USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Metropolitan Boston; a modern history; Volume III > Part 26
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43
Despite all preventive measures, pauperism increased, and the bur- dens loaded upon the towns increased. Boston built, as has been stated, the first of the almshouses, but this was evidently a small affair, quite inadequate to the needs of the town, it being necessary to care for the unfortunate in other ways. The usual method was to auction off the poor to the lowest bidder. The tavern was the scene of the sale, where those who could afford to speculate, bought in the child, or the widow, paying a price based on the bidder's idea of the amount of work there could be gotten out of the unfortunate pauper. The widows, the more numerous class, brought the most money. Families were divided without com- punction, the mother, father and children being indentured to different individuals. There was no town supervision over the bidders, and the auctioned pauper received about the same care that a wise driver would give his horse, perhaps not as much, for the town usually contracted to bury any of those sold, if they failed to live out the term for which they had been purchased.
Boston not only ran the largest auction in the colony, but was the first to see the evil of it and to try some other method. The first change was
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to require the sale of the poor in groups to individuals who agreed to run what amounted to an almshouse. But since this house had to be a money maker for its owner or the inmates would be returned to the town, it was but a few years before Boston realized that if a private individual could handle the poor and make money out of the business, then the town could do it and save money. This was the beginning of the almshouse system in Massachusetts.
The almshouse is today one of the better means of caring for dependents, but the unsupervised money-making almshouse of early Boston was a vile thing. There was little separation of sexes; there was no classification of age or condition. The little child was housed with the prostitute, the vagrant, the idiot and the maniac. These houses were schools for crime, breeders of immorality and chronic pauperism. The early poor-house was a producer of the very class of degenerate pauper it desired to eliminate. The Boston almshouse of 1660 tried to provide in its later years "for the separation of the vicious from the worthy poor" but without success. In 1692, a colonial act provided that the care of the poor should be committed to "overseers of the poor," a body that has per- sisted to the present. By 1712 the almshouse was a jail, a house of cor- rection, and a home for the dependents. There had been no provision made for the employment of the able-bodied inmates as late as 1735. In 1790 a committee reported : "The almshouse in Boston is, perhaps, the only instance known where persons of every description and disease are lodged under the same roof and in some instances in the same contagious apartments, by which means the sick are disturbed by the noise of the healthy, and the infirm rendered liable to the vices and diseases of the diseased and profligate."
Early in the following century, measures were taken to stop the wasteful methods of giving relief to the needy, and to improve the con- ditions of those who had to be cared for by the town. Houses of industry were recommended, and in order to carry out the provisions of the recom- mendation, Boston, in 1821, made an appropriation of $41,000 for a House of Industry to be located in South Boston. Boston had become a city before the new house was ready for occupancy (1823). This house was situated on a tract of sixty-three acres, upon which was built the House of Correction in 1824. The House of Correction was intended as a place of reformation for juvenile offenders, but was not fully completed until 1832. In 1837, South Boston was made the home of a third institution, a hospital for the insane. Until within a few years of this time, the insane and idiotic had been treated as criminals rather than diseased. A law of 1836 required every county to maintain "a suitable apartment or receptacle for idiot and insane persons."
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Boston now (1837) was far in advance of Massachusetts in its pro- visions for the unfortunate; the Commonwealth was also ahead of other nearby states in its philanthropic works. The city had the only alms- house in Massachusetts, the only house of correction for juveniles, and one of the two insane asylums in the State. But, although this was less than a hundred years ago, the poor were still under the suspicion of be- ing almost criminals, and it was only just being recognized that insanity was a disease. It cannot be said that the city bore its leadership with grace, for it resented the misuse of its institutions by the citizens of less favored localities. Boston was fast becoming the Mecca of the vagrant, and the homeless. Emigration from other lands, particularly Ireland, was adding to the difficulties of the city. The Irish Famine in 1847 and 1848, sent thousands of the famine-stricken to the Port of Boston. In two months during 1847, no fewer than 400 immigrants were received in the House of Industry. Temporary quarters had to be erected on Deer Island. Boston resented the filling of her institutions with folk who had no claim upon her philanthropy. South Boston, too, objected to the further building and the maintenance of those institutions which had been thrust upon the district. She threatened to set up a separate gov- ernment, because the municipality had made it "the Botany Bay of the city into which could be thrust those establishments which the city fathers would consider nuisances in the neighborhood of their private residences." In particular, South Boston wanted the House of Industry removed ; Deer Island being suggested as a better location.
