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25 chapters
CHAPTER I FOR POLLY PRESTON’S SAKE
CHAPTER I FOR POLLY PRESTON’S SAKE
The evening of November 8, 1916, I walked out of the National Arts Club and into the underbrush of the greatest jungle of civilization—I entered the world of the unskilled working woman of New York City. Though a sudden move, such an adventure had been in my mind for weeks. When thinking over the plot of my fifth novel my conscience had demanded: “Why don’t you go out and get first-hand experience for Polly Preston? She is a child of your own brain. You know her temperamentally as well as mental
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CHAPTER II MY FIRST STEPS IN THE UNDERBRUSH
CHAPTER II MY FIRST STEPS IN THE UNDERBRUSH
A note from Alice Tompkins had been among the batch of mail handed me the night before as I left the National Art Club. She was in New York, and particularly wished to see me, as soon as convenient. “Had she given up her teacher’s position in the school for defective children?” I wondered, on my way to look her up. “And why was she stopping in such an out-of-the-way corner of the lower West Side?” Though I loitered over the three miles and more of streets it was not quite seven o’clock when I ra
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CHAPTER III SLIMY THINGS THAT WALK ON LEGS
CHAPTER III SLIMY THINGS THAT WALK ON LEGS
Monday morning I jammed myself into a subway train bound for the responsible, high-salaried position which my vanity assured me waited for me in the department store. Arriving a few minutes after eight I found at least fifty women and girls already waiting and fully as many more came later. On the opening of the employees’ entrance we were directed to one corner of the damp, unheated basement and there kept standing for nearly two hours. Finally a man and a woman made their appearance and divide
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CHAPTER IV AGAINST A RUSH OF THE HERD
CHAPTER IV AGAINST A RUSH OF THE HERD
On my return from lunch Mr. Spencer escorted me to a counter marked “Men’s Department” and introduced me to the head of stock, Nora Joyce, a neat young girl with serious blue eyes. After introducing me to the other girls in the department Nora gave me the stand next to her own and set about explaining the work to me. There were one hundred and fifty different kinds of articles behind that counter, all for masculine use. The value of each article was reckoned in certificates instead of dollars an
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CHAPTER V HUMAN COOTIES
CHAPTER V HUMAN COOTIES
When planning my adventure as Polly Preston, the heroine of my proposed novel, the idea of including domestic service did not occur to me. It was Alice who first caused me to consider such an experience. Telling why she had given up her position in the institution for defective children, she had exclaimed: “I was engaged as a teacher—the people at college all understood I was to have a teacher’s position. After they got me there they treated me like a servant.” Thinking over this incident, I won
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CHAPTER VI GOOD HUNTING-GROUND
CHAPTER VI GOOD HUNTING-GROUND
On my return after this experience Mrs. Wilkins said that I had lost twenty pounds, while Alice candidly assured me that I could not look worse had I been buried and dug up. Such backhanded compliments did not encourage me to take either of them into my confidence. And, though Alice remarked on the length of time it had taken me to get to New York, it did not seem necessary for me to mention having stopped off at a station in Pennsylvania long enough to be interviewed by the housekeeper of Sutto
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CHAPTER VII FEMALES OF THE SPECIES
CHAPTER VII FEMALES OF THE SPECIES
The family at Sutton House comprised Mr. and Mrs. Sutton, both under thirty-five, their only child a boy eight years old, and his tutor, a young college man. The place was very beautiful. The house, Southern colonial, was large and dignified without being showy. The park and gardens surrounding it contained eleven acres—at least the chauffeur, who brought me from the station, so informed me. Certainly they were ample and perfectly kept. The trees were noticeably handsome, all of them indigenous.
