USA > New York > New York and its institutions, 1609-1871. A library of information, pertaining to the great metropolis, past and present > Part 32
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
for want of something to do, would go to their relief, it would be a blessing to all concerned.
A Bible-reader began her work in April, 1863, and out of this has grown a weekly " mothers' meeting." A weekly temperance meeting, and a prayer meeting, are regularly held. The labors of a missionary were secured in 1866, and the services immediately crowned with the conversion of sin- ners. These converts were advised to attach themselves to the neighboring churches, but as they had never been any- where else to service, they felt a reluctance, and refused to go. This made necessary the forming of an organization of their own, which was effected in June, 1869, with a membership of thirty-three, since increased to sixty-one. The organization is evangelical, but not denominational; clergymen of several denominations have been invited to administer the sacraments. During the first eleven years no legacy was received, and but two donations from the city authorities. The late Chauncey Rose, at a later period, remembered the Institution with $20,000, and others have since turned a portion of their bene- factions in this direction. In the spring of 1869, the society purchased a fine four-story brick building, fifty by ninety feet, on the corner of Avenne A and St. Mark's place, at a cost of $84,000. A debt of $14,000 still remains on the property, which the generous public have been invited to assist in re- moving. A vacant lot adjoining the building was included in the purchase for the erection of a chapel. Two floors of the building did not come into the possession of the society until May, 1871, since which the building has afforded the very best accommodations for a large school, and brought a small income.
The present matron has presided over the Institution with great acceptability fifteen years.
497
NEW YORK HOUSE AND SCHOOL OF INDUSTRY.
(No. 120 West Sixteenth street.)
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THE society that established this industrial enterprise was duly incorporated by act of Legislature in 1851, with the design of furnishing employment in needle- work to infirm and destitute females at such a rate of remuneration as should afford them a livelihood. It is not de- signed to encourage supineness and beggary, but the principle of self-help and self-respect. It generously proposes to help those who are willing to help themselves, and those first and only who are destitute of employment. It never employs those to whom other avenues of industry are open, and it never turns away a needy, industrious widow if it can be pre- vented. Its organization, which is vested with power of self- perpetuation, consists of a board of about fifty Christian ladies, with an advisory committee of gentlemen to assist them in managing their finances. The House, which is situated at No. 120 West Sixteenth street, is a wooden structure, with a rear building fitted up for an industrial school, and cost about $16,000. The society purchases goods, and makes market- able garments, and sells them in its own store, drawing in the meantime all the custom work its managers are able to secure. Three general committees have the principal man- agement of the business : 1. The Purchasing, which selects and procures all the fabrics ; 2. The Cutting, which prepares the work for the seamstresses ; and, 3. The Appraising, which attaches a card to each garment, stating the price that will be paid for making, and when made, the price at which it may be sold.
Besides these three committees which are formed from the directresses, there are several from the managers, viz., a Visiting, a Distributing, a Registering, a Paying, and one on Ordered Work.
: Work is given to needy women from every part of the city, and unlike most other establishments, this society gives em- ployments through all seasons of the year. It furnishes two kinds of work :
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
I. FINE ORDERED WORK.
Those only who excel in needle-work find employment in this department. Bridal outfits, embroidery, braiding, knit- ting, quilting, and other choice and difficult tasks are pro- duced with astonishing proficiency, and compare favorably with the best imported specimens in this line. Some of these undertakings require, in order to their successful completion, as much talent and effort as is required to enter one of the learned professions, and the society has found it difficult to secure the services of a sufficient number of this class to be able to fill all orders of this kind with despatch.
II. HOUSE-WORK.
This includes all ordinary sewing for household use, gar- ments for both sexes and of every description. Large orders are taken from some of the missions and promptly filled. Here the miserably poor, whose hands have been so hardened as to incapacitate them for neat sewing, find employment.
Several years ago, a class was formed from these adults by the managers, to teach them to become expert seamstresses; but after much effort it was found impossible to much im- prove them, and so the undertaking was relinquished.
