USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Fifty years of Boston; a memorial volume issued in commemoration of the tercentenary of 1930; 1880-1930, Pt. 2 > Part 27
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As already stated, there are today some 90,000 Jews in Boston. They live in all parts of the city. They come from all parts of the world. Reli- giously, they represent every phase of Jewish thought and life. Most are orthodox, though this orthodoxy is gradually and inevitably being modified. The reduction and the possible complete cessation of immigration promises to hasten this modification. The change is already noticeable in the increased and increasing number of conservative congregations. Few of these congre- gations are alike in their ritual or program. Some hold three services daily. Some meet only on Friday evening and Saturday. Temple Israel is the most liberal Jewish congregation in the city and the only one holding Sunday as well as Saturday services.
Of 16,000 Jewish children of school age about 6,000 are enrolled in religious schools. This represents about ninety per cent of all the children who receive any religious instruction. The rest are instructed privately. Some schools have but one session a week, some hold two sessions and some meet daily, except on Saturday. The week-day sessions are held after the close of the public schools, either in the late afternoon or at night. There are no Jewish parochial schools in Boston and few anywhere in America, probably none out- side of New York City. In some congregations adult groups meet daily and in other synagogs weekly for educational purposes. On the whole, however, there is little systematic or organized adult Jewish education in the city, though local educators are giving this lack their serious attention.
The Jewish community is composed of foreign-born and native-born, of liberals, conservatives and orthodox, of Zionists and non-Zionists. Jews here, like their Christian neighbors and like Jews everywhere, differ in scores of ways. Yet on fundamental religious and Jewish issues they work well together. There is probably less friction and inore unity in the Jewish commu-
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nity here than in most of the eities of the country. Practically the whole community, with all its differences, is concerned with the administration of our Jewish charities, with the problem of Jewish education and with the needs of hapless eoreligionists abroad. The whole Jewish body, through its repre- sentatives, shared in the community celebration of the Tercentenary and in the special Jewish service held in November at the Temple Ohabei Shalomn. And every element in local Jewry participated in the fine program staged at Faneuil Hall, December 17, to mark the 275th anniversary of the arrival of the Jews in the United States. This was also true twenty-five years ago when the 250th anniversary was celebrated.
Representing largely an immigrant group of recent arrival, facing the difficulties in adjustment to a new environment which all immigrants know, vietims, as have been their people through the ages, of misunderstanding and ill-will, the Jews of Boston have none the less made a contribution to the life of the community of which they need not be ashamed. As the years move on,. they will give even more generously, as they should, to the city which has done so much for them and meant so much to them. And they will do it more surely and more sueeessfully as they preserve unimpaired that loyalty to their faith which sustained their people always.
Rabbi Levi wishes to acknowledge his indebtedness and express his deep appreciation to the following, who so generously assisted him in eolleeting the data contained in this essay.
Mr. ALEXANDER BRIN, editor of the "Jewish Advocate."
Mr. ABRAHAM ALPERT, of the Hebrew Sheltering and Immigrant Aid Society of America.
Rabbi LOUIS M. EPSTEIN, of Temple Kehillath Israel of Brookline.
Mr. J. L. WISEMAN, of the Associated Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Associations.
Mr. MOSES MISHEL, of the Seaver Street Synagog.
Mr. LOUIS HURWICH, director of the Bureau of Jewish Education.
Mr. MOSES L. SEDAR, chaplain of the Jewish Prison Aid Society.
Miss FANNY GOLDSTEIN, librarian, West End Branch, Boston Public Library.
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CHAPTER IX WOMAN'S WIDENING SPHERE
By FRANCES G. CURTIS
In the Memorial History of 1880 Mrs. Ednah D. Cheney begins her chap- ter, entitled "Women of Boston," with these words: "A distinguished English- man was visiting this country, and when asked what was the most remarkable thing about Boston, he said, 'the women.'" The author then devotes a page or so to an admiring description of the women of Boston and their achievements.
