UC-IMRLP 
 
SOCIAL WORK SERIES 
 
 HOUSEHOLD 
 MANAGEMENT 
 
 By 
 FLORENCE NESBITT 
 
 DIRECTOR OF THE FOOD CONSERVATION SECTION OF THE CLEVELAND 
 
 WOMEN'S COMMITTEE OF THE COUNCIL OP 
 
 NATIONAL DEFENSE 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 
 1918 
 
* 
 
 COPYRIGHT, IQI8, BY 
 THE RUSSELL SAGE FOUNDATION 
 
 Printed March, 1918, 2110 Copies 
 Reprinted April, 1919, 1000 Copies 
 Reprinted October, 1924, 500 Copies 
 
 WM F. FELL CO PRINTERS 
 PHILADELPHIA 
 
PREFACE 
 
 A HOUSEHOLD economist who read the manu- 
 jLJL script of this book said, upon returning it, "This 
 will be a revelation to the dietitians, for nothing at all 
 like it has ever been printed. It will give some of them > 
 their first conception of what the homemakers who live ^ 
 in mean streets and crowded cities have to contend with." 
 
 As editor of the Social Work Series, what has impressed 
 me most in Miss Nesbitt's pages has been the evidence of 
 keen observation and of a rarely democratic spirit. The \/ 
 individual householders* whose troubles are described 
 here often by no more than a word or two live for the 
 reader and grip his attention, helping him to see every-y 
 day life more sanely and interpret it more sympathetically. 
 Other social workers who have seen the proof-sheets have 
 been enthusiastic for the practical reason that here are 
 set down the definite steps by which the city dweller 
 with small income and large family can get the most 
 his money. Those who are far removed from dependence . 
 are glad enough, in these days, to have such knowledge. 
 I have been interested to note, for example, that the 
 clerks who copied these chapters were eager for each in- 
 stallment, finding many of the suggestions applicable to 
 their own households. 
 
 Miss Nesbitt is not only a dietitian she is a social 
 case worker of varied experience. As a member of the 
 staff of the United Charities of Chicago, and later of the 
 mothers' pension department of the Chicago Juvenile 
 
 * It should be explained that all names given to these real 
 people in the book are pseudonyms. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 Court, she had an opportunity to see where the ideas of 
 household economists, as now formulated, are not uni- 
 versally applicable, and where, on the other hand, they 
 are eminently practical. Still later, her work as director 
 of one of the food conservation sections organized by the 
 Council of National Defense has impressed upon her 
 anew the fact that the women who need cooking classes 
 and food demonstrations the most namely, those who 
 have the least money are the very ones who remain 
 outside such present-day activities, unless approached 
 understandingly and one by one. When thus sought out, 
 they are eager to learn and eager to apply their new 
 knowledge. 
 
 Social workers who are in and out of the poorer homes 
 of the city in response to many varying calls know that 
 the wives and mothers there are now more interested 
 than ever before in discussing ways and means. Often, 
 however, the worker who must pay many other calls 
 cannot take time to enter into domestic details with any 
 thoroughness. Even so, it should be possible to make an 
 opening for the more leisurely volunteer, acting under 
 competent guidance. To her could be entrusted the task 
 of carrying out the practical and friendly suggestions of 
 this book. 
 
 As its pages go to press, the civilized countries of a 
 world at war are looking to America to show her high- 
 est generalship in the production, distribution, and eco- 
 nomical use of food stuffs. The task is one in which the 
 humblest householder not only may bear a part, but, in 
 doing so, may add permanently to the health and morale 
 
 of our own people. 
 
 MARY E. RICHMOND 
 
 Editor of the Social Work Series 
 New York, March, 1918. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 I. INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 II. PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR TO THE HOME . 22 
 
 III. AIDS TO HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGE- 
 
 MENT 43 
 
 IV. DIETARY STANDARDS 66 
 
 V. CHOICE OF FOODS 91 
 
 VI. PURCHASE, PREPARATION, AND SERVING . .121 
 
 VII. HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING . . . .132 
 
 APPENDIX A. Suggestions for a Talk on Milk . 155 
 APPENDIX B. Special Diet Lists . . . .159 
 APPENDIX C. Average Weights and Heights of 
 
 Normal Children 164 
 
 INDEX 165 
 
HOUSEHOLD 
 
 MANAGEMENT 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 A SUCCESSFUL American tells how his wid- 
 * owed mother brought up her four sons on 
 "next to nothing a year." But the basis of their 
 diet was oatmeal, cracked wheat, milk, and vege- 
 tables, available in their rural community for the 
 "few cents" a day she could spend for food. 
 No more wholesome diet for growing boys could 
 have been secured, and, in addition, there was a 
 good physical inheritance back of them. The 
 social worker whose daily tasks take her into city 
 and town homes with small incomes realizes that 
 results would be different if the four sons were 
 growing up now in a crowded district where the 
 home table had to be furnished at present-day 
 prices. 
 
 7 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 What are the conditions, this social worker 
 may ask, necessary for health and full physical 
 and mental development? Science is not yet able 
 to give us a complete and final answer ; yet we are 
 by no means wholly without authoritative guid- 
 ance. Later chapters of this book will attempt 
 to answer the question in simple, every-day 
 language, in so far as the findings of science and 
 the teachings of experience make an answer pos- 
 sible. Meanwhile it may be well for us to realize 
 at the outset two facts: wholesome living con- 
 ditions cannot be provided without intelligent 
 thought, neither can they be provided without 
 at least the smallest income which, with skillful 
 management, will buy the material necessities for 
 maintaining a normal home. 
 
 The subject of a minimum normal standard of 
 living and its cost is one on which it is easy to 
 generalize, while it is difficult and troublesome to 
 go into details. But the details, however tedious, 
 must be known before one can determine how 
 much a standard of living will cost or how nearly 
 it will fill human needs. The prosperous citizen 
 whose own standard is so far removed from that 
 8 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 of the city workingman as to offer no basis of 
 comparison of costs may believe that $12 a 
 week is an adequate living wage for the latter be- 
 cause he has known men on that wage whose 
 families were apparently well cared for. If he 
 were shown, however, that this amount of money 
 can be stretched no farther than to cover hous- 
 ing in dark bedrooms, food consisting largely of 
 bread and coffee, clothing bought at a second- 
 hand store, furnishing little or no protection 
 against storms and cold, so that children's feet 
 are wet and soggy half the winter, he would at 
 once recognize its inadequacy. 
 
 Students of the cost of living are unanimous 
 in the decision that the present rate of wage 
 of the unskilled workman will not at prevailing 
 prices support a family of average size two 
 adults and three children in a manner which 
 will furnish conditions necessary for their best 
 development. Various estimates of the income 
 necessary for this purpose have been made. 
 Robert Chapin in 1907, a.fter a study of some 
 500 workingmen's family budgets, estimated $825 
 a year as the amount necessary in New York 
 9 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 City;* while J. C. Kennedy in 1910, after a study 
 of living conditions that included about 200 bud- 
 gets, estimated $800 a year for the Chicago 
 Stock Yards District, f Since 1910, however, the 
 cost of fuel, clothing, and household necessities 
 has increased enormously. The Board of Esti- 
 mate and Apportionment of New York City in 
 1917 estimated the necessary amount as $980.414 
 In smaller cities and communities nearer the 
 source of supplies for food and fuel these figures 
 for cash income may be lowered. Nevertheless 
 such figures as are available for these places indi- 
 cate that the cost of food supplies, fuel, clothing, 
 and household articles averages about the same 
 as in the larger cities. While fresh food materials 
 
 * Chapin, Robert C. : Standard of Living among Work- 
 ingmen's Families in New York City, p. 281. New York, 
 Russell Sage Foundation Publication, Charities Publica- 
 tion Committee, 1909. 
 
 t Kennedy, John C., and others: Wages and Family 
 Budgets in the Chicago Stockyards District, with Wage 
 Statistics from Other Industries Employing Unskilled 
 Labor, p. 79. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1914. 
 
 t Report on the Increased Cost of Living for an Un- 
 skilled Laborer's Family in New York City. Prepared by 
 the Bureau of Personal Service of the Board of Estimate 
 and Apportionment. New York, February, 1917. 
 
 10 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 milk, vegetables, and fruit are likely to be 
 cheaper, clothing and household supplies are fre- 
 quently more expensive than in the cheaper city 
 shops. There are, however, in many instances 
 advantages difficult to estimate plots of ground 
 for a garden; chickens, pigs, or a cow that may 
 greatly increase the actual if not the cash income. 
 Neighborhood farmers may be glad to give fresh 
 products in exchange for a very little work. There 
 may be skimmed milk at the farm house or dairy, 
 either given away or sold for a few cents per gal- 
 lon. In a certain village in northern Wisconsin 
 the men set aside a day on which to cut and haul 
 wood for the one widow in the place. A thrifty 
 and industrious family often lives adequately in 
 a village upon an incredibly small cash income. 
 It should be kept in mind, however, that wher- 
 ever the lot of the family is cast, whatever the 
 nationality or former standards and habits of liv- 
 ing, the material necessities for maintaining a 
 normal standard of living in this country are at 
 the minimum very much the same. While some 
 of these necessities are practically free in some 
 places, if all of them must be bought outright for 
 II 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 cash, the difference in cost between different 
 American communities is slight; and if the esti- 
 mates of the cost of living given above are ap- 
 proximately correct, it is plain that on the present 
 scale of wages for the untrained laborer, even in 
 some cases for the semi-skilled, the father, un- 
 aided by the lucrative labor of his wife, cannot 
 provide for a family of three children conditions 
 for wholesome growth and development. 
 
 In the endeavor to attain this wholesome 
 standard of living "to live nice," as the mother 
 may say families suffer from various handicaps 
 which grow heavier as we go down the scale of 
 income. These handicaps become insurmount- 
 able for the family of average size five persons 
 earning somewhere from $800 to $1,000 per year 
 in our large American cities, or its equivalent 
 in smaller places. On these incomes a point is 
 reached at which the money will no longer buy, 
 with the amount of skill we can reasonably expect 
 from the untrained woman, the physical necessi- 
 ties which will give the children full growth and 
 development and the adults a chance to maintain 
 their efficiency. Moreover, the smaller the in- 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 come the greater the chance of its being irregular. 
 A day laborer is not paid for days on which he 
 does not work, from whatever cause. The day off 
 of the factory worker is most likely to be at his 
 own expense, and at best the pay comes in in 
 small amounts so that it is hard to plan expendi- 
 tures to good advantage. 
 
 The heaviest burden, therefore, is laid upon 
 the weakest shoulders. Even the woman of edu- 
 cation with an income which supplies a generous 
 margin over the amount necessary for wholesome 
 living would no doubt have bitter moments if she 
 entered upon her duties as a homemaker entirely 
 untrained. She can, however, pay for her mis- 
 takes in money, and need not pay in human life. 
 Nor need she go on making serious mistakes if she 
 is willing to work and study. The things she has 
 greatest need of knowing have been printed in 
 books which she can read; they are taught in 
 lectures and classes that she can command. For 
 her the paths of good living have been blazed by 
 the experience of generations that have given 
 thought to the art. She is accustomed to order 
 and cleanliness and a home in which the laws of 
 13 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 sanitation are observed. The composition of the 
 meals prescribed by the customs of her circle of 
 acquaintance conforms reasonably well to die- 
 tetic standards. She will quite naturally serve 
 fruit, cereal, bacon, and eggs for breakfast; soup, 
 meat, salad, two or three vegetables, and a sweet 
 or fruit dessert for dinner. She cannot get very 
 far away from an adequate dietary in following 
 these customs, though she may spend a great deal 
 more money than is necessary. 
 
 The case of many girls who marry out of the 
 ' factory or shop, however, is quite different. Not 
 only is such a girl usually untrained for her busi- 
 ness of homemaker, but the avenues of informa- 
 tion are for the most part closed to her. She does 
 not read; sometimes cannot. She cannot afford 
 to pay for instruction, nor do the customs of her 
 circle stand her in good stead. The home in which 
 she grew up has often been dirty, disorderly, and 
 crowded. The habits of the family were perhaps 
 uncleanly. The daily meals of coffee and bread, 
 with one to which meat and potatoes were added, 
 violated the laws of good nourishment. Her hus- 
 band's wage is small, increasing slowly, if at all. 
 14 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Thus, wherever the line may be drawn at which 
 the income is insufficient to buy the essentials of 
 a normal standard of living, long before this line 
 is reached failure on the part of the homemaker 
 is almost assured because she is untrained for her 
 task. When income drops to a point where no 
 mistake can be afforded, no dishonesty of trades- 
 people be endured, no accident be allowed for, 
 it is where even a wise and well trained woman 
 might conceivably fail in her household adminis- 
 tration. But the women who must manage these 
 small incomes are often unwise and seldom well 
 trained. Mistakes are practically certain to occur, 
 and they must be paid for in the stunted bodies 
 and weakened brains of children, in the ineffi- 
 ciency or drunkenness of husbands, and in pre- 
 mature aging of the mothers' own bodies. In a 
 few years the pretty, fresh-faced bride is an old, 
 broken woman, discouraged by the struggle of 
 trying to make so few dollars cover the needs of 
 so many mouths and so many feet. 
 
 The wisest and best trained woman in the land 
 could not have stretched Mr. King's $13 per week 
 over adequate living for his family of six children. 
 15 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 The charity organization society to which they 
 were referred by a lady who had been struck by 
 their poverty sent its home economics worker in 
 the hope that she might be helpful to the mother 
 in her household problems. The trained worker, 
 however, found little opportunity for service. 
 Like many women in a similar position, the 
 mother had discovered through experience the 
 way to make her small income meet such neces- 
 sities of life as she could pay for. Clothing not 
 received as gifts was bought at a Salvation Army 
 store for a few cents a garment. A bargain had 
 been driven with the cobbler around the corner 
 to mend the shoes at times when he had no other 
 work at a charge of little more than cost of ma- 
 terials. The children knew the best places to look 
 for the broken boxes which furnished nearly all 
 the fuel for the battered stove in which baking 
 was almost impossible. After the rent of $3. 50 a 
 week and other necessary running expenses had 
 been paid there were usually $7.00 left for food. 
 Most of this sum was spent for day-old bread 
 at half to two-thirds the regular price, for the 
 variety of dried peas and beans which happened 
 16 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 to be cheapest at the time, and for oatmeal, corn- 
 meal, sugar, and syrup. All these articles are 
 among those which give the highest value for the 
 money spent, and to which the choice must be 
 largely confined if food for eight persons for a week 
 is to be secured for so small an amount of money. 
 Ten cents daily were spent for meat for the father 
 and there was an occasional 5 cents' worth of 
 trimmings of fat from a good-natured butcher 
 who would ordinarily have scorned such small 
 sales. Two quarts of milk were being received as 
 a gift, and this with coffee and bread made up 
 two meals of the day, while the third was usually 
 of soup or porridge made of beans, peas, or cereal. 
 On Sunday the family had a stew made of a 
 cheap cut of meat and a vegetable whatever 
 was cheapest at the time, usually a five-cent 
 rutabaga. 
 
 This administration of Mr. King's income by 
 his wife, ignorant of the principles of nutrition, 
 was in most respects an efficient one; that is, 
 little more could have been secured for the 
 money, although the result was pitifully inade- 
 quate. Had the income been doubled, however, 
 2 17 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 thus being raised to an amount which with care- 
 ful and intelligent management could have been 
 made to buy the things needful for a home in 
 which the children could grow and develop in a 
 natural, healthful way, and the husband retain 
 his full working power, the mother would have 
 faced an infinitely more complicated problem, 
 and she might not have been equal to it. A child 
 who can do simple addition is not always able 
 to do long division or factoring. 
 
 Take, for example, the case of Mrs. Zarmonski, 
 who for two years had managed a bare existence 
 income wonderfully well, and had kept her three 
 children alive no small achievement though 
 seriously stunted in growth. She was granted a 
 mother's pension which would have provided 
 adequate food, clothing, and shelter for her fam- 
 ily had it been judiciously managed. It was 
 several months, however, before the supervising 
 visitor succeeded in inducing her to make changes 
 in the food habits, which had necessarily been 
 very restricted under the former conditions, or 
 to pay an extra $2.00 per month rent in order to 
 have well ventilated sleeping rooms. The first 
 18 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 month of the larger income there were white 
 shoes and stockings as well as dresses for all the 
 children ; the second, an expensive bright colored 
 rug for the sitting room. There had been nothing 
 in her experience or training to enable her to 
 make intelligent judgments of the kind now nec- 
 essary. Before this she had only to decide which 
 things were necessary to sustain life and which 
 unnecessary. Now she was called upon to decide 
 as to which desirable things outside this realm of 
 necessity were essential and which non-essential 
 to the welfare of her family. There was no reason 
 to expect she would be able to make these deci- 
 sions wisely, yet the limitation of her income 
 forced them upon her daily and her failure meant 
 the daily lessening chances of her children's attain- 
 ing manhood and womanhood with strong, well 
 developed bodies. 
 
 On the other hand, many women are incapable 
 even of succeeding, as did Mrs. Zarmonski and 
 Mrs. King, at the elementary task of making an 
 existence income "do." Mrs. Fisk, whose hus- 
 band earned $2.00 a day irregularly, with four 
 children to feed, included boiled ham, ready- 
 19 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 to-eat cereals, and canned baked beans in her 
 menu. 
 
 It is evident, then, that while knowledge and 
 skill cannot make adequate an income that is too 
 low to buy the materials needed for normal living, 
 it is in general true that the lower the income the 
 greater need has the homemaker for the fullest 
 training and most complete knowledge of all the 
 arts and sciences included in home economics. 
 Too often, however, the sum of her knowledge on 
 these subjects is the traditions and superstitions 
 inherited from her ancestors and such training as 
 her parents' home often in a foreign country 
 where conditions were entirely different af- 
 forded before she was thrust out, immature, to 
 make her own home. Her need of the latest dis- 
 coveries of science which throw light upon the 
 daily problems of physical life is urgent. But 
 before she can be helped, these discoveries must 
 be translated from the language of the scientist 
 into the simple terms of her daily living. Some- 
 times they can reach her by no other avenue than 
 by word of mouth or by demonstration from the 
 visitor whom her misfortune brings to her door 
 
 20 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the nurse, probation officer, relief agent, or 
 friendly visitor. Occasionally a word at the psy- 
 chological moment from this trusted friend of 
 the family marks the beginning of a revolution 
 in the conduct of a home or in the physical habits 
 of a family. More often, however, the sum of 
 many words and demonstrations is needed to 
 start and guide the changes which bring whole- 
 some living conditions out of an unkempt, mis- 
 managed home. 
 
 The object of this little volume is to offer to 
 the busy social worker whose specialty is family 
 work and whose contact with burdened mothers 
 gives her rich opportunities for spreading the 
 gospel of right living, a translation of the prin- 
 ciples underlying nutrition and the other arts and 
 sciences connected with homemaking into terms 
 of the simplest daily life. The characteristics of 
 that daily life on the household management side 
 will first concern us, then the stock of knowledge 
 now at our command which can be applied 
 readily to household conditions as we find them. 
 
 21 
 
II 
 
 PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR TO THE 
 HOME 
 
 TTTHAT are the essentials of homemaking? 
 This is a question that the visitor to the 
 home should ask herself on entering upon her task. 
 She wishes to make her efforts count in building 
 up the life of each family under her supervision 
 at the point where its needs are most vital. How 
 distinguish these needs? By what touchstone is 
 she to test the destroying effect of a dozen dif- 
 ferent shortcomings in household management, 
 cooking, and choice of foods, or gauge the par- 
 ticular adaptability to the case of different edu- 
 cational methods? The subject of homemaking 
 is so wide, standards are so various and ill defined, 
 that it is easy to become hopelessly lost in a maze 
 of details with no sense of proportion left. One 
 may find oneself giving to trivial preferences 
 the importance of an essential principle. Thus a 
 conscientious worker spent an incredible amount 
 22 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 of time and energy in inducing a housekeeper to 
 make beds in the morning instead of in the after- 
 noon. Did the matter warrant such an expendi- 
 ture? What may seem confusion to an outsider 
 often represents order to the worker in the midst 
 of the task. Her own system, evolved by her 
 personal effort, may be better for her than a 
 more efficient one handed down ready-made. 
 
 The standards of housekeeping are various. 
 To one woman a chair out of place or a speck of 
 dust on the furniture would render her house 
 unendurable. To another a regime of such im- 
 maculate order represents intense discomfort. 
 The woman, usually credited to New England, 
 who keeps house "by the wrath of God" to the 
 martyrdom of husband and children has become 
 a familiar figure in literature. Certainly any 
 attempt to impose a personal standard on a fam- 
 ily of which one is not a part should be preceded 
 by searching inquiry as to whether the matter in 
 question is essential to family welfare. Customs 
 and habits differ widely in different countries, 
 yet each civilized nation has a standard of whole- 
 some living to which a majority of its inhabitants 
 23 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 under favorable conditions adhere. How far 
 should we reduce these standards to a sameness? 
 While undoubtedly some time is gained for home- 
 lier tasks when the Italian or Polish woman gives 
 up making the crocheted lace with which she so 
 lavishly decorates her bed coverlets, chairs, man- 
 telpiece, etc., still without it her rooms lack a 
 certain native charm. Americanization is too 
 often a ruthless destroyer of beauty and charm. 
 
 Can we not say that whatever is necessary for 
 the health physical and mental of the family, 
 and for the unity of its life, is essential to success- 
 ful homemaking, while things not necessary for 
 these purposes, however desirable, are unessen- 
 tial? It is well to remember, also, that whatever 
 is essential applies equally to the Italian, Slavic, 
 and American family. 
 
 The educational work needed in any family is, 
 of course, dependent upon the situation revealed 
 by the study of its condition. Few mothers of 
 families likely to become dependent have had any 
 theoretical training for the important work of 
 homemaker, but most have had more or less prac- 
 tical training. Some are able to deal with all 
 24 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 except the most complicated problems in a fairly 
 efficient way. Others are almost as helpless in 
 their task as would be a young child who had 
 suddenly acquired the management of a house- 
 hold. 
 
 The character of the home life of the mother 
 during her childhood and her industrial history 
 are elements in the background of the situation 
 which are of great importance in laying plans for 
 educational work. For example: if the mother 
 of a shiftless housekeeper was thrifty and indus- 
 trious, any reminder of her training will be use- 
 ful. A Swedish woman who had fallen through 
 want and discouragement into slovenly habits 
 was restored to her former standard simply by 
 the renewal of a long broken relationship with 
 her sisters, who had kept their mother's teach- 
 ings. Many women of foreign birth who were 
 taught careful management in their youth have 
 since fallen into the prevalent and deplorable 
 American attitude of scorn for small economies; 
 familiarity with their background may point the 
 way to a return to long discarded habits and cus- 
 toms. Again, the woman who was in domestic ser- 
 25 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 vice before her marriage is better trained for the 
 care of her own household than if she had worked 
 in factory or shop. In short, any earlier expe- 
 riences which inculcated sounder standards than 
 those at present prevailing in the home may be 
 classed as an asset of reconstruction. 
 