During 1870, 258 women were employed, and $10,165 paid for such service. Receipts from sales of garments during the same time amounted to $8,873.70, and from ordered work, $4,710.69. The society has all the appliances for doing three times the amount of work, but fails to dispose of its stock, owing largely, we think, to the fact that its House is situated in a poor business locality, and with no adequate scheme for wholesaling.
The society has an invested fund of about $18,000, besides its real estate. .
There is a sewing-school also connected with the House, where one hundred and thirty girls were instructed in 1870. Spiritual instruction is blended with manual. Portions of Scripture and hymns are orally taught, and a good library has been provided. Three hours on Wednesday, and three on Saturday, they are instructed in needle-work. Each is en- couraged to finish.a garment, which becomes her own. \n annual exhibition is held in January, when their work is ex- amined, and each girl receives the garment she has made.
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499
THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY.
Many of the girls who were here a few years ago are now filling fine situations, and the religious instructions inculcated at the House have resulted in their conversion. The hall in the rear building is hired for an Episcopal Sunday school, which has led some to erroneously suppose that the House was denominational. The society is not limited in its opera- tions by creed or nationality.
An infant industrial school has also been established, which is open daily to small children of both sexes. The supervis- ion of this is committed to Mr. Brace of the " Children's Aid Society." About fifty children attend, mostly from crowded tenement-houses. A comfortable dinner is provided for them, and it is hoped that, by thus surrounding them for a few hours each day with elevating influences, they will be stimu- lated to self-help and self-respect.
The managers. have made arrangements so that those formerly in its employ, but whose age or misfortune now in- capacitates them for toil, receive a small annuity. A Bible- class and a Mothers' Social and Religious Meeting are held one day each week in the school-room. The women assemble, and while engaged with their needles, the Bible is read, ex- pounded, and its claims urged upon them. The benevolent ladies who projected this Institution, and have nobly sustained it during twenty years, often amid difficulties that have caused them nights of sleepless anxiety, have performed a noble work that will never be forgotten. They have raised the fallen, cheered the faint, and covered the naked with a garment. They have carried bread to the homes of the famishing and the fatherless, and many times assuaged the sorrows of her who was ready to perish.
THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY.
(Office No. 19 East Fourth street.)
MONG the numerous organizations established during the last half century for the improvement of society, few have been more energetic or successful than the Children's Aid Society, formed in February, 1853. The prime mover in this association at its organiza- tion, and down through the eighteen years of its wondrous
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
career, has been Mr. Charles Loring Brace, the present secre- tary of the society. While pursuing a theological course in New York city, he gave much labor to various institutions, seeking the recovery of neglected vagrant and delinquent children, and to the prisons where mature criminals were confined. A trip to England and other parts of Europe, where he carefully examined the institutions, and the meas- ures formed for the reformation of the fallen, led to the conclusion that the chief evils of society resulted from the. neglects of childhood, and that the largest efforts of the phi- lanthropist should be bent in this direction. Some time after his return he drew together a number of intelligent and benevolent gentlemen who had already manifested an interest in this subject, and organized this society, the object being to "improve the condition of the poor and destitute children of the city of New York." One outside of this city would be surprised to know how large a number of little orphans and half-orphans, children cast out from their homes, or who have drifted here by the tide of emigration, or have run away from their parents in the surrounding country, and the off- spring of dissolute parents, are here living vagabond lives, subsisting as best they can, sleeping in boxes, under stair- ways, and in the lobbies of the printing offices.
