of dependent chil-
dren. These businessmen and professionals may well have
Opposed the entire project if it had provided a family
income higher than that attainable from unskilled private
wages. In addition, the social control aspect was essen-
tial to the social reformers and the business backers of
the program. The aim was not just the humanitarian con-
cern over the fate of the widow's family, but also the

pragmatic goal of manipulating the behavior of the mother

238

and her children in such a way as to assure them of a
competitive position within the corporate economy.

Mothers' pensions in Cook County from the date of
their inception continued to develOp and expand. In 1913,
the first full year of Operation, Cook County spent
$86,249; by 1917 this figure had risen to $281,273 and
rose again by 1928 to $1,046,453. In addition, in 1913
there were 533 families on the average per month, but in
1917 the figure was 966 and in 1928, 2,075. The average
amount, therefore, spent per case per year, including the
cost of administration, was $162 in 1913, $307 in 1917,
and $505 in 1928. In light Of this fact, the program
must have at least moved in the direction of the objectives
for which it was designed.43

With this expansion of the program in Cook County
the need for state supervision and later funding, in order
to achieve a more uniform level of standards in relation
to benefits and operating procedures throughout the state,
became more apparent.44 To meet this need the Illinois
General Assembly in 1929 regularized the entire program on
the state level. This new legislation was supported not
only by the State Department of Public Welfare but also
by the State Federation of Labor and a Citizens' group
from Cook County. Its major objective was to widen the
base on which taxation could be gathered for the pensions.

The state government would grant money to the county in

239

return for which it must abide by newly set state
standards.45
The advantage of a partially financed plan was
that there was no limit on state taxation while the county
limit was 25¢ on every $100 evaluation. In an earlier
state court decision it was found that the Cook County
tax of three-tenths of a mill on a dollar evaluation for
the mothers' pension fund must be included when figuring
the county 25¢ limitation. Another advantage of a state
financed plan was that it would help equalize the vari-
ations in payments from county to county which in 1929
ranged from $2.50 to $15 a month per child. In order to
take advantage of state grants many counties set up
mothers' pension programs for the first time.46
Under the 1929 legislation Cook County received a
grant of $134,756 based on a percentage of the total
county expenditure for mothers' pensions. The grant was
relatively high because the state plan only took into con-
sideration the ability and willingness of a county to
appropriate funds. The practical result was that those
counties which were already best off remained best off.47
To remedy this defect, a meeting of the Governor's
Child Welfare Commission, a group of prominent business-
men, social workers, and labor leaders, was held in Chicago
in December 1929. The conference agreed upon a new plan

which revolved around the principle of equalizing Oppor-

tunity. Under this plan the number of children in the

240

county, the value of the prOperty, and the need of the
poorer counties for extra help would all be taken into
account. Their plan was submitted to the state legislature
and passed.48

In order to carry out the principles of the con-
ference report, the state legislature set up three related
funds: general distribution, equalization, and stimu-
lation. The first fund was to be distributed on the basis
of pOpulation. It set a ceiling on the amount a county
could diSpense in the form of mothers' pensions, assuming
that thirty needy children in each 10,000 population re-
quire such aid and allowing $120 per child per year. Each
county would receive an equal percentage of that maximum
figure. If a county had trouble raising funds to meet its
needs, it could apply to the state equalization fund for
an extra grant.49

If a county had trouble meeting these standards
it became eligible for a grant from the Stimulation Fund.
A county could also be given a grant to improve its
standards of work above those set by the state. Such
grants might include funds to pay the fees of doctors
who were employed to give physical examinations to
applicants.50

The plan also contemplated state-wide minimum

standards. These regulations required that individual

counties make and keep case histories of applicants, draw

241

up budgets for each family prior to the grant, and attend
to the strict supervision of the pensioned mothers by
social workers. This supervision was to consist of four
visits by the case worker to families living in the county
seat, two visits to those living outside it. And, finally,
the legislature required all counties to report to the
State Department of Welfare on each case twice a year.51

Taking all things into consideration, these state
grants and rules actually made little impact on Chicago
because its level of pensions was already relatively high
and its rules of distribution strictly enforced. The im-
portance of the new law lay in the fact that the state
government had for the first time accepted some responsi-
bility in administering this social welfare program. From
1929 mothers' pensions were no longer a local concern, but
rather a state function. As it turned out, state adminis-
tration became the bridge for federal government involve-
ment.

In Cook County the family aid program continued
to expand in 1930 with an annual eXpenditure of $1,063,396
and with a monthly average of 1,676 families being aided.
This expenditure represented 38.1 per cent of the total
public welfare budget for Cook County. By 1932 the annual
cost of mothers' pensions leveled off at $1,171,956 and
1,909 families helped, while 1932 saw a slight drOp in

expenditures to $908,940 and 1,400 families aided. Most

242

significantly, mothers' pensions represented only 9.4 per

cent of the total public relief cost in 1931.52

This
percentage distribution drop represents the fact that more
and more of the public relief money was going to aid the
unemployed. The county along with private agencies was
simply being swamped by this burden as will be demon-
strated in the chapter on "Unemployment: A Plague."
As the depression dragged on and further cuts were
made between 1932 and 1933 (for example, there was a
22.4 per cent cut in funds and 22.6 per cent in number
of families aided in Cook County), social workers and
progressive businessmen in Chicago began to look to
the federal government for aid in financing relief.53
There is, therefore, a clear line of progression
from the local county program to the Federal Social
Security Act of 1935. The Cook County program and the
later state program of aid to dependent children were
vital links in the growth of a more centralized welfare
state. The mothers' pension plan as it was set up in
Cook County was also significant in that it was not only
a pioneer work, but also became a model for other states
as well as for the federal program.
Under the bill passed by Congress in 1935 the
state could receive federal aid for its dependent children
programs if it provided one-third of the expenditures and

if it set up a single agency to administer the program.

In addition, the state was required to keep suitable

243

records that might be inspected by the federal coordi-
nating agency. There was, however, no national standard
of need. In short, the state had almost complete dis-
cretion in administering the program if it chose to in
order to join the program.54

In Illinois, for example, although a Special state
legislative session accepted the federally required county
welfare administration law in October 1925 and set up a
unified agency through which the federal government could
channel its share of the expenditures, the state did not
formally join the program for another two years. The
reasons for this delay will be fully examined in the
chapter on relief in times of depression.55

The Chicago experience. played a vital role in the
development of the modern Aid to Families with Dependent
Children program in terms of values, goals, and operating
procedures. In short, it helped create the pattern of the
modern welfare system, the paternalistic bureaucratic con-
trol of potentially disruptive elements of the working
class by the middle-class social workers initially acting
out of humanitarian concern for the plight of the poverty
stricken widowed mother. In their endeavor, the reformers
acted with the consent and in many cases the support of
the progressive executives Of large corporations and the
professional elite of the city. The program in no way
threatened, but may well have been a help in their desire

for a stable society.

244

As A. J. Davies pointed out in an article published
in the American Journal Of Sociology in 1930:

If it [mothers' pensions] had been a measure that
would interfere in any way with economic interests,
then we could have predicted an effectively organized
Opposition with a strong lobby, and we should have
been able to find in one of the political parties
some evidence as to whether they opposed or endorsed
the idea.

Actually, he pointed out that the program brought relief
to poor families at less cost than institutionalizing the
dependent children of those families.56 In addition, it
had the advantage of exerting control over the entire
family and not just the institutionalized child. The
family could be guided for its own moral and social good,
as well as Americanized in the case of ethnic families.
The emphasis on the utilization of trained social workers
instructed in the methods of modern casework made the
program attractive to the professionals within the wel-
fare system. Mothers' pensions were also acceptable to
the general public for sentimental reasons. They could
all graphically imagine the plight of the poor widowed

57 All in

mother struggling to feed her hungry children.
all, the program allowed those elements of the economic
elite who were morally sensitive to resolve its dilemma
of trying to satisfy its humanitarian urges without

challenging the essential power and wealth distribution

in the society. As a bonus, they achieved a measure of

social control over the lives of the working class.

FOOTNOTE S--CHAPTER VI

lWinifred Bell, Aid to Dependent Children (New
York, 1965): PP. 1-39.

 

2Emma O. Lundberg, "Aid to Mothers with Dependent
Children," Annals of the American Academy, XLVIII (November,
1921), 98.

3Proceedings of the Conference.on the Care of
Dependent Children'TWashington, D.C., January 25-29, 1909),
p. 12.

 

4L. E. Mitchell, "Place of Mother's Aid in a State
Program of Child Welfare," National Conference of Social
Work: 1928, p. 480.

 

SSOphonisba Breckinridge, "Neglected Widow in the
Juvenile Court," American Journal of Sociology, XVI (July,
1910), 53-87.

6Ibid.

7Ibid.

8Ibid.

9Ibid.

10Joel D. Hunter, "Administration of the Funds to
Parents Law in Chicago," Survey, XXI (January 31, 1914),
516-18.

11Joseph L. Moss, "A County Public Welfare Program
in a Large City," Social Service Review, V (September 3,
1931), 367-73.

 

245

246

12Ibid.

l3Ibid.

14Ibid.

15Sherman C. Kingsley, "How Mothers' Pensions
Operate in Illinois," Conference of Charities and Cor-
rection: 1914, p. 437.

 

16Graham Taylor in the Daily News, Graham Taylor
MSS. Newberry Library, February 1, 1913; Cook County
Charity Service Report, 1910-1911, p. 143, Chicago
Historical Society.

 

17Laws of Illinois, 1911, p. 126.

18Hunter, pp. 516-18.

19Grace Abbott, From Relief to Social Security
(Chicago, 1941), p. 266.

20William Hard, "Moral Necessity of State Funds
to Mothers," Survey, XXIX (March 1, 1913), 769-773.

21Ibid.

22Abbott, pp. 266-67; Hunter, pp. 516-18.

23Grace Abbott, The Child and the State (Chicago,

24Graham Taylor in the Dailnyews, Graham Taylor
MSS. Newberry Library, June 29, 1912; Proceedings of the
National Conference of Social Work, 1912, pp. 484-97.

 

25Ibid.

26Mary E. Richard, "Pensions and the Social
Worker," Survey, XXIX (February 15, 1913), 665-66; Mary E.
Richmond, Motherhood and Pensions," Survey, XXIX (March 1,
1913), 774-80.

247

27C. C. Carstens, "Relief of Widows with Children,"
Survey, XXIX (January 4, 1913), 459-66.

28Ibid.

29Ibid.

30Hard, pp. 769-73.

31SOphonisba P. Breckinridge and Edith Abbott,
"The Administration of the Aid to Mothers' Law in Illinois,"
pp. ll-13.

32Laws of Illinois, 1913, p. 127.

 

33Breckinridge and Abbott, pp. 15-21.

34l§1§-, pp. 15-21; "Funds to Parents," Survey,
XXIX (January 4, 1913), 413-14.

3SBreckinridge and Abbott, pp. 28-55.

361. G. Potter, "Mothers' Pensions, Graft,
Charity or Justice," Outlook, LXII (March, 1916), 522-25;
Myra B. Vann Nostrand, “Some Dangers in the Operation of
the Funds to Parents Law," The Institution_guarterly,

V (March 31, 1914), 110.

 

7Jessie M. Entrhin, "Questions in the Operation of
the Funds to Parents Law," The Institutionguarterly, V
(March 31, 1914), 103.

 

38Gerald D. Suttles, The Social Order of the Slum
(Chicago, 1968), p. 45.

 

39Breckinridge and Abbott, pp. 56-111.

4oClorinne McCulloch Brandenberg, "Chicago Relief
Statistics--l928-l931," Social Service Review, VI, NO. 37
(June, 1932), 270-79.

41Breckinridge and Abbott, p. 112.

42Ibid.

248

43Graham Taylor in the Daily News, February, 1913,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; Grace Abbott, "Recent
Trends in Mothers' Aid," Social Service Review, VIII (1934),
191-92.

 

44L. E. Mitchell, "Place of Mothers' Aid in a
State Program of Child Welfare," National Conference of
Social Work Proceedings: 1928, pp. 478-91.

45Laws of Illinois, 1929, p. 198.

46Edna Zimmerman, "State Aid for Mothers' Pensions
in Illinois," Social Service Review, XI (1930), 222-37.

47Ibid., pp. 223—37.

48Ibid.

49Ibid.

50Ibid.

51Ibid.

52Clorinne McCulloch Brandenberg, "Chicago Relief
Statistics, 1928-1931," Social Service Review, VI, NO. 2
(June, 1932), 270-79; Grace Abbott, “Recent Trends in
Mothers' Aid," p. 206.

53Grace Abbott, "What About Mothers' Pensions
Now?" Survey, LXX (March, 1934), 80-81; Edward A. Ryerson
in Studs Terkel, ed., Hard Times (New York, 1970): pp. 179-
80.

54Arthur J. Altmeyer, The Formative Years of Social
Security (Madison, 1966), pp. 43-73.

55Thomas B. Littlewood, Horner of Illinois
(Evanston, 1969), pp- 108-19.

56A. J. Davis, "Evolution of the Institution of
Mothers' Pensions in the U.S.," American Journal of
Sociology, XXXV (January, 1930), 573-87.

 

57T. E. Sullenger, "Recipients of Mothers' Pensions,‘
School and Society, XXXIX (March 30, 1929), 424—28.

CHAPTER VII

CHILDREN AS SOCIAL CAPITAL

A majority of people connected with the develop-
ment of the social welfare system in Chicago considered
the plight of children who were forced prematurely by
poverty to compete in the labor market to be a most press-
ing problem. Social reformers, progressive business
executives, and professionals agreed that excessive work
early in life often led to physical and mental exhaustion
by the time adulthood was reached. They believed that
peOple could only have a rewarding life if their childhood

was reserved for school, "chores,' and play. In this way
a child's physical and mental vigor could be built up so
as to make him a more valuable citizen who could function
in an increasingly more complex industrial society. Such
attitudes led naturally to the support of laws that pre-
vented children from working, and that compelled school
attendance, assuming that their idle time was used effec-
tively.1
Although labor union leaders supported child labor

laws for the same reasons as the middle-class social

249

250

reformers, they also sought to remove children from the
labor market. By so doing they hOped to Open up new jobs
for adults and remove the depressing influence on wages of

2 Therefore, when it became apparent

under paid children.
by 1903 that the child labor laws of 1893 and 1897, de-
scribed in the first chapter, had numerous defects that
needed correction, it was these groups, middle-class
reformers, progressive businessmen, and organized labor,
that coalesced into a pressure group to lobby for a new
one.

Perhaps the greatest deficiency in the 1897 law
was the provision that permitted children between fourteen
and sixteen years of age to work if they obtained a paren-
tal affidavit varifying the age requirement. This led to
great abuses. While preventing the employment of many
children under fourteen, the affidavit system seemed to
encourage the commission of perjury by some parents who
desperately needed the added earnings. Coming from rural
societies where boys under fourteen worked alongside men
in the fields, they saw nothing wrong in the fraudulent
affidavit. This lOOphole made it possible for 3,000 chil-
dren under fourteen to work with false affidavits in the
autumn of 1902, according to Edgar T. Davies, Illinois
Chief Factory Inspector. Many social workers in Chicago
agreed with Davies that such a situation was intolerable
and should be corrected by the enactment of a new child

labor law.3

251

To lobby for such a new law in the Illinois state
legislature, a special committee was formed under the
chairmanship of Davies. Among the members were:
Edwin G. Covley, Chicago School Superintendent
Hasting H. Hart, President of Child's Home and
Aid Society

E. P. Bucknell, General Superintendent of the
Chicago Bureau of Charities

Jane Addams, Head Resident, Hull House

Harriett M. Van de Vaart, Industrial Committee,
State Federation of Women's Clubs

Judge R. S. Tuttle, Juvenile Court, Cook County

George Thompson, Chicago Federation Of Labor

T. D. Hurly, President of Visitation and Aid

Society
W. L. Bodine, (ex-officio) Superintendent of
Compulsory Education, Chicago4

The committee was carefully balanced between the
various interests supporting child labor legislation as
can be seen by the various organizations that each repre-
sented. Although there were no businessmen on the com-
mittee, their influence was felt through the Chicago Bureau
of Charities and other reform and welfare organizations to
which they contributed heavily. It Should also be pointed
out that organized labor had only one representative on
the committee, while all the rest of the members belonged
to either middle-class reform or relief agencies, or were
administrators in state and city institutions dealing with
children.5

After some deliberation the committee drew up a
bill based largely on a Massachusetts' child labor law.

The Massachusetts' law had prohibited the employment of

children under fourteen at any gainful occupation in any

theater, concert hall, or place of amusement where intoxi-
cating liquors were sold, or in any mercantile institution,
store, office, hotel, laundry, manufacturing establishment,
bowling ally, elevator, factory, or workshop. In addition,
no child might be employed at any work performed for wages
when the public schools were in session or before 7:00 A.M.
or after 7:00 P.M.6

The Illinois law was a major improvement over the
1897 statute in that now age and school certificates were
to be issued only by superintendents of schools or prin-
cipals of parochial schools upon proof of age of the
children by records such as the previous school census,
birth or baptismal certificates, or school records. If
such proof was not available, the parents were asked to
take an oath before the juvenile or county court as to the
child's age. The court might, if it was satisfied that
the parents were not committing perjury, issue an age
certificate. A further tightening up of regulations was
accomplished by requiring the child worker to demonstrate
his ability to read and write by asking him to produce a
weekly certificate proving that he was attending evening
school until his fourteenth birthday. It also provided
that children between fourteen and sixteen years of age
might not be employed for more than eight hours in any one
day or more than forty-eight hours in any one week and

only between 7:00 A.M. and 7:00 P.M. Finally, certain

253

dangerous occupations were prohibited to this age group
of children.7

Introduced into the House of Representatives of
February 5, 1903 by Representative Frederick L. Davies, a
Republican from Cook County, the bill was referred to the
House Committee on Labor and Industrial Affairs. When it
held public hearings, a long line of witnesses appeared
in behalf of the bill, including members of juvenile reform
organizations, women's clubs, charitable associations, as
well as state and local federations of labor. The bill
was, however, openly Opposed in the Committee by the glass
bottle manufacturing interests of the state which employed
large numbers of children. They utilized child labor be-
cause they needed young, agile and quick employees to run
the molten glass to the blowers before it cooled. It was
a precarious job since one misstep could mean severe burns
by the hot glass.8

Social reformers suspected that the bill was
secretly Opposed by certain other commerical influences
which did not want the law extended to their businesses.
This was particularly true of the hotel and laundry oper-
ators and less so of the department store representatives
who had not yet installed the new pneumatic tubes that
could replace the running children who made change, at an
even lower cost.9

It seemed that public opinion had been so thoroughly

aroused by the social reformers through Speeches, articles,

254

and pamphlets that few businessmen who depended on the
public good-will could afford to Openly oppose the bill.
In addition, by 1903 most large-scale corporations had
found child labor to be unprofitable for a variety of
reasons, including the child labor laws of 1893 and 1897,
negative publicity, and the increasing need for semi-
Skilled workers. As early as 1900, 50 per cent of all
child labor was located in the small garment sweat shops,
the equally small metal and wood working shops, telegraph,
newspapers, and department stores. Most of the others
were agricultural workers. As the bill exempted employees
in the telegraph, newspaper, and agriculture businesses,
and with the decline of child labor in department stores,
there were few large businessmen who had a self-interest
in attempting to continue child labor. In the garment
trade as well as wood and metal workings, the individual
shop owner had little political power.10
The Committee on Labor and Industrial Affairs made
a few minor changes in the original draft and then reported
the bill to the full House with a favorable recommendation.
After it was approved with only one negative vote, the
Senate passed it by an overwhelming margin and conservative
Republican Governor Richard Yates, signed it into law in

May 1903.11

Writing in 1907, Edgar T. Davies, the Illinois
State Factory Inspector, ascribed its success to the Chicago
social reformers, especially Jane Addams whose "influence

and ready arguments constituted a strong moral force in

255

12 Perhaps of equal

securing the enactment of the law."
importance was the absence of big business opposition to a
law that challenged only the interests of some marginal
businesses. Significantly, the money which made it
possible for Jane Addams and her co-workers to lobby in
Springfield and to arouse favorable public opinion came
from the progressive elements of the corporate executive
and professional elite of Chicago.

