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HARVARD UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U.S.A.
HARVARD ECONOMIC STUDIES
i
PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF
THE DEPARTMENT OF ECONOMICS
VOL. II
OUTLINE MAP OF BOSTON
OMITTING SUBURBAN DISTRICTS
THE
LODGING HOUSE PROBLEM
IN BOSTON
BY
ALBERT BENEDICT WOLFE, PH.D.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY IN OBERIJN
COLLEGE AND SOMETIME HOLDER OF THE SOUTH END
HOUSE FELLOWSHIP IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY
PUBLISHED FROM THE INCOME OF THE
WILLIAM H. BALDWIN JR. 1885 FUND
CAMBRIDGE
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1913
COPYRIGHT, igo6
BY THE PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
.r^ LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CAIJFORNF,
SANTA :-
PREFACE
THE material for this monograph was collected during a resi-
dence of two years as Harvard Fellow at the South End House,
Boston, 1902-04. The writer wishes to acknowledge his indebted-
ness to Mr. and Mrs. Robert A. Woods and to Mr. William M.
Prest of the South End House, to Prof. J. Rose Colby of Normal,
111., to Prof. W. Z. Ripley of Harvard, and especially to Prof. T. N.
Carver, editor of this series, for reading the manuscript and offer-
ing valuable criticism. For whatever errors there may be, and for
shortcomings in the results obtained, the writer and the extremely
difficult conditions of investigation must alone be held responsible.
If he has blazed a way into a problem which others will attack,
in Boston and elsewhere, with resources more nearly in proportion
to the task before them, he will deem his labor well spent.
OBERLIN, November 12, 1906.
CONTENTS
I. Introduction i
II. The historical evolution of the South End lodging-house section . . 1 1
III The lodging-house districts of Boston 20
IV. The economic structure of the South End lodging-house district . . 27
V. The house itself 34
VI. The change from boarding to lodging 38
VII. The lodging-house keeper and her problem 52
VIII. Trading in furniture and good-will 67
IX. The real-estate situation in the lodging-house district ... . . 72
X. The lodger: general characteristics of the lodging-house population . 81
XI. The lodger: occupation 86
XII. The lodger: economic condition 97
XIII. The lodger: his life and social condition 109
XIV. Vital statistics 115
Sec. I. Statistical data 115
Sec. II. Density of population 117
Sec. III. Influence of the lodging-house on distribution of population
by sex 122
Sec. IV. Influence of the lodging-house on the age-grouping of population 125
Sec. V. Birth- and death-rates in the lodging-house district . . . .127
XV. Crime and prostitution 134
XVI. The problem of marriage 150
XVII. Summary and conclusion .... 167
APPENDICES
A. Books and pamphlets bearing on the lodging-house question . .185
B. Movements of populations from the country to the city .... 188
C. Student-quarters in Boston 191
LIST OF CHARTS
Outline Map of Boston Frontispiece
I. Change from private residences to lodging-houses, Union Park, Bos-
ton, 1868-1902 14
II. Map showing the general situation of the South End lodging-house
district with respect to the rest of the city 22
III. Map showing the situation, boundaries, and types of buildings and
institutions in the South End lodging-house district .... 24
IV. Map showing the economic structure of the South End lodging-house
district 28
V. Plan of first and second floors of the typical lodging-house ... 34
VI. Percentage of lodging-house landladies who have husbands or other
male relatives of the same name in the house geographical dis-
tribution by precincts 54
VII. Fall of real-estate values, Union Park, 1868-1902 76
VIII. Geographical distribution by precincts of adult male lodgers engaged
in professional service 88
IX. Idem, domestic and personal service 88
X. Idem, manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 92
XI. Idem, trade and transportation 92
XII. Density of population of Boston, 1900 (based on statistics by pre-
cincts) 118
XIII. Density of population of male adult lodgers, 1902, South End lodging-
house district 120
XIV. Distribution of population by sex, by wards, Boston, 1900 . . . 124
XV. Birth-rates by wards, Boston, 1901 128
XVI. Comparison of birth-rates and death-rates, by wards, 1901 . . . 132
XVII. Geographical distribution of students, Boston 190
XVIII. The new student-quarter in Boston 192
THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM
IN BOSTON
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
IN this study the term lodging-house is used both in a general and
in specific senses. Genetically it means any sort of habitation, hotels
excepted, where a person can obtain lodging, whether for a night,
a week, or a month. Specifically it has two different applications:
first to the cheap lodging-house of the Bowery type, secondly to a
class of dwellings often known in other cities as rooming-houses or
furnished-room houses. This investigation deals with the room-
ing-house only, and with the mercantile employees and skilled
mechanics whom it shelters. The distinction between the cheap,
transient lodging-house and the rooming-house lies in the class of
patrons, in prices charged, and in method of payment. The lodgers
in a rooming-house pay by the week or month, those in a cheap
lodging-house by the night. The "roomers" pay from one to seven
dollars a week, and are both men and women; the patron of the
cheap lodging-house pays from five to twenty-five cents a night,
and is generally a man, although there are in the larger cities cheap
lodging-houses for women also. The rooming-house may receive
transients, but generally at a rate not below fifty cents, and often as
high as one dollar a night. Inasmuch as this investigation deals
almost exclusively with Boston, and as the term rooming-house is
rarely or never heard there, it seems best to use the term lodging-
house in these pages rather than the more specific terms rooming-
house or furnished-room house. It should be understood at once,
then, that the term lodging-house as used here, unless indicated
otherwise, covers the class of dwellings in which live the great mid-
dle class of clerks, salesmen, skilled mechanics, and miscellaneous
industrial workers, who for the most part are unmarried and with-
out other abiding-place in the city dwellings where men and
2 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
women are lodged upon payment of a sum of money weekly or
monthly. 1
The lodging-house of any sort has claimed comparatively little
attention in the literature of the housing question, and the room-
ing-house specifically has fared still worse. The only definition we
have been able to find, outside the dictionaries, is the following:
"A lodging-house shall be taken to mean and include any house
or building or portion thereof in which persons are harbored, or
received, or lodged for hire, for a single night or for less than a week
at one time, or any part of which is let for any person to sleep in
for any term less than a week." 2 This is the definition given in the
original New York tenement-house law of 1867 (chap. 908, sec.
17), and it has been continued through all the subsequent acts with-
out change. It excludes the rooming-house, where the ordinary
rental period is a week or a month, but which is commonly called
a lodging-house, and in some cities is never called anything else.
A definition so at variance with common usage is obviously defect-
ive, and may be positively misleading.
The cheap dormitories furnishing a bed at from five to twenty-five
cents a night, which fall under the Tenement-House Act definition,
have given the health officials and other authorities in American
and European cities much trouble, and it is perhaps not unnat-
ural that the official use of the term should differ from the broader
popular use. European cities have long had large municipal lodg-
ing-houses for the shelter of transients who at the time can afford
nothing more, and even of whole families in need over consider-
able periods of time. Municipal lodging-houses for dealing with
the vagrant problem have also had some significance in this coun-
try, notably in New York and in Chicago. 3 In England most, if
not all, of the municipal lodging-houses are merely publicly owned
"common lodging-houses," a type which perhaps corresponds most
1 The common term in Philadelphia is furnished-room house; in New York, Chi-
cago, Cleveland, and St. Louis, rooming-house.
2 De Forest and Veiller, The Tenement House Problem, vol. ii, p. 331. See also
E. R. L. Gould, Housing of the Working People, Eighth Special Report of the U. S.
Commissioner of Labor, 1895, p. 27.
1 Municipal lodging-houses now exist in New York, Philadelphia, Boston, St.
Louis, Washington, New Haven, Syracuse, and Chicago. Zueblin, American
Municipal Progress, p. 102.
INTRODUCTION 3
nearly to the cheap lodging-houses covered by the New York Tene-
ment Law definition. In Great Britain, and on the Continent as well,
common lodging-houses are of considerable importance in the hous-
ing question. 1
In England, also, some large employers maintain lodging- or
boarding-houses where their employees are compelled to live a
practice known as "living-in." At least such was the case in the
north of England a decade ago. 2 We may be thankful that this is
1 Of Great Britain we are told: "A very large section of the community knows
no other home than that afforded by the common lodging-houses of our large towns
and cities. This section includes a very considerable proportion of single men and
women, who, either on account of the precarious nature of their work or the desire
for the society which such a lodging-house provides, make no provision of a more
permanent nature. As the places of work and the wages earned vary from time to
time, so the situation and the character of their lodging change. Moreover, a very
large proportion are ' tramps,' whose course is from one centre to another, and whose
hotel is the common lodging-house, or very often the workhouse ward or tramp cell.
Of the married people with families, who use the accommodation of the ' padden
ken,' by far the greater proportion belong to the tramp class." These houses are sub-
ject to inspection and license. The Public Health Act regulates them and provides
"that no house shall be registered as a common lodging-house until it has been in-
spected and improved for the purpose by some officer of the Local Authority."
Bowmaker, The Housing oj the Working Classes, pp. 102, 103 (London, 1895). See
also W. S. McNeill, Die Aujgaben der Siadtgemeinden in der Wohnungsfrage, Berlin,
1902, p. 24; and Fabian Essays in Socialism, pp. 49, 52.
2 See Dilke, Bulley, and Whitley, Women's Work, London, 1894, pp. 58, 59.
" Another matter with regard to which discontent is rapidly spreading is the system
of compulsory ' living-in ' which prevails widely in drapery and large outfitting estab-
lishments. ... A drapery firm in the North of England, for example, employs 300
assistants of both sexes, and all are obliged to live in the house provided by the em-
ployer. In shops where ' living-in ' is compulsory, board and lodging is usually valued
at 40 per annum. It is a common complaint, however, among assistants that if
after some years' service they obtain the privilege of living 'out' they only receive an
allowance of 15 to 20 per annum. . . . For the sum charged by the employer the
inmates of a large house ought to be comfortably fed and housed; but though in some
cases the arrangements are all that could be desired, yet against the majority grave
accusations are made with regard to overcrowding, bad food, and uncomfortable
household arrangements. The bedroom accommodation is said to be insufficient,
and the furniture scanty; the food provided is often poor, and sometimes uneatable.
Sundry small filchings in the shape of blacking boots, use of piano and library, are
also strongly resented. There is seldom any provision for social life, perhaps because
there would be no time to enjoy it. Usually the two sexes are lodged apart, but some
boarding-houses are apparently mixed, for in one set of house-rules it is stated that
talking in the dining-room during meals is 'strictly prohibited,' that young men are
4 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
one type of lodging we have escaped in this country. While it is
possible to define the lodging- or rooming-house in a specific sense, it
is impossible to find a good definition that will be descriptive of all
the forms of habitations or institutions to which the term lodging-
house is applied, even in the United States. The various varieties
of lodging-house merge into one another so gradually that no hard
and sharp line of demarkation can be drawn. At one extreme are
the cheap, transient houses for men, already mentioned, often dens
of "yeggmen" and other criminals; and at the other the comfort-
able, highly respectable, and oftentimes luxurious bachelor apart-
ments which are to be found in every large city. Between these
extremes is the rooming-house or (as called in Boston) the lodging-
house, which in the United States has become a great distinct type
in itself. While there may be difficulty in classifying certain houses,
the lodging-house of this study is a fairly distinct type, and the most
important one in numbers and in social and economic influence.
The problem of the middle-class lodger or roomer, however, is
wider than the realm of the out and out lodging- or rooming-house.
Many persons living in apartments let certain rooms to cut down
expenses. The same is true of many tenement families, but here
of course we merge into another problem, that of the tenement-
lodger evil, which in cities of compact tenement districts like New
York and Boston, is one of the serious sides of the whole tenement-
house problem. This is true also in England and on the Continent,
especially in Germany, as is attested by the attention given the evil
not permitted to enter the young ladies' sitting-room, and visitors are not allowed in
the house. At most establishments only twenty minutes or half an hour is allowed
for dinner, and the assistants are liable to be called off if required in the shop. . . .
"When Sunday comes round a diametrically opposite policy is followed, and after
being kept in close confinement during six days of the week the unhappy assistant
finds himself or herself put outside the door on the seventh. Either the boarders are
given to understand that their presence is not desired within doors, or else no meals
are provided, and the assistants are left to shift for themselves as best they may. No
doubt the best -conducted houses are careful of their assistants' comfort on Sundays.
Extreme cases in which the assistants are absolutely shut out are probably rare; but
some are known to exist, and the tendency to make Sunday an uncomfortable day
for those who remain indoors appears to be pretty general. The disastrous conse-
quences of throwing female assistants often mere girls upon their own resources
upon the day of the week when respectable means of shelter and refreshment are
least accessible can easily be imagined."
INTRODUCTION 5
in German housing- question literature. In Boston, this particular
evil, while not so great, is still serious. "Frequently lodgers are
crowded into tenement- rooms of scant dimensions. Small rooms
with no outside windows and even parts of rooms are let for lodgers,
and in this way a single man can get sleeping accommodations for
fifty cents a week." 1 The lodger evil of the tenements, a part of
the tenement-house problem, will not be touched upon by us. But
lodgers in apartment suites and in private families where only a room
or two is rented are to be found in considerable numbers and should
be taken account of in a full consideration of the lodging-house
problem.
The lodging-house must be distinguished once for all from the
boarding-house. The lodging-house never gives board. The lodger
is not a boarder. The boarder eats and sleeps in the same place.
The lodger or "roomer" sleeps in one place and "takes his meals
out." 2 The lodging-house must also be distinguished from the
apartment-house on the one hand, and from the tenement on the
other. Both the apartment and the tenement are family houses,
their rooms are rented in suites and are fitted for housekeeping;
but the lodging-house is cut up into separate rooms to be rented to
single men and women or to childless married couples of limited
means, who are willing to undergo the inconveniences of life in one
room and meals at a corner "cafe." 3
Neither the apartment dweller nor the lodger (or roomer) has
been the subject of much study. The voluminous English, Con-
tinental, and American literature on the housing question deals
almost exclusively with the tenement and the tenement classes. The
great army of mercantile employees and skilled mechanics the
1 Bushee, Ethnic Factors in the Population of Boston, p. 34. See also The City
Wilderness, pp. 34, 35.
2 In England lodgers have meals served in their rooms, but the strenuous life of
the American does not permit of such indulgence.
3 While the point does not strictly concern us here it may be of interest to remark
upon the difference between the tenement-house and the apartment -house. While
the distinction is a broad one it is one of degree rather than of kind, and it is often
difficult, sometimes impossible, to draw a sharp line between the two. The difference
is usually fixed more or less arbitrarily, according to the number of rooms in a suite,
the rental rate, sanitary equipment, and the like. In practice the distinction very
often turns on the presence or absence of a bathroom for each suite.
6 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
clerks, salesmen, bookkeepers, stenographers, dressmakers, mil-
liners, barbers, restaurant-keepers, policemen, nurses, and the un-
married journeymen carpenters, painters, machinists, electricians,
etc., are commonly supposed to live in wholesome surroundings.
As a matter of fact little is really known of the life of the ''unat-
tached " men and women, and still less has been put in published
form. Something has been written concerning the shop-girl, but
generally to the effect that she lives at home, receives "subsidiary
wages" or "pin-money" for her work, and thus renders the lot of
the girl who has to earn all her own living very hard. Then the
latter girl is forgotten, and it is thoughtlessly supposed that because
the mercantile employee dresses presentably, and the skilled me-
chanic gets high day- or piece-wages, the conditions in which they
live when not at work are presumably not bad. A few persons
have long known that the lodging-house and the life of the lodg-
ing-house population, in Boston at least, constitute a grave and
far-reaching social problem. But the exact nature of that problem,
its extreme complexity, and its numerous ramifications have not
been precisely clear, nor have data been at hand upon which to
judge what solution, if any, can be found.
The lodging-house population is an appreciable part of the total
city population. The "boarders and lodgers" of Boston ten years
ago numbered over 54,000, l and the number now must be between
70,000 and 80,000. This includes boarders and lodgers of all classes
anywhere within the corporation limits of Boston. The popula-
tion of the thirteen precincts covering the South End lodging-house
district the one in which this investigation is centred is shown
in the following table:
TABLE i. POPULATION OF THE SOUTH END LODGING-HOUSE DIS-
TRICT, BY PRECINCTS, IQOO AND 1905
1900 2 1905*
Ward 9 Precinct 5 3,073 2,951
Ward 9 Precinct 6 2,849 2*894
Ward 10 Precinct 3 2,161 1,773
1 Massachusetts State Census, 1895, vol. ii, p. 554.
2 315* Annual Report Mass. Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1900, pp. 58, 59.
8 Population and Legal Voters, Census of Mass., 1905, pamphlet issued by the
Bureau of Labor, pp. 911.
INTRODUCTION 7
Ward 10 Precinct 4 2,129 2,028
Ward 10 Precinct 5 1,688 1,342
Ward 10 Precinct 6 2,065 I >947
Ward 12 Precinct i 3,633 2,953
Ward 12 Precinct 2 3,024 2,468
Ward 12 Precinct 3 2,276 2,640
Ward 12 Precinct 4 3,45 2,610
Ward 12 Precinct 5 2,779 2 >97*
Ward 12 Precinct 6 4,910 4,453
Ward 12 Precinct 7 3,614 3,643
Total 37,606 34,673 l
Just how many of these people live in lodging-houses it is impos-
sible to state, since there are a number of short tenement-house
streets and a few apartment-houses and private residences in the
district. On the whole it is probable that the lodging-house popu-
lation of these thirteen precincts by itself would aggregate between
25,000 and 30,000; but this must be taken only as a rough estimate.
It is evident that a district of so large a population, and one the
inner life of which is so little known, is worthy of study. Further-
more, while this study will apply specifically to the lodging-house
district of the South End of Boston, the conditions found must be
taken in the main as typical of conditions existing or rapidly com-
ing into existence in nearly every large city.
The extent of the lodging-house population, as well as the dan-
gers to which it is subject, is undoubtedly closely connected with
1 The decline of nearly 3000 (7-8%) in the population of these thirteen precincts
in five years comes as a surprise. The Bureau of Labor, in a personal communica-
tion, attributes it "to the fact that these wards [wards 9, 10, and 12] are becoming
more and more devoted to business purposes, and residences are being demolished
or transformed into business offices." It is true that the first stories of houses on the
lower part of Columbus Avenue (below Massachusetts Avenue) are being remodeled
into stores in considerable numbers, and that a similar though much less noticeable
movement is in progress on Tremont Street (between Dover Street and Massachu-
setts Avenue) a movement similar to that which is transforming Boylston Street
and Huntington Avenue, and which will undoubtedly attack other Back Bay streets,
but as yet it scarcely seems that this can be sufficient cause for the noticeable decline
in population. The fact that one census is Federal, the other State, probably must
be taken into account. And it may be, also, that a greater number of persons who
have to board or lodge are finding accommodations in suburban districts than was
the case five or six years ago. Boston's constantly improving transit service would
help toward this end; and if such a movement is going on, however slowly, it is
a hopeful sign.
8 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
the trend of population from the country and smaller towns to the
metropolitan centres. The mobility of our American population,
and this tendency to flock to the cities, are well- recognized phenom-
ena. 1
The strength of this great movement is apparent when we re-
member that there has been an increase since 1890 in urban popu-
lation, for the country as a whole, of very nearly 37 per cent, as com-
pared with an increase in total population during the same period
(ten yea^s) of not quite 21 per cent. 2 The large number of new-
comers in Boston at any given time is indicated by the fact that in
1895 tnere were on May i, 10,861 persons ten years of age and
over who had lived in Boston only six months or less. About half
of this number were foreigners, the rest were native-born Ameri-
cans. 3 The State Census shows that the recruits to city life are
chiefly over twenty years old, and that the number of native-born
migrants is far in excess of the foreign-born. In Appendix B will be
found an analysis of the nativity of the population of Boston for
the years 1885, 1895, an d 1900. The large percentage of the popu-
lation of great cities not native to the city named is shown in the
following table:
TABLE 2. NATIVITY OF POPULATION OF THE FIVE LARGEST CITIES*
Born in
the U. S.
Total
Born in
but not
For-
born
city
in city
eign-
outside
named.
named.
born
of city.
55-0%
8-0%
37-o%
45-0%
45-3
20.1%
34-6%
54-7%
65-3%
H-9%
22.8%
34-7%
55-8%
24-8%
19-4%
44-2%
5-9%
14.0%
35-i%
49-1%
New York
Chicago
Philadelphia
St. Louis
Boston
1 See, for example, the Twelfth U. S. Census, Population, part i, pp. Ixxxi-xc.
Cf. also, Webber, Growth of Cities ; Ross, Foundations of Sociology, pp. 331-333 and
passim ; and for German theory and conditions, Hansen, Die Drei Bevolkerrungs-
stufen, 1889, Ammon, Die naturliche Auslese beim Menschen, 1893, Die Gesellschafts-
ordnung und ihre natiirlichen Grundlagen, 1895, and Kuczynski, Der Zug nach der
Stadt, 1897.
2 Twelfth U. S. Census, Pop., part i, p. Ixxxvii.
8 Massachusetts State Census, 1895, vol. ii, pp. 790, 791.
4 Compiled from the Twelfth U. S. Census, Pop., part i, pp. clxvii-clxix.
INTRODUCTION 9
Nearly one half the present population of Boston, it appears, was
born outside the city. It is impossible to say what proportion of
these new-comers find their way to boarding- or lodging-houses, but
the lodging-house class is recruited chiefly from them, and the more
pronounced the movement from country to city, the larger will be
the lodging class, and the more pressing the lodging-house problem.
The very fact, however, that the movement from country to city
has seemed so commonplace and natural has been well calculated
to leave us with little appreciation of its significance until the stat-
isticians put it before us in precise figures. Even then the corollary
that in the lives of a very large part of these young people who
are drifting cityward the lodging-house, for a long time at least,
supplants the home has escaped recognition at anything like
its full importance. But it is not alone the young men and women
who come to the cities for the first time to work who help fill the
lodging-houses. Both one of the causes and one of the results of the
wonderful economic efficiency of modern industrial organization
lies in the large number of skilled mechanics who are ever ready
to be up and moving to some other place on short notice, liter-
ally "journeymen" with no fixed place of abode, no strong family
ties, little effective social instinct. So strong is this tendency that
some trade-unions, notably the cigar-makers, have revived the old
custom of providing an insurance fund for men out of work and
traveling from one place to another ("going on tramp," as it used
to be called) in search of employment. The skilled mechanic, in
many trades, is likely to be sent almost anywhere. Especially is
this true in building-trades, transportation, and certain kinds of
domestic and personal service. Modern industry demands large
sacrifices of home and comfort on the part of its servants.
The movement toward the cities has been regarded as mainly
economic in its motive. 1 It will not do, however, to throw too ex-
clusive an emphasis upon purely economic forces. " Opportunity,"
which every city seems to spell in capital letters, must be taken in
a wider sense than that for employment merely. Sentimental con-
siderations cannot be left out of account. Men and women flock
to the cities to work and to live. To those who come for industrial
reasons must be added those who come driven by dreams of "liv-
Cf. Richard T. Ely, The Coming City, p. 26.
IO THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
ing in the city," and to these in turn all the students, the tourists,
and the great number of old and shipwrecked persons who seem
naturally to gravitate thither. Opportunities for work, and for
amusement, excitement, and variety, the attractive force of the un-
known, the hypnotic influence of the color and movement and energy
of the crowd, all help to draw men and women to the cities.
Primarily, nevertheless, the reasons for the existence of the lodger
or roomer are economic. The world's work has to be done and
people flock to the cities to do it. To the lodging-house increasing
numbers of the middle class gravitate in those years of struggle
which in ever lengthening array must elapse between the time they
leave the home of their fathers and reach the home of their own.
It is the lodging-house (or rooming-house if it is so called in your
city) which shelters these young people while they gain an education
or a " footing" and earn their own living. Certain causes thus
produce in the city a multitude of homeless persons who must have
some place to eat and sleep.
The demand thus created affords a means of livelihood to a sec-
ond class of persons, chiefly women, who could be economically
productive in scarcely any other way than by keeping lodgers. The
lodging-house keeper, or, as she is familiarly known, the "land-
lady," constitutes a class of her own. Her economic and social status
are considered at length in chapter vm.
The third element in the lodging-house question is a real-estate
problem. Large population migrations from one urban district to
another take place in the history of every city. The expansion of
business districts, changes in lines of transportation, improvements
in suburbs, and, more potent and least explicable of all, changes
in the fashionableness of various districts, may depopulate a fine
residence section, and leave there a vast area of old dwellings which
become forthwith white elephants on the hands of their owners.
Still too good to be "made down" into tenements, the invariable
fate of these houses is to be turned over to the tender mercies of the
lodging- or boarding-house keeper.
The combination of the problem of these three classes, the lodger,
the landlady, and the owner, forms the groundwork of the eco-
nomic, social, and moral conditions with which the following
chapters will have to deal.
CHAPTER II
THE HISTORICAL EVOLUTION OF THE SOUTH END LODGING-HOUSE
SECTION
THE existence of a compact lodging-house district demands his-
torical explanation. Why does it happen to be here rather than else-
where? How long has it been here? What were the forces that
placed it here? The explanation is found in those typical intra-
urban migrations, mention of which has just been made in the pre-
ceding chapter. 1
Previous to about 1790 the North End of Boston had been the
most desirable residential section, but at that time the West End,
Beacon Hill, and part of Washington Street were occupied by equally
well-to-do families. 2 Soon after this time, however, the American
families began to desert the North End and to turn toward the Fort
Hill and Pearl Street district. With the passing of the North End
as a residential district, there were for a considerable period in the
early part of the nineteenth century two residential sections, namely,
that of Fort Hill, and that of Beacon Hill and the West End.
Before 1850, however, signs of momentous change were already
apparent. Two forces seem to have been active, rendering new popu-
lation movements inevitable. The business of the city was rapidly
expanding, and the situation of the Fort Hill district was such that
it must soon be demanded for business purposes. Nothing so quickly
"kills" a locality for residential purposes as the resistless encroach-
ment of trade and coirimerce upon its borders. The phenomenon
may be observed in any large city to-day, and it is invariably ac-
companied by real estate and social changes that make it worthy
of far more study than we can here give it. In the second place
Beacon Hill and the West End had become so completely built-up
and so compactly populated that a swarming of the young couples
1 It is not necessary here to enter upon a detailed account of the earlier history of
the South End. This may be found to some extent in Shurtleff's Topographical and
Historical Description of Boston, and in a condensed form in The City Wilderness.
2 F. A. Bushee, Growth of the Population of Boston, in the Publications of the Amer-
ican Statistical Association, June, 1899, p. 246.
12 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
to some other part of the city was necessary. The young people
who were growing up, marrying, and establishing homes of their
own, had to cut themselves away from the old residence district,
however much they may have disliked to leave. The Back Bay
marshes were not then filled-in and indeed there was as yet scarcely
any thought of such a measure. Otherwise it is safe to say that the
movement would have been a gradual overflow of families from
the Hill down onto the flats to the west of the Public Garden. Nor
was there any communication to speak of with the suburbs. In fact
it is almost an anachronism to speak of suburbs during this period.
There were surrounding towns, more or less distant, but as a rule
people who had permanent business in the city lived in the city.
From almost the beginning of the century, circumstances had
so developed that the South End was perforce destined, as time
went on, to become the Mecca of well-to-do families in search of
a desirable, fashionable locality in which to "build" and establish
homes. Beacon Hill and the West End continued to hold their old
families down to the modern period characterized by the building-
up of the Back Bay, but they poured forth their surplus population
into the South End. The South End speedily claimed the popu-
lation of the old Fort Hill district also. Thus it came to pass that
the South End became the great well-to-do residential section of the
city. 1 Several influences determined this location. In the first
place the fact that the land in the South End was made from good
solid material brought by rail from the upland country of Needham
and other towns, and not from slime and mud pumped from the
bottom of the Charles River (the present method), seems to have
been an attraction. But a far stronger influence was the street rail-
way. As pointed out in "The City Wilderness," "the development
of the street railway at the opportune moment determined the loca-
tion of the new residential section of the period from 1855 t 1870
in the South End. The Metropolitan Railroad procured its charter
in 1853, and opened its line from Scollay Square to the South End
1 All but a small portion of the South End is built upon made land. The filling-
in of the marshes of the South and Back Bays within the present limits of the South
End was in progress from about 1800, and was not completed until the end of the
'6o's. Meanwhile building operations had been rushed forward during the '50*3.
Lack of space forbids our tracing,, even in outline, this earlier development of the
South End, full of interest as it is.
EVOLUTION OF THE SOUTH END DISTRICT 13
and Roxbury late in 1856. For the next fifteen years the South End
was the growing and popular quarter of the city ; street after street
was built up with rows of swell-front brick houses, which are still
the dominant feature of the architecture of the district." l In the
third place it is well to point out, also, that with the exception of
South Boston, the South End was the only new part of the city open
to occupancy. East Boston, Cambridge, and Charlestown were
miles away across water and mud marshes, the Back Bay was an
artificial lake, and South Boston itself, which otherwise might have
been a beautiful residence district, was cut off by the waters of the
South Bay and Fort Point Channel. Continuous growth could take
place only along the line of the Neck and the filling to either side
of it. The street railway undoubtedly facilitated the expansion of
the district, but it seems probable that the South End would have
been chosen anyhow. And once the tide of fashion had set in that
direction, nothing could stop it. Fashion decreed its favor to the
South End, and that settled the matter.
Every effort was made to make the district attractive. The houses
were extremely well built for that period, and no expense seems to
have been spared to make them elegant, and in many instances even
luxurious. 2 Provision was made for parks, and some of the pret-
tiest places in Boston to-day are the little parks and "squares" of
the South End lodging-house district. Especially may be mentioned
West Chester Park, Worcester Square, and Union Park. For al-
most a quarter of a century liveried coachmen and white-capped
nursemaids airing their charges were a common sight on Tremont
Street and other thoroughfares, while the cross-streets were gay with
the voices of children. 8
The South End, then, was once a city of private homes; now
1 The City Wilderness, p. 30.
2 The Building Department of the City of Boston was not organized until 1873.
Previous to that there were no restrictions on building, other than those contained
in the deeds to the land. There is therefore no record of building operations in the
city until 1873, and as most of the South End, with the exception of Columbus Avenue,
was built before that date, we are thrown back upon the "oldest inhabitant" for
information.
3 We cannot agree with the writer in The City Wilderness when he says, "The
history of the South End is almost devoid of dramatic incident or picturesqueness."
Page 31.
14 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
it is a wilderness of factories, tenements, and lodging-houses. Fully
five sixths of the old residences are now rooming-houses. Built in
the fifties and early sixties they served their proper function for an
allotted time, and then a transformation came which was almost
startling in its suddenness. Fashion, which had dealt kindly with
this section of the city, changed. For some time the South End
struggled to keep up appearances, to retain its gentility, but the
forces of city growth were too strong for it. Style changes in real
estate as in dress, and, comparatively, just as quickly and erratically.
It is said that the first faint whisperings of impending change were
heard soon after the Civil War. But the storm did not break over
the real-estate situation in the South End till Reconstruction days
were past, and the crisis of '73 had begun to work out its effects.
The immediate occasion for the change seems to have been the
real-estate situation on Columbus Avenue. This street was put
through as far as Northampton Street about 1870, and was imme-
diately built up with a somewhat cheaper style of houses than those
on the older streets. Most of these new houses were built on mort-
gages, and after the panic of '73 had broken over the city most of
them were in the possession of the banks. The banks sold them for
what they would bring, and the result was an acute drop in the value
of Columbus Avenue real estate, and in the character of the imme-
diate locality. The shock thus felt on Columbus Avenue with such
sudden force gradually had the effect of disturbing the equilibrium
in the rest of the South End. It soon became evident that the palmy
days of the district were over. Men's eyes were turned towards a
new Mecca. The Back Bay flats were being filled-in, and for vari-
ous reasons they looked attractive. A few families, leaders in resi-
dential fashion, as it were, broke the ice, sold or rented their South
End homesteads, and erected new mansions on Beacon, Marlbor-
ough, Newbury, and Boylston streets and Commonwealth Avenue.
The movement gained strength, slowly at first, and then, as the con-
tagion of change struck deeper, with an almost appalling rush. As
one person put it, "The people got out of the South End like rats."
It is not possible to assign any definite date for the exodus. All we
can say is that it began in the seventies, gained momentum during
the early eighties, and was practically finished before 1890. By 1885
the South End had become dominantly a lodging-house section.
UJ
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37
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EVOLUTION OF THE SOUTH END DISTRICT 15
The progress of the exodus and of the change of houses from pri-
vate residences to lodging-houses is illustrated by Chart I, which
represents conditions as they existed on Union Park from 1868
to 1902. This chart may be taken as typical of the whole district,
except that many blocks could have been selected that would show
no private residences left, and also with the possible exception
that the change took place somewhat earlier toward Dover Street,
and later toward Massachusetts Avenue. Each black line repre-
sents an individual house during the time in which it was a private
residence ; its continuation in a light line represents the period dur-
ing which it has been a lodging-house. The chart indicates that the
period of fastest transformation was in 1884-85. It is constructed
upon data secured by a laborious search of the city assessors' books.
The period of most rapid change, in the middle of the eighties,
was accompanied and followed by unusual activity in real-estate
exchanges in the South End. People moving away from a declin-
ing district, and perhaps anxious to disengage money from old pro-
perty in order to build new residences, were anxious to sell, all the
more so because real-estate values were declining at a prodigious
rate. 1 The accompanying table shows this increased activity for
Union Park.
TABLE 3. NUMBER >OF REAL-ESTATE TRANSFERS ON UNION PARK,
i868-i902. 2
1868-69 4 1885-86 7
1869-70 4 1886-87 5
1870-71 i~] 1887-88 7
1871-72 6 1888-89 6
1872-73 4 > 16 1889-90 6
1873-74 4 1890-91 5
1874-75 ij 1891-92 7
1875-76.... 3^ 1892-93.... 2 } 22
1876-77 o 1893-94 2
1877-78 i \ 6 1894-95 6
1878-79 i 1895-96 6
1879-80 ij 1896-97 6
i88o-8i....oS 1897-98.... 5 f 22
1881-82 5 1898-99 5
1882-83.... 3 \ 15 1899-1900.. o
1883-84 4 1900-1901.. 5
1884-85 3] 1901-1902. .5
1 See Chart vn.
1 Data from city assessors' books.
1 6 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
It is significant that the number of transfers more than doubled in
the five years 1885-1890, over the number in the preceding five
years.
The obverse of the shield the darker aspect of which for the
South End in this period showed thus a great exodus of private fam-
ilies, increase of real- estate transfers, decline in real- estate values,
and an incoming of the lodging-house is to be seen in other
places in the filling, building, and populating of the Back Bay, and
in an enormous increase of the population in the suburbs. Back
of the call of fashion, which demanded that the rich and well-to-do
families should migrate to the wind-swept, mud-filled, and treeless
flats of the Charles River, lay certain more rational motives. The
houses of the South End were not yet old, but they were of an old
type. Business was creeping in on the north, and factories were
beginning to belch smoke on the east. Above all, however, the open-
ing-up of the Back Bay lands gave opportunity for the people who
had once migrated from Beacon Hill and the West End to return
and be near their old friends and relatives. The West End was de-
clining, to be sure, just as the South End was, but families were
simply moving out onto the newly made land, and the South End
families made haste to join them. "In all growth, great or small,
central or axial, the vital feature is continuity, the universal tend-
ency being to add on buildings one by one, of the same general
character as those which preceded them," says a recent authority.
"Lack of continuity, from whatever cause, explains many of the
greatest disappointments in anticipated real-estate movements." l
This fact was admirably illustrated by both the South End and the
\ Back Bay. The South End, lacking continuity with the older resi-
J dence district, could not hold its own when that continuity was
i established between Beacon Hill and the Back Bay.
Another reason, almost as strong, for the exodus was the growing
popularity of the suburbs. The cheapness of land and building
material for frame houses outside the city attracted many persons.
The expansion of the park systems, the improvement of thorough-
fares, and the great natural beauty of many of the city's suburbs
attracted others. Thus towns like Milton and Brookline drew the
rich and the ultra-rich. What counts for more, however, the expan-
1 Kurd, Principles of City Land Values, p. 74.
EVOLUTION OF THE SOUTH END DISTRICT 17
sion of the street railway systems, and the improvement of the sub-
urban service on the steam roads, enabled people of moderate
means to live in the suburbs with some degree of comfort. Rapid
transit has done much to change the configuration of most cities.
Just as the introduction of the horse-car had been an influence
drawing people to the South End, so now the electric car was a force
attracting more and more people away from the congested inner
circles. 1 That some connection existed between the growth of the
suburbs and the exodus of families from the South End is evident
from Tables 4, 5, and 6. Table 5 includes the inner suburbs which
are practically continuous with the city, and which can be reached
by a five-cent fare. Table 6 includes outer suburbs which fall within
a radius of approximately twelve miles from the State House.
TABLE 4. 2 POPULATION AND INCREASE OF POPULATION, BOSTON,
1870-1905
1905
1900
1890
1880
1870
Population
595,380
560,892
448,477
362,839
250,526
Increase (numbers)
34,488
112,415
85,638
112,313
Increase (per cent.)
6.1
25.0
23.6
44-9
TABLE 5. POPULATION AND INCREASE OF
POPULATION,
INNER
SUBURBS, 1870-1905
1905
1900
1890
1880
1870
Brookline
23,436
19,935
12,103
8,057
6,650
Newton
36,827
33,587
24,379
i6,995
12,825
Watertown
11,258
9,706
7,073
5,426
4,326
Cambridge
97,434
91,886
70,028
52,699
36,934
Somerville
69,272
61,643
40,152 24,933
14,685
Medford
19,686
18,244
11,079
7,573
5,717
Maiden
38,037
33,664
23,031
12,017
7,367
Everett
29,111
24,336
1 1, 068
4,i59
2,220
Chelsea
37,289
34,072
27,909
21,782
18,547
1 For some statistics of the Boston Elevated Railroad Company, see Publications,
Am. Acad. of Pol. and Soc. Science, no. 345, p. 124.
