USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > Cincinnati > Cincinnati, the Queen City, 1788-1912, Volume II > Part 38
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When needed, shoes and clothing are furnished. During the winter coal is supplied. Occasionally rents are paid; rarely is any cash given. Some confer- ences conduct a store-room and at stated hours every week issue groceries to the poor on presentation of the relief tickets. The society further seeks to find homes for orphans and neglected children, to place the aged and afflicted in institutions
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and to procure employment for its charges and other applicants. Besides the actual relief of the destitute, special works are often undertaken; such as the visitation of hospitals and institutions of correction; the placing of orphans and foundlings in good homes; fresh air work, boy's clubs, and the like.
The funds of the society are mainly derived from a secret collection at every meeting, from donations of honorary members and subscribers, and from lectures and similar entertainments. There is practically no expense whatever connected with the work of relief. No salaries are paid; the use of the meeting room is nearly always free; occasionally there may be a charge for stationery or postage. Almost every cent received goes directly to the poor ..
All the work of the society is done quietly; the rules forbid that the condi- tion of its charges should be made public. Annual reports are issued, but all is done in the name of the society and not in the name of the individual. The or- ganization is not secret, but impersonal.
As the Vincentians consider themselves the dispensers of the gifts of God who is the common Father of Mankind, they feel that their love for their neigh- bor should be without respect of persons. The title of the poor to their com- miseration is their poverty itself. They are not to inquire whether the poor be- long to any particular party or sect, whether they are white or black, Jew or Gentile, Catholic or Protestant. All who need help are to be the beneficiaries of their Christian charity.
The Cincinnati conferences relieve each year several hundreds of families, more than a thousand individuals and pay more than 5,000 visits to the homes of the poor. When it is considered that the total receipts of the society throughout the world are annually about two million dollars and the disbursements the same, some idea can be formed of the work that is being done by the members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, not for any material remuneration but for the love of Him who said, "Amen, I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren you did it to me."
MATERNITY SOCIETY.
This society was founded about twenty-six years ago by Mrs. Robert B. Bol- wer, and its purpose is to provide infants' clothing, aid and comfort for desti- tute women in child-bed. It is carried on by women of the Episcopal church. The aid covers a period of not less than two weeks nor more than two months. The society has its headquarters at 525 E. Liberty street. Applications may also be made to the officers at any time.
About 1,000 visits are made each year by the trained nurse and several hun- dreds of friendly visits are made by ladies of the society, and numbers of Thanks- giving and Christmas dinners are furnished for families. Several thousands of garments are made and distributed yearly by active members and the sewing circles. There are also given out about a thousand new garments and several hundreds of such as are slightly worn. Nearly four thousands of new garments and more than a hundred toilet bags are given out for infants' outfits. The med- ical staff is of the best.
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While some of these women are poor because of their inability to be any- thing else, that class forms but a small per cent of the beneficiaries of this soci- ety. In the past few years, especially, most of them have been of a better class ; many of them had never received charity before, but owing to loss of work in financial depressions, and similar causes, come into temporary straits that have to be tided over. The object is always to raise the family to a little higher level if possible, and to encourage the olders members of the family to help themselves, and to this end a large active membership is desirable. Volunteers are wanted for the visiting committee. Valuable cooperation is received every season from the Fresh Air Society, the Flower Mission, and sometimes from the Army and Navy League.
KINDERGARTENS.
The first meeting of Cincinnati women interested in establishing free kinder- gartens in this city was held December 13, 1879. At a subsequent meeting held December 19, the Cincinnati Kindergarten Association was organized with Mrs. Alphonso Taft as its first president, Mrs. Robert Hosea as treasurer and Mrs. J. D. Branna as secretary.
The first kindergarten was opened in the old Spencer House on the river front March 1, 1880, with six children present. This number rapidly increased to sixty as the work became better known in the neighborhood.
A training school for kindergartners was organized at the same time, and the four pupils who entered for the training were placed as assistants in the kindergarten under the direction of Miss Sallie Shawk of St. Louis. As the success of the first kindergarten became demonstrated, it was decided to open another in the extreme northern part of the city, and these two were soon fol- lowed by one in the western and another in the eastern part of the city. These kindergartens were known respectively as the South, North, West and Gilbert avenue kindergartens, and were placed under the direction of pupils trained in the school. They, with the training school, derived their entire support through the association by means of voluntary subscriptions, donations and the proceeds of entertainments, etc., there being no tuition charged at that time.