These are at first the newsboys, boot-blacks, pedlers, errand- boys, petty thieves, but become at a later period the pick- pockets, gamblers, street loafers, burglars, and prostitutes. There are always probably ten thousand of this class floating around the city, a few of whom try to be honest and industri- ons, but many more live entirely by their wit and skill. The society during the eighteen years of its operations has ex- pended, aside from its purchases of real estate, about $940,000. It has devised and opened a system of lodging-houses for the boys, and also for homeless girls, and has at present twenty- two industrial schools, scattered through the various parts of the city, for poor and neglected girls. The homeless, after some instruction, are taken to the. West, if they can be in -. duced to go, where good situations are provided. The ex- periment of opening a lodging-house for newsboys and boot- blacks was so novel. that scarcely any could be found to encourage the measure, and much search was required to find a building that could be hired for such use. At length the loft of the Sum Building was secured, and after spending a thousand dollars in furnishing it, the boys were invited to
501
THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY.
come in. The first night, March 18, 1854, the room was crowded with these wild, ragged roughs, many of whom were hatless, bootless, indescribably filthy, and covered with ver- min, a large part of them unable to read or write, and some of whom did not know their nationality or names. A man of admirable tact and fitness, Mr. C. C. Tracy, had been provi- dentially secured to take charge of this branch of the enter- prise. He addressed the boys kindly, and informed them that they were not objects of charity, but were to be con- sidered lodgers in their own hotel, paying six cents each for his bed, the rules of the house being that they should keep order among themselves, and use the bath. They cheered him lustily, and one of the largest boys soon stepped forward and paid for a week's lodging in advance. There was much "larking " and mischief manifested, requiring great patience and wisdom on the part of the superintendent, but with ad- mirable adroitness he soon introduced the Lord's Prayer, which they were induced to repeat, the evening school followed, and finally the full religious service. Many of these boys were found to be earning several dollars per day selling papers, and none of them less than from fifty to seventy-five cents, all of which they squandered on theatres, cards, dice, lot- tery-tickets, and costly meals in the saloons. To correct these habits, he introduced checkers, backgammon, and other games to keep them from the streets, and contrived what has been a blessing to thousands, the Newsboys' Savings Bank. A table, with a drawer divided into small compartiments, with a slit in the surface over each through which the boys could slip their pennies, was prepared, and each box numbered for a de- positor. As any undue authority would have sent them fly- ing to their original Arab life, he called them together and 'explained the object of the bank, to induce them to save their money, and called for a vote as to how long it should be kept locked. They voted for two months. Having obtained a majority vote for a good measure, they were always held strictly to their own law, however deeply they might repent afterwards. The amount saved by some in that time aston- ished all of them, the value of property was impressed on their minds, some took their accumulations to the city Savings Banks, and others purchased good clothes. This invention did more to destroy their gambling and extravagant tendencies than everything else. A plan for lending penniless boys money to begin business of some kind was introduced.
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502
NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
Sums varying from five to fifty cents were loaned, generally returned the same day, often the same hour, and did much to encourage industry and thrift.
Thus the work of reformation advanced; they became more tidy, industrious, studious, regular in their habits, and serious at divine service. Ministers and other speakers were invited to address them. One has well said, " There is something un- speakably solemn and affecting in the crowded and attentive meeting of these boys, and the thought that you speak for a few minutes on the high themes of eternity to a young audience, who, to-morrow, will be battling with misery, temp- tation, and sin, in every shape and form, and to whom your words may be the last they ever hear of friendly sympathy or warning." The seed has sometimes sprung up suddenly, and in other instances after many days. At one service a boy addicted to thieving was so impressed that at its close he called the superintendent aside, confessed his crimes, gave up a dark lantern, a wrench, a pistol, and has since filled a good place as an excellent boy. No story of misfortune has ever been presented to the boys without eliciting a generous response and material aid. They contributed to the "Mount Vernon Fund," to the Kansas sufferers, to the Sanitary Com- mission, and to the relief of sufferers from great fires in the city. Thousands have gone to the country, scarcely any of whom have turned out drunkards, some of them have entered . the ministry and the learned professions, and many of them have accumulated property. Many of them are singularly talented; and, being early schooled to tact and self-reliance, they almost invariably succeed in any undertaking. The newsboys and boot-blacks of New York are.a new crop each year, ragged and ignorant as their predecessors. So the toil of this society continues from year to year. The society has five lodging-houses at present, the one at No. 49 Park place being the largest, having accommodations for two hundred and fifty. A fund of $70,000 has been provided to build or purchase a building in that ward. Three of the trustees have recently purchased the building occupied in the Sixteenth ward. It is a four-story brick in Eighteenth street, near Seventh avenue, has accommodations for a hundred boys, and cost $14,000. The same fruit has not attended the lodging- house system among the girls, yet it has been a necessity and a success. The edifice No. 27 Saint Mark's place has been purchased for a Girl's lodging-house, at an expense of
503
THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY.
