For eleven months two young women settlement workers
and college graduates have been living in the heart of
the Brooklyn Ghetto. They have been received as
residents of this interesting colony of strange people
with strange habits. These two observing students have
become acquainted with the methods in the daily life of
the Yiddish folk with whom they have cast their lot. The
things they have seen and the reforms they have
instituted are related in this article, written by one
of them. As they will continue for some time to make
their home in the district they have chosen as their
field of labor, it will be apparent why their names must
remain unpublished.
It was
simply and solely the picturesqueness of the Brooklyn Ghetto that
attracted two young college women to seek a home in its heart nearly
two years ago. That the Jewish housewives of the neighborhood needed
the example of a better domestic science was realized by the
strangers at their first visit. That the mothers needed lessons in
the way of brining up their children was also realized.
That public-spirited residents were needed to spur on the city
departments, responsible for a better care of the neighborhood, to a
realization of that responsibility could be seen in a flash. That a
small park and playgrounds, as well as public baths should be worked
for by residents of the Ghetto was easy enough to realize. But
because this sketch is to afford an opportunity for perfect honesty,
it must be stated that it was the genuinely quaint and unusual
qualities of the Ghetto that persuaded the students to leave their
homes in a fashionable part of Brooklyn to make a home in Seigel
Street, the Fifth Avenue of the neighborhood.
There is no millionaires' row in this
street, but there is to be found the most exclusive element of the
Ghetto. The students at first regretted that their demand for a
bathtub took them into this richer neighborhood. The search for a
home having a bathroom began two years ago. At that time model
tenements were beginning to appear. The airy, open courts had begun
to replace the old air shafts. Each room was light and well
ventilated but bathtubs were considered a superfluity. They were not
arranged for in the plans for the new tenements that were already
rented even while they existed only on paper. |
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photo: A Typical Dweller in the Ghetto |
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The students, thoroughly resolved to
live in the Ghetto, became the champion of the bathroom
idea. They visited the builders that had already broken
ground for several new tenements. A laugh was the only
answer given in the first pleading. Brooklyn's Ghetto
dwellers would not know what use to make of a bathtub. The
idea, an entirely new one, was evidently a source of mirth
to the builders and not to be taken at all seriously. The
students were in earnest, however, and bent upon imparting
this seriousness to the landlords. It required patience and
hard work. Two houses were completed, each providing homes
for fifteen families and without bathrooms. It looked
discouraging but the students stuck to it. After ground had
been broken for two more houses and the foundations all but
completed, the students made their way beyond the builder to
the owner himself.
It was a source of keen regret
to the students that their demand for a bathtub led them into
the very heart of the wealthiest portion of the neighborhood,
but poverty begins before affluence ends in a Jewish quarter,
and the new residents soon found to their delight that the home
among the rich was the only way of making the acquaintance of
the prosperous merchants, while the poor were more willing to be
visited by dwellers in the envied sections than by their own
next door neighbors. With the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge
came a new influx of Jews from Manhattan's lower East Side. They
came across the East River by thousands. Hundreds had long lived
in America, while hundreds were new to this soil and were making
their first home in the free country in Brooklyn. It took but a
few months from the time of the opening of the new bridge to
more than double the Jewish population of Williamsburg alone.
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photo: An Everyday Street Scene |
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The families coming from
Manhattan were happy, for better houses at less money were
to be had here and because of the new bridge the old
occupations across the river could still be carried on. The
Jews from abroad were far happier than it had ever entered
their minds a human being could be. New life had been opened
to them that they could not grasp in its entirety, so great
was the joy that it held. In the height of this new delight
came a crash. Landlords had waited until every nook and
every corner of their property was crowded, then raised the
rents. There was scarcely a family that had not been paying
every cent possible for rent, but the order was relentless:
"Pay the increase or move."
Only one way of complying could be
found. It was for two families to huddle in where before one
had lived. Crowded living conditions had long been known in
this quarter, but the date of the increased rent scale
marked the birth of a system of huddling together far more
suggestive of animal life than of anything human. There were
many families that could afford the higher rents and are
today the occupants of the new tenements. They, too, live in
close quarters, but only where there is dire poverty is the
the horrible animal-like huddling. The apartments in the
model tenements consist of three and four rooms in addition
to the bathrooms. Five rooms, the haushalterin (the
housekeeper) will tell you, as she shows you into the
largest and most expensive suite. Nor will she like it if
you prefer to call it four rooms and an alcove. |
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photo: Market Day |
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On the same floor with the students lives an aged Hebrew
and German teacher, whose old wife loves to patronize the
students, whom she calls "Strange kindern," and to whom she
gives many a lecture in household economy, without charge
and with the utmost good will thrown in. The fact that these
lessons are free is greatly appreciated by the students
because of an early experience that they had with the old
woman. Soon after moving into the house one of students was
struggling, in good German, to make a marketman understand
her instructions about the delivery of her groceries. The
struggle was being carried on at the dumbwaiter shaft in the
hall. The old teacher came out in time to realize the
difficulty. The student could speak only good German, while
the tradesman could speak only Yiddish. Neither could grasp
the language of the other to a sufficient extent to effect
an understanding. The student was feeling the misery of
failure when the old woman offered to act as interpreter.