 It should be recognized, then, at the outset, 
 that the widest possible variation, not only in 
 present standards and home conditions, but in 
 background and summonable resources of past 
 training and experience, will be found among the 
 families that come under the social worker's care. 
 Yet the need for certain educational work is 
 practically universal. None of the mothers are 
 familiar with the simple principles of nutrition 
 which must be known by one who would make 
 intelligent choice of foods. None possess such a 
 knowledge of the comparative values of different 
 foods, kinds of clothing, household materials and 
 supplies, as will enable them to lay out their 
 money to the best advantage. All need more or 
 less instruction in dietetic standards and help in 
 planning the family budget. 
 
 While the infinite variety in personal charac- 
 26 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 teristics and in circumstances makes any hard 
 and fast classification of families impossible, the 
 visitor to the home inevitably tends to group 
 families according to certain obvious character- 
 istics having special significance for her. Thus, 
 there is the group of families whose general home 
 standards as to cleanliness, order, etc. are 
 comparatively high, but whose dietary needs are 
 not met; the family (far rarer) whose general 
 home standards are very low, yet whose food is 
 fairly adequate; and the families a large and 
 heterogeneous group whose general home stan- 
 dards and whose dietary standards are alike 
 below par. 
 
 Whatever the type, the rapidity with which a 
 family can rise to a normal standard of living de- 
 pends, in general, upon the will of the mother to 
 reach it and her receptiveness more than upon 
 any other factors. 
 
 Many of the mothers met are of excellent 
 natural ability, with a devotion to their children 
 which makes them eager to learn everything that 
 will increase their efficiency as caretakers. As a 
 rule these mothers can sew, clean, and perform 
 27 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 satisfactorily most of the necessary cooking op- 
 erations. They have had, however, no oppor- 
 tunity to learn anything of food values or of 
 dietetics, and so are unable to choose wisely, 
 especially as their ignorance makes them an easy 
 prey to clever or unscrupulous advertisers. They 
 frequently pay extravagant prices for patented 
 foods which pose as brain foods or producers of 
 great energy. 
 
 In these clean, apparently well ordered homes, 
 often the most acute under-nourishment is found. 
 The standards of cleanliness and housekeeping 
 are good, but clothing and furnishings are being 
 kept up at the expense of food. Sometimes the 
 desire for learning causes the skimping. If the 
 mother has had to support the family by doing 
 days' work, she is likely to long fiercely to have 
 her children rise above this way of living. Many 
 an under-nourished child is being put through 
 school until he "graduates" at the expense of his 
 own and his mother's vital energy. 
 
 The small and irregular supply of money pre- 
 vents such a mother from working out an eco- 
 nomical system of expenditure; she buys from 
 28 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 day to day at great disadvantage; she neglects 
 the care of her own and the children's teeth, or, 
 to save coal and covering, lets them sleep in un- 
 ventilated rooms. If sufficient income can be 
 assured, these mistakes are easily and quickly 
 corrected by the woman eager to improve living 
 conditions. 
 
 At the death of her husband, a laborer, Mrs. 
 Kleinberg received $1,900 insurance, and for four 
 years managed, by the aid of this fund and her 
 own work, to care for her four children without 
 asking for relief. Her health finally broke down 
 under the strain and she became the recipient of 
 a mother's pension. At this time the tuberculosis 
 dispensary gave the following report of the physi- 
 cal condition of the family: 
 
 Mrs. Kleinberg, weight n6> pounds, second stage 
 pulmonary tuberculosis. John, thirteen years old, weight 
 74 pounds (14 pounds below the average), tuberculous 
 glands. William, ten years old, weight 57^ pounds (9 
 pounds below the average), first stage pulmonary tuber- 
 culosis. Mary, seven-and-a-half years old, weight 46^ 
 pounds (3 pounds below the average), tuberculous 
 glands. Thomas, six years old, weight 42 pounds (3 
 pounds below the average), non-tuberculous. 
 29 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 The first expense account received from the 
 family after they began receiving relief showed 
 that the habitual daily diet was baker's bread, 
 one to two pounds with a dozen buns. Meat and 
 potatoes were a part of the daily fare, and some- 
 times a second vegetable, usually canned beans 
 or peas. Half a pound of butter was bought once, 
 occasionally twice, during the week, and once in 
 a while a prepared cereal, usually cornflakes. 
 There was no fruit and no regular supply of 
 milk, but now and then a pint or quart was 
 bought. 
 
 Mrs. Kleinberg was given the simple rules for 
 the regulation of family diet which appear on 
 page 89, information on food values, a recipe 
 book, and help in planning her expenditures. 
 She could already cook reasonably well and she 
 used the recipes to good advantage. Teeth and 
 diseased tonsils received attention, and the fam- 
 ily was moved into a suburban cottage with gar- 
 den space. Six months later Mrs. Kleinberg had 
 gained six pounds and the children were reported 
 as having improved. Her expense accounts, 
 which were kept with great fidelity, showed that 
 30 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 three quarts of milk daily were being used ; that 
 enough cereals and fruit were bought for liberal 
 daily use, and that fuel and staple foods were 
 purchased in large enough quantities to last from 
 one payment to another. Bread was being baked 
 at home, and the garden was so successful as to 
 furnish a sufficient quantity of vegetables. The 
 standard of housekeeping and cleanliness was 
 good and the children's clothing attractively 
 made and kept. 
 
 The income at this time (1914) was $48 per 
 month, plus the garden and some gifts of cloth- 
 ing. As cost of living and the needs of the family 
 increased, it became, by 1917, $69 per month. In 
 this latter year the tuberculosis dispensary re- 
 ported that all of the family were well and well 
 nourished, that the weights of three of the chil- 
 dren were up to the average of normal children of 
 their age, and that the fourth was four pounds 
 over the average. 
 
 At the opposite extreme from Mrs. Kleinberg's 
 
 is the home where the standard of cleanliness is 
 
 low and the clothing and household furnishing 
 
 receive scant attention, yet where the food is 
 
 31 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 fairly adequate and the children appear to be in 
 normal physical condition. The children of these 
 families comparatively few in number are the 
 ones that have given rise to the fallacy that the 
 children of the poor are healthy. Their faces may 
 be habitually grimy and their clothing torn and 
 ragged, but their skins are clear and fresh and 
 their weight is normal. Probably in most cases 
 this is due to a splendid physical inheritance, 
 fairly adequate food, and enough outdoor life 
 partly to offset the bad living conditions inside 
 the house. 
 
 In the third group of families the standard 
 is an all-round low one uncleanliness, lack of 
 proper household management, poor food, bad 
 hygienic habits, all contribute to the family ill 
 being. Here experience has proved that the ex- 
 planation often lies in the mother's poor physical 
 condition, in subnormal mind or lack of mental 
 balance, in exceptionally deficient home training, 
 or in bad habits particularly drink and sexual 
 immorality. 
 
 Mrs. Frank, at sixteen, had married a man old 
 enough to be her father, and at twenty was left a 
 32 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 widow with three children. Mr. Frank seems 
 always to have treated his wife as though she had 
 remained the young child whom he first knew. 
 She had never handled money and had per- 
 formed very few of the household tasks except to 
 cook and care for the babies. Left, when her 
 husband died, in poor health, with a nursing 
 baby, and without means of support, she applied 
 for relief. The agent found her in three poor 
 rooms, heated by a coal stove which she did not 
 know how to manage. During the cold days of 
 the winter following, it became necessary to take 
 mother and babies from their rickety rooms and 
 deposit them with a kindly neighbor lest they 
 should freeze to death. Mrs. Frank seemed ut- 
 terly unable to feed the fire or to keep the ashes 
 shaken down in the stove, and when the cold got 
 too intense she simply went to bed and waited 
 for someone to come and rebuild the fire. The 
 kitchen table was habitually piled high with sam- 
 ples of all the household articles they possessed : 
 dirty dishes half filled with food were mixed with 
 the children's shoes, with nails, brushes, cooking 
 utensils, and bits of junk. 
 3 33 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 This woman, though obviously of low mental 
 ability, was said by the psychologist who ex- 
 amined her not to be subnormal; the explana- 
 tion of her exceptional incapability seemed to be 
 that she had grown up in an isolated way, the 
 only home she had ever known having been in a 
 houseboat on a river. Apparently no standard of 
 a well ordered home had been established in her 
 mind, and she had received almost no training 
 for the life before her. 
 
 During the first four months of the period 
 during which she received relief she was visited 
 on an average of four times a week. Time after 
 time the visitor found conditions almost as on the 
 original visit. If she was left to herself for even a 
 few days, unbelievable piles of dirty clothing and 
 rags would accumulate on chairs or beds or be 
 thrust into the dark corners of closets. 
 
 This woman needed to be taught practically 
 everything homemaking, cooking, cleaning, and 
 the care of children, as well as diet, choice of food, 
 and household management. At the end of two 
 years of faithful work, during which the family 
 had been moved into better rooms and the 
 34 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 mother had received the medical and dental care 
 necessary to get her into fairly good physical con- 
 dition, weekly or semi-weekly visits were still 
 necessary in order to be sure that the children 
 were reasonably clean, well fed, and clothed. Yet 
 the mother showed decided improvement, and 
 her devotion to her children was unquestionably 
 strong. Moreover, she possessed considerable na- 
 tive refinement and the moral tone of the home 
 was high. It seems probable that, as the children 
 grow older, their training may make up for the 
 mother's lack. 
 
 A woman who is mentally subnormal fre- 
 quently, like Mrs. Frank, shows such whole- 
 hearted devotion to her children that (under close 
 supervision) she learns in spite of her handicap to 
 give them good physical care. 
 
 Mrs. Weiss, left a widow with five children 
 under nine and no means of support, was men- 
 tally incapable of making change and was graded 
 very low on other mental tests. House and chil- 
 dren were habitually in such a condition of filth 
 and neglect that all observers agreed that the 
 children should receive institutional care. On the 
 35 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 mother's insistence upon keeping them, she was 
 given a trial under the close supervision of a 
 juvenile court officer and of her mother-in-law, 
 who lived in the same building. By slow degrees 
 she learned how to handle money, how to keep 
 her house clean, and her children well fed and 
 clothed. She was eager to learn and worked hard. 
 One desirable habit after another was slowly 
 established. Arrangements were devised for 
 keeping the food materials covered, and she 
 learned to wash the dishes regularly after each 
 meal, before any special attention was given to 
 the condition of the floor. Then regular periods 
 of scrubbing were inaugurated. Food problems 
 were easier to handle with her than with many 
 more intelligent women, as she was willing to 
 follow instructions literally. She agreed to buy 
 three quarts of milk each day and to make no 
 coffee for the children. A list of cooking times for 
 cereals was given her, which she followed. A vege- 
 table and a fruit were chosen for each day's use 
 from a list given her. The expenditure for meat 
 was limited to 25 cents a day. Later she mas- 
 tered a fair amount of regularity in meal times. 
 
 36 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 On the other hand, another subnormal woman 
 with equally faithful and close supervision and 
 with the help of an unusually capable mother 
 who lived a few blocks away, improved little in 
 the care of her house and children and became a 
 sexual delinquent within a few months. In an- 
 other case, a home economy worker made daily 
 visits over a period of many weeks to a home 
 where the mother was mildly insane before con- 
 ditions became such that commitment to a hos- 
 pital for the insane was possible. Through the 
 cooperation of the father and older children, the 
 children had been kept in school and reasonably 
 well clothed and fed, but the mother herself had 
 contributed nothing to the result, though she had 
 remained in apparent charge of the household. 
 
 Of a radically different type, though some- 
 times found living in an equal degree of squalor, 
 are those families whose standard, once higher, 
 has lapsed through the mother's discouragement, 
 brought on by extreme poverty or illness or 
 other misfortune. The change for the better is 
 often startlingly rapid after the conditions which 
 brought about the deterioration are removed. 
 37 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 Mr. Anderson had become physically incapa- 
 citated by an accident shortly after his marriage, 
 and for six years Mrs. Anderson supported the 
 family by doing night scrubbing. The conditions 
 in the home came to light through the mother's 
 application at a lying-in dispensary. Mr. Ander- 
 son had become violently insane several weeks 
 earlier, and she had kept him locked in one room 
 while she had gone to her work, leaving the three 
 children under seven locked in the rest of the 
 house. Naturally the house and children were 
 in an indescribably neglected condition and the 
 fourth child was born in these surroundings. Mrs. 
 Anderson was in a nervous and seriously run- 
 down condition though with no definite disease. 
 The two-year-old child had rickets and could not 
 walk. The four-year-old was also rachitic but 
 able to walk. The oldest boy was very much 
 under-nourished . 
 
 Mr. Anderson was sent to a sanitarium and the 
 wife received a regular allowance for the support 
 of her family. She was given instructions in diet, 
 recipes for simple dishes, and three quarts of milk 
 a day. Insistence upon a higher standard of 
 38 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 cleanliness was left until her health was better. 
 A month later the house was still habitually dirty 
 and disorderly but the food was greatly improved 
 and she had learned to manage her income. 
 The three quarts of milk, a well cooked cereal, 
 vegetables, and fruits were part of the daily diet. 
 
 She was advised to buy staple food materials 
 in larger amounts than had been her habit, was 
 shown samples of orders bought by other mothers 
 in similar circumstances, and was helped to make 
 out a list for herself. An infant welfare nurse 
 gave instructions about the care of the baby, and 
 she received a typewritten diet list to use for the 
 two-year-old child, and learned to wash his face 
 and hands before eating. At the end of another 
 month the family was moved into better rooms. 
 The visitor went over the care of food materials 
 with Mrs. Anderson and found she had two dozen 
 glass jars which could be used for the purpose; 
 and tin boxes for bread, flour, and sugar were 
 added. 
 
 Six months after regular instructions had be- 
 gun the house was habitually clean, well venti- 
 lated, and orderly. Staple food materials were 
 39 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 being kept on hand in covered receptacles. The 
 table was habitually set for meals and the chil- 
 dren trained to eat with clean hands. The usual 
 breakfast was of cereal and milk; the main dish 
 at the dinner was soup, meat, or eggs, with pota- 
 toes and fruit ; the supper consisted of vegetables 
 with milk and bread. The two-year-old boy was 
 learning to walk and had acquired a fairly good 
 color. Mrs. Anderson had learned to plan her 
 household expenses so as to buy staple food ma- 
 terials, coal, and household supplies in amounts 
 large enough to last a month. She was baking her 
 own bread, buying cereals in bulk, using oleomar- 
 garine, choosing the vegetables and fruits cheap- 
 est at the time, so that her income was covering 
 the needs of the family. Later a sewing machine 
 was added to her household equipment and she 
 made all of the children's clothing. At the end of 
 two years the children were apparently in normal 
 physical condition and well mannered. The house 
 was clean and well ordered. This woman was not 
 of high mental ability and was almost entirely 
 untrained, but was eager to learn and faithful in 
 following advice. 
 
 40 
 
PROBLEMS OF THE VISITOR 
 
 Often the low standards of a home can be 
 traced even more definitely than in the case of 
 Mrs. Anderson to the ill health of the mother. In 
 such cases, until the physical or mental condition 
 has received thoroughgoing attention, little im- 
 provement in home conditions is possible. Mrs. 
 Adams, left a widow with five small children, was 
 the despair of relatives and friends who tried to 
 help her in her distress because of the filthy and 
 disorderly condition of the house and her shiftless 
 household management. A brother-in-law who 
 was willing to contribute regularly to the support 
 of the family insisted upon turning over his 
 money to the organization which assumed respon- 
 sibility for her care. He said that if he gave it to 
 the mother direct she would spend it for bakery 
 goods and sweetmeats, to save work for herself, 
 and the digestion of the children would be spoiled. 
 The relatives, in fact, all considered her intoler- 
 ably lazy and shiftless. 
 
 Although the visitor put much faithful effort 
 into the attempt to bring about better living con- 
 ditions and did succeed in making some impor- 
 tant changes in food habits, the house continued 
 41 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 unkempt and there was no apparent improvement 
 in the mother's ability to handle money. A phys- 
 ical examination disclosed the need of an abdomi- 
 nal operation, and a bad mouth condition. Six 
 months later, after the operation had been suc- 
 cessfully performed and the teeth extracted, Mrs. 
 Adams began to show evidence of renewed vital- 
 ity and initiative. Moved into new and better 
 surroundings and given the fundamental instruc- 
 tions in the choice of food, methods of buying, 
 and the necessity for cleanliness, she developed 
 rapidly into a reasonably capable housekeeper. 
 
 42 
 
Ill 
 
 AIDS TO HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD 
 MANAGEMENT 
 
 A LMOST as various as the problems of bad 
 ^ ^ home management "encountered by the so- 
 cial worker on her rounds are the means by which 
 they can be met. Where the subject matter to be 
 taught and the facilities available permit, group 
 work is more economical in time and effort than 
 individual instruction. In most cases the educa- 
 tion in homemaking offered by the community in 
 settlement, school, or housekeeping center can be 
 used to advantage. Often the social and mental 
 stimulus of meeting other women in a club or 
 class is as sadly needed by the mothers as the 
 instruction in cooking, sewing, and household 
 management. When the neighborhood affords 
 none of these opportunities the women's own 
 houses have been successfully used as meeting 
 places for clubs to study housekeeping. A food 
 demonstration, a sewing lesson, or a discussion of 
 43 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 household budgets may be arranged for these 
 meetings, the social side of the gatherings being 
 emphasized even more strongly than when they 
 are held in a public place. The serving of coffee 
 or tea may make all the difference in the minds 
 of the assembled housekeepers between their go- 
 ing to a party and going to a class. 
 
 But even where neighborhood facilities already 
 exist the guidance of the visitor is still of great im- 
 portance. Life-long habits are hard to break, and 
 with the less enterprising wives and mothers a 
 new way of doing the household cleaning or an 
 unaccustomed food material soon falls into dis- 
 use if there is no outside source of encourage- 
 ment. Then there is always the woman who can- 
 not be reached by any means which requires the 
 time and effort necessary to attend a class or club 
 regularly. Ill health, misfortune, or mental dull- 
 ness imprisons her within her own walls. Help 
 must be brought to her door. 
 
 Thus the social worker, if she were infinitely 
 wise, infinitely tactful, would need all her wis- 
 dom, all her tact, to meet the various situa- 
 tions that confront her. And no part of the task 
 44 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 of family rebuilding is more delicate than that 
 which pertains to the treatment of home prob- 
 lems. The visitor is dealing with those with whom 
 experience counts for everything, technical train- 
 ing for nothing. This is an entirely natural atti- 
 tude of mind, as all the knowledge these home- 
 makers themselves possess has come from their 
 own experience or that of others who have trans- 
 ferred it to them. The nurse alone has a training 
 whose worth is recognized. She is able to dem- 
 onstrate in a manner that is easily understood 
 that she has a knowledge superior to that of the 
 mother herself. So the nurse's uniform has come 
 to stand in all matters relating to health for an 
 authority second only to that of the doctor. Any 
 other home visitor must prove her worth. She 
 may be a marvel of efficiency and possessed of the 
 wisdom of Solomon, but if she is young or un- 
 married or childless if all of these, so much the 
 harder her training will count for little with her 
 clients. She may have the highest theoretical 
 training in child nurture and experience with 
 hundreds of children, but if she is not a mother 
 herself she will be considered infinitely less wise 
 45 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 about the baby's food than Mrs. Cominsky who 
 lives next door. The fact that six out of Mrs. 
 Cominsky's ten children have died in the up- 
 bringing will have no weight in deciding the rela- 
 tive value of the advice of the two women. There 
 is danger, too, that the mothers will consider the 
 visitor's advice of little value because she can 
 have experienced none of the hardships through 
 which they themselves have passed. The veteran 
 worker in other lines has the same attitude to- 
 ward the college-made expert who suggests bet- 
 ter ways of doing the job he has been engaged in 
 for years. 
 
 And, indeed, the outsider should be sure that 
 she is right before she places her easily gained 
 wisdom above that, however small, which the 
 mother has won through her hard experience. In 
 most cases each has something to give the other. 
 Perhaps no more tactful beginning can be made 
 in the discussion of home problems than to let the 
 housekeeper feel that she has something valuable 
 to contribute an attitude on the part of the 
 worker that will not go unrewarded. 
 
 There is an occasional family that resents any 
 46 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 discussion of household affairs as an intrusion. 
 Fourteen-year-old Carl Pularski, when asked to 
 keep his mother's account book, since she could 
 not write English, replied that he would rather 
 starve than let anyone know what the family ate. 
 Occasionally the mother will reply with some 
 resentment to premature discussion of her house- 
 hold management that "she gets along the best 
 she can and goodness knows she has nothing to 
 waste." Whenever time permits, the establish- 
 ment of a warm personal relationship should pre- 
 cede discussion of the more intimate details of 
 domestic life. Tact, sympathy, and an earnest 
 desire to understand the mother's difficulties, 
 freedom from personal prejudice, and a clear idea 
 of the ends to be attained, along with a genuine 
 openness of mind and willingness to learn as well 
 as to teach these are the qualities to bring to 
 the work. 
 
 Usually in one of the early interviews with the 
 mother the subject of food needs and dietary 
 standards for the family can be discussed. Per- 
 haps the best general method of approach is 
 through inquiry about the health of the children. 
 47 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 Health needs primarily determine standards of 
 living standards not only of food, hygiene, and 
 sanitation, but of household management as well. 
 For it is only through efficient household man- 
 agement that healthful living conditions can be 
 bought at the price the women we wish to help 
 are able to pay. This approach can be used not 
 only by the nurse, but to very good advantage by 
 any visitor in the family field. It is entirely nat- 
 ural that the visitor, interested from any of the 
 many possible angles in the welfare of a family, 
 should show a solicitude for the health of its 
 members and the physical and mental develop- 
 ment of the children, and that she should discuss 
 the subjects bearing upon these points with the 
 mother. Most important among conditions af- 
 fecting health are food, eating habits, sleeping 
 arrangements, and the sanitary condition of the 
 home. A natural opening is not far to seek. It 
 is a rare family in which there are not one or 
 more children who are undergrown, under-nour- 
 ished, tuberculous; anemia and rickets are all 
 too common, bad teeth almost universal. 
 
 In personal cleanliness the care of the mouth, 
 48 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 which is the reception room of so many germs, is 
 of first importance. Training for children in the 
 vigorous use of the tooth-brush as well as periodic 
 visits to the dentist cannot be too strongly in- 
 sisted upon. Dirty hands and nails are estheti- 
 cally objectionable at all times, but at meal times 
 they become a fertile source of danger. 
 
 The easiest point of access the disease germ 
 can find to the body is through the alimentary 
 canal, so it follows that the mother must be 
 taught cleanliness in the care of food stuffs and 
 of drinking water. It is of vastly more impor- 
 tance that dishes and cooking utensils should be 
 clean than that the kitchen floor should be well 
 scrubbed. A tidy sitting-room and a kitchen of 
 neat appearance often accompany cooking uten- 
 sils whose coat of grease remains undisturbed 
 week after week. Since the nasal passages offer 
 another easy means of access for germs to vulner- 
 able parts of the body, a dusty carpet or curtain is 
 often more objectionable than an unwashed bare 
 floor. If the pantry is sweet-smelling and clean, 
 dust upon the parlor furniture may be forgiven. 
 