The inhabitants of South Boston had to wait some years before their wishes were considered. In 1849 the removal of the House of Industry to Deer Island was authorized. The new almshouse was not completed until 1852, however, this at the then great cost of $184,000. In that same year the Commonwealth undertook the care of her own paupers, thus removing those housed in the Boston institutions and also deprived the city of the income that had been paid it heretofore by the State. The city institutions at this time were capable of housing 1,300 inmates, and to them had been added this costly new building for which there were practically no inmates. The dilema led to fortunate results, for in 1857 the House of Reformation, the House of Correction, the House of Industry, and the Hospital for the Insane were brought under the management of a single board of twelve directors of the Department of Institutions. The buildings in South Boston were sold, and Deer Island thereafter was the center of the institutional aid of the municipality.
In so thriving a city, there could be no let up in the provisions made for municipal institutions. Not only must ever increasing appropriations be made for the ever enlarging number of the unfortunate, but for new buildings. The increasing humanity in the care of the poor and the
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criminal tended to better classification of the individuals and their separation. The House of Industry housed both the poor and the crimi- nal; in 1862 half of the inmates of the house were serving sentences for minor offenses. To relieve the situation, the male paupers were removed to Rainsford Island. In 1873, a new almshouse was built in West Rox- bury. Meanwhile, the City Hospital had been started in 1857 which was not completed until 1864. In 1860 plans were made for the erection of a suitable Insane Hospital in the town of Winthrop. This was to be an expensive and elaborate structure, but Mayor Norcross vetoed the ap- propriation (1865) and before anything further was done, the hospital at Danvers was built. The Austin Farm House was opened to female paupers in 1877. In this same year the Marcella Street Home for poor and neglected children was opened for boys in what had been the Rox- bury Almshouse; and in 1881 the girls of this class were provided for in a nearby building. Charlestown, Dorchester and Brighton, now parts of Boston, each had its almshouse.
Boston had now reached what might be termed the modern period of public philanthropic and correctional activity. Most of the former inhumane ideas of the treatment to be meted out to the unfortunates had been dropped. Science was being called upon to solve many of the problems. Private support and inception of charities were greatly increas- ing. The city was paying out more than ever, but doing it more intel- ligently and with better grace. To sum up the situation fifty years ago, the city of Boston was caring for its poor and criminal in nine insti- tutions, all of which were under the management of twelve Directors of Public Institutions, appointed by the city council. These consisted of : one for male paupers at Rainsford Island ; one for females at West Roxbury ; one for both sexes at Charlestown; a school for boys and an- other for girls at Marcella Street ; the House of Industry and the House of Reformation for juvenile offenders on Deer Island; the Lunatic Asylum and the House of Correction at South Boston. Possibly to these should be added the City Hospital under a separate board of trus- tees. A Charity Bureau had been established on Chardon Street, which was the headquarters of the overseers of the poor, the city physician and several charitable associations. There was a city Temporary Home, for the immediate relief of the poor, particularly women and children. Nearby was the Lodge for the Wayfarers where men could get a bath, bed and a meal at the cost of a little labor.