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CHAPTER VIII ST. ROSE’S HOME FOR GIRLS
CHAPTER VIII ST. ROSE’S HOME FOR GIRLS
Mrs. Bossman, the matron of St. Rose’s Home for Girls, which I reached after a railroad journey of several hours, received me with great cordiality. She was very much in need of a secretary, she said, and, while not able to pay a salary, would be glad to give me a comfortable room with my board and laundry. I promised to move in, bag and baggage, the following morning immediately after breakfast. At our first interview she impressed me so favorably that I failed to notice either the thinness of
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CHAPTER IX RODMAN HALL: CHILDREN’S HOME
CHAPTER IX RODMAN HALL: CHILDREN’S HOME
Back again on the now deserted top floor of the rooming-house, I turned once more to the help-wanted column. An advertisement about which Alice and I had often speculated during the winter caught my eye: “A philanthropic institution for children is in need of the services of a gentlewoman. One who prefers the life of a comfortable home with refined surroundings to a large salary.” Though well along toward the middle of the day I decided to try my luck. Calling up an address mentioned in the adve
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CHAPTER X TRUSTED WITH BILLIONS, PAID IN MILLS
CHAPTER X TRUSTED WITH BILLIONS, PAID IN MILLS
When discussing with my Y. W. C. A. friend my experiences at the Rodman Hall, she said: “Why don’t you give our employment department a trial? I believe you’d have a wider choice. Besides, you might help the Association a lot—reporting conditions at the places where you work.” Semiphilanthropy again! was my mental exclamation. The department store and Sea Foam were the property of philanthropists. The overdressed woman and her “placement bureau” was a semiphilanthropic annex. St. Rose and Rodman
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CHAPTER XI I AM SICK IN THE UNDERBRUSH
CHAPTER XI I AM SICK IN THE UNDERBRUSH
About a week before leaving the T. Z. I had a set-to with my landlady. Stopping at the door of her room to pay my rent, I handed her two dollars and seventy-five cents—the additional quarter for gas used in cooking. Imagine my astonishment when the woman began to goggle her eyes at me, to wiggle her tongue back and forth, making a hissing sound, all the while trying to elongate and contract her fat stub of a neck. When I demanded to know if she had lost her mind, she became apologetic and assure
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CHAPTER XII JACKALS FIGHT TO KEEP FROM FIGHTING
CHAPTER XII JACKALS FIGHT TO KEEP FROM FIGHTING
The evening after my first day spent as a clerk of the District Board for the City of New York I reached the Jane Leonard in time to be among the first who entered the dining-room for dinner. The meal was good enough, soup, roast lamb and a vegetable, and it being Monday the aprons and shirt-waists of the waitresses were still clean, but—oh, the flies! These pests swarmed over everything except Miss Diggs’ table. That was always kept carefully covered with mosquito-netting. Getting through dinne
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CHAPTER XIII “MORE DEADLY THAN THE MALE”
CHAPTER XIII “MORE DEADLY THAN THE MALE”
The day after leaving the District Board for the City of New York I called at the employment department of the Y. W. The head of the department greeted me cordially. She had plenty of jobs—up-town, down-town, in all the suburbs. Reading her card catalogue of openings she stated that the Suffrage Party was offering ten dollars a week for canvassers, to work from five to nine evenings. “Could you place me where I would not be recognized?” I inquired. “Know many persons on the upper West Side?” she
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CHAPTER XIV STAMPING-GROUND OF THE MONKEY-PEOPLE
CHAPTER XIV STAMPING-GROUND OF THE MONKEY-PEOPLE
“It was colossal!” Hildegarde Hook panted boisterously, as she burst into my room about four o’clock one morning during the Christmas holidays. “My ideal marriage—eleven o’clock at night, in a dark church with only the minister, the two contracting parties, and her best friend present. And Joe Ellen didn’t even change her dress—didn’t even sew up the slit in the back of her skirt.” Here she stopped panting long enough to laugh loud and long, after the manner of Greenwich Villagers too self-consc
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CHAPTER XV THE HEART OF THE JUNGLE
CHAPTER XV THE HEART OF THE JUNGLE
The tenements of New York City! The change that I made—working with tenement-dwellers and living in rooming-houses to working in and living in the tenements—was like that experienced by a hunter when stepping from the outskirts to the depths of a jungle—a jungle abounding in treacherous quicksands and infested by the most venomous and noisome creatures of the animal kingdom—a swamp in which any misstep may plunge you into the choking depths of a quagmire or the coils of a slimy reptile. But ther
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CHAPTER XVI BURROWING IN
CHAPTER XVI BURROWING IN
My going to live in the tenements came about in a roundabout way. While existing in the Jane Leonard I let it be known that I was looking for a small flat in a tenement. The only one offered me was that of a young artist who had been called to Washington City by the government. It was in a “model tenement,” had two rooms, a kitchen, electric lights, gas for cooking, steam-heat, hot and cold water, and the windows of the comfortably large living-room overlooked East River and Blackwell’s Island.