 This order of importance is too frequently re- 
 4 49 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 versed. But even in regard to the care of food, 
 uncleanliness is not of equal importance in all 
 places. For example, milk offers a rare medium 
 for the growth of germs and yet it is to be taken 
 without cooking. It is safe only when handled 
 with the most scrupulous cleanliness, including 
 protection from the air. Raw oatmeal with a dry 
 exterior which offers little food for germs, and 
 which is to be boiled an hour or two before it is 
 eaten, will probably be safe even if it has been 
 left in an open package. The presence of flies and 
 other vermin is serious not only because they act 
 as carriers of germs, but because of the nervous 
 strain resulting when they prey on the body, as 
 is the case with the commonly found bedbugs 
 and head lice and the less common body lice. 
 
 We must keep in mind that the mother has 
 very likely never connected her children's ill 
 health with these conditions, with the way in 
 which they have been housed, fed, and cared for. 
 She must be led to make this connection. In 
 order that she may be able to do it, the facts need 
 to be set before her as forcibly as possible, but 
 very simply and concretely, 
 50 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 We must also remember that a child, though 
 to the eye of an outsider woefully under normal 
 appearance, does not necessarily seem so to his 
 mother. He perhaps compares fairly well with 
 the other children whom she has an opportunity 
 of observing. Indeed, the worker herself may 
 find it necessary to call up continually a vivid 
 mental picture of the most robust youngsters she 
 knows in order to keep her own judgment as to 
 normal physical condition from becoming warped 
 by the succession of thin, pale, undergrown chil- 
 dren whom her day's work brings before her. 
 
 A particular child in the family, obviously less 
 well developed than his brothers, as a rule makes 
 a good starting point for discussion. A comment 
 on his small size, bad color, or nervousness will 
 often start an anxious mother on the full history 
 of her solicitude for him and the means she has 
 already taken to bring him up to normal condi- 
 tion. Her solicitude, of course, will greatly sim- 
 plify the visitor's task. It is easy to teach one 
 who wishes to learn. 
 
 On the other hand, the visitor may get only the 
 careless reply : " Oh, Willie has always been small 
 51 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 like that. His father was a little man and was 
 pale like that, too." To further questions as to 
 whether he eats well or not she may say, "Oh, 
 yes, he eats like anything. You should see how he 
 eats!" Even with this unfavorable opening the 
 visitor may go on to inquire as to the exact con- 
 tent of Willie's breakfast, dinner, and supper, 
 whether he eats between meals, what time he 
 goes to bed, with whom he sleeps, how his bed is 
 placed, etc. When it develops that he has a 
 breakfast of bread or rolls with black coffee or 
 strong tea; a lunch or supper of the same com- 
 position; that he does not like vegetables and 
 will not drink milk; that he goes to bed at ten 
 and sleeps with three brothers in a room with one 
 window, opening on a court a window which is 
 kept tightly closed all night; that he gets up 
 cross and "cranky" and sometimes goes to school 
 with no breakfast at all; it often becomes clear 
 even to a very ignorant and careless mother that 
 these habits are not conducive to the best physical 
 development. She will be probably in the mood 
 to discuss the most obvious defects in Willie's 
 diet with a view to making some change. Perhaps 
 52 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 the sleeping arrangements can be gone over, a 
 plan made which will permit not more than two 
 persons sleeping in the same bed ; an earlier bed- 
 time may be started because of the conference. 
 Wherever the question of an open window at 
 night enters into the discussion, the amount and 
 kind of bed-covering must be taken into consid- 
 eration. A talk, however convincing, on the de- 
 sirability of ventilation in bedrooms is lost so far 
 as the practical effect is concerned if there are 
 not enough comforters or blankets in the house 
 to keep the family reasonably warm with win- 
 dows open. 
 
 A state of "good health " should be understood 
 to include normal development and functioning 
 of all organs of the body, including sound teeth ; 
 normal rate of growth for children ; maintenance 
 of normal weight for adults; not only the ab- 
 sence of disease but a high state of vitality which 
 may successfully resist disease. This is a stan- 
 dard difficult for the untrained mother to com- 
 prehend. To her health usually means absence of 
 illness sufficiently acute to keep the patient in 
 bed. To solicitous remarks about Tommy, who 
 53 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 is obviously undergrown and under-nourished, 
 she will reply "Oh, he is fine and healthy. He 
 is not very big, but I have never had a doctor for 
 him in his life." Careful inquiry may draw from 
 the mother herself the information that she must 
 give him a "physic" once or twice a week; that 
 he had a cold last winter that "hung on" well 
 into the spring; and that he never has an appe- 
 tite for breakfast. A little personal examination 
 will be fairly sure to show teeth in all stages of 
 decay: some rotted down to the gums, others 
 whose small cavities could easily be taken care of. 
 
 Nor is it the uneducated alone who hold this 
 attitude of mind toward health conditions. One 
 intelligent well-to-do mother responds habitually 
 in the winter to an inquiry about the health of 
 her family, "We are all quite well, although the 
 children have colds." The children always do 
 have colds from October until May, but the mat- 
 ter receives no attention. 
 
 In convincing a mother of her child's need for 
 special attention, the standard of weights and 
 measures of normal children given in Appendix 
 C has been found exceedingly useful. 
 54 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 Mrs. Potter, a widow receiving a mother's pen- 
 sion, had supported herself and children, ten and 
 twelve years old, for the two years preceding the 
 time when aid was granted. A small, frail woman, 
 her own health had broken down under the strain, 
 and the children, left to shift for themselves in 
 her absence, had fallen into the usual dependence 
 on delicatessen and coffee. Their physical con- 
 dition was very obviously below par, but al- 
 though Mrs. Potter was above the average intel- 
 ligence, she was entirely indifferent to the visi- 
 tor's solicitude for the children's need of better 
 food and care. She was quite sure they were as 
 healthy and well grown as other children and re- 
 fused to make any radical change in their habits. 
 After several conversations on the subject the 
 visitor showed her a typewritten copy of the list 
 of weights and heights which she always carried 
 in her notebook. The children became interested 
 in getting their own weights and measures and 
 recording them for comparison. The boy was led 
 to join the nearest gymnasium class; the sleeping 
 arrangements and food were modified according 
 to the visitor's suggestions. When after two years 
 55 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 the family 'again became self-supporting, both 
 children were almost up to average weight and 
 greatly improved in general physical condition. 
 
 If the mother's objection to the suggested 
 change in food is that the child will not desire it, 
 the best plan is usually to appeal to the child 
 himself. Every boy or girl has a standard of phys- 
 ical beauty or strength and is willing to forego 
 present pleasure for the sake of attaining it. 
 Touch this ideal and the child can easily be in- 
 fluenced and a radical change in food habits 
 made. A boy's ideal almost always includes great 
 physical strength and prowess. He wants to be- 
 come a policeman, a soldier, or an aviator. A 
 girl desires physical beauty, red cheeks, a grace- 
 ful figure. Fortunately, physical strength, a clear 
 complexion, and grace of movement can all quite 
 truthfully be used in an appeal to youngsters to 
 order their food with more regard for the needs 
 of their body than for taste. 
 
 A juvenile court officer with only a casual con- 
 tact with a twelve-year-old boy who was being 
 brought up by his grandmother had entirely for- 
 gotten, when she met the old lady two years 
 56 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 later, a conversation she had had with the boy 
 about the use of stimulants. "You are the lady," 
 at once declared the grandmother, "who talked 
 with Harold about drinking coffee. He has not 
 taken it once since." 
 
 A dietitian talking with a group of Italian 
 women on the dangers of coffee for children was 
 informed by one mother that all of her children 
 drank coffee "except Angelo. His teacher told 
 him it wasn't good for him and now he won't 
 touch it." 
 
 The wife is often quite sure that the husband 
 will never be content with any other than the 
 foods to which he has been accustomed and it is 
 hard to reach him directly. In cases of illness the 
 nurse or doctor has some opportunity for influ- 
 encing his choice of food. Lecturers who have 
 addressed numbers of workingmen in noon time 
 talks in factories or at their lodge report that 
 they manifest considerable intelligent interest in 
 the subject of proper nutrition and economical 
 expenditure for food. 
 
 In cases where the home is clean and well cared 
 for and the family life apparently normal in spite 
 57 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 of failure to measure up to standards of physical 
 health, it is sometimes difficult for the visitor to 
 realize that the choice of a standard of living can- 
 not be left to the family itself. It is often hard to 
 insist upon more milk, vegetables, and fruit in 
 the diet, more beds or better lighted rooms, when 
 the family considers the present arrangement en- 
 tirely satisfactory. A mother occasionally com- 
 plains that she is compelled to buy more milk 
 than she needs. An Italian mother and her seven 
 children were found to be sleeping in two beds. 
 On the visitor's remarking that they needed more 
 beds, the twelve-year-old girl who was acting as 
 interpreter exclaimed in amazement, "What for? 
 We just fit now." The family that considers two 
 at the head and two at the foot a fit is not rare. 
 Some women will remain incredulous about 
 even the simplest point until a personal experi- 
 ence brings it home. The worker has only to per- 
 sist, however, and her point is sure to be illus- 
 trated sooner or later in the experience of the 
 family, though not often in so startling and seri- 
 ous a way as was the case with Mrs. Remski. 
 Mrs. Remski with her four children slept in two 
 
 58 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 small beds which almost completely filled a bed- 
 room with a single window opening on a narrow 
 outside passage between buildings. The sitting- 
 room was large and excellently lighted. The visi- 
 tor suggested that a bed for the mother and baby 
 and a cot for seven-year-old Frank, who had tu- 
 berculous glands, be set up in this room. But 
 Mrs. Remski said she would not "feel right" 
 with a bed in .the parlor, which she wanted to 
 "keep nice," and remained unmoved by the argu- 
 ments of the visitor who at each visit pointed out 
 the ill effects of insufficient air in bedrooms, en- 
 larging upon the danger of pneumonia. After a 
 few weeks the baby did fall dangerously ill of 
 pneumonia, and the doctor insisted upon hospital 
 care because of home conditions. In mortal fear 
 for her darling's life, Mrs. Remski moved the 
 beds into the parlor, and there they have re- 
 mained. 
 
 In helping the housewife to plan her expendi- 
 tures intelligently expense accounts are invalu- 
 able. It is they alone which give uncolored facts 
 as to how the money has gone and what has been 
 59 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 secured for it. In the writer's experience with 
 several thousands of widowed mothers receiving 
 pensions through the Chicago Juvenile Court not 
 more than two or three had been in the habit of 
 keeping household accounts, but after having 
 kept accounts regularly during the period in 
 which relief was given a large percentage of the 
 more intelligent women announced their inten- 
 tion of continuing them. It is exceedingly de- 
 sirable in cases where expense accounts are re- 
 quired by a relief-giving organization that the 
 mothers themselves should see their value. This 
 is not difficult for the more intelligent women to 
 grasp and they are often found working out plans 
 to make them of more value. One recipient of a 
 mother's pension keeps a separate account of the 
 shoes so that she may easily refer to it and form 
 a judgment as to the wisdom of her purchases. 
 Such accounts, moreover, often tell a quite differ- 
 ent story from that gained through conversation 
 with the mothers. They bring to light not only 
 ways in which money can be laid out to better 
 advantage, but the pitiful makeshifts by which 
 the family are making an inadequate income 
 60 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 "do." When the Strains began to keep them, 
 the charity organization agent, who was trying to 
 safeguard the health of the frail mother, found to 
 her horror that most of the vegetables the family 
 had eaten during the past year had been received 
 free from a market some distance away. In order 
 to get them the mother had gone to the market 
 at four o'clock in the morning and gathered the 
 refuse from the sales of the day before. 
 
 It is sometimes found to be most effective to 
 limit instruction at any one visit to one or two 
 points, as this prevents confusion in the mind of 
 the mother. A visitor who has the supervision 
 of sixty families receiving pensions from the state 
 visits each of them at least once a month. She 
 marks a food topic or a point of personal hygiene 
 to be discussed at each round of visits. On one 
 round the subject of milk will be talked over with 
 each mother how much is being bought, how 
 much each child is taking, etc. leaving sugges- 
 tions for additional quantities wherever this is 
 necessary. In speaking of this plan of hers she 
 said: "On the last round I talked about cereals 
 and got it straight just what each family needed 
 61 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 to do in that respect. Next time it will be vege- 
 tables and fruit. Very soon I must see after the 
 teeth of all the children, for I am afraid some are 
 being overlooked. In this way none fails to get 
 the instruction on an important point that they 
 all need. I adopted this plan because I often no- 
 ticed that I let other things, usually whatever 
 was uppermost in the mother's mind at the time, 
 absorb the whole of my visit and we didn't dis- 
 cuss health matters at all." 
 
 This plan, if not too rigidly followed so that it 
 reduces itself to a mechanical routine, has the 
 advantage of eliminating the possibility of the 
 busy worker's allowing important matters to 
 drop out of mind. Perhaps an even better plan 
 would be to keep a check list of topics to be cov- 
 ered in each family and mark them off as cov- 
 ered, without attempting to follow the same order 
 for all families. Topics covered once could be 
 rechecked later for the necessary follow-up. 
 
 In the cases where intimate guidance of the 
 mother in the care of her children and the ad- 
 ministration of her household is necessary, great 
 pains must be taken not to break down her sense 
 of responsibility or the unity of the family. 
 62 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 A friendly visitor to the family of a Bohemian 
 widow had looked very carefully after their needs 
 but had overlooked this one until the mother 
 brought it to her attention. Most of the chil- 
 dren's clothing and a great part of the household 
 supplies and furniture had been bought by the 
 visitor, so that little except the purchase of food 
 was left in the mother's hands. The visitor was 
 inclined to feel hurt, therefore, when, without 
 consulting her, Mrs. Rutsiki bought her ten-year- 
 old Bennie a pair of patent leather shoes. The 
 mother had for a while supported the family by 
 her own labor and had laid aside at this time a 
 few dollars of which she had said nothing. When 
 asked why she had spent this treasured reserve 
 for articles which would have been supplied with- 
 out hesitation as soon as the need was brought 
 to the visitor's attention, she replied, "You buy 
 everything for the children. If I don't buy them 
 something sometimes they will not think of me 
 when they are big. They will think that I have 
 never done anything for them." 
 
 Choosing the food for a family by sending in 
 grocery orders may be made to have a definite 
 
 63 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 educational value in teaching them the use of new 
 food materials or of a well balanced diet. Carried 
 beyond the point where it is needed for this or 
 other justifiable purposes it becomes a factor in 
 the process of devitalizing the family life. A good 
 general rule which applies here as well as in other 
 teaching is never to do anything for the pupil 
 which she can do for herself, whether it be to 
 choose food or clothing or to train her children. 
 If the relative, friend, or neighbor of the house- 
 keeper who cannot bake can teach her, the in- 
 struction had perhaps best come in this way. 
 
 Sometimes an entirely new environment will 
 have more influence than many weeks of faithful 
 effort in the old environment. A settlement house 
 wrote concerning a widow who spoke almost no 
 English: "Mrs. Storsky is known to us as a very 
 irresponsible woman who kept a very untidy 
 home and allowed the children to stay at home 
 from school for slight reasons. She is quarrelsome 
 and frequently in trouble with her neighbors. 
 For the past ten years she has been drinking to 
 a considerable extent." 
 
 In August Mrs. Storsky was moved into four 
 
HEALTH AND HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 light, clean, freshly papered rooms with screens or 
 netting at the doors and windows. The location 
 was in the outskirts of the city, miles from the 
 crowded neighborhood in which she had estab- 
 lished the reputation described above. At the 
 time the new rooms were entered the visitor 
 helped arrange the furniture. Each child's cloth- 
 ing was packed away separately and the older 
 ones were made responsible for their own. A new 
 stove was secured instead of the one which had 
 smoked up the former kitchen and would not bake. 
 The family diet had consisted of a cooked meat 
 at one meal, sausage at another, and in addition 
 chiefly bread and coffee. The mother, through an 
 interpreter, was given simple rules for regulat- 
 ing the diet; the amount of milk necessary was 
 agreed upon and ordered from a reliable dairy. 
 In the April following the removal the children 
 were in good physical condition and their school 
 report showed 100 per cent in cleanliness and 
 deportment. While no expense accounts could 
 be written by the mother, visits at meal time 
 showed well chosen and prepared food and that 
 regular meal times were being observed. 
 5 6 5 
 
IV 
 DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 * I BURNING from the homes with small in- 
 comes and from the daily tasks of visitors 
 in such homes, what data, now at our command, 
 are applicable to these tasks? Scientists working 
 on food problems are continually adding facts to 
 our working knowledge on the subject of the 
 nourishment of the human body. It thus becomes 
 increasingly possible each year to formulate stan- 
 dards by which to measure food needs under 
 given conditions. The standards of today are 
 much fuller and in some respects they are differ- 
 ent from those of ten years ago. Ten years more 
 will doubtless bring knowledge which will further 
 extend and modify them. Meanwhile what we 
 already know is of enormous help in regulating 
 the daily supply of food in such a way as best to 
 meet the requirements of the body. 
 
 Food needs follow laws of cause and effect 
 not all well understood, it is true, but none the 
 66 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 less inexorable. Nutrition could be an exact 
 science if we knew all of the elements involved. 
 It is not through a dispensation of Providence 
 that one is too thin or too fat or otherwise out 
 of condition from under- or over-nourishment. 
 And most such states can be corrected if one acts 
 upon available dietary knowledge. 
 The body requires food material for: 
 
 (1) Growth and repair 
 
 (2) Energy 
 
 (3) Regulation of physical processes 
 
 (1) GROWTH AND REPAIR 
 
 The baby makes his appearance in the world 
 weighing perhaps seven pounds. If he grows to 
 be a man of average size, he will weigh 154 pounds. 
 Food must provide material for the change of 
 the tiny muscles into large, strong ones, for the 
 growth and hardening of bones, and for every 
 change of tissue required. There is no other 
 source of supply. 
 
 So long as nature keeps the matter entirely in 
 her own hands it is well done. Mother's milk, 
 
 67 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 when the woman is in normal condition, is nicely 
 adjusted to the needs of the baby's body. It con- 
 tains all the elements required, mixed in the right 
 proportion. But when the food is left to human 
 choice, blunders begin often through sheer lack 
 of attention to the subject, for it is not alone 
 the children of the poor and uneducated who 
 are under-nourished. A builder planning a per- 
 manent building selects his materials carefully. 
 Should he skimp on quality of material the house 
 will fall into decay and be a loss to its owner, 
 and he be counted a foolish or dishonest builder. 
 The poorly built body which has been skimped 
 will also fall prematurely into decay, entailing a 
 loss far more serious than that of a falling house. 
 Among the building materials needed is one 
 which appears as part of every living cell in the 
 body. It makes up also the greater part of the 
 muscle tissue. It is called protein, and because 
 of its importance in the construction of the body 
 the gravest consequences follow an insufficient 
 supply. Fortunately, it is found in all foods, as 
 it is just as necessary to the life of plant cells and 
 to the body cells of the lower animals as to those 
 68 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 of man. There is, however, a great difference in 
 the proportion in which it is found in different 
 foods. We get an important part of our supply 
 in what may be called a ready-made form in 
 lean meat, which is the muscle of an animal ; in 
 the milk from the cow or goat secreted to furnish 
 food for her young; in the egg, where everything 
 necessary for forming the body of the chick is 
 stored. But the cow that gives us beef and milk 
 herself eats no meat, fish, milk, or eggs, but 
 only grains and grasses. From their proteins she 
 builds up her muscle. 
 
 There are a great many kinds of protein, some 
 of which are known to be incomplete. That is, 
 they alone are not able to furnish all the protein 
 needed for growth. Gelatin is one of these and so 
 is one of the proteins of Indian corn. Since our 
 present knowledge of the function of the different 
 kinds of protein in nourishing the body is imper- 
 fect, it seems best to choose each day some animal 
 food milk, meat, or eggs along with nuts, dried 
 beans and peas, and a liberal supply of cereals, 
 in order to insure a proper supply of the different 
 kinds of protein. 
 
 69 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 Standards for Building Material (Protein). 
 
 Much controversy has been waged during recent 
 years around the question of the amount of pro- 
 tein needed. The standard is expressed in the 
 number of grams a day which should be in- 
 cluded in the food of a man. Chittenden, in his 
 Nutrition of Man,* published experiments which 
 he believed to show that 60 grams a day are 
 sufficient. This was cutting the old standard of 
 100 to 125 grams a day in half. Sherman, 
 weighing all of the evidence at the time of the 
 publication of his Chemistry of Food and Nutri- 
 tion^ suggested 75 grams a man a day where 
 a low protein diet is desired, for either physio- 
 logical or economical reasons, and this amount 
 is commonly referred to as the modern stan- 
 dard. 
 
 For those unaccustomed to measuring in grams 
 and unfamiliar with the composition of foods 
 these figures may be given meaning by the 
 
 * Chittenden, Russell Henry: Nutrition of Man, p. 272. 
 New York, F. A. Stokes Co., 1907. 
 
 f Sherman, Henry Clapp: Chemistry of Food and Nu- 
 trition, p. 228. New York, The Macmillan Co., 1912. 
 
 70 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 amount of protein found in some of our common 
 articles of food: 
 
 i Ib. lean beef contains about 88 grams of protein 
 
 iqt.milk " " 32 " " " 
 
 i egg " " 8 " " " 
 
 1 1 2-oz. loaf of bread " "31 " " " 
 
 i Ib. navy beans " " 102 " " " 
 
 ilb. oatmeal " " 73 " " " 
 
 ilb. cheese " " 130 " " " 
 
 ilb. peanuts " " 41 " " " 
 
 What are referred to as high protein foods are 
 meat, fish, eggs, milk, and cheese; legumes (dried 
 beans, peas, and peanuts) and nuts are sometimes 
 added to the list, as these also contain a large per- 
 centage of protein; cereals also have a consider- 
 able percentage, as will be seen from the amount 
 of protein in the bread and oatmeal given above ; 
 the amount in vegetables and fruit is very small. 
 Consequently a high protein diet has commonly 
 been understood to mean a high meat diet. Such 
 a diet is not only expensive we have every rea- 
 son to believe it will become increasingly so dur- 
 ing the next few years but may also cause an 
 unnecessary strain upon the body. Putrefaction 
 in the intestines and uric acid in the body are 
 71 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 very apt to result if the waste products created 
 by meat digestion are not promptly thrown off. 
 Americans as a whole have been in the habit of 
 eating far too much meat the scarcity ahead 
 may mean better health for the nation. 
 
 Mrs. Rose, in Feeding the Family,* suggests 
 this plan of meeting the protein requirement in 
 a man's daily diet: One-quarter of a pound of 
 meat daily will furnish one-third of the amount 
 of protein needed ; another third can be supplied 
 by an egg, a glass of milk, some cheese, beans, or 
 nuts; while an additional third will easily be 
 made up by the cereals, vegetables, etc., which 
 will form the remainder of the day's food. The 
 same author advises that children under seven 
 years depend for high protein foods on an egg 
 daily and free use of milk. The cereals, vege- 
 tables, and fruit needed to make a diet sufficient 
 in quantity will furnish the remaining protein 
 required. The objection to much meat for young 
 children is based on the putrefactive process 
 pointed out above, which is more dangerous to 
 
 * Rose, Mary Swartz: Feeding the Family, p. 69. New 
 York, The Macmillan Co., 1916. 
 