Although after 1910 the federal census continued
to experience a decline in child labor, social reformers
maintained that there was more child labor in the city
than the census recorded but admitted that it was de-

13 It is difficult to determine if this was the

clining.
effect of the 1903 child labor law or just a reflection of
the declining profitability of child labor in a maturing
economy. The social reformers believed that the provisions
of the 1903 law which fined employers for hiring children
without certificates, even if only sporadically enforced,
increased the risk of employing them.

Another factor which certainly played a key role
in the declining child labor rate was the new tough com-
pulsory school attendance law passed in the same year, by
the Illinois state legislature. Under it all children
between seven and fourteen must attend some public or pri-

vate school for the entire time during which the school

was in session, which by state law was to comprise at

256

least 110 days of actual teaching. Although allowing
exemptions for physical or mental incapacity, the law
eliminated those for hardship cases which had weakened
the earlier statute. Finally, the appointment of truant
officers was made mandatory for the local school board.14
Passed at the request of the same groups which had pressed
for the child labor law, it enjoyed little support from
the immigrant families that needed the earning of every
member.15 Speaking for the advocates, Sophonisba Breckin-
ridge promised that it would keep children under fourteen
out of the shop and off the streets. It would keep them
under the socializing influence of the schools which
acculturated foreign immigrant children to the values and
life style of the American middle class. It also taught
the social mobility myth in which, by hard work, honesty,
and thrify, one climbed the ladder of success. In
reality the public school helped the talented few rise
relatively high, and aided the rest to make modest gains
at the bottom of the ladder, from unskilled to semi-
Skilled to skilled workers, for example, among the Italians
in Chicago. The effect of such an education was to make
the vast majority of the working class accept the bourgeois
corporate industrial system and its role in it.16
Compulsory education gained widespread support
from a variety of groups. Progressive businessmen saw it

as an investment in social capital that was spread out

through taxation on a broad base, while educators viewed

257

it as a way to make their work more effective by increasing
their audience. Even local shopkeepers welcomed the
elimination of pilfering children for a few hours each
day. Labor Unionists supported compulsory education as an
effective way of keeping children off the labor market.
Thus, the law had a little something in it for everyone.1
Even though the two child welfare laws were enforced
to a much greater extent than the earlier laws had been,
they too contained loopholes and limitations on application.
One such limitation was that the strongest provisions of
the child labor law applied only to boys and girls under
fourteen. Perhaps more disturbing to social reformers was
the lack of comprehensiveness. In order to plug this lOOp-
hole, the failure to include the street trades, a new child
labor bill was introduced into the state legislature in
1911. It was the result of a meeting of representatives
from various clubs and reform organizations interested in
child welfare called by the Consumers' League of Illinois.
Jane Addams and the secretary of the League pleaded for
action to relieve the plight of small children ruthlessly
exploited by the newspapers, the gum manufacturers, and
the telegraph companies which kept children in the streets
either selling items or delivering messages late at night
and in morally compromising Situations.18
At the League's meeting, the conferees set up a
committee to draft a bill to regulate the street trades.

Composed of representatives from the Board Of Education,

258

the Mothers' Congress, the Juvenile Protective League, and
the Consumers' League, the committee developed a bill that
would eliminate children twelve years old from selling in
the streets at night. Introduced in the House, the bill
died in the Committee on Labor and Industrial Affairs.19
The defeat may be explained in part by the powerful
opposition of most of the Chicago newspapers which pictured
their newsboys as junior independent merchants who learned
thrift and diligence by selling papers on the city streets.
In addition, the labor unions remained relatively in-
different because the street trades in no way affected
organized labor interests; these working children neither
depressed wage scales nor took jobs away from more mature
workers.20
Despite this setback, the Illinois Committee on
Social Legislation, a lobbying group to which many of the
Chicago welfare organizations belonged, prepared and pre-
sented a new child labor bill to the state legislature in
1915 through a Republican Representative from a northern
dairy and suburban county.21 The bill would bar a fifteen-
year-old during the school year and a thirteen-year-old dur—
ing vacation from working. No child would be allowed to work
at any job if he was below the stipulated ages. In addition,
work permits for children between sixteen and eighteen, and

special summer vacation work permits for children between

fourteen and Sixteen as well as an eight-hour day for boys

259

under sixteen and for girls under eighteen would be re-
quired. It also permitted no night work except for girls
between Sixteen and eighteen who could be granted permits
to appear on stage. Finally, the age limit for night
messengers would be fixed at twenty-one years.22
The House Committee hearing on this child labor
bill lasted almost two months as testimony for and against
it dragged on. The main argument against the bill revolved
around the Special pleadings of businesses that employed
children as errand boys, and in other tasks that older
workers found either menial or economically unrewarding.
Other witnesses thought that the law would be an unjusti-
fiable invasion of the sanctity of the home in the form of
a paternalism which was "taking away from the father and
mother the responsibility of their brood." This argument
does not seem to have swayed minds one way or the other.
The 1897 law, which had similarly invaded the home, had
passed with only one negative vote. On the other hand
several manufacturers wrote to the Committee urging
passage of the bill in words such as "the highest business
efficiency demands the elimination of children under Six-
teen years old from industrial pursuits."23
The bill was finally reported out of committee
with eleven amendments which made it less restrictive.

Even so, it eXpired on the order of third reading. The

reason for its defeat may be seen in the demands of

260

Representative William J. Graham, a Republican from a
rural county, for substantive amendments. He told the
bill's Sponsors that he could not support it unless it was
changed in such a way as to allow boys to be employed in
agriculture, as well as in the distribution of newspapers
and periodicals during the hours when the public schools
were not in session.24

Both the newspaper and agriculture interests were
successful in blocking the legislation by splitting the
reformers over whether or not to accept the amendments.
In the end the bill died because of this lack of agree-
ment among reformers, and not primarily from the oppo-
sition of manufacturing interests. In 1915 the State
Department of Factory Inspection made a special investi-
gation of employer attitudes concerning further restric-
tions upon child labor. It concluded that the majority
of the employers who responded to the questionnaire were
in favor of additional restrictions, although they were
vague as to what concrete limitations they would favor.25
Many, no doubt, agreed in principle but disagreed on
example.

While attempting to pressure the state legislature
into enacting new safeguards for the child in the store
and factory, social reformers were also seeking on the

local level to wipe out or at least regulate the street

trades. This was not a new concern. AS early as 1910

261

social workers in Chicago had determined to move against
this loophole in the child labor laws. The state child
labor laws had neglected to mention the child who worked
in the city streets as a merchant, buying goods or news—
papers On credit and paying for them from the proceeds on
sales. There were no rules, for example, prohibiting the
smallest child from working long hours at night, so long
as he was an entrepeneur rather than an employee.

In order to remedy this situation the Consumer's
League of Illinois on November 2, 1910 called a new meet-
ing of representatives of various Chicago social reform
organizations. Jane Addams made a very effective plea for
a law which would regulate the street trades so as to
ameliorate its worst abuses. In response to her speech,
the conferees formed a committee of representatives from
the Consumer's League, the Juvenile Protective League, the
Chicago Board of Education, and the Mothers' Congress to
apply pressure to the Chicago City Council. It drafted a
model ordinance and presented it to the City Council where
it, like the state bill, died a victim of apathetic public
Opinion and active newspaper opposition.26

In order to mobilize public Opinion behind street
trade reform, the Committee decided to set up a child
welfare exhibit in the city to "visualize and dramatize to
the community what could be done for children to better
their condition." Mrs. Cyrus H. McCormick, Jr. assumed

all the expenses connected with the exhibit while Jane

262

Addams became its chairman.27 In order to publicize the
Child Welfare Exhibit the committee placed advertisements
on store and house windows as well as on billboards and
in street cars. One of the advertisements was headlined

IF YOU HAVE A CHILD, OR EVEN EXPECT TO HAVE ONE, COME

TO THE CHILD WELFARE EXHIBIT. THE LIFE AND WELFARE

OF YOUR CHILD MAY DEPEND UPON YOUR VISIT.
The committee members hoped that a large number of citizens
could be enticed into visiting the displays.28

Opening at the large Chicago Coliseum in May, for
two weeks the exhibits contained pictures, signs, charts,
and art work Showing the results of poor wages and long
hours on working children. One section was filled with
photographs of little gum sellers, newsboys and girls and
other child street venders late at night. The slogan
under the pictures read "all work and no play makes Jack
a dull boy and a truant." On another screen a picture of
a small boy was displayed standing between an ash pile,
an unpaved alley, unclean streets, and a vacant lot on one
side and on the other the question "Is this equation true;
a good citizen ten years later."29
As a result of the exhibit the sponsors published

a handbook of the various child labor conferences held in
conjunction with the project. They made sure that it was
distributed free to politicians and prominent citizens
who might be influential in getting child labor laws on

the books. One section of the handbook addressed itself

to the problem of children engaged in the street trades.

263

These children were pictured as being not only deprived of
the normal pleasures of childhood, but also as being sub-
jected to tremendous moral pressures that might incapaci-
tate them for future citizenship. This was especially
true in the area of education. In one of the working-
class schools of Chicago, the study found that pupils
were trading in the streets in addition to attempting to
gain an education. The percentage of these working pupils
were:

65 per cent of fifth grade children

35 per cent of fourth grade children

15 per cent of second grade children

12 per cent of first grade children30

All of these children with an average age of eight
were not only attending school twenty-five hours a week,
but in many cases were working an excessive number of
hours. The hours as reported by the children were:

1 boy over 50 hours

4 boys over 40 hours

5 boys over 35 hours

7 boys over 30 hours

18 boys over 20 hours

Their average earnings per week were found to be:

fifth grade children $1.18
fourth grade children .85
third grade children .60
second grade children .43
first grade children .3631

The Handbook of the Chicago Welfare Exhibit
sadly concluded that it was:
. . . a pitiable sum to compensate for the physical

weariness and moral risk attending street trades in
a large city. School reports show that street trades,

264

when carried on by young children, lead to truancy,
low vitality, dullness, and the breaking down of
parental control. Since the children are on the
streets at all hours, careless habits are developed
which often lead to moral ruin to both boys and
girls.32
In effect the authors were telling middle-class people
that the cost of street-trade work by children was too
high because it led to moral ruin and juvenile crime.
They, as victims of crime, were the underwriters of a
hidden cost of the street trades.

The Child Welfare Exhibit was partially successful
in its objective to awaken the public conscience, or its
fear, for by 1912 public pressure had built up sufficiently
to persuade the City Council to pass an ordinance regu-
lating the street trades. At a time when a similar bill
again failed to pass the legislature, Chicago forbade
any girl under eighteen to sell anything on the streets
of the city, and limited a boy under the age of fourteen
working in the streets to the daytime hours between eight
and five. Certain occupations that were considered to be
morally objectionable, such as messengers for the tele-
graph company, were completely outlawed for boys under
fourteen. These boys Often had to enter taverns or even
houses of prostitution to deliver their telegrams.
Finally, boys under the age of Sixteen were allowed to
sell at night if they obtained an age and school certifi-

cate through their district principal verifying that they

were at least fourteen years old and were attending day

265

school. Regular police officers were to report violations
of the law to their superior officer who sent a letter of
warning to the violator's parents for the first offense and
for a second one, took them to court where a fine of not
more than $100.00 could be assessed.33

In practice the act was a failure, primarily be-
cause of a lack of cooperation on the part of the police
officer who sympathized with the needs of the poor fami-
lies from which the young street traders came. They were
his neighbors, if not relatives, and he was most reluctant
to add to their woes by causing a large fine to be assessed.
In fact, he admired the ingenuity and hard work of the
working child who was helping to keep his family above
subsistence level. Finally, the police officer often had
his own son working, or knew an officer who did. In the
light of these facts, the attitude of the police is perhaps
more understandable than the simplistic approach of the
social reformers who prohibited a child from working but
did not replace the family's loss of income from that
source.34

After the war the defects of the 1912 law became
glaringly apparent. Even if the police honestly tried to
enforce the law, it was next to impossible to do so. How
could a police officer determine the age of a child selling

on the streets other than by depending on the child's

honesty or his own ability to guess? In addition, by

266

1922 the fourteen-year-old clause was out of date because
the Certificating Bureau of the Board of Education no
longer issued work certificates directly to a boy, but
handled them directly through the employer. The child
selling on the streets had no employer because even when
he worked for a gum company or a newspaper he was an
independent merchant and not an employee. He bought the
papers on credit and sold them for cash at a slightly
higher price. The difference between the two represented

35 (As in the role of jobber or wholesaler,

his profit.
the newspaper or the candy company need not seek certifi—
cates for its customers.)

The law, on the other hand, was effective in
regard to girls. This was largely due to the clause for—
bidding any work under the age of eighteen, and the
ability of police officers to distinguish between a
fourteen-year-old girl and one eighteen years old. In
addition, the police were willing to enforce this part of,
the law because it was in accord with their value system
that young girls must be protected from the immorality
of the streets unless they were already prostitutes.36

On the local level in the 1920's social workers,
especially those connected with the Chicago Juvenile Pro-
tective Association, continued to focus most of their

attention in the area of the child on the problem of the

newsboy, gum seller, and shoeshine boy. Of this group

267

they were most concerned about newsboys because theirs
was the one group that seemed to be expanding.37

There was a state law, part of a dependent child
law passed much earlier, which prohibited boys under ten
from street selling. The statute, however, was widely
evaded by using young boys to deliver papers to night
newspaper stands but not to sell them. Sometimes the
state law was Openly evaded and there were many reports
in the files of the Juvenile Protective Association of
boys under ten selling papers late at night. In one case
an agent of the Juvenile Protective Association reported
a boy of eight repeatedly selling newspapers at a certain
newsstand until after 1:00 A.M. on numerous nights. After
an investigation the boy turned out to be the son of a
policeman.3

Boys over ten but under fourteen could legally sell
newspapers during the day when the school was not in
session, according to the 1912 city ordinance. In most
cases the state labor law did not apply because the child
was not employed, but rather worked independently. Thus,
boys over fourteen years old were not covered by state or
local law, and could be found working in the streets late
at night.

The Juvenile Protective Association decided in
1924 to Open a campaign against the street trades, especi-

ally against flagrant violations of the weak state and

268

local child labor laws. As the Opening gun of the campaign
the Association sent agents to the lower level of a Chicago
boulevard where the evening special edition of the next
morning's newspapers were loaded onto trucks. These
agents, keeping watch each night after 8:30 P.M., found
boys between ten and fifteen taking bundles of papers
which came down the chutes anxi loading them onto waiting
trucks. Once the trucks were loaded, five to fifteen boys
climbed aboard each truck. They were taken out to the
various neighborhoods where each was given on credit a
quota of papers to sell on a particular street. To allow
them enough time to sell their newspapers the truck did

not return to pick them up until 1:00 A.M. At that time
each boy paid for the papers he had gotten on credit.

About one-third of the boys were then dropped off
at convenient corners so that they could go home. The
rest, however, remained on the trucks and returned with
them to the garage at about 2:30 A.M. In a small upper
room over the garage the boys would sleep and often gamble.
According to the Juvenile Protective Association this was
the method that most of the morning newSpapers such as the

Chicago Tribune used to enlarge their circulation.39

 

The results of this situation came to the attention
of the Juvenile Courts repeatedly during the period 1924-

1927. According to F. Zeta Youmans Speaking in 1927:

269

Boy after boy came before Judge Bartelme with the
same story. Truant from school. Away from home.
Working at night for the paper. Sleeping in the
garage. . . . Hours spent in cheap Shows. . . . Raids
on lunch wagons for food. . . . Money lost at gambling,
filched from pockets when asleep. . . . Boys away
from home months at a time.

The method of employing newsboys was undermining the social
control by the community over the child by creating deviant
children, especially in the area of morals.40

The child-labor reformer of the twenties seemed
more concerned with the fact that the child was given an
opportunity to gamble than they were with the social-
economic facts which forced lower-class children to earn
a living. It is significant that most of those engaged in
the news trade were lower-class youth. Economic necessity
must have played the major role in propelling them into
the streets to work.

In Spite of these economic facts, the main thrust
of the Juvenile Protective Association's argument against
the street trades was that it continued to cause juvenile
delinquency. To prove their argument the Association
made a check at the Chicago Parental School in 1924. Of
the 300 boys there, it found that 164, more than half, had
been truant from school, away from home, and earning their
way by newspaper selling. All of the boys were under six-
teen. Many were too young to be granted work certifi-
cates.41

The Juvenile Protective Association decided that

the quickest method to clean up the situation was by

270

direct action, as the legislative route seemed to be blocked
on the issue. The officers scheduled a series of confer-
ences with the assistant to the president of the worst

offending newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, who assured them

 

that steps would be taken to correct the situation.
Despite these assurances, the same practices continued,42
much to the disappointment of the reformers.

The Association thereupon decided to intensify its
campaign by asking the Judge of the Juvenile Court to in—
vite the distribution manager to appear before him to
explain why so many Tribune newsboys working under him
were becoming juvenile delinquents. Under the pressure of
publicity and possible legal action, he agreed to check on
the ages of all boys directly or indirectly involved with
the Chicago Tribune. In addition, he approved a new set of
work rules under which no boy under fourteen would be
allowed to buy the evening special edition of the next
day's paper for resale, nor would any boy under sixteen
be allowed to sleep in the garage or about the plant.