$22,500. The lodging-houses are supplied with reading- rooms, evening schools, music, and meals. The twenty-two industrial schools for poor girls are located in the different sections of the city where the class for which they were insti- tuted are most numerous. These children and half-grown girls are sought out by visitors appointed by the managers. They are such as do not attend the ward schools, wild, ragged, apparently untamable, many of them growing up within a few blocks of Union square and other fashionable centers, living in cellars, garrets, or miserable shanties, with- out any of the advantages of school or church. They are when found filthy, indolent, quarrelsome, and profoundly ignorant of everything. They cannot close a rent in a garment, or attend to any household duty. In these schools they are taught, besides other species of handicraft, the use of the sewing machine, which invariably secures them a good situa- tion. Beside the paid teachers, many ladies of culture vol- unteer to assist in conducting these schools. During the last nine months, 7,000 different children have been under instruc- ยท tion in these industrial schools, 12,000 have found quarters in the lodging-houses, and 2,298 have been placed in homes, mainly in the West. The managers express deep gratitude that no railroad accident has ever occurred while conducting the more than eighteen thousand children to their new homes in various parts of the country. The children are not legally bound out, so but that if they prove truant, or their employers play the tyrant, the connection may be at any time dissolved. No one not engaged in this work can appreciate the magnitude of the evil this society is toiling to prevent, or the good it is yearly accomplishing. Notwith- standing the increase of population, the sentences to the city prisons, for such offences as children usually commit, are less than formerly. . We find the total for vagrancy for 1869 only about half what it. was in 1862-2,071 as against 4,299, and the females only numbered 785 against 3,172 in 1862; the total of this year, 646 less than in the year previous. In petit larceny, the total was only increased from 2,779 to 3,327 in seven years, though population has probably increased thirty- five per cent. in that time, and among females it has risen only from 880 in 1862, to 989 in 1869; while the total is 836 less than last year.
"The commitments of boys under 15 years are less than four years ago-1,872 in 1862 against 1,934 in 1865, and of
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
girls between 15 and 20, less than they were seven years ago -1,927. against 2,081; and of those under 15, less, being 325 in 1869 against 372 in 1862 ; the total commitments in 1869, as against 1862, are 46,476 to 41,449; in 1868 they were 47,313.
"The arrests for vagrancy are 2,449 against 3,961 in 1862; for picking pockets, 303 against 466 ; for petit larceny, 4,927 against 3,946, and against 5,260 in 1865, and 5,269 in 1867.
"The arrests of minors are less than they were in 1867, and but little greater than in 1863, 12,075 against 11,357; and those of female minors have fallen off, in seven years, 2,397 against 2,885 in 1862 to 3,132 in 1863-the total amount of all ages is 78,451 in 1869 against 84,072 in 1863, and 71,130 in 1862.
" The marked changes which everywhere occur in criminal records of our city, in the arrest and punishment of girls, is especially due, we believe, to the agency of 'Industrial Schools.''"
SOCIETY FOR THE EMPLOYMENT AND RELIEF OF POOR WOMEN.