 72 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 the undeveloped digestive system of the child 
 than to that of the adult; on the stimulating 
 effect of meat, which is not desirable for the 
 growing organism; and on the further fact that 
 the high flavoring of the meat makes it difficult 
 to train the child to eat foods with less taste 
 cereals, milk, and vegetables which should 
 form the larger part of his diet. The first ques- 
 tion asked by the visiting nurse called in because 
 the baby has convulsions is whether he has had 
 meat. 
 
 It was formerly believed that hard work tears 
 down muscular tissue so rapidly that a working- 
 man requires a large amount of protein in his 
 food. We still hear many expressions of the view 
 that hard work requires a high meat diet. That 
 there is no foundation for this belief is proved by 
 many experiments; the body is much more dur- 
 able than it was formerly believed to be. Hard 
 muscular labor can be performed without greatly 
 increasing the wear on the muscles provided 
 enough food is taken to furnish plenty of fuel for 
 the activity needed. Fats, sugars, and starches 
 can be used to furnish this fuel, and a large in- 
 73 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 crease in protein foods is not necessary for an 
 increase in activity. However, a person engaged 
 in active muscular exercise, particularly in out- 
 of-door work, can indulge in a high meat diet 
 with less danger of harmful results than can a 
 sedentary person, because the activity will nat- 
 urally help to dispose of the dangerous waste 
 products. 
 
 Mineral Salts. These are no less necessary in 
 the building of the body structure than are pro- 
 teins. Lime (calcium) salts form a large propor- 
 tion of the teeth and bones, and are also an essen- 
 tial element of the various tissues and fluids of 
 the body; iron is a necessary constituent of the 
 red corpuscles of the blood ; phosphorus is neces- 
 sary to the cells of the body and helps to give 
 rigidity to the bones. Other minerals used in the 
 body do not give us so much concern, as they are 
 needed in amounts which are fairly certain to be 
 present in the food if enough protein, iron, phos- 
 phorus, and lime are present. More protein than 
 is required puts an added strain on the organs of 
 nutrition that often cannot be well borne, par- 
 ticularly after youth is passed or in early child- 
 74 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 hood. More fuel foods, such as starch, sugar, etc., 
 than necessary will cause either bodily disorder 
 or excess of weight, which will eventually result 
 in a lessening of efficiency. But a larger allowance 
 of iron, phosphorus, or lime appears to be with- 
 out harmful consequences and may even tend to 
 better physical condition. Shortage of lime or 
 phosphorus may result in imperfect bone and 
 tooth formation; shortage of iron, in anemia. 
 These deficiencies in the diet, combined with 
 other causes, fill the ranks of the poor with 
 rachitic children, toothless young adults, and 
 anemic individuals of all ages. 
 
 These materials are perhaps of greater impor- 
 tance during the period of growth than later, 
 but there is no time at which the construction of 
 the body is a finished process. The same ma- 
 terials which go into its structure during the 
 time of growth go on being required in relatively 
 smaller amounts for purposes of repair, for there 
 is no time at which the body is stationary, and 
 the worn-out tissues must be replaced if it is to 
 maintain its strength. Milk, vegetables, and 
 fruits are the most important sources of mineral 
 75 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 salts and should be used as liberally as income 
 permits. The outer layers of grains are also rich 
 in minerals and can be of great help in low cost 
 dietaries where large amounts of fresh vegetables 
 and fruits cannot be used. 
 
 Lime (calcium) is frequently deficient in 
 actual dietaries, particularly in those of low in- 
 come groups. Its adequate supply is especially 
 important during the growth of bones and teeth. 
 Milk is the best source of supply, although fruits, 
 vegetables, and the outer layer of the grain of 
 cereals contain a considerable amount. One pint 
 of milk contains enough lime so that probably a 
 child who takes this amount of milk daily, to- 
 gether with cereals, vegetables, and fruits, will 
 have a sufficient margin. An adult, taking at 
 least half a pint of milk, with daily use of vege- 
 tables, fruit, and whole grain breads, will get the 
 amount needed. 
 
 Iron frequently falls too low in the ordinary 
 dietary. An iron tonic is among those commonly 
 administered by physicians. It would be better 
 for the health if people looked after this part of 
 the food requirement more carefully. Nor is all 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 iron found in food equally well utilized for the 
 nourishment of the body. Lean meat is rich in 
 iron, but of a kind which is not completely used. 
 The egg yolk contains a large percentage of a 
 kind fully used. Fruits and green vegetables, 
 particularly spinach, are valuable sources of iron, 
 as are also the outer layers of grains. Cabbage 
 and the root vegetables, as carrots and onions, 
 have a fairly high percentage of iron. The best 
 way of being certain that enough is obtained in 
 the diet is to allow as liberal a use of vegetables 
 and fruit as possible and to eat whole grain breads 
 and cereals. Although milk itself contains only 
 a small amount of iron, it exerts a strong influence 
 on the power of the body to utilize that sup- 
 plied by other foods, so that its use is important 
 in bringing up the iron content of the blood. 
 
 Phosphorus is less often deficient than lime 
 (calcium) in the dietary which contains enough 
 proteins. But adequate protein does not always 
 insure sufficient phosphorus. Free use of milk, 
 eggs, vegetables, and of cereals and breadstuffs 
 containing part of the outer layers of the grains, 
 will secure an abundance of phosphorus. 
 77 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 (2) MATERIAL FOR ENERGY 
 
 Food must not only provide material for growth 
 and repair, but fuel for the energy that is used up 
 with every movement. The amount of fuel food 
 needed depends upon the degree of muscular ac- 
 tivity of the person and the amount of muscle be- 
 ing used. A small engine does not require as much 
 fuel as a large one to keep it at work. If it is 
 worked at high pressure, more fuel is needed than 
 if it need only work at low pressure. Thus a large 
 man doing the same kind of work that a small 
 man does will require in general just about as 
 much larger an amount of food as his weight 
 is greater; a man lying twenty-four hours in bed 
 will use up about half as much energy as he does 
 on the days when he is doing hard muscular work. 
 
 Children, with their intense bodily activity and 
 rapid life processes, need in proportion to their 
 size much more fuel than does an adult. Their 
 heart beats are faster, their breathing is quicker, 
 all inner movements are more rapid. It is esti- 
 mated that a baby asleep uses up two-and-one- 
 half times as much energy in proportion to his 
 
 78 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 size as his mother lying awake beside him. Tak- 
 ing his day all the way through, with its activities 
 of crying, kicking, and crowing, he uses about 
 twice as much fuel in proportion to his size as 
 his father who is doing hard muscular work. 
 Watch a group of children at play and note the 
 rare occurrence of consecutive moments of quiet, 
 and the needs of the child for large amounts of 
 energy food will be clear. 
 
 If the food does not supply all of the fuel 
 needed for the activity of the body, it will burn 
 up its own tissues to meet the deficiency. The 
 reserve store of fat is there for this emergency 
 and no harm will probably result if it is the only 
 part of the body consumed. When, however, the 
 other tissues of the body which cannot be spared 
 begin to be burned up, the lack of fuel becomes 
 dangerous. If a child's food runs day after day 
 even a little below his needs, it means that he 
 must burn up for energy the material meant for 
 growth. Undergrowth necessarily results. 
 
 When more food than is needed to sustain the 
 activities of the body is taken, the surplus is 
 stored in the form of fat, provided the digestion 
 79 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 remains normal. This is the reserve of the body 
 and it is well to carry a generous but not a bur- 
 densome supply. 
 
 The foods on which we depend to furnish fuel 
 are those containing fats and sugars and starches 
 though protein also may be used for the pur- 
 pose. Cereal products bread, flour, and meal, 
 as well as breakfast cereals and potatoes are our 
 most important source of starch. 
 
 Standard for Energy. The invention of the 
 calorimeter, which measures the amount of heat 
 given off by the body, has made it possible to 
 measure the amount of fuel which needs to be 
 supplied by the food. Given the weight and age 
 of an individual and the kind of work being done, 
 it is possible to calculate with surprising accu- 
 racy the number of heat units required. Contrary 
 to public opinion, mental activity does not in- 
 crease the need for foods yielding energy. 
 
 The unit of measurement is a heat unit called 
 the calorie. This word, while familiar to the phy- 
 sicist, is not, unfortunately, in the vocabulary 
 of the average person. As it is the only unit of 
 measurement which we have to express fuel value, 
 80 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 its use is often necessary in discussions of foods 
 and the nutrition of the body. Public education 
 in food matters would be greatly advanced by 
 willingness on the part of educated people to add 
 it to their vocabulary. A strange word should 
 certainly not be a bugbear, and there seems no 
 reason for the difficulty experienced in introduc- 
 ing this one, beyond a distaste for allowing an 
 unknown term to be applied to food which is of 
 such universal every -day use. It is not even nec- 
 essary to remember that the calorie is the amount 
 of heat required to raise one litre of water one 
 degree centigrade in order to use the word intel- 
 ligently. Its practical, every-day use is to offer a 
 basis of comparison between the amount of heat 
 a given quantity and kind of food will yield and 
 the amount needed for the body; or a means of 
 comparing the amount of energy yielded by a 
 given quantity of one food with that of another. 
 A convenient way of using the term is by the 
 loo-calorie portion, as this amount makes an 
 ordinary serving of many common foods. For 
 example, a four-inch slice of bread one inch thick 
 yields 100 calories; so does a medium size 
 6 81 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 potato ; two level tablespoons of sugar, or one of 
 butter; five-eighths of a cupful of milk; one and 
 one- third eggs of ordinary size ; about two ounces 
 of cooked lean meat ; one cup of cooked oatmeal ; 
 one shredded wheat biscuit; four Uneeda bis- 
 cuits; one very large orange or apple; four or five 
 prunes or dates; two dozen raisins; one medium 
 size banana. 
 
 The energy requirement for adults differs for 
 the two sexes, and varies according to the size 
 of the person and the different degrees of muscu- 
 lar activity. Thus, a working man needs from 
 3,000 to 4,000 calories a day; a sedentary man 
 (i. e., a professional man or one following such a 
 trade as tailoring or shoe making), from 2,200 
 to 2,800 calories. An active woman needs from 
 2,600 to 3,000 calories a day, a sedentary wo- 
 man from 1, 800 to 2,300, and a nursing mother 
 from 3,000 to 3,600 calories. The requirements 
 of boys and girls of different ages are shown in 
 the following table:* 
 
 * Gillett, Lucy H. : A Survey of Evidence Regarding 
 Food Allowances for Healthy Children, p. 8. New York 
 Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, 1917. 
 
 82 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 CALORIES PER DAY 
 
 Age, Years 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 Under 2 
 
 900-1200 
 
 900-1200 
 
 2-3 
 
 1000-1300 
 
 980-1280 
 
 3-4 
 
 1100-1400 
 
 1060-1360 
 
 4-5 
 
 1200-1500 
 
 1140-1440 
 
 5-6 
 
 1300-1600 
 
 1220-1520 
 
 6-7 
 
 1400-1700 
 
 1300-1600 
 
 7-8 
 
 1500-1800 
 
 1380-1680 
 
 8-9 
 
 1600-1900 
 
 1460-1760 
 
 9-10 
 
 1700-2000 
 
 1550-1850 
 
 IO-II 
 
 1900-2200 
 
 1650-1950 
 
 11-12 
 
 2100-2400 
 
 1750-2050 
 
 12-13 
 
 2300-2700 
 
 1850-2150 
 
 13-14 
 
 2500-2900 
 
 1950-2250 
 
 14-15 
 
 2600-3100 
 
 2050-2350 
 
 15-16 
 
 2700-3300 
 
 2150-2450 
 
 16-17 
 
 2700-3400 
 
 2250-2550 
 
 In dealing with normal, healthy individuals in 
 the every-day conduct of life, such calculations 
 of caloric needs are seldom called for. But they 
 are invaluable where rations must be measured 
 out, either in food materials or in money with 
 which the food is to be bought, and they are fre- 
 quently helpful in dealing with abnormal physi- 
 cal conditions, such as obesity or under-weight. 
 
 Fortunately we are not reduced to the irksome 
 task of estimating each day the number of calo- 
 
 83 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 ries we require and calculating the amount of 
 food that will furnish this amount. An adult in 
 normal physical condition will, if his food is rea- 
 sonably attractive, eat the right amount with no 
 other guidance than the demands of appetite. 
 Ordinary observation of the physical condition 
 will show whether too much or too little is being 
 eaten. If too much is eaten and assimilated, the 
 individual gains in weight. If the excess is not 
 properly cared for by the organs of nutrition, dis- 
 turbance will follow which usually becomes ap- 
 parent at once. If, on the other hand, too little is 
 eaten to allow for the activity, the store of body 
 fat is drawn upon and weight is lost. "It is ob- 
 vious that the proper standard for fuel value of 
 the diet is that which will preserve the desired 
 degree of fatness while sustaining the desired 
 amount of activity," writes Dr. Sherman,* and 
 in another paragraph adds that the average of 
 healthy men and women keep themselves slightly 
 too thin while young and allow themselves to 
 grow slightly too stout as they grow older. 
 While the high protein foods will furnish en- 
 * Chemistry of Food and Nutrition, p. 218. 
 
 8 4 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 ergy, starch, sugar, and fat are the articles of 
 diet upon which we rely for making up a large 
 part of the calories needed. To depend upon 
 meat, fish, and eggs for energy as well as for 
 building material would mean an expensive diet, 
 and, as pointed out above, one not conducive to 
 good health. Fruits and green vegetables have 
 only a low energy value. The starchy foods, 
 which are chiefly the cereal products and the 
 white and sweet potato, are perhaps the only high 
 energy foods which can be used in very large 
 amounts. Much fat, except in very cold climates, 
 is likely to result in digestive disturbances. Too 
 much sugar, particularly if taken alone, will also 
 cause disturbances. A concentrated sugar solu- 
 tion is irritating to the stomach, and the amount 
 the kidneys can properly care for is limited. 
 Sugar contains no minerals and furnishes noth- 
 ing except fuel. Used too freely, it is likely to 
 displace other foods which would furnish both 
 energy and iron. Hutchinson* sets four ounces 
 
 * Hutchinson, Robert: Food and the Principles of 
 Dietetics, p. 281. New York, William Wood and Co., 1917 
 (4th Ed.). 
 
 85 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 per day as the limit of the amount which 
 the average man can take. Mrs. Abel, in the 
 United States Agricultural Bulletin,* Sugar as 
 Food, says that three to four ounces a day 
 may be utilized to advantage by men at hard 
 work. It is perhaps safest to keep well under 
 these upper amounts. In children under-nour- 
 ishment is so often traced to too much sugar in 
 the diet that it is an ingredient whose amount 
 should always be scrutinized. While two ounces 
 per day will usually be borne without active dis- 
 turbance by a child, a much lower daily average 
 of consumption is advisable. A safe rule for the 
 family dietary seems to be two ounces for each 
 adult and one ounce for each child. (One rounded 
 tablespoonful weighs an ounce.) 
 
 Studies of actual dietaries show that where 
 cereals are not largely used the food is likely to 
 fall too low in the amount of energy furnished. 
 It is, therefore, well to use this class of foods 
 liberally, particularly in the low cost dietary, 
 
 * Abel, Mrs. Mary W. H.: Sugar as Food, p. 23 (Farm- 
 ers' Bulletin). U. S. Department of Agriculture, 1906. 
 Washington, D. C., Superintendent of Documents. 
 
 86 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 which is often deficient in number of calories 
 furnished. 
 
 (3) MATERIAL FOR REGULATING BODY 
 PROCESSES 
 
 The neutrality or slight alkalinity of the blood 
 must be maintained in order that the bodily 
 processes may be carried on normally. On the 
 proper balance of the phosphorus, lime, mag- 
 nesium, sodium, and potassium in the body de- 
 pends this alkalinity, and also the elasticity and 
 irritability of the muscles and nerves. 
 
 Water helps to regulate the concentration of 
 the mineral elements and to flush the system of 
 waste through the kidneys. While water is to be 
 had freely in almost any civilized country, it is 
 by no means to be taken for granted that people, 
 particularly children, will drink as much as they 
 should without some attention to the subject. 
 
 Accessory Factors. Besides the protein, fuel 
 foods, minerals, and water, other substances 
 called accessory factors or sometimes vitamines, 
 of which little is so far known, seem to play an 
 important part in the nourishment of the body. 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 These are essential to growth, and if they are not 
 included in a child's food in sufficient quantity, 
 its normal rate of growth cannot be maintained. 
 The absence of vitamines from the diet of an 
 adult is believed to be responsible for such dis- 
 eases as beri-beri* and scurvy. 
 
 In general, vitamines are present in vegetables, 
 fruits, and milk, and the outer layer of grains, 
 and absent in dried foods and cereals made from 
 the inner part of the grain polished rice, white 
 flour, etc. 
 
 SIMPLE RULES FOR REGULATING THE DIET 
 
 The dietetic standards which have been 
 briefly summarized give the basis for simple 
 rules of diet which even the most unlearned have 
 no difficulty in following, and which will help 
 them to avoid the mistakes most likely to occur 
 when choice of food is restricted because of low 
 income. 
 
 * Beri-beri, a disease common in China among people 
 fed largely on polished rice, is cured by the substitution of 
 the unpolished, which contains the vitamines absent in the 
 grain after it is refined. 
 
 88 
 
DIETARY STANDARDS 
 
 For adults: 
 
 One-half pint milk daily, more if possible. 
 
 Meat or meat substitute daily. Meat substitutes are 
 eggs, fish, cheese, milk, legumes (beans, peas, peanuts), 
 and nuts. 
 
 Meat or fish at the rate of about one-quarter of a 
 pound per day for a man. 
 
 Two or three eggs, cheese, an extra pint of milk, or a 
 generous service of dried beans, peas, or nuts mav be 
 used on the days when no meat is eaten. 
 
 Two to four ounces of sugar. (This includes the sugar in 
 molasses, honey, syrups, etc.) 
 
 In addition, enough cereal, bread, potatoes, and fat to 
 satisfy the appetite and maintain bodily weight while 
 the necessary muscular labor is performed. 
 
 Vegetables or fruit. Use at least once a day, more if 
 possible. It is well to vary the selection of vegetables, 
 cereals, and fruits as much as possible and to choose 
 bread and cereals made from the whole grain. 
 
 For children: 
 
 At least a pint of milk daily a quart wherever possible, 
 particularly for those under seven years. 
 
 An egg daily or as often as possible. 
 
 Meat or fish, about two ounces for a child over seven, on 
 three to five days of the week. 
 
 About one ounce of sugar best taken in the form of mo- 
 lasses or fruit marmalades or jams. 
 
 Some fat butter or bacon, if possible, but cottonseed or 
 peanut oil, oleomargarine, or other butter substitutes 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 may be used, particularly if the full amount of milk 
 with its quota of butter fat is taken. 
 
 Bread and cereal mushes in liberal amounts and generous 
 variety, in order that consumption of this valuable 
 food material may be encouraged. 
 
 Vegetables and fruit daily, of a kind suited to the age and 
 digestive powers of the child*; as much variety of 
 choice as circumstances permit, in order that the total 
 food consumption may be encouraged and the child 
 trained in eating different food materials. 
 
 * See Rose, op. cit., pp. 98-150. 
 90 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 /CONTRARY to the prevailing impression, the 
 ^-^ choice of food materials is an even more 
 important function of the homemaker than their 
 preparation for the table. On the choice depends 
 the content of the diet and its fitness to meet the 
 physical needs of those for whom it is intended. 
 Skill in cooking can make food materials more 
 appetizing or even more easily digested, but can- 
 not turn an ill chosen diet into an adequate one 
 if some of the elements necessary to the nourish- 
 ment of the body are not present in the food. 
 Ill chosen materials, prepared with whatever 
 skill, will not make an adequate diet. 
 
 Frequently the mother buys more expensive 
 foods than her income allows. For example, she 
 may choose none of the cheaper cereal products 
 which can be bought in bulk, but only bread, rolls, 
 cakes, and ready-to-eat breakfast cereals. Butter 
 may be the only fat used; loaf or powdered the 
 91 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 only sugar; and the meat the most expensive cut. 
 In this way the money for food may easily be 
 exhausted, even when there is sufficient, without 
 having secured enough milk, vegetables, or fruit. 
 The mother is also likely to attempt solely to 
 please the taste of the children. Not infrequently 
 a widow falls into the habit of sending children 
 as young as eight or ten years with a few pennies 
 to buy a meal at "the store," only telling them 
 to choose what they want. 
 
 The food must be chosen so as to meet the die- 
 tary standard required by the individual family. 
 The factor which modifies most the choice of food 
 required to meet a dietary standard is the amount 
 of money that can be expended. On this depends 
 the ease or difficulty of the task. Take the simple 
 rules for regulating the diet outlined on page 89. 
 With a generous allowance a wide range of choice 
 would be possible from each division of food ma- 
 terials. The day's supply of high proteins, for 
 example, may be meat, fish, eggs, or cheese 
 any or all of them, singly or in combination. The 
 meat or fish may be chosen from a dozen different 
 kinds and cuts according to the taste of those for 
 92 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 whom it is intended. The cereal products may 
 include the products of any or all the different 
 cereals prepared in numberless different ways. 
 The various kinds of breakfast cereals on the 
 market, for instance, have probably never been 
 counted. Fats may be cream, butter, oils of va- 
 rious kinds, besides bacon and other meat fats. 
 There are numberless varieties of confections and 
 of fruit conserves, besides sugars and syrups, from 
 which to make up the quota of sweets. To those 
 who need not consider expense, our modern mar- 
 kets, even in the middle of winter, offer an abun- 
 dance of fresh fruits and vegetables. 
 
 If, on the other hand, the income is so low that 
 no more money can be spent for food than the 
 amount actually necessary to secure an adequate 
 diet, the greatest care must be used. The choice 
 within each group of food materials has become 
 greatly narrowed. Feeding a family on a mini- 
 mum allowance calls for the combined knowledge 
 of the scientist and the practical housekeeper. 
 
 One of the most serious difficulties which the 
 visitor to the home encounters in her attempt to 
 educate the housewife to a better choice of foods 
 93 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 is the limitation imposed by the habits of eating 
 which the family has formed. All of us are more 
 or less rigidly bound in the choice of our diet by 
 the food habits which have been growing upon 
 us since the beginning of life. For example, it is 
 difficult to change suddenly from white bread to 
 that made of rye or corn ; a sudden change from 
 hot bread to cold, or from cold to hot, creates 
 decided discomfort. Most families keep within a 
 very definite range of food materials. Where the 
 income allows a margin, this range is sufficiently 
 wide to make an adequate diet possible so long as 
 the food supply is in normal condition. With 
 scarcity of a few foods which take an important 
 place in the dietary, say of wheat, meat, potatoes, 
 eggs, even the well-to-do family suffers more or 
 less inconvenience. Few, indeed, in any income 
 group have arrived at a truly scientific attitude 
 in regard to food, considering it primarily as a 
 means of nourishment for the body, only secondly 
 as a source of pleasure. 
 