3 The data for this and the two following tables are taken from the U. S. Census
for 1870 and 1880, Tenth Census, Pop., vol. i, pp. 208, 290; for 1890 and 1900, Twelfth
Census, Pop., part i, pp. 199-201. The figures for 1905 are from the advance sheets
of the Mass. State Census of 1905 pamphlet entitled Population and Legal Voters.
Includes: Boston proper, East Boston, South Boston, Dorchester, West Roxbury
(annexed 1872-3), Brighton (annexed 1873), Charlestown (annexed 1873), and
Roxbury.
i8
THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
Revere
12,659
io,395
5,668
2,263
i,i97
Winthrop
7,034
6,058
2,726
1,043
532
Arlington
9,668
8,603
5,629
4,100
3,261
Hyde Park
i4,5 10
13,244
10,193
7,088
4,i3 6
Milton
7,054
6,578
4,278
3,206
2,683
Totals
413^75
37i,95i
255,314
I7i,34i
121,080
Increase (numbers)
4i,3 2 4
116,637
83,957
50,261
Increase (per cent.)
ii. i
45-7
48-9
41-5
TABLE 6. POPULATION AND INCREASE OF POPULATION,
OUTER
SUBURBS, 1870-1905
1905
1900
1890
1880
1870
Lexington
4,530
3,831
3,i97
2,460
2,227
Winchester
8,242
7,248
4,861
3,802
2,645
Woburn
14,402
14,254
13,499
10,931
8,560
Burlington
588
593
6 I7
711
626
Melrose
14,295
12,962
9,5i9
4,56o
3,414
Stoneham
6,332
6,197
6,155
4,890
4,513
Wakefield
10,268
9,29
6,982
5,547
4,135
Reading
5,682
4,969
4,088
3,i8i
2,664
Saugus
6,253
5,084
3,673
2,625
2,247
Lynn
77,042
68,513
55,727
38,274
28,233
Swampscott
5,!4i
4,548
3,i98
2,500
1,846
Nahant
922
1,152
880
808
475
Hull
2,060
1,703
989
383
261
Hingham
4,819
5,059
4,564
4,485
4,442
Weymouth
11,585
11,324
10,866
10,570
9,090
Braintree
6,879
5,98i
4,848
3,855
3,948
Quincy
28,076
23,899
16,723
10,570
7,442
Randolph
4,034
3,993
3,946
4,027
5,642
Canton
4,702
4,584
4,538
4,5i6
3,879
Dedham
7,774
7,457
7,123
6,233
7,342
Westwood *
1,136
1,112
Wellesley
6,189
5,072
3,600
Weston
2,091
1,834
1,664
1,148
1,261
Waltham
26,282
23,481
18,707
11,712
9,065
Belmont
4,360
3,929
2,098
1,615
i,5i3
Needham
4,284
4,016
3,035
5,252
3,607
Totals
267,968
242,085
194,097
143,635
120,027
Increase (numbers)
25,883
47,988
50,462
23,608
Increase (per cent.)
10.7
24-5
35-i
19.6
In view of the facts brought out by these tables we are constrained
to differ with the writer in the " Publications " of the American Sta-
1 Organized from Dedham town since 1890.
EVOLUTION OF THE SOUTH END DISTRICT 19
tistical Association who says, "the greatest growths of the suburbs
have usually taken place contemporaneously with the greatest
growths of the city." 1 A comparison of the percentage of increase
for the three decades shows exactly the opposite fact:
TABLE 7. PERCENTAGE OF INCREASE OF POPULATION, BOSTON AND
SUBURBS
19001905
(half-decade) 1890-1900 1880-1890 1870-1880
Boston 6.1 25.0 23.6 44.9
Inner suburbs n.i 45.7 48.9 41.5
Outer suburbs 10.7 24.5 35.1 19.6
The period of greatest growth for the city, 1870-1880, was that of
the least growth for the suburbs, while the period of least growth
of the city, 1880-1890, was that of the greatest growth of the sub-
urbs. The five years 1900-1905 also show a much faster rate of
growth of the suburbs than of the city. There is no doubt whatever
that the decade 1880-1890 was one of reaction against crowded city
conditions, and of expansion of suburban life. In thirty years the
city and outer suburbs doubled their population; in the same time
the population of the inner suburbs trebled. The fact we wish to
emphasize is that this movement of the decade 1880-1890 was con-
temporaneous with the exodus from the South End. The people
who left that section of the city went partly to the Back Bay, partly
to the suburbs; and their places in the South End were taken by
an army of lodgers and lodging-house keepers. There was an ele-
ment of the dramatic in this sudden transformation of a whole dis-
trict, in the turning-over of houses full of associations and family
history to the tender mercies of indifferent strangers. Everywhere
in the South End to-day we are reminded of a departed glory, and
there is something of sadness in the plaint of such old residents as
still remain: "The South End is not what it once was!" In the
chapters that follow we shall gain some idea of what the South End
is like to-day.
1 F. A. Bush^e, The Growth of the Population of Boston, in Publications, A. S. A.,
June, 1899, p. 259.
CHAPTER III
THE LODGING-HOUSE DISTRICTS OF BOSTON
Section I. The South End
THE lodging-house district of the South End of Boston is probably
one of the most compact and characteristic, if not also the largest
to be found in any city. Its boundaries cannot be described on every
side with absolute precision, however, for the reason that the main
central area, the unmistakable region of lodging-houses, in places
gradually merges out into other districts occupied either by apart-
ment-houses or by tenements.
The general situation of the district as regards the rest of the city
is shown in Chart n. Roughly speaking the district extends from
Dover and Berkeley streets on the north to Northampton on the
south, a distance of about four fifths of a mile; and from the New
York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (between Columbus and
Huntington avenues) on the west to Washington Street on the east.
The situation of the district within the South End, and the details
of boundary are shown in Charts HI and iv. The boundaries on
the north and west are clearly cut and definite. On the west side
there is the great apartment- and lodging-house district which
stretches from Copley Square out Huntington Avenue; but be-
tween this and the South End is the railroad, which is an effectual
barrier between the two districts, preventing them from having
much in common. On the north side Dover Street separates the
district sharply from a very compact and crowded tenement- house
section, which intervenes between the lodging-house district and
the downtown business section. On the south the lodging-house
section fades out quickly, but not all at once, into the tenement-
house district of lower Roxbury; but even here and far up toward
Roxbury Crossing, on the cross- streets, the sign "Rooms to Let"
meets the eye at not infrequent intervals. On the east the limits are
somewhat harder to fix. Southeastward the district stretches across
THE LODGING-HOUSE DISTRICTS OF BOSTON 21
Washington Street, and is brought summarily to a stop by the grounds
of the City Hospital. But further north are a number of cross- streets,
Stoughton, East Newton, etc., which are lined with houses that
look like lodging-houses, but which for the most part have under-
gone one more stage of degeneration and been "made down" into
tenements. Some are still lodging-houses, however, and many of
the tenements take in lodgers. The boundary on the east, therefore,
has to be located somewhat arbitrarily. It is to be noticed that the
district is surrounded on three sides the north, east, and south
by great tenement-house areas, which respectively separate it from
the business section, from the waters of the South Bay, and from
the outlying regions of Roxbury and Dorchester.
As will be seen by Chart n, most of the district is within easy
walking distance of downtown, no part of it being more than a mile
and a half distant from the business district. Transportation facil-
ities are excellent. At least three thoroughfares traverse the dis-
trict from downtown Washington Street, with its surface lines
and the elevated, Tremont Street, with surface cars either way al-
most every minute, and Columbus Avenue, with scarcely less fre-
quent service. A few surface cars also run on Shawmut Avenue.
Facilities for communication across the district are not so good.
Practically no car service exists between the South End and the
Back Bay.
Like the Back Bay the South End is almost a dead level, rang-
ing only from twelve to eighteen feet above tidewater. The street
plan of the district (see Chart in) shows three features. First,
the four longitudinal thoroughfares already mentioned, radiating
from the business district through the lodging-house section to Rox-
bury and beyond. Second, the cross- streets, which run from the
railroad through the district to Harrison Avenue and beyond. And
third, several small parks and squares, of which the combined
Franklin and Blackstone squares have the greatest area.
The most characteristic external feature of the district is its houses.
The first impression is one of insufferable monotony in the style
of architecture. The architects of fifty years ago seem to have
lacked creative imagination, and apparently could conceive of but
one form of city residence. The cost of buildings frequently rose
to $25,000 and sometimes as high as $40,000, but they were all of
22 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
the same type pressed brick, trimmed with brown or red sand-
stone with "swell fronts" and "high stoops," granite steps and an
oppressive amount of ironwork in balustrades and the fences with
which the little six by ten front grass-plots were religiously inclosed.
Looking down a street of these edifices, one sees a series of swell
fronts, three or four stories high, a battery of high front steps, and
a skyline scalloped by the tops of the fronts and notched by the
dormer windows of the attic rooms.
Many of the cross- streets are shaded, chiefly with elms, which
in summer afford a grateful relief from the heat which, on the main
thoroughfares and the unprotected side streets, beats down un-
mercifully upon the brick walls and macadam pavements. The
trees of Union and West Chester Parks and of Worcester Square
do credit to the civic thoughtfulness of the builders of the South
End. These oases of green in an endless desert of brick and mor-
tar, mere swellings in the streets as they are, are due to private en-
terprise of the past. Property owners on them bore the expense of
their maintenance, and had the chief enjoyment of their use. On
Union Park each householder carried a key to the gate of the cen-
tral park area. In two or three instances what were once semi-
private parks of this sort may be found tucked away in the middle
of a block, and reached at present only by a narrow and unsightly
alley. The yards in the rear of the houses are larger than would be
the case with modern real- estate property. When they are well kept
they are not unattractive, and the writer has seen two or three lodg-
ing-house back yards which would not greatly shock the taste of
the most fastidious. In many of the yards are fruit and other trees,
with here and there a lilac bush to remind us of the past. In the
spring, along many of the alleys blossoms and green buds are not
lacking to apprise the rear-room lodger of the season. The poorer
parts of the district, however, approach more nearly tenement-area
conditions. The alleys themselves, like many of the yards, are not
too well kept, and the writer is inclined to think that the streets of
the lodging-house district on the whole are not kept so clean as those
of the tenement regions, especially where the city in the latter has
put down asphalt pavement.
No part of the city assumes a more deceptive outward appear-
ance than the South End lodging-house district. One can pass
CMART-I
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THE LODGING-HOUSE DISTRICTS OF BOSTON 2$
through most parts of it in any direction with eyes wide open and
senses alert, and yet get scarcely an inkling of the nature of the life
that goes on within the clean and genteel exteriors of these elegantly
sombre and dignified old houses. They look like the mansions of
the moderately rich and well-to-do. True, there is that in them
which speaks of decline, but touched up with a few repairs, they
might be the residence place of "old families." Only the tell-tale
"Rooms to Let" sign informs us to the contrary. The mansions are
lodging-houses, their mistresses are "landladies," and the men and
women who carry their latch-keys, to let themselves in and out when
they will, are lodgers.
We saw in Chapter n that nearly every house has become a
lodging-house. The general compactness of the South End as a
lodging-house district is shown in Chart in. Private residences
are so few and so scattered that they could not be represented on
the chart.
There are many miscellaneous features in the district, some of
which have nothing, or very little, to do with its life. Such are the
churches, the grammar schools, the Latin and English high schools,
and a number of charitable and philanthropical institutions. The
more important of these are indicated in the chart.
During the working hours of the day the cross- streets are almost
deserted, only the main thoroughfares presenting the varied life
of many persons coming and going on their countless individual
missions. The lodging-house population works, and the houses are
cleared by eight o'clock in the morning. But when the business day
is over and the downtown offices and shops pour forth their living
stream of tired humanity, the district assumes a new aspect. Every
passing car drops at each crossing its quota of men and women;
through the streets flows a continuous procession of pedestrians,
wending their way to rooms or cafes, spreading out through the
side streets, filtering into the great lines of lodging-houses as far
as Northampton Street, like a river flowing through a delta with
many mouths. Then the deserted rooms put forth light after light,
until by eight o'clock half the windows are illumined, some dimly,
some brilliantly. Meanwhile the cafe's and dining-rooms are hav-
ing their second busy season of the day (the first being in the morn-
ing), and do not quiet down till after eight o'clock.
24 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
On a summer's evening the scene is shifted a little. There are
fewer lodgers in the district, all who could having betaken them-
selves to Winthrop or some other near-by resort, anywhere out of
the heat, the dust, and the dead air of the city. Those who remain
seem to prefer the evening on the front steps to the seclusion of their
rooms. There is more sociability in the spring and summer. Groups
on the steps of nearly every house linger the evening through, dis-
cussing nothings or the price of board at the latest new cafe".
Section II. Beacon Hill and the West End
There are two typical large lodging-house districts in Boston,
the South End, and Beacon Hill, including a portion of the West
End. Although this inquiry is concerned chiefly with the lodger
problem as presented in the South End, it will not be amiss to say
a word about the West End and about the smaller aggregations of
lodging-houses which exist here and there in the city.
The Beacon Hill and West End district is far less compact and
homogeneous than the South End. In the West End we have a
heterogeneous mass of tenements and lodging-houses mingled on
the same street in the most haphazard manner. We find character-
istic lodging-house streets, also, sandwiched in between streets of
tenement-houses, and vice versa. Beginning at Bowdoin Square
a more or less well-defined belt of lodging-houses extends north-
ward and westward, taking in portions of Green, Lynde, Cham-
bers, Eaton, McLean, and Allan streets. But the main body of lodg-
ing-houses lies to the south and southwest of Bowdoin Square, in
the direction of the State House, the Common, and Beacon Street.
Here are lodging-house streets like Hancock, Temple, and Bow-
doin, almost as compact as those of the South End, stretching up
Beacon Hill nearly to the State House. The streets down the west-
ern slope of the hill are also more or less thickly occupied with lodg-
ing-houses. These include portions of Joy, Russell, Myrtle, Revere,
West Cedar, Pinckney, Mt. Vernon, and Chestnut streets.
The history of the South End district can be summed up in one
or two epochs marked by violent changes in the character of the
district. For the West End and Beacon Hill no such sharp-cut and
characteristic periods can be distinguished. To quote from "Amer-
icans in Process":
THE LODGING-HOUSE DISTRICTS OF BOSTON 25
"During most of the nineteenth century the West End was a dis-
trict splendidly representative of Anglo-Saxon American life. Upon
the summit of Beacon Hill were the finest residences of the city,
rapidly increasing in number after the completion of the State House
in 1798; and upon the streets just behind the State House to the
east, Hancock, Temple, and Bowdoin streets, lived some of the
most distinguished men in Boston's history. . . .
"The first enemy of the home life of the West End was not the
one that earliest attacked the older district [the North End]. It was
the outcome not of foreign immigration, but of increase in native
population drawn in by the growth of the city's trade. Boarding-
houses, and not tenements, here put the homes to flight. Lads from
sixteen to twenty-five, leaving the farm for the larger opportuni-
ties of the city, demanded shelter. Widows and spinsters of the
West End opened their doors, thankful for this new means of bread-
winning at a time when needlework and teaching were the only
occupations for American women." l
Whatever may have been the beneficial offices of the boarding-
house in its day, it is now, in Boston at least, an institution of the
past. "Its less worthy successor, the lodging-house, still marks
the advance of irresistible forces that at last are pushing all the earlier
types of American life entirely outside the confines of Boston." *
The West End is now a great conglomerate of tenements, apart-
ments, and lodging-houses, together with numbers of small retail
shops creeping up the streets, and the few private residences which
still cling tenaciously to their old locations on the western slope of
Beacon Hill. While the change from private residences to lodging-
houses was taking place, the external appearance of the district
was also suffering change. Whole sections have gradually sunk to the
tenement-house level; and with the slow certainty of a dread dis-
ease the ugly, cheap brick front of the tenement is creeping up the
sides of Beacon Hill, and appearing in blotches here and there in
otherwise healthy looking streets of fine old residences. Thus re-
sults the present heterogeneous appearance of the district. It is a
mixture of many different elements, not like the South End, where
every house is a lodging-house, and each one an exact copy of its
neighbor.
1 Elizabeth Y. Rutan, in Americans in Process, pp. 35-39.
26 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
Section III. Miscellaneous Small Districts
Returning to the South End but still outside the lodging-house
district proper, we find scarcely a street of any length in this whole
part of the city where the "Rooms to Let" sign is not displayed.
There are numbers of isolated lodging-house streets, like Rollins,
Asylum, and Davis. Even on semi-tenement streets like Stoughton
and East Brookline, and in densely packed tenement regions like
the district between Dover and Castle streets, rooms may be had.
Lower Harrison Avenue between Chinatown and Castle Street is
lined with room-signs, as are also Tremont Street from Castle Square
to Pleasant Street, St. James Avenue, and parts of many other
streets in the city. Around Madison Park in lower Roxbury is
another cluster of lodging-houses.
The apartment-house region about Huntington Avenue and St.
Botolph Street is practically a lodging-house district, but of a dif-
ferent and higher type than the two already described. Nearly every
flat and apartment in this district, which lies roughly between Boyls-
ton Street and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad,
offers rooms to let. They are taken very largely by students, artists,
musicians, and business-men of comfortable income. In the streets
between Symphony Hall and the Fens another large student quarter
is found. Newbury Street in the Back Bay for almost its whole
length is rapidly becoming a lodging-house street. While this in-
vestigation is concerned chiefly with the South End, therefore, it
must not be forgotten that lodging-houses and lodgers are to be
found in many other parts of the city. It comes the nearest to ubi-
quity, perhaps, of any type of city dwelling.
CHAPTER IV
THE ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF THE SOUTH END LODGING-HOUSE
DISTRICT
IT would be strange if a district so distinctly differentiated from its
surrounding neighbors as we have seen the South End lodging-
house district to be had not a definite internal structure. The pri-
mary division of the South End streets into horizontal thorough-
fares radiating through the district from the downtown business
section, and the cross- streets, marks also a fundamental division
of economic function. The key to the economic structure of the
lodging-house district is the grouping and localization of mercan-
tile industries. The cross-streets are devoted almost entirely to lodg-
ing-houses, but the main thoroughfares are lined not only with lodg-
ing-houses but also with all the variety of shops and local industries
that can cater to the wants and whims of forty thousand people.
Nearly all the cafes, dining-rooms, laundries, tailor- shops, and drug-
stores are grouped primarily on the three main lines of communi-
cation, Tremont Street, Washington Street, and Columbus Avenue,
with a secondary grouping on certain parts of Dover and Dart-
mouth streets and Shawmut Avenue.
The situation of the various business establishments which de-
pend for support chiefly upon the lodgers is shown in Chart iv,
which represents conditions as they existed in October, 1903. Only
the main and the more numerous kinds of establishments are indi-
cated. The map includes 87 cafe's, 65 basement dining-rooms, 41
saloons, 24 liquor- stores, 27 drug-stores, n pool-rooms, 70 tailor-
ing establishments, 78 laundries, and a number of real-estate offices.
The eating- establishments, to a total of 152, stand out with great-
est prominence both numerically and as features of the district,
with the laundries and tailor- shops as prominent seconds.
These local industries may be grouped broadly, first into those
which provide food, second those which provide drink, amusement,
and recreation, third those which look after the clothing of the peo-
28 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
pie, fourth those concerned with the health of the people, and fifth
miscellaneous.
Under the first group establishments which feed the people
fall the cafes, dining-rooms, and quick lunches; the bakeries,
delicatessen establishments, and cooked-meat stores ; the grocery
and provision stores, and the fruit-stands. There is some difference
between the cafe" and the dining-room. The cafe ordinarily serves
meals a la carte and semi-table d'hote. The dining-room serves only
table d'hote, is usually managed by a woman of uncertain experience,
and is invariably located in the basement of some lodging-house.
A glance at the map will show that the cafe's are scattered thickly
along Columbus Avenue, along Tremont Street between Massa-
chusetts Avenue and West Brookline Street, and along Washing-
ton Street. Basement dining-rooms can also be noted here and there
upon the cross- streets, but like the cafes they tend to group upon
the main streets. Prices charged and kind of food served are de-
scribed in Chapter xiv.
Scattered all over the district, but chiefly on the main streets,
especially on Tremont Street and Columbus Avenue, are small
bake-shops and delicatessen depots. They carry a light line of " ready -
to-eat" groceries, bread, cake, crackers, cookies, cream and milk,
pickles, olives, etc. Many of the cafes also sell light provisions of
the cake and pickle variety. No attempt is made to locate the deli-
catessen establishments on the map. Their number, however, and
the business they do, are suggestive of the amount of cracker and
cheese diet that must be indulged in by the lodger class. These
shops are always open late at night, especially on Saturdays, when
they are crowded with customers. They are open, also, on Sunday
mornings.
The second class of establishments includes the saloons, pool-
rooms, dance-halls, theatres, and one beer-garden. These may all
be classed together as among the agencies which help to satisfy
the pleasure-loving and social instincts. About a dozen pool-rooms
are situated within or near the limits of the district, but they evi-
dently rely only in part upon the lodging-house population for their
patronage. The law in Boston does not permit saloons to run pool-
rooms. The two classes of establishments are therefore distinct,
although they here and there appear to centre in the same locality.
ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF THE DISTRICT 29
The separation is undoubtedly a good measure; there will not be
so much drinking when one has to sally out, into the rain maybe,
and walk half a block to a corner saloon, as there will be when it is
only a step or two from the pool-table to the bar in the same room;
nor will there be so much playing for the drinks. Partly for these
reasons, no doubt, the pool- rooms of the lodging district are as a rule
quiet and inoffensive, and undoubtedly afford welcome relief to
many a male lodger from weary evening hours in which he does
not know what to do with himself. At the same time, while "2%
cents per cue" does not seem an exorbitant charge, the patron of
the place can easily make away with money in the course of an even-
ing, or of several evenings a week, which a rational economy would
demand for expenditure in other directions. In fact, it is perhaps
a general criticism on the lodger or the unmarried mercantile class
that the men (not the women) spend a disproportionate share of
their income for amusement. This is no doubt natural, consider-
ing the humdrum character of their daily work and life, their some-
what limited field of interests, their non-acquaintance with the
higher standards of art and literature and drama, and their gen-
eral lack of knowledge where to find in the city, full as it is of oppor-
tunities, chance for better amusement and more cultivated avoca-
tions than standing about a billiard-table and puffing at a 5-cent
Cremo, or lovingly breathing forth the fragrant smoke of a Turkish
Trophy.
The intersections of Dover and Washington, and of Washing-
ton and Northampton streets are distinguished by the number of
pool-rooms and saloons there located. At both these corners there
is an elevated railroad station, and at both many surface-car lines
intersect. This undoubtedly makes them good locations for saloons
and pool- room trade. The saloons are without exception near tene-
ment-house districts, upon which they probably depend in the main
for patronage. Certain hotels in the district, however, are provided
with bars, which are frequented by the more "sporty" type of
lodger. The row of saloons on Dover Street is more in the district
than of it. These places cater to the tenement-house population in
the compact blocks just below Dover Street. Car-lines converge
upon this section through Washington and Tremont streets from
downtown and from Roxbury, through Berkeley Street from Cam-
30 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
bridge and the West End, and through Dover Street from South
Boston, and the saloons are situated where the laborer on his way
to and from his work must pass them. The same is true of the
Northampton Street group.
The liquor- stores supply the wants of a somewhat different class of
customers. They carry a full line of beers, whiskies, wines, and other
liquors for the most part bottled goods besides more or less
elaborate stocks of fancy light groceries for which with liquor there
is a joint demand. There is little doubt that these stores are patron-
ized to a great extent, though not exclusively, by a clientele which
is also in one way or another closely connected with the divers forms
of prostitution which exist in the district. Some of them are clean,
well-ordered, and attractive in appearance, the proprietors evidently
recognizing the business expediency of these qualities. These latter
stores carry also the higher grades of groceries.
One hotel during the summer conducts a beer-garden, which
does a fairly good business and attracts a characteristic patronage.
It is situated in the northern part of the district near some of the
poorer and "shadier" lodging-house streets, and within conven-
ient distance of the theatres of the section. In Boston such resorts
are almost sure to be places of assignation, openly or secretly. The
law that no liquor shall be sold after eleven o'clock p. M. is rigidly
observed both here and in the saloons, which no doubt does some-
thing to prevent the "all-night living" characteristic of New York
and Chicago.
In the dance-halls, however, of which there are several in the dis-
trict, merriment may continue till well toward morning. Dances
begin at eight o'clock and last till two A. M. or later. It is not un-
common for young men and women to dance these hours nearly
every night and work all day betweentimes. What the effect must
be on their labor efficiency is evident. But we cannot pass any whole-
sale condemnation on the dance-halls, any more than we can on
the saloon. They have a function to perform. The fact that they
perform it ill, or that it is distorted into excesses, is another thing.
Change from work, amusement and relaxation, gratification of the
social and gregarious instincts, if not had in one form will be sought
in another. It devolves upon the social director not to deprive peo-
ple of opportunity for these things, but to change the conditions
ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF THE DISTRICT 31
under which such instincts are satisfied, to see that moderation takes
the place of excess, to see that healthy social processes are substi-
tuted for pathological ones. Probably he can abolish neither the
saloon nor the public dance-hall until he provides a worthier sub-
stitute. Meanwhile much can be done toward mitigating the evils
of both. In Boston dance-halls are not run in connection with sa-
loons, a practice which is a curse to Chicago and Cleveland and
doubtless many other cities. By far the larger portion of the habi-
tue's of the club-dances and public dances in the halls of the South
End come from the tenements, rather than the lodging-houses, but
the halls are in the lodging-house district, a part of the environment
of the lodger, either an open opportunity to him of amusement, or
one of many reminders of his isolation from social companionship
which others may enjoy, as the case may be.
There are four theatres in the district, three on Washington Street
and one at Castle Square. All but the Castle Square Theatre pro-
duce cheap melodrama or vaudeville. In the summer of 1905, how-
ever, one of the Washington Street houses was producing Yiddish
drama. The Castle Square Theatre, under good management, with
a hard-working stock-company, and producing standard plays,
enjoys a full patronage, and must be reckoned as one of the social
forces, in the main for good, within the district.
The third group of establishments includes the tailor-shops and
laundries. Seventy tailoring-establishments look after the raiment
of the male lodgers, and such of the women as can afford to patron-
ize a "ladies' tailor." Like the other shops the tailors depend mainly
on the lodgers for support. They attract attention by mere force
of numbers. The shops are small, cheap, often dirty, and in many
cases are little more than places for repairing and pressing gar-
ments. Sometimes the suggestive sign "Dress-Suits to Let" is seen.
"Pressing neatly done," "Garments turned, repairing done," etc.,
are characteristic legends. Prices are low; trousers are pressed
for ten or fifteen cents, a suit sponged and pressed for fifty or
seventy-five cents, and suits sold for as low as twelve dollars. Some
of the ladies' tailoring-shops are patronized by a good grade of
customers from without. One customer brings another, the advan-
tage being that the prices charged are lower than on Boylston and
other fashionable shopping streets, a fact due to smaller rent and
32 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
less desirable quarters and situation. After a time these tailors
may acquire such custom as to warrant their moving over to the
more fashionable locations, as several in recent years have done.
Next to the eating-establishments, the laundries occupy the most
prominent place on the map. Seemingly every other corner is occu-
pied by a Chinese laundry. To the man or woman interested in
the variegated phases of human existence, the life and industry
which shows itself superficially through the broad windows of these
Chinese shops will be not without its interest. These Chinamen
are said to be the riffraff and outcasts of their own race; they are
a class of men singularly slight of stature and to all appearances
weak in physique, but they are the embodiment of patience and
industriousness. It is hardly possible to pass by a Chinese laundry
shop so late at night as not to see some of its inmates diligently at
work. In a description of the lodging-house district they could not
be omitted; for they are not only in the district, but they have
a part to play in the life and experiences of the lodger.
Concerned with the health of the people are the doctors and drug-
stores. There are about 175 physicians in the district, some of them
among the best in the city and a few taking rank among the most
disreputable quacks and criminal operators.
The drug-stores, as in any district, occupy an important place
among the local mercantile establishments. The exact nature of
their trade is problematic. It is doubtful if many of them could live
but for their cigar, soda, and candy sales. The patent medicine
business is killed by the department stores and the cut-price drug-
stores.
Mention should be made of the considerable number of fakes
and social parasites that are scattered up and down Tremont Street,
Shawmut Avenue, and Washington Street. Just why so many palm-
ists, card-readers, business mediums, trance-artists, astrologers,
and the like should congregate in the South End, would be hard
to say, but they are there and constitute an unpleasant feature of
the district. They have rooms in the lodging-houses where they ply
their trade. Some are no doubt conducting places of prostitution
in disguise.
Among the miscellaneous industries supported by local patron-
age are upholstering-shops, tin and hardware stores, painters' and
ECONOMIC STRUCTURE OF THE DISTRICT 33
plumbers' establishments, new and second-hand furniture stores,
many of which curse the district with sales on the installment plan,
notion and small dry-goods stores, small jewelry-shops, and "gent's"
(never "gentleman's" or "men's") furnishing-stores.
Such is the variety of business enterprise which gives life and
color to the district. The localization of industry catering to a spe-
cific and characteristic population group is a fine example of the
value of location in the business world. It is also the salvation of
real-estate values on the main streets, which is of more than theo-
retical importance. It is of interest to us, however, chiefly because
in some suggestive external respects it mirrors the life of the lodger.
Without some idea of the environment in which the lodger lives,
we can gain but an imperfect idea of his economic and social con-
dition. The lodging-house itself, to which we now turn, constitutes
the intimate essence of this environment.
CHAPTER V
THE HOUSE ITSELF
As shown in Chart v, the rooms of the Boston lodging-house are
divided into "square" and "side." In other cities the side rooms are
commonly known as hall bedrooms. Both square and side rooms
are designated as "front" and "rear" according to their position
in the house. In the basement are the dining-room and kitchen,
sometimes let together to a couple for housekeeping or to a base-
ment dining-room proprietor, sometimes retained as living-rooms
by the landlady herself. On the first floor are the two parlors,
front and rear, and generally a small rear side room. The
parlors are high-ceiled, with the large amount of stucco-work which
characterizes the houses built fifty years ago. They have elaborate
white marble mantelpieces, imported at some expense when the
houses were built, and some of them still contain fine large mirrors
which have come down to the lodging-house contingent from the
palmy days of the past. The front parlor is so large and high that
it is rarely a pleasant room, in spite of the fact that the best furni-
ture of the house generally goes into it in an effort to make it the
" show room" and to get a high rent for it. The rear parlor is smaller
and easier to rent. The two parlors are connected by sliding-doors,
which are sometimes hidden by tapestry which makes an impro-
vised closet.
On the second floor are the bath-room, a front side room, and
two large square rooms, each of which has a spacious closet and
running hot and cold water. On the third floor are two square and
two side rooms, and on the fourth two square and two side rooms,
or sometimes only two square rooms. All the square rooms below
the fourth floor are heated, but generally none of the side. The heat
is furnace heat, except in a few instances where steam or hot water
has been installed, and is often inadequate. In general the houses
are without fire-escapes.
CHART V.
Plans of First and Second Floor of the Typical Lodging-House.
THE HOUSE ITSELF 35
The furniture of the typical side room is necessarily scant. There
is not much room for it. It consists ordinarily of a single bed or
couch, a small dresser, a chair, perhaps a small wardrobe, and a
picture or two. With the square room somewhat more liberality
is shown. The bed is iron, either single or double, or some sort of
a folding contrivance, often big, unwieldly, and unsightly. Carpets
are either of ingrain or some form of brussels, more generally the
latter, and generally much worn and covered by cheap rugs of out-
rageous combinations of color and pattern. A small table or two,
a dresser, various kinds of chairs, and some cheap pictures complete
the equipment. The windows are supplied with shades and encum-
bered with lace or muslin curtains. The furniture is for the most
part old, having come down from the indefinite past, through many
vicissitudes of ownership and mortgage foreclosure. Some houses,
however, in the better sections, have been supplied with new fur-
niture of modern type. In a comparatively few houses the old plush
armchairs and rockers have been discarded and their place filled
with comfortable Morris chairs and willow or grass rockers; the
marble-topped centre-tables have given way to neat weathered oak,
the wooden folding-beds to iron, and the thick microbe-filled car-
pets to clean, cool, and attractive mattings and rugs. There is even
an improvement in the pictures. The chances are that such a house
will have a public parlor, and that its lodgers will know something
of each other. It is decidedly more homelike than the ordinary
type.
The lodging-house, like the tenement, has a sanitary problem,
but one far less pressing and of a different nature. It is a question
whether the unsanitary conditions of the tenement do not result,
in the long run, perhaps quite as much from the character of its
inhabitants as from the nature of the tenement itself. In the lodg-
ing-house, on the other hand, the problem comes mainly from the
house and its unsuitability for the purposes to which it is put.
The great sanitary deficiency of the lodging-house, almost with-
out exception, is the lack of proper bathing facilities. There is
almost never more than one bath-room in a house, whether the house
has nine rooms or eighteen, and six lodgers or twenty. It is gen-
erally on the second floor, taking the place of a rear side room. When
so situated it is well lighted and can be well ventilated. Sometimes,
36 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
however, in houses which deviate from the general plan, it is an
inner room, practically without light, and devoid of outside venti-
lation. The tub, except in the very best houses, which have put in
modern plumbing, is of tin or copper, oftentimes rusty, corroded,
and dirty. The brass faucets are generally in the same state, and
the washbowl while perhaps not actually unclean has the appear-
ance of being so, owing to the long use of the marble. In general
the whole room has an unattractive appearance. The towel supply
is rarely adequate to the needs of the house. Hot water is a rare
commodity, and the lodger is supposed to use it sparingly and with
circumspection, that his fellow lodgers may not be cheated from
their meagre share. During the warm months of the spring, sum-
mer, and autumn, there are weeks together, in many houses, when
not a drop of hot water goes through the pipes. The customary
plan, however, in the summer months, is to supply hot water once
or twice a week, say on Saturdays and Sundays. In many cases
the bath-room looks like a general store-room for dirty linen, brooms,
and other household utensils.
It is clear that one bath-room for a dozen to a score of persons
is not enough. In fact, many of the smaller houses on out-of-the-
way streets have no bath-rooms at all. There should certainly be
two bath-rooms in every house, one on the second, the other on the
third floor. If the bathing facilities were better, lodgers might ac-
quire what as a rule they have not at present the habit of taking
an invigorating plunge every morning.
The water-closets are frequently old-fashioned, with a scant flush-
ing supply. In many instances this undoubtedly makes them a nui-
sance, and a menace to the health of the occupants of the house.
Open plumbing is a rarity; and numerous are the complaints of
landladies about the trouble and expense they are put to by care-
less or ignorant lodgers.
The houses are often damp, owing to the water in the cellars and
to insufficient heat. The furnace fires are allowed to die down dur-
ing the day when the lodgers are nearly all out, and are started up
toward evening in time to get the rooms heated before their return.
Ventilation is poor. The lodger is no exception to the rule that
human beings taken generally are afraid of fresh air, especially at
night. The old plush furniture, the hangings, rugs, and carpets serve to
THE HOUSE ITSELF 37
catch and hold the dust with which the air of the South End is well
freighted at nearly all seasons of the year. The great amount of traffic
on the main streets, and the macadam pavements on the side streets
produce so much dirt and dust that it is impossible to keep a room
free from it. It blows through streets and alleys, swirls up the sides
of buildings, and settles in attic windows as much as in parlors and
basements. The houses are not all free from vermin; the first thing
the sophisticated lodger does in looking over a new room is to ex-
amine the bed very carefully. There are some houses in the South
End which are pleasing to enter because of their immaculate clean-
liness, where no speck of dust shows on furniture or woodwork,
and linen and muslin window draperies shine white and fresh. Such
houses are, unfortunately, exceptions; in most of them one will find
that the landlady has daughters or other persons to help her in the
work of the house. Again there are houses upon the best streets
the uncleanliness of which can scarcely be described, from the
slatternly dress of the landlady to the greasy stairs and the soiled
and ragged bedspreads.
CHAPTER VI
THE CHANGE FROM BOARDING TO LODGING
LITTLE has been said of the boarding-house, because that institu-
tion is practically non-existent in Boston. Certain statistics are
available which go to show a pronounced change from boarding-
houses to lodging-houses. Certain other data, also, give us the pro-
portion of boarding- and lodging-houses to the total population of
the city, thus showing something of the relative importance of the
lodging-house problem in various cities. Let us first examine the
statistics bearing on the ratio of boarding- and lodging-houses to
total population, which is shown in the following table:
TABLE 8. BOARDING- AND LODGING-HOUSE KEEPERS IN THE TEN
LARGEST CITIES, IQOO 1
M<G2
I |1-
** n _C .
cti crj i _,
^ o tio ~
a. -^.s-B
<R OH *S "5 "3
1
1
1
H
<5
H
S~
New York
474
2,813
3,287
3,437,202
1,045 persons
Chicago
196
2,151
2,347
1,698,575
723
Philadelphia
208
i,357
I ,5 6 5
1,293,697
826
St. Louis
156
1,084
1,240
575,238
463
Boston
148
1,423
i,57i
560,892
357
Baltimore
47
540
587
508,957
867
Cleveland
4i
429
470
381,768
812
Buffalo
30
359
389
352,387
905
San Francisco
297
M73
1,470
342,782
233
Cincinnati
26
3 X 9
345
325,902
945
1 Compiled from the Twelfth Census, Pop., part ii, Table 94.
2 Twelfth Census, Pop., part i, p. Ixix.
The actual number of houses in all the cities would be slightly larger than is indi-
cated in the table, since some persons keep more than one house.
THE CHANGE FROM BOARDING TO LODGING 39
The table shows at once that, with the exception of San Francisco,
Boston has more lodging- and boarding-houses (almost entirely
lodging-houses) in proportion to its population than any other
large city in the country. There are peculiar conditions giving San
Francisco a very high ratio of boarding- and lodging-houses.