The tendency during the last half century has been towards fewer municipal institutions of charity, and the centralization of control. In numbers, enough have been taken over by the State to counter-balance the new means originated and carried on by the city. Where formerly the city or town shouldered the whole problem of the care of the unfor-
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tunate, criminal or other, much of the load is now borne by the Com- monwealth. Less than a century has passed since the State took defi- nite measures to provide for the welfare of the pauper, the sick and the criminal. The first constructive step taken by Massachusetts in the care of the State poor, was the establishment of the three almshouses at Tewksbury, Bridgewater and Monson, which were filled to their ca- pacity (1500) within a fortnight. The first State hospital for the insane, which had been until this time regarded as criminal rather than diseased, was opened in 1834. Little provision had been made for the idiotic until 1878, when the State shared in the support of a private institution, the Massachusetts School for the Idiotic and Feeble-minded. By 1858, there were seven State institutions, three for the insane and four for the State poor. There were also a prison and two reform schools. In 1863, the work of State charities was given into the hands of the Board of State Charities. On December 1, 1919, this board was reorganized as the State Department of Public Welfare, with a single Commissioner responsible for its administration to the Governor and Legislature, but subject to the advice and veto of an unpaid advisory board of six members.
Stated briefly, the major functions of this department, which is still in force, are five in number: I. The general supervision of the five State institutions, viz : the State Infirmary; the Hospital School for crippled and deformed children; the three industrial schools for juvenile delin- quents; the Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster. 2. Supervision of the local relief and the audit of city and town claims for relief ex- tended to the unsettled poor. 3. The supervision of incorporated chari- ties. 4. Partial supervision of local boards on housing and town plan- ning. 5. The care, custody and maintenance of State minor wards. There are a number of other institutions in the State under different de- partments, so that Massachusetts has at present thirteen establishments for the treatment and the care of the insane, and three for the feeble- minded. There are five State and more than twenty-five local institu- tions for the tubercular, and three industrial schools.
The assumption by the Commonwealth of so many of the duties that formerly devolved upon the city, has been of great aid in enabling the municipality to handle better its own particular charitable burdens. The sums spent by the city have constantly increased, but can now be used for needs that are more nearly local. The tremendous part played by private charity in affording suitable and sufficient facilities for the care of the sick and needy of Boston will be shown later in this chapter. But for the benevolence of individuals and organizations, the city must surely have failed in its attempts to amelioriate the condition of the unfor- tunate.
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During the last quarter century changes have been many. In 1902, the South Boston House of Correction was emptied, the inmates trans- ferred to a new home on Deer Island. By 1908 the Island was over- crowded. The almshouse at Long Island became more of a hospital than a poorhouse, and the almshouse at Charlestown was reserved for the aged. (The old Charlestown Almshouse was sold in 1911 to the Bos- ton Elevated Railway, the inmates going to Long Island.) By 1916 the average number on Long Island was 954; the value of the buildings was placed at $1,386,000. Pauper children in recent years have been placed in country homes permitting the closing of the Marcella Street Home. The Parental Schools were done away with in 1914, the boys being compelled to attend various disciplinary day schools, a part of the school system. The buildings of the Parental schools were turned over to the City Hospital becoming the West Department of that great insti- tution. The Suffolk School for Boys was closed in 1920, the most of its inmates being placed on probation, the rest sent to State training schools. The average number in the House of Correction on Deer Island has steadily declined from 1,579 in 1909 to 242 in 1920. Accounts of the City Hospital, the Hospital for the Insane, and the newest of the city's char- itable institutions, the hospital for the consumptive, dating from 1906, can be found in another chapter.
The charitable activities of municipal Boston are under the direction of the Overseers of the Public Welfare, working with the Health, Hos- pital, Institutions and other departments. As a department of the present name, it dates only from 1921, when an act of the Legislature chose the now used nomenclature. Before then, it had been known since 1772 as the Overseers of the Poor, and had functioned evidently since 1690. In its charge are the Wayfarers' Lodge; the Temporary Home for Women and Children; and "Out-door relief" which is after all the main function of the Board, and the most difficult to administrate. It is also incorporated as a Board of Trustees of the John Boylston's and other charitable city funds. In 1925, these funds amounted to $1,015,063, the annual income from which was about $37,000.