 In the lower income groups experiment is pro- 
 hibited not only by ignorance of food stuffs but 
 by the fear of loss through the waste of money 
 94 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 spent, so that the range of choice is very narrow 
 indeed. A frequent answer of the mother to the 
 advice to train the children to eat an unaccus- 
 tomed food material is "Suppose they won't eat 
 it, then I must throw it away and the money is 
 wasted." 
 
 Those who observe for the first time the food 
 habits of the poor are astounded that they refuse 
 so many excellent materials. Knowing them to be 
 badly underfed, they "would have thought they 
 would eat anything." One woman serving at a 
 church dinner given for children from a poverty 
 stricken neighborhood related with astonishment 
 that the children did not even eat the potatoes, 
 which were mashed and served in a fancy shape. 
 Doubtless the children failed to recognize their 
 old friend in this strange guise. The appetite of 
 the poor is not reached through the imagination 
 moreover, they take no chances. It is a curious 
 fact that a strange-looking vegetable rouses no 
 curiosity as to its flavor or other characteristics. 
 A committee of women canning vegetables from 
 the surplus of the New York markets in the sum- 
 mer of 1917 found that the women in the neigh - 
 95 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 borhood who were assisting would not take home 
 the summer squashes which were offered them. 
 After they had been cooked at the public kitchen 
 and the women had tasted them, they became 
 popular.* The cooking teachers in the public 
 schools, whose experience has brought them in 
 contact with various classes of children, have 
 learned that those from the poorest homes are 
 the hardest to please in choice of dishes. Pop- 
 overs, hailed with delighted interest by classes 
 from liberally conducted homes, are often held 
 in scorn by children of the poor. 
 
 During the winter of 1916-17, when potatoes 
 rose to 12 cents a pound, onions to 20 cents, and 
 cabbage to 22 cents, food riots broke out on the 
 east side of New York. Indignant mothers at- 
 tempted to dissuade all buyers, overturned push 
 carts, and formed parades to the City Hall, where 
 they demanded lower prices. The need for relief 
 was very real. The elimination of these three 
 
 * It is notorious that in many poor countries where 
 mushrooms are abundant the people will not learn to eat 
 them and a farmer's vegetable garden is often the scan- 
 tiest of the whole neighborhood. 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 vegetables meant a winter diet entirely without 
 fresh vegetables, for these were the only ones 
 many of them knew. 
 
 Wheat flour, made into bread and into maca- 
 roni and other pastes, forms almost always a 
 large part of the food in a restricted diet. As the 
 money available for food decreases, or as prices 
 rise, an increasingly large proportion is spent for 
 bread. This is because the housewife has learned 
 by experience that, of the foods she is familiar 
 with and which her family will eat in large quan- 
 tities without protest, bread "stays by " or "gives 
 the most strength " in proportion to money spent. 
 
 It is, indeed, quite literally the staff of life in 
 these families. During the winter of 1916-17, 
 with its abnormally high food prices and corre- 
 sponding suffering among the poor, the amount 
 spent for bread was frequently 50 to 70 per cent 
 of the total expenditure for food sometimes as 
 much as a daily average of 10 cents' worth of 
 bread for each person. The visitor who received 
 from a family of nine a list of food expenditures 
 that contained $1.00 per day spent for bread, 
 7 97 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 could not believe that the family could possibly 
 eat so much. Yet a calculation of the fuel value 
 of all the food on the list indicated that the diet 
 had contained only about three-fourths enough 
 calories to meet their needs. In many other fami- 
 lies no other cereal product than wheat is known, 
 though Irish, Poles, and Germans will eat rye 
 bread, while families from the southern part of 
 the United States will often use cornmeal as the 
 basis of their diet in the same way that wheat 
 breads are used by other groups. 
 
 If cereal is suggested for Tommy's breakfast, 
 the mother may reply, "My children won't eat 
 oatmeal." This is the only meaning the word 
 suggests, unless the family has learned, as many 
 have, to eat the prepared breakfast foods, usu- 
 ally corn flakes or puffed wheat, which are likely 
 to gain immediate popularity, and to make the 
 introduction of the cheaper and more substan- 
 tial cereals difficult. 
 
 When Mrs. McGuire's money would no longer 
 provide meat for the entire family, she bought a 
 bit of steak daily for her husband, "for a man 
 cannot work without meat." Chops and steaks 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 are the most popular cuts of meat, used not so 
 much to save fuel and the housewife's time as 
 because they are demanded by the man. Stews, 
 more or less savory according to the skill of 
 the cook sometimes very good ones are well 
 known in practically every family, and not infre- 
 quently meat is served in no other way. 
 
 Butter is too frequently the only fat used. 
 This means that as the money for food grows 
 less in proportion to its buying power the amount 
 of butter lessens or disappears and nothing takes 
 its place. When the family is reduced to the fat 
 eaten with the meat, which is often decreased in 
 quantity at the same time, a diet too low in fat 
 results. 
 
 Sugar and the various syrups are the most com- 
 mon form of sweets, though molasses, which is 
 far preferable because of its mineral content, 
 is commonly used in the southern part of the 
 United States. 
 
 Breakfast and one other meal in the day are all 
 
 too likely to consist of bread or rolls, or sweet 
 
 cake alone, with coffee. This breakfast is the 
 
 same for children of all ages as well as for adults. 
 
 99 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 Eggs, bacon, or steak may be added in a period of 
 prosperity. The typical dinner is meat, pota- 
 toes, bread, and coffee. Onions are used chiefly 
 for flavoring, but cabbage is frequently added as 
 an extra vegetable. Additional money to spend 
 for food frequently goes into more expensive cuts 
 of meat, sweets and pastry from the bakery, 
 pickles and catsup, raising somewhat the fuel 
 value of the diet, but leaving it hardly less inade- 
 quate in most respects than before. 
 
 Milk is looked upon as a beverage and is a less 
 popular one than coffee or tea. It is considered 
 by the family to be desirable for very young chil- 
 dren, but no longer really necessary after the 
 second year. "The children are all old enough to 
 do without milk," said one mother of children 
 aged four, six, eight, and ten years. One of the 
 first cuts to be made when retrenchment is neces- 
 sary is to reduce the amount of milk or leave it 
 out entirely. Frequently, canned milk only is 
 used. The mother considers this cheaper be- 
 cause she can make it go further. She reasons 
 that a 12-cent quart of milk will ordinarily be 
 used at one meal, while the 14-cent can of con- 
 
 100 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 densed milk will serve in the coffee for a whole 
 day. Its keeping qualities also recommend it, 
 as in smaller families one can will last for several 
 days. It is difficult for the untrained mother to 
 believe that the canned milk is really more ex- 
 pensive than the fresh in proportion to its actual 
 food value. 
 
 Coffee and tea are universally used and al- 
 most universally given to the children, frequently 
 in unlimited quantities. Each child old enough 
 to accomplish it helps himself at will at any time 
 during the day to the contents of the coffee pot 
 that stands all day on the stove. During an early 
 morning visit to a Polish widow with three young 
 children a four-quart coffee pot full of coffee and 
 a two-quart metal pitcher of tea stood on the 
 stove. It was the day's supply made in advance. 
 A German woman was found by an infant wel- 
 fare nurse feeding coffee to her three-day-old 
 baby from the nursing bottle. A twelve-year- 
 old ward of the Chicago Juvenile Court was in 
 the habit of drinking nine to twelve cups of coffee 
 daily. It is well to remember that such food hab- 
 its may have their part in causing juvenile delin- 
 101 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 quency. Dr. William Healy, in The Individual 
 Delinquent,* says: " It is perfectly clear that the 
 unsettling of the nervous system which occurs in 
 young people by the excessive use of these stimu- 
 lants [coffee and tea] is a direct factor making 
 in many environments for delinquency." Also, 
 "disgust with school work or with steady employ- 
 ment follows naturally from bodily weakness 
 caused by inadequate food." 
 
 Beer is, almost universally, a part of the work- 
 ingman's daily consumption and meets with no 
 reproach. A "drinking man" is applied only to 
 one who sometimes gets drunk. ' ' A workingman 
 must have his pint" is an expression which can 
 be stretched to two or even three pints without 
 his wife or his acquaintances considering him 
 a drinking man. The workingwoman may also 
 consider the pint her right. Not infrequently 
 beer or light wines are given to children. Teach- 
 ers report cases in which the children have come 
 to school distinctly under the influence of liquor, 
 but these cases are comparatively rare. 
 
 * Healy, William: The Individual Delinquent, p. 280. 
 Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1915. 
 
 102 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 So much for the characteristics of a restricted 
 diet more or less common to all the various na- 
 tionalities which the home visitor is likely to en- 
 counter. There are, however, distinctive prefer- 
 ences and prejudices peculiar to each of the for- 
 eign groups which should be understood by any 
 worker who aims to influence their habits and 
 choices. 
 
 The woman who comes an immigrant from a 
 foreign country has heavy handicaps in her ig- 
 norance of the language and customs of the coun- 
 try. Bewildered by the difference between her 
 peasant cottage and the city tenement in which 
 she finds herself, she clings desperately to such 
 remnants of her old life as she can. If she can 
 buy, from shops kept by her own countrymen, 
 food materials imported from her native country 
 across the sea, she is willing to pay the heavy ad- 
 ditional cost necessary. If she can live in a set- 
 tlement of her own people and not venture out 
 into the perplexing unknown world around her, 
 she is content to learn nothing of the English 
 language. We find Italian or Slavic women who 
 have been twelve years or more in America who 
 103 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 speak no English and have profited nothing by 
 such opportunities as were open to them. They 
 have lost much in leaving their old life, and it is 
 hard to see that so far they have gained anything 
 to replace the loss. 
 
 Of the foreign groups found in large numbers in 
 the United States, the Italians have the most dis- 
 tinctive diet, since not only are the methods of 
 preparation peculiar, but many of the food ma- 
 terials are different from those used by other 
 peoples. Wheat bread, macaroni, and other 
 pastes, with farina all wheat products are 
 used in large quantities. Rye bread is eaten by 
 some families, and cornmeal is known to those 
 from the southern part of Italy, but the latter 
 seems to be employed only in small amounts, and 
 frequently to have fallen entirely into disuse. 
 Other cereal grains, such as oats, are considered 
 food for animals, not for human beings. 
 
 The Italian family is content with very little 
 meat, sometimes none at all. The cheaper cuts 
 of beef chiefly are used, although pork chops are 
 popular. Instead of meat, dry Roman cheese was 
 eaten almost daily in most families before war 
 104 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 prices became prohibitive. Fish and eggs are 
 popular, but milk is used in even smaller amounts 
 than in most other families. One pint daily for a 
 family of five or six children is not unusual. This 
 peculiarity is ascribed by some workers to the 
 difference between the cow's milk available here 
 and the goat's milk to which they are accus- 
 tomed in Italy. Some families are said to pride 
 themselves on the fact that they have never 
 bought milk in America because it is so inferior to 
 that to which they are accustomed. 
 
 Their diet is, however, rich in vegetables, in- 
 cluding many varieties of greens peculiar to them- 
 selves as well as those found in other markets. It 
 is surprising that they know carrots only as fla- 
 voring, parsnip and rhubarb not at all, while arti- 
 chokes are used at least occasionally even by the 
 poorest families, as is also cauliflower. However, 
 the family in the Italian district does not pay the 
 fancy prices for these luxuries that are customar- 
 ily paid. The dealer has usually bought them at 
 bargain prices. The proprietor of a small gro- 
 cery in the neighborhood of Hull House may be 
 seen late each day returning from his trip to the 
 105 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 wholesale market at South Water Street with a 
 load of green vegetables whose first freshness is 
 obviously gone. When they are displayed on the 
 pavement the next morning, however, they make 
 a brave showing in the renewed crispness his 
 process of freshening has given. He lives in the 
 rear rooms of the building, and his wife takes care 
 of his business in his absence. There are no de- 
 liveries. He can easily sell much cheaper than 
 the American grocery a few blocks away. He 
 will sell you imported olive oil also, either in a 
 can or loose from the barrel, at about 20 per cent 
 less than you can buy it elsewhere. This oil is 
 the chief form of fat used by the Italian families, 
 though lard is employed in cooking, and they 
 sometimes buy butter. 
 
 To the Italian also fruit means little else than 
 oranges, bananas, and apples, although his shop 
 will contain figs to be eaten raw and dates. 
 Prunes are the only other dried fruit commonly 
 used, but the dried black olive makes a valuable 
 addition to the diet. 
 
 The dietary of the Italian laborer when at its 
 best is rich in variety. Because of his fondness 
 106 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 for vegetables and fruits, it is high in mineral 
 salts other than lime, which the small amount of 
 milk he consumes probably leaves deficient. If 
 there is sufficient food to meet the requirements 
 for energy, there will also be enough protein to 
 meet the modern dietetic standard, as the bread 
 and macaroni are made from the hard flours with 
 a high protein content, and the cheese contains a 
 large proportion. 
 
 At its worst, however, as it has become in 
 many families of low paid workingmen since war 
 prices have prevailed, the Italian family dietary 
 is decidedly deficient. When the price of Roman 
 cheese became prohibitive at $1.35 per pound, 
 especially after most grocers refused to sell less 
 than 25 cents' worth, it was simply left out in 
 most cases, with no substitute provided, as the 
 families had not learned to use American or store 
 cheese, which was selling at 30 cents per pound. 
 The customary diet became in many families, 
 during the winter of 1916-17, two meals of bread 
 and coffee, with macaroni and white beans for 
 the third meal, and meat and vegetables for only 
 very occasional use. A diet as restricted as this 
 107 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 is practically certain to result in too little food 
 being taken, even though the supply were suffi- 
 cient. Who could go on eating bread, beans, and 
 macaroni day after day and take enough to meet 
 the needs of the body? Even if this were accom- 
 plished, there would still be a deficiency in min- 
 eral salts, a lack of vitamines, and an excess of 
 acid-producing foods. 
 
 Although the Italian dietary at its best is 
 reasonably well adapted to adults, it is even then 
 woefully ill adapted to the needs of the little 
 ones, who so often, in this as in other foreign 
 groups, are given exactly the same food as their 
 parents. Little Louisa, referred as a case of 
 under-nourishment by the school authorities to a 
 society which furnishes dietetic instruction in the 
 homes, was found to belong to a family of six 
 with an aggregate income (from the father and 
 two working children) of over $30 per week. The 
 home had a comfortable appearance and there 
 was no apparent effort to save unduly on food ex- 
 penditure. During the first interview the mother 
 seemed interested in the child's need for special 
 diet, which was emphasized by the dietitian, and 
 1 08 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 promised to add an egg to her breakfast. The 
 child herself agreed to drink two cups of milk 
 daily despite her professed dislike for it. Before 
 the next visit, however, a decision had been 
 reached by family council or parental decree 
 which caused the mother, in spite of an obvious 
 reluctance to appear discourteous, to settle the 
 whole matter with "Louisa eats what the family 
 eats," and Louisa excused herself from perform- 
 ing her promise about the milk, "I eat what my 
 family eats." In this and other cases observed 
 there even seemed to be in the minds of the pa- 
 rents a principle involved. The children must 
 not be spoiled by the undue indulgence of having 
 any dietary concession made to them. 
 
 The Polish diet differs from the American less 
 than the Italian, as its differences lie chiefly in the 
 manner of preparation of food. When some cook- 
 ing demonstrations for Polish women were being 
 planned, a Polish woman interested said, "What- 
 ever you do, make it taste Polish. Put cabbage 
 in." 
 
 They are perhaps the heaviest meat eaters of 
 all the groups. It is not unusual for the Polish 
 109 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 laborer to order his landlady, who gives him a bed, 
 does his washing, buys and cooks his meals all 
 for $2.00, $3.00, or $4.00 per month to buy a 
 pound of meat for his dinner. Meat also prob- 
 ably figures in both of his other meals, frequently 
 in the form of sausage. The bread is partly rye 
 and partly wheat, and some macaroni is used, 
 but almost no other grain product. Vegetables 
 and fruits are little eaten, and as Poles do not 
 care for several foods cooked together, even stews 
 are likely to be free from vegetables. 
 
 The following three days' expense account 
 from a Polish family consisting of man, woman, 
 and four children, is typical in its restricted va- 
 riety and high meat content of the food habits 
 of many families : 
 
 Friday 
 2 breads 
 i y* biscuits 
 2 quarts milk 
 K doz. eggs 
 ^ Ib. cheese 
 6 herrings 
 i pk. pota- 
 toes 
 2 Ibs. coffee 
 
 15 
 .18 
 .16 
 15 
 15 
 30 
 
 36 
 .60 
 
 Saturday 
 2 breads 
 iK biscuits 
 2 cakes 
 K Ib. butter 
 2 quarts milk 
 2% Ibs. sau- 
 sage 
 pork chops 
 i jelly 
 pickles 
 
 no 
 
 15 
 .18 
 
 13 
 .18 
 .16 
 
 38 
 30 
 15 
 
 .10 
 
 Sunday 
 bread 
 pie 
 cakes 
 spaghetti 
 bacon 
 pork roast 
 pork sausage 
 tomatoes 
 cucumbers 
 
 .10 
 .14 
 
 30 
 .10 
 .10 
 1.19 
 
 30 
 .10 
 
 15 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 It is evident from the foregoing pages that 
 whatever may be the national or individual pe- 
 culiarities of the family whose standards the 
 home visitor is seeking to improve, in almost all 
 cases such mistakes as the following will need to 
 be corrected : 
 
 1. The diet too restricted in variety. 
 
 2. Not enough milk. 
 
 3. Too much tea and coffee the children shar- 
 ing in it. 
 
 4. Too much meat, or at any rate more than is 
 necessary. 
 
 5. Too much sugar. 
 
 6. Too few vegetables and fruits, their places 
 often being taken by pickles and relishes. 
 
 7. Too little fat. 
 
 To the correction of these errors, then, the 
 home visitor should especially address herself. 
 The primary need will be to enlarge the variety 
 of the diet. In cheap dietaries this is the more 
 necessary because the choice is greatly limited. 
 There are, however, several possibilities for en- 
 larging the variety without increasing, sometimes 
 even as a means of decreasing, the cost. This 
 ill 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 principle of increasing variety should be applied 
 to the choices within each group of food products 
 the high protein group, the fuel group, and the 
 group whose special importance is in the salts, 
 vitamines, etc., which they furnish. 
 
 It is well to provide first of all for the quantity 
 of milk considered desirable, as this is the most 
 important article of food in the diet of growing 
 children. As suggested on page 89, at least one 
 pint of milk should be provided for each child 
 daily, and one-half pint for an adult. The choice 
 in other high protein foods will be limited to the 
 cheaper cuts of beef, mutton, and pork, cheaper 
 kinds of fish and cheese, with eggs, except for 
 children and invalids, only occasionally save in 
 the seasons when the price falls as low in propor- 
 tion as the cheaper cuts of meat. One-half dozen 
 eggs are counted as the nutritive equivalent of one 
 pound of meat. The legumes, dried beans, peas, 
 and peanuts, can be depended upon to furnish 
 the high protein food one or more days in the 
 week. It is important that these be chosen in as 
 great variety as possible in order to help break 
 the monotony of the diet. All of the kinds avail- 
 
 112 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 able in the locality should be used occasionally. 
 This not only gives variety to the diet but en- 
 ables the housekeeper to choose those which hap- 
 pen to be cheapest at the time she is buying. In- 
 stead of always using navy beans, for instance, 
 the mother should teach her family to eat kid- 
 ney, lima, black, and Brazilian beans, and green 
 and yellow split and whole peas, with such addi- 
 tional kinds as are available. 
 
 Cereal products must, in a cheap dietary, be 
 depended upon to furnish a large proportion of 
 the energy value of the diet, as these give the 
 highest number of calories in proportion to cost. 
 Instead of bread, rolls, and other delicatessen 
 products alone, there are usually at least a half 
 dozen cereal products on the market which can 
 be bought in bulk at about one-half to one-fourth 
 the price of the foods they displace. Studies of 
 low cost dietaries have shown that failure to 
 meet the energy requirements of the family is 
 very frequently associated with scanty use of 
 cereals. It is, therefore, wise to urge their con- 
 sumption in as large and varied a quantity as 
 possible for families which show signs of under- 
 8 113 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 nourishment. But even here the choice must be 
 more or less limited. All of the cereal grains 
 wheat, corn, rye, barley, and rice are within the 
 reach of the woman who wishes to feed her 
 family on a minimum allowance. She must, 
 however, forego elaborations of these materials. 
 Most of the breakfast cereals, particularly the 
 prepared ready- to-eat kinds, "package goods," 
 furnish far less for the money than those sold by 
 the pound. In most cases these latter will be 
 oatmeal, cornmeal, hominy, farina, barley, rice, 
 and cracked wheat, to be used in soups, stews, 
 and puddings, as well as in the morning's por- 
 ridge or mush to be served with milk or syrup. 
 Graham flour also makes an acceptable mush. 
 The cost of fuel needed in cooking these cereals 
 as mush will add somewhat to the cost during the 
 time of the year when a separate fire is necessary 
 for the purpose. During eight or nine months of 
 the year, however, this need not be considered, as 
 the same fire which warms the flat can be utilized 
 for cooking. 
 
 In fats the difference in cost between different 
 kinds of approximately the same energy value is 
 114 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 very great. One pound of butter or of oleomar- 
 garine yields about 3,000 calories, but the oleo- 
 margarine costs about half as much. One pound 
 of lard or of suet yields about 4,000 calories and 
 costs one-half to one-third as much as butter. 
 Olive oil at customary prices is about equal in 
 price per calorie to butter, while cottonseed oil 
 may be compared with oleomargarine. Butter 
 contains, however, a part of the vitamines of the 
 milk from which it is made, so that other fats are 
 not "just as good," particularly for the growing 
 child. If his diet contains one pint to one quart 
 of milk, with its proportion of butter fat, butter 
 may be replaced by the cheaper fats, enough of 
 which are better than an insufficient amount of 
 butter. 
 
 The restriction in the choice of vegetables and 
 fruits is perhaps greater than in any one division 
 of food stuffs. During the winter months the 
 only vegetables that usually can be added to the 
 cheap dietary are the root vegetables carrots, 
 parsnips, rutabaga, turnips, cabbage, onions 
 besides the potato and sweet potato. These may 
 be supplemented by dried vegetables which no 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 doubt will come into more general use during the 
 next few years and be more generally available at 
 a low cost. Canned vegetables are usually pro- 
 hibitive at regular price, with perhaps the excep- 
 tion of the tomato. During the summer months 
 this list may, of course, be enlarged by a number 
 of fresh vegetables in each season. In most lo- 
 calities lettuce, spinach, kale, and other greens, 
 string beans, green peas, come within reach for 
 several months during the year. Rhubarb is very 
 valuable during the spring and summer months. 
 In the winter the fruits must be largely dried 
 fruits, except during the fortunate years when 
 apples remain cheap until late in the winter. "An 
 apple a day for every child " is an excellent health 
 rule and can be followed by the housewife on low 
 income so long as apples can be bought at 35 
 cents a peck or less. Above that the dried fruits 
 are preferable for regular use. A variety of these 
 are available besides the commonly known prune. 
 Dried apples, apricots, raisins, currants, figs, 
 dates, all give fairly good value in energy in pro- 
 portion to the money spent, besides adding min- 
 eral salts to the diet. 
 