This time the promise seems to have been kept, although
the older boys probably now slept under bridges or in
cheap hotels. A small advance in controlling the situ-
ation was made, and the moral outrage of the middle-class
child labor reformers, such as Catherine de Bowen, were
satisfied with what they thought to be the removal of
temptations. Boys, nevertheless, continued to work long

and hard hours out of economic necessity.43

271

The nature of this limited advance in protecting

children is clearly illustrated in the case of Joseph,
who was nine years old when committed for the first time
to the Parental School for truancy. He had left home in
November 1924 and upon arrest had been away from home for
three months. In order to support himself he sold papers
from 9:30 P.M. to 2:00 A.M. making about fifty or sixty
cents a night. The explained the reason for his working:

Sometimes I took money to my mudder. She always

needs money. My fader died eight years ago. My.

mudder cleans a building at night. I got three

Sisters, one older, two younger dan me. Nobody

works except my mudder. I wanted to help her so

I went selling papers.44

In effect, because Joseph by economic necessity

was forced to work, he was made a semi-criminal and placed
in an institution for "rehabilitation" by the welfare
state system. Such case studies formed the basis for the
Juvenile Protective Association's demand for more restric-
tive legislation concerning child labor without a word
about the injustice of a system which forces children to
work. Those few social workers who did Speak of the in-
justice of such an economic system found they could make
little headway toward fundamental change. Jane Addams
argued that children Should not be forced to support their
families because their parents earned an inadequate wage.
The children should be in school preparing for their own

future. To keep them there she proposed subsidies paid

by the state to finance the cost of their education and

272

provide for the loss of income to their families. Her
proposal never left the ground because it was more simple
and inexpensive to outlaw child labor.45

That approach led to the Illinois effort to obtain
the ratification of a federal amendment to allow Congress
to legislate against child labor. After the Supreme Court
in 1922 made it clear that any federal law which attempted
to regulate child labor was an unwarranted extension of
Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce, the
National Child Labor Committee, of which many Chicago
social reformers such as Jane Addams were members, began
to demand an amendment to the Constitution. In 1924 the
Congress approved such an amendment and sent it to the
states. It specified:

Section 1. The Congress Shall have the power to
limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons
under eighteen years of age.

Section 2. The power of the several states is un-
impaired by this article except that the operation
of state laws shall be suspended to the extent
necessary to géve effect to legislation enacted by
the Congress.

One historian believes that it passed the Congress
because in an election year the Progressives were threaten-
ing to form an independent third-party, and liberals in
both parties sought to head it off. As it was necessary
for three-fourths of the states to ratify the amendment,
senators and congressmen could vote for the amendment

without the burden of final responsibility.47

273

Once the amendment was passed by Congress the
ratification battle in the various states began between
its proponents and its opponents. Those who favored the
adOption of the child labor amendment in the Illinois
legislature were, according to Graham Taylor, "women and
teachers, organized labor, social workers and churches."
In addition, many manufacturers and merchants who believed
that child labor was unprofitable as well as unjust to
public interests also supported the amendment.48

It is necessary to translate Taylor's idealistic
terms into concrete groups. The Illinois Federation of
Labor, for example, whose members did not want children to
depress the wage scale or flood the labor market, supported
the amendment. Other supporters included upper-middle
class women's organizations that were traditionally sympa-
thetic to the welfare system as it pertained to women and
children, as well as those teachers and social workers
whose profession was involved in protecting children from
the rigors Of industrial exploitation. The decendents of
the genteel Protestant social gospelers could also be
counted among its supporters. As for the "many manu-
facturers and merchants who believed that child labor was
unprofitable," they were in large part the progressive
corporation executives and professionals that usually

supported the welfare system. On this issue, however,

I'Lolr 1.1 II .1

274

many of them lacked their customary enthusiasm for reform
measures.49

Graham Taylor defined the Opponents as "those that
think it is a local or state area of action, and those who
feel that it is an invasion of parental right." In more
concrete terms, Taylor identified the Illinois State Manu-
facturer's Association and the textile and glass indus-
tries as well as seasonal employers of labor. This group
was primarily made up of small manufacturers who could not,
if forced to employ fully paid adults, compete with large
established corporations and farmers as employers of
seasonal labor.50

In 1925 the Illinois Joint Committee to Urge the
Ratification of the Child Labor Amendment was formed by the
Child Welfare Committee of the Illinois Consumers' League
as an umbrella organization for those who favored the
amendment. A prominent member of the Women's City Club,
Mrs. Anne Davis, was elected chairman by a board of social
reformers selected by the Illinois Consumers' League.51

To finance the ratification campaign in the state
legislature, the Joint Committee sent letters to business-
men thought to be sympathetic to the cause. Almost every
returned letter expressed Opposition to the amendment.
A member of a Chicago meat-packing family that had sup—

ported other welfare proposals, Laurance A. Armour, offered

a typically negative reaction:

275

I doubt very much the wisdom or the necessity of
so drastic a federal measure as this act would pave
the way. I do not believe it possible to rectify
economic and social law by mere statute law. To a
certain extent this is a condition which must work
out its own salvation and it should, I believe, be
regulated only in a local way. I am afraid that the
evil issuing from a sweeping Federal law would far
outweigh the good. . . . Besides . . . some children
are better off in the "School of Everyday Experience"
. . . [others can] contribute to the family income.

In the returned letters, the three most frequently
mentioned Objections were that the amendment and possible
resulting federal legislation were an unnecessary inter-
ference with the function of the state, that it should

be limited to those sixteen years old or under, and that
it was economically unsound.53

The question of why there was such intense business

opposition to federal child labor regulation when there was
so little on the state level is difficult to answer. Per—
haps they simply did not want to give the federal govern-
ment the power to interfere in employee-employer relations
for fear that this would establish a dangerous precedent
for more extensive regulation. Their strong prejudice

in favor of decentralized governmental functions, state
over federal action, must also have played a part. Such

a motivation was clearly a factor for child-labor re-
former, Henry P. Chandler, who believed that it was the
duty of the state to regulate child labor and was afraid
of giving the federal government too much power in the

area of social welfare.54

 

276

Of all the letters, the most favorable one simply
stated: "I will give it careful thought." As a whole,
they were so negative that Mrs. Bowen despairingly wrote
to a friend and fellow worker for the child labor amend-
ment that the letters "are all full of the same old argu-
ments. I wish they would get a new line."55

Perhaps the reformers should have anticipated
business hostility, for the Chicago Industrial Club by a
unanimous vote at one of its meetings came out in a public
stand against the ratification of the child labor amend-
ment. This position by the Industrial Club was extremely
significant in that among its members were many of the
progressive businessmen who had in the past supported
social reforms. Their silence in the face of public
apathy and the active opposition of more reactionary
businessmen, as well as the rural employers of seasonal
labor, Spelled disaster for the amendment in the 1925-26
session of the state legislature.56

The hard core progressive social reformers were
not completely discouraged by the defeat Of the amendment
in the 1925-1926 session of the legislature, and began to
plan a renewal of the fight. In anticipation of the
1927-1928 session they reorganized into a group named the
Illinois Child Labor Committee. Although Miss Anne S.
Davis remained chairman of the Committee, a number of new

organizations were added to its membership and the goals

were broadened to include the promotion of "constructive

277

legislation relating to child labor in Illinois." Its
program was no longer limited to ratification of the
amendment.57
It is clear from the evidence that this reorganized
committee was an attempt to unify the social welfare alli-
ance which had split over the issue of federal regulation.
In a speech to the members and potential members of the
Illinois Child Labor Committee at the Chicago Women's Club
in October 1926, Mrs. Blaine carefully pointed out that
many persons in the organization thought that federal
regulation was unwise. She went on to identify the vice-
chairman of the organization, Henry P. Chandler, as one
such person. She made it clear that the committee was
moving its interest from federal to state legislation.58
Soon the Illinois Child Labor Committee decided
to concentrate its efforts on the state level while not
forgetting the federal child-labor amendment. The drive
for ratification was no longer to have first priority.
Instead it planned to carry on a campaign of education
throughout the state to awaken its citizens to the fact
that Illinois had not done all it could have done to pro-
tect the children of the state against hazardous employ-
ment. This line of attack was designed to take advantage
of the employers' defense that they were against federal

regulation of child labor because this was an intrusion

into the function of the state. In effect, the child

278

labor reformers said all right we believe you but now
help us up-date state reform.59

To give businessmen and upper-class people another
incentive to join the crusade each piece of stationery
of the Illinois Child Labor Committee carried the Slogan
in red, "Social Justice Is the Best Insurance Against
Social Unrest." Once again the social reformers appealed
to the upper class's fear of unrest and violence among
the working classes. The best way to dampen down that
restlessness was to ameliorate some of their grievances
against the capitalist system.

By analyzing the various organizations which were
members of the Illinois Child Labor Committee one composite
picture of the type of person actively campaigning for
further child labor reform legislation in the 1920's can
be Obtained. The following is a representative sample of
the type of member organizations:

I. Church Group_:

 

1. Chicago Church Federation
2. Christian Citizens' Council

3. National Council of Jewish Women (Chicago
Chapter)

4. Protestant Women's National Civic Feder-
ation

5. Scholarship Association for Jewish Children

6. Young Women's Christian Association

II.

III.

IV.

VI.

279

Public Agencies:
1. Chicago Board of Education

2. Cook County Board of Public Welfare

Social Groups:

 

1. American Association of University Women
2. Chicago's Women's Club

3. Illinois Federation of Women's Club

4. Junior League of Chicago

5. Norwegian Women's Federation Society

6. Women's City Club

Political Clubs:

 

1. Cook County League of Women Voters
2. Illinois League of Women Voters

3. National Socialist Party

4. Woman's National Republican Club

5. Woman's National Democratic Club

Social Reform Organizations:

 

1. Chicago Council of Social Agencies
2. Chicago Federation of Settlements
3. Immigrant Protective League

4. Juvenile Protective Association

Labor Unions:
1. Illinois State Federation of Labor

2. Illinois State Teachers Association

280

3. Illinois State Women's Trade Union League

4. Woman's Trade Union League of Chicago

VII. Miscellaneous:

 

1. Elizabeth McCormick Memorial Fund
2. Illinois Congress of Parents and Teachers

3. Illinois Home Economics Association60

Although there were representatives from organized
skilled labor, the Jewish Community, and democratic social-
ism, the typical activist was a white, Protestant, upper-
middle class woman who was actively involved in civic
affairs. Thus, the movement was in effect one class
legislating for another. There were no representatives
on the committee from the poor immigrant families which
were most likely to have a child working. Because of
such a situation there was a heavy emphasis on the moral
evil of child labor in the 1920's and very little stress
on the economic reasons which often made it necessary for
a child to work. There was also a vigorous accentuation
on the value of education as a method of separating a
potential middle class from the working class. To
accomplish this goal, as many children as possible had
to be in school and not working; thus, the need for
further restrictions on the opportunities for the child

to work.61

281

Their motives can be seen in the Committee's pro-
gram for 1926. The main item on the agenda was a drive to
get the Illinois legislature to pass a bill requiring an
eighth grade education before children between the ages of
fourteen and Sixteen could be employed. In addition, the
Committee called for wider opportunity for continuing edu-
cation of those employed up to the age of eighteen as well
as for further protection of children in unhealthy occu-
pations.62 In 1927 the state legislature turned down the
bills that would have incorporated the Illinois Child
Labor Committee's programs into law. It seemed that many
men wanted no further regulation of their businesses even
on the state level. They joined with agricultural inter-
ests to block the legislation. This action on the part
of businessmen casts some doubts on those who argued
earlier against a federal amendment. It is only fair to
point out though that as of 1927 Illinois already had
some of the most restrictive laws concerning child labor.63

Perhaps the single most important achievement of
the Illinois Child Labor Committee was the 1929 legis-
lative resolution directing Republican Governor Louis F.
Emmerson to set up a state Committee on Child Welfare
Legislation. The governor appointed an Officer of the
Child Labor Committee, Henry P. Chandler, as its chairman.
Other members of the state Committee included Sophonisba

Breckinridge and Joel Hunter, Superintendent of Chicago's

282

United Charities, as well as a host of other social
workers.64
The Committee formulated a series of proposals for
new laws as well as improvements in existing ones. The
Illinois Child Labor Committee in 1931 took these goals
as their own and began to lobby through the Illinois State
Federation for their incorporation into law. They in—
cluded:
1. state supervision of compulsory school attendance
2. educational factories to care for non-academic
type pupils in all communities
3. 18 years old as the age of release from compulsory
education
4. 16 years old as the age set for leaving school
for work regardless of the reason
5. the requirement of a state certificate for em-
ployed minors 16 to 18 years old to be issued
only in cases of need
6. the requirement of special workmen's compensation
for illegally employed minors under the age of 18
set up twice the rate of ordinary workmen's com-
pensation [this provision was designed to make
child labor unprofitable for the employer by
raising the risks for him.]55
Surprisingly, there was no reference to the pro-
posed child labor amendment to the Federal Constitution.
In the light of this fact, it is understandable to learn
that in the 1931-1932 session the amendment remained
bottled up in committee and never made it to the floor
of the assembly for a vote. Even outside the ratification
fight, the Illinois Child Labor Committee saw little of
its program adopted before 1933. Henry P. Chandler later
in 1931 remarked, "It is a matter of regret to report that

the bills recommended by the Child Welfare Legislation

283

Committee all failed, with a few minor exceptions, in the
closing days of the sessions of the House of Representa-
tives."66
Some of the apparent reluctance to continue expand-
ing child labor laws in the 1920's may have stemmed from
the fact that the state had some of the best laws in the

nation already on the books. According to a report of the

Federal Children's Bureau, entitled Child Labor in the

 

United States, the Illinois child labor laws as of
December 1, 1923 "were equal or superior to the standards
set for factories of the first and second federal laws
as well as most other state laws."67
Thus, social workers in Illinois were caught on
the horns of a dilemma. On the one hand the usual business
supporters of the social welfare system were against giving
the federal government too much power over their business
practices and were, thus, largely against federal regu-
lation of child labor; while on the other hand they were
against pushing Illinois child labor laws too far out in
advance of other states. They did not wish to give their
competitors an "unfair" advantage in the market place.
Neither did they want to carry prohibitions on child labor
too far for they believed that, if children were given
too long a period of relative freedom from work even in
school, they might never wish to go to work. In addition,

this leisure time could breed subversive ideas. Perhaps

284

these businessmen were correct in their assessment if we
look at the results of prolonged youth on the children of
the 1960's and 1970's.

The example of the attempts at organizing a united
front to pressure the state legislature to ratify the
federal child labor amendment demonstrates the limits of
progressive business social welfare reform. When many
progressive businessmen and professional men came out

against the amendment as "going too far, it was doomed
to defeat in spite of the efforts of those social workers
who favored it. In fact, within two years after Congress
passed the amendment and the businessmen came out in
Opposition, the drive was blunted for ratification by the
reorganization of the original committee into one with
only peripheral interest in the issue, at least until 1933.
The failure of the drive was written in the negative
letters received by Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen. Many progres-
sive businessmen in this Situation believed that their
interests were threatened, and the drive for the amendment
was in effect stopped. With the opposition of agricultural
interests, the Catholic Church, and reactionary business-
men, it is entirely possible that even though labor sup-
ported the amendment it would have, no matter what, failed
in the state legislature, but without active progressive
business support the amendment was doomed to failure.

In the next year a revolution occurred in Illinois

politics when the Democratic party captured the governorship

285

and both houses of the state legislature, a phenomenon
rarely seen in Illinois since the Civil War. Henry Horner
was elected governor on a reform platform supported not
only by the Chicago Democratic machine and The Chicago

and Illinois Federation of Labor, but also by many of the
city's most advanced progressive reformers. With his
administration there was a decided Shift toward the inter-
ests of organized labor, so much so that the Illinois
legislature in its 1933-1934 session finally passed the
Child Labor Amendment, despite the reservations of business-
men.

The suddenness of its passage leads to the specu-
lation that as organized labor became more politically
powerful and as the Chicago democratic machine became
receptive to social welfare programs, the social reformers
found themselves less dependent upon their business sup-
porters. The social engineers could now work directly
within the mass political New Deal coalition of ethnic
groups, Blacks, and organized labor, instead of trying to
convince the upper class to use its influence to secure
the enactment of progressive legislation. In such a
situation, there was the potential for a genuine radical
reformation of a society freed from the restraints of

upper-class interests.

FOOTNOTES--CHAPTER VII

1Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth and the City
Streets (New York, 1910), pp. 3-21; Charles R. Henderson,
The Social Spirit in America (Chicago, 1904), pp. 26-30,
160-74; Daniel Levine, Variations of Reform Thought
(Madison, Wisconsin, 19645: P. 24; Edward N. Clopper,
Child Labor 12 the City Streets (New York, 1913), pp. 128-
29; Henry S. Curtis, The Planyovement and Its Signifi-
cance (New York, 1917)) pp. 331-32; Gerardgiorman,
Industrialization, Immigrants and Americanizers: The
View From Milwaukee, 1866-1912 (MadiSon, Wisconsin, 1967),
pp. 4-5; Jeremy FeIt, Hostages of Fortune: Child Labor
Reform in New York State (New York, 1965), pp. 35-93;
Julius Rosenwald and the National Child Labor Committee,
Box XXVI, Folder 18, Julius Rosenwald MSS. Newberry
Library.

 

2Eugene Stanley, Historyeof the Illinois State
Federation of Labor (Chicago, 1930), pp. 6, 38, 154-56,
270-71, 484-86.

 

3Factory Inspectors of Illinois, Ninth Annual
Report (1901), pp. 5-6; "Enforcement of Child Labor Legis-
lation in Illinois," Annual of the American Academic,
XXIX (January, 1907), 93-103; Hull House Bulletin, April,
1897 and October, 1897, Hull House MSS. University of
Illinois Chicago Circle.

 

 

 

4Earl R. Beckner, A History of Labor Legislation
in Illinois (Chicago, 1929), p. 161, icotnote l.

 

 

5Factory Inspectors of Illinois, Eleventh and
Twelfth Reports (1903-04), pp. xv-xix; Factory Inspectors
of Illinois, Fifteenth Annual Report (1907): p. 16.

 

6Illinois Session Laws, 1903, p. 187.

 

7Ibid.

286

287

8Beckner, pp. 161-62.

9Ibid.

10Factory Inspectors of Illinois, Eighth Annual
Report (1900), pp. 10—15.

 

llFactory Inspectors of Illinois, Eleventh and
Twelfth Reports (1903-1904), pp. xv-xix.

 

 

12Factory Inspectors of Illinois, Fifteenth Annual
Repert (1907): pp. 14-17.
]
13U.S. Thirteenth Census, 1910, IX, p. 261; Florence

F. Kelley, "Laws fOr theiProtection of Children," American
Journal of Sociology, XX (November, 1904), 299-314.

 

14Edith Abbott and Sophonisba P. Breckinridge,
Truancy and Non-Attendance in the Chicago Schools (Chicago,
1917): PP. 85-87.

 

15George Stigler, Employment and Compensation in
Education (New York, 1950?, pp. 67-70.