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CHAPTER XVII THE SCOURGE
CHAPTER XVII THE SCOURGE
Whenever I think of the influenza epidemic in New York City there flashes before me a series of mental pictures, pictures so indelibly stamped on my mind that I believe they will go with me to the grave. In each of them, in all of them, I see myself walking through the slums of the great city as through the Valley of the shadow of Death. But unlike the valley through which Christian passed I could not make out even the narrowest of safe pathways. So far as my vision extended my next step might p
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CHAPTER XVIII JIST DOGS!
CHAPTER XVIII JIST DOGS!
Jist dogs! Of all the positions held during my four years in the underbrush none appealed to me so much as that of license inspector for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. It was ideal for my purpose—learning conditions in the tenements as actually existing, meeting the tenement-dwellers in their homes and as fellow human beings. If the job were an easy one I would be more chary about making such a statement for fear all those persons living or being in Greenwich Vill
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CHAPTER XIX FAITH OF JUNGLE-MOTHERS
CHAPTER XIX FAITH OF JUNGLE-MOTHERS
“How did the war affect the tenement-dwellers?” That question has been asked me dozens of times. The happiest persons I met during the war were in the tenements. Also, I will add, the most unreasonably unhappy and discontented person I met during that period was in the tenements. Shortly after eight-thirty one sunshiny morning, with just enough nip in the air, I was hurrying along East Twenty-sixth Street sorting over a handful of complaints when a hand clutched my arm. Glancing up as I was brou
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CHAPTER XX A PEST-HOUSE?
CHAPTER XX A PEST-HOUSE?
In a preceding chapter I stated my conviction that in the district I covered as inspector of dog licenses there were representatives from every nationality on the globe. Now there are a considerable number of nationalities on the globe. Start to count and one will find the fingers of both hands used up hardly before the enumeration is well begun. In spite of the self-evidence of this fact, persons proclaiming themselves as interested in “our immigration problem” are continually asking me: “What
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CHAPTER XXI FORCING THE GOOSE TO LAY MORE DOLLARS
CHAPTER XXI FORCING THE GOOSE TO LAY MORE DOLLARS
“Twelve persons and two dogs living in three small rooms, and one of those a dark kitchen. How packed with sound—humanity and sound!” That is, provided greed be an inalienable attribute of humanity. It was greed, and greed alone, that forced those twelve persons and two dogs to live in such well-nigh insupportable conditions. The story as told me was like this: At the time that Congress declared that a state of war existed between this country and Germany, Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Bruno, both America
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CHAPTER XXII WOLVES AS SOCIAL LEADERS
CHAPTER XXII WOLVES AS SOCIAL LEADERS
Because I found social service work unsuited to my talent does not mean that I think such work unnecessary, or that I in any way disapprove of it. Quite the contrary. While I deeply deplore the condition that makes such work necessary, the condition exists, and should be met so long as it does exist. Social service workers are as necessary in the slums of New York City as doctors and nurses in a pest-house. As I saw conditions, the social service worker should always be a graduate nurse, a matur
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CHAPTER XXIII LEADERS OF THE HERD
CHAPTER XXIII LEADERS OF THE HERD
It was a cold, bleak morning during the November of 1920 that my work as inspector of dog licenses took me to an old tenement-house on a cross street between Avenue A and Exterior Street. On learning that the janitor lived two flights up, back, east, I climbed the stairs. The janitor’s eight-year-old daughter was in charge. She was a polite little girl and reminded me of a plant which, having struggled up in semidarkness, had gone to seed too early. She thought her mother would be back soon, she
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CHAPTER XXIV THE GALL OF THE YOKE
CHAPTER XXIV THE GALL OF THE YOKE
“The public be damned!” snarled a successful capitalist some forty or more years ago, a capitalist who himself had been one of the public. For by the public he meant working people and all who are forced to travel with them. Other capitalists and near-capitalists, imagining that his expression was a formula in some way responsible for his ability to get money from the very class he cursed, adopted it as their business slogan. As a slogan it enjoyed a long life. It even went into our politics. Th
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CHAPTER XXV THE END OF THE TRAIL
CHAPTER XXV THE END OF THE TRAIL
Work of itself is not hard. It is the conditions under which most work is done that makes it a hardship. Work under good conditions is exhilarating. There never was a time in all my four years in the underbrush that the work itself palled on me. It was the conditions under which I was forced to work that made it objectionable. One of my chief reasons for liking my work as an inspector of dog licenses was that I was a free agent, not bound by any hampering conditions. Each inspector was given his
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