The more recent additions in the way of buildings is the Charity Building of three stories, 1927; and the Temporary Home for Women and Children, 1926, both erected upon the sites of the structures they replace, both of which dated from 1869. The Temporary Home pro- vides every reasonable comfort for its patrons. The Charity Building has its first floor occupied by the Administration Department of the Overseers. The remaining floors supply space for the following char- itable societies: The Boston Provident Association, Family Welfare Society, Confidential Exchange, Industrial Aid Society, German Aid So- ciety, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and the Cooperative Workrooms.
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There is also a large conference room to provide for meetings of the various organizations engaged in welfare work.
The number of trust funds held by the city on February 1, 1925, for various purposes was 146, representing a total value of $19,049,281. The earliest dates back to 1674, viz., Gibson School Fund.
The largest bequest is that of George F. Parkman, now invested in bonds valued at $5,455,653. The income from this fund ($215,708 in 1924) is used for the upkeep and improvement of the older parks. The Franklin Park Zoological Garden and the Marine Park Aquarium, cost- ing together $532,698, are notable attractions provided from income of this fund, also important improvements in the Common and Public Garden.
Nearly as large is the bequest of the late George Robert White. This consists of first-class real estate in the business section valued at $4,922,- 400, also a fund of $330,000 invested in bonds. The total revenue in the year 1924-25 was $426,670 from which $265,026 was expended for the health unit building on North Margin Street and $136,467 for taxes.
In accordance with the Boston Retirement Act of 1922, the new pen- sion system went into effect on February I, 1923, and three funds were established, the care of which was vested in the Boston Retirement Board. These are (1) Pension Accumulation, $1,829,367; (2) Annuity Savings, $837,584; (3) Retirement Reserve, $4,477; total $2,671,428, as of February 1, 1925. The Pension Accumulation Fund consists of con- tributions by the city ; the Annuity Savings is made up of regular 4 per cent. deductions from the salaries of employees ; the Retirement Reserve includes transfers, at retirement, of the proper sums from the other funds to meet pension dues.
With the income from the seventeen funds in charge of the Overseers of the Public Welfare, the principal of which is $1,015,063, pensioners and other beneficiaries to the number of 234 were added during the year 1924-25. The two oldest and most widely serviceable of these funds, now amounting to $207,636, were bequeathed by John Boylston in 1793, one to assist "Poor and decayed householders of the town of Boston . . .. not under fifty years of age . . . persons of good character, and reduced by the act of Providence, not by indolence, extravagance or other vice"; the other for the "nurture and instruction of Poor Orphans and Deserted Children of the town of Boston until fourteen years of age."
Benjamin Franklin made a bequest in 1790 of £ 1,000 sterling to the "inhabitants of the town of Boston," to be increased by accumulations of interest until the first period of 100 years had passed when, as pro- vided in the will, three-fourths of the accumulated fund was to be ex- pended for the public benefit, the remaining fourth to be left to accumu-
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late during another 100-year period. Owing to suits in the courts, first by the Franklin heirs in 1891 and later by parties seeking to have a legitimate board of managers appointed, the fund of $438,742 did not become available until 1907, when it was mostly used for the erection of the Franklin Trades School or Franklin Union as now called. The building, located at the corner of Berkeley and Appleton streets, South End, was opened in September, 1908, costing with equipment $402,718. The site was purchased by the city in 1906 for $100,000. In 1905 the City Treasurer received from Andrew Carnegie, $408,396 in bonds of United States Steel Corporation, said sum corresponding to the accumulated Franklin Fund in August, 1904, which Mr. Carnegie had agreed to du- plicate. The income from this separate fund (the Andrew Carnegie Donation) is applied to the maintenance of the Franklin Union, but meets only a small part of that expense, most of which is covered by receipts from tuitions, rents, etc. On February 1, 1925, the principal of this duplicate fund was $460,478. During the past year, 1,768 students took advantage of the various industrial, technical and engineering courses here offered by the city at nominal fees, and mostly conducted in evening sessions.
The remaining quarter of the original Franklin Fund, called the ac- cumulating fund, amounted to $373,232 on February 1, 1925. It will not become available until 1991, at which time this fund was estimated by Franklin to amount to approximately $4,000,000 of which one-fourth will go to Boston and the remainder to the State.