A student of social conditions in San Francisco states them as
following: (i) "The preponderance of unmarried men and trans-
ients in San Francisco. San Francisco is the distributing-point for
labor, etc., for the whole Pacific Coast, and many young men
come here for curiosity and pleasure. ... It is variously esti-
mated that there are from 10,000 to 25,000 transients during the
rainy season, i. e., December to March. (2) Labor in California
is peculiarly intermittent on account of the specialization of crops,
and our men make so much money in harvest- time that they do
not need to work in the winter. On the other hand the price of
lodgings and of board is very cheap in San Francisco, there being
many lo-cent and 2o-cent lodging-houses and restaurants. The
winters are so mild that little heating is required for rooms, and
clothing is not expensive. So it is a gregarious habit of the Cali-
fornia workingmen to flock to San Francisco, and although the
individuals are constantly shifting, there are always a large number
in the city." *
It is a far cry from the 233 persons to a house in San Francisco,
or the 357 in Boston, to the 1045 m New York. San Francisco,
Boston, and St. Louis stand in a class by themselves, with a very
high ratio of boarding- and lodging-houses.
A comparison of the number of boarding- and lodging-houses
relative to population at different censuses gives some indication of
the relative number of persons living in such houses at different
dates. Unfortunately the necessary data are not available in
the Census of 1890, but from that of 1880 we have the following
table:
1 Mr. Dane Coolidge, of the South Park Settlement, in a letter which left San Fran-
cisco the day before the earthquake. It might be suggested in this connection that
San Francisco now has an opportunity to erect buildings adapted from a scientific,
economic, and sanitary point of view to the needs of the great lodger class.
40 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
i
TABLE 9. BOARDING- AND LODGING-HOUSE KEEPERS IN THE TEN
LARGEST CITIES, 1880 x
O "S C """ *'
& Oi 'CV tfl i_i
1
(X
ss S.
^* - "~* 0) _O
cd
c8
i
3
3
.2 f
'rt 60
S
H
H
386
983
1,369
1,206,299
1,104
32
186
218
566,663
i43
548
691
503,195
728
1 08
533
641
847,170
1,321
142
314
456
35,5 l8
768
149
452
601
362,839
604
45
125
170
332,313
i,955
36
"3
149
160,146
1,075
47
79
126
i55,i34
1,231
184
291
475
233,959
492
44
168
212
255,139
1,203
New York
Brooklyn
Chicago
Philadelphia
St. Louis
Boston
Baltimore
Cleveland
Buffalo
San Francisco
Cincinnati
Comparison of this table with that for 1900 reveals an almost
startling increase, during the twenty years, in the number of board-
ing- and lodging-houses. The following table arranges the cities in
order of ratio of houses to population in 1900, and shows the great
increase that has taken place in nearly every instance.
TABLE 10. RATIO OF BOARDING- AND LODGING-HOUSE KEEPERS TO
TOTAL POPULATION, 1880 AND I9CX3
1880. 1900. Difference.
San Francisco 492 233 259
Boston 604 357 247
St. Louis 768 463 305
Chicago 728 723 5
Cleveland I , I 75 612 263
Philadelphia 1,321 826 495
Baltimore 1.955 867 1,088
Buffalo 1,231 905 326
Cincinnati 1,203 945 258
New York 1,104 1,045 59
1 Compiled from the Tenth Census, volume on population.
THE CHANGE FROM BOARDING TO LODGING 41
Chicago and New York show practically no increase; Balti-
more, on the other hand, more than doubles its ratio, and increases
the absolute number of her boarding- and lodging-houses nearly
three and one half times. San Francisco, Boston, and St. Louis
also show substantially a doubling of their ratios. It seems impos-
sible to escape the conclusion that the lodging- and the boarding-
houses have been becoming rapidly an increasingly important form
of abode in American cities. 1
Table 1 1 gives the statistics of boarding- and lodging-house keepers
for eight Massachusetts cities. The highest ratio is shown by Law-
rence, the lowest by Fall River, both great textile factory towns.
TABLE n. BOARDING- AND LODGING-HOUSE KEEPERS, MASSACHU-
SETTS CITIES, 1900
C -T1 bf) i r^
i
1
a
~~ 2
J;
a
a
3
% i %
rt
<L>
"5
o
oj ^^ ^
S
H
H
P4 .S js
148
1,423
i,54i
560,892
357
2 3
155
178
118,421
665
22
72
94
104,963
1,115
6 7
185
252
94,969
377
45
134
179
68,513
5 11
16
83
99
62,442
630
49
128
177
62,559
352
13
105
118
62,059
525
Boston
Worcester
Fall River
Lowell
Lynn
New Bedford
Lawrence
Springfield
So much for boarding- and lodging-houses. Their number gives
some idea of the number of boarders and lodgers, but only indi-
rectly. Unfortunately the United States Census gives no statistics
for boarders and lodgers. We cannot compare, therefore, Boston
with other large cities in this respect, a fact to be regretted, since
1 Care has been taken to ascertain that there was no change in the census defini-
tion of "boarding- and lodging-house keepers" between 1880 and 1900. The
Census Office "has simply tabulated from the schedules of the enumerators the
number of persons returned by them, with these occupations. No special instruc-
tions, or definition of these occupations, was furnished the enumerators in 1880,
1890, or 1900."
42 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
such comparison would throw considerable light on the relative
numbers of persons in different cities who are condemned to lodging-
or boarding-house life, certainly no small percentage in a great
city like New York or Chicago. We can, however, compare Boston
with other cities in Massachusetts, seven of which, excluding the
immediate suburbs of Boston, have a population of over 50,000
each. Data for this comparison have been found in the Massa-
chusetts State Censuses for 1885 and 1895, in the tables showing
"relation to head of family."
Turning to the last column of Table 12, we find that only one
Massachusetts city had a greater proportion of boarders and lodg-
ers than Boston. That was Lowell, with 10,516, or 12.4 per cent,
of its total population, a high percentage due probably to the
young men and women engaged in the textile industries there. Fall
River shows the lowest percentage, 5.5, which seems due to the fact
that nearly half the population is foreign, and that foreigners marry
and go into homes of their own, however poor, earlier than Ameri-
cans.
TABLE 12. BOARDERS AND LODGERS, CITIES OF MASSACHUSETTS
OF OVER 50,000 POPULATION, 1895 l
2
*^ *""
o rt
bo o
-a A
1 Compiled from Mass. State Census, 1895, vol. ii, pp. 554-569.
* Idem, vol. i, p. 50.
and
ula-
|
_- <W
& bo
||
en
M
-J C 4J
r* ^ bO
*G
1
=
*-
1
|
-f
l|l
v c"2
,2
C en
4) I-
o"
o 2
Q
o
<U *"* ^^
4J *"* c"
flj "^
PH
H
PQ
i-l
PH rt
PH 2 a
PH J2 '4
Boston
496,920
54,422
9,496
44,926
17.4
82.6
IO-9
Worcester
98,767
6,667
3,58i
3,086
53-7
46.3
6-5
Fall River
89,203
4,968
4,286
682
86.0
14.0
5-5
Lowell
84,367
10,516
5,132
5,384
48.8
51.2
12.4
Lynn
62,354
5,999
2,578
3,421
43-o
57-o
9-6
New Bedford
55,251
3,444
2,672
777
77-6
22.4
6.2
Lawrence
52,l64
5,654
3,499
2,155
62.0
38.0
10.6
Springfield
51,522
3,904
1,900
2,004
49-7
50-3
7-5
THE CHANGE FROM BOARDING TO LODGING
43
TABLE 13. BOARDERS AND LODGERS, EIGHT CITIES OF MAS-
SACHUSETTS, 1885 l
i
2 2
o
11
2 2
D
2f
3
in O,
Ja
0"*s
^
-"o
k
.2
11
to
* 8 fii
O 4> rA
C CJ
g B M
ft.-Z
Sa
M
c-o
__ c
u
C 3-Q
C .l
g 2
3
*?
^,
u
t ^^
CJ U
0,
O
O C/3
2
u 15 >u
o -e c
u cS -o
^ "X c
fe*s !
PH
H <B
W
PH 2 rt
PH 2 cd
Pu ,2 v
Boston
390,393
40,218
15,938
24,280
39-6
60.4
10.3
Worcester
68,389
4,573
3,800
773
83-1
16.9
6.6
Fall River
56,870
2,908
2,706
202
93-o
7-0
5.1
Lowell
64,107
8,604
4,503
4,101
52-3
47-7
13-4
Lynn
45,867
4,969
3,268
1,701
6^.8
34-2
10.8
New Bedford
33,393
2,077
1,772
305
85.3
14-7
6.2
Lawrence
38,862
3,610
2,827
783
78.3
21.7
9-3
Springfield
37,575
2,670
1,482
1,188
55-5
44-5
7- 1
It would be highly interesting could we ascertain whether or
not there is an increasing proportion of boarders and lodgers to
total population. In 1885 (Table 13) we find the percentages essen-
tially the same as in 1895 for Massachusetts cities, showing that
no great change occurred. Statistics for the great cities of the country
might show different results. Be this as it may, the fact remains
that while the ratio to population has undergone little change, the
absolute number of boarding- and lodging-houses has increased at
equal pace with population.
We come now to the important questions of the number of lodgers
relatively to the number of boarders, and to the change from board-
ing-houses to lodging-houses which has been for some time taking
place and is still going on.
We will consider first the total number of boarders and lodgers.
For Massachusetts cities the data are given in Table 12. Boston is
the only city in which the percentage of lodgers far exceeds that of
the boarders. (See columns 5 and 6.) In 1895, 82.6 per cent, of the
boarding and lodging class of Boston were lodgers; and it is safe
to say that to-day the percentage would be even greater. Only three
other Massachusetts cities show even a slight excess of lodgers over
1 Mass. State Census, 1885, vol. i, pp. 448-477. 2 Idem, vol. i, p. xxv.
44 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
boarders, Lowell, Lynn, and Springfield. In Worcester, Fall
River, New Bedford, and Lawrence, the boarders are in excess.
Fall River has the largest proportion of boarders, 86 per cent.
The fact that the boarding and lodging class in Boston is over
four fifths lodgers is of the utmost importance. It shows that
Boston holds a unique position, as far as Massachusetts cities are
concerned. It means, moreover, that whatever problem there is,
economic, social, or moral, is in Boston one of lodging- and not of
boarding-houses. *
Statistics show also that the percentage of lodgers is increasing.
First as regards Boston: In 1885 (Table 15) the boarders were
39.6 per cent, and the lodgers 60.4 per cent, of the total number of
boarders and lodgers, an excess of lodgers of 20.8 per cent. In
1895 (Table 16), however, only 17.4 per cent, were boarders as
against 86.2 per cent, lodgers, an excess of lodgers of 68.8 per
cent., compared with an excess in 1885 of only 20.8 per cent. This
is a striking change. But only attention to the absolute numbers
can secure an adequate realization of the extent of the transforma-
tion. Analysis of the figures for Boston in 1885 and 1895 (Tables
15 and 1 6) shows that not only has the percentage of lodgers under-
gone a great increase, but that there has been an astonishingly rapid
increase in the absolute numbers of lodgers and an equally rapid
decrease in the absolute numbers of boarders. In the ten years there
was a gain of 35.3 per cent, in the total number of boarders and
lodgers; but there was a decrease of 40.4 per cent, in the number
of boarders and an increase of 86.2 per cent, in the number of
lodgers. 2 If this change from boarding to lodging has continued
with undiminished activity during the past ten years, for which the
statistics as yet are unavailable, there should be at present only
about 5,700 boarders as against a probable 80,000 or 90,000 lodgers.
Whether or not this prove to be the case, we can perceive how
1 In the state as a whole there were, in 1895, 195,220 boarders and lodgers (see
Table i8),of whom 51.3 per cent, were boarders and 48.7 per cent, lodgers. Exclud-
ing Boston, however, the percentages for the state are different: 63.8 per cent, board-
ers and only 36.2 per cent, lodgers, showing the influence of the country towns,
where the boarding-house naturally holds its own.
2 In 1885 the total number of boarders and lodgers was 40,218, of whom 15,938
were boarders and 24,280 lodgers. In 1895 the total number of boarders and lodgers
had risen to 54,422, of whom only 9,496 were boarders and 44,926 lodgers.
THE CHANGE FROM BOARDING TO LODGING 45
great the transformation has been in the mode of life of the great
"unattached" class with whom we are dealing.
Nor has the tendency to forsake the boarding- for the lodging-
house been confined to Boston. Statistics are available showing
a similar tendency, though much less pronounced, in nearly every
large city and town in Massachusetts and in the state as a whole.
Table 14, derived from columns 5 and 6 of Tables 12 and 13, shows
the nature and extent of the change.
TABLE 14. INCREASE OF PERCENTAGE OF LODGERS, AND DECREASE
OF PERCENTAGE OF BOARDERS TO TOTAL NUMBER OF BOARDERS
AND LODGERS, 1885 TO 1895
Boston 22.2
Worcester 29.4
Fall River 7.0
Lowell 3.5
Lynn 22.8
New Bedford 7.7
Lawrence 16.3
Springfield 5.8
Worcester, it is clear, has experienced the most radical change,
with Lynn and Boston close followers. For the state as a whole,
30.7 per cent, were lodgers in 1885, and 48.7 per cent, in 1895, a
gain of 14 per cent. Excluding the influence of Boston, however,
there was a gain of 17.3 per cent. (See Tables 17 and 18.) The
change was evidently somewhat stronger outside of Boston.
Tables 15, 16, 17, and 18, in the appendix to this chapter, show
in detail the numbers of boarders and lodgers for Boston and for
the state as a whole, according to sex and nationality, for 1885 and
1895.
To summarize the conclusions so far reached in this chapter:
With the single exception of San Francisco, Boston has more board-
ing- and lodging-houses, in proportion to population, than any other
large American city. In Boston as elsewhere there has been a strik-
ing increase in the number of such houses since 1880. Almost u per
cent, of Boston's population in 1895 lived in lodging- or boarding-
houses, a percentage exceeded only by Lowell, among other Mas-
sachusetts cities, and equaled only by Lawrence. While the pro-
portion of lodging- and boarding-houses to population has increased,
46 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
the ratio of boarders and lodgers to population has remained prac-
tically constant, so far as we can judge from the only statistics avail-
able, those of Massachusetts for the decade 1885-1895. Boarders
and lodgers, while increasing at even pace with population, have
nevertheless not increased so fast as the number of boarding- and
lodging-houses. This may mean that there was formerly insuffi-
cient accommodation and consequent overcrowding, or that lodg-
ing- and boarding-houses are becoming smaller. In any case it
almost certainly means a harder and sharper competition among
boarding- and lodging-house keepers to secure a paying number
of patrons. There has been, finally, a marked tendency to change
from boarding-house life to life in lodging-houses and cafe's. Here
Boston holds the unique position of having a much larger propor-
tion of lodgers than of boarders, while other Massachusetts cities
have either a very large preponderance of boarders over lodgers or
else about equal numbers of each. But there is all over Massachu-
setts, and doubtless in other states as well, had we the requisite sta-
tistics for judging it, a strong tendency to forsake boarding and turn
to the lodging-house, and the problem of the lodging-house is there-
fore one of growing importance.
The passing of the old-time boarding-house and the rise of the
lodging-house have far more than statistical interest and meaning.
This movement has not been without its social and economic causes
and results, and it is far from impossible that it may have had an
influence upon the moral constitution of city communities out of
all proportion to the attention hitherto directed toward it, and far
more subtle and insidious than many a movement which has long
caused concern to those actively interested in social welfare.
The characteristics of the old-time boarding-house are too well
known to need recounting here. With all its shortcomings, it will
be admitted that there usually was in it something of the home ele-
ment. Boarders knew each other, they met at table two or three
times a day, and lingered a few moments in conversation after
dinner in the evening. In summer they gathered on the front steps
and piazzas, and in winter they often played euchre and whist in
the landlady's parlor. Congenial temperaments had a chance to
find each other. There was a public parlor in which guests were
received, and, in a reputable boarding-house at least, a girl would
THE CHANGE FROM BOARDING TO LODGING 47
not have thought of taking a gentleman caller to her own room.
The landlady of the good boarding-house took something of a per-
sonal interest, even if remote, in her boarders, and they often found
themselves becoming a part of the family even against their wills.
There was a certain personal element in the relations between
individuals; no one could be isolated and entirely shut up within
himself. Why have these conditions practically ceased to exist?
Why is there to-day scarcely one boarding-house to a hundred lodg-
ing-houses in Boston ? The change in the number and importance
of lodging-houses, which has occurred in the past twenty-five years,
has not taken place from pure chance.
Conjointly with the advance of the lodging-house and the de-
cline of the boarding-house, the cafe* and restaurant business has
developed. In the competition of the cafe* we find a powerful force
tending to drive out of business hundreds of boarding-house keepers,
and to reduce them to the simpler employment of " taking in lodgers."
The development of the restaurant business has been but a phase
of the general concentration and sharper definition of economic
function which characterized the last third of the nineteenth cen-
tury. In place of the old-time boarding-house keepers with their
unbusinesslike methods, a class of men and women has sprung up
who know how to keep track of every item of expense and income.
In the larger restaurants one finds marvelous accuracy of calcula-
tion. Card-catalogue systems have greatly facilitated the restaurant
business as well as many other lines of industry. The large restau-
rant-keeper can tell you to a fraction of a cent the actual cost of a
pie of certain size, when flour is so much a barrel and apples so
much per bushel. Scientific management like this, it is true, is not
found in the cafe's of the lodging-house district, but those which
are successful are nevertheless managed by men and women who
give their entire time to the business end of the undertaking and
do not themselves act as cooks or waiters.
Certain circumstances favor the restaurant-keeper in his com-
petition with the boarding-house. First of all, the cafe* accords with
the free spirit of the times. Boarding-house life was no doubt often
monotonous and the landlady oftentimes officiously zealous in tak-
ing care of the affairs of her boarders. Boarders had to be on time
for their meals, and what was of more dire importance, they had
48 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
to pay for them whether they ate them or not. When some one
started up a cafe" near by and agreed that the boarder should pay
only for what he ate, and that he should eat when he pleased, whether
at ten in the morning or at midnight, the boarding-house had found
a dangerous competitor, especially when the cafe* was able to re-
duce its prices to a figure which looks, on paper, ridiculously low.
Whether the average person can board more cheaply in a cafe"
serving meals practically a la carte than in a boarding-house may
be doubted, but the conveniences of the cafe more than compen-
sate for the added cost. The person who is content with the cafe
eats wherever he happens to be when he is hungry, and if he is not
very hungry he saves money by taking a sandwich and a cup of
coffee at a lunch-counter or a glass of beer and a free lunch in some
saloon.
The cost of board is somewhat less in the dining-rooms than in
the cafes. Nevertheless the cafe" has certain competitive advantages.
Some of the dining-rooms do a thriving business and their propri-
etors are undoubtedly making money, but as a rule they are on a
precarious footing, and are always opening " under entirely new man-
agement." New dining-rooms are always springing up, and disap-
pearing almost in a day, ephemerally. This is because they are
launched without inquiry as to their need, without advertising their
existence except by a placard stuck in the basement window, and
without a businesslike manager in charge. They are generally con-
ducted by women who, the chances are, have not had the training
and experience necessary to cope with the trying conditions of the
lodging-house district. There are hosts of women capable of keep-
ing a lodging-house who have not the business ability requisite
for restaurant management. Many lack the necessary physical vigor
and nervous energy. The cafe* therefore has the same advantage
over the separate basement dining-room that it has over the at-
tached boarding-house dining-room, better business management.
It also in most cases has the advantage of situation. It is on a
main street, close by the great ebb and flow of the population to
and from its work. It is on the street level, it has plate-glass win-
dows, electric lights, and electric fans. It can be made clean and
attractive in appearance, and the smell of cooking can be kept out
of it. None of these things is true of the dining-room. The latter
THE CHANGE FROM BOARDING TO LODGING 49
is below the level of the sidewalk, often on a side street with com-
paratively few passers-by, is poorly lighted by day and by gas at
night, is hot and stuffy, full of the disagreeable odors of the kitchen
hardby, and rarely looks as clean as the average cafe. The cafe*
also has the advantage of buying supplies in larger quantities and
of securing more reliable employees. The dining-room, again, can-
not cope with the cafe in variety of fare offered, and it has none of
the suggestion of freedom which attracts young people to the cafe.
Both cafes and dining-rooms issue meal-tickets, but of different
kinds. The cafe's give discount tickets, "$5.75 for $5," etc., de-
signed to get people to pay in advance and thus hold their patron-
age. The dining-room tickets are $3.50 for men and $3 for women.
A lodger often has tickets from several different places at the same
time and eats where fancy dictates. He thus becomes known as
a "mealer." Whenever a new dining-room starts up it generally
gives board above the average quality at first, and there is often a
rush for it. Then as the quality of the board falls off, the boarders
one by one drop out. Sometimes one of these ephemeral dining-
rooms will sell a large number of meal-tickets, and then quietly dis-
appear in the night, leaving the luckless "mealer" the consolation
of being wiser for his experience. On the other hand the meal-ticket
is subject to abuse on the part of the thoughtless or unprincipled
lodger. It renders the dining-room business precarious because the
proprietor never knows how many persons she is to have at a meal.
Lodgers will often .buy a ticket, moreover, and "eat it out" in din-
ners, which cost the proprietor more than other meals. The wise
proprietor, however, prevents this practice by designating the kind
of meals to be given for the ticket.
Competition between the various eating- establishments no doubt
tends to keep down prices. The effort to entice patronage is every-
where apparent. It also lowers the standard and quality of food
served. It is difficult to see how the dining-rooms can serve good
material at the low prices they charge.
The effects of the change from boarding to lodging, aside from
their bearing on the boarding-house keeper, have been mainly
social and moral. The cafe" and dining-room are favorable places
for the striking of chance acquaintanceships, but not to any true
companionship or fellowship. In the basement dining-rooms meals
50 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
are eaten almost in silence. No one has a permanent seat. The
"mealer" comes in at no particular time, fishes his napkin out of
a rack on the wall, and sits wherever he can find room. Many
unfortunate and evil associations are nevertheless formed in these
establishments. The caf system has undoubtedly done much to
turn aside the currents of healthy sociability and worthy friend-
ship into channels of doubtful purity and of certain moral danger.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI
TABLE 15. BOARDERS AND LODGERS, BOSTON, 1885 1
Males 26,065 2 Total number of boarders 15,938
Boarders 10,832 Total number of lodgers 24,280
Lodgers 15,233 Total number of boarders and lodgers 40,218
Females Mi 1 53 Percentage of boarders to total number
Boarders 5,106 of boarders and lodgers 39.6
Lodgers 9,047 Percentage of lodgers to total number of
boarders and lodgers 60.4
Per cent, excess of lodgers over boarders 20.8
TABLE 16. BOARDERS AND LODGERS, BOSTON, 1895 3
Native-born. Foreign-born. Total.
Males 19,626 15,822 35,448
Boarders 2,598 3,814 6,412
Lodgers 17,028 12,008 29,036
Females 12,945 6,029 18,974
Boarders 2,042 1,042 3,084
Lodgers 10,903 4,987 15,890
Totals, both sexes, 32,571 2I ,85i 54,422
Total number of boarders 9,496
Total number of lodgers 44,926
Percentage of boardtrs to total number of boarders and lodgers 17.4
Percentage of lodgers to total number of boarders and lodgers 82.6
Percentage excess of lodgers over boarders 68.8
1 Compiled from the Mass. State Census, 1885, vol. i, p. 471.
2 No distinction between foreign- and native-born was made in the census of 1885
for boarders and lodgers.
3 Mass. State Census, 1895, vol. ii, p. 568.
THE CHANGE FROM BOA1
WING TO LODGINC
' 51
TABLE 17. BOARDERS AND LODGERS, MASSACHUSETTS
, 1885'
Native-born.
Foreign-born.
Total.
Males 52,472
39,076
91,548
Boarders 35,o6o
30,449
65,509
Lodgers 17,412
8,627
26,039
Females 33, 8 77
16,391
50,268
Boarders 21,706
11,136
32,842
Lodgers I2 ,i7i
5,255
17,426
Totals, both sexes 86,349
55,467
141,816
Total number of boarders
98,351
Total number of lodgers
43,465
Total number of boarders and lodgers
141,816
Including
Excluding
Boston.
Boston.
Percentage of boarders to total number of
boarders and lodgers
69-3
SUE
Percentage of lodgers to total number of
boarders and lodgers
30-7
18.9
Per cent, excess of boarders over lodgers
38.6
62.2
TABLE 18. BOARDERS AND LODGERS, MASSACHUSETTS, 1895 2
Native-born. Foreign-born. Total.
Males 66,925 65,971 132,896
Boarders 30,244 39,4*8 69,662
Lodgers
36,681
Females 4, I 75
Boarders I 9, I 75
Lodgers 21,099
Totals, both sexes 107,100
Total number of boarders
Total number of lodgers
Total number of boarders and lodgers
Percentage of boarders to total number of
boarders and lodgers
Percentage of lodgers to total number of
boarders and lodgers
Per cent, excess of boarders over lodgers
26,553
22,149
11,558
10,591
88,120
Including
Boston.
51-3
48.7
2.6
63,234
62,324
30,634
31,690
195,220
100,296
94,924
195,220
Excluding
Boston.
63-8
36.2
27.6
1 Mass. State Census, 1885, vol. i, p. 484.
J Mass. State Census, 1895, vol. ii, p. 572.
CHAPTER VII
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM
THE lodging-house keeper has developed as a natural result of new
conditions, the rising demand, on the part of boarders, for more
freedom and a bohemian existence; and that advance of scientific
industry and that growing keenness of competition which we have
seen so fatal to the boarding-house keeper. We have an interest
in the lodging-house keeper for two reasons : first, because she does
much to make the lodging-house what it is, and to determine its
influence over the lodger; and secondly, because her class is a
large one and is beset with some difficult problems of its own.
Most lodging-house keepers are women, ninety-five out of a
hundred probably, and where there is a man who sets himself
down as proprietor of a lodging-house, unless it be one of the
cheap, transient sort with which we are not dealing, the chances
are that he has a wife or daughter who is the real person in charge
and does the major share of the work. 1 Since the lodging-house
keepers are practically all women, we shall hereafter call them,
for the sake of brevity, the landladies. As to age they range from
young girls to old women who can scarcely hobble about. Of the
1423 females engaged in the boarding and lodging occupation in
Boston in 1900, 23 were between sixteen and twenty-four years of
a 8 e > 73 between twenty-five and forty-four, 592 between forty-
five and sixty-four, and 103 sixty-five years and over. Ninety-one
per cent., that is, were between twenty-five and sixty-four, and 7.2
per cent, were sixty-five or over. As to nationality, 489 were native-
born whites, 656 were foreign- born, and 55 were negroes. These
1 The Census of 1900 (Occupations, pp. 494, 498) shows 148 male "boarding- and
lodging-house keepers" in Boston to 1423 females, a proportion of one male to every
nine and a half females engaged in the business; but as by far the greater number
of these men are engaged in the cheap lodging-house business, the census figures
do not apply directly in our problem.
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM 53
latter are found chiefly around the Back Bay station, where there
is a large negro colony. The Census gives us (for females) :
Persons of native parentage 535
Persons having either one or both parents born in
Ireland 397 Russia (Russian Jews) 10
Canada, English 217 Italy 7
Great Britain 117 Austria-Hungary 3
Scandanavia 27 Other countries 9
Canada, French 19 Mixed foreign parentage 68
Germany 14
The largest single division is the native-born. Most of these come
from New England. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont northern
New England seem to unite with Canada in sending a steady
stream of people to Boston to fill its lodging-houses, either as lodgers
or as landladies and housekeepers. The large number of Irish land-
ladies is noteworthy, but the writer is inclined to think that their
number in the South End is exceeded by the Canadians. 1
1 The nearest statistics we have for a district smaller than the whole city are given
in the following table, taken from the Massachusetts State Census of 1895, vol. iv,
pp. 1007 and ion, representing conditions, be it remembered, as they were ten or
twelve years ago. It covers a much larger territory than the lodging-house section,
and in fact somewhat more than is usually included in the term "South End," but
it is not without some value as indicating the age, nationality, and literacy or illiteracy
of persons engaged in the " Boarding and Lodging" occupation. It includes not only
landladies but restaurant- and cafe"-keepers, which makes the numbers larger than
those of the census of 1900.
TABLE 19. PERSONS ENGAGED IN THE " BOARDING AND LODGING " OCCUPATION
IN THE SOUTH END
15 but under 20 but 60 and
Total 20 under 60 over Illiterates
Males
Native-born 750 23 709 18 n
Foreign-born 300 10 281 9 4
Total 1,050 33 990 27 15
Females
Native-born 857 45 757 51 9
Foreign-bom 973 72 868 33 37
Total 1,826 117 1,625 84 46
The Bureau of Statistics of Labor, in a letter to the writer, defines the South End
district of the State Census as follows: "The so-called South End District lies be-
54 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
Of more importance than the nationality or age of the landladies
is their conjugal condition, and also what may be called their pre-
vious condition of servitude ; for not all landladies have been trained
in the lodging-house business all their lives. Very many have come
from the hill farms of New England and Canada, some have risen
from the tenement-house, and not a few have seen better days.
Here, for instance, is one whose husband used to be a prominent
shoe manufacturer, but lost his money in the stress of competition
and then died; now his widow is making an heroic and successful
struggle, amid conditions which she has had absolutely no train-
ing to meet. Here is a widow whose husband was a sea captain,
another whose husband was a newspaper editor; and so the list
goes. We should undoubtedly be surprised could we ascertain the
number and sterling character of the women whom misfortune of
some sort has condemned to keeping roomers. Most of them take
it philosophically. It speaks well for feminine fortitude when a
kindly faced old lady, who used to have servants of her own, tells
you with a smile that keeping lodgers "is very pleasant work, if
you don't mind the little things." A very large proportion of land-
ladies, but not all, are widowed or divorced. The Census of 1900
shows 353 married, 324 single, 50 divorced, and 696 widowed. Only
one quarter (24.8 per cent.) were married. But this is no sure cri-
terion of the number of landladies who may have more or less help
from some male relative. Table 20, compiled from the annual Pre-
tween the South Bay (Fort Point Channel) and a line drawn through the centres of
the following streets and railroads, beginning at Bristol on the north: Bristol, Harri-
son Avenue, Dover, Berkeley, Albany Railroad, Providence Railroad, Northamp-
ton to the centre of Columbus Avenue; thence diagonally across the blocks to the
corner of Hammond and Tremont streets; thence through the centre of Hammond
Street to Shawm ut Avenue; thence easterly nearly to Fellows Street, beyond Harri-
son Avenue; thence easterly across the blocks to the centre of Northampton Street;
through the centre of Northampton Street to Albany Street; and thence through
the centre of Albany Street to Massachusetts Avenue; and by the centre of Massa-
chusetts Avenue to the water line along the canal." If the writer may venture a criti-
cism, he would suggest that this is a type of very poor division for statistical purposes.
It includes both a great region of tenement -houses and a vast area of lodging-houses,
two districts totally different in population, in economic structure, and in social
significance. Adding the two together in statistical columns is like adding pianos
and turnips in the same sum. The result means little for most purposes. The table
here given is unfortunately the nearest approach we can yet make to the statistics
needed.
CHART VI.
of lodging house landladies who have husbands or other male relatives of thesawe
I name irtthe house. wheae dependence probably is not, therefor*. solely in the keeping
of lodgers.
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM 55
cinct Lists of Male Residents l for 1903, which also gives the names
of the landladies in lodging-house districts, shows that about half the
landladies are either widowed or single, and that the other half,
where not married, at least have some male relative of the same
name in the house, upon whom they could perhaps rely, if need
be, for assistance. A total of 1389 houses are included in the table.
The results by precincts are shown graphically in Chart vi.
TABLE 20. NUMBER AND PERCENTAGE OF LODGING-HOUSE KEEPERS
WHO HAVE, AND OF THOSE WHO HAVE NOT, HUSBANDS OR OTHER
MALE RELATIVES OF THE SAME NAME IN THE HOUSE.
*
3 I S ES 4 a
* -aJS 11 *
si *- s tfi
E I", 1, S ~ E -;
rfi (0 tfi -M (/] <O 4J
.tJ <u 3 - ed 3 ^ "M 6
-5.8 ZtZ 211
Ward 12 Precinct i 75 65 53.5 46.5
Ward 12 Precinct a 57 88 39 61
Ward 12 Precinct 3 37 33 53 47
Ward 12 Precinct 4 61 55 52.5 47.5
Ward 12 Precinct 5 36 47 43 57
Ward 12 Precinct 6 49 24 67 33
Ward 12 Precinct 7 27 13 67.5 32.5
Ward 9 Precinct 5 71 Si 46.5 53.5
Ward 9 Precinct 6 42 61 41 59
Ward 10 Precinct 3 55 73 43 57
Ward 10 Precinct 4 66 52 56 44
Ward 10 Precinct 5 60 39 60 40
Ward 10 Precinct 6 56 67 45.5 54.5
Totals 692 697 49.82 50.18
It will be noted from the chart that the region of the best lodg-
ing-houses, Ward 12, Precinct 2, and the adjoining precincts, i, 4,
and 5, show the lowest percentage of married landladies. Nowhere
is the percentage of married less than one third the total. The large
number of married in Ward 10, Precinct 5, is due to the fact that
this is a negro quarter. In Precincts 6 and 7 of Ward 12, the large
1 Formerly compiled each year by the Board of Assessors, but now made up under
the direction of the Board of Police Commissioners by a house-to-house canvass by
policemen the first day of May each year.
56 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
proportion of married is due chiefly to the large number of Jewish
families living there and taking in lodgers.
The occupations of husbands of landladies are interesting as
throwing some light upon the social standards likely to be held to,
and also as indicating something of the economic status of the couples
thus keeping lodgers. The male relatives' occupations were divided
as follows:
Professional service 30
Domestic and personal service 117
Trade and transportation 227
Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 198
The largest single employments represented were: dealers, etc., 56;
clerks, 53; salesmen, 37; carpenters, 30; waiters, 28; and machin-
ists, 20. l
1 The employments in detail are given in the following table:
TABLE 21. OCCUPATIONS OF MALE RELATIVES (IN THE SAME HOUSE) OF LODGING-
HOUSE KEEPERS
I. Professional Service, 30.
Physicians n Lawyers 3
Musicians 6 Opticians a
Dentists 3
Editor, journalist, architect, teacher, chemist, i each.
II. Domestic and Personal Servants, 117.
Waiters 28 Stewards 6
Janitors 16 Watchmen 5
Laborers 9 Barbers 4
Cooks 9 Stablemen 3
Policemen 8 Butlers 2
Porters 8 Hotel-men 2
Coachmen 7 Nurses 2
Bartenders 6 Peddler, bellman i each.
III. Trade and Transportation, 227.
A. Clerks 53 Conductors 6
Salesmen 37 Foremen 6
Real-estate agents 14 Managers 5
Bookkeepers 1 1 Superintendents 2
Shippers 10 Collectors 2
Agents 7 Commercial travelers 2
Insurance agents 6
Stock-keeper, solicitor, adjuster, cashier, secretary, ticket-seller, stenographer,
speculator, mail-clerk, baggage-master, i each.
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM 57
To sum up, then, this phase of our discussion, we may say that
the lodging-house keepers are practically all women, as a rule of
middle age, mostly Yankees and Provincials, about half of them
married, and the other half widowed or single, and of the most
varied antecedents.
One of the kernels of the whole lodging-house problem is the
economic condition of the lodging-house keeper. This is true be-
cause certain moral influences, for instance the presence or absence
of a public parlor where lodgers may receive their callers, depend
upon the status of the landlady's finances. In order to attack the
moral problem it is necessary to get at the cash nexus which exists
between landlady, landlord, and lodger, and to do this we must
ascertain as nearly as possible the average or general expenses and
income of the lodging-house keeper. Since by far the greater num-
ber of rooming-houses are of the 16- to i8-room type, we will as-
B. Dealers, etc 56 Builders 4
Merchants 6 Produce-dealers 2
Druggists 5 Provision-dealers 2
Liquor-dealers 5 Caterers 2
Grocers 4 Manufacturers 2
Restaurant-keepers 4 Brokers 2
Hardware, florist, furniture, tobacco, horse-dealer, kitchen-ware, pawn-shop, bil-
liard-hall, fish, shoes, junk, undertaker, meat, coal, pictures, lumber, haberdasher,
Turkish baths, i each.
IV. Manufacturing and Mechanical Pursuits, 198.
Carpenters 30 Electricians 4
Machinists 20 Piano-makers 4
Engineers 17 Masons 4
Painters 12 Plasterers 3
Printers 10 Paper-hangers 3
Tailors 7 Moulders 3
Drivers 7 Motormen 3
Blacksmiths 6 Photographers 3
Cabinet-makers 6 Linemen 2
Butchers 6 Bakers 2
Teamsters 6 Expressmen 2
Shoemakers 5 Bricklayers 2
Plumbers 4 Sailors 2
Firemen 4
Violin-maker, ship-chandler, woodworker, stone-cutter, switchman, leverman,
upholsterer, finisher, polisher, varnish-maker, gold-beater, cigar-maker, lithogra-
pher, paver, brakeman, miller, decorator, packer, bottler, dyer, tinsmith, i each.
58 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
sume that the house is rated at seventeen rooms, inclusive of kitchen,
dining-room, laundry, and bath.
The income of the landlady consists of the rent she receives from
her lodgers. Her expenses consist of house-rent, coal, gas, water,
laundry, repairs on furniture, replenishment of rugs, bedding, etc.
First as to expenses: The rent for a 10-, u-, or i2-room house
ranges from $600 to $800, with a probable average of $750. The
larger houses, of 16 to 18 rooms, rent for $1000 to $1500, the latter
being a very exceptional rent in very favored locations. Ordinarily
the rent does not run over $1200. The average rent for houses of
the ly-room type in the South End is probably not far from $1075.
These estimates are made on the basis of much personal inquiry
among landladies and real-estate agents. To be entirely on the safe
side we will put the rent of our typical i7-room house at $1000,
thus placing this item of expense at the lowest possible figure.
Next as to coal-bills : Curiously enough the answers given by land-
ladies as to this item do not seem to depend upon the size of the
house. Coal-bills run indiscriminately from $60 to over $100. For
a i7-room house it would not be safe to allow less than $90 a year
for coal. Lodging-houses in the Back Bay (Huntington Avenue
and St. Botolph Street district) have to allow more, since they are
inhabited chiefly by students who may be in the house all day and
demand more constant heat, so that the fires cannot be allowed to
die down during the day, as is customary in the South End. The
South End also saves by not heating either side rooms or attic.