 

 

16Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of

Efficiency: A Study of the Social Forces That Have Shaped
the Administration of the Public Schools (Chicago, 1962),
pp. 1-240; Albert Fishlow,4“LevelS of Nineteenth Century
American Investment in Education," Journal 9f Economic
History, XXVI (December, 1966), 418-36; E. T. Davies,
Chlld Labor in Illinois," Annals of American Academ ,
XXXIII (March, 1909), 153-61; Owen R. LovejOy, '"The
Function of Education in Abolishing Child Labor," Annals
of American Acagemy, supplement: "Child Labor and Soc1al
Progressifi'XXXII (July, 1908), 80; David Tyack, "Bureau-
cracy and the Common School: The Example of Portland,
Oregon 1851-1913," American geerterly, XIX (Fall, 1967),
475-98.

 

 

 

 

17Ibid.; M. Edith Campbell, "Economic Value of
Education," The Child Labor Bulletin, I (June, 1912),
66-72; John P. Frey, 1"néiociaTCost of Child Labor," The
Child Labor Bulletin, I (June, 1912), 113-22; Seba Eld-
ridge, Social Legislation In Illinois, Needs and Oppor-
tunities in 1921 (Rockford, Illinois, 1921), p. 63; Sol
Cohen, Progressives and Urban School Reform: The Public
Education Association of New York City 1895-1954 (New York,
1964), pp. 30-140.

 

288

18Charles L. Chute, Survey, XXVI (May 27, 1911),
332-33; Graham Taylor in the Daily News, June 24, 1911,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

19Beckner, p. 169.

20"Uniform Child Labor Laws," Proceedings of the
Eleventh Annual Conference, National Child Labor Committee
U911), p. 160.

 

21Surve , XXXIII (March 6, 1915), 602; The
Illinois Committee Social Legislation Handbook, 1912, Anita
Blaine McCormick MSS. Wisconsin State Historical Society
Library.

22Ibid.

23§2£X§X1 XXXIII (May 8, 1915), 129-30.

24Illinois General Assembly, Journal of the House
of Representatives, 1915, p. 828; Illinois General
Assembly, House of Representatives, House Debates, 1915,
p. 717.

 

25Factory Inspectors of Illinois, Twenty-Second
Annual Report (1915), pp. 30-43.

 

26Survey, XXVI (April, 1911), 11; Executive Com—
mittee of the Child Welfare Exhibit to Agnes Nestor,
March 23, 1911, MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

27Graham Taylor in the Daily News, May 6, 1911,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; Survey, XXVI (June 10,
1911), 412; Survey, XXVI (May 20, 1911), 283-83.

 

28Ibid.

29Ibid.

30Edward N. Clopper, Child Labor in the City
Streets (New York, 1913), pp. 27-31.

31lbid.

32Ibid.

289

33Graham Taylor in the Daily News, July 6, 1912-
July 27, 1912, MSS. Chicago Newberry Library.

 

34F. Zeta Youmans, "Street Trades in Chicago,"
American Child, IV (August, 1922), 114-15.

 

35Ibid.

36Ibid.

37President's Address to Juvenile Protective
Association, Annual Meeting, City Club, February 27, 1923,
[in] Speeches, Addresses, and Letters of Louise de Koven
Bowen Reflecting Social Movements in Chicago (Ann Arbor,
1937), pp. 644-45; Juvenile Protective Associatien Annual
Report, 1927, Juvenile Protective Association MSS.
University of Illinois Chicago Circle.

 

 

 

38Youmans, p. 115.

39F. Zeta Youmans, "Kindergartens of Crime,"
Survey (September 15, 1928), 581.

40Ibid.

41Ibid.

42Roger H. Freund to Miss Binford, January 29,
1925, Juvenile Protective Association MSS. Chicago His-
torical Society Library; Robert McCormick to Miss Jessie F.
Binford, July 20, 1923, Juvenile Protective Association
MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

43Youmans, "Kindergarten of Crime, p. 582; F.
Zeta Youmans (Secretary of the Illinois Child Labor Com-
mission) to A. D. Cohen, February 17, 1929, A. D. Cohen
MSS. University of Illinois Chicago Circle.

44Youmans, "Kindergartens of Crime,‘ p. 582.

45Jane Addams, The Spirit of Youth (New York,
1910), pp. 107-35.

 

290

46Willliam E. Leuchtenburg, The Perils of
Prosperityyel9l4-32 (Chicago, 1958), pp. 99-100; Clarke A.
Chambers, Seedtime of Reform (Minneapolis, 1963), pp. 29-
40.

 

 

 

47Leuchtenburg, pp. 99-100, 123, 254.

48Graham Taylor in the Daily News, November 29,
1924, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

49Ibid.

50Ibid.

51Resolution of Child Labor Committee, no date,
L. D. Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

52Laurance H. Armour to Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen,
December 27, 1924, Juvenile Protective Association MSS.
University of Illinois Chicago Circle Library. '

53Henry Farrot to Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, January 2,
1924, Juvenile Protective Association MSS. University of
Illinois Chicago Circle Library; J. J. Donelly to Mrs.
Joseph T. Bowen, December 29, 1924, Juvenile Protective
Association MSS. University of Illinois Chicago Circle
Library.

54Minutes of the Meeting of the Illinois Chicago
Labor Committee, October 15, 1926, Anita Blaine McCormick
MSS. Wisconsin State Historical Society Library.

55Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen to Miss Zeta Youmans,
December 27, 1924, Juvenile Protective Association MSS.
University of Illinois Chicago Circle Library.

56Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen to Miss Binford, December 15,
1924, Juvenile Protective League MSS. University of
Illinois Chicago Circle Library.

57Minutes of the Meeting of the Illinois Child
Labor Committee, October 15, 1926, Anita Blaine McCormick
MSS. Wisconsin State Historical Society Library.

58Illinois Child Labor Committee Paper, January 29,
1926, Ester Loeb Kohn MSS. University of Illinois Chicago
Circle Library.

291

59J. J. Donelly to Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen, December
29, 1924, Juvenile Protective Association MSS. Chicago
Historical Society Library.

60John B. Andrews to Ester Loeb Kohn, July 6,
1928, MSS. University of Illinois Chicago Circle Library.

61Illinois Child Labor Committee Pamphlet, 1931,
Lea D. Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

62Meeting of Illinois Child Labor Committee,
October 15, 1926, Anita Blaine McCormick MSS. Wisconsin
State Historical Society Library.

63"Illinois Child Labor Committee History and
Origin," December, 1952, Ester Loeb Kohn MSS. University
of Illinois Chicago Circle Library.

64Memo Regarding Bills Introduced in the Legis-
lation on Recommendation of the Illinois Committee on
Child Welfare Legislation, Julius Rosenwald MSS. Uni-
versity of Chicago Library.

65Ibid.

66Henry P. Chandler to Ester L. Kohn, June 26,
1931, Ester Loeb Kohn MSS. University of Illinois Chicago
Circle Library.

67U.S. Children's Bureau, Child Labor in the
United States (December 1, 1923).

68John Clayton, The Illinois Fact Book and His-
torical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale, Illinois, 1970),
pp. 141-45, 285-88.

CHAPTER VIII

FEWER HOURS FOR LESS PAY

In 1909 there was no statute in Illinois
limiting the maximum number of hours that a woman was
allowed to work. Although the Sweat Shop Act of 1893
prohibited the employment of females in any factory for
more than eight hours a day or forty-eight hours in one
week, it had been declared unconstitutional by the
Illinois Supreme Court in 1895. Citing the Fourteenth
Amendment, the judges had decided that sex alone could
not be considered sufficient justification for restricting
the fundamental right of a citizen to enter freely into
a labor contract with an employer. The case against the
law had been ably argued by lawyers hired by the Manu-
facturers' Protective Association (later known as the
Illinois Manufacturers' Association) founded by small
businessmen to block labor legislation.1

The prospect for restricting women's hours looked
hopeless in Illinois until 1908 when the United States

Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the Oregon

292

 

293

ten-hour statute. In that case the judges ruled that
a woman's health would be impaired if she was allowed
to work over ten hours. The court had been impressed
by a brief of more than 100 pages prepared by Louis D.
Brandeis and Josephine Goldmark, President of the National
Consumers' League.2
With the exception of two pages devoted to the
traditional legal aspect of the case, the brief concen-
trated on documents made up from the "accumulated mass
of British and Continental factory inspectors' reports,
commissions,and enguétes, as well as the Observations
of medical men and economists." On the basis of this
brief the court rejected as a fiction the right of free
contract regarding work and declared that "her physical
nature and the evil effects of over-work upon her and
upon her future children justify legislation to support
her from the greed as well as the passion of men."3
In response to this decision the Women's Trade
Union League of Illinois, with cooperation from one of
its affiliated unions of waitresses, presented a bill to
the Illinois legislature in 1909. It provided that women
would not be allowed to work more than eight hours in
factories, stores, laundries, telephone and telegraph
offices, as well as a number of other establishments.4
Founded in 1903 the Women's Trade Union

League was a coalition of the dominant middle-class

294

well—educated women social reformers and their allies
among the more skilled unionized Americanized women
immigrant workers. Because the alliance was largely
directed by middle class-reformers and financed by
sympathetic and enlightened members of the upper class,
President Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of
Labor never recognized it as a genuine trade union. In
1905, he permitted its delegates to sit but not to vote
at the national convention.5

As might be expected from the character of its
leadership and financeers, the Women's Trade Union League
was relatively prudent in its demands. To a fellow
businessman, Julius Rosenwald wrote one time that he was
in the practice of contributing to the organization
because it was led by reasonable women who were conserva-
tive in nature. He went on to assure his correspondent
that, although he did not agree with everything that the
League stood for, it was better for class relations if
the workers graphically understood that capital was
interested in their problems than if it seemed to them
that capital was indifferent.6

Julius Rosenwald was certainly correct in his
analysis of the Women Trade Union League's demands. In
1909 its published program included legislation to prohibit
women from working more than eight hours a day or any

hours at night. In addition, the League called for a

295

statute that would require employers to provide safety-
regulated machinery, ventilated rooms, seats with backs,’
and separate toilet and wardrobe rooms. Finally, it
wanted state legislation to keep married women from working
immediately before or after childbirth.7

The League's leadership elite was also conserva-
tive. The Chicago branch of the league, for example,
was led by middle-class social reformers. In 1908 its
officers were Mrs. Raymond Robins, President; Miss Mary
McDowell, Vice President; Miss Emma Steghagen, Secretary;
and Miss Agnes Nestor, Treasurer. The only working class
woman was Agnes Nestor, who was the President of a local
Chicago glove-making union.8

In many ways Agnes Nestor was typical of working
women who were members of the League. Most of them were
in the garment trades where they labored at the relatively
skilled jobs of glove, boot, shoe, and suspender making.
The rest were largely either bindery workers or waitresses.
In each of these trades there were fairly strong unions
which were able to bargain effectively for better pay,
Shorter hours, and more humane working conditions. Most
of the women were Americanized second and third generation
immigrants. The single largest ethnic group represented
was the Irish, rather than any of the newer Eastern and
Southern European groups. Among bindery women, for

example, only 1 1/2 per cent of them were immigrant girls

296

(first generation), while in the glove, boot, shoe, and
suspender trade only 1 per cent of the workers were newly
arrived foreign girls. The same low percentage was also
found among the waitresses. These women represented the
aristocracy among female labor and were closely allied
With the trade unionism of the American Federation of
Labor. If Gompers had been less suSpiciouS of women as
trade unionists, these groups would have had little need
for the Women's Trade Union League. Even with his hos-
tility, many of them, such as the waitresses, became
recognized A.F.L. unions. All of them were able to bargain
collectively with their employers with some measure of
success with the financial and moral support of the
Women's Trade Union League. Although most of these trade
union groups had bargained for and received working con-
ditions as good as, if not better than, the laws proposed
by the Women's Trade Union League, they did have a signifi-
cant problem.9

The great mass of women workers were unskilled
recent immigrants who came from Southern and Eastern
EurOpe and were divided by their language and cultural
differences. They, like their unskilled menfolk, were
difficult to organize because they were engaged in an
intense struggle for existence under adverse circumstances.
As they saw it, their only hope of escape from this dreary

wheel of existence was the romantic dream of becoming,

297

as one social analyst phrased it, "the queen of some Ameri-
can's heart." Thus, they

prefer scrubbing in restaurants for five or Six

dollars a week which gives them a miserable

existence in Polish town, to three or four dollars

a week in addition to a good home in a private

American family, because a private family with its

long and uncertain hours, and Sunday work would

interfere with their social pleasures and

aspirations.

Female trade unionists considered such a romantic
attitude toward marriage as the answer to all problems to
be irresponsible. Perhaps more importantly they feared
that, in a situation where the mass of women workers were
terribly exploited, it would be difficult to maintain
their own higher standards. Thus, they could utilize
the Women's Trade Union League not only as a source of
middle—class funds and moral support, but also as a lever
to pressure the state legislature to pass laws that would
impose the obligation on employers to provide better
working conditions for the majority of unskilled immigrant
female laborers. Such action was rationalized as a
humanitarian effort to help those immature women who could
not or would not help themselves.

As a part of this effort to impose better working
conditions on the unskilled female laborer, the League's
attorney, Harold Ickes, persuaded Senator W. Clyde Jones,
a Republican from Cook County, in March 1909 to introduce

a women's eight-hour bill. It was immediately referred

to the Committee on Labor, Mines, and Mining, where it

298

received a sympathetic hearing. After listening to the
arguments of the lobbyists from the League, including
Jane Addams, Emma Steghagen, Agnes Nestor, and Elizabeth
Maloney, the committee reported the bill out with the
recommendation that it be passed on the grounds that the
limitation on hours was necessary to maintain a woman's
health and morals.11

At this point the Illinois Manufacturers'
Association suddenly awoke to the fact that the eight-hour
bill had a good chance of becoming law. In order to stall
the progress of the bill while mustering the necessary
strength to kill it, the Association demanded a new open
hearing before the entire Senate on the grounds that it
was their understanding that the bill was not to have been
let out of committee so quickly. By vote of the Senate
a new hearing was granted and scheduled.12

At the April hearings close to 400 lobbying manu-
facturers appeared to answer the pleas of the eleven
persons that the league was able to send to Springfield.
Each Side was allowed three speakers who presented the
advantages or defects of the proposed legislation. The
manufacturers contended that the bill was unconstitutional
and that, if it passed, their women employees would lose
their Saturday half-holiday, receive less pay, and ulti-

mately be displaced by men. They also brought from their

factories a batch of petitions Signed by their female

 

299

employees demanding the defeat of the bill. Even taking
into consideration the facts that the petitions were drawn
up by employers and that only a minority of their total
working force signed them, it seems likely that many
unskilled female workers opposed a forced Shortening of
hours with a parallel cut in wages. One manufacturer poked
some fun at the upper-middle class "ladies" who supported
the bill accusing them of coming from the class which
created the need for long hours by generating great pressure
at certain seasons such as Easter "when they would and
must have their hats."13
Miss Maloney, a lobbyist for the bill, answered
indirectly that it was the "wives and daughters of the
manufacturers who got their Easter hats before Easter,
but the working girls who were fighting for this bill have

14 What she did

to wait until the prices are marked down."
not add was that the group for which the bill would have
most effect, the unskilled immigrant female worker, could
not afford to buy a hat before or after Easter. Nobody
at the hearing was a member of this class; it had no
voice of its own. Although the reformers claimed that
long hours were a threat to a woman's health, they never
explained how a struggling unskilled immigrant woman
already on the verge of starvation was to make up the

wages she lost when she was forced to work only eight

hours a day instead of fifteen.

 

 

it?!

300

As the debate came to a close, Senator Jones came
to the conclusion that the eight-hour bill could no
longer be passed in the face of united small business
opposition. In order to split this hostile block, he
introduced a ten-hour bill that excluded hotels, retail
stores, and restaurants from coverage. This maneuver not
only lessened Opposition among the excluded businesses,
but also among many manufacturers that had already
voluntarily established a ten-hour day in their plants.
The manufacturers who employed women for more than ten
hours or were antagonistic to the bill because of the
possible precedent of state interference in the labor
contract, were effectively isolated.15

In a last ditch effort to defeat the bill, Senators
amended it so as to strike out the ten-hour section and add
an eight-hour provision, realizing that it could not pass
in that form. When the manufacturers' lobbyists heard
that the bill was reported out of committee with the
amendment, they went home thinking that the reformers had
fallen for their trap. Senator Jones, with the approval
of the Women's Trade Union League, struck out the eight-
hour amendment. The bill, now for a ten-hour day, passed
with large majorities in the Senate and the House. A
rather conservative Republican, Governor Charles S. Deenen,
then Signed the bill into law. The friendly greeting

between Chicago legislators in the closing moments of the

 

301

forty-sixth session of the Illinois Legislature was "The

16 The question is, however, what did

girls have won!"
the girls win? It seems that all they gained was fewer
hours for less pay.

The law, as finally enacted, simply provided that
no female shall be employed in any mechanical
establishment or factory, or laundry in this state,
more than ten hours during any one day. The hours
of work may be so arranged as to permit the employ-
ment of females at any times so that they shall not
work more than ten hours during the twenty-four
hours of any day.17

The State Department of Factory Inspection was given the
duty to enforce the law.

The significance of the new law is hard to judge.

The statute did not affect large numbers of women because
the ten-hour work day, or even less, was prevalent in

many industries, especially in large corporations and in
the more skilled trades. Waitresses, glove-makers, and
most others in unionized Skilled trades already had won

the ten-hour day through collective bargaining. The law
was also limited to manufacturing and laundry establish-
ments, thereby excluding the many women working in the
hotels, restaurants, and telephone and telegraph establish-
ments. Even where the law was applicable, it may have
caused some severe hardships as unskilled women suddenly
had their pay out along with their hours.18

On the other hand it was a step toward the effective

regulation of women's working hours by the state. Looked

302

at in this light, it had great educational value. Perhaps
most importantly, it gave the Illinois Supreme Court a
chance to reverse its earlier decision to bring it into
line with the 1903 United States Supreme Court ruling in
the case of Muiller vs. Oregon.