Fifty years later, in a chapter on the women of Boston, one cannot begin by describing them as unique or different, either in kind or degree, from all the other women of America. It is true that our Boston women have always had a certain racy individuality, something like the Edinburgh ladies of Sir Walter Scott's day, and this has marked them as varying somewhat from the other women of the country. But, whether it is the closer connection with all other citics or the prevailing sameness that afflicts the country throughout, certain it is that the women of Boston are no longer unique or superior, although visitors from other parts of the country still maintain that we have a distinct flavor of our own.
The last fifty years have opened up so many opportunities and new fields of work that it is hard to go back in one's mind to the days when women were as tightly shut in by their circumstances as by their dress, and as little adapted for mixing in the hurly-burly of life in the world as were those costumes of the SO's. Today clothes arc appropriate and free and women are to be found in every profession, in every business and sport,- even in the newest and most unexpected fields, such as horse-breeding and aviation. In 1880 a "lady" in business was something undreamed of and such work would have been thought highly unsuitable. Now few girls, even those with independent means, leave school or college without trying to find paid work.
Fifty years ago very few girls went to college, although Vassar, Smith, Wellesley and the Harvard Annex (later Radcliffe) had been started before then. Except for the Girls' Latin School, opened in 1878, there were no high schools preparing girls for college. Today, onc third of all the college students of the United States are women and sixty per cent of the pupils in high schools are girls. Moreover, eighty per cent of the teachers the country over are women, but it is interesting to note that the proportion of women teachers in the Boston schools has changed from eighty-eight per cent in 1880 to a little over seventy-eight per cent in 1930.
Among the outstanding women of these last fifty years there are two whose monuments are so remarkable that no study of Boston can omit them. One monument is the Mother Church of the Christian Science faith, which stands as a tribute to the surpassing zeal, influence and powers of Mary Baker Eddy; and the other is Fenway Court, a unique Italian Palace, conceived as a
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work of art, of real originality, by Isabella Stewart Gardner, who made the collection of pictures and objects of art which it contains and built the perfect home for them.
Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, was born at Bow, near Concord, New Hampshire, in 1821. Although educational facilities for women were limited at that period, and her schooling was interrupted by delicate health, she early began writing for various periodicals. In 1875 she published "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," the text-book of Christian Science, an expression of religious faith.
Years of great activity followed the carrying of her work to Boston. She expanded the Church of Christ Scientist, which she had founded in 1879, into the Christian Science denomination; reorganized the church in Boston, known as the Mother Church, with its plan of branch organizations; wrote a number of books; established the Christian Science Publishing Society for the periodicals of the denomination, including the Christian Science Monitor; and formulated . other activities for the protection and promulgation of her religion.
The original Christian Science Church was erected in 1894. In 1906 an extension was built, providing a seating capacity of over 5,000. Its dome is more than twice the size of that of the State House, and to the visitor com- ing into the city from the west the beautiful proportions of this great dome make a striking appeal.
Mrs. Eddy obtained the charter for the first Christian Science Church, originated its form of government and was its first pastor; she obtained the first charter for a metaphysical medical college and was its first and only presi- dent, and she was editor as well as publisher of the first Christian Science peri- odical. Thus this one woman founded a new division of the Christian Church which has grown and spread over the world with phenomenal speed.
The other monument, Fenway Court, an Italian treasure-palace of works of art, has been left "as a Museum for the education and enjoyment of the public forever," and it stands today, a personal memorial to the creative imagination and indefatigable enthusiasm of one woman.
Isabella Stewart was born in New York in 1840, married John L. Gardner, and came to Boston in 1860. All her life her personality provoked every emo- tion except apathy; with her motto, "c'est mon plaisir," her intelligence, charm, inexhaustible activity and well-directed wealth and uncommon will-power she fascinated everwidening circles of devoted friends, admirers and kindred spirits, but not until Fenway Court was opened to the public did the world at large realize that here was a rare creation produced by the mind of a master artist.