Gas, in the long run, costs more than coal. Gas-bills vary from
month to month. In winter, when the evenings are long, and lodgers
are confined to their rooms more than in summer, gas-bills mount
high; in summer they are low. The bills vary greatly from house
to house also, according to the character of the lodgers and the
watchfulness of the landlady. Lodgers no doubt waste a good deal
of gas through carelessness and sometimes through vindictiveness.
The average lowest rate per month, in summer, is about $4.50; the
average highest rate, in winter, about $13. Actual rates run from
almost nothing in summer to $20 a month and over in winter. The
following is a typical gas-account for the year:
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM 59
Jan $14.00 May 10.00 Sept 5.50
Feb 12. oo June 8.00 Oct 7.50
March 14.00 July 5.00 Nov 12.50
April 13.00 Aug 5.00 Dec 13.50
Total $120.00
The next item is the water-bill, which most landladies have to pay
in addition to their regular rent. The regulations of the city water
department provide that "the rates for water furnished to a build-
ing for the use of the occupants are to be paid by the owner of the
building," but most South End lodging-house leases stipulate that
the lessee shall pay the tax. Water is furnished at annual rates,
differing for various classes of building. Lodging-houses come under
the head of dwellings, and are assessed as follows:
On the value of the building
For the first $1000 $6.00
For each $100 or fraction thereof, thereafter i.oo
Self-closing water-closets, each 5.00
Each room let to lodgers 50
On a house assessed at $12,000 and containing seventeen rooms,
fourteen of which were let to lodgers (as is often the case when all
are full), the tax would be:
For first $1000 $6.00
For the other $11,000 11.00
One water-closet 5.00
Fourteen rooms at .50 7.00
Total $29.00
Few landladies, however, pay so much as this. The water-tax paid
is rarely over $22 a year. Two reasons may be assigned for this dis-
crepancy. In the first place, the rooms are not all full "more than
half the time" or "on the average," the criterion applied by the
water inspectors; and secondly, most landladies are probably
modest in stating the number of their lodgers when the water in-
spectors come around.
This completes the list of definite, fixed expenses, rent, coal,
gas, and water. But besides these we have laundry, repair and re-
newal of furniture, bedding, and towels, and occasional inciden-
tal expenses for repairs on the house, which should be met by the
6o
landlord, but are foisted on the helpless lessee. For these expenses
it is possible, with the exception of the laundry, to give only a very
general estimate, because they vary so much from house to house
and from year to year.
Most landladies send their bed-linen out to be laundered, or else
hire a woman a day or two each week to do the house washing.
From fifty cents in the medium grade house to one dollar a week
in the better houses is allowed for laundry. The towels and the
miscellaneous small linen are generally washed by the landlady
herself. We shall probably be safe in setting the laundry expense
at a fair figure if we call it $75 a year.
Another $75 per year should be allowed for repairs on furniture
and carpets. Some landladies put this item as high as $125 or
$150 a year. Where all carpets were taken up and cleaned annually
the cost would be $50 for that alone. It is rarely done, however; in
most lodging-houses, a carpet once on the floor is not likely to be
taken up for several years.
Over and above all these expenditures we shall allow $50 for
unforeseen expenses. The water-closet may get out of repair and
the landlord refuse to mend it. A hall bedroom may need repaper-
ing, a hinge will come off, and so on ad infinitum with petty little
charges small in themselves but numerous enough, when taken
collectively, to eat into the landlady's income.
Coming to income, and distinguishing between possible and
probable annual income, we must first make some investigation
of the rents charged for rooms. The following table is based on
accurate data, so far as it goes. There is no reason to suppose that
the figures would be altered by the inclusion of more samples. The
cases taken are believed to represent normal conditions:
TABLE 22. NUMBER OF ROOMS RENTED AT SPECIFIED PRICES,
SOUTH END
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
at at at at at at at at at at Total.
$6 $5 $4.50 $4 $3.50 $3 $2.50 $2 $1.50*1
Front parlor -6141 -----12
Rear parlor - i-io 3 3 - - --16
Front square 2d 3102 6 3 -- - --24
Rear square ad -1169 21 ---20
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM 6 1
Front square 3d -31 10 7 2 i ---24
Rear square 3d ---47711-- 20
Front square 4th ---125541- 18
Rear square 4th ----14551- 16
Dining-room ----121--- 4
Rear side ist -11-35
Front side 2d ------2101-13
Front side 3d ------2 14 2-18
Rear side 3d - -- - - - -12 5- 17
Front side 4th -------55111
Rear side 4th 4 71 12
Total 3 21 5 41 34 25 19 56 22 5 230
On the basis of this table and of other data not of a statistical
nature we calculate the following average prices for rooms :
TABLE 23. AVERAGE PRICES FOR ROOMS.
Floor. Kind of room. Average price,
ist Front parlor $4.50
ist Rear parlor 4.30
2d Front square 4.25
2d Rear square 3.65
ad Front side 2.00
3d Front square 4.00
3d Rear square 3.30
3d Front side 2.00
3d Rear side 1.80
4th Front square 2.65
4th Rear square 2.50
4th Front side 1.70
4th Rear side 1.60
The total average weekly income of a house where the landlady
lives in the basement and all other rooms are rented is thus $38.25.
This would amount to $1988 for the year, if all rooms were kept
full all the time. The possible gross annual income of a ly-room
house is therefore not above $2000.
Before we can strike an actual average annual income we must
make some important deductions. First, we must allow for vacan-
cies. Many houses are almost depopulated in the summer-time,
and many others are forced to make a material reduction in their
rents. There are many places in the country and the surrounding
62 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
towns where lodgers can go in the summer and live just as cheaply
as in the city. A large part of the lodging-house population seems
simply to fade away during the summer months. For twelve weeks
during the hot term the average house is not more than half full.
This is the experience and evidence of the Superintendent of the
Y. W. C. A., who has had some twenty years of contact with the
South End lodging-houses. We must therefore deduct some $228
for loss of room-rent during the dull season. Even during the rest
of the year it is a lucky house which can keep all its rooms tenanted.
The parlors are notoriously hard to let. In 1895, according to the
State Census of that year, there were in Ward 12, the lodging-house
ward of the South End, 32,313 rooms, 2589, or 8 per cent, of which
were vacant. 1
Every one testifies to the fact that it has become much harder of
recent years to rent rooms in the South End since the suburbs have
grown so rapidly. 2 We are safe in saying, therefore, that at least
8 per cent, of the rooms are always vacant. Fifty per cent, of the
rooms are probably vacant in summer, and the total annual loss
due to vacant rooms is not far from $348. Deduct this from the
possible income of $1988 and we have a probable income of $1640.
A summary of the annual income and expenditure of the aver-
age house will then stand as follows:
Income. Expenditures.
Rent of rooms $1640 Rent of house $1000
Coal 90
Gas 120
Water 22
Laundry 75
Wear and tear on furniture 75
Renovation of carpets, etc 50
Incidental expenses 50
Total $1640 Total $1482
Balance, net income for the year, $158.
And in this statement no allowance is made for insurance of furni-
ture, for newspaper advertising, for fees to room registries, or for
1 Mass. State Census, 1895, vol. i, p. 570. The census enumeration is made in
May, before the summer exodus has begun.
2 This is substantiated in a way, also, by the decline in population of the lodging-
house district shown by the State Census of 1905. See p. 7, note.
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM 63
interest on mortgages; nor is the landlady allowed a maid, or any
help in her sweeping and other housework, save the laundry.
In Boston comparatively little newspaper advertising is done,
the landlady placing reliance almost entirely upon a "Rooms to
Let" sign stuck in the window, and upon some real-estate office
and "room registry" for new lodgers. In New York and Chicago,
newspaper advertisements are used largely, and the house which
stoops to a room-sign loses caste.
It is apparent that where these extra expenses have to be met
one of two things must be true : either the landlady has some source
of income other than the house, or she contrives to keep her house
full of lodgers. In many cases her prices may of course be higher
than those we have figured as the average. On the other hand the
rent she has to pay for the house will in such cases very likely
mount to $1100 or $1200. On the whole, we believe that a complete
census inquiry, should it ever be made, and the writer sincerely
hopes it will, would show that the average lodging-house is no
better off than has just been indicated. There are many women
keeping lodgers who are making money in the business. The writer
knows of one woman who runs eight houses, and a considerable
number who run two. On the other hand there are many failures.
Inexperienced women from the country come to Boston in high
hopes of making a comfortable living by what looks like an easy
and pleasant occupation. The real-estate agents, moreover, take
care to increase their enthusiasm until they have sold them a house
(not the building, but the furniture and good- will). Totally unfitted
for a complex environment, these people are the prey of all sorts
of sharpers, and if they survive and finally establish their house on
a paying basis, it may be at the cost of their tempers, their health,
and their moral sensibilities. The average man or woman thus
coming to the city and plunging headlong into such a struggle is
not likely long to let fine-drawn, conscientious moral scruples stand
in the way of meeting the weekly payment on the mortgage.
The married landladies keep lodgers to help out with the family
expenses. It is possible for a couple thus to reduce their own rent
expense below what it would be in a good tenement, and they
live in a better neighborhood. It also gives the wife something to
do, and affords a possibility of positively increasing their available
64 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
income. But they will be satisfied if they pay running expenses,
and thus earn their own house-rent. It would be too much, perhaps,
to say that lodging-houses kept by married couples, the husband
working in some trade or profession, and the wife caring for the
house, are in the long run of a higher moral type than the others.
Other things equal, however, this would be the case, because the
struggle to make both ends meet is not so imperative with such a
couple as with the single woman, and the married landlady can be
more careful as to what kind of lodgers she admits to her house.
A considerable number of landladies own their dwellings, land and
all. In such cases the moral tone of the house is generally high.
Where the landlady is a widow or a single woman, dependent
wholly for her livelihood upon the keeping of lodgers, it is evident
that the theoretical average conditions summarized above cannot
obtain. No woman can live on $158 per year. She must either keep
her house full or cut down expenses. In actual practice she will
make every effort to do both. The hard-pressed single landlady
and those married couples who are more or less indifferent as to
the morality of their lodgers will take in almost any one who applies,
without references, and will wink at conduct which under other
circumstances might not be tolerated. After a while, the landlady
will be perfectly ready to say, as many have said to the writer, "It
is best not to know too much about your lodgers." This blunting
of the moral standards of the landladies themselves is a sinister and
dangerous aspect of lodging-house life; it is due not to any inherent
human depravity, but to economic pressure. It gives rise to two
great classes of lodging-house keepers, those who care about what
their lodgers do and are, and those who do not care.
As a typical illustration of the kind of personage meant by "those
who don't care," the writer begs leave to quote the following para-
graph from his note-book. It represents a first impression, but one
that has held true of this class invariably: "We questioned her
closely concerning the morals of her lodgers. She maintained that
she could and did keep strict watch over them, and could tell if
anything wrong was going on. Nevertheless she admitted that 'men
have to take lady callers to their rooms, and women men callers
to theirs,' and that, as she said, 'a girl can't stand out on the
street and freeze talking to her fellow.' But her idea of a 'straight'
THE LODGING-HOUSE KEEPER AND HER PROBLEM 65
house is one which is outwardly quiet, with lodgers who do not
burn too much gas. Finally, she practically admitted the immoral
side of the house. 'Of course,' she said, 'we have to think it 's all
right anyhow; if a lodger is quiet and pays his rent, we can't turn
him out. We can't afford to be too particular. ' "
No estimate will be attempted as to the number of landladies and
houses of this class, but it is a class thoroughly typical of any lodg-
ing-house district. It would be highly unjust, however, to judge
all lodging-houses by this sort alone. There are many landladies,
as we have already suggested, who are above moral reproach in
the conduct of their houses, and who are doing much for themselves,
their lodgers, and the community. More than a few are members
of various women's clubs and philanthropical organizations. Here
is one who has been a high officer in the Woman's Relief Corps,
another who provides a bed in a sailors' hospital; one who studies
elocution and music; and another whose daughter teaches Latin
and Greek in a well-known private school. Here, too, are a dozen
or more who are sending sons and daughters, nephews and nieces,
through Harvard and Radcliffe. No suspicion can attach to the
intentions of women of this type.
Aside from the fact that economic pressure makes many land-
ladies perhaps the majority indifferent to questionable prac-
tices on the part of their lodgers, another moral evil results from
the struggle to make both ends meet. Probably not five per cent,
of the houses have a public parlor or reception-room. This lack is
an evil universally recognized by ah 1 who face the lodging-house
problem. 1 Ninety-nine per cent, of the houses allow lodgers to take
callers to their rooms. In perhaps ten per cent, of the houses, the
landlady will say something like this: "Oh, I suppose if a person
had a caller whom he did not want to take to his room, I would let
him use the parlor." The landlady often uses the parlor for her
own living-room, and to have it used on any occasion as a reception-
room is naturally an inconvenience to her.
Two reasons exist for the general absence of the common recep-
tion-room. One is that the landladies cannot afford it, the other
1 See, for instance, The Franklin Square House, a pamphlet issued by the
Franklin Square House Association, 1902, p. 6. See also Bulletin no. 15 of the
U. S. Dept. of Labor, p. 142.
66 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
that the lodgers do not demand it. The Superintendent of the
Young Women's Christian Association states emphatically that
her twenty years' experience with lodging-houses has taught her
that the landladies pay so high a rent that for most of them it is
economically impossible to keep a public parlor. Absolute proof that
this view is correct is not to be had until the State Bureau of Sta-
tistics of Labor or some other agency is empowered by law and pro-
vided with funds to carry through a statistical investigation of lodg-
ing-house conditions; but we trust that what has been said above
will make it plain that the statement is substantially correct. More
is said on the matter of the public parlor in chapter xvni.
With regard to the life of the landlady herself, in general it may
be said to be full of monotony and petty troubles, even where the
furniture is paid for and there is no mortgage to meet. She very
often lives in the basement, in cramped and unhealthful quarters.
In many cases she takes her meals at a basement dining-room, like
her lodgers. As a rule she sees little of her roomers and takes an
interest in them only in so far as business requires. She is some-
times cheated by them, often unnecessarily annoyed. She generally
prefers men to women lodgers because men are out of the house
more, are more easy-going and long-suffering, and because women
are constantly wanting to use the laundry, wash in their rooms, or
do light cooking. Moreover, it is a very common practice to require
women lodgers to do their own room-work, although they have to
pay just as much rent as the men. She has been the prey to so many
sharpers that she is apt to be suspicious of the stranger who asks
her about her business. Yet once convince her that you are in any
way her friend, and she is even eager to talk with you, evidence,
well borne out by other considerations, that the life of the landlady
is often as isolated as that of her lodger.
CHAPTER VIII
TRADING IN FURNITURE AND GOOD- WILL
THE reason why the average lodging-house is encumbered with
so much plush furniture, tapestry, etc., is that the furnishings, while
still remaining in the same house, have passed on from owner to
owner, from the time of the exodus of the private families many
years ago to the present day. This practice of purchasing the furni-
ture of a house, moving in, and taking possession of it where it is,
is known as "buying out a house." The buying of a lodging-house
is substantially the same as buying a grocery-store, or a physician's
practice. You buy the equipment or stock on hand, and the cus-
tom or good- will of the business. The good- will of the lodging-house
is its lodgers, and its reputation, if it has any.
There are approximately forty real-estate offices in or near the
district, nearly all of which buy and sell lodging-houses. Most of
them, in fact, make a specialty of lodging-house business, and be-
sides buying and selling furniture and good-will, they deal in lodg-
ing-house real estate, act as owners' agents, and conduct room
registries.
A room registry is a bureau where landladies enroll their houses
and vacant rooms, in the hope of having lodgers sent to them. The
agent, on his part, agrees to send lodgers when they apply to him
for rooms. The landlady is charged a fee of one dollar for registra-
tion, and either one half or the whole of the first week's rent of any
lodger she may obtain through the registry. The registries cover
a good deal of abuse. Not seldom a registry will obtain as many
registration fees as it can and then quietly disappear. Another trick
is to send out "fake" or "straw" lodgers, who stay only a week
or two in a place, thus reaping a continuous harvest of commissions
for the agency.
The chief business of many of these. real-estate offices, however,
other than collecting rents, is trading in lodging-houses. This is
a thoroughly typical South End industry. Some of the business is
68 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
done honestly, but there is reason to believe that most of it has its
sharp side, and that much of it is full of downright trickery and
dishonesty. It is not too much to say that very little of the business
is strictly legitimate, though most of the operators keep within the
letter of the law.
The ordinary method of "selling out a house" is about as fol-
lows : Suppose a dealer has a house on hand. Of course he is anx-
ious to sell it. Some woman comes to him who wants to go into
the lodging-house business. The chances are she will not have the
$800 (about the average price paid) necessary to pay for the furni-
ture in full. The dealer is just as well pleased if she has not. He
sells her the outfit for (say) $100 down, and a mortgage of $700,
bearing interest at i| per cent, per month. Ordinarily the furni-
ture is to be paid for by the week, $3 or $5, as the case may be. If
the purchaser pays cash down or if she keeps up her payments
punctually until the whole $700 is paid, that ends the matter. She
has been successful and is in possession of a house with a good- will.
She has probably made a paying investment, as lodging-houses
go. But if for any reason she allows her weekly payments to get
into arrears, then she may look for trouble.
The sale is an installment sale, with all the possibilities of evil
attendant upon such transactions. "The characteristic feature of
the installment sales is that title to the property remains in the
vender until the full purchase price has been paid, or else title passes
and is immediately retransferred to the vender in the shape of a
chattel mortgage." x The latter method is universally followed in
selling lodging-houses. The possibilities of abuse are at once appar-
ent. A foreclosure of the mortgage is always hanging over the pur-
chaser. The seller cannot foreclose as long as the weekly payments
are made regularly, nor will he be likely to be strict in requiring
prompt payment until the purchaser has paid a large amount of
the total. Then, if for any reason she gets behind, he puts on the
screws hard, just as do the installment dealers in new furniture,
and forecloses.
The landlady loses her furniture, her business, and the money
she has paid on the mortgage. The dealer gains both the interest
1 H. R. Mussey, The "Fake" Installment Business, published by the University
Settlement Society, N. Y., 1903, p. n.
TRADING IN FURNITURE AND GOOD-WILL 69
on the mortgage while it was running and the payments made on
the principal, and he retains the furniture. Ordinarily he does not
foreclose until he has in sight another purchaser, with whom, if
possible, he goes through the same process.
The more unscrupulous dealers do not hesitate to resort to all
sorts of tricks, not only to persuade persons ignorant of the city
and its conditions to purchase, but also to increase their fees and
commissions to an exorbitant figure. The most common device to
entice a purchaser is to fill a house with "straw" lodgers, who are
given their room-rent to remain until the house is sold, when they
decamp, leaving the confiding landlady with an empty house. This
trick is not confined to the professional dealers. A woman who
kept a house on Street rented another house, got a number
of her own lodgers to room there temporarily, and sold the house
at a great profit. Another landlady made a business of selling-out
houses. Her method was to sell the house, and then before the pur-
chaser took possession, to take out all the good furniture, substi-
tuting cheaper articles. This practice is known as "taking the
cream off," but it is simply common thievery. The "cream" may
legitimately be taken off before the sale is made, but not after. The
removing of furniture after the sale, however, seems a common
practice. Purchasers schooled in experience take every precaution
against the trick.
Among the means of increasing commissions and fees may be
mentioned the following: Very often the dealer, as for instance he
might do in the case above, will draw the mortgage for $750 instead
of $700, "to cover risks," as he tells the purchaser. Every con-
ceivable chance of charging a fee is seized. A fee is charged for
making out all papers, another for each notification of interest due,
etc. These are all in the way of evading the law, which prescribes
that i per cent, per month shall be the maximum rate.
Perhaps the worst trick is the practice of drawing up the mort-
gage to cover everything in the house, whether it was included in
the original sale or not. Such a document is known as a blanket
mortgage, and enables the holder, in event of foreclosure, to take
everything in the house, provided it is not more than enough to
cover the indebtedness. People signing the contract and papers do
not stop to read them carefully; they do not realize the import of
70 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
this clause; and in general they are green in business matters and
in such a hurry to get into business that they do not stop to use cau-
tion. One woman is said to have lost her wedding silver in this way,
and numerous cases where women have lost their own household
belongings, brought with them to the city, have come to the writer's
notice. 1 One or two dealers of notorious daring and disregard even
for the letter of the law have even gone so far as to seize the trunks
of lodgers along with the furniture. Once in a while the lodgers of
a house come home at night, and find the whole house empty, furni-
ture and all gone.
Trading in equities and selling of lodging-house real estate also
furnishes a fruitful field for sharp practices. 2
Pages could be filled with instances of injustice, trouble, and
actual suffering brought upon unsuspecting people by the machina-
tions of these real-estate sharpers, and by unscrupulous people
already in the lodging-house business. The very advertisements of
some of the dealers are drawn to catch the eye of the ignorant and
innocent, as for instance the following:
WANTED, a few more lodging-houses for cash prices from $200 to $1500;
if you want to sell, call and see me any day; I will pay you cash for a bargain;
I have sold 7 this week; I will loan money to every buyer and pay cash; peo-
ple that want a lodging-house and have $50 cash or good security can buy of me
and pay $2 a week until paid for; I charge no commission, only $i for adver-
tising. 8
The prices paid for lodging-houses range from $200 or $30x3 for
the poorest up to $2000 and over for the best. The prices are nearly
always above the actual value of the house as a going concern;
1 Here is an instance: A man and wife, whom we will call the Smiths, came from
North Carolina to escape the climate. They were convinced by a dealer that there
was money to be made keeping lodgers. They bought a house from him, paying a
small amount down, and so much a month by installments. They got slightly in arrears
and the dealer confiscated all the furniture, not only what they had bought from him,
but what they had brought with them and what they had added. A friend of the
Smiths, who had left some furniture with them, had great difficulty in recovering
it from the dealer. The Smiths, having lost nearly everything they had in the world,
returned to the South, where Mr. Smith soon after died.
2 See Chapter IX.
1 Taken from the Boston Globe. Almost identical advertisements may be found
in St. Louis papers.
TRADING IN FURNITURE AND GOOD-WILL 71
although in few cases could the house be refitted with new furni-
ture for the same price. People would rather buy out old furniture
than take the risk of fitting up a house anew at great expense and
then wait indefinitely for lodgers. If the house is bought as it stands,
and there is no trickery, some lodgers nearly always go with it.
There is much trading among people already in the business.
Landladies are generally confident that they could do better in some
other location. Many are anxious to get out of the business, and
are glad to sell when some one from the Provinces or rural New
England comes to buy. -One agent is said to have sold a certain
house ten times within a year, and all indications, such as the
excessive number of houses advertised for sale, show an unhealthy
activity in this line.
With a word as to the number of mortgages on furniture in the
South End, we will close this chapter. Between September 15, 1902,
and January 20, 1903, one dealer and money-lender had recorded
over twenty mortgages. Between September 4, 1902, and March 4,
1903, another dealer had recorded twenty-five mortgages. So far
as could be told from the records these two were the largest dealers
in mortgages, but many other mortgages were recorded from the
lodging-house district. The amounts range from $50 up, but fall
for the most part much below $500. It is certain that a large amount
of lodging-house furniture is mortgaged, and that means generally
that it has been purchased on the installment plan and is not yet
paid for. It is but one more sidelight thrown upon the complex
economic and moral struggle going on under the calm exterior of
the district.
CHAPTER IX
THE REAL-ESTATE SITUATION IN THE LODGING-HOUSE DISTRICT
THE key to the South End real-estate situation is the pronounced
depreciation in values that has been going on for the past twenty
years. Real-estate men almost without exception acknowledge that
the depreciation has been between twenty and fifty per cent, and
that the outlook for recovery is not bright. Absolute proof of the
fall is to be had from the assessors' books.
Before applying this evidence, however, we must ask what the
relation is, in Boston, between real value and assessed valuation.
One authority, speaking of the city as a whole, and not of any par-
ticular district or class of property, states that "while unlike most
of the larger cities of the country the assessments in Boston are
supposed to be the full market value of the property in ordinary
times and under usual conditions," it is nevertheless safe to say
that they are only about eighty per cent, of what the real estate
would bring at sale. 1 In districts where the market value of real
estate is rising it may well be that the assessed valuations are not
rising as rapidly, although the assessors claim to keep fully abreast
.of the market price. In districts where values are falling, on the
other hand, a natural tendency, both on the part of the assessors
and on that of the owners, is manifest to keep the assessments up
to the old rate as long as possible. The city officials are not anxious
to reduce the tax income of the city, and the owners as a rule
consider that a steady decline of recorded assessed valuations will
be a disadvantage to them in getting a fair price for their property.
Whatever differences may exist, therefore, as to the relations between
assessed valuations and real values, taking the city at large, it is
generally acknowledged that in the South End lodging-house
section assessments are as a rule above real value. Comprehensive
proof of this could be obtained by a comparison of selling prices
1 Henry Whitmore, Real-Estate Values in Boston, Publications of the American
Statistical Association, March, 1896.
REAL ESTATE IN THE DISTRICT
73
and assessed values for the whole district over a series of years.
Indication of what the result would be is to be had in the following
table, for Union Park, from 1869 to
TABLE 24.
ASSESSED VALUATIONS AND SELLING PRICES
Excess of sell- Excess of assessed
ing price over valuation over sell-
assessed valu- ing price.
Year.
Assessed valuation.
Selling price.
ation.
1869
$23,000
$24,000
$1,000 "I
1869
21,000
23,000
2,000 1
1869
18,000
19,650
1,650 [ I9/0
1869
17,000
25,000
8,000 <
1869
24,000
31,000
7,000
1870
21,500
22,000
500
1870
14,000
19,000
5,000
13.5%
1870
14,000
16,750
2,750
1870
18,000
21,350
3,350
1870
17,000
22,000
5,000^
1871
17,000
19,750
2,750
1871
18,100
22,250
4,150,
1872
22,200
24,000
i, 800
1872
18,000
20,000
2,000
1872
15,300
15,550
250
Of
1872
16,800
19,000
2,200
' II -5/o
1872
18,000
21,500
3,5oo
1872
38,000
43,000
5,ooo ,
1874
17,100
18,000
900^
1874
17,100
18,000
900
,4%
1874
18,100
19,000
900
1874
15,300
15,375
75,
1875
15,500
15,000
500
1876
17,000
18,000
1,000
1878
15,500
14,000
1,500
1880
13,200
13,200
1882
14,500
13,000
1,500
1882
17,400
18,000
600
1882
14,400
15,000
600
1882
14,100
15,000
900
1882
12,700
13,000
300
1882
12,700
15,000
2,300
1883
13,200
12,550
650
1 The data were obtained from the assessors' books, except in a few instances
where the records of deeds yielded a little information. Unfortunately practically
no selling prices are recorded after 1887, the invariable record being "considera-
tion $r."
74 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
1883 10,700 14,000 3,300
1884 13,400 15,000 1,600
1884 13,000 13,000
1884 14,000 14,000
1885 12,000 12,000
1886 13,000 12,100 900
1886 15,100 13,900 1,200
1887 13,700 12,000 1,700
The table shows that up to probably 1875 the real value was in
excess of assessed valuation. For the next ten years real and assessed
values do not differ greatly, but beginning with 1885 we have assess-
ments in excess of real value. It is worthy of note that assessments
began to exceed real values at about the time of the most rapid
change from private residences to lodging-houses in the district.
If assessed valuations thirty years ago had borne the same rela-
tion to real values as is the case now, the fall of South End real
estate would appear much more pronounced than is actually
revealed by the assessors' books. The assessments then seem to
have been from ten to fifteen per cent, below the real value, while
to-day they are probably as much above. In using the assessed
valuations over a long series of years as a criterion of real value
and its fluctuations we are on entirely conservative ground.
Table 25 gives the assessed valuation of real estate on Union Park
from 1868 to 1902. Time did not permit the collection of valuations
for other streets, nor was it possible, without an undue expenditure
of labor, to carry the table back of 1868. The books for the earlier
years are difficult of access, and changes in ward lines, variations in
arrangement and naming of streets, and the like, increase the
difficulties.
TABLE 25. ASSESSED VALUATION, FIFTY HOUSES, UNION PARK,
1868-1905
1868 $824,000 1887 $661,600
1869 937,000 1888 619,200
1870 899,200 1889 619,200
1871 865,200 1890 619,200
1872 888,100 1891 618,100
1873 891,500 1892 618,200
1874 891,700 1893 618,200
REAL ESTATE IN THE DISTRICT 75
1875 892,300 1894 617,700
1876 843,300 1895 618,700
1877 788,300 1896 621,700
1878 745,500 1897 626,400
1879 727,100 1898 620,400
1880 727,400 1899 620,300
1881 722,400 1900 612,300
1882 663,500 1901 612,300
1883 663,900 1902 578,400
1884 663,500 1003 598,300
1885 663,400 1904 598,300
1886 663,700 1905 544,8oo
The table, showing a fall from $937,00x3 in 1869 to $578,000 in 1902,
and finally to $544,800 in i9O5 > even allowing for the pecuniary
disturbances of the Civil War and the '70% speaks for itself. The
average value of each house in 1875 was $17,846; in 1902 it was
only $11,568, and in 1905 only $10,896. The decline in thirty years
was thus nearly 38.4 %. 1 Individual houses can be selected showing
much larger declines. Chart vn shows graphically the facts of
Table 25.
The tremendous decline of South End real-estate values is an
incontestable fact. We have said already that the decline began
on Columbus Avenue and was due to the crisis of '73. Chart vn
shows that in Union Park also the decline began soon after that
year. The crisis was undoubtedly the prime cause for the deprecia-
tion setting in. The impending opening-up of the Back Bay lands
removed any hope of recovery. The exodus of the resident families
only helped to intensify the fall in values. Such original owners as
have retained their property have experienced a disheartening
shrinkage in its value. The following are a few samples :
TABLE 26. LOSSES SUSTAINED BY PRESENT OWNERS. (SAMPLES)
Present owner
has held since Selling price then Assessed valuation, 1902 Loss
$24,000 $17,100 $6,900
13,000 11,700 1,300
21,500 12,500 9,000
19,000 10,800 8,200
22,000 12,100 9,900
1 Three corner houses, which have been remodeled either as apartments or by
putting in stores, are omitted from these calculations.
76 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
It is but fair to remember, however, that such losses are not actually
so great as they seem, notwithstanding that they would appear
still larger could we judge of present value by market prices instead
of assessed valuations, because the loss has been largely on the
house, and was to some extent at least to have been expected. An
old house is not supposed to bring a high price any more than an
old coat. Some decline in values in the South End would probably
have occurred even had it continued a residential section. This
necessity of decline is well expressed by a recent writer: "When
the public," he says, "have been educated to prefer light stone or
brick houses to the old-fashioned brown-stone front, and modern
interior arrangements, decorations, and plumbing to former styles
of equipment, the old value of the house has about departed." 1
Furthermore, it is probable that the value of South End dwelling-
houses has touched about its lowest point. The value of the land
in the future should counterbalance the decline in the value of the
house. The great losses have already been sustained by former
owners and are irreparable. Present owners, whether they have
held the property long or not, must accept the situation, and cannot
reasonably expect to reap a rental income based on the former value
of their property. In estimating the return that present owners are
receiving we shall therefore reckon it upon present value, or, more
conservatively, upon present assessed valuation.
It is an old traditional rule in the real-estate business that a
fair rent for a dwelling-house is ten per cent, annually of its value.
This generally means from 6 per cent, to 7 per cent, net income
on the investment. Opinions of real-estate men differ as to whether
owners of lodging-house property are getting a fair return. The
average rent of sixteen houses on Union Park, Upton Street, and
West Canton Street was found by the writer to be a little over
9 per cent, of the assessed valuation. Whether this rate holds good
over the lodging-house district as a whole we have no means of
knowing, but we shall not be far wrong in assuming that it does.
It means that a house assessed at $12,000 will rent for $1080. To
derive the net income from this gross rental, we must deduct taxes,
repairs, agent's commission, and a certain amount for depreciation.
In 1902-3 the tax- rate in Boston was $14.80 per thousand. Agent's
1 Hurd, Principles of City Land Values, N. Y. 1903, p. 108.
-$
REAL ESTATE IN THE DISTRICT 77
commission is generally five per cent, of the gross rent. On old but
still substantial residences, like these, we should deduct from 4 to
5 per cent, for repairs, and about i per cent, for depreciation. 1
The annual account will then stand somewhat as follows :
Rental income, 9% of Taxes @ $1480 per mille $177.60
$12,000 $1080.00 Repairs @ 5% of $1080 54.00
Agent's commission 54.00
Depreciation @ ij% of value 180.00
Total $465.60
Balance (Net income on as-
sessed value) 614.40
$1080.00 $1080.00
Allowing for insurance this represents an annual net income of
nearly 5 per cent, on the assessed valuation; and as these are above
real value, it is safe to say that the net income is fully 5 per cent, of
the real value. We have made ample allowance for the fixed expenses.
As a matter of fact the average owner of lodging-house property
will often do without an agent, and reduce the repair bill to a ridicu-
lously low figure. Evidences of decay are apparent all over the
district, and real-estate dealers state that owners are not keeping
their property in good repair. Broadly speaking, then, it seems
that the South End property-owner manages as a rule to reap a fair
return upon the value of his property. Of the three classes involved
in the lodging-house problem, the lodgers, the lodging-house
keepers, and the owners, the latter seem to have least to complain of.
Yet the landlords are to a great extent just the class who would
object most strenuously to any curtailment of their moderate
income. In part they are the heirs of the old residents. In large part,
also, they are persons of moderate means who have invested a few
thousand dollars in lodging-house property. Their ranks include
dressmakers, clerks, carpenters, bakers, musicians, foremen,
teamsters, cashiers, machinists, bookkeepers, physicians, jewelers,
printers, bankers and brokers, florists, lawyers, real-estate agents,
and various kinds of merchants and dealers. Of 270 houses 1 16 were
found registered on the record of deeds in the names of women;
but this does not necessarily mean that so large a proportion are
1 Hurd, Principles of City Land Values, pp. 127-8, 107.
78 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
actually owned by women, since the house often stands in the wife's
name when the property really belongs to the husband.
Some of these persons have undoubtedly been hoodwinked into
buying lodging-house real estate at good round prices by unscrupu-
lous dealers, and to such a reduction of rental income might come
as something of a hardship. A considerable amount of crooked
business is done in lodging-house real estate, though not so much
as there is in furniture and good-will. Trading in equities and
juggling with mortgages are common processes. Real estate of
speculative value, like apartment-houses in course of construction,
and property depreciating in value, like South End lodging-houses,
are especially adapted to this kind of manipulation. Trading in
equities is a process by which the unwary are made to pay highly
for lodging-house real estate and often to lose all they invest. Sup-
pose, for example, that Smith owns a house which he values at
$16,000, but which on the market would not sell for anything like
that amount. Suppose also that this property is mortgaged for
$10,000. Suppose, further, that Jones, an individual entirely
unacquainted with the tricks and turns of city real estate, owns a
piece of land in the country which he values at $3000. Smith gets
Jones into a "deal," and allows him to set the value of his land at
$4000 provided the city property be set at $20,000. Jones assumes
the mortgage of $10,000, gives Smith a second mortgage of $6000
to cover the balance of the $16,000, and deeds over the land to cover
the additional $4000 of the $20,000. Smith is now the owner of land
worth $3000 and he holds a mortgage of $6000 on the town house.
Jones holds a house worth perhaps $14,000 mortgaged for $16,000,
on which sum he has to pay interest. As time goes on, Jones may
very likely be unable to meet his interest payments, the mortgages
are foreclosed, and the house is sold at auction. It will not bring
$16,000, but it will yield something over and above the $10,000
necessary to pay off the first mortgage, and this excess is pocketed
by Smith. Jones loses everything, while Smith retains the land in
the country and $3000 or $4000 in cash.
What will be the future of real estate in the lodging-house district
is hard to say. At various times real-estate dealers have thought
they saw rays of hope. The Back Bay station was expected to create
a centre of traffic and business, in what is now a negro lodging-house
REAL ESTATE IN THE DISTRICT 79
district. The inconvenience of the noisy elevated road on Washington
Street was expected to cause a shifting of real estate business to
Shawmut Avenue, nearer the centre of the lodging-house section.
But neither of these hopes was realized.
At the present time a movement is on foot to modify the tene-
ment-house law to permit the remodeling of lodging-houses into
tenements without inserting steel beams, fireproof materials, and
other expensive requirements which hitherto have made it econom-
ically impossible to "make down" a lodging-house. At present the
rules for first-class construction apply to such remodeled houses.
On April 15, 1903, the mayor appointed a commission " to investi-
gate tenement- house conditions in the city of Boston." This com-
mission submitted its report May 18, 1904, and in it makes refer-
ence to the peculiar needs of the South End.
"The commission recognizes the justice of the complaint of
many property-owners of the South and West Ends that present
laws make it practically impossible for them to reconstruct dwelling-
houses into four-story apartment-houses without incurring a burden
of expense greater than the possible income will warrant. As a
result most of these houses, no longer occupied as formerly by a
well-to-do class of single families, have become boarding- and
lodging-houses, and there has been a general depreciation in their
value. It would seem both safe and wise to provide for the altera-
tion of such houses into tenement-houses of second-class construc-
tion by relaxing the requirements that they be ' plastered on incom-
bustible materials throughout,' and removing the limitation of
the number of families which may occupy each house. If the stair-
ways are made fireproof and the rooms be properly lighted and
ventilated, if also there be sufficient open area on the lot each
house occupies, there will be no increase of danger in the recon-
struction proposed." * And again in a minority report by Mr.
Samuel M. Child: "Within the last thirty years the character and
occupation of a large section of the city has materially changed;
I refer especially to the West and South Ends, so-called, covered
with substantial, well-built, brick houses on wide streets, and
ample yard-room in the rear. Under the present building laws it
1 Report of the Commission appointed by the Mayor to investigate Tenement-
House Conditions in the City of Boston (City Document no. 77, 1904), p. 3.