As soon as the law went into effect, W. C. Ritchie
and Company, a box manufacturing concern, petitioned,
along with the Illinois Manufacturers' Association, the
courts to grant an injunction restraining the factory
inspectors from enforcing the ten-hour law. They claimed
that it interfered with a woman's freedom and prevented
her from earning a living. In response, Judge S. Tuthill
of the Circuit Court of Cook County, granted the restrain-
ing order on the grounds that the law was unconstitutional
because it "virtually relegates women back to dependence,"
while it is the "constitutional policy Of this state . . .
to advance the cause of women and place them on an equal
basis with men."19

The stage was set by this ruling for an epic
battle before the state's Supreme Court between those
who wished to limit the maximum number of hours a woman
could work in any one day, and those who wished no such
limitations. To argue the case for the law's consti-
tutionality, the services of Louis D. Brandeis were secured
as a Special counsel for the state's attorney by the

Chicago Women's Trade Union League. Miss Josephine Goldmark

303

of the National Consumers' League and Brandeis prepared
a 610-page brief which represented years of work on the
part of the organization. The brief was made public
before the case began so as to arouse public support.
The Russell Sage Foundation raised one-half the funds
necessary to distribute the brief while an additional
one-fourth was contributed by the National Consumers'
League. The remaining one-fourth was collected in
Illinois, not through a mass appeal but from a small
number of interested peOple. The first donation was made
by Mrs. Mary J. Wilmarth who was also a large contributor
to other social welfare projects.20
In essence, the brief documented the difference
between men and women and the Special dangers of long
hours on women. Josephine Goldmark introduced the section
containing a doctors' testimony with the statement that
"the dangers of long hours for women arise from their
special physical organization taken in connection with the
strain incident to factory and similar work." All of the
declarations which followed supported her contention.
C. T. Graham, M.D., New York Medical Inspector of factories,
typically reported:
The average healthy woman is very much inferior

in physical strength and endurance to the average

man. Her physical conformation is different, and

the physiological and social parts that She plays

in life differ from those played by man, therefore
we find her more susceptible to the effects of hard

304

labor and prolonged or sedentary occupation, which

susceptibility is increased during the child-

bearing period.
For Goldmark, the conclusive proof that women were physi-
cally inferior to men was the statistical fact that, in
all countries where statistics have been kept by sickness
insurance societies, the rate of disease and death at an
earlier age of women had been found to be higher than
that of men.21

Once the brief was made public, large segments

of middle class opinion were rallied to support the law.
Graham Taylor reported that there was scarcely any dissent
among the press of Chicago in its positive attitude toward
the ten-hour statute. In addition, the Chicago Federation
of Labor and the Illinois State Federation of Labor agreed
that the law was essential in order to protect women from
arduous factory work. Most of the city's women's clubs
and churches also called on the Illinois Supreme Court
to uphold the constitutionality of the law. The State
Convention of the Baptist Churches passed by unanimous
vote a resolution expressing their

heartiest interest in this call of our brothers

of the Chicago Federation of Labor for our

assistance, and pledge them our cooperation in

their noble fight for shorter hours of toil for

the women and girls of Illinois.22

When the case opened before the Illinois Supreme

Court in February 1910, the chambers were filled with

representatives of Women's Trade Union Leagues of Chicago

305

and St. Louis, the Illinois branch of the American
Association for Labor Legislation, and the Illinois
branch of the National Consumers' League. They were
there to give silent testimony to the fact that the best
citizens were supporting the bill.23

Although the Illinois Manufacturers' Association
presented a strong case based on precedent in that a
previous state Supreme Court had declared a Similar law
unconstitutional, the court held on April 21, 1910 that
the law was acceptable. The judges were especially
impressed by the brief submitted by Brandeis and Gold-
mark.24

AS soon as the Court made public this Opinion,
the Women's Trade Union League began to build a coalition
to secure a new law that would extend the ten-hour
limitation to women employed in telegraph and telephone,
restaurant, hotel, retail, and transportation businesses.
The coalition included the Chicago Federation of Settle-
ments, American Association for Labor Legislation, the
National Council of Women, Illinois State Federation of
Labor, National Consumers' League, the Socialist Women's
Organization, the Illinois State Federation of Women's
Clubs, the women's colleges of Illinois, and the Young
Women's Christian Association. The alliance had a very

middle class coloration, the only exceptions being the

Illinois Federation of Labor and the Socialist Women's

306

Organization. The rest were the usual social reform
organizations backed financially by progressive business
and professional men.25
The coalition began its work for a new female
labor law during the elections of 1910 for the General
Assembly with the publication of a poster showing how
each member of the last legislature had voted on the ten-
hour bill of 1909. Social reformers believed that as a
result of the mass distribution of the advertisement,
a number of legislator candidates were defeated for
re-election because of their Opposition to the bill. Each
candidate running for election was also questioned con-
cerning his position on a new law that would extend pro-
tection to more occupations. The vast majority responded

26 This infor-

that they would support such legislation.
mation was also published in time for the election.

Filled with optimism, the organizations supporting
a new female labor law appointed a legislative lobby
committee of seven members, five from Chicago and two from
Springfield. Most of their expenses were to be paid by
the Women's Trade Union League. This committee submitted
to the state legislature at the beginning of its session
a new ten-hour bill that extended coverage to a variety
of new occupations. In addition, it provided for a maxi—

mum fifty-four hour week commonly thought of as a five and

one-half day week. It further required each employer to

307

keep a written record of the hours worked by their female
employees.27
An amended law striking out the fifty-four hour
provision was easily passed through the state legislature
with little opposition from the Illinois Manufacturers'
Association, most of whose members were already covered by
the old ten-hour law and, therefore, were untouched by the
proposed law. Working alone, the representatives of the
vulnerable hotels, retail shops, restaurants, and tele-
graph or telephone establishments did not have the politi-
cal clout to stOp the bill.28
In addition, many of the larger department stores,
restaurants, and hotels had already decided that a ten-
hour day was a good policy on practical business grounds.
Therefore, men like Julius Rosenwald, President of Sears
Roebuck and Company, did not obstruct the ten-hour bill.
He no doubt believed that the working of women over ten
hours a day was detrimental to their health and that it
was, therefore, immoral to force them to do so. He would
not work his women long hours at Sears Roebuck but he
could control the actions of his competitors only
through legislation. It may even be argued that it was
in his economic interest to force his smaller competitors

to adhere to high standards in the area of female working

conditions. Such norms, by increasing the labor costs

308

of the small retail Shop, made it more difficult for them
to compete with the large department stores.29
Even though they lacked support, the Opposition
tried one last ploy to stop the bill from becoming law.
They requested Governor Charles S. Deneen to veto the bill,
but after a hearing Open to both Sides, he approved the
bill.30 In two separate cases heard during 1912, the
Illinois Supreme Court declared the new law to be consti—
tutional.31
In the next few years the state legislature passed
no laws further restricting women's working hours. From
this point on the forces which desired more regulation
met the combined Opposition of small manufacturers and
the other small employers of females, creating a stale-
mate.32 In the 1913-1914 session the state legislature
defeated a fifty-four hour week bill for women supported
by the Women's Trade Union League. In addition, the very
cause of regulation of conditions in relation to women's
labor was almost set back when certain employers and rural
interests secured the passage of an amendment exempting
canneries from the women's ten-hour law.33
Agnes Nestor and the two other representatives
of the Women's Trade Union League in Springfield prepared
a brief urging the governor to veto the amendment as a

threat to the health and future of the state's small

children and their mothers. In addition, they argued

309

that it could be an opening wedge in a movement to destroy
the entire ten-hour law by making it unconstitutional on
the grounds that it was class legislation. This last
argument seemed to persuade the Democratic Governor
Edward Fitzgerald Dunne, who was sympathetic to social
legislation, to veto the bill.34
Although no new legislation concerning women's
labor was passed from 1912 through World War I, the
Illinois General Assembly did authorize Governor Lowden
to appoint a commission to look into the industrial prob-
lem, including that of women's labor. The governor
created and charged the Illinois Industrial Survey Com-
mission, among other things, with making a complete
investigation of all the industries of Illinois in which
women worked. The commissioners gave special attention
to the effect of long hours of labor upon the health of
women workers.35 Composed of two represent employers,
two women trade union labor leaders, and four non-partial
experts, it found after a thorough investigation that:
1. Laws of the various states showed a definite
tendency toward the shorter work day for
women.
2. Most Illinois employers employed women for
Shorter hours than the maximum permitted by
law.
3. Most physicians working in the industrial
field agreed that women needed an eight-hour
day for health reasons.
4. Surveys Showed that a Shorter work day meant
better efficiency among the workers.
5. The same employees produced more in eight or

an eight and a half-hour day than when working
longer hours in the same establishment.

 

310

6. The shorter work—day Showed an output steadier
and better maintained throughout the length
of the working day.

7. In seasonal industries, long hours resulted in

a marked drop in production early in the busy

season, while short hours in the same field

showed production maintained or increased
throughout the busy season.

. Accidents were often caused by fatigue.

9. Workers on a night shift Showed a lower level
of production than equally experienced workers
on a day Shift.

10. The eight-hour day from a physiological view-
point was desirable for the health of the
worker, as well as for the possible increase
in volume of production.36

On the basis of those findings, a majority
recommended the adoption of an eight-hour working day and
a forty-eight hour working week for women in industry.

In addition, they asked that the state legislature set up
a further study of night work by women, their need for
rest periods, regulation of time for lunch. The majority
believed that its suggestions were in the interest of
efficiency and health.37

The two employers on the commission filed a
minority report in which they charged that the majority
had made unwarranted conclusions on the basis of incomplete
data. There was no need for a law enforcing the eight-
hour working day and forty-eight hour working week for
there was little connection between health and longer
hours per se. In addition, if it was actually in the
interest of the employers to limit hours of women, they

would do it voluntarily.38

311

Social reformers, in order to put pressure on
the state legislature to formulate the recommendations
of the commission into law, formed the Illinois Joint
Committee for the Women's Eight-Hour Bill with Mrs. R. M.
Reed as its chairman. This committee was in reality an
umbrella organization for all of the groups interested
in limiting women's working conditions. They included:

Catholic Woman's Club

Chicago Woman's Club

Illinois Committee on Social Legislation

(An umbrella organization of Illinois settlement

houses.)

Parents, Teachers Association

Illinois Women's Legislative Congress

Women's Church Federation

Legislative Committee, Women's City Club

Women's Trade Union League of Chicago

Industrial Department of the Central Field Committee
National Young Women's Christian Association.39
With the partial exception of the Women's Trade Union
League of Chicago, all represented upper-middle class clubs
and groups.

A knowledge of the class composition of those
organizations which supported regulation of women's
working conditions goes a long way toward explaining their

approach to the question. If women worked too long, one

had only to limit their hours giving no thought to the

312

economic necessity which drove them to work those hours
in the first place. The crucial problem for women who
worked was usually an adequate wage or, even more
fundamentally, adequate pay for their husbands. One
employer perhaps understood his female employees better
than the social reformers when he wrote that what they
wanted was more pay and not Shorter hours.40
The limiting of hours also put another burden on
women workers in that they often could not compete with
men for jobs. Earlier a woman telegrapher wrote to Jane
Addams complaining that, if the law restricted the number
of hours a woman could work without doing the same for
men, it would mean that she would be fired and a man
hired in her place because no employer could leave a post
unattended for the two hours that the men worked.after the
women had gone home. The reformers were not in fact using
the frailty of women to limit the hours of men because
this would have brought them into direct conflict with
the Illinois State Labor Federation which was opposed to
any state interference in the hours a workman was employed.
The social reformers, by insisting that women needed
limitations on their hours of work and by incorporating
that belief into law, were declaring the inferiority of
women through the official voice of the state.
Another weakness in the movement was the fact that

even in 1928 there were about 95,000 women engaged in

313

domestic service in Illinois, or about a half of all
women workers. These women were not even covered in the
1912 ten-hour law.41 The evidence is overwhelming that
as each ethnic group moved up the economic social ladder
its women moved out of domestic service, because it was
hard and demanding work with long hours and a Six to six
and a half day work week. Was it only an over-sight that
these upper class women did not press for limitations on
the hours worked by their servants who made it possible
for their mistresses to attend meetings at which to
agitate for other reforms?

Unconscious of the fundamental problems, or
indifferent to them, social reformers continued to push
for the eight-hour day for women throughout the 1920's.
They made Special efforts in the legislature of 1925 and
1927. Every attempt failed. Generally, manufacturers
Opposed in the 1920's the further mandatory reduction in
hours for women because they did not want to accept a
precedent for state intervention with their male
employees.42

Perhaps it was all for the good, as modern women
are presently trying to achieve equality by repealing
these limitation laws SO that they can compete on an
equal level with men in the job market. Be that as it
may, the case of women's labor reform graphically illus-

trates the danger of one class of people attempting to

314

speak for and define the needs of another class and then

endeavoring to legislate paternalistically for that class.

FOOTNOTES-~CHAPTER VIII

1Jane Addams, Twenty Years_at Hull House (New
York, 1910), pp. 201-02; Florence Kelley,i"Hull House,"
New Englend Ma azine XVIII (June, 1898), 560-62; Ritchie
v. People, 155 Ill1nois .98 (1895).

 

 

 

2Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency
(New York, 1912), pp. 558-63, 252; MulIer v. Oregon,
208 U.S. 412 (1908).

3Ibid., p. 252.

4S. P. Breckinridge,postcard, March 18, 1909,
Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library.

5Howard Wilson, MarnycDowell, Neighbor (Chicago,
1928), pp. 115-30; Olive Sullivan to Agnes Nestor,
September 26, 1919, Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical
Society Library; Margaret D. Robins to Agnes Nestor MSS.
January 5, 1907, Agnes Nestor, MSS. Chicago Historical
Society Library; Margaret D. Robins to Agnes Nestor,
March 20, 1907, Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical
Society Library; Record of Contributions, Women's Trade
Union League of Chicago, November 12, 1910, Anita Blaine
McCormick MSS. Wisconsin State Historical Society
Library.

6Julius Rosenwald to Ezara J. Warner, October 12,
1925, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

7Survey,XXIII (December 11, 1909), 513.

8Letter Head--The Women's Trade Union League of
Illinois, July 30, 1908, Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago
Historical Society Library.

315

316

9Agnes Nestor, Woman's Labor Leader (Rockford,
Illinois, 1954); Agnes Nestor's Diary, June 24, 1900--
September 23, 1900, Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical
Society Library; Elias Tobenkin, "The Immigrant Girl in
Chicago," Survey,XXIII (November 6, 1909), 189-93.

10Ibid.

11Mary E. McDowell, "The Girls' Bill--A Human
Proposition," Survey,XXII (July 3, 1909), 508-13.

12"The Eight-Hour Fight in Illinois," Leaflet #4
(1909) Women's Trade Union League of Chicago.

13McDowell, p. 512; Graham Taylor in the Daily
News, April 3, 1909, Graham Taylor MSS. Chicago Newberry
LiBrary.

14Ibid., p. 513.

15Eugene Staley, History of the Illinois State
Federation of Labor (Chicago, 1930), p. 272.

 

16McDowell, pp. 508-13.

17Illinois, Laws of 1909, p. 212.

 

18Survey,XXVI (July 29, 1911), 620-21; Margaret
D. Robins to Agnes Nestor, May 8, 1910, Agnes Nestor MSS.
Chicago Historical Society Library; Illinois Bureau of
Labor Statistics, Labor Legislation in the 46th General
Assembly of Illinois: 1909, pp. 1-2.

19Survey,xxv11 (December 11, 1909), 346.

20131-1131; Freund to Anita Blaine McCormick, January 26,
1910, Anita Blaine McCormick MSS. Wisconsin State
Historical Society Library.

21J. Goldmark, Part II, pp. 1-25; Survey,XXIII
(December 11, 1909), 344-45.

22§g£yey,XXV (November 6, 1909), 205-06.

317

23Survey,XXV (February 19, 1910), 758-59;
Beckner, p. 202.

24§2£!§y,XXV (April 30, 1910), 170-71.
25Survey,XXV (December 10, 1910), 331-32.
26Survey,XXV (December 3, 1910), 331.

27H. Reid to Agnes Nestor, February 12, 1912,
Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library;
H. Reid to Agnes Nestor, February 15, 1912, Agnes Nestor
MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library; American
Magazine article on Agnes Nestor, February, 1912, Agnes
Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library; Record
of expense account from the legislative committee of
the Women's Trade Union League of Illinois, 1911, Agnes
Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical Society Library; Staley,
p. 272.

28Agnes Nestor, Woman's Labor Leader, pp. 100-20.

29Florence Kelley to Julius Rosenwald, July 31,
1920, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

30Nestor, pp. 100-20.

31Survey,XXVIII (July 6, 1912), 490-492.

32Staley, p. 272; Expenses at Springfield for Week
of July 16 to 21, 1913, Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago
Historical Society Library.

33Nestor, pp. 137-38.

34lbid.

3SMr. Hershel H. Jones to Agnes Nestor, October 26,
1917, Agnes Nestor MSS. Chicago Historical Library.

36Illinois Industrial Survey Report (1918) p. 15.

37Ibid., pp. 103-06.

318

38Beckner, pp. 216-19.

39Illinois Joint Committee for the Women's Eight-
Hour Bill Pamphlet, 1922, Lea Taylor MSS. Chicago
Historical Society.

40Mary E. McDowell, "The Girls' Bill, A Human
Proposition," pp. 508-13.

41Illinois Department of Labor, The Labor Bulletin,

42Beckner, pp. 218-22.

CHAPTER IX

UNEMPLOYMENT: A PLAGUE

The maturing welfare system developed a series
of state and local programs in the years 1890-1932 to
aid the victims of downward swings in the economy. Like
the medieval plagues, these depressions visited the
industrial cities of the United States, including Chicago,
with terrifying frequency. In both Situations, the
causes and the cures of the affliction were unknown. All
that could be done was to take care of those that were
struck down. In the depression of 1932, Professor Edith
Abbott saw the role of the social worker to be Similar
to that of a physician during a great epidemic in that
they both cared for the men, women, and children who
needed assistance.1

The most serious casualties in a depression were
usually members of the working class. A substantial down
turn in the economy meant loss of jobs for many of them,
the fear of such a loss for many more, and reduced income

for others because of lowered wages, shorter hours, or

the sharing with relatives. In times of relative

319

320

prosperity the semi-skilled or unskilled laborer was
usually paid only enough to cover the daily necessities

of life; when he was unable to sell his labor in the market
place he had no reserve on which to fall back. It was

only a matter of time before he and his family were forced
below the subsistence level.2

The upper class executive and professional elite
were always very concerned over the adverse conditions
suffered by the working class during depression periods.
This anxiety, although no doubt stimulated in part by
humanitarianism, was also motivated by other considerations,
including a fear of possible violence as well as the
deterioration of the physical and psychological morale of
the lower class. This last factor was particularly
important to employers, who would need a healthy and
spirited labor pool when prOSperity returned.

For many in the executive and professional class,
repression was the answer to maintaining stability, while
ordinary charity was enough to care for the truly needy.

A minority, more attuned perhaps to the plight of the
unemployed and the possibilities of non-violent social
control, believed that more was needed. This progressive
upper class turned to the social workers and the welfare

system for an evaluation of working class unrest and for

programs to stabilize the Situation.

321

In the first chapter the earliest faltering
steps toward the formulation of unemployment relief
programs were described. Once the severity of the
depression began to subside in 1898 the issue of
unemployment was superseded in the minds of the reformers
by other more pressing social questions such as adequate

working-class housing.