Later, in order to encourage the formation of kindergartens, without assum- ing an additional burden of expense, the association volunteered to organize and supervise kindergartens supported by other organizations or individuals, free of expense, and to supply them with pupil assistants for the training school. A mothers' meeting or association has been organized in each of the kindergartens, holding monthly meetings for child study and social intercourse, and these again have been united, forming a general association, holding mass meetings once a month during the year. Four kindergartens owe their existence and entire support to the earnest desire upon the part of several groups of hard working mothers who realize the advantages of the kindergarten training for their chil- dren and an endeavor to provide them with it. A few years ago a bill was passed at Columbus, authorizing boards of education to set aside part of the contingent fund to establish and maintain kindergartens in connection with the
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public schools, for children between the ages of four and six, or to provide an additional sum for kindergartens by the levy of a tax not exceeding a mill. The development of the training school has been the chief object of considera- tion during the past few years, as the realization has become more general that the value of the kindergarten depends entirely upon the character, ability and thorough preparation of the kindergartner for her work. The course of instruc- tion now covers a period of three years; the first year prepares the pupil for the position of assistant, the second for director, while the third prepares the direc- tor for higher responsibilities and clearer insight into the work she has under- taken.
The kindergartens are open only in the mornings, the afternoons being de- voted to training classes, directors meetings, lectures, etc., with the exception of Thursday afternoon, which is reserved for mothers' meetings. The average number of children in a kindergarten is fifty, and endeavor is made to place with each director assistants from the senior and normal classes, giving the juniors a period of observation and preparation before they are formally in- stalled as assistants. Necessary changes in the location of assistants are usually made just after the Christmas and Easter vacations, in order that there may be as few interruptions as possible to the trend of thought and preparation car- ried out in the kindergartens at those seasons.
Many graduates of the training school are now filling satisfactorily impor- tant positions in various localities, and are in constant communication with the training school, which aims to keep in close touch with their work.
Free scholarships are granted to deaconesses and to workers in the social settlement. There are now fifty-nine kindergartens associated with the Cin- cinnati Kindergarten Association. The total number of children enrolled is nearly 3,000. Average attendance 1,558. Largest attendance, 2,041. Number of visits to homes, 7,604. Number of visitors, 3,862. Number of mothers en- rolled 2,051. Number of visitors to meetings, 2,179.
The annual expenses are more than $9,000. There is usually a small balance in the treasury.
RESCUE MISSION.
Life Saving Station-These are the words in great letters of black, that can be seen for squares, painted upon a building on George street near Central ave- nue. One usually associates the idea of a life saving station with those who go upon the sea and of those who are rescued from it, and the simile certainly holds good here for it is indeed the mission of those in charge to rescue the erring and lost from the sea of sin. The mission was founded about fifteen years ago by the Rev. Sherrard and Mrs. Beatty, and was opened in an old gambling house on West Fifth street. Its object was to rescue men and women from drink and sin and to help them on the way to a good life.
Ten regular meetings are held every week in the Mission hall; the open air and street work begin with the opening of warm weather. They make a spe- cial point of prison work, and look after prisoners who have been released from the work house; also the house of detention, which is visited every Sunday, and
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hospital patients who need merciful help. The police court is watched, especially for those who have been arrested for the first time, and these and others when released by the court are turned over to the mission. Three thousand home- less men are given lodging each year. Several thousands of dollars are expended each year in this work; no special appeals are made for money; no collections are taken in the meetings; often those in charge have sat down to the last meal they had in the house, not knowing from whence the next would come. But it came, as help has always come, and the work has prospered. Although the mission assumes charge of those who come out of the police court or workhouse, no help comes from the city except in the way of passes to get the erring ones back to their homes. Rich people are not helping the mission. Its funds come from the great class of wage workers and from those who have been helped up.
Attached to the mission is a Rescue Home for erring women, where they are cared for free of charge and where homes and situations are provided for them when thought best to leave the home. Many girls have been returned to parents. Each year several hundreds of girls are cared for, and half of these are returned to their families and friends. Hundreds have been provided with homes where they can earn an honest living. Quite a number have been mar- ried and have become happy wives.
No salaries are paid to any persons connected with the mission. Dependence is placed entirely upon voluntary offerings. When the present building was erected, it was chiefly through the aid of a few personal friends. This is truly a Life Saving Station, from whence the life lines are being daily and hourly thrown out. A visit to this place will more than repay any one.
THE FRESH AIR SOCIETY.
This society has existed for more than twenty years, as an unsectarian move- ment for providing glimpses of country, woods and fields to these persons, resi- dent in Cincinnati and its tributary cities across the Ohio river, who need help in obtaining such vacations.
The society recognizes no distinction of race or complexion in the bestowal of its bounty, having one or two farms where negro women and children are received. For most of the years of its activity it has distributed its vacation subjects upon several farms situated among the hills surrounding Cincinnati, within a radius of fifteen or twenty miles. Later its operation had received modification, by the gift from a lady and a gentleman of benevolence, who de- sired to establish a memorial of an only son who had died, of a farm of sixty- three acres of beautiful woodland and tillage, situated ten miles from the city, upon the Little Miami branch of the Pennsylvania railroad. To the commodious buildings already standing there were added eight large cottages, of eight sleep- ing rooms each, and a dining room for two hundred inmates.