80 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
is impossible to remodel these buildings and adapt them to the
changed conditions and needs of the community. There is no
reason, in my opinion, why any existing brick building in the city
limits, built as a dwelling for a single family, might not with safety
be remodeled into suites a tenement on a floor, using second-
class construction, so-called. This will house a large proportion
of the community comfortably and within the means of the average
wage-earner for many years." 1 There was thus unanimity of opinion
in the commission that owners of lodging-houses, or old dwelling-
houses, not more than four stories in height, should be allowed
to remodel them into tenements without undergoing the expensive
requirements of the present law. Should this be done, i. e., the rules
for second-class construction made applicable, lodging-houses can
be changed into tenement-houses or flats at moderate cost, or they
can be remodeled so as to fill more satisfactorily than now the
precise use of a lodging-house by having a large number of small
rooms and more adequate sanitary equipment. It is to be hoped
that this change will be made, as it would go far toward relieving
the real-estate situation in the South End. 2 The demand for tene-
ments and cheap apartments is much heavier than for lodging-
houses. 3 The change would therefore help property-holders. It
would be of social value, also, for it would create a supply of moder-
ate-priced flats within easy walking distance of the down-town
business district. It would break up the compactness of the lodging-
house district, suggest home and family to the now too often callous
lodger, and perhaps help greatly in solving the moral problem of
the district. 4
1 Report of the Commission appointed by the Mayor to investigate Tenement-
House Conditions in the City of Boston (City Document no. 77, 1904), pp. 46, 47.
2 Cf. Report of the aforesaid commission, pp. 3, 9, 41, 46, 47, 48, and 50.
3 Cf. Boston Transcript for December 10, 1903.
4 Cf. Chapters xvn and xvm.
CHAPTER X
THE LODGER: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE LODGING-HOUSE
POPULATION
THE lodgers are numerically and in every other way the most
important class with whom this investigation has to deal. We shall
perhaps best gain a general notion of the class by first analyzing
its sex and age, conjugal condition, nationality, and occupation,
and by ascertaining as best we may whence the lodgers come and
why they are lodgers.
The South End lodging-house population was briefly and well
described in 1898 in "The City Wilderness:" "They really compose
those of the working classes who are single, with a few married
couples who have not yet made themselves homes; that is, they
stand for the large number of unmarried persons who have come
to Boston from the distance to make their fortunes and have
not yet made them." Naturally most lodgers have come from other
cities and towns and from the country. Were they native to Boston,
most of them would have had parents whom they would not have
left till ready to marry and set up homes of their own.
As stated in "The City Wilderness," the lodger class is not really
characterized by nationality. Although we find representatives of
almost every country, roomers are far more homogeneous racially
than the tenement- house population. The houses of the West End
contain a larger proportion of Irish than those of the South End,
but with some few Germans and a sprinkling of Irish and English,
the great mass remain Americans and Canadians.
The Americans, who constitute by far the largest single ethnic
element, are mostly from New England and New York. They are
the farm boys and young fellows from rural New England towns,
who come to the Hub with a film of glorious prospects before their
eyes, to be clerks and salesmen, to enter business colleges and
blossom out as bookkeepers at six dollars a week. They are skilled
mechanics who come from other cities to help in the industries
82 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
of Boston. They are negroes of the South, who, attracted by wider
opportunities than the conservatism of the South will afford them,
and by an already extensive colony of their race, come to Boston
in the hope of bettering their condition. They are young girls who
come from rocky farms and hill towns to escape the irksome drudg-
ery and monotony' of petty household duties; girls who have grown
tired, very early in their lives, perhaps, of helping their mothers
wash the dishes and pare the potatoes, and who have set their eyes
to the city as a sort of Mecca for all in search of opportunity. They
come to struggle along as clerks and stenographers, as milliners and
dressmakers, as fancy-workers, nurses, and waitresses. Not a few
come as students, to have their hearts gnawed at by homesickness,
and to starve themselves on one meal a day, for the sake of an idea.
The Canadians come mostly from the Lower Provinces, and as
a rule do not intend to remain long in Boston. This is more espe-
cially true of the girls, a large number of whom come as domestic
servants, and who always have hosts of cousins and other relatives
scattered about in the lodging-houses. Those who are not house-
hold servants are manicurists, dressmakers, waitresses, and the like.
The sexes seem about equally divided. According to the State
Census of 1895, 65.1 per cent, of the lodgers were males, but as
this applies to all conditions of lodgers, wherever found, whether
in suburban districts or in the lowest cheap houses of the West End,
it has little value for us.
While the lodging-class is characterized, as we shall see, by the
absence of children, and by an age-grouping in the productive
period of life; while also it is characteristically a class of unmar-
ried persons, on the one hand fairly homogeneous in nationality,
and on the other extremely heterogeneous in occupation; still none
of these traits would in itself so sharply differentiate it from other
classes as does the fact that above all the lodging-house class is
a floating population, or, as a noted French economist has called
it, a population nomade. 1 The following table is instructive on this
point:
1 Leroy-Beaulieu, in Repartition des Richesses. See post, p. 105.
THE LODGER: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 83
TABLE 27. NUMBER OF ADULT MALE LODGERS, (A) WHO CHANGED,
AND (B) WHO DID NOT CHANGE THEIR PLACE OF RESIDENCE
BETWEEN MAY I, 1902, AND MAY I, 1903
NOTE. The column headed "Here" includes all lodgers who were in the same
house at both dates; that headed "Out of Boston" those who on May i, 1902, were
living outside the city; that headed "In Boston" those who were living in the city,
but at some other address; and that headed "Unknown" those whose addresses
on the earlier date could not be ascertained by the police, who made the canvass.
Out of
Total Here Boston In Boston Unknown
Ward 12, Precinct i 737 383 115 164 75
Ward 12, Precinct 2 843 440 99 195 109
Ward 12, Precinct 3 454 225 57 129 43
Ward 12, Precinct 4 873 450 132 222 69
Ward 12, Precinct 5 600 278 95 174 53
Ward 12, Precinct 6 514 302 63 115 34
Ward 12, Precinct 7 285 180 20 68 17
Ward 9, Precinct 5 1039 450 165 309 115
Ward 9, Precinct 6 852 400 119 234 99
Ward 10, Precinct 3 674 311 195 93 75
Ward 10, Precinct 4 631 301 209 71 50
Ward 10, Precinct 5 549 259 92 in 87
Ward 10, Precinct 6 790 358 233 93 106
Totals 8,841 4,337 1,594 1,978 932
Per cent, of total 100. 49.03 18.04 22.38 IO -55
Total per cent, known living elsewhere 40.42
Total per cent, living elsewhere 5-97
A word of explanation will make clear the meaning of this table.
The Annual Precinct Lists of Male Residents give not only the
name, age, occupation, and present address of each man twenty
years old or over, but also his address a year previous, where it
could be ascertained. The table shows that, out of the total of
8841 lodgers included, only 49 per cent, had not changed their
place of abode during the year. There is no reason to suppose that
the facts would appear differently for women lodgers, had we any
data wherewith to judge their case.
To make this matter perfectly clear it may not be out of place
to see at a given date what the distribution was a year before of
84 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
lodgers in a few individual houses, taken at random. In one house,
for instance, out of a total of fifteen male lodgers, only five had
been there as long as a year. In a house on Columbus Avenue
nine male lodgers had been distributed as follows: a furniture
dealer and a librarian had been there as much as a year, two musi-
cians had come from other addresses in the city, a student from
Georgetown, a bookkeeper from New Hampshire, another student
from Michigan, another from Dedham, and a merchant from a
previous address unknown. In a house on Concord Square, with
six male lodgers, none had been there a year before; two, a clerk
and a reporter, had come from Worcester; a draftsman came
from Maine, a polisher from .Duxbury, and two salesmen from
some other part of the city. In a house in Waltham Street, which
had an unusually large number of male lodgers, twenty-three in all,
eight had been there a year or more, a steam-fitter, a fireman,
a dancing-master, a brick-layer, a printer, and an elevator- man;
seven had lived elsewhere in the city a photographer, a painter,
a collector, a carpet-layer, a foreman, a mason, and a janitor. Of
the remaining men, a waiter had come from Lynn, a bartender
from Ireland, a brakeman from Montana, a provision-dealer and
a clerk from Nova Scotia, a salesman from Waltham, a carpenter
from New York, and a machinist from Quincy. Such a list could
be extended indefinitely.
It is interesting also to note in this connection that out of a list
of the addresses of nearly three hundred and fifty members, kindly
furnished us by one of the city's largest organizations for young
men, we found that probably two thirds had been changed within
eight months. One of the largest churches in the South End has a
card catalogue containing the names of some five thousand lodgers.
The pastor says he would be glad if half the addresses were correct.
The fact that nearly 20 per cent, of the lodgers now in Boston
were a year ago living outside the city is merely a phase of the great
movement, the constant flow, of population from country to city,
which we have mentioned in an earlier chapter. Various causes may
be assigned for the great amount of moving from place to place within
the city. Dissatisfaction with rooms and room-mates, the idea that
some other place is better, or at least not so bad, pure restlessness
under distressingly irksome surroundings, change in place of
THE LODGER: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS 85
employment, change of landladies, or discontinuance of the house
in which they lodged, are all causes of an incessant ebb and flow
of lodgers from one house and one locality to another.
This extreme fluidity of the lodging-house population makes it
a difficult one to manipulate for any one but the ward politicians,
who find it much to their taste. A difficulty scarcely less important,
in the way of social betterment, is the heterogeneity of occupation,
to which the following chapter is devoted.
CHAPTER XI
THE LODGER: OCCUPATION
LIKE most other urban statistics, those of occupation are published
by wards only, and not by precincts or blocks, as would be necessary
for a segregation of the statistics of occupations for lodgers. We are
therefore forced to resort to other data. The only source from which
it seems possible to derive any statistical information whatever
for occupations is the series of Precinct Lists of Male Residents.
Any one sufficiently acquainted with the minute local geography
of the lodging-house district can use these voting-lists to reach
some estimation of the vocational constitution of the lodger class.
By an intelligent use of the lists we can exclude persons living in
apartment- and tenement-houses and in private residences, and
have left as a basis of calculation only those living in lodging-houses.
We can then estimate the relative number of the lodgers engaged in
the various occupations and branches of employment, compare
these proportions with the proportions shown for the city as a whole,
note any tendency of lodgers of the same occupation to congregate
in the same locality, show the variety of occupations represented
in typical lodging-house streets and in typical individual houses,
and finally analyze the effects of lodging-house life upon the labor
efficiency of the men and women subject to its influences.
It must be understood, however, that the data furnished by these
lists apply only to adult males. For male lodgers under twenty years
of age we have no statistical data. But first-hand acquaintance with
the lodging-class shows that the number of male minor lodgers is
small. Nor have we any statistical information for that half of the
lodging-house population which consists of women. This is greatly
to be regretted.
Attention in this chapter should be directed not so much to the
absolute numbers given as to the percentages derived from them. In
a calculation of this kind we obviously cannot hope to include all
the lodgers living within the district covered. Only such houses
THE LODGER: OCCUPATION 87
have been included as were, according to all evidences, almost
certainly to be classed as lodging-houses. Tenement-houses, apart-
ments, private residences, and in some cases whole streets, have
been excluded, and with them undoubtedly many persons who in a
regular census would be classed as lodgers. Most fairly viewed the
statistical method we have been compelled to use is that of sampling. 1
While perhaps the absolute numbers do not mean much, we are
confident that the percentages would not differ materially in a
complete enumeration.
The total number of male lodgers included in our calculations
in this chapter is 7631. Their distribution among the four great
branches of employment is shown in the following table, which is
based on data for the thirteen precincts constituting the South End
lodging-house district. 2
TABLE 28. BRANCHES OF OCCUPATION, ADULT MALE LODGERS
Branch of Employment Number Per cent, of total
Professional service 951 13.5
Domestic and personal service 1303 17.
Trade and transportation 349 45-5
Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 1887 25
Total 7631 loo.
The striking fact in this table is the very large percentage engaged
in trade and transportation. Most of these men, as we shall see,
are clerks, salesmen, and small dealers. Together with the skilled
workmen, who make up the mass of those engaged in manufactur-
ing and mechanical pursuits, they lend the lodging-house population
its characteristic tone. The percentage of domestic and personal
servants is swelled by the great number of negro waiters living about
the Back Bay Station.
Turning to the census of employments for all Boston in 1900,
we find that there were 180,052 males ten years old and over engaged
in the four great branches of occupation above tabulated, dis-
tributed as follows:
1 Cf . Bowley, Elements of Statistics, p. 308.
2 Agriculture of course is not included. Certain miscellaneous employments,
represented by only a few men each, which could not well be classified under any
of the four heads, are excluded.
88 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
TABLE 29. OCCUPATION OF MALES, TEN YEARS OF AGE AND OVER,
BOSTON, 1900 1
Branch of Employment Number Per cent, of total
Professional service 10,866 6.5
Domestic and personal service 37>749 20.5
Trade and transportation 79*667 38.5
Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 61,770 34.5
Evidently this is a somewhat more even distribution than that of
the lodgers.
A comparison of Table 29 with Table 28 will show whether
the lodging-house draws its clientele proportionally more heavily
from one branch of occupation than from another. 2
TABLE 30. OCCUPATION OF MALE ADULT LODGERS, AND OF MALES
IN ALL BOSTON
Males ten
Male lodgers years old Per cent.
20 years old, and over, excess (+) for
Branch of Employment and over all Boston lodgers
Professional service 13 .5% 6.5% 6.0% ( + )
Domestic and personal service 17.0 20.5 3.5 (-)
Trade and transportation 45.5 38.5 7.0 ( + )
Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits 25.0 34.5 9.5 (-)
It is evident that proportionally a larger number of professional
men and of men following commercial pursuits (trade and trans-
portation) than of skilled workmen or of domestic and personal
servants, live in lodgings. The most striking difference appears
in the professional service class. Here the proportion in lodging-
houses is almost twice that in the professional class at large, and in
this case no part of the difference can be due to the difference in
age limitations in the two sets of percentages, since there are prac-
tically no professional men who are under twenty years of age.
That 950 out of some 7600 lodgers should be engaged in professional
callings is a noteworthy fact. The presence in lodging-houses of so
1 Compiled from the Twelfth U. S. Census, Population, part ii, Table 94.
2 It is well to point out, however, that Table 29 includes males between the ages
of ten and twenty, who were not included in the table for lodgers. While this fact
theoretically renders the two tables incomparable, it seems probable, as already
stated, that the number of male lodgers under twenty years of age is in fact too small
to alter the results materially.
THE LODGER: OCCUPATION 89
many men of this class is to be explained by two causes. First,
professional men are under great expense for their education and
technical training, and are slower in gaining a footing than men in
other employments. They cannot marry and establish homes of
their own so soon, and in consequence the lodging-house naturally
becomes their abiding-place for a time. Secondly, a considerable
number of physicians, dentists, and the like, men whose employ-
ments are to a great extent necessarily localized, are doubtless drawn
to the lodging-house district to be near their patrons and clients,
actual or hoped-for. A large number of engineers and electricians
also add to the ranks of professional men in lodgings. 1
The larger relative number of clerks, salesmen, etc., in lodging-
houses than in the city as a whole is to be expected. The average
shop-girl lives at home with her parents or relatives, in the city or
the suburbs; but the ordinary clerk or salesman, earning often not
so much as the average skilled mechanic, yet feeling himself on a
higher social plane than the latter, is for a long time unwilling to
marry and assume the responsibility of home and family, and con-
sequently remains indefinitely in his lodging-house.
Turning to the skilled workman we find an excess percentage not
on the side of the lodgers, but on that of the population as a whole.
Here again the use of the same age limit in both tables might
increase slightly the number in lodgings, but on the whole it seems
that the skilled mechanic does not take to the lodging-house as a
semi-permanent abode with quite the same freedom as does the
mercantile employee. Two reasons are to be assigned for this also.
First, the workman does not like to live too far from his work,
and there is but one factory district within easy walking distance
from the lodging-house district of the South End. 2 Secondly, it is
probable that skilled workmen marry earlier than mercantile
employees.
Of men engaged in domestic and personal service we find also
a larger proportion in the population at large than in the lodging-
1 By the United States Census, engineers and electricians are classified as profes-
sional men. It would seem that electricians would be more properly classified as
skilled mechanics.
2 Cf. R. F. Phelps, South End Factory Employees and Their Homes, Boston, 1903.
(Published by the South End House Association.)
90 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
houses, but the difference is not great. That it is not greater is due
largely to the large number of negroes in the lodging-house district
immediately contiguous to the Back Bay Station. That it is so large,
on the other hand, is perhaps due to the fact that the percentage
for the whole city includes a great number of day laborers, who
are classed by the census as domestic and personal servants, and
few of whom are to be found in lodging-houses.
We have now to consider whether any tendency is evident for
lodgers of the same general occupation to congregate in the same
locality. Occupation is one of the strongest bases of sociability.
It strengthens sympathy and the "consciousness of kind" between
individuals by giving them a strong community of interest. This,
together with variations in incomes and standards of living in
different employments, should lead us to expect some tendency
toward a geographical grouping by occupation.
The distribution of male adult lodgers is shown graphically in
Charts vui, ix, x, and xi. The geographical divisions are precincts.
Table 31 gives the data from which these charts were constructed:
TABLE 3I. 1 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, BY OCCUPATION, AND
BY WARDS AND PRECINCTS, OF MALE ADULT LODGERS, SOUTH
END LODGING-HOUSE DISTRICT, 1903
Ward 9 Ward 10 Ward
Precinct: 5 634561234567 Total per
cent.
Branch of occupa-
tion
Prof. serv. . . . 10.8 9.0 6.8 6.5 6.3 8.1 12.0 13.3 5.7 10.4 4.4 4.6 2.1 too
Bom. and pers. . 10.7 5.7 8.8 12.5 15.5 15.2 4.7 3.9 3.7 6.8 4.9 4.5 3.1 100
Tr. and trans. . . 10.0 9.0 7.9 5.5 4.6 8.9 9.9 n.6 4.7 10.7 7.6 6.4 3.2 too
Mfg. and mch. 213 122 7.5 6.3 3.2 5.7 52 5.5 5.5 9.9 6.4 6.4 4.9 100
Percentage of total
number of lodgers
(7631). 13.0 9.2 78 7.0 63 9.0 8.0 9.0 4.8 9.8 6.6 6.0 3.5 100
The significant facts brought out by this table are the concentra-
tion of professional men in Precincts i, 2, and 4 of Ward 12, and
in Precinct 5 of Ward 9; the very pronounced concentration of
domestic and personal servants in Precincts 4, 5, and 6 of Ward 10,
together with a secondary grouping in Precinct 5 of Ward 9; the
grouping of persons engaged in trade and transportation in Pre-
cincts i, 2, and 4 of Ward 12; and finally, the heavy concentration
of skilled mechanics in Precincts 5 and 6 of Ward 9.
1 Summarized from Tables 32, 33, 34, and 35.
THE LODGER: OCCUPATION 91
Let us look for a moment at each branch of occupation separately.
1. Professional Service. Table 31 and Chart vm show that the
professional men are strongly centralized in a district in Ward 12
bounded roughly by Massachusetts Avenue, Tremont Street, West
Canton Street, and the Hartford railroad tracks. This area is the
best part of the South End lodging-house district. The general
absence of professional men from Precincts 3, 4, and 5 of Ward 10 is
explained by the large number of domestic and personal servants
that appear in these precincts, as is clear from Chart ix.
2. Domestic and Personal Service. Nearly two thirds of the
lodgers classified as domestic and personal servants (about 1300)
reside, as shown by Table 31 and Chart ix, in the four precincts of
Ward 10, and in Precinct 5 of Ward 9, in other words in a belt of
territory extending across the South End from the Back Bay Station
and the Hartford Railroad to Tremont Street and the lower part
of Shawmut Avenue. A large number of negro waiters, cooks and
stewards, barbers, janitors, and porters find rooms in the western
part of this belt, and constitute the bulk of this class to be found
in lodgings. The intersection of Dartmouth Street and Columbus
Avenue marks about the centre of this negro colony. Their choice
of this locality is probably due, in part at least, to its proximity to
the apartment-house, hotel, and private residence districts of the
Back Bay just across the railroad and beyond Copley Square.
3. Manufacturing and Mechanical Pursuits. As is shown in
Chart x, the skilled workmen are concentrated heavily in the
down-town end of the district. There is but one centre of density
for this class the two precincts, 5 and 6, of Ward 9, where
exactly one third of the skilled mechanics are lodged. The chief
reasons why they are centralized here (between Dover and West
Dedham streets, and Tremont and Washington streets) are: first,
the proximity of the South End factory district, secondly the near-
ness of the down-town business district, which is within easy walking
distance, and thirdly perhaps the fact that the locality is somewhat
less "genteel" than the districts farther out in Ward 12. Those
portions of the latter ward which show a strong centralization of
the professional and business classes show very small percentages
for mechanical pursuits, a bit of evidence that the two classes do not
much tend toward social amalgamation. Precinct 5 of Ward 9
92 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
shows a large percentage both of skilled mechanics and of profes-
sional men, but electricians and engineers here make up a large
proportion of the professional class.
4. Trade and Transportation. Turning to Chart xi, we find
in this same district of Ward 12 a large percentage of mercantile
employees. The strongest grouping of this class is, however, in
the outer precincts of Ward 12, coinciding roughly with that of the
professional men.
While, then, to summarize the conclusions to be reached from
this survey, we may say that no especially surprising concentrations
are noted, nevertheless the district is differentiated into well-defined
localities each of which is characterized by its own occupational
class. Acquaintance with the district fully corroborates the evidence
of this analysis. The tendency of the professional and commercial
classes to congregate in Ward 12, of the clerks to settle thickly
in the lodging-house part of Ward 9, and of the domestic and
personal servants to concentrate in certain precincts of Ward 10,
lends a tone of its own to each district, and is in part also a result
of that distinctive tone. 1
The details upon which the foregoing analysis is made are given
in Tables 34, 35, 36, and 37, which show the actual number con-
sidered in each occupation. Points of minor interest are the central-
ization of physicians in Precincts i, 2, 4, and 5 of Ward 12 (Table
34), and the great number of clerks and salesmen that appear in
Table 35. (See Appendix to this chapter.)
The importance of individual occupations is shown in the follow-
ing table, for all in which more than one hundred persons were
found :
TABLE 32. OCCUPATIONS OF MALE LODGERS, IN ORDER OF NUMBER
EMPLOYED
Clerks 1002 Foremen, managers, etc. 203
Salesmen 610 Engineers 177
Merchants and dealers 411 Real est. and insurance agents 157
Waiters 361 Cooks and stewards 152
1 " The distribution of any element of the population over the city is significant
both as indicating the character of the element and as accounting in some measure
for its character." Lillian Brandt, The Negroes oj St. Louis, in the Publications
of the American Statistical Association, March, 1903, p. 219.
ff) <i
THE LODGER: OCCUPATION 93
Bookkeepers 303 Electricians 130
Machinists 269 Tailors 124
Carpenters 260 Physicians 123
Railroad employees 256 Laborers 119
Painters and paper-hangers 242 Piano- and cabinet-makers 117
Printers 220 Agents (not specified) 115
Teamsters 212 Plumbers, gas- and steam-fitters 105
Various scattering trades and occupations are represented by
only a few persons each. The wide range of occupation of lodgers
is apparent, however, when we find representatives not only of the
callings included in the tables, but the following as well: photo-
grapher, sailor, pilot, sail-maker, sea captain, justice of the peace,
laundryman, boat-builder, window-dresser, purse-maker, horse-
trainer, meter-reader, property-man, scene-shifter, embalmer, fur-
rier, rubber-worker, speculator, poet, coffee-roaster, carpet-layer,
brush-maker, nailer, time-keeper, cooper, paver, gas-prover, proof-
reader, paper-ruler, and chauffeur.
The heterogeneity of lodgers, vocationally, is well illustrated,
also, by the variety of occupations found in any one street or block
of houses, or in individual houses taken at random. This may be
noted by referring back to the instances given of the change of
address of lodgers. (Page 84.) Two other examples may be given
here, including women as well as men lodgers: In a house on
Street there were at one time a bookkeeper, an elderly lady
with no occupation, a single woman of some means, a student in
Technology, an expert stenographer, a young man of independent
income, a law student, a clerk in a newspaper office, a nurse, a
fortune-teller, and a commercial traveler. In another house, not far
from Copley Square there were at once a bookkeeper (woman),
two clerks (men), a draughtswoman, an architect, an accountant
for a piano concern, a harness-maker, two women from California,
a broker and his wife, a professor in one of the leading educational
institutions of the city, a policeman, and the landlady's son and
his wife.
Barring the fact that fewer occupations are open to women, we
should find, had we the requisite data, the same heterogeneity of
occupation among women lodgers as among men. In the absence
of even such imperfect data as are afforded us for men by the pre-
94 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
cinct voting-lists, we must fall back upon personal observation. In
the case of two hundred women lodgers taken at random from
all parts of the district, we have the following vocational distribu-
tion:
TABLE 33. DISTRIBUTION OF (200) WOMEN LODGERS BY
OCCUPATION
Wives, no employment 33 Bookkeepers 8
Single women, no employment. 16 Milliners 8
Stenographers 16 Students 5
Waitresses 16 Tailoresses 4
Dressmakers 15 Sewing-girls 4
Saleswomen 12 Teachers 4
Nurses 12 Cooks 2
Clerks 10 Art students 2
and one each of the following : book -agent, real-estate agent, agent, cashier,
cashier in hardware-store, cashier in millinery-store, cashier in restaurant, clerk
in photographer's studio, draughtswoman, designer of monuments, property-
woman in theatre, telegraph-operator, masseuse, manicurist, teacher on sewing-
machine, teacher of millinery, stitcher, dress-fitter, passe-partout worker,
straw -plaiter, straw-shop worker, "in city for her health," "taking piano-
lessons," "missionary from Colorado," unknown, 4; total, 200.
The number of married women not working is noteworthy. The
husbands of such are men who have reached the more lucrative
stages of employment than has the average lodger. In many cases
both husband and wife work, and then some curious combinations
are found: husband a draughtsman, wife a clerk; husband a real-
estate agent, wife a milliner; here a machinist and a dress- trimmer
have joined forces ; and there a barber and a stenographer.
The single women without employment are chiefly old ladies,
most of them living on modest incomes, or supported by some
relative or by charity. No comment is needed upon the large number
of stenographers, dressmakers, nurses, bookkeepers, and milliners.
The large number of waitresses is in part due to the demand from
the local cafe's. The saleswomen and clerks, if this table represents
their true proportion in the lodging-house population, must be
employed for the most part in small stores and offices, since a com-
paratively small number of girls employed in the big department
stores live in lodging-houses. Some investigation was made of this
point. In one store, employing 176 sales-girls, only seven lived in
THE LODGER: OCCUPATION
95
lodging-houses, 19 boarded or lived with friends or relatives, and
the other 150 lived at home. Out of 782 clerks and sales-girls in
another large department store, only 83 lived in the South End
lodging-house district, and probably not all of these in lodging-
houses. The low wages paid this class of employees does not permit
of their living in lodgings. Some large department stores make a
special point of employing only girls who live at home, whom they
can secure at low wages.
APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI
TABLE 34. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Ward g. Ward 10. Ward 12
.
Precinct : 5
6
3
4 5
6 i
2
3
4 5
6
7
Per
Totals*
Occupation
cent.
4
3
2 I
2 1
4
_
_ _
4
2
3
3.2
3
3
6 3
10 15
13
7
7 3
i
4
86
9.0
4
3
- 12
6 a
6
4
3 i
2
48
5-0
Architects and draughts-
5
3
5 3
4 8
8
2
8 3
2
58
6.1
Physicians 9
12
4
2
4
s i
3 3
6 24
3 3
18
5
5
4
i? 13
7 i
4
I
123
41
>*.9
4.3
Clergymen . . .
2
i
2 I
5 i
2
i
2 3
-
I
21
2.2
Teachers
9
3
7 6
3 ii
9
2
4 2
2
2
60
6. 3
Lawyers . 3
7
4
2 I
12 9
M
I
II 2
9
-
75
8.0
Journalists i
Literary and scientific
10
2
4
i 3
5
3 3
3 9
3
2
9
3
3 i
6 i
i
i
I
42
35
4-4
3-7
18.6
Electricians . 22
5
12
12 9
9 7
19
4
18 I
7
4
5
177
130
13-7
Miscellaneous 7
2
2
- 2
I 2
4
i
2 I
i
25
2.6
Totals . 103
85
64
62 60
77 "4
127
54
99 42
44
20
95i
1 00.0
Per cent.
. 10.8 9.0 6.8 6.5 63 8.1 12.0 13.3 5.7 10.4 4.4 4.6 2.1 100.0
TABLE 35. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, DOMESTIC AND
PERSONAL SERVICE
Ward 9. Ward 10. Ward 12.
Precinct :
,
5
6
3
4
5
6
Occupation
Waiters ....
32
16
38
50
81
75
Cooks and stewards
3*
'4
'7
16
ii
'4
Restaurant keepers . .
5
6
5
5
6
i*
|
IO
4
2
7
Policemen, watchmen,
j
etc
g
6
5
9
2
5
Barbers
IO
a
8
12
IO
16
4
a
3
2
I
a
Janitors
Laborers
3
20
IO
II
7
3
IO
6
IO
15
22
13
Miscellaneous ....
16
19
49
65
38
Totals ....
139
74
116
163
202
I 9 8
I
2
3
4
5
6
7
Totals.
Per
cent.
.8
5
22
8
16
5
5
361
27.7
a
3
5
14
7
8
3
S3
1 1.6
6
6
5
4
4
a
54
4-i
-
4
2
10
8
9
a
79
6.0
6
4
2
ii
Q
6
5
79
6.0
i
S
-
9
3
4
So
6.1
16
6
_
12
3
3
54
4-1
4
2
-
7
i
6
6
88
6.8
ll
3
5
9
5
8
10
119
8-4
a
'3
ii
4
9
4
7
37
18.2
62
5i
47
89
65
57
40
1303
100.0
Percent. . . . 10.7 5.7 8.8 12.5 15.5152 4.7 39 37 6.8 4.9 45 3-* "
96 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
TABLE 36. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION, TRADE AND
TRANSPORTATION
Ward 9.
Ward
10
Ward
12.
Precinct :
5
6
3
4
5
6
i
2
3
4
5 6
7
Per
Occupation
Totals.
cent.
Salesmen . ...
48
67
53
38
33
62
75
6 7
27
54
43 25
18
610
'7-5
Clerks
123
I O2
88
60
42
97
93
* *3
ce
85
52 6 1
3 l
1 002
28.8
Bookkeepers ....
33
25
28
ii
18
32
27
34
jj
' 14
37
i/ 17
IO
303
8.7
Commercial travelers
7
4
5
2
6
8
5
15
4
8
8 4
a
78
2.2
Railroad employees . .
27
27
19
19
15
15
18
16
3
23
39 28
7
256
7-4
Real estate and insur.
agents ....
9
17
14
8
i
9
17
'9
12
3i
10 7
3
i57
4-5
Agents (not specified) .
Merchants and dealers
13
18
14
3
9
14
8
23
10
22
9
37
ii
38
16
65
I
'9
ii
57
6 7
40 35
13
"5
411
3-3
11.7
Foremen, managers, etc.
ii
10
'9
ii
9
IS
24
27
12
26
21 10
i
203
5-8
Bankers and brokers
i
5
9
2
2
3
6
!4
2
6
6 i
i
58
17
Contractors and builders
2
3
i
-
-
2
9
6
2
S
i i
a
34
I.O
Manufacturers ....
-
2
I
-
4
5
2
-
2
3
i
20
.6
Publishers
-
-
I
-
-
i
2
I
-
I 2
i
9
.2
Teamsters ....
56
IO
13
II
4
13
5
II
10
29
16 19
15
212
6.1
Miscellaneous ....
-
-
7
8
3
3 i
22
.6
Totals ....
348
3'4
275
194
162
306
34'
4'5
165
374
263 221
112
349
1 00.0
Per cent.
10.0 9.0 7.9 5.5 4.6 8.9 9.9 1 1. 6 4.7 10.7 7.6 6.4 3.2 100.0
TABLE 37. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION: MANUFACTURES AND
MECHANICAL PURSUITS
Precinct :
Occupation
Carpenters - .
Ward 9.
5 ~~6
64 34
14 15
59 34
22 17
6 5
Ward 10
Ward
12.
Totals.
260
92
242
'36
Per
cent.
3-7
49
12.8
5-5
24
7
23
8
4
16
4
18
7
2
3
8
3
2
6
13
3
'3
6
2
i
12
I
16
4
2
9
8
7
4
2
12
4
12
8
3
4
28
8
21
6
5
'7
IO
18
8
2
6
17
12
II
4
2
7
6
T
3
2
Painters and paper-hang-
Plumbers, and gas and
steam-fitters ....
Other building trades .
Total for building trades
Machinists .
Other iron and steel-
workers
Other metal-workers
Total for metal trades .
Printing trades (chiefly
printers) ...
Textile trades (chiefly
lt>5
105
62
47
'3
37
JO
30
37
76
55
46
24
735
38.8
69
'9
14
4'
7
IO
18
4
4
19
4
3
7
2
3
15
3
i
IO
9
IO
4
14
4
2
6
4
9
8
M
10
2
4
6
2
269
82
58
143
4-S
J.O
7O2
J8
26
26
72
i<)
20
'7
2O
49
22
20
12
409
27.5
39
i?
22
I?
II
14
12
i?
8
IO
9
10
8
17
9
4
8
6
6
18
7
4
i
6
5
4
IO
7
5
3
13
'3
5
5
2
4
8
13
12
7
i
4
4
26
9
3
3
4
i
9
20
5
4
2
I
4
7
7
8
5
5
7
5
IO
14
8
'3
4
5
i
4
18
14
5
7
6
2
S
7
S
S
4
3
6
220
124
"7
22
64
63
47
86
n.6
6.5
6-3
i.i
3-4
3-4
2-5
4.6
Piano and cabinet-mak-
Other wood-workers . .
Shoe-makers and leather-
workers .
Butchers and bakers
Cigar-makers ....
Miscellaneous ....
Totals ....
Per cent. . .
402
ai-3
228
12.2
142
7-5
118
6-3
58
32
106
5-7
97
52
102
5-5
102
5-5
85
9'9
129
6.4
129
6.4
4-9
1887
1 00.0
1 00.0
CHAPTER XII
THE LODGER: ECONOMIC CONDITION
EMPLOYMENT is the key to income, which is the measure of possible
expenditure. An individual's economic condition is measured by
the size of his income and by the expenses which he must regularly
meet out of it. Knowing a lodger's occupation, we can estimate
his income and compare with it certain fixed weekly charges he
must meet.
Not all lodgers are wage-earners. There are many wives sup-
ported by husbands, some husbands supported by wives; there
are many students, and many old people, some living on the income
from past savings, some on the bounty of relatives, some on charity.
But the vast majority of lodgers, both men and women, are paid
workers.
Until recently we have had no reliable statistics of the wages of
mercantile employees in Boston, but Part in of the Annual Report
of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor for 1902 consists
of a collection of mercantile wages and salaries. The Report covers
455 establishments in the heart of the business district, and 9454
employees. Tables 38 and 39 are based on it. Table 40 is from
trade-union sources.
TABLE 38. LOWEST, HIGHEST, AND AVERAGE WEEKLY INCOME,
SELECTED MERCANTILE EMPLOYMENTS, BOSTON, 1902
Lowest
Highest
Average
Men Women Men Women Men Women
Buyers
Bookkeepers
Bookkeepers' assistants
Clerks
Cashiers
Stenographers
Commercial travelers
Salesmen
$15-16
$15-16
$125
$81
$3566
$26.07
6- 7
5-6
57-58
25-26
19-73
1 1. 06
II.OXJ
9.89
4- 5
3- 4
28-29
2O-2I
11.22
I2.5O
5-6
3~ 4
23-24
18-19
13.20
7.89
8- 9
4- 5
16-17
2O-2I
12.03
10.86
xo-ri
IOO
28.22
3-4 3-4
60 24-25 14.99 8.04
THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
Lowest Highest Average
Men Women Men Women Men Women
$9-10 $4-5 $34-35
4- 5
$11-12 $16.49
10.67
$6.71
1 1 -1 2 23-24
6-7 30-31
15-57
13-93
2- 3 2-3 18-19
5-6 14-15
IO -33
9-10 9.10
9-5
4.83
TABLE 39. LOWEST, HIGHEST, AND AVERAGE WEEKLY INCOME,
SELECTED EMPLOYMENTS OF THE DOMESTIC AND PERSONAL
SERVICE CLASS, BOSTON, 1902
Cooks
Cooks' assistants
Bartenders
Watchmen
Laborers
Waiters
Janitors
TABLE 40. WAGES OF MECHANICS, SKILLED AND UNSKILLED,
BOSTON, 1903-4, UNDER TRADE UNION SCHEDULES 1
Steam-fitters
Plumbers
Gas-fitters
Plasterers
Brick -layers
Masons
Carpenters
Elevator-constructors
House-smiths
Sheet-metal workers
Painters
Decorators
Structural-iron workers
Roofers
Electricians
Steam-fitters
Pipe-coverers
Marble-cutters
Freestone-cutters
Laborers
Plasterers' laborers
Cement-workers
Cement-workers' helpers
Art-glass workers
1 This wage-list was kindly furnished the writer by Mr. Harry B. Taplin, Amherst
Fellow at the South End House, Boston, 1902-04, who has made a special study of
trade-unionism in Boston.
Wages per week,
Hours
assuming constant
per day
Wages per day
employment
8
$3.50-4 co
$21.00-24.00
8
3.75-4.00
22 50-24.00
8
3-50
21. OO
8
4.00
24.00
8
4.40
26.40
8
4.40
26.40
8
3.00
18.00
8
3.60.
21.60
8
3.00-350
18.00-21. oo
8
2.75-3-50
16.50-21.00
8
2.80-3.00
16 80-18.00
8
3.20-4.00
19.20-24.00
8
4.00
24.00
8
3-oo
18.00
8
3-2
19.20
8
3.50-4.00
21.00-24.00
8
3-0
18.00
8
3.50-4.00
21.00-24.00
8
4.00
2400
8 or 9
2.40 or 2.70
14.40-16.20
8
2.75-3.00
16.50-18.00
8
3.00-3.50
18.00-21. oo
8
2.00-2.25
12.00-15.00
8
3.00-3.50
18.00-21. oo
THE LODGER: ECONOMIC CONDITION 99
Steam-fitters' helpers 8 2.00-2.50 12.00-15.00
Tile-layers 8 4.25 2 5-5
Tile-layers' helpers 8 2.50 15.00
Woodworkers 50 hours per wk. 2.80-4.00 16.80-24.00
Hardwood finishers 50 hours per wk. 2.80 up 16.80 up.