--1907—-

 

The attention of the social workers, however,
was jarred back to the unemployment problem when the
numbers of jobless dramatically increased in the year
1907. The nationwide financial slump had begun in the
autumn of 1907 when depositors learned that several
New York City trust companies had failed in an exPensive
attempt to corner the copper market. Consequently, runs
developed not only on these banks but also on many others
that were more sound forcing many banks, including some
in Chicago, to close their doors. All of the nation's
banks began to call in loans to meet the demands of
depositors for their money, causing a bank panic. In
the end J. P. Morgan with Federal government aid was able
to save the day by supervising the pooling of the funds
of the leading Manhattan banks to support the institutions
under attack. This effort brought the panic to an end,

but not before it caused a temporary rise in the

322

unemployment rate as productive facilities expanded
beyond the country's immediate capacity to consume.3

In Chicago it was not long before the sensitive
listening device of the welfare system, the social settle-
ment, began to record more unemployment in the working-
class districts. Other indicators, such as the vast
increase in the numbers of unemployed men seeking lodging
in the corridors of police stations and in the Municipal
Lodging House also pointed to a tightening labor market.4

Through the Chamber of Commerce progressive
businessmen in Chicago took action to provide relief to
the unemployed in January 1908 by organizing a "Business
Men's Relief Committee." The Chairman of this Committee
was William V. Kelley, President of the American Steel
Foundries. Other men included Edward B. Butler, President
of the Butler Brothers (wholesalers); W. L. Brown, Presi-
dent of American Shipbuilding Company; Ernest A. Hamill,
President of the Corn Exchange National Bank; John A.
Spoor, President of the Chicago Junction Railway Company;
David R. Forgan, President of the National City Bank; and
Judge Julian W. Mack, a trusted advisor to Julius Rosenwald
on philanthropic matters.5 These men represented some of
the most successful businessmen in the city.

At its first meeting the Business Men's Relief
Committee set a fund raising goal of $100,000 which

appeared adequate to meet the relief needs of the city.

323

Of this figure, 35 per cent was to be distributed through
the Bureau of Charities, while 30 per cent was to go to
the Relief and Aid Society. The remainder would be given
to numerous small sectarian relief societies.6

Although men like Julius Rosenwald gave a generous
$1,000 contribution to the fund, only about $58,000, three
fifths of the projected goal, was actually raised.7
Graham Taylor thought the reason lay in the fact that
"the task of obtaining money for relief is . . . increas-
ingly difficult . . . as those who furnish charitable
funds have suffered severe losses. . . ."8 His state-
ment highlighted the main dilemma of private relief funds,
when they are needed most is the moment when they are the
hardest to raise as upper-middle class businessmen cut all
but the most necessary expenditures in the face of their
own relative economic adversity.

The $58,000 raised by the Committee was not
adequate to meet the needs of the unemployed, even by its
own conservative estimate.9 To make the Situation more
desperate, by 1908 even this meager succor was exhausted
in the face of continued high levels of unemployment. In
the month of March 1908, for example, an average of 1,000
men came each night to seek shelter at the Municipal
Lodging House. The total number of men taken care of at
the House that month was almost 15 times the number taken

care of in the same month of the previous year.10

324

The private agencies also experienced a sharp
increase in demands on their services. In the first ten
days of March 1908 the Bureau of Charities received
applications for aid from about 1,300 families, a figure
equal to the number for the whole month of March 1907.11
In the three-month period November 1907 to February 1908
the Relief and Aid Society granted aid to 2,544 families,

a figure equal to that for the entire twelve months from
November 1906 to November 1907. With the heavy demands

on their services, private relief agencies also quickly

ran out of funds, even though they were augmented by
emergency contributions from the businessmen's committee.12

The Businessmen's Relief Committee not only raised
funds and distributed them to established relief organi—
zations, but it also served as a central co-ordinator for
the relief activities of the city. It engaged in an
active campaign to suppress breadlines and soup kitchens
that had been organized by churches for conversion purposes
and by newspapers for publicity. This action was taken
in the belief that giving the working class something for
nothing led to their moral decay. Most of the city's
newspapers enthusiastically discouraged street begging and
cooperated with the campaign. A Special sub-committee Of
businessmen and relief workers continued the program of
closing down all relief sources except those under the

control of the main charity organizations in the city.13

325

This sub-committee, for example, induced the
Chicago Commissioner of Health to prevent the Salvation
Army's 5¢ lodging house from taking in more men than
they could accommodate with beds. This ruling limited
the house's effectiveness to 150 men each night. Before
the ruling the house had been accepting many more men if
they were willing to lie on the floors or sit in the loft.
For such lodging they were not charged a fee. If the men
involved had been asked, they would have probably told
the sub-committee that they were very satisfied to lie
on the floor in the warm lodging house rather than on a
cold winter sidewalk. The sub-committee, nevertheless,
strongly believed that the Salvation Army's Operation
was demoralizing because the men were not forced to work
in return for their lodging. At the urging of the same
Committee the police also closed their station houses to
the homeless after they were convinced that private
charity could do the job better.

Private charity proved unequal to the task of
providing adequate relief to those who were unemployed.
The Relief and Aid Society, for example, during the period
1907 to 1908 gave relief to the unemployed in return for
shoveling snow in the Winter and for cleaning streets in

the Spring.14

The homeless man was given lodging and
food at the Municipal Lodging House in return for this

work while the man with a dependent family was given a 15¢

326

an hour wage. The maximum allowed in a day was $1.35.
In the Spring, because of the small sum left for
distribution, the pay was cut to 5¢ an hour with a $1
the daily maximum, plus a free luncheon of hot coffee
and a sandwich in the gym of the Eli Bates Settlement
House. In addition, a man was limited to five days of
work. Even though the wages were below the average for
unskilled work in the private sector of the economy, the
program had many more applicants than it could employ.
The number of men employed by the program averaged around
30 to 40 men a day.15 Assuming that most of them worked
the full five days, that is one week, less than a thousand
received work relief out of the tens of thousands in need.
The Chicago Charity Organization began another
work relief project on June 6, 1907 in the twenty-second
ward where 320 men were employed to clean up vacant lots
in the area each day. The average number of days allowed
on the project was seven. While a man was given work
relief, a social worker attempted to get him a permanent
job. The search was not always successful. According
to one of the people involved with the program, "At the
expiration of this period their pleadings for a longer
chance are most pathetic."16
Although relief payments were inadequate, the
sub-committee was successful in centralizing relief

Operations in the hands of the major welfare organizations

327

such as the Chicago Charity Organization, and the Relief
and Aid Society. In the eyes of social workers and
progressive businessmen this centralization was necessary
in order to control the dispensing of relief and thus to
implement their concept of scientific charity.l7 They
desired to grant funds through work relief programs only
to the truly needy in such a way as to safeguard the
unemployed workers' morale. The determination of "need"
was made only after an exhaustive study. SO as not to
attract the unemployed to the city and to give case

workers a chance to find the truly needy,18

publicity
concerning relief funds was to be kept to a minimum.
Although these projects give some insight into
the philosophy behind distribution, the question still
remains as to why businessmen felt impelled to organize
the Business Men's Relief Committee in the first place.
Although humanitarianism played a part, they were also
motivated by their desire to preserve stability in the
immigrant working—class districts of the city. Whether
or not there was any serious unrest in these districts
due to unemployment is open to serious question. What
is not Open to question is the fact that the middle and
upper-middle class believed that there was unrest. This
anxiety is well illustrated by the Averbach Affair.

Jerevich Averbach was a young Jewish unemployed

workingman who was shot and killed by the Chicago Chief

328

of Police in the hallway of his residence in early March
1908. Chief John Shippy, whose officers had the slogan

"Drive Anarchy From Chicago!,' seized the young man when
he knocked on the officer's door. As the boy struggled
to release himself, the police chief drew his revolver
and instantly killed him. Liberals in the city suspected
that Shippy could have arrested Averbach peacefully with
the aid of three members of his family and the police
chauffeur, all of whom were on the scene.19

Graham Taylor, Jane Addams, and other reformers
discovered upon investigation that the youth had been
living with his Sister, a hard-working seamstress. They
were poor Russian Orthodox Jews who had fled the bloody
pogrom at Kishinev three years before. Both the sister
and the boy's former employer stated that the young man
was industrious, quiet, and of high moral character.
Although it was true that Jerevich had gone on at least
one occasion to a meeting of a local radical group, there
was no evidence that he was an advocate of violence. Most
of the boy's friends thought that he had most likely gone
to the police official to obtain a permit to seek employ-
ment in another city, as he would have been required to
do in Russia.20

Whether or not the boy was guilty of attempted
murder is not as important to us today as the reaction

it touched Off among many middle and upper-middle class

329

persons who believed that this was an attempt to take the
life of the chief of police by a far-reaching conspiracy
of anarchists bent on killing prominent city leaders.21

With the support of a number of Chicago newspapers
the police conducted raids into the immigrant sections of
the city. They ransacked all the printing offices in the
foreign Jewish colony and searched the homes of individuals
for photos and papers of alleged revolutionaries. They
even went so far as to raid and destroy a restaurant in
the Jewish section for the offense of giving food at cost
to the unemployed. The police not only arrested friends
of Averbach but also his sister, Olga. Subjected to
what police called the "third degree" or "sweating," She
was intensively questioned for long periods of time without
food or water. As part of a psychological attempt to
break her down and get her to confess a conspiracy, the
police forced her to view her brother's body for a long
period of time.22 Olga never confessed, perhaps because
She knew of no conspiracy.

Although they found no evidence of any kind in
their raids, the police continued to assert their
conSpiracy theory. Certain Chicago newspapers, which were
hostile to progressive reform and thought violent repression
to be the answer to all social problems, played up these
theories of conspiracy. They began their articles with

scare headlines on the dangers the city faced from

330

anarchists. One headline read "Anarchist Plot to Kill

City Officials Failed."23 The Inter Ocean went so far as

 

to link the settlement movement with the plot in a sub-
headline which read "Institutions Where Meetings of
Revolutionists Are Held and Sectarian Theories Are Thought
To Be Examined."24
Most progressive businessmen thought that this

attack on the settlement movement had gone too far. The

Chicago Daily News, published by Victor Lawson who was

 

extremely sympathetic to the aims of the social reformers,
launched an editorial counter-attack representing the
views of the progressive upper class:

Because settlement residents living in the midst
of the Italian, Russian, and Jewish peOple naturally
inquire of their neighbors concerning their knowledge
and attitude toward the issues raised by these
tragedies, and because the interpretation of these
neighbors did not coincide with the suspicion against
them entertained by the police and in other circles,
the settlement interpreters were immediately charged
with being in sympathy with the crime and even an
accessory to it. Were not these the better citizens
who claimed what they knew to be the fact, that the
suspected races in loyalty to law disavowed all
sympathy with the deeds of violence, that there was
no evidence of conspiracy and that there is less
dangerous radicalism in Chicago now than there has
been for many years.2

In a letter to the editor of the Chicago Evening_Post a
man who Signed himself B. F. perhaps summed up best the
true role of settlements when he wrote that they were a
"force for stability in times of panic."26

The Averbach incident illustrates the generally

fearful climate of the possibilities of working-class

331

unrest that ran through the middle class. All that was
needed to translate this terror into support for violent
repression of the working class was the death of an
unemployed Jewish immigrant in an alleged attempt on the
life of the police chief.

Progressive elements of the executive and profes-
sional elite seem to have accepted Jane Addams' version
of the incident as evidenced by their continued support
of the settlement movement and the soical welfare system
in general. They nevertheless shared the rest of their
class' fear of unrest. Graham Taylor, in attempting to
raise funds for relief, repeatedly played on this anxiety
when he warned them of possible unrest if aid was not

27 In a way, it was a symbiotic relationship with

given.
progressive businessmen desiring to give aid as a means
to control the working class through amelioration rather
than repression. The social workers, motivated by a more
humanitarian concern, used their desire to obtain money
for relief.

Thus, the Averbach incident demonstrated the pro-
gressive businessman's and professional's commitment to
amelioration instead of repression as means to achieve
stability. Although the police used repression while
the settlements used amelioration, they both had the

same goal of stability. When the repressive agents began

to attack the social settlement they perhaps unwittingly

332

began to step on the toes of some very powerful people in
the city who were committed to an ameliorative approach.

As an editorial in the Chicego Evening Post stated:

 

With respect to the newspaper attack, that
may be discounted because of its source. Jenkin
Lloyd Jones and Lincoln Center, Graham Taylor,
Hull House, the settlements of Chicago need no
defense in this community. But when the chief of
police declares that settlements are first cousins
to the anarchists, it is time that the official
intelligence be brought to the realization of the
nature of our institutions for social amelioration,
their functions, their rights, and the places they
hold in respect of the intelligent class of the
community.28

The police backed off and the settlements and more
generally the social welfare system continued to develop
techniques of social control of the working class by the
upper class through a maximum of amelioration and a minimum

of repression.

--1913--

 

When relative prosperity returned, the social
reformers again shifted their attention to other pressing
problems. It was not until 1913 when a sharp rise in
unemployment again forced the progressives to focus their
attention on the unemployment question. The first indicator
of the coming storm of distress was the usually accurate
barometer of unemployment, the Municipal Lodging House.

In relatively prOSperous times the lodging house provided
300 to 500 men a night with a place to sleep. This figure

usually tended to increase somewhat in the early winter

333

when casual and seasonal workers were less likely to find
jobs. Even granting this seasonal increase, the winter
of 1913-1914 saw an exceptional rise in unemployment as
indicated by the fact that 1,800 to 2,000 men were seeking
Shelter each night at the lodging house.29
When the 1914 war interrupted the export trade,
the unemployment rate continued to rise. United Charities
estimated that in Chicago over 100,000 men were idle and
$17,000,000 was lost in wages in the two years, 1914 and
1915. The same charity organization also reported that it

had found in 1915 "a volume of want greater than had come

to any other single charity of its kind in the United States
30

in a single year,‘ over 22,105 families.
The response of progressive businessmen and social
workers to the unemployment problem of 1914-1915 was not
only Shaped by their experience in 1907-1908, but also by
some planning done in 1912. At the suggestion of the
business dominated Executive Committee, General Superin-
tendent Eugene T. Lies of the United Charities had sent a
letter to the City Council of Chicago and the Mayor in
January 1912 urging them to authorize a commission to study
and report on the effects of unemployment. The request
was prompted by the lingering effects of the economic
slump of 1907-1908.31

The City Council answered favorably by setting up

a committee to investigate unemployment and to make

334

recommendations for the amelioration of the problem.

It directed the Committee be made up of five members
from itself and ten others including prominent business-
men and social workers.

At its first meeting on February 1912 the Committee
decided to consider seven subjects: the nature and extent
of unemployment, employment bureaus, immigration, vocational
guidance, adjustment of employment, emergency relief, and
the repression of vagabondage. In order to study each of
these subjects with care, the Committee appointed a series
of sub-committees made up of Specialists. After careful
research the sub-committees were to report back to the
full Committee which would then make recommendations to
the Mayor and the City Council.32

The first recommendation of the entire Committee
was made in May, 1912. It unanimously supported a
reorganization of the free state employment bureaus in
order to make them more efficient and more available to

those that needed to use them.33

With the support of the
Council its report went to Governor John Dunne who set up
the Illinois State Commission on Unemployment composed

of employers including Oscar G. Mayer, employees such as
John Fitzpatrick of the Chicago Federation of Labor, and
social workers Mrs. Raymond Robins and Graham Taylor.34

In Spite of an inadequate $5,000 appropriation its work was

useful in that it did recommend a general overhaul of the

335

state's free employment bureaus. AS a result more branch
offices would be also added in the working class districts
of the city and lists of state-wide and local job Openings
would be kept in each office. These policies were imple-
mented by the state legislature with the support of social
workers, progressive businessmen, and organized labor.
A later recommendation for a state employee-employer
financed unemployment insurance program was not accepted
but it touched off a heated debate which gave wide public
exposure to the philosophy behind unemployment insurance.35
The City Committee, after making a plea for state
employment bureau reform in 1912, became largely inactive.
Its importance lay in the precedent it set of public and
private cooperation in the area of unemployment. Thus,
when unemployment became a pressing problem in the winter
of 1914-1915 the City Council established a reconstituted
City Commission with Charles Henderson, a professor of
Sociology at the University of Chicago, as its chairman.
After a few meetings the new commission set out its plan
to meet the unemployment crisis. It asked all private
employers to hire as many men as possible because "such
measures will mean the conserving of efficiency and
physical well being of the employee for a time of return
prosperity." One way this could be accomplished was by a
part-time Sharing of the work system. In addition, new

jobs could be created if businessmen would begin now the

336

work they had planned for the future. The Committee
persuaded the Pennsylvania Railroad, for example, to
begin construction of its freight and passenger terminals
in Chicago, at a cost of $65,000 and with a labor force
of 12,000 men. The railroad was willing to undertake
the work ahead of schedule in part because it could take
advantage of the lower wage rates in this depression
period.36

The City Commission asked the city to enlarge the
capacity of the Municipal Lodging House and hire a profes-
sionally trained job counselor for the employment depart-

ment there.37

Both of these prOposals were accepted and
implemented by the City Council.

The Commission also agreed that women who were
householders Should be urged to hire the unemployed for
menial jobs around their homes such as white-washing the
fence and painting the house, inside and out.38 The
Commission, however, found itself split on whether or not
a businessmen's committee should be formed to raise a
central fund of $500,000 for relief. After a vigorous
debate a majority decided not to set up such a committee,
reasoning that such a fund would not only lead to a con-
gestion of applicants attracted by the publicity concerning
the raising of the money, but would also lead to undis-

criminating treatment. On the same grounds they decided

to urge the City Council not to appropriate relief funds

337

either.39

Instead, the Commission chose to encourage
existing public and private agencies to strengthen their
machinery to deal with relief giving. It concluded that
these private agencies had the necessary experience and
philosophy to administer work relief programs without
destroying the morale of the worker or his will to labor
in the capitalistic market place.40
The Commission finally recommended that it should
be made "a definite duty of a public body to make an
honest attempt to provide employment on a very large scale

"41 In effect

to prevent unemployment in the future.
this government body was to become the employer of a

last resort. A combination of public, private unemployment
insurance plan was also to be part of the program. The
commissioners, including the business representatives such
as R. T. Crane and Julius Rosenwald also held that a
combination of public and private unemployment insurance
plan Should be part of the program, reasoning that
government-made work and unemployment insurance was
necessary because the old method of "passing the hat was

42 Private charity alone could not

not good business."
prevent unemployment, nor could it fairly distribute the
relief funds unless it did so in good economic times
through an unemployment insurance program.43 In its

efforts to plan for an unemployment crisis in the future

the Mayor's Commission made Significant progress over

338

earlier efforts to deal with this situation. After
receiving his commissioner's report, Mayor Carter H.
Harrison agreed with all its recommendations except that
the city expand its "public works" as a means to supply
unemployment relief. The Mayor pointed to the stark fact
that the city had no money for such projects. On the
other hand, he did approve of unemployment insurance and
recommended it to the state legislature which took no
action. As a result of the lack of appropriations on the
local level, more advanced progressives such as C. R.
Henderson now believed that the next logical place to
look for aid was at the state, and then if necessary at
the Federal level.44

The city of Chicago did, however, act in one area
of concern during the depression of 1914-1915. With the
support of most of Chicago's social workers, Alderman
and Professor Charles E. Merriam of the University of
Chicago petitioned the City Council to set up a public
welfare department in 1915. Conceived of as an unemploy-
ment measure and as a general welfare bill, the City Council
passed it quickly and with little opposition. With an
initial appropriation of over $30,000,45 the new depart—
ment organized bureaus. The first would Operate the
municipal lodging house and collect information on working

conditions and relief measures of the unemployed; the

second would conduct social surveys covering such areas

339

as living conditions in the city, facilities for recreation,
the causes of vagrancy, crime, and poverty. It would
conduct its surveys with an eye to providing the neces-
sary data for social welfare ordinances.46

During the terms of Mayor Harrison the department
conducted some very Significant social surveys, but under
his successor it became little more than a political
patronage plum, accomplishing next to nothing until 1923
when reform Mayor Dever appointed the settlement worker
Mary McDowell as commissioner of public welfare. Under
Mary McDowell the department became the central bureau
co-ordinating and complementing the work of all the relief
agencies in the city. It also conducted some important
surveys in the areas of housing, employment, and the

47 which resulted

increasing Negro immigration from the South
in the construction of model tenements for Blacks by Julius
Rosenwald.