 116 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 During the summer there are frequently pe- 
 riods when the supply of berries, plums, peaches, 
 grapes, or other perishable fruits bring them 
 within the reach of the lowliest buyer. Bananas 
 at the price at which they are commonly sold, 
 about 5 cents per pound, are a fairly good invest- 
 ment as an energy producing food. They have a 
 fairly high caloric value because of the starch and 
 sugar, but the mineral content is not so great as 
 that of most other fruit. In the diet they should 
 perhaps be considered as a substitute for potatoes 
 rather than for apples, a pound of bananas yield- 
 ing 290 calories, while a pound of potatoes con- 
 tains 300. 
 
 Many attractive forms of sweets cannot enter 
 into the choice of the woman who has only a mini- 
 mum allowance for food. Sugar gives a large 
 number of calories in proportion to the money 
 expended, and if it were not for the tendency 
 pointed out on page 85 to let it displace foods 
 furnishing iron and other minerals, it would be 
 one of the chief articles of the cheap dietary. 
 Where molasses can be obtained at a low price, 
 it can be used with less danger than refined sugar. 
 117 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 One of the safest and best ways of including sugar 
 in the diet is through home-made jams and mar- 
 malades made from the whole of the fruit. 
 
 In the matter of choice of food, then, the chief 
 functions of the visitor to the home may be thus 
 briefly summed up. She should teach: 
 
 From the Standpoint of Nutrition 
 
 1. The importance of extending the variety of foods 
 purchased, in each class of products, to the utmost extent 
 possible, as a means of increasing the attractiveness and 
 healthfulness of the diet. 
 
 2. The place of milk in the diet, bringing up its con- 
 sumption to at least the minimum standard suggested on 
 page 89. 
 
 3. The effect of stimulants on the growing organism, 
 breaking the habit of coffee and tea drinking for children. 
 
 4. The place of meat and the foods that can be sub- 
 stituted for it. Where there are young children, the 
 amount of meat can usually be reduced and that of milk 
 and eggs increased. In localities where fish is cheaper 
 than meat, its use may be increased. 
 
 5. The place of sugar and the dangers of its overuse. 
 How to reduce the amount used by substituting in part 
 molasses and combinations of sugar with fruit in jam and 
 marmalade. 
 
 6. The importance of fruits and vegetables in the diet 
 and the necessity of augmenting the quantities used. 
 
 7. The importance of an adequate amount of fat, in- 
 
 118 
 
CHOICE OF FOODS 
 
 creasing the quantity where necessary by the substitu- 
 tion of cheaper kinds for the butter or olive oil being used. 
 8. The importance of training children while young in 
 good food habits and the responsibility of the mother for 
 this important part of her work. 
 
 From the Standpoint of Economy 
 
 1. Cereal products are the foods which give the largest 
 returns for money spent. The different kinds raw are 
 about equal to one another, pound for pound. 
 
 2. The housekeeper pays well for every bit of work 
 done on the food she buys. The baker or the manufac- 
 turer of cooked and otherwise elaborated food stuffs gets 
 his pay for the work and the advertising done by raising 
 the price of his product. Examples: ready-to-eat cereals, 
 boiled ham, jelly, loaf sugar, canned goods. The cheap- 
 est way in which to buy food materials is in their simplest 
 form, raw, for home preparation. 
 
 3. Food stuffs in packages cost more, not only because 
 of the cost of the package, but almost always for adver- 
 tising as well. Many foods sold in packages can safely be 
 bought in bulk from a reliable dealer. Examples: cereals 
 which require prolonged cooking, dried fruits which can 
 be washed before cooking. 
 
 4. In choosing meats for economy the amount of refuse 
 must be considered as well as the cost per pound. The 
 cheapest is that which gives the most lean meat in propor- 
 tion to money spent, as a pound of lean from one cut is 
 approximately equal in food value to a pound from any 
 other. 
 
 119 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 5. What is called "quality" by food dealers is often 
 based upon flavor, beauty, or other elements of attrac- 
 tiveness, instead of on nutritive value. Examples: small 
 gram or broken rice is equal in food value to an equal 
 weight of rice with large, even grains; expensive cheeses, 
 valued for their flavor, are not superior in food value to 
 cheaper ones; olive oil is not higher in nutritive value 
 than cottonseed or peanut oil. 
 
 120 
 
VI 
 
 PURCHASE, PREPARATION, AND 
 SERVING 
 
 PURCHASE OF SUPPLIES 
 
 THE mother is frequently found buying sup- 
 plies, not only food and fuel, but household 
 supplies as well, each day in amounts to last for 
 the day only. She is paying in this way a much 
 higher rate for her staples than would be neces- 
 sary if they were bought in larger amounts. Coal 
 by the pail has been found on weighing to cost 
 one and one-half to two times as much as when 
 bought by the ton. It is desirable not only to es- 
 tablish the habit of choosing suitable food ma- 
 terial within the scope of the amount of money to 
 be spent, but to buy in the most advantageous 
 manner. This practically always means buying 
 in as large amounts as storage facilities and the 
 nature of the material permit. The beginning 
 can usually be made in a weekly bill of staples 
 sugar, flour, rice, cereals, etc. when the money 
 
 121 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 comes in; later, plans can be laid for longer 
 periods. Even when the money comes in at short 
 intervals, with more or less irregularity, as when 
 the mother does day's work, it is possible to plan 
 purchases for the week or month. In normal 
 times the winter's coal, wherever there are stor- 
 age facilities, can be bought during the summer 
 when living expenses as well as the price of coal 
 are lower. 
 
 It is often necessary to work out with the 
 mother careful and far-reaching plans for extri- 
 cating her from the clutches of the corner grocer 
 from whom she has long bought "on the book" 
 and to whom she may be deeply in debt. If the 
 grocer is an Italian or Pole, probably the only ac- 
 count he gives his customers, many of whom are 
 completely ignorant of arithmetic, is a row of 
 figures in a blank book. Thus, 
 
 .69 
 
 .85 
 
 i. 20 
 
 35 
 
 .28 
 
 The prices charged are necessarily high, as many 
 of these accounts are never paid in full and it is 
 
 122 
 
PURCHASE AND PREPARATION 
 
 not unusual for the grocer to carry a family from 
 three to six months during a period of unemploy- 
 ment or illness, expecting to get his money in bits 
 after the man goes back to work. Moreover, too 
 often the grocer in the poorest neighborhood has 
 nothing in stock that his customers can really 
 afford to buy. His shelves are covered with 
 canned and highly advertised package goods, 
 mostly in the smallest sizes, whose price is com- 
 paratively highest. In one such store the writer 
 was told by the proprietress that this was the 
 only type of goods she could sell, but that she 
 herself could not afford to use it even at whole- 
 sale prices. There is often within walking dis- 
 tance, though entirely unknown to the mother, 
 a cash market where prices are lower and choice 
 is better. 
 
 PREPARATION OF FOOD 
 
 While, as was said in the preceding chapter, the 
 right choice of food materials is even more vital 
 to the welfare of a family than skill in their prep- 
 aration for the table, it nevertheless remains true 
 that the observance of certain elementary rules 
 123 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 of cooking is essential. An inadequate or ill bal- 
 anced assortment of materials cannot be made 
 into an adequate, well balanced diet by any de- 
 gree of skill on the part of the housewife ; but it 
 is also true that a well chosen assortment may be 
 rendered not only unattractive but positively in- 
 jurious by the manner of its preparation. 
 
 It is essential that the preparation of food ren- 
 der it wholesome, which it will be if clean, well 
 cooked, and sufficiently attractive so that enough 
 will be eaten to meet the needs of the body. Un- 
 necessary elaboration of materials is not only a 
 doubtful disposal of time and effort, but often 
 serves to defeat the object of their preparation 
 by making them indigestible and unattractive. 
 
 In the preparation of food the errors most 
 commonly made result in bread that is sour, 
 soggy, or underdone ; cereal only partially cooked ; 
 meat and eggs toughened in the cooking; pota- 
 toes soggy ; green vegetables prepared so that the 
 juices are lost. 
 
 The instruction needed to correct the mistakes 
 listed will cover a reliable process of bread-mak- 
 ing if it is thought best to continue home baking. 
 124 
 
PURCHASE AND PREPARATION 
 
 The desirability of this depends upon the moth- 
 er's physical strength, the extent of her time at 
 home, and the standard of cleanliness she is able 
 to maintain. Where she is not earning but is 
 kept at home by the care of her family and is 
 capable of baking wholesome bread, it will pay 
 her to do it, as the raw materials usually cost 
 considerably less than the baker's loaf. Arrange- 
 ments may need to be made for a stove that will 
 bake before this is possible. 
 
 Directions for cooking processes may be given 
 orally, or by means of printed or typed recipes. 
 Sometimes a demonstration is necessary. 
 
 Application of Heat to Food Materials. Milk is 
 best taken raw cooking it destroys part of its 
 vitamines, causes a small loss of its nutrients, 
 and renders it slightly less easy to digest. Heat- 
 ing it is desirable only when bacteria must be 
 destroyed. If it were possible always to have 
 milk sufficiently clean so that it would be safe 
 to use raw, as is the case with certified milk, it 
 would be much more desirable. 
 
 Cereal products contain starch surrounded by 
 125 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 hard cellulose walls. These cell walls must be 
 softened and the starch thoroughly cooked in 
 order that they may be easily digested. In cook- 
 ing cereal mushes the length of time of cooking 
 is the important part of the process.* In bread, 
 care must be taken that it is light and well done 
 and the process managed in short enough time 
 so that the dough will not sour before it is baked. 
 High protein foods derived from animal 
 sources meats, fish, eggs, and cheese contain 
 proteins which are rendered tough and difficult 
 of digestion by a high degree of heat. Therefore, 
 the temperature at which these food materials 
 are cooked is the most important point involved. 
 The temperature for cooking eggs and cheese 
 should always be low enough to prevent tough- 
 ening. In broiling and baking meat and fish a 
 high heat is used to harden the outer crust in 
 order to preserve the juices that might otherwise 
 be lost. In treatment of tough meat, where the 
 hard fibres must be softened, a low temperature 
 must be applied for a long time, so we have long 
 
 * See Appendix B for list of cooking periods required 
 for different cereals. 
 
 126 
 
PURCHASE AND PREPARATION 
 
 cooking for tough meats and short cooking for 
 tender meats. The success in each case depends 
 chiefly upon keeping the temperature from run- 
 ning too high. 
 
 Legumes, like cereals, must be cooked long 
 enough to soften the cellulose walls and cook the 
 starch which forms a large proportion of their 
 content. 
 
 Sugar needs no heat. 
 
 Fats should not be subjected to a heat high 
 enough to bring about decomposition in which 
 acids irritating to the stomach will be formed. 
 This happens when the fat in a pan smokes and 
 browns. 
 
 Vegetables vary in the toughness of the cell 
 walls and in the proportion of starch. The ones 
 which contain no starch and whose cell walls are 
 sufficiently tender to be easily masticated and 
 digested without cooking are best taken raw, as 
 this preserves the vitamines and minerals com- 
 plete. Lettuce, celery, cabbage, cress, and other 
 vegetables of this class even tender young tur- 
 nips and carrots can be dressed with salad oil 
 and served without any application of heat. 
 127 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 Where it must be applied in order to soften the 
 wall of cellulose or cook the starch, as in the 
 case of potatoes, parsnips, green beans, etc., care 
 should be taken to avoid the loss of the juices 
 which contain the valuable minerals. Baking 
 and steaming are excellent processes, as they re- 
 duce this loss to a minimum. 
 
 Fruits in general need no cooking, but when 
 dried the water needs to be replaced and the 
 tissues softened by long soaking or slow cooking. 
 
 Necessary Cooking Operations. A woman who 
 understands these fundamental principles of food 
 preparation and the use of one or more leavening 
 agents for making bread, and who can handle 
 food materials and a stove, will be able to supply 
 the family dependent upon her with the food 
 necessary to keep them in good health, for she 
 will know how: 
 
 (1) To turn out a light, sweet loaf of bread thoroughly 
 
 baked. 
 
 (2) To cook cereal mushes until they are thoroughly 
 
 done. 
 
 (3) To broil, roast, stew, or braise meat and fish so as not 
 
 to toughen the protein or waste the juices, but to 
 
 128 
 
PURCHASE AND PREPARATION 
 
 soften the tough fibres where this is necessary; 
 that is, 
 
 (a) To cook tender cuts without toughening. 
 
 (b) To cook tough cuts and make them tender. 
 
 (4) To cook an egg without toughening. 
 
 (5) To bake, boil, or steam vegetables without losing 
 
 their juices. 
 
 (6) To bake or boil a potato so that it will be tender, 
 
 dry, and mealy. 
 
 (7) To cook dried vegetables or fruit so that the water 
 
 will be replaced and the hardened tissues soft- 
 ened. 
 
 If the family insist upon use of coffee and tea, 
 she will need to know how to prepare these with- 
 out an excess of caffein or tannic acid. 
 
 With the aid of the food materials that can be 
 used without cooking milk, butter or butter 
 substitutes, fruit, green vegetables, nuts, and 
 cheese a considerable number of menus is pos- 
 sible, using no more than the cooking operations 
 listed above. However desirable additional cul- 
 inary skill may be, the above processes will, under 
 ordinary circumstances, furnish the food neces- 
 sary for preserving the health of a family in nor- 
 mal physical condition. 
 
 129 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 ESSENTIALS IN SERVING FOOD 
 
 The regularity of meals and the eating of them 
 in common are perhaps the most essential ele- 
 ments of food service. Probably no one other 
 custom influences so greatly the development of 
 the social life of the family as that of sitting down 
 together at meals. This is usually the one time 
 in the day that all members of the family, with 
 minds free from outside disturbances, can devote 
 to social intercourse with one another. It is by 
 no means a universal custom for families to sit at 
 meals together. Mr. Minor comes home from 
 work at noon carrying a paper sack full of bologna 
 sausage and another one with a loaf of bread. He 
 sits down and cuts off a "hunk" of sausage with 
 his pen-knife and hands it to the child nearest 
 him. The child breaks for himself a piece of 
 bread from the loaf and goes wherever his fancy 
 dictates to consume the food. At the Lenskys 
 the children coming home from school at noon 
 pour for themselves a cup of black coffee and 
 rummage through the pantry to see what they 
 can find to eat with it. In many homes there is 
 130 
 
PURCHASE AND PREPARATION 
 
 not even the equipment for sitting at a family 
 meal. 
 
 Regularity of meal time is recognized as being 
 one of the most important assets to good diges- 
 tion. Almost all physicians who specialize in in- 
 fant feeding insist upon the strictest regularity of 
 feeding times. Yet Mrs. Smith reassures all who 
 inquire about the food of her undergrown anemic 
 children : "Why, they have awful appetites, they 
 eat all the time." This is literally true. The 
 children are seldom seen without a piece of bread 
 or a sweet roll in their hands. Consequently, no 
 full meal is ever eaten and the food consumption 
 of the day is probably lower than the child's real 
 requirement. 
 
VII 
 HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 TT rHILE health and dietary standards, and 
 the principles of choice and preparation of 
 foods based upon them, have been given a promi- 
 nent place in these pages, it must not be supposed 
 that it is with them alone that the home visitor is 
 concerned. Indeed, many of the examples al- 
 ready cited will have made clear that her relation 
 to the life of the family she is called upon to visit 
 is an all-round one. No feature of their environ- 
 ment, no phase of their common life which seems 
 to be working against the upward movement she 
 is seeking to encourage, should be regarded by 
 her as outside her province. 
 
 Oftentimes it will be obvious that the housing 
 conditions to which the family are subjected are 
 dangerous to health or render a wholesome home 
 life impossible. Fortunately, campaigns for bet- 
 ter housing and better sanitary conditions have 
 132 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 given us a basis of concrete fact to aid us in for- 
 mulating our housing standards. 
 
 STANDARDS OF HOUSING 
 
 All the legal standards in American cities are 
 compromises with abuses which have been al- 
 lowed to grow unendurable. We cannot yet 
 hope from them the formulation of a standard 
 which we can accept as entirely satisfactory. 
 The housing codes of New York and Chicago 
 abolish the totally dark bedroom common before 
 they were adopted, but permit use of the same 
 room after an opening has been cut into it from 
 one adjoining, which contains a window. Though 
 the last state of such a room is far better than 
 its first, it cannot yet be considered a sleeping 
 place conducive to good health. These codes 
 forbid the former yard privy, but leave the water- 
 closet used by two families, with its opportunity 
 for spread of disease ; they permit so large a part 
 of the lot to be covered by buildings that only the 
 street is left as a playground for children ; and a 
 long, tortuous, ill lighted passageway, with its 
 133 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 possibilities for unwholesome moral conditions, is 
 still possible. 
 
 An experienced case work supervisor gives this 
 excellent suggestion to workers inspecting rooms 
 with a view to deciding on their desirability for a 
 family dwelling. ' ' Do not accept rooms in which 
 you yourself would not take the responsibility of 
 bringing up these children. If you could not 
 make them healthful and home-like, do not expect 
 it of a woman presumably less capable than your- 
 self." 
 
 From this point of view we should probably 
 agree that the rooms must be above ground, and 
 well lighted and ventilated by windows that open 
 into the outdoors not on a court or shaft and 
 that admit sunlight as well as air ; that freedom 
 from vermin be possible (it is not if there are 
 cracks in the plastering and around the doors and 
 windows where they can breed in hiding) ; that 
 the rooms be in a good state of repair, well pro- 
 vided with good water, and with toilet facilities 
 for the family alone; that the approach to the 
 rooms be light, clean, and free from interference 
 by others; that there be play space for children, 
 134 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 either on the premises, where the mother can 
 overlook their play, or in a supervised play- 
 ground. It is safe to say that not less than four 
 rooms will answer the requirements of the fam- 
 ily of average size and this only when the chil- 
 dren are small. Dr. Oskar Pfister, in the Psycho- 
 analytic Method,* warns parents against the 
 danger of mental disturbance in allowing a child 
 to share the sleeping room of his parents after his 
 first year. Three bedrooms, if there are children 
 of both sexes, will be required even in a small 
 family. For the living room a combination of 
 kitchen and sitting-room may meet the needs of 
 a family with very young children, but the nat- 
 ural expansion of social life as the boys and girls 
 grow older may make a fifth room necessary. A 
 pleasant sitting-room is a potent factor in pre- 
 venting adolescent boys and girls from seeking 
 all their pleasure on the street, or in the dance 
 hall and pool room. It may also prevent the 
 father from seeking his at the corner saloon. 
 
 * Pfister, Oskar: Psychoanalytic Method. Authorized 
 translation by Dr. Charles Rockwell Payne, p. 562. New 
 York, Moffatt, Yard, and Co., 1917. 
 
 135 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 So important are the home conditions, particu- 
 larly the sleeping arrangements, that in cases of 
 juvenile delinquency or where a boy or girl is 
 staying out late at night, it will be well to take 
 careful note of them. A widowed mother com- 
 plained to the Juvenile Court that her two sons 
 of thirteen and eleven were staying away from 
 home nights. The boys were found in the sleep- 
 ing-room furnished by one of the daily papers for 
 the newsboys who went out with the early morn- 
 ing edition. The bed on which the boys slept 
 when at home had no springs and the thin, ragged 
 mattress was supported by four slats lying across 
 the bed. The time when the springs on the bed 
 had broken down coincided with the beginning of 
 their sleeping away from home. Another mother 
 complained to the agent of a charity organization 
 society that her twelve-year-old boy was becom- 
 ing unmanageable and staying out at night. He 
 had always slept with the grandmother, and this 
 arrangement had not been changed as the boy 
 grew older. 
 
 In Slavic families particularly, boys and girls 
 as old as twelve will sometimes be found sleep- 
 
 136 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 ing together. A boy who has sisters only will 
 frequently not be given a room of his own even 
 after he starts to work, but will share that of his 
 sister or his parents. 
 
 Nor must we forget, in passing on the fitness of 
 a dwelling, the clothes closets which make proper 
 care of the clothing and order in the rooms pos- 
 sible ; wherever possible the well ventilated pan- 
 try for the preservation of food and household 
 supplies ; the shed in which fuel can be stored in 
 order that the family may not be confined to the 
 financially disastrous custom of buying coal by 
 the bucket. 
 
 The removal of a family from a dark, ill smell- 
 ing basement to clean, well ventilated rooms is 
 frequently the work of months. The mothers' 
 pension department of the Chicago Juvenile 
 Court, which insists upon clean, bright rooms 
 above ground for its wards, frequently receives 
 protests from friends, aldermen, and judges, as 
 well as interested landlords, against its cruelty 
 in insisting upon the removal of a family from 
 rooms in which they have lived contentedly for 
 years. The moving once accomplished, the de- 
 137 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 light of the family in a sunny kitchen or in a yard 
 knows no bounds. 
 
 STANDARDS OF HOUSEHOLD EQUIPMENT 
 
 The modern well-to-do housekeeper who is in 
 touch with the educational facilities which mean 
 easier ways of meeting her daily problems has 
 been for some years in the habit of demanding 
 good tools for her work. But while hardware 
 shops are piled with labor-saving household 
 machinery, the home of the workingwoman is 
 often bare of the most primitive tools. Some of 
 these women are extraordinarily clever at mak- 
 ing things "do." 
 
 A floor can be swept clean with the stub of a 
 worn-out broom; but with infinite pains. Many 
 of us have seen a shining whiteness of table and 
 floor achieved with much labor, a very little soap, 
 and a worn-out brush ; but no way has been de- 
 vised of making cracked and chipped dishes and 
 battered cooking utensils sanitary, particularly 
 with a scanty supply of soap and hot water, a 
 leaky dish-pan, and no towel. Restful sleep can- 
 not be obtained when the bed must be shared by 
 
 138 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEM AKING 
 
 three other human beings, even though they be 
 one's own children. If springs are broken and 
 the mattress worn into knots, if there are no 
 sheets, and only one thin comforter, supple- 
 mented by coats and wraps for the coldest nights, 
 the chances for rest are still less. A family meal 
 cannot be arranged if there are not enough chairs 
 or plates or knives to go around, or if there is no 
 table large enough for all to sit down to at once. 
 For the home conducted in the simplest pos- 
 sible manner at least the following list of house- 
 hold furnishings and furniture will be needed : 
 
 For Cooking and Eating 
 
 (1) A cooking stove or range in good condition. 
 
 (2) A table large enough to accommodate the whole 
 family and a chair for each person. The shining 
 cleanness of a bare wooden table or a white oil-cloth 
 covering may make it pleasant to eat at, if the use of 
 a cloth seems impracticable, but a doily, even if only 
 of coarse muslin, will heighten its attractiveness. 
 