Paper-hangers (piece-work) 4.00 up 24.00 up.
Cigar-makers (piece-work) 20.00
These tables are sufficient to give some idea of the weekly income
of the vocational classes that constitute the greater part of the
lodging-house population. Certain fixed and regular expenses,
namely, room- rent, board, laundry, and in many cases car-fare,
must be met. What remains of weekly income may go for clothing,
etc. As the greater part of the lodging-house district is within easy
walking distance of the business district we shall exclude car-fare
from this discussion, especially as we can scarcely hope to arrive
at any correct estimate of it for the mass of lodgers. Laundry
expenses also vary. Fifty cents a week might suffice one person,
while another could not get along on a dollar. Laundry expense
is harder on women and girls than on men. Many lodgers do a part
of their own washing, although most landladies object to it.
The two main charges are of course board and room-rent. The
writer made an attempt in the early part of his labors on this inves-
tigation to gather some statistics at first hand in regard to these
two items, but it was productive of such meagre results for the labor
expended that it was not persisted in. However, such results as
were obtained, together with general information as to lodging-
house rates, render it certain that the average weekly payment for
room-rent is not far from two dollars per person. One hundred and
five persons in eight houses on Union Park, for example, paid an
average weekly rent of $2.34, while eighty-one persons in five houses
on Upton Street near by paid a weekly average of only $1.90. The
individual averages for the eight houses on Union Park ran respec-
tively as follows: $2.14, $2.18, $1.94, $2.25, $2.80, $2.71, $2.32,
$2.40. This shows considerable variation from house to house.
Nearly as much is shown by the houses on Upton Street: $1.96,
$1.65, $1.80, $2.00, $2.10. One house on Dartmouth Street shows
an average of $3.16. Where the averages for different streets and
different houses so close together vary so much, a general average
100 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
for the whole district, even had we the data for its calculation, would
obviously give little information concerning the actual cost of
rooms to individuals. Naturally a person can, within limits, suit
the price of his room to his purse. The great demand, as shown
by room-registry experience, seems to be for $2.00 and $3.00 rooms.
The average prices charged for rooms have already been given in
Tables 22 and 23, Chapter vm. Side rooms for less than $1.50
are rare, the usual rate being from $1.50 to $2.00. The demand
for side rooms exceeds the supply. Square rooms range from $2.00
for unheated attic rooms to $5.00 and $6.00 for the best front rooms.
A square room is usually occupied by two persons, who room
together, the chances are, quite as much to reduce expenses as to
enjoy each other's company. Among women there is a strong
objection to rooming with any one, though there are of course
those who either prefer it or do not object to it.
Turning to rent paid by lodgers of different occupations, we find
that where a man and wife occupy a room they pay from $3.50 to
$6.00 a week and that the kind of employment has little to do with
the price paid. We find single salesmen paying $2, $3, and $4 a
week; saleswomen, $i to $3; clerks, both men and women, $1.50
to $4; dressmakers, $1.75 to $3; trained women nurses, $2 to $4;
stenographers, $1.25 to $3; waiters and waitresses, $1.00 to $3.
For skilled mechanics the almost uniform level is $2.00.
Turning to Table 40, we see that the weekly earnings of the
skilled mechanic do not, in times of constant employment, fall
below $16 per week. It is said that the ratio of rent to income
varies from 12 per cent, to 15 per cent, among the wealthy to twenty-
five or thirty-five per cent, among tenement dwellers. 1 So far as
rental expenses are concerned our unmarried skilled mechanic
lodger is evidently not to be classed with the tenement population.
In some other occupations, however, room-rent assumes at times
more alarming proportions. Take, for example, the female clerks,
whose highest wages do not range over $12 a week. Two dollars
a week is i6 per cent, of this. The average weekly wages of wait-
resses are only $4.83, and unlike waiters, they get scarcely any tips.
From $1.00 to $3.00 for room-rent does not leave a wide margin
for other expenses. The average weekly wage of saleswomen is
1 Kurd, Principles of City Land Values.
THE LODGER: ECONOMIC CONDITION IOI
$8.00 a week; a room- rent of $1.50 a week deducts 18.7 per cent,
of this, one of $2.00 a week 25 per cent. We may be thankful that
not a very large number of sales-girls live in lodgings. No shadow
of doubt can be entertained that very many underpaid mercantile
employees, other than sales-girls, are compelled to live in lodging-
houses, where they pay out a disproportionate amount of their
incomes for room-rent, and necessarily go underfed and inade-
quately clothed. Especially is this true of the women and girls.
With salaries almost uniformly lower than that paid men, as the
ta.bles show, very often for exactly the same kind and amount of
work, they still have to maintain the same standards of living, and
in the matter of dress even a higher standard. The employer
expects his female help to look neat and clean constantly. The girl
has to dress well, outwardly, even though she suffer from cold. 1
We will not pursue the details of room-rent expense farther. The
reader can readily see by a comparison of the tables that room-rent
need not be felt as a seriously heavy charge by the better paid mer-
cantile employees and skilled mechanics; that it is about a normal
charge upon those of average salary; but that upon those whose
salary is below the average it bears as a heavy burden.
After room- rent comes the board-bill. Whether the present ar-
rangement for sleeping in one place and eating in another is econom-
ically advantageous to those whom circumstances compel to live
outside the pale of the home may be doubted. The lodger of to-day
accepts the situation as he finds it, as a matter of course. Probably
he would be loath to go back to the regime of the boarding-house.
Room-rent and board-bill thus become two distinct items in his
expense account.
The basement dining-rooms are largely patronized. Their almost
invariable rates, as before noted, are "Gents, $3.50, ladies, $3.00."
Why they make this difference in price is something of a conundrum,
but it has become an established custom and holds undisputed
sway. In its origin it was probably based on the idea that women
1 The superintendent of one of the best working girls' homes in the city states
that the wages of her girls do not average over eight dollars a week. Twelve dollars
is the highest, and only two or three girls receive as much as ten. There are seventy-
five girls in the house. The superintendent does not think these wages are below the
average wages of girls in lodging-houses.
102 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
eat less than men and should consequently be charged less. It
may be, also, that there was in the distinction some sub-conscious
acknowledgement that women, receiving much lower wages than
men, could not be expected to pay as much. Be this as it may, it is
obvious that no very high grade of board can be served either to
men or women at such rates. The writer has eaten in many of these
dining-rooms, and while in a few the food was good, considering
the price, in many both the food and the service were atrocious.
Soup, a choice of beef or mutton, boiled potatoes, "side beans,"
stewed corn, and blueberry pie, with tea or coffee (?) would con-
stitute a typical dinner in the best of the dining-rooms. The follow-
ing list of prices is advertised by one of the largest and best-known
eating places:
Full ticket, 21 meals $4.00
Breakfast and dinner, 14 meals 3.00
Breakfast, 7 meals 1.50
Dinner, 7 meals 1.50
Luncheon, 7 meals 1.20
This is the one big restaurant in the district which serves meals
exclusively table d'hote, and it is as much an institution of its region
as the State House is of Beacon Hill. A sample menu for luncheon
reads well, but upon actual test is distinctly disappointing.
The cost of board in a cafe* is somewhat higher than in a dining-
room. The writer, in a personal test of cafe" life, found it impossible
to reduce the cost below $4.50 a week, and have enough to eat.
At that it was necessary to abstain from desserts of any kind. For
breakfast the average lodger rarely pays over fifteen or twenty cents.
Most of the cafe's serve "combination breakfasts" some of which,
offered by a caf6 of about average excellence, run as follows:
Small tenderloin steak, French fried potatoes, tea or coffee 30 cts.
Broiled lamb chop, fried egg, tea or coffee 25 cts.
Fried ham, fried egg, side beans, tea or coffee 25 cts.
Two eggs on toast, baked beans, tea or coffee 20 cts.
Fried sausage, griddle cakes, tea or coffee 20 cts.
Corned beef hash, dropped egg, tea or coffee 15 cts.
Baked beans, fish-cake, tea or coffee 10 cts.
A cereal increases the charge five or ten cents, and fruit from five
to fifteen cents. Most lodgers dispense with both. The consequent
THE LODGER: ECONOMIC CONDITION 103
excessive diet of fried things reveals itself in sallow complexions
and sluggish circulations. Allowing twenty cents for breakfast,
twenty-five for lunch, and thirty-five for dinner, a modest enough
estimate, we find a total of $5.60 per week. As many of the cafes
issue discount tickets, which give a reduction of ten or fifteen per
cent, for payment in advance, the actual cost of the week's board
may be somewhat reduced. One cafe, for example, offers discount
tickets, $5.75 for $5.00; another, $3.50 for $3.00, $2.15 for $2.00,
and $1.10 for $1.00. If the lodger is thrifty enough to buy a five-
dollar ticket in advance he can reduce the above $5.60 to something
less than $5. The best dining-rooms in Ward 12 charge nearly as
much as this five dollars a week for three meals a day, or four
dollars for breakfasts and dinners being the highest dining-room
rates. At the model boarding-house of the South End House it is
found possible to set a good table for $3.50 a week, but only for two
meals a day and three on Sunday; for three meals a day it is found
necessary to charge $4.50. There are no men in the house. To
reduce the board to these figures it is necessary to have at least
fifteen boarders. It is doubtful whether the average lodger can afford
as much as this for board even in good times. The writer does not
believe that the average male lodger pays over four dollars a week,
even when taking his meals at cafes. For women the rate must be
still lower. Were there a few large and well patronized dining-halls
in the South End, with a thousand boarders each, it would probably
be possible to introduce many economies of large-scale production
and reduce the cost of board materially. The cost of board to student
members of the Harvard Dining Association in Memorial Hall,
Cambridge, averages little, if any, over four dollars a week, and the
board is incomparably better than one can get for that amount
anywhere in the South End.
Reducing room- rent and board to their lowest terms, $1.50 and
$3.00 or $3.50 a week, respectively, we must conclude that a woman
cannot expect to live in a lodging-house and take her meals out for
less than $4.50 or $5.0x3 a week, and that a man cannot live for less
than $5.00 or $5.50. For a woman $5.00 and for a man $5.50 a
week may in the long run be set as the lowest price for room and
board. At these figures the lodger will have to live in an unheated
and stuffy side room, or share a poorly furnished and often untidy
104 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
square room with some roommate about whom he perhaps knows
little; and he will have to be content with the plain and very often
ill- cooked food of the basement dining-room and the cheaper cafes.
If he has a square room to himself, and eats in the better cafes his
weekly expenses cannot well be under $7.00, and may easily amount
to nine or ten dollars.
Compare now the probable lowest general cost of living with the
lowest rates of salary paid to mercantile employees (Table 38,
columns i and 2). It is at once evident that most of these low-paid
persons cannot meet even the mere board and room-rent expenses
of lodging-house life. Those of this class who do not live at home
are starving themselves in the cheapest rooms to be had in tenement-
houses and the lowest grade of furnished-room house. The income
of the highest-paid mercantile employees, on the other hand, will
easily permit them to live in South End lodgings. As a matter of
fact when salary rises to $25 a week, the recipient is likely sooner or
later to seek a room in the suburbs. It is the medium grade mer-
cantile employees and the skilled mechanics who stay in the lodging-
houses. And with them board and room- rent will take from one third
to one half of their weekly income.
A considerable amount of light housekeeping is done in lodging-
houses. Evidence of this is afforded by landladies, and by the many
small bakeshops and delicatessen establishments scattered through
the district. How great are the privations patiently and philosoph-
ically borne by many an underpaid clerk or struggling young sten-
ographer will never be known except to the individuals themselves,
for they are hedged about by a pardonable pride, and are more or
less cut off from companionship.
Perhaps enough has been said to render it tolerably clear that the
economic outlook of the majority of lodgers is neither very roseate
nor entirely hopeless. Their life is one of daily grind, of monotonous
hand-to-mouth living, a sort of dead level of existence, modified
here by heroic struggle, and there by indifferent expenditure of total
earnings in legitimate and illegitimate ways. In the lodging-house
population we are dealing to a large extent with that great class of
young men and women who, having a certain amount of education
and a considerable degree of pride, are struggling along in the ranks
of mercantile employment now for a long time overcrowded. We
THE LODGER: ECONOMIC CONDITION 105
have heard the clerks and salesmen called "the most despicable of
classes," from the idea that they go into the office and behind the
counter to be "genteel," to wear good clothes, and to escape the
manual toil of the mechanic and artisan. No doubt there is some
truth in this conception. The average clerk in a city store has no
very broad conception of life; he lacks humor to appreciate himself
at his own real and small social value; he is prone to look down
upon the skilled workman as of a lower social class. Again we hear
disapprobation expressed because girls who have to earn their own
living generally prefer to enter stores and factories than to go into
homes as domestic servants. Those who express such disapproval
should first be careful that they have some acquaintance with both
sides of the question. 1 And those who consider the mercantile
employees "the most despicable of classes" will do well to pause
and inquire how many of these young men and women are drawn
into stuffy offices, crowded department stores, and unhealthy fac-
tories by the siren cry "Room at the top!" and this when in fact
every one knows that the room at the top will suffice for a very few
only, and that the business world is not a pyramid on its apex, but
one on the broad, solid base constituted by the thousands of ordinary
men and women who have to do the every-day tasks of the world.
As it is hope of power and influence that draws an ever increasing
number of college graduates into the legal profession, just so is it
hope of advancement, fully as much as desire to be genteel and to
escape manual labor, that draws young men and women of more
modest education into the endless chain of office and shop work
from which few can actually escape to higher levels. It was a recog-
nition of this overcrowding of the ranks of mercantile employment
by men and women of moderate attainments that led M. Leroy-
Beaulieu to write, as far back as 1881: "Le pauperism qui est a
craindre aujourd'hui, ce n'est pas celui des mise'rables qui ne savent
ne lire ni e"crire, c'est le pauperism des homines instruits, plus au
moins capables de toute tache de bureau; voilk les vrais pauvres
dont la civilisation, si elle n'y prend garde, produira des legions a
Pavenir." 2 This opinion, it seems to us, has been borne out by
1 See, for a sympathetic analysis of the reasons for the girls' choice of store and
factory in preference to domestic service, Jane Addams, Democracy and Social Ethics,
chapter iv.
2 De la Repartition des Richesses, pp. 558-59.
106 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
the developments of the quarter- century which has passed since it
was expressed. It can hardly be doubted by any one acquainted
with the conditions that comparative poverty in the lodging-house
population, characterized by the presence of so many mercantile
employees, is as grinding as in the tenements, and that among the
lodgers there is perhaps a more poignant suffering from loneliness
and absence of friends and home life than is dreamed of among
tenement-dwellers.
Finally we have to record a fact which will no doubt be new to
most readers. The lodging-house is not free from that more sordid
type of poverty that renders necessary the good offices and aid of
the charity visitor. We shall show in a later chapter, moreover,
that the lodging-house tends to be a breeding-place for more serious
forms of social degeneration; here we have to look a moment at
the connection existing between the lodging-house and actual
pauperism.
District 12 of the Associated Charities covers a large part of the
South End tenement, and nearly all of the South End lodging-house
district. During the year 1903-4 about 165 new cases were recorded
on its books, of which more than one half came from lodging-
houses. Charity officers -in the district say that the number of lodg-
ing-house cases is on the increase. Philanthropical workers who have
had years of experience in the district bear evidence to the amount
of real poverty encountered. That we should find a certain number
of human derelicts in the furnished-room house is natural. When
families lose their means of support, when husbands lose their
positions, and wives are compelled to go out and do battle in a world
for which they unfortunately have had no practical business training,
when homes break up and household goods and furniture those
last anchors of men and women to a sense of ownership and a
permanent interest in a fixed abode are lost, then the lodging-
house with its "furnished room to let" becomes the only refuge.
Let an individual "down on his luck" once lose all his personal
property save what he can carry in his trunk or wear on his back,
let him once enter a furnished- room house and once be reduced to
calling for charity aid, and the chances are that he is on a downward
pathway from which it will be difficult for him to rescue himself
or for any one to save him. We can make only slight reference to
THE LODGER: ECONOMIC CONDITION IOJ
this subject here. It was our purpose to give outlines of several
lodging-house cases taken from the records of the Associated
Charities, and also of two or three which have come under our
personal view, but space does not permit. We may, however,
record one case which, though not typical in the sense of being
common, is nevertheless suggestive of the unexpected variety of
misery which now and then comes to light.
The man was a piano-tuner by profession, and was not a mean
performer on the lighter stringed instruments. According to his
own story, which there was no reason whatever to doubt, he had
been a prosperous teacher of mandolin and guitar in Texas, in
San Francisco, and finally in Massachusetts. Struck with a run of
hard luck in losing most of his pupils, and unable to get enough
piano-tuning to make a living, he made one more move, to Boston.
There, after some months' struggle, he was forced to apply to the
Associated Charities for aid. He was found on the top floor of a
Tremont Street lodging-house with his wife and sick baby. Out of
work, without friends, acquaintances, or business connections, he
was daily making desperate efforts to get a job as piano-tuner or to
get a few pupils. He had not succeeded in either. The weeks ran
along and the couple managed to live on an occasional odd job of
tuning and aid advanced by the Associated Charities. Meanwhile
they were able to pay no rent, winter was coming on, and their
room had no heat, and another baby was expected. The house was
kept by an old couple who had not the heart to turn them out.
A visit to their room took one up two flights of dark winding stairs,
over carpets gray with age and dirt, and through halls permeated
with the various odors of cooking and the dead air which quickly
accumulates in a second-rate lodging-house. In response to a
knock, one was admitted into a large room, the air of which was if
possible worse than that of the hall outside. A gas stove burning out
what little oxygen there is, cooking going on in an alcove, and win-
dows tightly closed to keep out December cold, are in combination
enough to explain haggard faces and sick babies. On one occasion,
when the temperature was below zero, the couple sat up all night
between two gas stoves. Soon afterward the second baby was born,
and the couple were persuaded to move to cheaper quarters in a
tenement-house. The man had still managed to retain a strong
108 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
self-respect and a beautiful set of piano-tuning tools, and when last
heard of had obtained a temporary job in a piano- factory.
The subject of poverty in the rooming-house deserves more ex-
tended treatment than we can here give to it. There is material in
the charity records for a study of this particular phase of poverty
and of the influence of lodging-house life on pauperism, which
would be of definite value were it made.
CHAPTER XIII
THE LODGER: HIS LIFE AND SOCIAL CONDITION
OF the social conditions characterizing rooming-house life, not
the least important is the remarkable isolation of the individual
lodger from his fellows, the absence of all semblance of home
ties, of companionship and friendship, and, for hundreds of young
men and women, even of mere acquaintances. There is no true
social life within the lodging-house. Without the spiritual or intel-
lectual reward that hermits are supposed to have for their isolation,
many lodgers lead hermits' existence. Their place in the world is
anomalous. Surrounded by thousands of their own age and social
position, they are as much alone, in the crowd, as they would be
on the most lonely farm on some windswept New England hillside.
That the lodgers, taking them by and large, do not know each other
is the evidence of all who are conversant with the life of the South
End district. Lodgers themselves, landladies, church, charity, and
philanthropical workers, real-estate men, and proprietors of room
registries, all testify to this fact. An especially striking instance
of this isolation came to the writer's attention during the winter of
1903-04. A young artist who had been earning his living by illus-
trating newspapers and magazines fell out of work and was in
destitute circumstances. Through a chance acquaintanceship with a
philanthropic worker who lived near by, he was helped along during
the winter with an odd job here and there. Then, toward spring,
some one discovered living in the same house with him, during all
the time of his lack of employment, another illustrator who had
had more work than he could handle, and who had been looking
for an assistant. The two men were introduced, to their mutual
advantage, but previous to their introduction by an outsider they
had never spoken to each other, although meeting nearly every day.
To what causes may such isolation be attributed? Differences
of nationality and employment may have some slight effect in this
direction, but not much. We have seen some tendency of persons
110 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
in the same occupation to congregate in the same general locality
an indication, perhaps, of some degree of sociability within the
locality. Within individual houses, however, we found a large
number of employments represented, and can scarcely doubt that
the resultant tendency is for the lodgers of the same house to keep
individually to themselves. A far stronger cause of isolation is the
lack of fixed residence on the part of most lodgers. As we have seen,
fully one half the lodging-house population changes its residence
every year. The inmates of a house are continually changing old
ones dropping out, whither who knows, and new ones hovering in,
whence and with what antecedent connections who can tell ? The
absence of gatherings of lodgers, indeed of any room in which
they may gather, and of any occasion for such gathering, contribute
further to the general desolateness of lodging-house life. There is
no lingering after meals, no singing, no discussion, no summer
afternoon excursion planned by the lodgers of a house. Only in
rare instances has a rooming-house a homelike atmosphere. The
landlady, even if she wished, might find it hard to bring her lodgers
together; for if the average landlady looks upon her lodger simply
and solely as a rent-paying organism, the lodger returns the com-
pliment by regarding her as a creature whose duty it is to sweep
his room, make his bed, and mind her own business. With this
attitude of mutual indifference, not to say veiled hostility, between
landlady and lodger, place the uncongeniality which must exist
between people who are kept strangers to each other through fre-
quent change of address, differences in employment, in ideas
and in mental horizon, and lack of opportunities to meet in friendly
intercourse. Isolation is the natural result. 1
1 Walter Besant's Autobiography contains an expressive passage on the isolation
of the lodger: .
"When I was tired and hungry I would look for a chop-house, dine, and then walk
slowly home to my lodgings, taking a cup of coffee at a coffee-house on the way. I
ought to have stayed home in the evening, and worked, but Featherstone Buildings
is a very quiet place. ... In the evening the place was absolutely silent. The silence
sometimes helped me to work, sometimes it got on my nerves and became intolerable.
I would then go out and wander about the streets for the sake of animation, the
crowds and the lights, or I would go half-price a shilling to the pit of the theatre,
or I would drop into a casino and sit in the corner and look on at the dancing. The
thing was risky, but I came to no harm. To this day I cannot think of those lonely
evenings in my London lodging without a touch of the old terror. I see myself sitting
THE LODGER: HIS LIFE AND SOCIAL CONDITION III
In one sense, of course, all individuals are isolated, but many
a lodger may not have even the solace of chance acquaintances.
In the lodging-house world, furthermore, isolation has its own
peculiar dangers. Take the typical case of a young fellow coming
in from the country to earn his living. He has secured a position
in some mercantile establishment at eight or ten dollars a week.
He comes to the city an absolute stranger, ignorant of its complex-
ities, destitute of worldly wisdom, and very probably unprovided
with that strong, self-reliant moral reason, without which he will
be at sea when he encounters the host of confusing problems his new
life will certainly present. He first must find a place to live, which,
for the time being, means a place to eat and sleep. In the old days
he would probably have been taken in by some kindly-disposed
boarding-house landlady, but to-day the motherly landlady is
chiefly a dream of the past. What, then, are the steps by which he
acquires his introduction to city life ? First of all he lands in some
lodging-house. It may be a homelike place, one of the most reput-
able lodging-houses in the city. It may be a den of thieves and pros-
titutes. The chances are that it is neither, but simply one of the
hundreds of nondescript, mediocre houses of the South or West End.
He has a typical little six-by-eight hall bedroom. He sees little
or nothing of the other lodgers, even of those on the same floor
with himself. He takes his meals in some near-by basement dining-
room. The only acquaintances he makes for a long time are the
casual ones of the office and counter. He may begin to drift into
a saloon or a pool-room on his way home in the evening and thus
pick up a few more connections. As time goes on and he becomes
more and more sophisticated he will not scruple to follow up the
chance meetings of the cafe table, and finally those of the lodging-
house itself. In fact it is conceivable that his first acquaintances
may be in the house. They may be either good or bad; in either
case they are accidental and casual. But the possibilities wrapped
up in such casual meetings are not incapable of assuming a danger-
at a table, books stretched out before me. I go to work. Presently I sit up and look
around. The silence is too much for me. I take my hat and go out. There are
thousands of young fellows to-day who find, as I found every evening, the silence
and loneliness intolerable." Quoted in a pamphlet recently issued by the American
Institute of Social Service.
112 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
ous aspect; as when a woman of immoral type happens to take
a room next to the young country lad on the third floor rear.
The general absence of a reception-room for the use of roomers
and their friends is a very important cause for the lack of social life
and companionship. Landladies affirm, as we saw in Chapter vin,
and with good show of reason, that they cannot afford the loss of
rent which would necessarily result from the reserval of a room as a
public parlor. But the fact that lodgers do not demand this require-
ment of common decency shows how the pressure of economic
necessity will modify moral conventions and standards. Probably
not one girl in a hundred who finds herself in a rooming-house
would have thought while at home of receiving a gentleman caller
in her bedroom. Yet ninety per cent, of the women lodgers, if they
associate with men at all, must either receive them in that way or
loiter with them in the streets. Some landladies, indeed, go farther
and prescribe definite rules hampering or preventing social inter-
course in their houses. A few prohibit their lodgers, especially
women, from having callers at all. One landlady will not have
people in her house who exchange visits because she feels that
they will be sure to get discontented by discussing herself and her
house.
On the other hand, isolation is not entirely due to the landlady
and economic conditions. Many women lodgers take great care not
to make acquaintance to any extent with people in the same house,
often because of some disagreeable experience or for the sake of
protecting their privacy, about which they are sometimes over-
solicitous.
With social intercourse hampered in so many ways, spare time
evenings and Sundays hangs heavily on the roomer. He is not
a church-going person, and his chief literary resource is the Sunday
newspaper. Whether that satisfies the cravings of his soul after
enlightenment we do not know. In the summer-time, when the
warm evenings come, the lodger deserts his room for the front steps.
Probably more lodgers come to know each other in these spring and
summer evening loiterings than in any other way. What the average
lodger does with his long evenings in the winter is something of a
mystery. He has the evening paper (not the "Transcript," which is
too expensive), but few books. In the many rooms of lodgers which
THE LODGER: HIS LIFE AND SOCIAL CONDITION 113
the writer has seen in different parts of the district, books and
evidences of reading were rare exceptions. The lodger lives in his
trunk. Books would be an impediment, even could he afford to buy
them. There is, of course, considerable visiting back and forth
between lodgers who have been in the city long enough to get
acquainted, but the amount is not great, and certainly not so great
as it would be were there civilized facilities for the reception of
callers. The theatres of the South End help to while away an occa-
sional evening. Probably one reason melodrama has such a hold
on the South End would be found in the dreary routine of the life
of the lodger and tenement-dweller.
Various educational advantages are within reach of the lodger,
if he only knew of them more generally. The Public Library is
easily accessible from the district. The South End Branch of it
was located, prior to 1904, in the basement of the English High
School a poor situation. Probably comparatively few lodgers
knew of its existence at all. It now, however, occupies the old
Everyday Church building on Shawmut Avenue, is above ground,
easily accessible, near the centre of the district, and it bids fair to
increase rapidly in usefulness.
Chief of the educational advantages in the neighborhood, avail-
able for lodgers, is the Central Evening High School, held in the
building of the English High. The school provides "special advan-
tages for those who are employed during the day and who desire a
thorough and practical training to assist them in securing advance-
ment in business. The courses of study comprise all the studies of
the day high school and of the practical business college. The
school is open free of charge to all persons living in Boston who are
above fourteen years of age." 1 A considerable share of its pupils are
said to be lodgers. 2 The Mercantile Library Club, on Tremont
Street, has a membership of one hundred about equally divided
between past residents of the districts and the better class of lodgers.
1 From the Announcement of the school.
2 The writer asked the School Committee for the privilege of examining the card
catalogue of the school's enrollment for the purpose of ascertaining exactly to what
extent the lodging-house population avails itself of the school, but for reasons known
only to themselves the officials of the Committee refused to grant the request. Other-
wise we should be able to give much more definite information on an important
point.
114 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
Parker Memorial, on Berkeley Street, an institutional Unitarian
church, and Shawmut Congregational Church, on Tremont Street,
offer many advantages to roomers, as do also the Young Men's
and Young Women's Christian Associations and the Young Men's
Christian Union. The South End House, with its staff of university
settlement workers, is also seeking gradually to extend various
social and educational advantages to lodgers. 1
1 For the work of the South End House in attacking the lodging-house problem,
see South End House Report, 1906, pp. 8, 24, and 25, and earlier reports.
CHAPTER XIV
VITAL STATISTICS
Sec. I. Statistical Data
IT would be surprising if a population group so well defined as
that of the South End lodging-house district had no noticeable
influence upon the phenomena of births, deaths, marriages, density
and age-grouping of population, sex-distribution, sickness and
health, and the like. In this chapter we shall try to ascertain what
influences can be traced to the lodging-house. Perhaps the most
important consideration in this connection is the influence of the
lodging-house on the marriage- rate, and on the question of race-
perpetuation or race-suicide, which has been more or less in the
public consciousness for the past few years. The question of mar-
riage is reserved to a later chapter. This chapter will be devoted to
density of population, age- and sex-distribution, and births and deaths.
It should be understood at the outset that the conclusions we may
reach in this chapter are approximations only, and that they are
not highly refined statistical deductions. Much as we should prefer
accuracy and refinement, we cannot, in the present state of urban
statistics, attain them. This is especially true of an inquiry, like
the present one, limited to a single and specific population-group
covering a limited territory not exactly coextensive with any com-
bination of administrative districts for which statistics are pub-
lished. The statistical data in any way available are discouragingly
meagre and inadequate, not to say misleading. In the present
conditions of our public statistical bureaus specialized and localized
statistics are perhaps not to be looked for. They can be had only
when the bureaus are given larger resources in appropriations, in
working force, and in leaders who understand the value of special
social statistics for small areas. We have not, unfortunately, a
Charles Booth always standing ready to meet the expense of collect-
ing facts and statistics concerning the life and labor of every branch
of the population, and of every unknown section of the city; other-
wise we should not remain in such dense ignorance of the conditions
Il6 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
for existence surrounding great masses of people who are practically
our next-door neighbors. How great is the dearth of statistical data
and how it baffles the investigator may perhaps be seen as we pro-
ceed. 1 If the lodging-house section were coterminous with ward
boundaries, or if some one ward were entirely filled with lodging-
houses, it would be easy to utilize the ward statistics at present
available, so far as they go. Unfortunately, however, the South End
lodging-house district covers parts of three different wards. Ward 9
is a lodging-house section in its western portion; about half of
Ward 10 is a lodging-house district; and Ward 12 is almost entirely,
but not completely, a lodging-house district. Little use can be made
of the statistics of Wards 9 and 10 by themselves, and in using those
of Ward 12, par excellence the lodging-house ward of the city, we
must bear in mind that certain disturbing influences deflect the
figures from what they would be did they apply to a purely lodging-
house population. These disturbing elements are, first, five or six
1 Urban population and vital statistics, if given at all for a unit smaller than the
city as a whole, are given by wards or other large administrative districts which
have practically no relation to population-groups, and in which changes of boundary
from time to time render comparison at different periods of time difficult and some-
times impossible. Moreover, such districts are too large to give accurate results.
Were data collected and published by voting precincts, or better, by equally small
but permanent statistical divisions, most of these difficulties would be obviated,
because precincts are so small that the investigator could combine them at pleasure
so as to include just that area he wished to include and no more. As yet, however,
with the exception of simple statistics of population, the ward is the smallest unit used.
The only data for accurate charting and calculating of density of population are
published in the 31^ Annual Report of the Mass. Bureau of Statistics of Labor (1900),
pp. 57-60, where population by precincts for 1895 and 1900 is given, and the pre-
liminary returns of the State Census of 1905 on Population and Legal Voters (pp. 10,
u). For age-distribution there is nothing published, either by wards or precincts.
The only material even remotely available on this point consists of statistics by wards
of persons of school age, to be found in the Twelfth Census, Population, part i, p. 222,
and in the Reports of the Boston School Committee, the City Statistical Department,
and the Municipal Register. For sex-distribution statistics by wards are given in
the Annual Report of the Registry Department of the City of Boston (since 1901).
No statistics of morbidity are available. For marriages statistics are published only
for the city as a whole, in the reports of the City Registry Department. Previous to
1901 this Department published its statistics only for the city at large, but since that
year certain vital statistics have been published by wards an innovation for which
the City Registrar deserves sincere Jhanks. It is to be hoped that a way may be
cleared for an extension of this policy.
VITAL STATISTICS 117
short tenement-house streets, secondly, a number of apartment-
houses, and thirdly, a few private residences. Their effect will be
noted as we proceed.
In considering the influence of lodging-house life upon vital
statistics it is convenient to distinguish between general and special
influences. The ultimate purpose of all statistics is to furnish facts
about the public welfare, and data upon which suggestions for im-
provement may find logical foundation. Certain phenomena are
of prime importance in themselves as having a direct and forceful
influence upon the public weal. Such are births, deaths, and mar-
riages, and to a lesser extent, density of population. Statistical
knowledge of these phenomena is directly valuable. Other phe-
nomena are important because of the influence they exert over birth
and death rates, the number of marriages, the size of families, and
the like. Age and sex, density of population, nationality or race,
occupation, etc., are influences of a general nature active everywhere
at all times. In addition to these may be mentioned certain more
specific influences peculiar to city life. Here we must place the sani-
tary condition of the houses and streets, regularity or irregularity
of living, prevalence or absence of prostitution, intemperance,
crime, the general physical condition of the people, 1 and last but
not least, their psychological state.
With all these influences, general and special, the lodging-house
has a more or less distinct connection, either as affected by them
or as affecting them. Its connection with birth-rates is direct and
unmistakable. Some influence can also be traced on death-rates
and on density of population. There is also an indirect influence
on all these phenomena through the sex and age constitution of the
lodging-house population, and through the physical and moral
environment the rooming-house throws about the individual.
Sec. II. Density of Population
It may be laid down as a rule, well borne out as we shall see by
statistical data, and certainly corroborated by personal knowledge
1 Much is to be looked for in this particular matter not only from statistics of
mortality and morbidity, but from the physical examinations and anthropometry
in our gymnasiums. It is not too much to hope that every ward in the city will
eventually be provided with a municipal gymnasium and a trained physical director.
Il8 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
of lodging-house conditions, that wherever a private residence
degenerates into a lodging-house the natural consequence is an
increase in the number of people living under its roof.
The South End residence of twenty-five years ago was the exact
prototype of the private residence of the Back Bay (Ward u) to-day.
Some indication of the increase in the number of persons per dwell-
ing in the South End since it became a lodging-house section may
therefore be had from a comparison with the present Back Bay
district. In 1900 Ward 12, our lodging-house ward, had an average
of 10.81 persons per dwelling; that for Ward n was only 6.66
per dwelling. Taking these figures as they stand, we should con-
clude that a change from a private residence to a lodging-house
will in the long run result in an increase of about four persons per
dwelling. This simple deduction, however, would fall short of the
truth. Four of the precincts of Ward 1 1 with a population of 9840
more than half the total population of the ward are in the
West End and up the side of Beacon Hill, and, with the exception
of a few streets on the Hill where many old Boston families still
cling, constitute a district of densely populated tenement- and
lodging-houses. The other five precincts, with a population of 9434,
constitute a fashionable residence district. It is evident that the
crowded houses of the four West End precincts must very appre-
ciably raise the average number of persons per dwelling for the ward
as a whole. How much less than 6<66 the average would be for the
private residence section alone it is impossible to say, but it would
certainly be reduced materially. 1 It might on the other hand be
objected that the average for Ward 12 is raised by the tenement-
houses in the ward, but the objection would be ill-founded because
the tenement-houses of the ward are all small, and the effect, if
anything, would be to reduce rather than increase the average
number of persons per dwelling. On the whole, therefore, it seems
likely that if we could but isolate the statistics for the private resi-
dence on the one hand and those for the lodging-house on the other,
we should find that the change from private residence to lodging-
house would result in at least a doubling of population. This con-
1 We have to remember, however, that while Back Bay families may be small
they may have a bountiful supply of servants. In the lower Back Bay it is not uncom-
mon to find from six to nine servants living in a house.
VITAL STATISTICS 119
elusion is more than substantiated by personal observation. Taking
nearly a hundred houses as a basis, the writer found the average
number per house to be a trifle over fourteen. How many private
residences of the Back Bay contain half this number?
That Ward 12 (even including as it does not only the vast body
of rooming-houses, but also the numerous apartment-houses, a con-
siderable number of small tenements, and a sprinkling of private
houses, which tend to lower the average) has a high average number
of persons per dwelling, when compared with other sections of the
city, may be seen from Table 41. The general situation and charac-
ter of each ward is noted in the table, and may be of interest in
connection with the other tables of this chapter.
TABLE 41. AVERAGE NUMBER OF PERSONS TO A DWELLING, BOS-
TON, BY WARDS
Ward Persons to a dwelling Location and character of ward
1904-5 1 1902 2
6 19.6 20.33 North End; foreign tenement.
8 16.2 J5-77 West End; foreign tenement.
7 12.3 11.66 South Cove; tenement-houses.
9 11.9 x 3-33 South End; tenement- and lodging-houses.
3 11.9 921 Charlestown; tenement-houses.
2 11.4 10.43 East Boston; tenement-houses.
10 10.9 10.48 Back Bay and South End; lodging- and apart-
ment-houses.
19 10.1 10.00 Roxbury; largely tenement-houses.
5 10.0 9.92 Charlestown; tenement houses.
13 9.7 10.56 South Boston; tenement-houses.
18 9,4 9.88 Roxbury; tenement-houses.
12 $.2 10.81 South End; lodging-houses.
17 9.2 9.36 Roxbury; tenement-houses.
14 8.8 8.54 South Boston; tenement- and apartment-houses.
22 8.6 7.73 Roxbury; miscellaneous.
15 84 8.48 South Boston; tenement-houses,
i 8.1 7.56 East Boston; miscellaneous.
1 Calculated by dividing the population of each ward as given in the State Census of
1905 by the number of dwellings in the ward as given by the latest Report of the City
Registrar. See Population and Legal Voters (preliminary pamphlet of the census of
1905) pp. 9-11; and Annual Report oj the Registry Department of the City oj Boston,
1904, p. 297. The figures here calculated are more accurate than the latest available
Registry figures, because based on actual population, and not estimated, returns.