The progressive elements of the executive and
professional elite were interested in the amelioration of
the unemployment problem for a variety of reasons in the
years 1914-1915. Even hard-headed businessmen came to the
conclusion, according to Charles R. Henderson, that
passing the hat was not a satisfactory method of collecting
money for relief because it was inadequate to "relieve the
suffering and evils caused by unemployment in all its

forms."48

340

One such evil was the unrest which the upper class
thought it perceived among the unskilled laborers who
were most grievously affected by the plague of employment.
The violence connected with the organization of a group
of unemployed men who called themselves the Brotherhood
of the Unemployed was a prime contributor to this fear.
Each Sunday afternoon during the winter of 1914-1915 it
met in one of the large halls at Hull House. Its demand
for relief payments in return for city jobs was moderate,
considering that it was identical with one of the recom-
mendations of the Mayor's Unemployment Commission.49 In
addition, the fact that the group was allowed to meet
at Hull House is persuasive testimony to its essentially
temperate nature.

Trouble began, according to Survey magazine, on
January 17, 1915 when more people wished to attend the
Sunday meeting of the Brotherhood of the Unemployed than
could be squeezed into the hall. Many persons were forced
to stand outside. As the meeting came to an end one
Speaker suggested that the large number of people inside
and outside the hall be organized into a street demon-
stration to dramatize the plight of the unemployed. When
lines began to form, disguised detectives who were spying
on the meeting Showed their stars and demanded to see a
police permit allowing them to march. Because the pro—

testers had no permit, the officers ordered the marchers

341

to immediately disperse, and at the same time called for
police reserves. As it became evident that the demon-
strators were continuing to march up the street, the plain-
clothed officers, without waiting for the police reserves,
attempted to stOp the peaceful but illegal parade by
seizing the banners, especially the black banner bearing
the word "Hunger." Fights broke out as some of the
unemployed men put up fierce resistance.50
Upon the arrival of police reserves, the crowd
quickly dispersed with no further organized resistance
to police authority. DeSpite this fact, the police clubbed
the fleeing men and arrested scores of others on charges
ranging from resisting officers to engaging in rioting.
Apparently most of the arrested men were not among those
who originally fought with the plain-clothed police.51
Friends summoned Miss Jane Addams from a public
meeting and told her about the incident. She immediately
began to collect funds from businessmen sympathetic to
the welfare movement in order to meet the bail of those
arrested. Believing that the meeting was orderly and a
useful outlet for the frustration of the unemployed, they
thought that disorder in the streets after adjournment was
due to the "tactless and violent action of the officers
without uniform, rather than the impulsive desire to make
a public demonstration of their needs upon the part of

the unemployed."52

342

Less sympathetic businessmen, who were prone to
answer any unrest with repression, and their newspapers
saw "the bloody riot at Hull House" as part of a plot to
overthrow the government and establish anarchy.53 Many

of the city newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune,

 

blew the incident out of all proportion. This reaction
on their behalf was no doubt due in part to their desire
to increase circulation to a frightened but curious middle
and upper-middle class. The newspapers, thus, played on
and increased the fear Of those classes concerning worker
unrest. Their praise of the police action must indicate
their approval of the idea that the correct response to
unrest is repression.

Even though the progressive businessman and his
ally, the social worker, did not interpret the incident
at Hull House as an anarchist plot to overthrow the
government, as evidenced by their support of Jane Addams,
they too worried about unrest among the working class.
Many believed that, if this dangerous situation was not
dealt with by amelioration, it had the potential to burst
forth into a major crisis of class conflict.54

How far progressive businessmen were willing to
move to control unrest through ameliorative action is
unclear in the period of 1914-1915. Some at least were

willing to call for state and federal aid to meet the

unemployment situation, including public work relief and

343

an unemployment insurance system.55 All efforts to mobilize

support for such programs were cut short by the return of
relative prosperity in 1916 because, once the crisis of

unemployment began to fade, it was easy to fall back into
old habits of thought. Graham Taylor, in various Speeches

and articles in the Daily News, tried unsuccessfully to

 

stem the tide of indifference. In one Speech, for example,
he declared that it was an opportune moment to

. . . pause and consider in ample time what would

be prOper and fitting to prevent a repetition of

the distress among the working classes of the

winter of 1914-15. DO not let us wait until con-

ditions of distress and danger are again upon us,

but let us now prepare for another condition of

general unemployment.56

Despite this forceful appeal by Graham Taylor,

interest continued to shift toward international affairs.
By February 17, 1917 the Survey magazine was bemoaning
the fact that "most communities are strangely oblivious
to the after-effects of the plague of unemployment." In
Chicago, for example, there was a sharp increase of acute
and chronic illness in 1916 that could be traced to under-
nourishment and exposure due to unemployment in the winter
of 1914-1915. There was, in addition, a backlog of
families that were deserted in the depression by an
unemployed father and still had to be cared for in 1917.
The same Situation was apparent in the area of intemperance.

A man became a drunk due to the pressure of unemployment

and remained a drunk in the relatively prosperous year of

344

1917. In light of such facts the Survey article suggested
that if a businessman wanted a healthy stable working
class in times of prosperity, society would have to pro-
vide "economic shock-absorbers" in times of depression.
The time to act was now, in time of prosperity.57
Nobody seemed to be listening as they were absorbed in

war news, wartime jobs, prohibition, baseball, politics,

crime, scandal, and vice.

--1921--

 

Social workers and progressive businessmen did not
again give serious thought to the problem of unemployment
until after World War I. In the period 1921-1923 the
United States experienced a short economic down turn as
well as a residual fear on the part of the middle and
upper-middle classes of unrest growing out of the earlier
Red Scare.58

The fear of unrest was fed in 1919 by a high
incident of strikes by workmen not only in Chicago but
also in the country as a whole. In a letter dated May 28,
1919 Graham Taylor pointed out to Mrs. Stanley McCormick
that "never in all the twenty-five years I have been here
have I been called upon so often by influential groups of
employers and professional men to tell them how the trade
winds are blowing, where the industrial rank and file dwell

and take counsel together."

345

The anxiety of the upper class was strengthened
as tension increased between Blacks who had been attracted
to Chicago's war-time industries and the returning drafties
who wanted the jobs. Periodic violence between these
groups finally climaxed in the Chicago Race Riot of 1919.59

In the after glare of the Riot of 1919 ministers,
club women, social agencies, as well as progressive
businessmen and professionals formed a committee that
would make sure that unemployed Blacks were fed and
sheltered. This effort was necessary because many of the
established private agencies and public agencies were
either unable or unwilling to give aid to these unemployed
Blacks without jeopardizing their relations with the ethnic
groups which they mainly served. This was especially true
in the aftermath of the race riot which had pitted the white
and Black lower classes against each other.60 Although
unemployment hit the Blacks first in 1919, it was not
limited to them for it spread to the working class as
a whole between 1921-1923.61

On the national level President Harding set up
the President's Conference on Unemployment in 1921 to
organize various committees to study and make recommen-
dations concerning the unemployment situation. The
Committee on Civic and Emergency Work, which became a

clearing house on local activities, was the most active

of them all. Part of its function was to put pressure

346

on local mayors to take the lead in calling, organizing,
and guiding local committees to deal with unemployment,
especially emergency relief.62
In Chicago, Mayor "Big Bill" Thompson, one of
the city's more corrupt mayors, did all he could to
prevent the formation of a local city sponsored unemploy-
ment commission. He publicly stated that it was his
belief that a political controversy between two local
newspapers, one that supported him and one that Opposed
him, would wreck the possibility of any real accomplish-
ment for the commission. Some social reformers charged
that the real reasOn was that Thompson was punishing them
for having tried to defeat him in the last election.63
President Harding's Secretary of Commerce, Herbert
Hoover, became exceedingly upset with fellow Republican
Thompson for his seeming unconcern with the plight of the
unemployed and his willingness to play politics with human
suffering. After a verbal battle with Hoover which was
fully reported in Chicago's newspapers, Thompson made a
gesture of peace by appointing a sixty-eight-member
Mayor's Commission in 1923. With his own henchmen com-
posing a majority, the Commission was predictably
ineffectual, recommending study rather than appropriations.
By that time employment was rising and the Mayor, like

Secretary Hoover, turned to other matters.64

347

On the private level the Chicago Council of
Social Agencies, a co-ordinating organization of the
local charities, set up three months before the Mayor's
Commission a voluntary unemployment conference.65 It was
financed largely by the Industrial Club of the Chicago
as well as businessmen: Phillip Armour, G. F. Swift,
Charles R. Stevens, and Edward L. Ryerson. Representatives
of the Association of Commerce, Chicago Federation of
Labor, The Women's Club, The Illinois Department of
Health, and the Illinois Free Employment Service were

66 Because of the interest

all members of the conference.
on the part of businessmen, it was able to secure a
donation from the Commercial Club to staff an emergency
department in the Illinois Free Employment Bureau to
actively go out to find jobs for the unemployed. That
department was particularly successful in finding employ-
ment for the returned veteran.67 The conference also gained
an appropriation of $18,000 from the City Council to
establish a successful central clearing bureau for homeless

68 In response to its

men in the municipal lodging house.
appeal for public support, the Women's City Club sent out
volunteers to locate odd jobs for the unemployed needy.
The newspapers also promised the conference to suppress
publicity on relief needs and emergency measures to meet

them so as to avoid an influx of non-Chicagoans into the

city to claim benefits, and to give case workers time

348

to go out into the neighborhoods and find the truly
needy.69

In comparison with earlier attempts to deal with
unemployment, the period 1920-1922 produced little fresh
thinking. Part of this sterility was due no doubt to the
fact that this economic slump and the resulting unemploy-
ment was not as severe or as protracted as the earlier
depressions of 1907 and 1913. Another part of the answer,
however, lies in the fact that when the call came for
funds in 1921-1922, many businessmen added to their usual
reluctance to give in a time of personal adversity, an
opposition to the welfare system as a promoter of the
kind of unrest that characterized the Bolshsevik threat
of the Red Scare.7O Graham Taylor, in a letter to S. J.
Duncan Clark in 1921, complained that it was "increasingly
difficult to hold some of the most fundamental work
steady. . . ." This was due, according to Taylor, mainly
to the shrinkage in the number of donors and in the size
of contributions in general. He went on to say that "the
widely prevalent unrest is aggravated by increasing
unemployment (and) the sudden reduction in the standard of
their income." This fact made the welfare system "never
more important than now, . . . absolutely necessary to

71 Taylor unhappily summed

public security and progress."
up the Situation as:

A transition period--when little progress
seems likely for a little while at least, to be

349

dead-locked in its struggle with dangerous reaction,

such centers of understanding, information, and

interpretation, are needed more than ever to stand

between the racial, and factional lines that other-

wise may make a serious cleavage in the bonds of

good fellowship which had held us together so

marvelously during the war.72

In effect Graham Taylor in this article and others

written at the same time was admonishing his business and
professional supporters with the threat that if they did
not increase their support of the ameliorative approach
they might well find themselves face to face with a pro-
letariate, driven to the point of desperation, demanding

a radical shift in society.73

The ultimate questions
again did not have to be answered, and general prosperity
began to return by late 1922 and early 1923. The upper
class fear of the working class began to moderate.

During the later 1920's the social welfare system
did not make spectacular gains by adding new programs,
but it did continue to expand projects under way. The
Mother's Pension Program and Public Relief Programs, and
the attack on juvenile delinquency, for example, were

expanded in the 1920's. "Employers,' recorded Graham
Taylor in 1925, "formerly forward facing who leaned over
backward for a while recovered their poise and faced about
again." Thus, the local welfare system remained intact

to deal with the problem of unemployment when it emerged

in late 1929 and early 1930.74

350

--l929--

 

Although the era of prosperity came to a spectacu-
lar end in the Fall of 1929 with the stock market crash,
the long range effects, especially in the area of unemploy-
ment, were not immediately recognized. As early as 1928
settlement houses were reporting higher levels of unemploy-
ment in their neighborhoods as greater demands were placed
on their services.75 Despite these warnings, many members
of the social welfare system could not believe that there
was anything amiss. In 1929, for example, relief expendi-
tures of the major public and private relief agencies in
Chicago increased by only 4.1 per cent over 1928. This
figure represented a 2.5 per cent increase in the expendi-
tures of the Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare and a
7.9 per cent increase in the expenditures of the private

76 Although most

charities such as the United Charities.
of this increase occurred in the few weeks after the Crash,
public and private agencies only spent slightly more in
1929 than in 1928 for relief.

In the year 1930, however, most social workers
could no longer deny the fact that the unemployment rate
was rising at an alarming rate. The settlement house,
that sensitive barometer of the needs of the working class,
was beginning to forecast storm warnings. Mollie Ray

Carroll, a worker at the University of Chicago Settle-

ment House, recorded the scene there:

351

It is eight o'clock in the evening and we
have interviewed the last of the line of people
waiting for clothing, waiting for legal advice,
waiting in the vain hope we can find them a job,
and waiting for relief because they are out of
coal and food, with credit gone and rent in
areas. . . . Unemployment is straining every
resource of the house.77

With the rise in unemployment Graham Taylor and
the other social workers began through Speeches and
articles to try to mobilize support to meet the needs of
the unemployed.78 They were aided in bringing both the
plight of the unemployed and their potential threat to
stability to the attention of the business and professional
class when in March through June 1930 there were a series
of meetings and marches in the city by the men out of
work. When the police broke up the meetings with force,
the resulting violence made the front pages of the city's

79
newspapers.

The social welfare system, with the support of
the progressive elements of the upper class, swung into
action when Governor Louis F. Emerson, a rather conservative
Republican, appointed a Commission on Unemployment and
Relief. The Commission was made up of six members
recommended by the Association of Commerce, another six
by the Council of Social Agencies, two by the Mayor of
the City of Chicago. An additional nine members were
appointed by the Governor to represent the public at

large.80

352

The Governor's Unemployment Commission raised
and spent between October 1, 1930 and March 31, 1931 over
$1,100,000 through public appeals. Most of the money
was channeled through local private agencies which had
been endorsed by the various Chamber of Commerces. This
decision had the effect of centralizing relief programs
and putting them under the control of the business elite
rather than under that of precinct captains and the
political machine. Part of the money, for example, was
earmarked in September 1930 for a fund that would be
operated by Chicago United Charities in cooperation with
the Illinois Free Employment Bureau to pay unemployed men
to do publicly beneficial work in the city.81 Despite
the fact that in 1930 the Cook County Bureau of Public
Welfare increased its relief expenditures by $1,750,176
or 71.5 per cent over 1929, the private fund under the
vast numbers of the unemployed was exhausted in August
1931.

To meet the mounting crisis Emmerson re-organized
his Commission in the Fall of 1931 by setting up a
separate organization, The Joint Emergency Relief Fund
of Cook County, to deal with unemployment there. Directed
largely by businessmen and professionals, it raised mostly
through large private subscriptions over $10,000,000 for
relief programs in the city. Although the Cook County

Bureau of Public Welfare raised an additional $2,000,000

353

during the Winter of 1931-1932, the combined expenditure
of $12,000,000 proved to be insufficient to meet the
needs of the rapidly increasing numbers of unemployed in
Chicago.82
Private relief agencies increased their relief
load in 1931 by more than seven hundred per cent over
1928 to meet the relief needs of the unemployed. The
private charity agencies did a credible job in meeting
the crisis, considering the capital they had to invest.
United Charities, for instance, maintained a stable
relatively high rate of relief per family from 1928-1931
despite the soaring number of cases, 968 per month in
1928 to 13,500 per month in 1931. Considering the fall
in prices, $52 a month may actually represent an improve-
ment in the living conditions of those on relief. The
Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare, on the other hand,
maintained a low but Sharply rising rate of relief per
family, from $7.28 in 1928 to $8.57 in 1931. This was a
difficult task to accomplish because the case load
increased from 4,658 to 23,450 per month in the same
period.83
Given the rate of dispensation for public and
private relief agencies, it is not surprising that the
entire fund was exhausted by February 1932. Anticipating

this situation, representatives of businessmen, social

workers, and public officials had demanded as early as

354

December 1931 that the state appropriate public funds to
meet the crisis. Because downstate representatives did
not want to assume responsibility for Cook County's
unemployed,84 no action was taken by the state legislature
until private funds actually ran out on February 1, 1931.
The state legislature finally acted under severe pressure
from Chicago's politicans, businessmen, social reformers,
and labor unions as the doors of the city relief agencies
began to close on the estimated 100,000 destitute families
in Chicago. A compromise proposal was agreed upon by
which Chicago and Cook County would take care of their own
but the funds to finance the program would be raised
through the credit of the entire state.85
The plan as adopted by the state legislature called
for the immediate raising of a fund of $20,000,000 by the
sale to the public of anticipation notes on a state-wide
ad valorem tax of $25,000,000. This tax was not to be
levied if a state bond issue of $20,000,000 was authorized
by the voters at the general election in November 1932.
The principle and interest on the notes was to be paid
over a period of years from the county's share of the
state motor fuel tax.86 In November the voters, both down-
state and in Cook County, voted for the bond issue by

wide margins. The bonds sold well and a total of

$18,750,000 for relief was raised. This relief became

355

available February 7, 1932 but was exhausted on August 1,
1932.87

In the Winter of 1932-1933 it has been estimated
that over 175,000 families in Chicago received relief
from the major relief-giving agencies in the city. The
need was even greater with over 850,000 men without jobs
and countless numbers under-employed.88 With such needs
the state's public and private agencies were at the end
of the line. First private capital then public capital
was exhausted with the needs of the unemployed still
growing, not diminishing.

Luckily for the unemployed in Illinois the
Federal government began in August 1932 to make available
funds totaling $25,238,228 for relief through the Recon-
struction Finance Corporations. Upon the receipt of the
first allotment of federal money the Governor designated
the Illinois Emergency Relief Commission as his agent for
handling the grants. There was no change in policy or
procedure. The only significant change was that the
Federal government was providing the capital in increasing
proportions to operate the relief program.89 The philoso-
phy and operating procedures of the welfare system in
relation to relief was developed to meet the needs of

businessmen and the needs of the unemployed as interpreted

by the social workers on the local level before federal

(I'll!-
1.!
1 1| '

356

intervention. By the time federal aid arrived in August
1932 the mold had been set for the welfare state.