Looking back at the obstacles encountered, it seems certain that Benjamin Franklin's legacy was finally put to its best use, chiefly owing to the wise judgment and public spirit of the corporation and managers of the Franklin Fund.
The larger of the funds for the pensioning of public school teachers on retirement, the Public School Teachers' Retirement Fund, started in 1900, amounted on February 1, 1925, to $887,182. This is a con- tributory fund, 3,594 teachers paying $18 a year thereto. Of the 315 annuitants, 309 receive $120 per year and the six others smaller amounts. Another teachers' fund is the Permanent School Pension Fund ($586,390), established in 1908, being noncontributory and provided by the city. The maximum pension is $600, the minimum $312, and 329 retired teachers were receiving pensions on February 1, 1925.
There are twenty-three other school funds amounting to $172,383, nearly all of which represent bequests to certain schools in which the donors were interested. Benjamin Franklin's interest in Boston is further shown by his legacy of £ 100 sterling, now increased to a fund of $1,000, the income of which is used to furnish silver medals as hon- orary rewards to graduates of the four principal high schools who have
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attained high rank in scholarship and conduct. From twenty to twenty- five medals are thus distributed yearly.
In 1913, there was established by statute a general cemetery trust fund, to be held by the City Treasurer, and the annual income of the Cemetery Department was ordered to be paid into said fund. Up to February 1, 1925, this fund had accumulated to a total of $609,267. It is to continue to accumulate until large enough to yield an income suf- ficient to meet the annual expenses of the service now in charge of the Cemetery Division of the Park Department. There are nine other ceme- tery trust funds, amounting to $347,979, the income from which is used for perpetual care of the specified cemetery lots.
The Boston Public Library receives the yearly income from forty- five trust funds, ranging from $500 to $100,000 and amounting to $612,- 863, but the total received from all of these is only about $24,000, which does not go far toward increasing the supply of the books and periodi- cals needed for so large a library. In 1924 the number of books thus added was 3,866 out of a total of 67,315 volumes purchased, but only $13,093 was expended that year from trust fund income.
Boston's most beneficent public institution, the City Hospital, holds twenty-three permanent funds, the total of which is $117,780, the income being used for various special purposes in behalf of the patients. The larger bequests, such as that of $237,500 for the "Thorndike Memorial," received in 1919, 1922, and 1923, have as a rule been expended for new hospital buildings and equipment instead of being invested in securities for maintaining permanent funds.
Of the twenty-one other miscellaneous trust funds held by the city, the Police Charitable, amounting to $207,550, is the largest, sixty-two beneficiaries having received $7,451 from income of same during the past year.
Thoughtful of the poor children, regardless of race or creed, George L. Randidge left a fund of $50,000 in 1896 for the sole purpose of providing free summer excursions for them. In July and August, 1924, there were forty-six such outings enjoyed by 13,265 children.
By the bequest of Jonathan Phillips, in 1860, the Phillips Street Fund, amounting to $20,000, was established, the income to be used for the adornment of streets, public grounds, etc. By this means, many of the statues and memorial monuments have been fittingly mounted and inscribed, also various historical tablets provided, among the earliest being the statues of John Winthrop, Samuel Adams, and Josiah Quincy in 1879 and 1880. The William Blackstone monumental tablet on Boston Common, erected in 1914, is one of the latest memorials fur- nished from this fund.
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The foregoing is but a bit of statistics giving the figures of the pub- lic bequests and trust funds of the city. Far more interesting would be accounts of the lives of the benefactors whose beneficence created many of these funds, reminiscent of the other great givers to Boston. Some day a book will be written, filled with just such stories, for it would take a very large book to record them. And one reading such a work would realize as he had not before, that to some, Boston was not merely a municipality, but a vital living being with body and soul needing gifts that might be cared for, and that the climax in their lives was to leave to such ends the wealth, or a part of it, that she had given to them.
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