 (3) Utensils in good condition for simple cooking opera- 
 tions: often one large kettle for soups and stews; 
 two or three smaller ones for vegetables, cereals, etc. ; 
 a baking dish; a baking pan; a muffin tin; frying 
 pan; coffee pot; and a few knives, forks, and spoons, 
 can be made to answer all purposes, if more is im- 
 possible. 
 
 139 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 (4) Dishes unchipped and uncracked enough for in- 
 dividual use: plates, cups, knives, forks, and spoons. 
 Also a few bowls, some vegetable dishes, a platter, 
 pitchers, drinking glasses, and sugar bowl. 
 
 For Sleeping 
 
 There need be beds enough so that no more than two 
 persons share the same bed. Each bed should be 
 furnished with a good mattress, two pillows, linen 
 enough for cleanliness, and coverings enough to per- 
 mit open windows at night. This means at least 
 three sheets, four pillow cases, a comforter, a double 
 blanket more in some climates for each bed. The 
 sheets and pillow cases can be made at home of un- 
 bleached muslin. 
 
 For Laundry Work 
 
 Two zinc wash-tubs, if stationary ones are not fur- 
 nished; one wash-boiler; one wash-board; one wringer; 
 two or three smoothing irons or a gas one; ironing 
 board; clothesline and pins. 
 
 If no more space than a shelf or two in the 
 pantry is available for storage of food materials, 
 enough flour, sugar, rice, cereals, and other 
 staples for a week or more can be stored in a 
 dozen glass jars with tight lids. A tin box or 
 crockery jar is needed for bread, and a larger one 
 140 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 for flour, if baking can be done at home. A 
 wash-boiler is often used as a bread -box tin. The 
 pantry shelves should be within easy arm's 
 reach and should be made as attractive as pos- 
 sible as it is of the greatest importance that they 
 be kept clean and free from vermin. Decorative 
 pantry paper, if it appeals to the family's sense of 
 beauty and fitness, is sometimes a wise expendi- 
 ture out of even a slender income. From a sani- 
 tary standpoint a clean shelf of wood, bare or 
 painted, or one with oil cloth tacked on, may be 
 preferable. 
 
 A window refrigerator may be made of any 
 kind of wooden or metal box fastened to the out- 
 side of a window, arranged with the open side 
 toward the house. A paper lining will make it 
 dust-proof, and it will keep milk, fats, and similar 
 foods at a suitable temperature except in hot or 
 very cold weather. In hot weather if there is a 
 young child whose milk must be kept cold some 
 provision for the use of ice is necessary. This 
 may be a tight wooden box with paper used for 
 packing if a refrigerator is impossible. Cooling 
 by evaporation can be used in dry climates by 
 141 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 keeping a wet cloth around the bottle of milk or 
 water set in a shaded place. 
 
 A sewing machine, even if bought on the in- 
 stallment plan with weekly payments of 25 cents, 
 is an economy for almost any woman of average 
 ability bringing up a family of children. The 
 use of the machine will save more than this 
 amount in clothing for the family and in keeping 
 up the household furnishing. 
 
 Windows must be provided with blinds or cur- 
 tains, as the location makes necessary, in order to 
 preserve the privacy of the family. 
 
 EQUIPMENT FOR THE CARE OF CLOTHING AND 
 PERSON 
 
 Friction in the home life is often caused 
 by lack of sufficient equipment for caring for 
 the clothing. Sixteen-year-old James Means left 
 home because of quarrels which had their origin 
 in his hopeless attempts to keep his clean shirts 
 unrumpled and his ties in a place where his young 
 brother could not find and wear them. Closets 
 and wardrobes, chests or bureau drawers suffi- 
 cient to allow for the separate care of the clothing 
 142 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 of each member of the family and of household 
 linen, may well be considered a necessity. 
 
 Wherever the equipment is so poor as to pre- 
 vent orderly carrying on of the physical opera- 
 tions necessary for the family life eating, sleep- 
 ing, dressing, the housekeeping operations and 
 of its social life, it must be considered as inade- 
 quate for the family welfare. 
 
 As has been pointed out before, what to one 
 individual is unendurable disorder is harmony to 
 another, so that so far as comfort of the indi- 
 vidual is concerned we might conceivably have 
 as many standards as there are individuals in- 
 volved. It is not safe to assume, however, that 
 the degree of order prevailing in a home is that 
 which is best fitted to the development of the 
 individuals of the family. It is frequently true 
 that the housekeeper is in a continual state of 
 nervous fatigue because of her inability to reach 
 her own ideal of an orderly home. Nervous Mrs. 
 Burnheim complained that her whole house was 
 never straight at one time and that it worried her 
 so she could not sleep. That this disorder was 
 the real cause of her nervousness became appar- 
 143 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 ent through the calmer state that she enjoyed 
 after the visitor had formed a plan of housework 
 with her in which the older children helped, so 
 that the home at last became habitually some- 
 what nearer the mother's ideal. In some cases it 
 is the children and not the mother who are ren- 
 dered nervous and irritable by the inability to 
 keep the house orderly. Rose Dambrowsky was 
 so bad tempered, according to her mother's ver- 
 sion, that the family had difficulty in enduring 
 life with her. Rose herself complained that she 
 had no place for her clothes and never could find 
 them ; that when she came into the kitchen and 
 saw everything upside down, it made her feel 
 like "tearing up the house." 
 
 Each member of the family of suitable age 
 should share in bringing order and harmony into 
 the family life, but the assignment of definite 
 places for their clothing and other personal prop- 
 erty, as well as for household furnishings, will be 
 a necessary part of this work. The Thompson 
 children had been very disorderly about their 
 personal belongings, to the distress of their 
 mother, who, though herself daintily clean and 
 144 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 exquisitely orderly, found the task of training the 
 children in good personal habits quite beyond 
 her. The friendly visitor helped her to divide 
 her available closet and drawer space and put up 
 hooks suited to the height of each child, who 
 pasted his own name above the space allotted to 
 him and took complete charge of his own cloth- 
 ing. The shelves for household linen were div- 
 ided in the same way, "towels" pasted on one 
 shelf and ' ' sheets ' ' on another. 1 1 became the re- 
 sponsibility of twelve-year-old Annie to put this 
 part of the washing away and to see that the 
 shelves were kept clean and orderly. Under this 
 plan, with space to put things in, the children 
 rapidly developed a sense of personal responsibil- 
 ity about the care of their possessions. In the 
 crowded confines of a three- or four-room flat the 
 few personal articles each child possesses can so 
 easily lose their identity that a sense of responsi- 
 bility and respect for property rights does not 
 develop normally. 
 
 For making personal cleanliness and neatness 
 possible a looking-glass and wash-basin are un- 
 questioned necessities. Whether or not the bath- 
 10 145 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 tub is indispensable may be left an open question. 
 For many careful mothers the wash-tub by the 
 kitchen fire answers for bathtub as well. A bath 
 for each member of the family once a week is as 
 much as can usually be achieved in this way. It 
 means not only much lifting and heating of 
 water, but special arrangements for securing the 
 necessary privacy in the crowded home each 
 time a bath is taken. Wash -cloths and hand and 
 bath towels are needed ; no less than one of each 
 for each member of the family is essential. Comb 
 and hair-brush may with frequent cleaning be a 
 common family possession, though personal ones 
 may be a psychological necessity for older chil- 
 dren. It would seem unnecessary to mention in- 
 dividual tooth-brushes if so many families had 
 not been known to point with pride to the com- 
 mon tooth-brush. 
 
 EQUIPMENT FOR HEATING AND LIGHTING 
 
 In many homes the only means for heating the 
 
 house is the kitchen range. This means that 
 
 during the winter, fall, and early spring months 
 
 cooking, eating, the family washing, bathing, and 
 
 146 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 social life will all be confined to the kitchen. Just 
 when in the development of the family this be- 
 comes an undesirable arrangement is largely an 
 individual matter. In general a father, mother, 
 and two or three small children may find this 
 arrangement satisfactory if the danger to the 
 young children of steam from the washing can be 
 overcome by good ventilation. As the children 
 grow older or as the number increases the health 
 of the family and the development of their social 
 life may require more rooms in cold weather. In 
 this case a second stove will be necessary. 
 
 Kerosene is used for lighting by many families 
 even in our larger cities, where gas and electricity 
 are used by their more fortunate neighbors, in 
 which case kerosene lamps are needed. 
 
 ADDITIONAL FURNITURE 
 
 The aforementioned articles or their equiva- 
 lents, used for carrying on the fundamental activi- 
 ties of family life, are necessary to all alike, but 
 there are unquestionably many others whose 
 utility is not so unmistakable but which may play 
 an important part in the family development. 
 147 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 In the opinion of the friendly visitor of the 
 Retz family the ragged and dirty sitting-room 
 carpet was not an asset but instead a serious 
 liability from a sanitary standpoint. She felt 
 that a clean, bare floor would be suitable for this 
 family, which consisted of a widow and five chil- 
 dren all under nine years of age. But Mrs. Retz 
 could not be induced to give up the shreds of 
 carpet which seemed somehow to stand in her 
 mind as a symbol of respectability. Finally the 
 visitor arranged for a new carpet, which came to 
 the family as unexpectedly as a gift from Heaven. 
 Not even the youngest child slept that night, but 
 all sat up to gloat over the new possession, saying 
 over and over, "Mother, we are rich now, aren't 
 we?" 
 
 An Italian family went without meat for a 
 month that they might buy a picture of the 
 Madonna in a large gilt frame. A mother with 
 adolescent boys and girls often endures the most 
 incredible hardships in order to secure or hold the 
 piano which she fondly hopes will keep the chil- 
 dren home at night. Who can be sure that it is 
 
 148 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 not as real a need as the soup kettle or the sew- 
 ing machine? 
 
 CLOTHING 
 
 The matter of clothing, too, one might well say, 
 affects the family welfare both physically and 
 aesthetically. If the function of clothing were 
 confined to the protection of the body from cold, 
 rain, heat, and harmful contact with material 
 objects, definite standards of clothing would 
 doubtless long ago have been worked out: for 
 example, shoes that would keep the feet dry and 
 warm in winter, cool and unwounded in summer. 
 It would be easy to establish the number and 
 cost that would furnish this protection for a year 
 to a pair of feet under given conditions. But, 
 alas! there are shoes and shoes, the primary 
 thought behind their structure being to please 
 an individual and sometimes a fantastic taste. 
 Thus each article of clothing has the double ser- 
 vice of utility and of expression of taste. Who 
 can say that one function is of more intrinsic im- 
 portance than the other? In the very young and 
 the very old utility holds perhaps an unques- 
 149 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 tioned first place. Through adolescence and 
 youth dress is regarded largely as an opportunity 
 to express taste. That this point of view emerges 
 early is evidenced by the instance of a four-year- 
 old girl who wore rompers with entire lack of self- 
 consciousness in a neighborhood where this style 
 of dress was universal. When her family moved 
 to another street where the little ones all wore 
 dresses and where she was called a boy, wearing 
 the rompers became a punishment to which her 
 mother was unwilling to subject her, although 
 they gave her the freedom of running and climb- 
 ing, which she loved. 
 
 When Mrs. Lindsky received her first monthly 
 installment of $20 on her mother's pension the 
 first purchase was of white shoes and stockings 
 for her ten- and twelve-year-old daughters, and a 
 new suit for Walter, her fifteen-year-old son, 
 whose wages furnished the remainder of the sup- 
 port for the family. For years the children had 
 been clothed chiefly in second-hand garments. 
 The girls' winter dresses of that year had been 
 made with long, irregular stitches by the mother's 
 rheumatic fingers there was no machine from 
 150 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 dun-colored outing flannel, a large quantity of 
 which had been given to the society caring for 
 them. They knew that this purchase of clothing 
 meant a whole month in which the diet would 
 consist chiefly of bread and coffee. 
 
 A mother's lack of care for her personal ap- 
 pearance is often a serious weakness in her con- 
 trol of the family situation. On a hot day a 
 round of visits among the poorer Polish and 
 Slavic families will reveal many of the mothers 
 clothed in underwear only often ragged and 
 dirty. In winter their house dress is apt to be an 
 equally ragged and dirty sweater worn directly 
 over the underwear. If the immigrant mother 
 fails to discard her headshawl for the American 
 hat, the gulf between the foreign parent and her 
 American children is thereby widened. 
 
 Mrs. Consillo, fat, good-natured, and shiftless, 
 was left a widow with eight children. She found 
 herself unable to manage the young boys and 
 girls, even with the aid of the twenty -one-year-old 
 son and eighteen-year-old daughter who were de- 
 pendable young people and added greatly to the 
 home. Twelve-year-old Stella was impertinent 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 and stayed out late at night. The younger boys 
 were in the habit of ignoring the mother's com- 
 mands. Mrs. Consillo was advised to spend a 
 part of her scanty income on a neat wash dress 
 and aprons for housework, and a hat for herself. 
 With these additions to her wardrobe she found 
 it much easier to maintain her authority in the 
 home than when dressed in the underwear and 
 sweater in which she had been in the habit of ap- 
 pearing not only in the presence of her children 
 but in that of callers of both sexes. 
 
 Thus an adequate standard of clothing not 
 only must furnish protection for the body par- 
 ticularly the feet from cold and wet but must be 
 such as to furnish a much needed vehicle of in- 
 dividual expression, for which it is the most uni- 
 versal of all means. 
 
 THE HIGHER LIFE 
 
 If it is difficult to reduce the self-expression of 
 the individual by means of dress to minimum 
 terms, how much more difficult to measure and 
 standardize, as it were, numberless other forms of 
 expression! What are the minimum facilities 
 152 
 
HOUSING AND HOMEMAKING 
 
 needed in order that the play spirit be developed 
 in the young, or be kept from being crushed out 
 in the adult; that sex attraction have such 
 means of wholesome expression as is needed to 
 lay the foundation of a normal home life? What 
 is the effect upon character and citizenship of the 
 sense of security and self-respect which comes 
 from having erected a barrier against misfortune, 
 though the protection be no stronger than the 
 industrial insurance with its 5- or lo-cent weekly 
 payment? How much is it necessary to spend 
 for newspapers and magazines that one may be 
 an intelligent part of the state? 
 
 And as to education the time one may give, 
 the price one may pay? The standard for chil- 
 dren is being slowly forced upward, but not fast 
 enough for many parents who are making untold 
 sacrifices to give their sons and daughters oppor- 
 tunities which they themselves never had. Mrs. 
 Oblonski, who can speak no word of English, 
 sews far into every night, though the doctor 
 warns her that she is developing tuberculosis, 
 that Stanley, who might be earning, may "grad- 
 uate" from public school. He is two years re- 
 153 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 tarded and does not study well, so that the so- 
 ciety which kept him in school last year explains 
 carefully to the mother that it is useless for him 
 to go on, with his present attitude toward learn- 
 ing. She only shakes her head, weeping, and 
 says that Stanley must "graduate." 
 
 Even in a book upon the matter-of-fact sub- 
 ject of household management, these imponder- 
 ables, these hopes and ambitions, cannot be 
 wholly ignored. Still less can they be ignored by 
 the social worker in the home, who, however en- 
 thusiastic about a desired standard of living, is 
 dealing not only with an abstract standard but 
 with living people, who have had a past and are 
 striving to be true to certain ideals of their own 
 future. 
 
 154 
 
APPENDIX A 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR A TALK ON MILK 
 
 TF THE increase in the quantity of milk consumed by 
 * the family appears to be, as it is in many instances, the 
 most important change necessary in the diet, it may be 
 accomplished in some such manner as the following outline 
 suggests. The points selected for discussion are those 
 which have been found comprehensible to uneducated 
 women or to children. Not only is the amount of milk of 
 the greatest possible importance, but the dietetic instruc- 
 tion incident to a discussion of its place in the diet makes 
 a splendid ground work for future talks on standards of 
 food. 
 
 Milk is a food which contains some of all the elements 
 needed for a child's growth. The young calf gets nothing 
 else for a time and grows very rapidly. Milk must then 
 contain what is needed to make muscles and bone. Bones 
 and teeth are largely made of lime and no other food con- 
 tains so much lime as milk. There is as much lime in one 
 pint of milk as is needed by a child for a day's growth of 
 bones and teeth, besides that needed for other things. If 
 this necessary amount is not supplied, the bones may be 
 soft, as in rickets, and the teeth not strong so that they will 
 easily decay. 
 
 Milk contains also a large proportion of the food needed 
 to build muscle. It is the same kind of food in this respect 
 as lean meat. This means that when there is plenty of 
 milk less meat or none at all need be taken. Many people 
 
 155 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 who study foods believe that young children, at least up 
 to seven years, are better off with very little meat, and 
 that we should depend upon milk, eggs, and cereals for the 
 material to make their muscles grow. Milk is easily di- 
 gested and is not likely to cause disturbance in the intes- 
 tine in the way that meat does. 
 
 Milk has besides another quality which makes it valu- 
 able in children's food. It influences the growth of chil- 
 dren and other young animals in a way which we do not 
 entirely understand. Scientists have tried experiments on 
 rats and other young animals. When they are fed on food 
 which has been refined, they do not grow. When milk is 
 added to that food they immediately begin to grow. 
 
 We sometimes think of milk as being an expensive food, 
 but this is because we do not realize how valuable it is. 
 We think of it as being something to drink and not as a 
 real food. It is not an expensive food but a cheap one, 
 when we consider all its qualities. One quart of milk 
 which costs from 10 to 14 cents is equal in food value to a 
 pound of steak which costs from 20 to 35 cents, to six eggs 
 which cost from 15 to 30 cents. It is not so cheap as bread 
 or cereals, but we cannot live on bread and cereals alone 
 and milk is the best thing to add to them when we must 
 have a cheap diet. 
 
 Three quarts of milk contain enough butter-fat to make 
 one-fourth of a pound of butter. If we cannot buy both 
 butter and milk, it is much better to put the money into 
 milk. In this way we get not only the butter-fat but all of 
 the other qualities the milk gives. If a child is having a 
 full pint of milk with the cream which belongs on it every 
 day, he can get along without butter by having oleomar- 
 garine, meat fats, or oils instead. 
 
 When the child drinks milk he will not ask for coffee. 
 Coffee contains no food, so that the money spent for it is 
 
 156 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 wasted worse than wasted if given to children, for it does 
 them harm. It works on their nerves and makes them 
 nervous and hard to manage, at home and at school. It 
 stimulates them and makes them feel strong, as it does all 
 of us, so that they do not feel that they need food, and do 
 not eat enough to make them grow properly. 
 
 If a child is used to hot cocoa occasionally, the mother 
 should be told that cocoa contains some of the same stimu- 
 lant that coffee and tea have, and should be made very 
 weak for children one level teaspoonful to a large cup. 
 Cereal coffee is better still; set barley or wheat grains in 
 the oven and leave them all day to brown slowly. Grind 
 or crush the grains and boil until the water is well colored. 
 
 The housekeeper will be very likely to say that she can- 
 not afford to spend the money for the milk. This gives a 
 natural opening for discussion of the other items of ex- 
 penditure in order to find a place where a cut can be made 
 without injury to supply the money for the milk advised. 
 In view of the above facts about the relationship between 
 meat and milk, the most natural place to suggest the re- 
 duction will be in the amount spent for meat. If in a 
 family of five 35 cents per day has been spent for meat and 
 only one quart of milk per day bought, at least one addi- 
 tional quart can be had from the meat money without 
 danger of this running too low. It may be desirable to 
 suggest dishes to the mother which she can make in order 
 to reduce the amount of meat served at a meal. Stews 
 can be made with very little meat used with plenty of 
 cereals, beans, or peas, and fresh vegetables. For ex- 
 ample, to enough lima or kidney beans to serve six persons 
 add half a pound of chopped meat shortly before serving. 
 Chopped meat may also be added to a dish of hominy, 
 rice, or barley, about one-half pound being sufficient to 
 
 11 157 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 lend flavor to enough of the cereal to serve six or seven 
 persons. Many useful recipes for ' ' meat extending ' ' dishes 
 are being issued in the National Food Administration bul- 
 letins and elsewhere, since the necessity for conserving 
 meat has become pressing. 
 
 Another natural source of money for milk is found in the 
 amount expended for butter. Many families with very 
 small food allowances habitually buy one-fourth of a pound 
 of butter every day. This amount of butter-fat, as pointed 
 out above, will be secured for the family by the purchase of 
 three quarts of milk. This may not, however, mean that 
 sufficient fat is contained in the diet. A part of the money 
 spent for butter may need to be used for a cheaper form of 
 fat. The same money will buy at least twice as much 
 oleomargarine, lard, suet, or cottonseed oil as butter. 
 
 158 
 
APPENDIX B 
 SPECIAL DIET LISTS 
 
 COMETIMES a typed copy of dietary instructions such 
 ^ as the following can be put into the hands of the 
 mother with good results. 
 
 DIET FOR GROWING CHILDREN 
 
 1. Milk 
 
 Every growing child needs at least one pint of milk 
 daily. This is for building bone and teeth and providing 
 for the growth of muscle and stimulating general de- 
 velopment. 
 
 2. Cereals 
 
 Cereals are the next most important food for the grow- 
 ing child. One or two meals a day can be made mostly 
 of cereal mush and milk. This is the cheapest as well 
 as the best food that can be obtained. Be sure that it is 
 well cooked. The following kinds can be bought all the 
 year around at from 5 to 8 cents a pound. Try all of 
 them and change often: 
 Oatmeal, cook two hours or more 
 Corn meal, cook three hours or more 
 Hominy, cook four hours or more 
 Barley, cook two to four hours or more 
 Cracked wheat, cook six hours or more 
 Farina, cook one-half to one hour or more 
 Rice, boil one-half hour or steam fifty minutes. 
 
 Cereals bought by the pound in a clean store and kept 
 in covered jars at home are just as good as the package 
 
 159 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 ones. They are much cheaper because no money goes 
 into advertising. 
 
 The time for cooking may be cut in half by soaking 
 over night and boiling directly over the fire, but the 
 longer cooking gives a better flavor. 
 
 3. Meats, Eggs, etc. 
 
 Meat need not be given more than three times a week 
 in small amounts, if eggs, which are better for the grow- 
 ing child, can be given on the other days of the week, 
 and if there is at least a pint of milk for each one. Fish 
 may be used instead of the meat or the eggs. 
 
 4. Fat 
 
 Fats are very important for the growing child. When 
 butter is impossible because of the price, oleomargarine 
 and other butter substitutes, cottonseed oil, peanut oil, 
 and meat fats can be used. Bacon strips or bacon bris- 
 ket is cheaper than butter and is an easily digested fat 
 and is usually bought for less than 30 cents a pound.* 
 
 5. Vegetables 
 
 In order to keep the blood supplied with iron and the 
 body in good condition, vegetables should be used every 
 day. Teach the children to eat all kinds. At each 
 season there are some that are cheaper than others, al- 
 though a number are likely to be cheap all the year 
 around, e. g., carrots, which are one of the most valuable 
 since they contain a large amount of iron. Turnips, 
 beets, parsnips, all kinds of greens, green peas and beans, 
 lettuce, etc., are all valuable. Dried beans, peas, etc., 
 can take the place of meat once or twice a week. Use 
 all the different kinds and particularly that cheapest 
 
 * This is no longer true since the need of the army for 
 bacon has increased the price. 
 