The palace was built in 1903, although long before that time Mrs. Gardner had formed a definite idea of making a collection. In fact, when she was in Italy, at the age of sixteen, her imagination was fired with the idea of such a collection. She was an untiring traveler, and almost every year found her, with Mr. Gardner, in one corner or another of the world, enjoying life to the utmost, always in the thick of adventure, making new and interesting friend- ships, and gradually acquiring objects of art, with confidence in her own taste, but skillfully securing the help of experts. She bought jewels, stained-glass windows, carvings, furniture, rare books, pieces of sculpture and paintings of all
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the ages. The house at 152 Bcacon street became too small for such increasing treasure, and in 1899 she began building. After four years of untiring work, in which she took a real hand, Fenway Court was opened. From then until her death, the palace, or her house as she always called it, was the center of Mrs. Gardner's life. Though her foreign trips became less frequent, her collection continued to grow, and many an old master coveted by museums was shipped instead to Fenway Court, as a result of Mrs. Gardner's fearless initiative and the co-operation of able and devoted experts like Mr. Bernhard Berenson and Mr. Joseph Lindon Smith, as well as Mr. John S. Sargent. Since Mrs. Gardner's death in 1924 the house has been a museum for the public, and the world now has the opportunity, as did her friends during her lifetime, to realize the extent of a magnificent imagination ably backed by will-power and moncy.
Mrs. Eddy and Mrs. Gardner are only two among many Boston women worthy of notc. On the social side of life, in the tradition of the "elegant hospitality" of Mrs. Harrison Gray Otis of the 1860's, we like to recall the hospitable houses of the Martin Brimmers, the Montgomery Searses, thc Thomas Bailey Aldriches, of Mr. and Mrs. James T. Fields, Mrs. Charles Dorr, Mrs. Henry Whitman, and especially the entertainment of musicians by the William Apthorps and the Henry L. Higginsons. The distinguished stranger who came to Boston in former years would have letters to some of those already mentioned and would always call upon the wit of Boston, Mrs. Helen Bell. Mrs. Bell, the daughter of Rufus Choate, was one of those individual charmers whose quality as well as wit can never be fully set down in print, but what she gave to Boston was not merely a tradition for wit and distinction but a rallying place for those who cared for literature and conversation.
She was a lover of the city and all its ways, and some of her most often quoted jests show her feclings about the country:
"Talk of the green carpct of Nature! Give me an old Axminster on the back stairs for choice!" And to a friend going to the country - "Well, kick a tree for me." Her period is clearly indicated in one of her sayings, "When about to fill your fountain pen, first fill the bathtub with ink and then get into it with the pen," a prescription no longer timely. When a friend, speaking of the unexpected contemporaries in history, mentioned an affair between Herod and Cleopatra, Mrs. Bell cried out "Herod and Cleopatra! Our Herod? Why arc we so calm about it?" *
Although Mrs. Bell can hardly be said to have been a typical Bos- ton woman, the fact remains that she can never be imagined save in the set- ting of her Chestnut street home.
It may sccm invidious and lacking in modesty to speak in superlatives of the "Boston Interior," but one of the outstanding features of Boston life has always been the beauty, charm and individuality of the houses, the arrangement of the rooms, the living ways of their owners, something that is recognized the country over and that may be said to be due to the taste, judgment and discrimination of the woman of the family.
* EDITORIAL NOTE .- A tribute to Mrs. Bell, which preserves many specimens of her delightful wit, has just been published by her friend, Paulina Cony Drown.
The title of the book is simply "Mrs. Bell." It is issued by the Houghton Mifflin Company.
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FENWAY COURT
FENWAY COURT, INTERIOR VIEW (Courtesy of Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum)
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Turning from the graces of private life to the more contentious field of public affairs, we find that two movements for the advancement of women have run through these fifty years. Quite different in their ultimate objects, these movements began under practically the same leadership. That for social progress, known under the name of "Women's Rights," embraced the campaign for suffrage and the freeing of women from disabilities, legal, social and personal; and those who played important parts, like Julia Ward Howe, Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore and Abby May, were the same who had toiled for the abolition of slavery and for the higher education of women. Suffrage came gradually in Boston, for the right to vote for School Committee was granted in 1881, while full suffrage was finally granted in 1919. Since then the interest in public affairs, as shown by state and city leagues of women voters, has continued, although there is no special interest in the career of politics for women. It is a curious fact that, although women have been members of the Boston School Committee since 1874, no woman has yet been elected to serve in the City Council, or as alderman or mayor, or, in fact, in any position that can be termed political. It seems as though the interest of Boston women in municipal government is purely academic and that the practical politics which belong to municipal elections and city management have deterred or, at least, not interested them. In this particular they differ from women in certain cities of the West and in England. In spite of the dire predictions which were made as to the results that would ensue, no great change in family life or in politics has followed the right to vote. Our women have always taken an active, if private, part in public affairs.