While the scattered farms are in some measure still used, the Home at Ter- race Park receives the larger part of the society's beneficiaries. The houses are so separated that invalids and persons of refined tastes have rooms apart from the noisy children who constitute the majority of recipients of the country outing.
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The aim of the society is not alone to care for poor women and children, but to invite to a vacation of two weeks, or longer, if special need arises, sales- women, teachers, bookkeepers and others of limited resources. .
As in case of such fresh air societies, the most satisfactory results of the charity have been shown in the restoration of the sick to comparative and often entire health, by the magic medicine of good air and wholesome food.
PROGRESS WORKING GIRLS CLUB.
The constitution of the Progress Working Girls Club, organized in 1894, declares its purpose to be the "mutual enjoyment and improvement of the mem- bers." Their aim always has been to be self-supporting and self-governing. Instruction is offered in subjects desired by the members. There are classes in embroidery, calisthenics, English, elocution and vocal music. Occasional lec- tures or series of lectures on educational or practical matters and social meet- ings twice a month form an enjoyable feature of the club work.
The club rooms are open for classes three evenings in the week and on Sun- day afternoons, from September to May. During the summer months the mem- bers come together in out-door meetings at the Zoo, Eden Park or some pleasant farm not far from the city.
OHIO HUMANE SOCIETY.
This society exists for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and for the Protection of Children. This association was organized in 1873, incorporated in 1875, and reincorporated in 1878. The objects of the society are to create public sentiment among the people of Ohio in favor of enacting laws for the prevention of cruelty, especially to children and animals ; to prosecute persons found violating such laws; to compel fathers, who have abandoned children, to provide for them, and to compel adult persons having aged and infirm parents to assist in providing for them.
It is the province of the children's department of this society to receive and investigate all reports of cruelty or neglect of children. Laws have been en- acted, by the legislature of Ohio, for the protection of children, which authorize this society to prosecute the cases and otherwise carry out the provisions of such acts, so that the society is a powerful instrument in the rescuing of little ones from neglect, squalor, vice, cruelty and destitution, and in providing shelter and homes for them.
The officers and agents of the society seek out the abodes of crime, the dwelling places of infamy; and innocent young children are rescued from the corrupt atmosphere by which they are surrounded, and placed in homes, under good influences, where better training will fit them for the battle of life.
As the gravest crimes necessarily engage the attention of the police force in all large cities, the especial delegation of a friendly hand like the Humane Society to shield the helpless ones is very effective.
In this department, each year a couple of thousand cases, involving the wel- fare of twice as many children, many of them related to cruelty and neglect, Vol. II-20
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and many to truant fathers, are cared for. In the cases of truant fathers, some- times amounts reaching in totals to large sums are compulsorily contributed. A few such fathers disappear, others are sentenced, warned or otherwise disposed of, while others are awakened to their duty. Several hundreds of neglected and abused children are each year provided with good homes.
The records of the various courts will bear testimony to the faithfulness of the society's officers in bringing offenders to justice. It is the policy of the society, without fear or favor, to prosecute all persons found violating the laws against cruelty and against failure when other means fail to secure the object desired. The courts and the officers of the city, county and state cooperate most earnestly in the enforcement of these laws.
Another feature of the work is the enforcement of the act passed April 13, 1898, which provides that "any adult person, a resident of Ohio, having a par- ent within the state of Ohio, said parent be destitute of means of subsistence and unable, either by reason of old age, infirmity or illness to support himself or herself, who neglects or refuses to provide said parents with necessary shelter, food, care and clothing, being possessed of or able to earn means sufficient for the purpose, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and punished by im- prisonment etc. Many cases under this law are prosecuted with success.
In the animal department, about two thousand cases a year are complained of and investigated ; few complaints fail of being sustained, while most of the com- plaints are found to be cases of aggravated cruelty. In some cases a complaint involves many head of horses or mules or cattle. These cruelties consist of overloading, overdriving, torturing, tormenting, beating, needlessly mutilating, cutting, stabbing, abusing, docking tail, working with sore shoulders or back, or lame, spavined and crippled and otherwise unfit for work.
CINCINNATI SOCIAL SETTLEMENT.
In seeking to express what the University College and Social Settlements have contributed to philanthropic effort, it may be said that they have used the synthetic method. The very simplicity of the relation of the Settlement to its neighborhood makes it the most binding, imposes responsibilities that are well- nigh universal. Just as there is no limit to the fatherly relation, because it is so simple, so absolute, so the Settlement stands morally pledged. The value of the Settlement work comes largely from the fact that it is constantly tested by the anxious questioning of the Settlement worker, and each new step is under- taken as a result of his direct observation of conditions that are very near and pressing.