WENTY-SIX years ago, under the influence of the Rev. Orville Dewey, D.D., pastor of the church of the Messiah, this society was organized, and has the honor of being the first of its kind in New York. The object of the society is to prevent, in a measure, the pau- perism which forms so painful a feature in the community ; to supersede the daily almsgiving, which, instead of benefit- ing, only tends to deepen the degradation of this class by de- priving them of a healthful self-dependence ; to elevate them to the rank of independent laborers, and insure them a fair compensation for their toil. The annual payment of three dollars at first made a person a member of the society, but in 1847 the sum was changed to five dollars, and in 1865 to eight dollars. The management is committed to a President, a Vice-President, a Secretary, a Treasurer, and twelve mana- - gers, all of whom are ladies. Each subscriber is allowed to send one applicant to the directors, but is held responsible
ASSOCIATION FOR IMPROVING THE CONDITION OF POOR. 505
for any delinquencies in the person thus sent. Goods are purchased, manufactured into garments, and disposed of in the store kept by the society, and in such other ways as the managers shall direct. During 1869 work was given weekly to ninety-six women, and three thousand two hundred and sixty-one garments were manufactured. The society has ex- perienced some difficulty in disposing of its goods, the sales of the year amounting to but little over $3,000. The report of 1870 shows a small decrease on the previous year. Other societies in the city have grown up from the example fur- nished by this, and now control many times its amount of labor and capital. The society owns no building and oper- ates with a small capital.
The managers have recently proposed to open a Mission House for missionary work among women and girls. They propose to keep the girls through the day, providing dinner, giving them instruction in useful studies during the morn- ing hours, devoting the afternoon to needle-work in all branches. Every girl in turn to take part in the housework under the direction of a competent matron. They thus hope in time to establish a seamstress, a dressmaking, and a wash- ing department, each of which shall be self-supporting. The new building to contain rooms to be used on Sabbath for Bible classes and Sunday school, and on week evenings for reading-room, lectures, music, and other entertainments and instruction suited to the wants of the pupils. The society is wholly controlled by the Unitarians.
THE NEW YORK ASSOCIATION FOR IMPROVING THE CON- DITION OF THE POOR
(Office in Bible House.)
TEW YORK, like every other great and populous city, is largely overrun with an army of beggars of both sexes, representing all ages and nationalities. . Some of these are wealthy misers, retailing pretended sorrows to increase their gains, others meanly beg to avoid industry, a large number are improvident. and some hitherto industrious and
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NEW YORK AND ITS INSTITUTIONS.
successful are so reduced, in times of general embarrassment, that begging becomes a necessity. Many of this latter class, finding themselves thus sadly in decline, become demoralized, and sink down to the slum of common pauperism. It is hardly a virtue to give indiscriminately to all that ask, because dissipation, idleness, and needless vagrancy, would be thus greatly increased. All have not the time to inquire into the character and condition of applicants, hence the necessity of a carefully organized association, to whom the worthy poor may successfully apply.
In 1843 this Association was formed, and in 1848 it was duly incorporated. The wonderful increase of foreign pan- pers had greatly swelled the army of straggling mendicants. To meet the demands, more than thirty almsgiving societies had been formed, many of which gave far too indiscrimi- nately; all acted independently, thus furnishing an opportu- nity for artful mendicants to draw at the same time from several societies without detection. This society did not de- sign to supersede any other, but simply to supply what in others was manifestly lacking. But so wise and comprehen- sive was its plan, that in a short time most of the others dis- banded, leaving a far greater burden for it to carry than it had originally anticipated. The Association divided the city into twenty-two districts, which are again subdivided into sections, so small that the visitor residing in each could call at the house of every applicant. No supplies are given save through the visitor. The Association gives no money, and only such articles of food and clothing, in small quantities, as are least liable to abuse, giving always coarser supplies than industry will procure. The design of the Association is not the mere temporary relief, but the elevation of the moral and physical condition of the indigent ; hence, temporary relief is resorted to when compatible with its general design. It re- quires every beneficiary to abstain from intoxicating drinks, to send young children to school, to apprentice children of suitable age, thus making the poor a party to their own im- provement. During the twenty-seven years of its operations, the Association has relieved over one hundred and eighty thou- sand families, varying from five to fifteen thousand per an- num, amounting to at least 765,000 individuals. Its disburse- ments down to October, 1870, amounted to $1,203,767.53.
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