2 Annual Report oj Registry Department, 1902, p. 268. For the Registrar's method
of adjusting the census figures (of 1900) to the number of dwellings as shown by
the returns of the City Assessing Department see the same Report, pp. 214-215.
120 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
21 7.9 7.55 Roxbury; miscellaneous.
20 7.6 6.68 Dorchester; residences and apartment-houses.
ii 7.3 6.66 Back Bay; fine residences and apartment-houses.
23 6.7 6.35 West Roxbury; suburban district.
24 6.7 6.25 Dorchester; suburban district.
4 6.7 7.29 Charlestown; miscellaneous.
25 5.1 5.61 Brighton; suburban district.
16 4.8 8.49 Dorchester; largely tenement-houses, and much
vacant land.
The table shows well the characteristic density resulting from
the presence of the lodging-house. In 1902 only four wards had
a greater estimated density per dwelling than Ward 12, and these
were without exception the great tenement-house wards of the city.
By 1904 Ward 12 had fallen to tenth place, but still ranked among
the dense tenement-house wards. The ten wards showing the highest
averages are all either tenement- house or lodging-house wards.
According to the State Census of 1905 the population of Ward 12
has declined (see page 7), owing probably to the encroachment of
business. The estimates of the Registry Department may there-
fore be erroneous, but not flagrantly so; or it may be that the very
encroachment of business deprives the district of more houses than
it does, in proportion, of population, and that the number of per-
sons per dwelling may still rise. Ward u, which is like the South
End as it was a quarter-century ago, comes near the bottom.
Naturally the suburban wards have the lowest averages.
The changes of whole streets, precincts, or wards from private
residences to lodging-houses, which gradually took place in the
South End, evidently can have but one result. The district will
suffer a large increase in population. This increase in what is now
the lodging-house district can actually be observed in the statistics
covering the period in which the change took place. Ward 18, the
old ward which previous to the change in ward lines in 1895 was
nearly coterminous with the present Ward 12, showed an increase
of population in the decade 1885 to 1895 f 2 5 P er cen t- Between
1895 and 1900, also, the growth continued, but at a somewhat
slower rate about 9 per cent, increase for the five years. It is
impossible to account for this growth on the basis of natural increase.
The death-rate of the present ward far exceeds the birth-rate, and
probably has done so for many years. 1 Nor can it be accounted for
1 Birth- and death-rates by wards were not compiled previous to 1900.
CHARTXHI,
VITAL STATISTICS 121
to any extent by the erection and occupation of new buildings.
The territory was already pretty completely covered with dwellings.
Of late years a few cheap apartment-houses have been built, but
they have usually taken the place of lodging-houses torn down or
remodelled to make room for them. The only possible explanation
of the increase, therefore, seems to be the influx of lodgers which
took place within the decade 1885 to 1895 and continued with
slightly diminished force to 1900.*
That the South End rooming-house district is one of the most
densely populated portions of the city may be seen from Chart xn.
We are fortunate in possessing population statistics by voting pre-
cincts for the year 1900 and also precinct maps showing the location
and boundaries of each precinct. 2
A glance at the map will show that the foreign and tenement-
house wards, Wards 6 and 8, are by far the most densely populated
portions of the city. After these come portions of Wards 13, 14,
and 15, in South Boston, and Ward 9 in the South End. Ward 9
merits somewhat closer examination. The thickly populated western
portion, next to Ward 12, is a typical lodging-house district. It is
in fact, as will be seen by reference to Chart xm, the most densely
populated portion of the lodging-house section, so far as we can
judge by male lodgers alone.
Judging of density by the imperfect standard of number of per-
sons per acre, Ward 12 stands fifth, as shown by the following table:
1 See Chapter m.
2 See the Report for 1900 of the Mass. Bureau of Statistics of Labor. With the
data it is possible to construct a fairly accurate map of density. Each dot in the chart
represents approximately one hundred persons, and the dots are placed within the
precincts as nearly as possible where the population actually is. The precinct out-
lines are then erased, that the map may not be too complicated. Large park areas
and uninhabited spaces, such as docks, railroad yards, unfilled flats, outlying and
unsettled territory, are given no dots. These uninhabited areas are located with
the help of a large map of the city, in connection with careful personal observation.
This method of showing density is as accurate as can be attained with the data
at hand. Compared with the usual method of representing density by wards and
scattering the density uniformly over each respective ward the method here followed
is perfection itself, because it puts the population where it belongs. A map of the
city in the old way gives Ward 6 a much less dense population than either Ward 8
or Ward 9, whereas the truth is that Ward 6 (the North End) is fully as densely
populated as Ward 8 (the West End) and that the greater part of Ward 9 does not
compare with either in density.
122 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
TABLE 42. DENSITY OF POPULATION, BY WARDS, BOSTON, 1904-5 *
Ward Density Ward Density Ward Density
8 185.6 10 60.5 19 38.4
9 H9- J 7 57-4 22 36.5
6 102.3 M 57-4 13 35-8
18 100.6 3 44.6 ii 35.2
12 923 4 41.5 20 30.2
15 83.6 21 41.4 I 22.2
2 72.6 7 39.5 24 14.6
5 61.7 16 38.6 25 7.9
23 3-4
To summarize the results obtained from such population and
density statistics as are available, we find, (i) that both statistics
and experience will show a large increase in the number of persons
per dwelling wherever a private residence district changes to lodg-
ing-houses; (2) that the notable increase of population since 1885
(up to 1900) in what is now the South End lodging-house district
coincided in time with the change from private residences to lodging-
houses and was due to that change; (3) that the present lodging-
house district is one of the most densely populated portions of the
city, second only to the most densely populated tenement-house
districts.
Sec. III. The influence oj the lodging-house on distribution of
population by sex
For this phase of the subject we have three contradictory sets
of data: first, the statistics of sex-distribution by wards; secondly,
statistics of the sex of boarders and lodgers in 1895; and thirdly,
the results of some personal observation.
The following table gives the ward statistics:
TABLE 43. PERCENTAGE OF MALES AND OF FEMALES TO TOTAL
WARD POPULATION, 190! 2
Ward Males Females Excess of males Excess of Females
6 55.6 44.4 ii. 2
7 55- 2 44-8 10.4
8 547 45-3 94
5 54-3 45-7 8.6
1 Compiled from ward areas given in City Registrar's Report, 1904, p. 297, and
ward population in 1905 given in preliminary pamphlet of State Census of 1905,
Population and Legal Voters, pp. 9-11.
3 Calculated from the Report of the Registry Department, Boston, 1901, p. ii.
VITAL STATISTICS 123
TABLE 43 continued
Ward Males Females Excess of Males Ezcess of Females
2 53.1 46.9 6.2
9 5i-8 48.2 3.6
13 50.9 49.1 1.8
14 5- 6 49-4 1.2
4 5- 2 49-8 -4
3 5- 5- -o .o
18 49.4 50.6 1.2
i 49-i 5-9 1-8
25 48.8 51.2 2.4
17 486 51.4 2.8
23 48.4 5 1 - 6 3-2
15 47-9 52-1 4-2
16 47.6 52.4 4.8
24 47.6 52.4 4.8
19 47.4 526 5.2
22 47.4 52.6 5.2
10 45 7 54-3 8.6
20 45-5 54-5 9-o
12 44.2 55.8 it. 6
21 42.6 57.4 14.8
11 41.0 59.0 18.0
In connection with this table attention is also called to Chart xiv,
showing the geographical distribution of the preponderance of sex
one way or the other.
The strongest determinant of relative percentages of the sexes
is nationality. A glance at the map will show that the wards which
have an excess of males (Wards 6, 7, 8, 5, 2, 9, 14, 13, and 3) form
a belt across the city from north to south, including all of
Charlestown, the western portion of East Boston, all of the North
and West Ends, the South Cove (Ward 7), and the greater part of
South Boston. These wards contain the great foreign population
of the city. On the other hand, as shown by the map, and the table,
the wards which show an excess of females are, generally speaking,
and with the exception of Ward 12, the residential wards of the
Back Bay and the outlying portions of the city.
The largest percentage excess of females is in Ward n, the Back
Bay, where there are 18 per cent, more women than men. 1 Next
comes Ward 21, an attractive residence district contiguous to
1 In Ward n the excess of women is in some measure due to the large number
of female domestic servants.
124 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
Franklin Park. Ward 12 comes third, with an excess of n.6 per
cent. Compare this with the excess of females for Boston as a whole,
1.7 per cent., or with the 16.6 per cent, excess in Brookline, which
is said to have the largest excess of females in proportion to its size
of any city or town in the United States. Ward statistics, it is evident,
indicates that the South End lodging-house district, including not
only lodgers, but all its other residents as well, has an exceedingly
high excess of females.
When, on the other hand, we examine the statistics of boarders
and lodgers as published in the Census of Massachusetts for 1895,
we find the relative percentages of males and females reversed. In
1895, 65.1 per cent, of the (then) 54,422 lodgers and boarders in
Boston were males and only 34.9 per cent, females. In round num-
bers the males comprised two thirds, and the females only one third
of the total number.
These two sets of data, high percentage of females in the typical
lodging-house ward (Ward 12) and low percentage of females in
the boarders and lodgers for the city as a whole in 1895, must be
reconciled. If they are both to be taken without change or inter-
pretation, the inevitable conclusion must be that there are not many
lodgers in Ward 12, and this we know to be absolutely contrary to
fact. A number of circumstances account for the conflict in the
evidence. In the first place it may be doubted whether all the female
lodgers would get enumerated in any census. Tucked away in rear,
side, and attic rooms, and for the most part out of the house at work
at day, they are easily overlooked. Landladies are much less dis-
posed to give information about their women than about their men
lodgers. Secondly, the statistics of boarders and lodgers in the state
census include all classes of lodgers, whether inmates of the fur-
nished-room house or of the ten-to-twenty cents a night dives of the
West and North Ends. In this latter class of lodgings there is a very
heavy preponderance of males, the class being composed largely
of unmarried foreign laborers and of vagrants. Thirdly, the years that
have elapsed since 1895 have been sufficient time to permit of a great
increase in the number of women living in lodging-houses. The state
census of 1905 will probably reveal whether such an increase has
taken place. 1 Certain it is that the field of industry has been every-
1 At the moment of writing these returns unfortunately are not yet available.
VITAL STATISTICS 125
where opening to women, that girls as well as boys are more gener-
ally leaving their homes and seeking employment in the shops and
factories of the city, that the tide which flows from the quiet
countryside to the tumultuous urban centres, pouring its flood of
unattached men and women into the rooming-houses, brings the
sisters as well as the brothers, the daughters as well as the sons.
Fourthly, there are some minor elements in Ward 12 which may
tend to raise the percentage of women. Nearly all the lodging-house
keepers are women, and it may be that the apartment-houses in the
ward contain more women than men. But the three factors first
mentioned are enough to explain the discrepancy in the statistics,
and to show that the figures for 1895 are of no value to us in this
connection.
Finally our third source of information personal investigation
corroborates the ward statistics, and indicates that the figures
for Ward 12 as a whole give probably a correct idea of the sex-dis-
tribution of the lodging-house population. In a count of nearly a
hundred houses we found the number of men lodgers and of women
lodgers substantially the same. Add the landladies, and we have
a heavy excess of females.
Sec. IV. Influence of the lodging-house on the age-grouping of
population
With the exception of the school census of persons of school age,
no statistics of population by age-groups and wards are published.
We have therefore endeavored to gain a few crumbs of information
from the Precinct Lists of Male Residents, of which we have made
use in other connections as well. The following table is constructed
from an analysis of some of these lists, and gives the age-grouping of
males over 20 years of age in three typical lodging-house precincts:
TABLE 44. MALE ADULT LODGERS BY AGE-GROUPS, THREE TYPICAL
PRECINCTS
Age-Groups: 20-24 25-29 3~34 35~39 40-44 45~49 5-54 55-59 60-64 65-69 70 and over.
Wd. 9, Prec. 6. 116 180 163 107 87 72 65 27 28 16 17
Wd. 10, Prec. 3. 119 149 98 65 69 42 47 18 24 12 5
Wd. 12, Prec. 2. 100 163 124 105 101 57 60 36 32 19 23
Totals 335 492 385 277 257 171 172 91 84 47 45
Averages 112 164 128 92 86 57 57 30 28 16 15
126 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
So far as we can judge from such a table, which is imperfect
because of the lack of data for the age-groups below twenty, at least
8 1 per cent, of the male lodgers are below fifty years of age, 63 per
cent, below forty, and 51 per cent, below thirty-five. Over one
third are between the ages of twenty and thirty. The considerable
number of men over sixty years old, and even of seventy and over,
should be noted. The lodgers in the main represent what should
be the years of vigorous young manhood and womanhood ; they are
the active rank and file of the business and laboring world. The
table, it must be remembered, is for adult males only; we have no
statistics for women lodgers.
The most striking fact about the age-grouping of lodgers is the
almost total absence of children. Were it possible to isolate statistics
for the lodging-houses alone, free from the influence of tenement-
and apartment-houses, this fact could be brought out vividly.
Even with the crude statistics which we have, the small number of
children in the South End lodging-house district, roughly coexten-
sive with Ward 12, is noticeable. The only statistics available for
this matter are those of the school census. The following table gives
the number of children of school age, 5 to 15 years, by wards, and
the percentage to total population in each ward. The percentages,
and not the absolute numbers, are of importance.
TABLE 45. CHILDREN OF SCHOOL AGE, 5 TO 15 YEARS, BY WARDS
Estimated popula- Children 5 to 15 years Percentage of the
Ward tion, 1902. l of age, I9O2. 2 total ward population. 8
19 28,494 5,765 20.2
1 23,961 4,731 19.8
6 32,085 6,105 19.0
2 24,078 4,565 18.9
13 23,961 4,372 18.3
23 24,785 4,928 18.3
14 22,489 4,067 18.1
18 23,490 4,241 18.0
22 26,904 4,831 l8.0
8 30,260 5,408 17.5
1 Annual Report of the Registry Department, Boston, 1902.
1 Monthly Bulletin, City Statistics Department, October, 1903, Appendix, Table
II, p. 270.
* Calculated.
VITAL STATISTICS 127
Estimated popula- Children 5 to 15 years Percentage of the
Ward tion, 1902. of age, 1902. total ward population.
16 21,017 3,670 17.4
25 20,252 3,533 17.4
24 28,494 4,928 17.3
17 26,256 4,560 17.3
15 20,664 3,505 169
20 34,135 5,760 16.6
4 13,893 2,240 1 6. 2
3 I5,3o6 2,408 15.7
9 25,786 3,786 14.7
21 35,079 3,558 14.2
5 13,481 1,481 10.9
7 15,542 1,468 0.4
11 20,252 1,700 8.4
12 2 4t7^S f >9SJ 7-8
10 23,254 1,693 7-3
As in so many of our tables here again we find Wards 10, n, and
12 in close company. Ward 10, consisting chiefly of lodging- and
apartment-houses, has the smallest percentage of children, while
Ward 12, lodging-houses, has practically no more. Compare its 7.8
per cent, with the 20.2 per cent, of Ward 19.
A request to the Boston School Committee to be allowed to look
over the registers of the grammar and primary schools drawing
children from Ward 12, in order that an estimate might be made
of the number of children coming from tenement-house streets and
deducted from the figures given above for Ward 12, met with a re-
fusal. Had the estimate been possible it would have been sufficient
to show beyond a doubt that the lodging-house population is void
of that life and brightness which only "a child in the house" can
bring.
Sec. V. Birth- and death-rates in the lodging-house district
The small number of school age in Ward 12 would naturally lead
one to expect a low birth-rate there. As a matter of fact, we find that
the birth-rate is not only very low, but that it is the lowest of any
ward in the city. The following table shows the unique position
held by Wards 10, u, and 12, in comparison with other wards:
128 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
TABLE 46. BIRTH-RATES, BY WARDS, FOR 1900-1904, AND AVER-
AGE BIRTH-RATES FOR THE FIVE YEARS 1
Average for
Ward
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
the five years. 1
6
45-37
45-85
46.9
46.6
45-9
46.12
13
41.82
37-n
34-3
34-9
3I- 1
35-85
8
35-88
34.06
31.6
3i-4
32.2
33-03
19
33-92
33-n
29.6
29.4
26.9
30-39
2
32-93
30.80
27.4
26.7
27.6
29.01
I
30-57
27.40
25.6
27.3
28.1
27.79
17
31.91
27-5i
26.7
27.2
24-4
27-54
14
29.08
28.19
26.4
27.1
23-9
26.95
18
31.15
27.21
25-4
25-7
23.6
26.61
16
29.42
24-54
27.4
27-3
24-3
26.59
3
26.91
25-30
26.2
25-9
26.3
26.12
25
27.12
25.09
27.8
24.2
24-5
25-74
4
25-74
26.60
23-8
23.8
24.7
24-93
7
29.36
25-05
. 25.8
21. 1
22.4
24.72
15
28.47
26.52
22.3
23-7
22.5
24.69
20
24.69
23.10
22.7
23-7
23.6
23.56
22
26.74
22.92
23.6
2I.O
22.6
2337
9
25-3
2459
22.8
22.O
21.4
23.19
24
23-51
2434
21-7
21.2
22-4
22.63
2 3
23-77
21.32
21.7
' 25.5
19.0
22.26
5
22.43
22.19
21-5
20.8
21.6
21.70
21
19.10
19.85
19.7
16.7
17.2
18.51
II
12.34
12.70
13-3
14.2
12.5
13.01
IO
13.36
I3-30
"3
11.9
12.9
12.55
12
11.67
77.70
12.2
if. 8
77.07
11.69
Chart xv shows graphically the birth-rates by wards.
The birth-rate of Ward 12, 11.69, we find to be lower than that
even of such wards as 10 and n, fashionable residence and apart-
ment-house districts, where according to modern conditions we look
for the lowest birth-rate. The extremely low birth-rate of all three
of these wards may be realized by comparison with the average rate
for the whole city, which for the five years, 1900 to 1904 inclusive,
was 27.03. This is something more than twice as high as the rate of
the three wards in question. It is a far cry, of course, to the enormous
1 Compiled from the Annual Report of the Registry Department, Boston, 1904,
Appendix A, pp. 245-293.
1 Calculated.
g 5 9 <? 5 <*
! r f 3
s a s A <k
^
O
K
v
VITAL STATISTICS 129
birth-rate of over 46 to the thousand in the North End (Ward 6),
but the low rate of the Back Bay and of the lodging-house dis-
trict of the South End can be brought out further by comparison
with the suburban wards, which are naturally occupied chiefly by
private residences. Could we in Ward n eliminate the influence
of the foreign population of the West End portion of the ward,
we should have a much lower birth-rate for the Back Bay than
is actually shown in the table. Similarly in Ward 12 the tene-
ment-house streets tend to raise the birth-rate far above what it
would be for the lodging-houses alone. Even as they stand, how-
ever, the figures are eloquent in what they tell of the influence of
the lodging-house.
As to the causes of the low birth-rate in Ward n it is not here
our province to speak. For Ward 10 and Ward 12 little doubt
can be entertained as to what are the influences active. In Ward
10 both apartment- and lodging-houses tend to reduce the rate
to a minimum. In Ward 12 the influence is chiefly that of the
lodging-house. The peculiar social conditions of lodging-house
life, together with the economic condition of the lodging-house
population, have to be taken into account. The low birth-rate can-
not be due to the old age of the population, for it is composed of
men and women as a rule in the prime of life; nor on the other
hand can it be due to the youthfulness of the population, for
there are no children in the lodging-house; nor can it be due to
the scarcity of women to become mothers, for the ward contains a
heavy excess of females. It must be due, therefore, to late mar-
riages, and to the fact that when lodgers do marry they leave
the district in a short time and take up their homes in the suburbs
in that outer limbo of cheap frame apartment-houses or tene-
ments which is neither city nor suburbs. 1 We return to this sub-
ject in Chapter xvm.
1 The extremely low birth-rate in the densely populated lodging-house districts,
into which crowd so many young men and women who have come to the city to
earn their fortunes, comes in curious contrast to Newsholme's statement that "A
high birth-rate usually occurs in crowded districts, there being in these a much higher
proportion of people at child-bearing age, owing to the in-rush of young workers in
search of the higher town wages." Vital Statistics, p 97.
130 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
For death-rates we have the following table:
TABLE 47. DEATH-RATES, 1900 TO 1904, AND AVERAGE FOR THE
FIVE YEARS, BY WARDS l
Average for
five years 2
24-39
23-75
20.16
19.96
19.32
19.10
18.43
17.90
17.79
17-25
16.93
16.73
16.49
15.86
'5-56
15.48
15-39
15-36
15-04
14.80
14.50
14.05
13.80
13.70
13-30
The death-rate of Ward 12, it will be noted, is a little below the
median; fourteen wards have a higher rate, ten a lower. The death-
rate, as well as the birth-rate, of Ward 12 would be slightly lower
if we could exclude the tenement-houses. Otherwise the relatively
dense population of the ward seems to exert little influence on death-
rates, though whatever effect it may have cannot be traced owing
to the lack of statistics of population by age-groups. But the higher
death-rates of some other wards are due to the less economical
arrangement of houses on building-sites, worse sanitary appliances,
1 Compiled from the Report of the Registry Department of the City of Boston.
1904, pp. 245-293.
1 Calculated.
/ard
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
7
25-43
25.64
25.99
20.7
24.2
13
25.26
27.36
24.58
232
18.4
5
23.67
21.65
22.47
17.6
15-4
6
23.86
20.27
19.57
18.7
17.4
17
23.40
20.41
18.20
16.4
18.2
18
23.70
19.10
18.20
182
16.3
9
22.57
18.03
18.45
16.3
16.8
3
19-43
19.94
1751
16.3
16-3
4
19.92
19.46
17.27
17.1
15-2
14
18.17
1781
16.27
16.7
17-3
2
18.34
18.80
16.90
14.1
16.5
19
18.61
17.07
17.26
158
14.9
15
18.17
16.21
18.48
14.5
iS-i
16
18.18
15.40
16.51
15.5
13-7
12
17-85
16.91
15-93
13-9
14.2
I
16.77
14 62
15.90
15.6
145
23
14.00
23.77
13-79
13.1
12.3
21
15.96
16.87
14.59
13-7
14.7
II
17-74
15.02
14-36
14.7
13-4
20
14-43
15.84
16.05
13-7
14.0
8
17.03
16.59
14.60
13-1
12.2
22
16.24
14.81
13.01
12.5
13.6
24
13-71
13.44
13.93
14.2
13-7
IO
14.85
15.37
13.28
12.6
12.4
25
12.24
13.91
13-77
13.6
13.0
VITAL STATISTICS 131
insalubrious ward topography, and less favorable age and sex-
grouping, nationality, and employment. There is no reason to sup-
pose that the lodging-house should exercise any very appreciable
direct influence on death-rates. Sanitary conditions are not bad
enough for that, nor are they so good as to cut down the rate.
Probably, all in all, the mere physical surroundings of the lodger
are not more unhealthful than those of the average city-dweller.
But indirectly, through age-grouping and the like, the lodging-house
may have some effect. Other things being equal we should look
for one of the lowest death-rates in the city in Ward 12, since the
bulk of the lodging-house population is in the prime of life ; with
comparatively few births there are of necessity comparatively few
infant deaths. But there are enough tenement children and babies
in the district, and enough old people in the lodging-houses to
prevent the death-rate from falling to the minimum. The lowest
death-rates naturally occur in the suburban wards. Ward 10, how-
ever, which has next to the lowest death-rate, is a lodging- and apart-
ment-house ward. There must be some peculiar constitution of
population, of dwellings, or of topography to account for this.
Probably the cause is to be found in the general absence of bad
tenement-house streets, in the large amount of open land in the
ward, and in the fact that it contains a lodging-house population
in the years of life when death comes most seldom, and an apart-
ment-house contingent chiefly of young and middle-aged people,
with small families and few births, living in relatively new and
modern flats, and in fairly comfortable circumstances.
A comparison of the average birth- and death-rates of Tables 46
and 47 yields some further light on the position of the lodging-house
district as regards population and social vitality. Table 48 arranges
the wards in order of difference between average annual birth-rate
and average annual death-rate, to the great disparagement of the
apartment-house Ward 10, the aristocratic Back Bay Ward u, and
the lodging-house Ward 12. In each of these three wards, the deaths
are in excess of the births. In none of them therefore is the ward
population self- perpetuating. Ward 7 is the only other ward in the
city that comes near this state of affairs, and Ward 7 is at the other
end of the social scale from Ward n. In Ward 7, notwithstanding
a high birth-rate, the high infant mortality, the crowded conditions,
132 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
the unhealthful proximity to the stagnant waters of the harbor and
South Bay raise the death-rate to a point almost sufficient to keep
the population stationary. All the other wards show an excess of
births over deaths, some little, others much. The most remarkable
excess is that of Ward 8, because of the very high birth-rate and
very low death-rate, two things which do not usually go together.
This unique condition must be attributed to the Jewish population.
In considering the position of Ward 10, n, and 12, it is well to
point out that their birth-rates are less than the death-rate of any
ward in the city, while, with the exception of Ward 10, their death-
rates do not fall in the lowest group. Chart xvi shows graphically
this unfavorable relation between births and deaths. 1 These three
wards stretch across the city in a broad belt from the Charles River
almost to the South Bay, and represent that part of Boston's popula-
tion which is committing "race-suicide" at no uncertain rate. 2 It
is a phenomenon that deserves more thorough and more scientific
study than it has yet received.
TABLE 48. BIRTH-RATES AND DEATH-RATES COMPARED, BY WARDS
Excess of death-
rate over birth-
rate
Excess of birth-
rate over death-
Ward
Birth-rate
Death-rate
rate
6
46.12
19.96
26.16
8
33-03
14.50
18.53
19
30-39
16-73
13.66
25
25-74
I3-30
12.44
i
27-79
15.48
12.31
13
35-85
23-75
12.10
2
29.01
16.93
12.08
16
26.59
15.86
10-73
14
26.95
I7-25
9.70
22
23-37
14.05
9-32
24
22.63
13.80
8.83
20
23-56
14.80
8.76
3
26.12
17.90
8.22
15
24.69
16.49
8.20
1 The chart is based on the figures for 1901 , but would not be materially altered were
it changed to suit the averages for 1900-1904.
1 Should the changes in the building laws above alluded to (Chapter x) be made,
and any considerable number of lodging-houses be remodelled into tenement- or low-
priced apartment-houses, we should look for an increase in birth-rate, since married
couples would take the place of single men and women.
VITAL STATISTICS 133
TABLE 48 continued.
Excess of birth-
Excess of death-
rate over death-
rate over birth-
Ward
Birth-rate
Death-rate
rate
rate
18
26.61
19.10
7-51
23
22.26
15-39
7-37
4
24-93
17.79
7-24
17
27-54
19.32
6.22
9
23.19
18.43
4.76
21
18.51
I5-36
3-15
5
21.70
20.16
1-54
7
24.72
24-39
33
10
"55
I3-70
I-I5
ii
13.01
15.04
2.03
12
11.69
15.48
3-79
CHAPTER XV
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION
THE lodging-house has shown itself to exert a not unimportant
influence upon the vital statistics of the city; it has disclosed to us
new forms, or at least new conditions of poverty and dependence;
and now we have to note that it presents certain still darker aspects
of which it is our duty to speak in this chapter and the next. An
assiduous and discriminating reader of the daily newspaper must
be struck with the frequency with which the lodging-house appears
in one role or another generally an unenviable one within its
columns. The exact amount of crime connected with, or centring
in a lodging-house district is problematic, but it is not small, and
there is no room whatever to doubt its existence. Gambling, theft,
counterfeiting, suicide, and murder, all come to light as occasional
or frequent manifestations of the underworld of lodging-house life.
The writer regrets that he has not kept a systematic record of the
crimes connected with the rooming-house, so far as it has come
under his observation. Such task must be left to those who follow
out the more detailed investigation of the subject. Such accounts
as came to notice without special search in Boston newspapers
were saved, however, for the winter and spring of 1903-04; and
some continuous acquaintance with the papers of four other large
cities of the country, New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Cleveland
convinces us that the conditions in Boston are duplicated elsewhere,
no doubt in every large city in the country.
In Boston, the rooming-house is dragged into the papers most
often, perhaps, by the suicide of a lodger. At least eight instances
came to notice in approximately eight months. There were doubt-
less others as well ; and there have been many since. That the lodg-
ing-house should be the scene of many such tragedies is natural.
The friendless, the unemployed middle class men and girls in
trouble and far from home drift to the rooming-house, sometimes
of a better, sometimes of a worse type. The house itself is not in-
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 135
frequently the scene of the deed. More often, perhaps, we read that
such and such a lodger has ended his troubles by jumping into the
Charles River, or elsewhere away from home by some other means.
The causes of the suicides are various, and they not infrequently
throw a sidelight upon the inner life of the lodging-house district.
Suicide of seduced girls is common; despondency due to financial
troubles or to inability to get work, and jealousies and intrigues
over illicit love-affairs are also important causes. Sometimes the
notice of the suicide is laconically brief, stating only the fact and
the means: "Mary committed suicide this morning at St.
last night by taking hydrate of chloral."
During the winter of 1903-4, there were at least two murders and
a double shooting in South End lodging-houses, all directly due to
some form of jealousy. In one case a jealous man shot the woman
who was living with him as his wife, and a man whom he had found
with her. This was in a quiet and "eminently respectable" lodging-
house on a reputable street. Scarcely a month after this case occurred
another of similar nature on Washington Street, where a young
man shot and killed a waitress who had been living with him as
his wife but who refused to continue the relation. A month later the
papers were reporting another tragedy: "Murder was done at the
South End this noon, when shot and killed ,
whom he found in company with his wife. The crime was com-
mitted in Mrs. 's room on the fourth floor of the lodging-house
at St." These cases are of not so much significance in them-
selves as of what lies beyond, and, never reaching a climax, murder
or suicide, does not come to light.
Crime of a less serious nature helps still further to darken the
pages of the lodging-house record. When a daring shoplifter is
wanted, or stolen goods are sought for, they are generally found
in some lodging-house. Nearly a dozen cases of this kind, in the
South End alone, came to our notice during the winter. A man
and woman were locked up for stealing laundry, a shoplifter living
in a South End rooming-house and selling her stolen goods in South
End pawn-shops was arrested, and three men and a woman were
apprehended for having stolen goods in their room. A doctor in
a South End lodging-house was arrested for obtaining money from
unsuspecting women under cover of "a good investment."
136 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
The following newspaper notice shows a kind of thief typical of
the lodging-house: "A. B. alias X. Y., of Quincy, was arrested last
evening charged with being a lodging-house thief. He has a criminal
record. He hired a room at St. and robbed the rooms of other
lodgers when they were out." The lodging-house thief is a distinct
class of criminal, just as is the shoplifter or the pickpocket. His
method as exemplified above is to hire a room in a lodging-house for
a short time, and to seize the opportunity thus afforded to appropri-
ate everything he can lay hands on. He takes jewelry and other
personal property of the lodgers, or this failing, fills his suit-cases
with rugs and bed-clothing. He corresponds in the lodging-house
district to the "servant-girl thief" in the private residence districts.
Another sort of thievery is the "jumping" of room- rent bills.
This, however, does not appear to be a common evil. Few such cases
are reported to the police, and most landladies say they have little
trouble on this score probably because experience has rendered
them doubly vigilant. The universal rule is that rents shall be paid
in advance at least one week, and the unscrupulous roomer thus has
little chance to cheat the landlady. Sometimes cases of clever
swindling occur. One girl, for instance, made a practice of getting
in arrears with her rent and leaving a cheap, and empty, trunk
for the consolation of the landlady.
Another evil not uncommon in the lodging-house district is
gambling. Whether the houses in which gambling, through police
raids and otherwise, comes to light are as a rule lodging-houses we
are unable to state, but it is certain that gambling-houses and
gambling- rooms exist within the confines of the lodging-house
district, and even on what are considered the best streets. 1 Persons
who content themselves with the idea that no gambling goes on in
the South End are cherishing a delusion. Even outward indications
point plainly to the contrary. Just to what extent the lodging-house
1 Of a raid in the best section of the South End we read : " Fifteen men were charged
with being present where gambling implements were found, and one was alleged
to have been the watchman. Eight packs of cards, 325 chips, a gaming table, etc.,
were seized." And again: "About six P. M. officers of Station 5 raided a room at
Ave. and seized two packs of cards, 190 chips, and gaming implements. Five
men were arrested." In a raid on Shawmut Avenue during the winter one man lost
his life by falling from the roof whither he had gone to escape the police who were
raiding a gambling-room.
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 137
population as such is a participant in these operations it is not
possible to say, but the important fact is that the evil forms part
of the general and constant environment of the lodger, and that the
unwary, or the naturally free-and-easy youth may at any time fall
into its ways.
We saw in Chapter iv that a number of liquor-stores are situated
in the district, and that, while there are practically no saloons within
the district proper, many are situated on the borders, between the
lodging-house district and the tenement-house regions beyond. 1
Nevertheless drunkenness is not a typical lodging-house evil in
this country as it is abroad. 2 In the cheaper houses which furnish
"shelter to the wholly irresponsible, if not criminal element," in
which "visitors arrive and depart any hour of the day or night,"
and "men and women lodgers pass in and out of each others' rooms
indifferently," drunkenness and other evils of course go hand in
hand. 3 Regions of such houses abound on Washington Street
about Dover Street, and on the cross-streets to the eastward, on
lower Tremont Street, lower Shawmut Avenue, on Harrison Avenue
between Castle and Beach Streets, and in the West End. But the
police report that an arrest for drunkenness in the better class of
lodging-house is comparatively rare. The writer can testify, how-
ever, that in one week in the winter of 1902-3 there were in the
block where he was then living one of the best streets in the
South End three disturbances calling for police intervention:
a drunken cook in a basement dining-room, a drunken man beating
his wife, and a midnight disturbance the exact character of which
never came to light.
The lodging-house district is a sort of sink into which are drained
all the homeless vagabonds who live by their wits and by preying
upon other people. All sorts of criminals naturally drift thither
because they have no other haven of refuge, and in many cases no
doubt because they find their victims in the lodging-house popula-
1 The saloons on West Dedham and West Canton streets are essentially outside
the district, because they draw their patronage from the tenement-house population
of those streets and the obscure back streets near at hand.
2 Cf. Georges Picot, " L'habitation ouvriere a Paris Le logement en garni."
Academic des Sciences Morales et Politiques, n. s., vol. 53, p. 673.
3 Cf. The City Wilderness, p. 167.
138 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
tion itself. Perhaps the chief reason, however, why lodging-houses
and these not the cheap transient houses merely, but well-
equipped furnished- room houses in respectable districts are so
frequented by the criminal class is that here they can most easily
evade the police, by frequent change of address. An interesting
fact in this connection is that in the lodging-house district bordering
on a certain short street in the South End the postman has between
4000 and 5000 letters a year which he cannot deliver owing to the
way in which people move about, and often because landladies
do not know the names of their lodgers. It is the evidence of the
police that most of the criminals of the city live in lodging-houses,
not of the South End exclusively, but more especially of the West
End.
Nor is it too much to say that the lodging-house makes criminals.
When a young man and a young woman are thrown together in
illicit relations by the very force and circumstances of lodging-house
environment, and through the chain of events thus started, the girl
becomes a suicide or the boy a murderer, the lodging-house must
be held responsible for social dissolution. The connection between
prostitution and crime is well recognized. Even a priori one would
suppose that the free-and-easy relations of rooming-house life, and
the promiscuousness with which persons of each sex, and of all
occupations, education, and antecedents, are thrown together would
lead often to criminal associations and then to criminal acts. We
have inductive evidence that such is the case. Such, also, is the
testimony of all who have had any experience with lodging-house
life. A careful search of police records, were it permitted, or even
of newspaper files, would more than substantiate the conclusion to
which we are forced.
An interesting sidelight is thrown on the breadth of view of
public officials, when in the face of conditions such as these the
probation officer of a city as large as Boston states that he traces
absolutely no connection between lodging-houses and crime. The
backwardness of criminal statistics in American cities is illustrated
by the fact that, in Boston at least, no record of crime is kept by
wards or precincts, or by the type of district and of houses in which
crimes occur. While the police go on struggling, with fluctuating
zeal, to suppress criminal tendencies, at least one source of crime
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 139
is left unattacked. It is time the conditions were acknowledged and
given detailed technical study by those whose business it is to see
that not only ready-made criminals are apprehended, but that new
criminals shall not be produced needlessly because of our failure
to attack the sources of crime, wherever discovered.
The most anomalous aspect of crime in the lodging-house is its
close juxtaposition to virtue. The good and evil sleep in adjoining
rooms and sit vis-a-vis at the cafe" table. Unsuspecting youth is
thrown in contact with the hardened conscience whose sensibilities
reach only to things gross and material; young men and women
learn lessons in life from roue* and prostitute, which tend sooner or
later to break down their moral standards and to lower the moral
plane of their action. Whether many young men and women are
thrown directly with hardened criminals in the lodging-house is not
the question, at least not the whole question. The fact is that they
live next door to fearful possibilities, which often develop into
actualities ; and what is of equal import, they become familiar with
prostitution, accustomed to its constant presence in all its varied
aspects.
To this subject we now turn. No attempt to picture the lodging-
house world would be even approximately accurate without some
reference to this evil. In general it may be said that not only with
regard to the extent of its presence in lodging-house districts, but with
regard to its prevalence in other and unsuspected parts of the city
the general thinking public knows altogether too little. It is to be
hoped that some way will be found in the near future to afford
ample funds and two or three expert investigators for the problem
of prostitution as it presents itself in Boston. What is to be said
here is only by way of suggestion as to what a careful and detailed
special investigation would certainly reveal in the lodging-house
district.
It seems safe to say that there are few lodging-houses which
may not at some time come under moral suspicion. We have already
noted that landladies fall broadly into two classes those who
care and those who do not care. Constant vigilance on the part
of the landlady, who must always be setting herself against the
tendencies of rooming-house custom and public feeling, is necessary
to the maintenance of a house of irreproachable respectability. The
140 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
economic struggle she must make the necessity of renting as
many rooms as possible results in a gradual and perhaps uncon-
scious relaxation of her moral standards, at least in so far as they
are applied in practice. Before she knows it she has dropped into
the easy-going habit of not knowing too much about her lodgers,
and various evils have crept into her house, of which moral laxness
and downright prostitution may be the least.