The proffered services were accepted gladly because of he
opportunity which seemed to be opening of becoming better
acquainted. For a month these attentions were continued,
although in half that time the student had mastered enough
Yiddish to speak to the grocer with comparative ease. At the
end of the month a neatly folded bit of paper was handed to
the student by the teacher. When opened it was found to be a
bill for services as interpreter. The bill was made out for
$5, but a note pinned to the corner explained that only
one-half that amount was expected, as the bill was made out
for the higher figure in case of its being seen by other people.
The students have now been living in the Ghetto eleven
months. They have kept in constant touch with fifteen
families during that time. Seven of these households have
money enough to warrant good homes, and wholesome livings,
while the remaining eight are typical of thousands of the
poorer families. The well-to-do families are in the same
house with the students. |
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photo: The Street Nursery |
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There are four children in the
smallest family and eight in the largest. Invariably a
relative finds his place around the family board and
hearth in addition. Among the very poor, "the boarder method" is
regarded as the sole way of paying the rent. But among the
better-to-do, a social or a clannish feeling is at the
bottom of the custom. That this custom should be broken is
earnestly realized by the students, but just how it can be
broken is the all-important problem to solve. That it is an
unwise custom can be readily realized when one considers
that seven, nine or even eleven persons of a family are
living in three rooms. The admission of an outsider can only
be allowed at the expense of privacy in sleeping and in
living quarters. Definite good has been accomplished,
however, by the students and in the most friendly and
neighborly way. Their apartment door is frequently left wide
open that their housekeeping methods may be observed. And
they have been observed in a score or more ways. The
observations are made most frequently by the children. they
carry home to their parents the new ideas and it is to them
that the credit for the actual changes that are made
belongs. The housewives are slower for more reasons than
that of greater age. One, however, grasped the laundry
situation rather more quickly than would have been expected.
The students had been in their new home but six weeks. Six
different washings had been hung upon their clothesline. The
interested neighbor across the court asked the washerwoman
why she washed so often. The question was overheard by one
of the students, who gladly explained why cleanliness was
such a necessary trait in good living. The questioner's mind
was certainly good ground upon which to sow the seed. She
confessed that her sheets and pillowcases were washed but
two, three or four times a year, while her blankets were
only washed "when they needed it."
Yiddish speaking parents that have become
acquainted with the students testify to their gratitude for the
new home among them, because of the greater respect that they
now receive from their children. The students took the trouble
to learn Yiddish that they might speak with the parents to whom
English was unknown.
Many of the children had come to despise the
jargon in the public schools. Their parents could speak nothing
else and were fast being ignored or despised by their offspring.
When strangers would take the trouble to learn the language, a
new value was attached to it by the youngsters, with a resulting
happiness to all concerned.
Another good effect of the new home has been upon the youngest
children's digestive systems. The students, like a large
percentage of unmarried women, have the strictest of ideas as to
how children should be trained. Jewish mothers, like hundreds of
Gentile mothers, frequently think that a small child opens its
mouth only to have it filled with food. And such food! It makes
no difference whether the child has teeth. It is given anything
at hand, with the utmost disregard of the law of cause and
effect. The students at once put up a big fight in behalf of
good digestion for the tiny tots. All fifteen mothers -- for each
has a new baby -- were labored with in one way or another until
they were made more or less firm in the habit of feeding the
baby every two or three hours only, according to the age of the
tot. In many instances it required the spending of entire nights
in some homes to see that the plan but just begun was carried
out.
Fifteen families are indeed a small proportion of a
population of 175,000 or 200,000. There are many friends of the
students who feel that their life in the Ghetto is one of
unjustifiable sacrifice. Others think that the work has been
done for self-aggrandizement and often ask the students what
they have to gain by their queer experiment. To the first set of
questions the students reply that the work, though hard, has
never been tedious, and the value of directing a human life into
broader and better channels can be appreciated only by some one
who has done it. To the second set of questioners the students
are likely to reply, with a manner that is a bit patronizing,
that they hope to gain experience. Both students have been
settlement workers. Both feel that the very walls of a
settlement house form a complete barrier between those that
would help and those whom they would help, especially when they
be Jews. Thus it is that the experiment has been made and thus
it is that it has been proven the work has really been a leaven.
It has been such a little leaven, but it has been in the very
heart of the entire lump. |
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