Activity shown by the antisuffrage party in the years preceding 1919 was almost as great as among those working for suffrage. In this connection, we find the following jesting prophecy in Doctor Crothers' "Meditations on Votes for Women," published in 1914, before suffrage was granted: "Lost, somewhere on the road to the polls by twentieth century women, the chivalrous deference which once was theirs. This heirloom of medieval workmanship was highly valued for its associations. If returned, no questions will be asked."
Still another progressive movement, led also by Mrs. Howe and many of the same leaders, was the women's club movement, which started simulta- neously with two clubs - Sorosis in New York and the New England Women's Club in Boston - in 1868. Gradual development has gone to such a point that in 1930 the Boston Federation of Women's Clubs has a membership of 41,000, which does not include the 12,000 members of the College Club, the Chilton Club, the Women's City Club and the Women's Republican Club, each with a large and well-equipped clubhouse of its own.
The whole women's club movement has been called the "higher education" of the grandmothers and mothers of the present generation or the university of the middle-aged, By broadening the minds of millions of women, the whole country over, and by enlisting them in active work for the public good the women's clubs have achieved almost incredible results. What began mainly as self-culture has grown into immeasurable civic accomplishments; the modest task of helping individual club members to higher standards of domestic economy and home-making has developed into a comprehensive program of invaluable
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assistance to workers for reform in municipal affairs, in the civil service, in campaigns for cleaner streets, better morals, improved rural conditions, beauty on highways and the preservation of law and order. In fact, women's clubs are every year being called on to support and advance all public-spirited movements.
"The opportunity came with the awakening of the communal spirit, the recognition of the law of solidarity of interests, the sociological advance, which established a basis of equality among a wide diversity of conditions and individualities. This great advance was not confined to a society or a neighborhood; it did not require subscription to a tenet or the giving up of one's mode of life. It was simply the change of a point of view, the opening of a door, the stepping out into the freedom of the outer air, and the sweet sense of fellowship that comes with liberty and light. The difference was only a point of view, but it changed the aspect of the world." This was the descrip- tion of women's clubs given years ago by Jennie June Croly, the founder of Sorosis.
The General Federation of Women's Clubs, which covers every state in the Union, counts nearly three million members. They have enlarged the outlook and broadened the personal associations of women as has no other educational association . among adults. Significant departinents of work are Fine Arts, International Relations, Legislation, Education, The American Home, American Citizenship, Public Welfare and Press and Publicity.
When Mrs. Howe at the age of ninety-one was asked for a motto for the women of America she answered promptly, "Up-to-date," and we can say proudly that she was a Boston woman who, with her broad culture, wide sympa- thies and universal experience, represented even in old age the best of Boston.
Besides those who exercised general leadership in the liberal movements, the following women may be named among the many who have inade definite contributions to education and to social work, - in the educational field Miss Elizabeth Peabody, who worked for kindergartens, followed by Mrs. Pauline Agassiz Shaw in the same field; Mrs. Mary Hemenway for manual training; Mrs. Ellen H. Richards, Professor of Chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, whose contributions to domestie science are known the country over; Mrs. Lucinda Prince, who organized the school of salesinanship which bears her name, having taught classes in salesmanship in the public and private schools of the city, and Mrs. Mary Morton Kehew, whose interest in education showed itself in various forms, particularly in the Women's Educational and Industrial Union, a private organization which has made valuable researches in women's wages and occupations.
Simmons College, founded in 1899 for the training of girls in secretarial work, science and household economics, opened its School of Social Work in 1904. This was one of the first of such schools in the country and has consist- ently maintained its place as one of the best.
