Much of the material contained in this book has been published in a series of six articles that appeared in the Atlantic Monthly from March to August, 1915. And indeed it was due to the kindly insistence on the part of the editors of that magazine that more permanent form should be given to the record of the House on Henry Street that the story was published at all. During the two decades of the existence of the Settlement there has been a significant awakening on matters of social concern, part

A sick woman in a squalid rear tenement, so wretched and so pitiful that, in all the years since, I have not seen anything more appealing, determined me, within half an hour, to live on the East Side. I had spent two years in a New York training-school for nurses; strenuous years for an undisciplined, untrained girl, but a wonderful human experience. After graduation, I supplemented the theoretical instruction, which was casual and inconsequential in the hospital classes twenty-five years ago, b

When I first entered the training-school my outpourings to the superintendent,—a woman touched with a genius for sympathy,—my youthful heroics, and my vow to “nurse the poor” were met with what I deemed vague reference to the “Mission.” Afterwards when I sought guidance I found that in New York the visiting (or district) nurse was accessible only through sectarian organizations or the free dispensary. As our plan crystallized my friend and I were certain that a system for nursing the sick in the

The work begun from the top floor of the tenement comprised, in simple forms, those varied lines of activity which have since been developed into the many highly specialized branches of public health nursing now covering the United States and engaging thousands of nurses. [2] In trying to forestall every obstacle to the establishment of our nursing service on the East Side, it seemed desirable to have some connection with civic authority. Through a mutual friend I met the President of the Board

The visitor who sees our neighborhood for the first time at the hour when school is dismissed reacts with joy or dismay to the sight, not paralleled in any part of the world, of thousands of little ones on a single city block. Out they pour, the little hyphenated Americans, more conscious of their patriotism than perhaps any other large group of children that could be found in our land; unaware that to some of us they carry on their shoulders our hopes of a finer, more democratic America, when t

Perhaps nothing makes a profounder impression on the newcomer to our end of the city than the value placed by the Jew upon education; an overvaluation, one is tempted to think, in view of the sacrifices which are made, particularly for the boys,—though of late years the girls’ claims have penetrated even to the Oriental home. One afternoon a group of old-world women sat in the reception-room at the settlement while one of the residents sang and played negro melodies. With the melancholy minor of

Educators have only recently realized the existence of large numbers of pupils within the schools who are unequal to the routine class-work because of mental defects. It was one of our settlement residents, a teacher in a Henry Street school, who first startled us into serious consideration of these children. In the year 1899 she brought to us from time to time reports of a colleague, Elizabeth Farrell, whose attention was fixed upon the “poor things” unable to keep up with the grade. She had, o

Bessie has had eight “jobs” in six months. Obviously under sixteen, she has had to produce her “working papers” before she could be taken on. The fact that she has met the requirements necessary to obtain the papers, and that her employer has demanded them, is evidence of the advance made in New York State since we first became acquainted with the children of the poor. Bessie has had to prove by birth certificate or other documentary evidence that she is really fourteen, has had to submit to a s

Few people have any idea of the extent of tenement-house manufactures. There are at present over thirteen thousand houses in Greater New York alone licensed for this purpose, and each license may cover from one to forty families. These figures give no complete idea of the work done in tenements. Much of it is carried on in unlicensed houses, and work not yet listed as forbidden is carried home. To supervise this immense field eight inspectors only were assigned in 1913. Changing fashions in dres

The settlement, through its preservation of several of the fine old houses of the neighborhood, maintains a curious link with what, in this city of rapid changes, is already a shadowy past. The families of some of the residents once lived nearby, and recall, when they visit us, the schools and churches they attended, their dancing classes, and the homes where they were entertained. One visitor told of the scandal in the best society, more than half a century ago, at the extravagance of a proud f

[ From “Songs of Labor” by Morris Rosenfeld, translated by Rose Pastor Stokes and Helena Frank. ]...

The portrayal of youth in a neighborhood such as ours cannot be dissociated from labor conditions, and it was not incongruous that some of the deeper implications of this problem should have been brought to us by young women. In the early nineties nothing in the experience or education of young people not in labor circles prepared them to understand the movement among working people for labor organization. Happily for our democracy and the breadth of our culture, that could not be so sweepingly

When we came to Henry Street, the appearance of a carriage before the door caused some commotion, and members of the settlement returning to the house would be met by excited little girls who announced, “You’s got a wedding by you. There’s a carriage there.” It was taken for granted in those days that nothing short of a wedding would justify such magnificence. In one way or another we were continually reminded of the paramount importance of the wedding in the life of the neighborhood. “What!” sa

If spiritual force implies the power to lift the individual out of the contemplation of his own interests into something great and of ultimate value to the men and women of this and the generations to come, and if, so lifted, sacrifices are freely offered on the altar of the cause, it may truly be said that the Russian Revolution is a spiritual force on the East Side of New York. People who all through the day are immersed in mundane affairs, the earning of money to provide food and shelter, are

It would be impossible to give adequate presentation of those forces termed social which have hold upon our neighborhood. People with an ephemeral interest in the social order and some who are only seeking new thrills are prone to look upon the East Side as presenting a picturesque and alluring field for experimentation, and they are, at times, responsible for the confused conception of the neighborhood in the public mind. The poor and the unemployed, the sick, the helpless, and the bewildered,

The drama is taken seriously in our neighborhood, particularly among the people whose taste has not been affected by familiarity with plays or theaters classed as typically “American.” In the years of our residence on the East Side there have been several transitions in the Yiddish drama [17] from classic to modern and realistic. Feeling has at times run high between the advocates of the different schools, and discussions in the press and disputes in the cafés have reflected a very lively popula

Illuminating anecdotes might be told of the storm and stress that often lie beneath the surface of the immigrant’s experience from the time he purchases his ticket in the old country until the gates at Ellis Island close behind him and the process of assimilation begins. That he has so often been left rudderless in strange seas forms a chapter in the history of this “land of opportunity” that cannot be omitted. The confusion of the stranger, unable to speak the language and encountering unfamili