In the eyes of those primarily inspired by
humanism, private relief was at least partially success-
ful because it ameliorated some of the worst aspects of
unemployment for the destitute. For those who were also
motivated by the practical concerns of order, private
relief seemed to have prevented serious bread riots and
forestalled a demoralization Of the working class. On
the other hand, few supporters of these programs claimed
that the grants were adequate to tide a worker over the
period of temporary unemployment with a relatively decent
standard of living. The fact remained that there was
never enough money to go around. The social reformer was
faced with the dilemma that, when the times were bad,
the wealthy became very close with their money, while in
good times they lost interest in the problem. The only
private solution was an insurance program, but it too
ran into trouble because it had to be set up in prosperous
times to be effective. However, at these times potential
support was hard to mobilize. The only other solution
lay in public credit being mobilized for relief. In a
prolonged depression with high levels of unemployment only
the Federal government had the necessary resources. Thus,
in 1932-1933 relief was nationalized by Herbert Hoover

and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Along with this centralization,

357

many other welfare programs also became a function of the
Federal government as local governments failed to support

them during the final crisis.

FOOTNOTES--CHAPTER IX

lEdith Abbott Speech, 1932, Edith Abbott mss.
University of Chicago Library.

2Paul H. Douglas, Real Wages in the United States,

1890-1926 (1930). pp. $81-900.

 

3George E. Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt
(1958), pp. 216-20.

4Leo Hannah Feder, Unemployment Relief in Periods
of Depression (New York, 1936), p. 166.

5William M. Kelly to Julius Rosenwald, May 18,
1908, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

6Feder, pp. 195-96.

7Executive Committee to Julius Rosenwald, May 12,
1908, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

8Graham Taylor in Daily News, September 26, 1908,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

9Exeuctive Committee to Julius Rosenwald, May 12,
1908, Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

10W. M. Kelly to Julius Rosenwald, May 18, 1908,
Julius Rosenwald MSS. University of Chicago Library.

11"chica90'5 Relief Problem:
1908) 6-7.

Charity,XX (April 4,

358

359
12Ibid.

13Feder, Unemployment Relief, pp. 209-17.

 

14Ibid.

158. Rosing, "Chicago's Unemployed Help Clean the
City," Charity XXI (March 1908), 47-51.

16Ibid.

17Feder, Unemployment Relief, pp. 209-17.

 

18District Report Chicago Bureau of Charities,
December 13, 1909, Chicago Bureau of Charities MSS.
University of Chicago Library.

19Graham Taylor, Pioneering on Social Frontiers
(Chicago, 1930), pp. 205-06.

 

2°Ibid.

21Ibid., pp. 206—07.

22Jane Addams, "Chicago Settlements and Social
Unrest and the Averbach Affair," Charity,XX (May 2, 1908),
158-66.

23Inter Ocean, March 3, 1908, p. 1.

 

24lbid.

25Taylor, Pioneerieg, pp. 207-08.

 

26Chicago Evening Post, May 29, 1908, Jane Addams
MSS. University of Illinois at Chicago Circle.

 

27Graham Taylor in the Daily News, October 3, 1908,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

28Taylor, Pioneering, p. 208.

 

360

29"Special Measures for Chicago's Unemployed,"
Survey,XXXI (January 17, 1914), 457.

30United Charities Annual Report 1914-1915,
United Charities MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

31C. R. Henderson, "How Chicago Met the Unemploy-
ment Problem of 1915," American Journal of Sociology,XX

32Graham Taylor in the Daily News, March 15, 1914,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

33Henderson, pp. 722-25.

34Ibid., pp. 725-30.

35Members of the Committee on Unemployment,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; SurvekaXXV
(November 27, 1915), 198.

36Survey,XXXIV (May 15, 1915), 149—50.

37"Chicago Plan for Meeting Unemployment and
Destitution," Survey,XXXIII (May 28, 1914), 217-18.

I

38Survey,XXXI (January 17, 1914), 457.

39Feder, Unemployment Relief, p. 285.

 

4oHenderson, pp. 722-24.

415urvem,xxx111 (November 28, 1914). 217-18.

42Henderson, pp. 722—24; Survey}XXXII (August 8,
1914), 489-90.

431bid., p. 725.

44Ibid., p. 724.

45Graham Taylor in the Daily News, July 1, 1916,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

361

46Survey,XXII (April 1914), 87-88.

471bid.

48Miriam G. Rappe, "Mary E. McDowell," 1936,
Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

49Henderson, How Chicago Met the Unemployment
Problem, pp. 724-25.

so"Two Aspects of Unemployment in Chicago,"
Survey XXXIII (February 6, 1915), 473—74.

SlIbid.

szlbid.

53Ibid.

S4Hull House Year Book, January 1, 1916, Jane

Addams MSS. University of Illinois at the Chicago
Circle.

55Graham Taylor in the Daily News, December 19,
1914, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

56Graham Taylor in the Daily News, January 5,
1917, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; "Chicago' 5
Plans for Putting Idle Citizens to Work Again," Survey
XXX (January 23,1915), 442- 43.

 

57Graham Taylor in the Daily News, July 1, 1916,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

58"Unemployment's Aftermath Faced by Charity,"
Survey,XXXVII (February 17, 1917), 584.

59R. K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National
Hysteria, 1919-1920 (19557'.

 

60Allan H. Spear, Black Chicago: The Makingfiof a
Negro Ghetto 1890—1920 (Chicago, 1967), PP. 167—200.

 

362

61Hill T. Arnold, "Recent Developments in the
Problem of Negro Labor," Proceedings of the National
Conference of Social Work, 1921, pp. 324-26.

62"Peace and Public Works," §g£y2y_XLI (February 15,
1919), 699~700; Graham Taylor in the Dail News,
March 1--Apri1 6, 1919, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry
Library.

63Philip Klein, The Burden of Unemployment: A
Study of Unemployment Relief of Measures in Fifteen
American Citiesy71921-l922 (New York, 1923), p- 38.

 

64Feder, Unemployment Relief, p. 299.

 

651bid.

66Graham Taylor to Mrs. Stanley McCormick, May 28,
1919, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

67
Ibid.

68Feder, pp. 301-40.

69Klein, pp. 50-69.

7°Ibid.

711bid.

72Graham Taylor to J. Duncan Clark, March 9, 1921,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

73Graham Taylor to Mrs. Stanley McCormick, May 28,
1919, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

74Graham Taylor to Mr. Charles C. C00per,
February 14, 1921, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library;
Professor Taylor Speech to Federation of Settlements,
June 17, 1919, Lea Taylor MSS. Chicago Historical
Society; Graham Taylor to Editor of the Chicago Tribune,
February 23, 1920, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library;
Open Letter from Graham Taylor 1919, Graham Taylor,

363

Chicago Commons Settlement House MSS. Chicago Historical
Society; Appeal Autumn Campaign for Chicago Commons, 1919,
Graham Taylor, Chicago Commons Settlement House MSS.
Chicago Historical Society.

75Graham Taylor in the Daily News, August 9, 1924,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

76Report of the Work of Chicago Commons, September 30,
1928, Chicago Commons MSS. Chicago Historical Society.

77Clorine McCulloch Brandenburg, "Chicago Relief
Statistics, 1928-1931," Social Service Review VI (June,
1932), 271.

 

78Mollie Ray Carroll, Settlement Program During
Unemployment Crisis, 1930, Mary McDowell MSS. Chicago
Historical Society.

79Graham Taylor Speech, August 8, 1931, Graham
Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

80Robert Moses Lovett to Esther L. Kohn, MSS.
University of Illinois at the Chicago Circle Library;
Graham Taylor Speech in the Qgily News, March 15, 1930,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

 

81Brandenburg, pp. 272-78.

821bid.

83Graham Taylor in the Daily News, January 17,
1931, Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library; Frank Z.
Glick, "The Illinois Emergency Relief Commission,"
Social Service Review VII (March 1, 1933), 23.

 

 

84Brandenburg, p. 271.

85Graham Taylor in the Daily News, June 27, 1931,
Graham Taylor MSS. Newberry Library.

86Glick, pp. 23-33.

87Ibid.

364

88Ibid.

89Helen Russell Wright, "Families of the Unemployed
in Chicago," Social Service Review,VIII (March, 1933),
17.

 

90Glick, pp. 23-33.

BI BLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY

Since the primary purpose of this study is to
trace the development of the impulse toward the welfare
state in Chicago during the years 1890 to 1932, it would
be impossible or at least not very useful to list all of
the sources that I have consulted. The footnotes should
give an accurate outline of the material utilized. In-
stead, the following essay is a brief discussion of the
sources I have found most helpful in my work and believe
would be of interest to others involved in the study of
social reform.

The most significant primary sources are the per—
sonal papers of the leading decision—makers of the social
progressive alliance. Of these the Graham Taylor papers
(Newberry Library, Chicago) provide a major fountainhead
of information concerning the inner workings of the wel-
fare coalition in the city. The importance of his corres-
pondence is heightened by the fact that Taylor was actively
involved in every aspect of reform. Of equal significance

is Taylor's weekly Chicago Daily News column which spanned

 

almost the entire period of the study. His articles were

designed to inform the general public of the activities

365

366

and motivating philosophy of the social progressive move-
ment. The best secondary work on Graham Taylor is Louise C.
Wade's Graham Taylor, Pioneer for Social Justice 1851-1938
(1964). His autobiographies, Pioneering on Social Fron-

tiers (1930) and Chicago Commons Through Forty Years (1936),

 

are extremely well written and insightful.

The personal papers of other social reformers while
not as comprehensive as Taylor's are invaluable for the
light they throw on the Operations of the organizations in
which they were primarily interested. Agnes Nestor's
papers (Chicago Historical Society) contain the necessary
documents for the reconstruction of the history of the
Chicago Trade Union League and its fight for better work-
ing conditions for females. Her autobiography, Woman's

Labor Leader (1954), is not very useful except for its

 

coverage of her lobbying activities in Springfield on
behalf of shorter working hours for women.

Mrs. Joseph T. Bowen's papers (Chicago Historical
Society), on the other hand, supply an important source
of data on the founding of the Juvenile Protective Associ-
ation and its attempt to stamp out crime among youth.
There is an abundance of material on the development of
the Juvenile Court. Her autobiography (Growing Up with
Chicago, 1926) is not very helpful except in its por-
trayal of the spirit of an upper-class reformer.

The Anita McCormick (Mrs. Emmons) Blaine papers

(Wisconsin State Historical Society) furnish a huge and

367

significant collection of material. Although they contain
important information on all aspects of social reform,
because she was involved both as participant and as
financial contributor to many organizations, they are
especially useful as a source of data on the Juvenile
Protective Association and the Chicago Housing Associ-
ation.

Jane Addams' papers, which have been microfilmed
and are available at the University of Illinois, Chicago
Circle Campus, illustrate the role of settlement workers
in reform. Although the collection contains the corres-
pondence both to and from Jane Addams, most of the material
concerns her peace activities. Her memoirs, Twenty Years

at Hull House (1910) and The Second Twenty Years at Hull

 

Hou§e_(l930), seldom mention a date or a name, but do
capture a spirit and determination. Mary McDowell's papers
(Chicago Historical Society), on the other hand, furnish
the reader with information concerning the role of the
University of Chicago Settlement in social reform. The
collection contains an unfinished autobiography on the
activities of Mary McDowell, particularly in the 1904
stockyards strike. The best source of information on the
activities of the social reformers in the 1920's and early
1930's are the Ester Kohn papers (University of Illinois,

Chicago Circle Campus).

368

Of lesser importance are the Sophonisba Breckin-
ridge papers (Library of Congress), Alice Hamilton papers
(Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe College), Raymond Robins
papers (Wisconsin State Historical Society), and the Julia
Lathrop papers (Rockford College, Illinois). All of these
unpublished documents are extremely thin in their coverage
of social reform in Chicago.

The point of view of the businessmen involved in
social reform is abundantly illustrated by the papers of
Julius Rosenwald (University of Chicago), President of
Sears and Roebuck. The importance of the collection is
increased by the fact that he corresponded with almost
all the social reformers in the city. In addition, be-
cause other businessmen wrote to Rosenwald asking and
giving advice, his papers are an invaluable guide to the
thinking and activities of these men as well. A very
significant and well-written biography is M. R. Werner's
Julius Rosenwald, The Life of a Practical Humanitarian
(1939). Although its coverage of Rosenwald's Chicago
activities is sparse, it does provide some useful in-
sights into the character of the man.

Victor Lawson's papers (Newberry Library, Chicago),
on the other hand, are mostly devoted to his activities as
publisher of the Chicago Daily News and not as important
as Rosenwald's. They do give some clues to the business-
man's role in social reform. Like the papers, Charles H.

Dennis' Victor Lawson: His Time and His Work (1935) is

369

very limited in its coverage of social reform. Much more
useful are the McCormick Family papers, especially those
of Stanley and Anita. They are quite extensive in their
coverage of social reform in Chicago.

In tracing the development of the welfare movement
in Chicago, the papers of the various reform organizations
proved helpful. Of particular interest because of their
wealth of data are the records of the Chicago Bureau of
Charities (Chicago Historical Society), the Juvenile Pro-
tective Association (University of Illinois, Chicago
Circle Campus), Illinois Immigrant Protective League
(University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus), Hull House
Association (University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus),
Chicago Commons (Chicago Historical Society), and the
Chicago area chapter of the National Association of Social
Workers (Chicago Historical Society).

Of all the printed material of the period, the
most extensive collection of data on the activities of the
Chicago reformers is contained in Survey, a national maga-
zine devoted to social progressivism published by the
Charity Organization Society of New York. It gave exten-
sive coverage to Chicago because Graham Taylor was an
associate editor. The magazine's life Spans the entire
period of the study, from December 1897 to October 1905

under the name of Charities, from November 1905 to March

 

1909 under the name of Charities and Commons, and until

 

1952 under the name of Survey.

370

In order to list the most useful primary and
secondary printed sources in a clear and logical manner,
one must divide them according to specific areas of reform.
The most worthwhile book, for example, on housing con-
ditions among the working class and the efforts of re-
formers to better them is Professors Edith Abbott's and
Sophonisba P. Breckinridge's The Tenements of Chicago,

1908-1935 (1936). It is based not only on the personal

 

observations of the authors but also on the work of their
students, particularly in the coverage of the years 1908
to 1915. The studies by their students were published

separately in a series of eight articles in the American

 

Journal of Sociology between 1910 and 1915. For the years

 

before 1908 Hull-House Maps and Papers (1895); Robert

 

Hunter, Tenement Conditions in Chicago (1901); and Sadie T.

 

Wald, "Chicago Housing Conditions 1900—1905," Charities,
XV (January 6, 1906), 455-6l,all contain graphic first-
hand observations on the foul working-class housing
conditions.

The best introduction to the progressive reformers'
attitude toward juvenile delinquency before World War I
is the book, The Delinquent Child and the Home (1912), by
SOphonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott. The most useful
single work on the history of the Chicago Juvenile Court
is Helen R. Jeter's leaflet by the same title published

by the United States Children's Bureau in 1922. An

371

earlier work by Clark Kelsey, "Juvenile Court of Chicago

and Its Work," Annals of the American Academy, XVII

 

(March, 1901), 298-300, proved to be an invaluable source
of information on the philosophy motivating those who were
influential in creation of the new court. An intellectu-
ally stimulating book on juvenile crime and the attempts
of reformers to deal with it is Anthony M. Platt's

The Child Savers, The Invention of Delinquency (1969).

 

The author suggests that children caught in the bureau-
cratic web of the juvenile court faired rather badly. The
court then was not such a dramatic humanitarian step for—
ward as had been thought by those who accepted the rhetoric
of the reformers at face value instead of looking behind
the scenes to see what actually happened.

The best place to begin any study of the develop-
ment of mothers' pensions is Joel D. Hunter's "Adminis-

tration of the Funds to Parents Law in Chicago,‘

Survey,
XXI (January 31, 1914), 516-18. It is a short but compre-
hensive survey of the program up to 1914. For the years
after 1914 Edna Zimmerman's "State Aid for Mothers'

Pensions in Illinois,‘ Social Service Review, XI (1930),

 

222-37, is adequate for the data but it contains little
analysis of the program. Making up for this lack are
two excellent analytical articles by Sophonisba Breckin-

ridge, "Neglected Widows in the Juvenile Court," American

 

Journal of Sociology, XVI (July, 1910), 53-87, and "The

Administration of the Aid to Mothers' Law in Illinois,"

372

U.S. Children's Bureau Report No. 82, 1921. A more

 

hostile study was conducted by C. C. Carstens "Relief

of Widows with Children," Survey, XXIX (January 4, 1913),
459-66 in which he discovered some glaring gaps between
actual practice and the stated ideals. A useful secondary
work placing the Illinois program in national perSpective

is Winifred Bell's Aid to Dependent Children (1965).

 

The various Illinois Factory Inspector's Reports,
beginning with Florence Kelley's in 1893, provide data of
enormous value on child labor and working conditions among
women. F. Zeta Youman in two articles: "Street Trades in

Chicago," American Child, IV (August, 1922); "Kingergar-

 

tens of Crime,‘ Survey (September 15, 1928), 581-83, pro-
vide some evidence that the problem of child labor was not
solved by the 1920's. Mary E. McDowell's "The Girls
Bill--A Human Proposition," Survey, XXII (July 3, 1909),
$08-13 is a superb analytical article on the attempt of
social reformers to lobby through the state legislature a
bill to limit the number of hours a woman can work in a
given day.

Although Charles Hoffmann's book, The Depression

 

of the Nineties, An Economic History (1970) was written

 

from a national perspective, it contains some excellent
material on the efforts of Chicago reformers to deal with
the plight of the unemployed. An older work by Leo Hannah

Felder, Unemployed Relief in Periods of Depression (1936)

373

although useful is strictly a narration of the action
taken by Chicago and other cities to meet the problem of
unemployment. The most valuable primary articles on
relief are E. Rosing, "Chicago's Unemployed Help Clean
the City," Charity, XXI (March, 1908), 47-51; "Special
Measures for Chicago's Unemployed," Survey, XXXI (Janu-
ary 17, 1914), 457; "Chicago's Plan for Meeting Unemploy-
ment and Destitution," Survey, XXXIII (May 28, 1914),
217-18; Philip Klein, The Burden of Unemployment: A
Study of Unemployment Relief Measures in 15 American

Cities, 1921—1922 (New York, 1923); Clorine McCulloch

 

Brandenburg, "Chicago Relief Statistics, 1928-1931,"
Social Service Review, VI (June, 1932), 278-78. All of
these works, based on first-hand observation, provide a

valuable source of data for those interested in the his—

tory of relief programs.

 

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