When we speak of Boston's contributions to social work, we cannot do justice to the subject without naming the women who have helped to inaugurate movements which have spread the country over. It has been said that Massa- chusetts is the home of exportable social ideas, and this is certainly true in
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the work for family welfare, the care of child life, probation for prisoners, juvenile courts, schools for the feeble-minded and medical social work in hospitals, the latter originated by Dr. Richard C. Cabot twenty-five years ago. Mrs. James T. Fields, Miss Elizabeth Putnam, Miss Annette P. Rogers, Miss Zilpha Smith, Miss Frances Morse and Miss Marian Jackson, followed by Mrs. Alice Higgins Lothrop, Miss Ida Cannon and Miss Gertrude Farmer, have all given leadership and inspiration in these reforms.
Among the names of women noted in other fields are Dr. Alice Hamilton, at present the only woman member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, because of her distinguished researches in occupational diseases, Miss Annie J. Cannon of the Harvard Observatory, Miss Alice Fletcher, anthropologist, Mrs. Anna Coleman Ladd, Miss Katharine Lane and Miss Bashka Paeff, sculptors, Miss Gertrude Fiske and Miss Laura Hills, painters, and Miss Ethel Leginska, who has conducted here the only Woman's Orchestra; while in the past Mrs. Vincent on the stage and Mrs. Henry Whitman in stained-glass work and interior decorating have stood out, not to mention the literary work of Miss Amy Lowell, Miss Alice Brown, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton and Miss Louise Imogen Guiney. For some years the only woman Federal Imini- gration Commissioner of the Government has been Mrs. Anna C. Tillinghast, and a Boston woman, Mrs Esther Andrews, has been elected to the Governor's Council.
In December, 1930, the first women judges in Greater Boston were ap- pointed by Governor Allen,- Mrs. Emma Fall Schofield and Mrs. Sadie Lipner Shulman. This recognition of women lawyers is interesting, because the Har- vard Law School has never been open to women. Boston University Law School, however, has admitted women students ever since its establishment in 1872. Portia Law School, for women, was opened in 190S and Northeastern University Law School in Boston, founded in 189S, opened its doors to women students in 1922.
In the field of medicine, as in law, Harvard University confines itself to men students, but as early as the 50's Boston offered medical training for women in the New England Female Medical College, which was empowered by the Legislature to "confer the usual degree of Doctor of Medicine." In 1874 this college became the Medical Department of Boston University by an Act of the Legislature which preserved to women equal rights with men as students. Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, one of the early professors in the New England Female Medical College, founded in 1862 the New England Hospital for Women and Children. This hospital, with its fine record of service, has been administered by women ever since its establishinent. In 1872 it opened the first training school for nurses in America.
At the present time women are being appointed in ever-increasing numbers on the boards of institutions,- as trustees of colleges, hospitals and state and city schools,- positions which they fill ably and with devoted service.
Perhaps the clearest indication of what the past fifty years have meant to women is found in the statistics covering employment in paid positions. The number of women in stores, offices and factories and in the various professions at the present time can only be estimated on the basis of the figures of the 1920
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Census. Those for 1930 are not yet available, but it can be said that the decades since 1880 have witnessed an ever-widening field of occupations for women.
Between 1880 and 1920 the number of women of Greater Boston classified as engaged in "trade" increased by 248 per cent. It would seem, however, that comparatively few of our women have ever cared to assume the responsibility of business ownership, for of all those in trade in 1880 only twelve per cent were engaged in independent retail business, and by 1920 the proportion had declined to nine per cent. During the same period the proportion holding positions as store employees increased from seventy-five per cent to eighty-two per cent.
The percentage of increase in professional women in Greater Boston from 1880 to 1920 was 232, and the detailed figures reveal the opening up of two new fields for women during that period,- dentistry and professional nursing. No women dentists or trained nurses were listed in 1880, while the numbers for 1920 were 63 and 2,772 respectively. Women lawyers increased in number from two in 1880 to 41 in 1920; and women physicians from 85 to 166.
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