The Cincinnati Social Settlement stands on the corner of Broadway and Third street, on the brink of a tenement neighborhood heterogeneous in char- acter. Of the six hundred and fifty families affected by the Settlement, fully one half belong to the respectable, wage-earning class, and represent an average weekly income of ten dollars. The family is housed in four or three, oftener two rooms, paying an average rent of eight dollars a month. The children have no playground but the street or a narrow court, and they are invariably taken from school at an age ranging from twelve to fourteen years and placed in
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factories. There are many virtues among these families,-endurance, self- denial, cheerfulness, self-respect; but the housing of them so near each other makes it necesary to keep as distinct as possible, and so it is that they are gen- erally suspicious and there is little social life either in the family group or in the house group of families. The remaining one-half of the Settlement families live upon a weekly income below ten dollars, seven for the better-to-do, and all the way down for the others. These pay an average rent of six dollars a month. The grade of morality is inevitably lowered by the condition of the tenement in which they are forced to live, and as in all classes, there are inherent vices. The mental vision is pitifully narrow.
The Settlement effort is, then, to reinforce the good element in this neighbor- hood, strengthening them from without and mobilizing them within. The con- stitution of the Settlement Woman's Club, borrowed from the Woman's Club of the Chicago University Settlement, states its object to be the visiting of women of different nationalities and different creeds that shall help every woman to be a better wife, mother, sister and citizen. Through the kinder- garten, the classes in wood-sloyd, sewing and embroidery, the bank, the library, story groups, social and dramatic clubs and reading circles, an activity is ob- tained that proves itself to be salutary, even inspiring. During the year lectures are given. Lectures on cooking, with demonstrations are given. There has been much good music, and well chosen plays have been successfully rendered by the Settlement Club. The social clubs have grown noticeably in membership and influence, and in self-growing power. The Woman's Club has maintained a benefit fund, kept a store of linen for the sick, and given relief in food when necessary, in so neighborly a spirit that giving seemed honorable and good, no shame to the recipient or the giver. Many little children have been taken to throat and ear and skin specialists, and many serious discussions have taken place at the Settlement on the transmission of disease, and the dangers lurking in ill-smelling courts and alleys. The Settlement sees a new social movement in its community ; it is what Jane Addams calls the up-draught, and those who are caught in it find themselves carried into a new contact with the finer ele- ments of civilization, and able themselves to contribute as citizens to the best activities of the city.
YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.
The Young Men's Christian Association was organized in 1848, for the pur- pose of giving young men a good start. It has a splendid gymnasium. This gives a good start physically.
The Cincinnati organization was the first of its kind in the United States. On the 8th of October 1848 there was called together a meeting of the male teachers of the first Mission Sunday School of the Central Christian church. It was declared that they met for "the purpose of taking into consideration the formation of a society for mutual improvement in grace and religious know- ledge." Shortly afterwards the society called. itself The Young Men's Society of Inquiry. Again the title was changed to "The Cincinnati Society of Religious Inquiry." In April 1849, the first Mission School was founded, it being on
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Cherry street. In August 1849 a second Mission School was established. Two years later rooms were rented for a library at 130 Walnut street. In 1853 the organization again changed its title to The Cincinnati Society of Religious In- quiry and Young Men's Christian Union. In 1858 the title was abbreviated to Young Men's Christian Union. In 1863 the title "Young Men's Christian Association" was selected.
While the Civil war was being waged the association was almost at a stand- still. Shortly after the close of that conflict a new spirit was infused into the society. In 1865 the association met for some time in the Seventh Street Con- gregational church. Later it took rooms in Fourth street. Its quarters were changed in 1867 to a corner of Elm and Sixth streets.
Mr. David Sinton, in 1874, generously presented the association with the munificent sum of $33,000. Close to the end of the Nineteenth century, the Y. M. C. A. was deeply in debt and made earnest appeals for help. Alexander McDonald responded with a contribution of $20,000, and David Sinton came forward with another large gift, $13,000.
A building for headquarters of the association was erected in 1891 at the corner of Walnut and Seventh streets. This fine edifice cost $200,000.
It has an evening college, with an enrollment of above 600 pupils. There are classes in arithmetic, bookkeeping, penmanship, shorthand, electricity, photo- graphy, physiology, elocution, English grammar and composition, French, Spanish and English literature, music, drawing, and architecture. One can pre- pare here for admission to the Cincinnati University, receiving instruction in Latin, Greek, Algebra, History and English literature. There is a night law school, founded in 1893. The Eclectic Medical Institute branch is at the corner of Plum and Court streets.
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