 160 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 at the moment. Lima beans, kidney, navy, Brazilian, 
 and black-eyed beans, and yellow and green split peas, 
 can be found in most places. For children under three 
 they should be cooked to a pulp or put through a strainer 
 or colander. 
 
 6. Fruit 
 
 Fruit is needed every day. When fresh fruits are too 
 expensive, try the dried ones. Dried apples, peaches, 
 prunes, apricots, figs, etc., are all valuable and cheap. 
 
 7. Tea and Coffee 
 
 Never give a growing child coffee, tea, or any other 
 stimulant. They will stunt its growth and make it 
 nervous and hard to manage. 
 
 8. Sugar 
 
 Let children have candy only after meals. Then they 
 will not be likely to eat too much. Do not let them pile 
 sugar thickly on their cereal. Children, as a rule, should 
 not take more than an ounce (one rounded tablespoon- 
 ful) during the day. Better still is it for them to get 
 their sugar through home-made fruit jams and marma- 
 lades or through molasses. 
 
 Keep regular hours for eating and do not let children 
 eat between meals. 
 
 DIET FOR AN UNDER-NOURISHED PERSON 
 
 1. Milk 
 
 At least one-half pint daily for an adult, one pint for a 
 growing child. This may be used partly or wholly in 
 combination with cereals, soup, etc., if it cannot be taken 
 as a drink. 
 
 2. Cereals 
 
 At least one meal, preferably breakfast, should include 
 
HOUSEHOLD MANAGEMENT 
 
 a bowl of cereal mush with milk. The following cereals 
 
 are desirable in the order given: 
 
 Cracked wheat, cook six hours 
 
 Oatmeal, " two hours 
 
 Farina, " one-half hour 
 
 Cornmeal, " three hours 
 
 Only bread made of whole grain flours, graham, rye, and 
 
 whole wheat (preferably home-made), should be used. 
 
 3. Fats 
 
 All easily digested fats are good ; oleomargarine and 
 other butter substitutes, when butter is too expensive. 
 Peanut or cottonseed oil makes an excellent dressing for 
 the lettuce and green vegetables that should be eaten in 
 good amounts. 
 
 4. Sugar 
 
 Too much sugar or other sweets may aggravate anemia. 
 No child should take more than one to two ounces daily, 
 and this allowance includes the amount in candy, cake, 
 and all forms of sweets. An ounce is about one rounded 
 tablespoonful. Under-nourished children may be hav- 
 ing too much sugar. 
 
 5. Meat and Eggs 
 
 Egg yolk is very rich in iron, and the diet should in- 
 clude, if possible, an egg every day; lean meat, prefer- 
 ably beef, three to five times per week in small amounts. 
 
 6. Coffee and Tea 
 
 Coffee and tea should be given up absolutely always 
 by children and often by adults. A hot drink made of 
 parched barley or wheat may be substituted. 
 
 7. Fruits and Vegetables 
 
 Fruits and vegetables are the most important iron- 
 162 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 bearing foods, and their daily use is imperative. If they 
 can be obtained fresh, the canned products should not 
 be bought. The following are desirable for the under- 
 nourished person: carrots, spinach, dandelion greens, 
 beets, lettuce, onion, green beans, green and dried peas, 
 parsnips, tomatoes, celery, rutabaga, rhubarb; prunes, 
 oranges, dried figs, dried apricots, dried peaches, raisins, 
 dried and fresh apples. 
 
 Rest and good air are almost as important as food. 
 The under-nourished person should sleep well covered 
 near an open window eight to ten hours. 
 
 163 
 
APPENDIX C 
 
 AVERAGE WEIGHTS AND HEIGHTS OF NORMAL 
 CHILDREN* 
 
 A 
 
 Weight Pounds 
 
 Height Inches 
 
 Age 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 Boys 
 
 Girls 
 
 i 
 
 20.5 
 
 19.8 
 
 29.0 
 
 28.7 
 
 2 
 
 26.5 
 
 25-5 
 
 32.5 
 
 32.5 
 
 3 
 4 
 
 31.2 
 35.0 
 
 30.0 
 34-0 
 
 35-0 
 38.0 
 
 35-0 
 38.0 
 
 5 
 
 41.2 
 
 39-8 
 
 41.7 
 
 41.4 
 
 6 
 
 
 43-8 
 
 44.1 
 
 43-6 
 
 7 
 
 49-5 
 
 48.0 
 
 46.2 
 
 45-9 
 
 8 
 
 54-5 
 
 52.9 
 
 48.2 
 
 48.0 
 
 9 
 
 60.0 
 
 57-5 
 
 50.1 
 
 49.6 
 
 10 
 
 66.6 
 
 64.1 
 
 52-2 
 
 51.8 
 
 ii 
 
 72.4 
 
 70.3 
 
 54-o 
 
 53-8 
 
 12 
 
 79-8 
 
 81.4 
 
 
 57-1 
 
 13 
 
 88.3 
 
 91.2 
 
 58.2 
 
 58.7 
 
 14 
 
 99-3 
 
 100.3 
 
 61.0 
 
 60.3 
 
 15 
 
 110.08 
 
 108.04 
 
 63.0 
 
 61.4 
 
 * Whitman, Royal: A Treatise on Orthopedic Surgery, 
 p. 242. Philadelphia and New York. Lea and Febiger, 
 1917 (sth ed.). 
 
 164 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accessory factors in nourishment 
 of body, 87-88 
 
 Accounts, expense: value of, 59-61 
 
 Administration of minimum in- 
 comes by unskilled women, 15- 
 18 
 
 Adults: how to meet mineral re- 
 quirements of, 76, 77; energy 
 requirements of, 82; rules for 
 regulating diet of, 89. See also 
 Man 
 
 Aids to health and household 
 management, 43-65 
 
 American family: essentials of 
 homemaking for, 24 
 
 Americanization: loss in process 
 of, 24 
 
 Application of heat to food ma- 
 terials, 125-128 
 
 Average weights and heights of 
 normal children, 164 
 
 Bedding: essential articles of, 
 140. See also Sleeping arrange- 
 ments 
 
 Bedrooms: ventilation in, con- 
 ditioned on adequate coverings, 
 53 
 
 Beer in the workingman's home, 
 102 
 
 Beri-beri and vitamines, 88 
 
 Board of Estimate and Appor- 
 tionment, New York: cost of 
 living estimated by, 10 
 
 Bread: made of whole grains, 76, 
 77, 162 ; in a restricted diet, 97- 
 98; essentials in making, 125, 
 126 
 
 Budget, family: need of help in 
 planning, 26 
 
 Bureau of Personal Service, New 
 York : estimate of cost of living 
 by, 10 
 
 Butter: in a restricted diet, 99; 
 and butter-substitutes in cheap 
 dietary, 115. See also Fats 
 
 Calcium: uses of, in body, 74. 75; 
 sources of, 76. See also Lime 
 
 Calories: meaning and use of 
 term, 80-8 1 ; in common foods, 
 81-82, 85; required for adults, 
 82; required for children, 83; 
 how to meet requirements for, 
 83-86; low cost dietary fre- 
 quently deficient in, 86-87 
 
 Case illustrations: capable man- 
 agement of an inadequate in- 
 come, 15-17; a mother's un- 
 wise expenditure of an in- 
 creased income, 18-19; in- 
 capable management of an ex- 
 istence income, 19-20; rapid im- 
 provement of home conditions 
 where mother of good ability, 
 29-31; a totally untrained 
 mother and her slow improve- 
 ment, 32-35; a mentally sub- 
 normal mother whose standards 
 improved, 35-37; improve- 
 ment in home conditions fol- 
 lowing improvement in mother's 
 health, 38-40, 41-42; rapid 
 improvement in home where 
 insane husband removed, 38- 
 40; families that resent dis- 
 cussion of household affairs. 
 47; successful use of standard 
 weights and measures of chil- 
 dren, 55; influencing children 
 to give up drinking coffee, 57; 
 family that regarded four in a 
 bed as a fit, 58; where pneu- 
 
 165 
 
INDEX 
 
 monia confirmed a visitor's 
 teachings, 59; revelation of an 
 expense account, 61; of need 
 of leaving responsibility with 
 mother, 63 ; value of a new en- 
 vironment, 64-65; importance 
 of meat for the man, 98; failure 
 to appreciate importance of 
 milk, 100; use of coffee and 
 tea, 101, 102; little Louisa's 
 diet, 108-109; eating habits in 
 poor families, 130, 131; im- 
 portance of sleeping arrange- 
 ments for children, 136; im- 
 portance of equipment for care 
 of clothing, etc., 142-145; a 
 new carpet, 148; purchases of 
 clothing from a mother's pen- 
 sion, 150-151; importance of 
 proper clothing for a mother, 
 151-152; a mother's sacrifices 
 to educate her son, 153-154 
 
 Cereals: as a source of supply 
 for mineral salts, 76, 77; as 
 energy-producers, 85, 86; in a 
 restricted diet, 98; place of, 
 in cheap dietary, 113-114; 
 cooking of, 125-126; cooking 
 times for, 159; in diet for an 
 under-nourished person, 162 
 
 Chapin, Robert C., 9, 10 
 Chemistry of Food and Nutrition. 
 H. C. Sherman, 70, 84 
 
 Chicago: estimated cost of living 
 in, 10; conditions abolished 
 and permitted by housing 
 code in, 133 
 
 Children : inquiries regarding 
 health of, 47-48, 50-54; training 
 of, in habits of personal cleanli- 
 ness, 49; use made of standard 
 weights and measures of, 54~ 
 55; appeals to, as means of 
 bringing about changes in diet, 
 55-57; how to meet protein 
 requirement of, 72, 73; how 
 to meet lime requirement of, 
 76; needs of, for energy-pro- 
 ducing food, 78-79, 87; rules 
 for regulating diet of, 89-90; 
 coffee and tea drinking among, 
 101-102; use of intoxicants by, 
 102; Italian dietary ill adapted 
 
 to, 108-109; sleeping arrange- 
 ments for, 135-137; diet list 
 for, 150-161; table giving av- 
 erage weights and heights of 
 normal, 164 
 
 Chittenden, R. H., 70 
 
 Choice of foods, 91-120 
 
 Classes in household manage- 
 ment, etc., 43 
 
 Cleanliness: most important 
 points in regard to, 48-50 
 
 Clothing: and person, equip- 
 ment for care of, 142-146; lack 
 of any standardization of, 149; 
 in childhood and adolescence, 
 150; mothers' neglect of their 
 own, 151-152 
 
 Club and class work for mothers : 
 value of, 43 
 
 Coal: cost of, by pail and by ton, 
 121 ; purchase of,. 122 
 
 Coffee: stories of children in- 
 fluenced to give up, 57; in a 
 restricted diet, 101-102; pre- 
 paration of, 129; not to be 
 given to children, 161; in diet 
 for an under-nourished person, 
 162 
 
 Cooking: elementary rules that 
 should govern, 125-129; opera- 
 tions, necessary, 128-129; es- 
 sential equipment for, 139 
 
 Cost of living: estimates of, 9-12 
 
 Diet: rules for regulating, 88-90; 
 restricted, characteristics of, 
 95-102, in; ways of improv- 
 ing, I 12-120 
 
 Diet lists: for growing children, 
 159-161; for an under-nour- 
 ished person, 161-163 
 
 Dietary, cheap: advice as to, 
 
 III-I20 
 
 Dietary habits: of Italians, 104- 
 
 109; of Poles, 109-110 
 Dietary standards, 66-90 
 
 Eating: essential equipment for, 
 139-140 
 
 166 
 
INDEX 
 
 Economy: what visitor should 
 teach, from standpoint of, 119- 
 120 
 
 Educational work most needed 
 by mothers, 26 
 
 Eggs: protein content of, 71; 
 as substitute for meat, in chil- 
 dren's diet, 7 2 ; number equiva- 
 lent to a pound of meat, 112; 
 cooking of, 126; in children's 
 diet, 160; in diet for an under- 
 nourished person, 162 
 
 Energy: material for, 78-86 
 
 Environment, new: influence of, 
 illustrated, 64-65 
 
 Equipment : for the care of cloth- 
 ing and person, 142-146; for 
 heating and lighting, 146-147 
 
 Essentials: of homemaking, 22- 
 24; in serving food, 130-131 
 
 Expense accounts: uses and value 
 of, S9-6i 
 
 Factors, see Accessory factors 
 Families: grouped by types of 
 problems presented, 27; with 
 comparatively high standards, 
 problems of, illustrated, 27-31; 
 low standard, whose food is 
 fairly adequate, 31-32; of all- 
 round low standards, examples 
 of, 32-42; that are satisfied 
 with conditions, difficulties of 
 visitors with, 57-59. See also 
 Case illustrations 
 
 Family problems : methods of ap- 
 proach to, 47-48 
 
 Family unity: danger of breaking 
 down, by doing work that 
 should be left to mother, 62-64 
 
 Fats: in a restricted diet, de- 
 ficiency of, 99; in cheap dietary, 
 how to secure sufficient, 114- 
 115; application of heat to, 
 127; in diet for children, 160: 
 in diet for an under-nourished 
 person, 162 
 
 Feeding the Family. Mary Swartz 
 Rose, 72 
 
 Food and the Principles of Dietet- 
 ics. Robert Hutchinson, 85 
 Food habits of poor, 94, 95, 96 
 Food materials: cleanliness in 
 care of, 49-50; for growth and 
 repair, 67-77; application of 
 heat to, 125-129: storage of, 
 140-141 
 
 Food needs: discussion of, 47 
 Food riots of 1916-17, 96 
 Foods: general ignorance ot 
 values of, 26; valuable for 
 protein content, 60-73; valu- 
 able for mineral salts, 75-77; 
 valuable as energy-producers, 
 80, 85-86; in which vitamines 
 are present, 88; choice of, 91- 
 120; preparation of, 123-129; 
 essentials in serving, 130-131. 
 See also Fuel foods. 
 Fruits: as sources of supply for 
 mineral salts, 75, ?6, 77; 
 energy value of, 85 ; vitamines 
 in, 88; in cheap dietary, 115- 
 117; application of heat to, 
 128: in diet for children, 161; 
 in diet for an under-nourished 
 person, 162-163 
 
 Fuel foods: need for, in relation 
 to bulk and activity, 78-86; 
 what happens when there is 
 deficiency of, 79; what they 
 are, 80 
 Furniture, additional, 147-149 
 
 Grains: outer layers of, as a 
 source of supply for mineral 
 salts, 76, 77; vitamines in, 88 
 
 Grocers: dealings of families 
 with, 122-123 
 
 Group work in household man- 
 agement, 43 
 
 Growth and repair: food ma- 
 terials needed for, 67-77 
 
 Habits of eating in families, 93-94 
 Health and home conditions: il- 
 lustrations of improvement in, 
 29-31,38-42 
 
 I6 7 
 
INDEX 
 
 Health and household manage- 
 ment: aids to, 43-65 
 
 Health, good: what term should 
 be understood to mean, 53 
 
 Healy, Dr. William, 102 
 
 Heat: application of, to food ma- 
 terials, 125-129 
 
 Heating and lighting: equip- 
 ment for, 146-147 
 
 Heights of normal children, aver- 
 age, 164 
 
 Higher life: what is essential for 
 the, 153, 154 
 
 Home economics: need of train- 
 ing in, 20 
 
 Homemaking: essentials of, 22- 
 24; use of educational oppor- 
 tunities in, 43; housing and, 
 132-154 
 
 Household equipment; standards 
 of, 138-142 
 
 Housing: and homemaking, 132- 
 154; standards of, 133-138 
 
 Husband: difficulty of influenc- 
 ing, in matters of diet, 57 
 
 Hutchinson, Robert, 85 
 
 Immigrants: peculiarities of diet 
 among, 103-110 
 
 Incomes, existence: examples of 
 administration of, by untrained 
 women, 15, 18, 19 
 
 Individual Delinquent, Dr. Wil- 
 liam Healy, 102 
 
 Instruction: in dietetic stan- 
 dards, need of, 26; plans for 
 limiting points covered by, at 
 one visit, 61-62 
 
 Introduction, 7-21 
 
 Iron: uses of, in body, 74, 75; 
 
 sources of, 76, 77 
 
 Italians: essentials of homemak- 
 ing for, 24; dietary habits of, 
 104-109 
 
 Kennedy, J. C., 10 
 
 Laundry work: essentials for, 140 
 Legumes: as meat substitutes, 
 
 112; cooking of, 127, 161 
 Lime: uses of, in body, 74, 75; 
 
 sources of, 76; as a material 
 
 for regulating body processes, 
 
 87 
 
 Magnesium: as a material for 
 regulating body processes, 87 
 
 Man: protein requirement of a, 
 70, 72 
 
 Material: for energy, 78-86; for 
 regulating body processes, 87- 
 88 
 
 Meal times: importance of regu- 
 larity in, 131 
 
 Meals: importance of sitting at, 
 130 
 
 Meats: objections to use of, by 
 young children, 72, 73; mis- 
 taken impression regarding 
 need of, by those doing hard 
 muscular work, 73, 74; in a 
 restricted diet, 98-99; and meat- 
 substitutes, in the cheap diet- 
 ary, 112; application of heat 
 to, 126-127; in diet for chil- 
 dren, 160; in diet for an under- 
 nourished person, 162 
 
 Methods of approach to family 
 problems, 47-48 
 
 Milk: importance of cleanliness 
 in handling, 50; as a source of 
 supply of mineral salts, 75, 76, 
 77; vitamines in, 88; in a 
 restricted diet, usually de- 
 ficient, 100-101; place of, in 
 diet, 112; application of heat 
 to, 125; suggestions for a. talk 
 on, 155-158; allowance for a 
 growing child, 159; for an 
 adult, 161 
 
 Mineral salts: as building ma- 
 terials, 74-77; in regulating 
 body processes, 87 
 
 Minimum normal standard of 
 living, 8-10 
 
 Mothers' responsibilities: danger 
 of assuming too many of, 62-64 
 
 168 
 
INDEX 
 
 Mothers of good ability: family 
 
 problems of, illustrated, 27-31 
 Mouth: care of, 48-49 
 
 New York City : estimates of cost 
 
 of living in, 9, 10; conditions 
 
 abolished and permitted by 
 
 housing code in, 133 
 Nutrition: unfamiliarity of 
 
 mothers with principles of, 26; 
 
 what visitor should teach, from 
 
 standpoint of, 118-119 
 Nutrition of Man. R. H. Chit- 
 
 tenden, 70 
 
 Pfister, Dr. Oskar, 135 
 Phosphorus: uses of, in body, 
 
 74, 75; sources of, 77; as a 
 
 material for regulating body 
 
 processes, 87 
 
 Poles: dietary habits of, 109-110 
 Potassium: as a material for 
 
 regulating body processes, 87 
 Preparation of food, 123-129 
 Problems of the visitor to the 
 
 home, 22-42 
 Protein: as a building material, 
 
 kinds of, 68, 69; standards for, 
 
 70-74; amount of, in common 
 
 foods, 71 
 
 Protein foods, high: as energy- 
 producing foods, 84-85; place 
 of, in cheap dietary, 112-113; 
 application of heat to, 126-127 
 
 Psychoanalytic Method. Dr. Oskar 
 Pfister, 135 
 
 Purchase, preparation, and serv- 
 ing, 121-131 
 
 Refrigerators and substitutes for 
 them, 141-142 
 
 Regularity of meal time: im- 
 portance of, 131 
 
 Regulating body processes: ma- 
 terial for, 87-88 
 
 Report on the Increased Cost of 
 Living for an Unskilled La- 
 borer's Family in New York 
 City, 10 
 
 Rest: for an under-nourished 
 
 person, 163 
 
 Rose, Mary Swartz, 72, 90 
 Rules for regulating the diet, 88- 
 
 90. See also Diet lists 
 
 Salts, see Mineral Salts 
 
 Scurvy and vitamines, 88 
 
 Serving food, essentials of, 130- 
 131 
 
 Sewing machine: importance of, 
 142 
 
 Sherman, H. C., 70, 84 
 
 Slavic family: essentials of home- 
 making for, 24 
 
 Sleeping: essentials for, 140 
 
 Sleeping arrangements : discus- 
 sion of, 53; for families with 
 children, 135-137; for an 
 under-nourished person, 163 
 
 Sodium: as a material for regu- 
 lating body processes, 87 
 
 Special diet lists, 159-163 
 
 Standard of Living among Work- 
 ingmen's Families in New York 
 City. Robert C. Chapin, 10 
 
 Standard of living, minimum nor- 
 mal, 8-10 
 
 Standards: dietary, 66-90; for 
 building material, 71; for 
 energy, 80-86; of housing, 
 133-138; of household equip- 
 ment, 138-142 
 
 Starchy foods as producers of 
 energy, 85 
 
 Storage of food materials, 140-141 
 
 Sugar: as a fuel food, 85, 86; in a 
 restricted diet, 99; in the cheap 
 dietary, 117-118; application 
 of heat to, 127; in diet for chil- 
 dren, 161; in diet for an under- 
 nourished person, 162 
 
 Suggestions for a talk on milk, 
 155-158 
 
 Supplies: purchase of , 121-123 
 
 Swedish woman : restoration of a, 
 to former standard, 25 
 
 Sweets, see Sugar 
 
 I6 9 
 
INDEX 
 
 Tea: in a restricted diet, 101- 
 102; preparation of, 129; not 
 to be given to children, 161; 
 in diet for an under-nourished 
 person, 162 
 
 Tuberculous family: story of im- 
 provement in a, 29-31 
 
 Under-nourished person : 
 list for an, 161-163 
 
 diet 
 
 Variety in diet: importance of, 
 
 III, 112 
 
 Vegetables: as sources of supply 
 for mineral salts, 75, 76, 77; 
 energy value of, 85; vitamines 
 in, 88; in children's diet, 90, 
 160; prices of, as cause of food 
 riots, 96; in cheap dietary, 115- 
 116; application of heat to, 
 127-128; in diet for an under- 
 nourished person, 162-163 
 
 Ventilation in bedrooms: and 
 adequate coverings, 53 
 
 Vermin: reasons why presence of, 
 serious, 50; possibility of free- 
 dom from, essential, 134 
 
 Visitor to the home: problems of, 
 22-42; qualities needed by, 44- 
 47; plans of limiting instruc- 
 tion at any one visit, 61-62; 
 what she should teach regard- 
 ing diet, 118-120; her prov- 
 ince, 132 
 
 Vitamines: importance of, and 
 sources of, 87-88 
 
 Wages and Family Budgets in the 
 Chicago Stockyards District. 
 John C. Kennedy and others, 10 
 
 Washing and ironing: essentials 
 for, 140 
 
 Water: importance of, as a regu- 
 lator of body processes, 87 
 
 Weights and measures of normal 
 children: use or standard table 
 of, 54-55; table giving, for 
 different ages, 164 
 
 Wheat flour in a restricted diet, 
 
 97, 98 
 Workingmen: interest of, in 
 
 questions of nutrition, etc., 57; 
 
 unfounded views that high 
 
 meat diet necessary for, 73 
 
 170 
 
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