Prostitution appears under many different guises, nearly all of
which can be found in the lodging-house district. First there are
a considerable number of regular houses of prostitution. The writer
was furnished a list of fifteen by the New England Watch and Ward
Society, and this by no means covers the known number of such
houses in the district. Oftentimes the police and every one else
living near know these houses for what they are, but it is extremely
difficult to get evidence that will satisfy the punctiliousness of the
courts and secure conviction. The best of the houses are ostensibly
elegant and very quiet private residences. They are always abso-
lutely, almost deathly, quiet during the day, and even at night they
are careful not to invite police surveillance by noise or by lighted
windows. Although there is some slight tendency toward a grouping
of disreputable houses in fixed centres, regular houses of ill-fame
can be found on some of the best lodging-house streets.
A second and much more frequent type of disreputable house is
conducted under the guise of a lodging-house. It is very likely to
display a conspicuous room-sign, and to have its street number
posted in large characters in the door or window. It will take
a few lodgers, as a blind, preferably of course men and transients,
but it is primarily a house of prostitution and conducted by the
mistress for that purpose. A variant of this type is that in which
the landlady is not directly engaged in the traffic, but where, with
her knowledge, live women of loose character who bring men to
their rooms whenever they please. Rents in such houses are high.
An especially interesting bit of evidence as to the possibilities of
such houses came to the writer's notice. A prominent minister of
the South End, who recently moved in from the suburbs, found
himself together with his wife and a young girl intrusted to their
care, in a house of this type. They had been there a month or two
before they discovered it. The landlady had made all proper pre-
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 141
tensions of conducting a first-class rooming-house in every way
above reproach.
A still more common type of lodging-house (for we pass insensibly
from out-and-out houses of prostitution to lodging-houses) is that
in which with the landlady's tacit consent men lodgers may take
women to their rooms. This is commonly known as a house " with
privileges." 1
In all these houses the landlady knows of the irregular practices.
She knows that if she allows them under her roof she can reap a
much higher price for her rooms. Outwardly such houses do not
differ from the reputable lodging-house, and one might live in them
for some little time before discovering their real character. The
point to be noted is that an inexperienced young girl or young man
coming to the city to live for the first time is about as likely to land
in one of the disreputable houses as in a safe place. Few lodging-
house keepers require references from prospective lodgers. Many
houses will take any lodgers that may come at any hour of the night
or day. Such houses constitute themselves rivals of the hotel, for the
accommodation of those transient couples who ostensibly as man
and wife always "have just arrived in the city and want lodgings
for the night."
Prostitution may also go on within a house without the landlady's
knowledge. Nearly every lodging-house keeper says she keeps a
sharp watch over her lodgers, and that she keeps "only nice people."
If she is not deceived in the second idea she certainly is in the first.
Living in the basement, or even in the front parlor on the first floor,
it is impossible for her to know much of what goes on on the floors
above. The proximity of the rooms of men and women, the fact
that they have, under lodging-house etiquette, perfect right to visit
one another's rooms, and the quietness with which people can
come in and out, render immoral practices not only easy, but almost
1 Cf. The City Wilderness, pp. 167-8. Very much the same conditions are recorded
for Parisian lodging-houses. "Le locataire en garni est done guette" par 1'alcoolisme
et ses perils croissants. Ce n'est pas le seul danger. A part un petit nombre de
logeurs, les maftres de ces hdtels ne resistent pas a un genre de gain tout special.
Sous le nom de chambre reserve 1 aux voyageurs, il y a au premiere e"tage une piece
mieux meublee, dont le tariff est arbitraire et le usage tres suspect." Georges Picot,
in Seances et Travaux de I' Academic des Sciences Morales et Politiques, n. s., vol. 53,
pp. 673-674.
142 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
a matter of certainty, and this despite the isolation of the individual
in social matters, and the rapidity with which the constituency of
a house changes. The absence of a public parlor and the conse-
quent custom of taking callers to rooms have also a tendency to create
situations the evil possibilities of which can scarcely be overesti-
mated. All this helps to give to any but the very best houses an
atmosphere of moral laxity within which the lodger comes inevitably
sooner or later to tolerate thoughts, associations, and actions which
in other surroundings he would not brook an instant.
Not the least regrettable or the least dangerous phase of immor-
ality in the lodging-house is the large number of informal and
temporary unions there to be found going under the outward sem-
blance of marriage. In the last chapter we saw instances of crime
resulting from such illicit combinations. Their number it is of
course impossible to ascertain, but the testimony of persons ac-
quainted with lodging-house life indicates that a revelation of the
actual number of such combinations existing at any one time would
cause virtuous society some consternation. These unions come
about in various ways, from chance meetings in the lodging-house,
on the street, or in the cafe's. The isolation of the young life from
companionship and friends renders the potentialities of such
acquaintanceships very great. A man and a girl meet, perhaps at
a cafe" table; they meet again, by chance perhaps, and then by
tacit consent or appointment. At first the girl pays her own way;
then some day she allows the man to pay for her dinner or to take
her to the theatre. Thus matters progress until, with a consistent
masculine sense of compensatory justice, he comes unconsciously
to think he has some claims upon her, and she, bowing to tradi-
tional ways of thinking, also comes to something of the same feeling.
The final result of it all is that they strike up a temporary alliance
for the sake of companionship and the saving of expense. In many
cases both parties are actuated by genuine and lasting regard, and
the union, albeit illegal, may be happy. In such cases marriage is
nearly always looked forward to as soon as the couple feel that they
can surely afford it. In other cases the motive of the girl is simply to
find support, and that of the man gratification. Economic reasons
play an important part in the formations of such unions. Employers
are not lacking who pay low wages, with the expectation that their
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 143
female employee will have some "gentleman friend" to help her.
That temporary unions are formed for the winter months, and re-
formed with varying combinations the following autumn, cannot
be doubted. Perhaps as often the union runs on from year to year,
because the parties desire to live together permanently, or because
from sheer inertia they are unable to separate. A prominent minister
of a large South End church states that he is not infrequently called
upon by parents to interfere with a son or daughter who is living
in this way. His course is always, if possible, tactfully to get the
consent of the couple to a legal marriage and to go with the man
himself for the license if need be, in the hopes of seeing the couple
started on the way to a home of their own, outside the lodging-house
district.
There is no doubt whatever that the temporary union is one
avenue through which the prostitute class, both of men and of
women, is recruited. After a girl has lived with a man and has been
"thrown over" by him, it is much easier for her to cast aside her
pride and self-respect and go to living with other men, whence
the way to the life of the avowed prostitute is straight and open.
And after a man has thus treated one girl, it is easy for him to con-
tinue to prostitute himself and leave a trail of ruined lives behind
him. A writer on Parisian lodging-houses, already quoted in these
pages, states that ninety- nine per cent, of the women prostitutes of
Paris are recruited from the lodging-house class. 1
The prevalence of immorality among males is a less uncertain
quantity than is the extent of prostitution among women lodgers.
The evidence of a number of reliable physicians of the South End
is that sexual immorality and venereal disease are very common
among male lodgers. In fact, one is left to believe that few young
men in the lodging-house district escape contamination at some
time in their lives. At the same time the physicians are almost with-
out exception unwilling to say that these evils are more prevalent
among lodgers than among other classes. Drug-store clerks, how-
ever, who were in the South End before it became a lodging-house
section, say that their trade has become of a much less agreeable
character since the change took place.
1 " Sur cent filles qui tombent dans la prostitution, il y en a quatre-vingt-quinze
qui le doivent au logement." Georges Picot, op. cit., p. 681. He makes this state-
ment on the authority of a police official.
144 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
The great number of "medical specialists" in the South End,
whose carefully worded but transparent advertisements fill one or
two of Boston's less reputable newspapers, is an indication of an
evil growing directly out of the temporary unions to which we have
alluded, the great number of mistresses or "kept women" in certain
apartment-house sections, and the disinclination seemingly of all
classes save the tenement-dwellers to have children. The doctors
have much evidence on this and kindred topics, all of which bears
more or less directly on the general lodging-house problem, but
into which we cannot enter here. It belongs to the special investiga-
tion which we hope some one will make. At any rate the people of
Boston have not been without occasion of late to ask themselves
how prevalent the evil is.
Another question to be considered when the connection between
the lodging-house and prostitution shall have been investigated
thoroughly is that of the public attitude toward houses of prostitu-
tion. Shall they be permitted, or compelled, to centralize in some
one locality and be kept as strictly as possible within its limits; or
shall the police attack them wherever found and scatter them as
much as possible ? Different cities follow different policies. Ten or a
dozen years ago Boston adopted the policy of scattering the houses,
with the result that to-day they are sprinkled all over the city,
but most thickly in the lodging-house districts. Prostitution would
undoubtedly arise in lodging-houses even were there no houses of
ill- fame in the district, but as it is now there is an inextricable mix-
ture of the good and the bad, the prevalence of the evil is intensified
by loose women living in rooms instead of regular houses, and daily
contact renders every one familiar with at least the outward aspects
of the immoral life. There is of course a strong argument on the
other side, in favor of scattering the houses. But we have here no
intention of taking up the question either pro or con. We merely
wish to emphasize that the problem of prostitution and the moral
problem of the lodging-house cannot be separated. The final
solution of either will do much toward solving the other.
At the risk of trying the reader's patience extracts from the
personal narratives of two actual lodging-house occupants are here
inserted. These concrete cases could be duplicated many times
over, but these two are especially interesting because they illustrate
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 145
in concrete form so many of the characteristics of lodging-house life
the heterogeneity and fluidity of population, the buying and
selling and moving, the eating in cafe's, the struggle to maintain
standards of living, the isolations of the lodger's life, and the moral
dangers with which that life is beset.
Two Experiences 0} Lodging-House Life
Number i. "Once I found myself living in a sunless, cellary
room, and I thought best to make a change. I waited for the sum-
mer vacation, when I should have more time, but for months
beforehand I was making inquiries of all my friends and looking
about myself. . . . When the summer came I went to the Women's
Educational and Industrial Union, which keeps a book containing
the addresses of rooms and gives references of the landladies. I
took a long trip for the sole purpose of making inquiry of one whom
I thought knew as to what was a safe locality, one that could not
be questioned, and made every effort that I could think of to make
sure that I was making the right move. I decided as the best I
could do to go to a house kept by a young couple just from the
country.
"I moved in July. The last week in September I left the city
a week on business. When I returned a new landlady was installed.
A remark that she made to the effect that if one wished to keep the
house filled, one could not be particular, but must take whoever
came along, decided me at once not to stay with her. She in turn
decided to take another house, and wished me to go with her.
"Not wishing to move so soon again unless necessary, I went to
the agent and made arrangements to keep my room if a satisfactory
party took the house. I emphasized the fact that I could put up
with some things that I did n't like, but the thing that I must insist
upon was that every one in the house must be of unquestionable
character. I also saw the owner, and repeated the same to him.
I received assurances that I should be 'protected,' and no one but
desirable parties should come in. When the house was let, I took
pains to say the same thing to landlady no. 3, and was assured again
and again that everything should be straight about the place
" One night later I went to sleep at ten P. M. to find myself soon
146 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
broad awake. At first all was silent as death, but in a few minutes
there were low shrieks that soon became frightful. I heard the
housekeeper call 'what's the matter?' and then she came bursting
into my room, telling me that that had been going on for some time.
I thought the man was killing his wife, and as I listened breath-
lessly after every sickening thud and cessation of shrieks, and
wondered if he had choked her to death, I thought of myself in
a police court as witness; of my name in the papers; of the friends
in the country who would be astonished, some perhaps suspicious,
at my being in a place like that. . . .
"There was but a sick man in the house outside of the quarrel-
some couple, and while I was asking myself if I had the courage
to rap on the door below, the policeman rang the bell. I was on the
top floor and could not speak to him, and the rest kept perfectly
silent. The woman who did the shrieking answered the officer, and
all was quiet for the rest of the night. The housekeeper instructed
her daughters to lie to the officer, and he was told that they did not
hear any noise or know of any trouble. I told my landlady that I
should not stay another night in that house until those people went
out. In a few days they did so. The drink was not the worst of it.
There is no doubt whatever that no marriage ceremony had been
performed for them, and the woman was not even true to the self-
imposed bond, and that was the trouble.
"Every landlady who wishes you to think her establishment
irreproachable will tell you that she keeps 'a very quiet house,' but,
with the exception of that single night when passion got beyond
control, that was a very quiet house, and I doubt if my landlady
would ever have sent that couple adrift if they had kept quiet. . . .
"The man who followed and wanted 'to be in a quiet house' was
just as bland and smooth in his talk and carefully quiet in his ways
as possible. He rented a room on the lower floor. I went to my
landlady and said, 'Apropos of the trouble we have recently had,
I would like to ask what you know of the character of this man.'
'Nothing, except that he came from Tremont Street and wanted
to be in a quiet house.' 'Did n't you ask him for any references?'
'No.' It is needless to say that I knew that I must go elsewhere for
a room, but I hoped that matters might not come to a crisis until I
could have time in the summer to set up another despairing hunt.
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 147
A hasty move might land me in just as bad a place. To close the
story, this man went around the streets asking young girls to come
into his room and drink wine. They came, and he let them in. It
is easy to drug wine ; he used to let them out the next morning.
"... I wrote my employer that I could not go to him, gave up
a week's rent that I had paid, and tumbled out of the place.
"There was no time that I was there that I felt in personal
peril. If I had been a young girl, fond of company, and with few
resources, I should not have been safe. And I can see no reason why
a young girl, even with the best intentions, might not be put in
similar conditions. I know of no precaution I could take that I
did not take. Available knowledge of safe places is altogether inade-
quate, and sooner or later, I think the girl finds herself on the street
hunting rooms, relying on the signs she sees or the 'ads.' she has
read in the morning papers."
Number 2. "I came as a girl to work in Boston fresh from a
simple life in the country.
"Such relatives as were left to me ... assisted me to find a
lodging- room in the South End. I was too inexperienced to under-
stand their anxiety for me in regard to the character of the house
where I was to live. I was finally settled in a side room in a house
kept by a man and his wife where some cousins of mine also lodged.
The protection which their company afforded certainly seemed
ample, and the arrangement was a pleasant one.
"After living there for some weeks in my narrow quarters, for
which I paid $1.50 a week, I went down one evening to my land-
lady's parlor to pay my rent. Her husband was seated in the room
and she was lying on the couch. ... I was forced to the suspicion
that she was drunk. ... A little while elapsed before I saw her
one afternoon when I returned home, seated in the lap of a man
who was not her husband, while on the table near them were bottles
and glasses. Needless to say that with such evidence my cousins
and myself gave up our rooms in that house. There had been other
reasons for judging my landlady's character adversely, of which I
did not feel the full weight until with greater experience I realized
to the full their significance. There is no doubt that she would have
148 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
led me into a life of ruin if I had heeded her suggestions or shown
any disposition for a life of excitement. . . . On another occasion
she told me with cruel frankness that another woman occupant of
the house, with whom I had been for some time on friendly terms,
was the mistress and not the wife, as I had supposed, of the man
who came to spend Sundays with her.
"Leaving this vicious place, I secured another side room in a
house which also seemed eminently respectable. A school-teacher
and a married couple certainly gave it a good tone. The woman
in charge was young and very attractive. She spoke of it as her
mother's house, and I called her 'Mrs. .' Before long, when
I went to pay my rent I began to meet in her parlor a very hand-
some and agreeable man. One day she was ill in her room, so that
I went in there to pay my rent. I was very much surprised to find
it most elegantly furnished. Her dresses had always seemed to me
out of place in her business as a lodging-house keeper, but I was
not disposed to be over- critical. The illness proved to be consump-
tion of such a nature that she was prescribed country air. Again
I was misled because she had a doctor to whom I had been myself,
and who was, I supposed, a person practicing among respectable
people. The gentleman now urged in every way that I should go to
the country with her, promising that in any event I should be amply
paid and would not be allowed to suffer by giving up my permanent
position with its scanty six dollars a week. My eyes had been opened
sufficiently to make me uncomfortable and suspicious, and I refused.
I can see now how if that offer had come a little later, when I was
unexpectedly without work, I might in perfect good faith have
accepted a position most compromising and embarrassing, to say
the least, for her death occurred within a week.
"My next move was a most agreeable combination with some
young married friends. The woman who kept the house was not
very attractive, so we saw her only when we paid the rent. This
arrangement lasted a winter until the others went to housekeeping.
Soon after I fell seriously ill. My doctor summoned a friend who,
coming to see me during the day, quickly discovered what I and my
friends had never suspected that the two lower floors of the house
were being used for gambling and other most disreputable purposes.
I was at once removed, but it was only four or five weeks later that
CRIME AND PROSTITUTION 149
the house was raided by the police. Had I remained an unsuspecting
inmate of such a house, what might it have meant to a girl
whose good character was her chief reliance in earning a slender
living ?
"Such was my introduction to city life."
CHAPTER XVI
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE
VIEWED in proper perspective the lodging-house question is of far
broader sociological significance than the mere number of persons
involved might lead us to suppose. It is in fact an important
phase of the general problem of the home, of the maintenance of
the home ideal against certain social and economic forces which
in the present era are tending strongly to disrupt it. We have
just had a glimpse into the darker recesses of lodging-house life,
and we cannot but pause to inquire what, in the light of the
preceding chapter, must be the influence of the lodging-house
upon the home life of those who go out from it. What is its effect
upon the marriage-rate, and upon the attitude of men and women
toward the institutions of marriage, home, and family? Are the
dearth of children in the lodging-house section and the extremely
low birth-rate there due to scarcity of marriages among persons
who are, or who have been, lodgers ? Is, or is not, the influence of
the lodging-house to postpone marriage indefinitely, and in some
cases to do away with it altogether as an unnecessary restriction
upon personal liberty ? Upon the answer to these questions, so far
as any answer is possible in the present state of our knowledge,
depends still further our judgment of the moral and social status
of the lodging-house.
First of all it is necessary to ascertain the facts. Do lodgers
marry ? And if they marry, do they have children ? Unfortunately
for this inquiry these queries cannot be answered definitely. There
is no statistical evidence one way or the other. It is to be regretted
that the Annual Reports of the City Registry Department, while
giving by wards valuable tabulations of birth- and death-rates,
afford us absolutely no information concerning local marriage-rates.
Had we the marriage-rate of Ward 12, as we have its birth- and death-
rates, we could therefrom make some rough inference as to the
probable extent of marriage in the lodging-house population. In
the absence of direct statistics we must resort to indirect methods.
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 151
The birth- and death-rates tell something. Other things being equal,
a locality that does not naturally reproduce itself in other words
one in which the annual death-rate exceeds year after year the
annual birth-rate, as is the case in Ward 12 probably has a low
marriage-rate. On the other hand it is entirely possible that even
with this excess of deaths over births a high marriage-rate might still
exist. This would be so did lodgers marry and then move out of
the district, or if after marriage they did not have children, both
of which suppositions are to some extent true to fact. Nevertheless
the extremely low birth-rate of the lodging-house district stands as
a black mark against it. The movement of married lodgers from
the district cannot be measured without the aid of a special city or
state census, and even by that means it is doubtful if it would be
easy to arrive at a close approximation to the truth. All, then, that
the statistics tell us is that if lodgers marry they do not remain
in the district and have children.
The writer had hoped that some evidence might be gleaned from
church-records, from physicians, ministers, and from landladies;
but the church- records tell us nothing, the physicians have little
to say on the subject, and the evidence of the landladies is conflicting
and on this point unreliable. Only by the ministers, who perform
marriages, are we granted a grain of comfort, and that a small one.
Most of the South End ministers know little of lodging-house life.
Their congregations consist largely of people from outside the
district, and, with one or two exceptions, they themselves live in
the suburbs. One or two, however, come more or less in contact
with lodgers, and are seeking intelligently to attack the lodging-
house problem. One minister states that on the average he performs
two marriages per week, one of which is of lodgers. Another per-
forms an average of three marriages per week of lodgers, but his
practice is altogether exceptional. He is well known to the lodgers.
His opinion is that sooner or later the lodger does marry, but that
in most cases the step is postponed indefinitely, generally for eco-
nomic reasons. We are, however, left in the dark as to the actual
number of marriages or the actual marriage-rate among lodgers,
as compared with other classes. One fact we may be sure of: the
tendency of lodging-house life is to postpone both marriage and the
intention to marry.
152 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
This slowness of the lodger to undertake the responsibilities of
the marriage-tie is due to three varieties of causes, social, economic,
and moral.
Among the social influences stands first the fact that lodgers have
little opportunity to meet in legitimate social intercourse. Some-
thing has been said of the lamentable isolation of the individual
condemned to the life of the lodger, but it will bear reemphasis.
The fact that not one lodging-house in a hundred has a public
parlor or reception-room, in which women lodgers may receive
their friends is strong evidence that men and women are not, in the
average rooming-house, thrown together in the most healthy sort
of relation. Some girls will readily accept the way of the world,
reluctantly or thoughtlessly as the case may be, and rather than
be isolated from natural intercourse, descend to the level of lodging-
house etiquette. Others positively refuse to receive a man caller in
their bedrooms. Such must either go without male company or
else enjoy it strolling the street or sitting on a park bench in the
uncertain lights and shadows of trees and electric lights. It is a
question which of these courses is most demoralizing. Most girls
in lodging-houses are either working their way alone in Boston or
are there as students, with scarcely any one near to take a friendly
and at the same time intelligent interest in them. Bad as the old-
time boarding-house might be in its moral influence (and it could
be and still is, where it exists, sometimes extremely detrimental to
moral standards), there was nevertheless the landlady herself who
knew her boarders at least by name and occupation, and who in
probably the majority of houses would do what was in her power
to preserve a girl or young man from a false step. The meetings
between young men and women in the boarding-house were much
more natural and normal, and took place under much more nearly
the conditions demanded by common-sense propriety than do those
of the lodging-house. And they were very much more frequent.
It is extremely doubtful, however, whether the insistence that
every house should have a public parlor would cure the evils to
which we have alluded, although it would undoubtedly contribute
some alleviation to a situation now all but hopeless.
A second, more deeply rooted social influence also comes in here
class consciousness. The writer once heard a college student
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 153
speak in tones of regret of a girl who had married a railway brake-
man, as if she were uncompromisingly lost by marrying out of her
class, although upon inquiry it appeared that she herself was the
daughter of a village merchant. This is one matter in which fiction
is not truer than real life. Class consciousness has an existence in
real life which can scarcely be overestimated. The important fact
to note here is that it retards the marriage- rate, especially in the
city. The average shop-girl or stenographer or dressmaker prob-
ably would look upon "going into service" and marrying a mechanic
as two evils between which she would rather not have to choose.
It is a curious fact that even girls of the great working-class itself
sometimes look down upon its men, and would as a rule welcome
a chance of marrying out of it. This attitude is perhaps due in part
to much dime-novel and penny-dreadful reading, to which it is
ascribed by a woman who had abundant opportunity for first-hand
observation of working- girls. 1 It may be due also to a commendable
desire to better one's position in life. Probably, moreover, the fact
that some lines of employment are largely given over to particular
nationalities proves a barrier. Back even of these influences there
no doubt lies something of the old feeling that manual work is
degrading, that the dry-goods clerk is more of a gentleman than the
brick-mason or the begrimed machinist. There is that in lodging-
house life, too, which sometimes makes a girl choose rather to be
the mistress of the man with money than the wife of a working-man
or poorly-paid office employee. And the man very often coldly
calculates that it will cost less to keep such a mistress, who can
work and earn some money wages for herself, than to marry and set
up housekeeping. In brief, social classes and conflicting social ideals
tend to erect barriers of pride and artificial notions of propriety
which in many cases are not easily broken over and in many
others are broken down with such a crash of moral sensibilities
that marriage does not seem a necessary formality. The average
mercantile employee, man or woman, attains to social standards
which are conceived to render marriage with a member of the
"working-class" undesirable, though all manner of temporary
alliances may be tolerated, and thus matrimonial unions which,
1 Cf . The Long Day the Story oj a New York Working Girl as Told by Her-
selj, New York.
154 TH E LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
under a more thoughtful, and less selfishly conventional sense of
propriety would be in all respects beneficial to society and happy
for the individuals themselves, are prevented.
The selfish individualism of lodging-house life, however, lies
deeper than class consciousness and false social scales. Its root is
economic. Modern competitive industry is a grimly contested
game, in which every man's hand is against his fellow. The splitting
up into groups merely serves to obscure this fact. Each man, each
group, is quick to assert rights, but not slow to take advantage of
another whenever opportunity affords.
Not every motive in competitive society, of course, is based on
this narrow selfishness. There is much altruism, even in American
cities, but the fact that it so conspicuously takes on the name of
charity and philanthropy is in itself a sorry commentary upon our
feeble powers of industrial and social cooperation. It is especially
in cities that the most intense individualism is rampant. There
such a thing as " neighborliness " (outside the tenements) is rare.
Mutual aid is rarely spontaneous; it has to be carefully organized,
with by-laws and a constitution. Country and village and town
know what community-life is. The city knows chiefly group-life.
And within and between the groups constant conflict an all but
Darwinian struggle is the normal condition. Into this seething
mass young persons are dropped, believing that they are entering
a veritable elysium of opportunity where they can show their mettle.
They come with certain economic standards of living which
vary more or less between the different occupational branches.
Despite the general leveling tendencies of economic competition
and the dreariness of lodging-house existence, individuals cling
with a death-grasp to the maintenance of such economic standards
as they possess. The selfishness of the individual is still further
cultivated by the hard conditions of the economic struggle which he,
or she, has to make. The warm-hearted girl, and the genial, generous
young fellow very soon become cold and calculating, seeking every-
where the greatest individual comfort at the least expense. Nor is
this much to be wondered at when we remember how near the
subsistence limit are wages, especially of women and of unskilled
men in all employments. Standards of living, cost of living, and
wages thus assume paramount importance in the marriage question.
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 155
Both men and women come to value highly the pseudo- Bohemian-
ism and the artificial excitements of city life, and marriage comes
to be looked upon as too great a sacrifice, a sacrifice which
looks all the greater, too, when it is perceived that the wages of the
girl will in all likelihood have to be given up sooner or later, and
that the two will have to subsist on what now is scarcely enough for
one.
It would not be correct, however, to hold, as some opponents
of women's labor are disposed to hold, that the employment of a
woman brings down the wages of the man in the same or similar
employments, who would in the natural course be likely to marry
her; so that he is handicapped as a bread-winner for her and
her children, thus establishing a vicious circle which is to be held
responsible for many of the economic and moral difficulties which
cause the lodging-house problem. It would require more courage
than we have thus to lay the lodging-house problem at the door
of woman-labor and women's wages. We have yet to find any
authority who ascribes a low rate of wages, when it exists generally,
to the competition of women, although such competition may be
one factor. And in so far as the wages of men are low enough to
exert an influence tending to postpone marriage and diminish the
marriage-rate, this result must be attributed to all the numerous
forces which determine wages, and not to a minor individual influ-
ence like the competition of women in certain specific lines of
employment.
Where women are paid less than men for the same kind and
amount of labor, men necessarily feel that competition and evils
may result. But the obvious remedy is not the exclusion of women
from that employment, but through trade-union agencies or other-
wise to raise their wages to the level of those of men. There never
was a time when justice did not demand equal wages, for the same
work, for men and women, but it has been only as the fact that
social expediency also demands it has slowly dawned on the con-
sciousness of trade-unionists and economists that the cry has gone
up for organization and equal remuneration. The unions in self-
defense have been compelled to take up the cause of women in
industry, and therein lies the remedy for such temporary evils as
may come from this source.
156 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
The case of the married woman working for wages and that of
the pin-money worker stand upon somewhat different footing.
Where both husband and wife work for wages, both may be tempted,
unless prevented by collective bargaining, to accept lower wages than
they would were they unmarried. Wherever a married woman does
the same work and accepts less pay for it, the employer is virtually
getting a subsidy in the shape of a rebate in wage-payments, and did
any considerable number of married women take this course, their
competition might be felt as an unfair pressure upon men and upon
women who have to earn all their own support. It is not probable,
however, that any considerable number of married women will,
for a long time to come at least, be employed for wages, and even
if they are an increasing intelligence in unionism and collective
bargaining will prevent them from accepting cut-rate wages.
The competition of the pin-money worker is at present serious,
not for men, but for women who have for support only what they
earn themselves. The women and girls who go into the department-
stores, into offices and factories and mills, for supplementary wages
must be eliminated if the problem of a general living-wage which
will allow a reasonably timely marriage is to be settled. Perhaps
such workers constitute the chief cause of lower wages for women
than men, or if not the cause, at least the occasion. We saw in Chap-
ter xi that female department-store employees largely live at home.
The writer tried persistently to get data relating to the number of
mercantile employees of large department-stores who were living
in lodgings. In a few instances store superintendents were cordial
and helpful, and one superintendent of employees went so far as
to have the time-clerk make out a list of nearly a thousand employees
with their addresses. One store had data ready at hand telling
whether each employee boarded, lodged, or lived at home. At
some stores, however, evasive answers were given, and promises
of information made only to be forgotten or broken. And at some
others the authorities came out flat-footedly with the comprehensive
statement that they employed only girls living at home (not stating
why) and hinted in not very subtile terms that they did not need
investigation.
There is another phase of pin-money wages also. The girl who
receives them may neither live at home nor be self-supporting.
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 157
Little doubt exists in the writer's mind that much of the rumor
of immorality in the conditions under which sales-girls, and depart-
ment-store employees generally, have to work is well founded in
fact. This belief is based on the attitude of some department-store
officials with whom he has come in contact, and also on direct
authority of men thoroughly familiar with the mercantile business
in New York and Chicago. It is asserted that some employers,
especially managers of great and popular cheap- price department-
stores, do not take it amiss if their women employees have "gentle-
men friends" to live with. This is not saying that any considerable
number of shop-girls do so live. As to the actual extent of the prac-
tice we know nothing. When you hear, however, of a department-
store official making bets that he will be able to seduce a "stubborn"
girl before the month is up (and that he did so), any possibility
may be looked for. The cause of the evil does not lie primarily
in the class of girls employed, nor in the general social conditions
of city life, nor even in the cynical selfishness of employers, super-
intendents, and managers, which is in turn communicated to the
rank and file of men employees, though these are powerful con-
tributory causes. The root of the situation lies in the low wages of
shop-girls. It is not within our province to write a disquisition upon
women's wages, but this much seems to us true: that so long as
women Ure paid less than men for the same work, or practically
the same work, then questions of morals will inevitably follow. It
may be a question whether, in mercantile employment, say, low
wages cause immoral private lives or immoral private lives low
wages. It might be, of course, that because a girl can live with a
"gentleman friend" or be partially supported by a married man
living in another town or another part of the same city, she will be
able and willing to spend her days behind a counter for wages on
which alone she could hardly keep soul and body together. Un-
doubtedly it does work this way sometimes. But the bulk of the
influence is the other way. The fact that wages are below decent
subsistence level is a direct and powerful incentive to the self-
sustaining girl to take the first step toward "easier" conditions.
Grant that most of her companions live at home and lead, as the
world goes, perfectly normal and moral lives. This makes it all the
harder for the girl in question. They may spend all their money
158 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
on dress, theatre, and other pleasures ; she, though equally pretty,
equally clever, with as good education, must pay the lion's share of
her wages for a cold hall-bedroom on some street most of her ac-
quaintances never heard of, and for lonely breakfasts and suppers in
cheap eating- places; must go less well-dressed than they, and perhaps
as time goes on, be a less efficient saleswoman because of her unequal
struggle. Let her ask for living wages and be brutally asked, "Well,
why don't you get a gentleman friend!" or let her be approached
subtly and insinuatingly, and what are the probabilities of her
action ? Give her living wages, and in most cases she would rise
above the temptation, if it were one. Give her the "pin-money"
wages on which so many mercantile female-wage scales are based,
and the result is not so sure.
The girl who works for subsidiary wages and falls into the trap
of being partially supported by "a friend" loses that independence
the desire for which may have been the very thing that induced her
to enter the ranks of the employed. Probably the sense of freedom
in small money- matters from parents or relatives acts as a strong
incentive to many girls to go to work early, even where it is by no
means necessary. Now this desire for independence is partially
good, partially bad bad because it is content with a partial inde-
pendence, which becomes in the long run something of a bondage,
good because it points in the right direction if only carried far
enough. If women were potentially as economically independent as
men there would be far less prostitution, licensed and unlicensed,
than there is to-day. Women who have the power to earn their own
living, as well as the fortunate ones who have a living income from
property, will not be compelled to marry for a living. They can
maintain their independence and their self-respect as individuals
in a way impossible under a social regime in which women were not
generally permitted to enter industry if they so chose. Where women
can earn their own living alone if need be, marriages will be real
marriages, and not, as we venture to say some are under present
conditions, hypocritical unions ostensibly for love, but really for the
gratification of the man and the support of the woman.
Probably as ideas now run (the idea that the wife is "supported"
and that the husband is the sole bread-winner of the family), the
loss of her own direct industrial earnings, which is consequent on
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 159
marriage, appears to the more thoughtful girl a serious loss of
independence. But this fear need not be entertained when it is
recognized more explicitly that husband and wife are co-workers,
co-partners in home-building and home- maintaining even where, as
in most cases will probably be true, the wife is not a money- wage
earner. Even as things are, where husband and wife both go on
earning wages, as is true in many cases, this objection need not
apply, but in such cases children are perhaps not likely to appear
on the scene. If home and children be the end in view, the wages of
the wife, under present conditions at least, must in the great majority
of cases be sacrificed, and the man held responsible for the total
money (not real) income.
The question of relative cost of living, for one and for two, then
becomes of importance. Whether, as is sometimes asserted, a couple
can live on practically the same sum necessary for one, having regard
only to food and rent, is not a part of our task to decide. Certainly
they cannot do so if they continue living in lodging-houses. It can be
done in one way only. The woman must become a housekeeper, and
the family income must be turned over directly to the grocer and the
owner of the flat, and not to the lodging-house keeper and the restau-
rant-man. The question of flat and apartment rents and facilities
thus becomes a feature in the solution of the lodging-house marriage
question. What accommodations exist for the young couple of very
moderate means who wish to set up housekeeping ? Data are not at
hand for the answer, and to collect them would lead us beyond the
scope of this investigation. That task is left to some one else. 1
The writer does not believe that apartment facilities in Boston
offer the same inducement to the young couple to escape from
lodging-house life that they do in other cities, for instance, in Chicago
or St. Louis, where new and modern flats are scattered everywhere
and at moderate price. Certainly in the South End proper the
1 In some respects, especially in its connection with "high -class prostitution" and
in its influence upon the family and the family ideal, the modern apartment-house is
as worthy of attention from the social student as is the lodging-house. Geographical
distribution of apartment-houses of various classes in city and suburbs, rents and
extra charges, nature of service, extent to which flat- and apartment-dwellers take
in lodgers, rules excluding families with children, and the general social and moral
tendencies of the apartment -house life these are some of the lines of investigation
that should be worked out.
160 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
part of the city with which the lodger is chiefly familiar apart-
ment accommodations are very meagre. Two classes of apartment-
houses are to be distinguished : first, those built thirty or thirty-five
years ago when the district was at its height, and which were
extremely well built, for a fine class of tenants ; and secondly, those
which have been built within the past eight or ten years, and which
are mostly of flimsy construction, and intended to attract a much
cheaper tenantry than were the older apartments. Suites of from
five to seven rooms can be had in the older houses for from forty to
seventy-five dollars a month suites which used to rent for seventy-
five dollars up. In the newer houses, some of which are remodeled
lodging-houses, rents do not fall below thirty dollars a month.
There is a great lack of small apartments, of three or four rooms,
suitable for the young couple of moderate means, and to rent for
eighteen or twenty dollars a month. Such apartments can be had in
the city, but in districts which are in some measure undesirable
either because they are more or less infested with prostitutes, or
because they are in that outer limbo of the city which is neither city
nor suburbs, and in districts where the line between the flat or apart-
ment and the tenement-house is very indistinct. It makes a great
difference to a young couple's pride whether they start life in an
"apartment" or a "tenement."
There can be little doubt that the building of small, moderate-
priced apartments within the lodging-house district by remodeling
lodging-houses at a nominal cost, as would be possible under less
unnecessarily stringent tenement-house regulations, would be a great
step in advance. 1
The economic obstacles in the way of marriage are not peculiar
to the lodger. His difficulties are the same as confront all classes.
It only happens that at the particular time when the problem comes
into the life of very many young men and women, it finds them,
because of the conditions of modern industry, away from the pa-
rental roof and living the monotonous, hand-to-mouth existence of
the lodging- or boarding-house. It would, indeed, be exceedingly
interesting to know how many persons in the city's population have
been at some time in their lives lodgers or boarders. The percentage
would certainly not be small. We should not be surprised, there-
Cf. pp. 79, 80.
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE l6l
fore, that the lodger is somewhat slow in marrying. In a time when
members of the middle and upper classes are especially chary of
early marriage and large families, when relative poverty is as pro-
nounced among lawyers, teachers, doctors, and scientific men as
among laborers and sewing-girls, when even married people in
well-to-do circumstances are unwilling to incur the trouble and
expense of rearing children, when in high society circles it is almost
what we may call a social misdemeanor to have a family, we cannot
be surprised that the ordinary underpaid clerk, the mechanic with
unsteady employment, the small dealer dependent upon a fluctuating
and uncertain patronage, and the struggling young lawyer and
dentist for a long time hesitate to assume the responsibilities of the
marriage tie. The indications are that this postponement of mar-
riage and this unwillingness to have children are true, not only of
the lodging-house population, but of all parts of middle-class society.
The decreasing size of families is a phenomenon which has drawn
the attention of statisticians, of social students, of clergymen, and
statesmen; it is closely connected with the cry of "race suicide,"
and with the problems growing out of the general rush to the cities,
the great increase in the cost of living in recent years, the large
number of divorces, and the prevalence of all sorts of prostitution.
Standards of living, under the influences of modern city life,
are thus becoming more and more individualistic, and their effect
is not limited to preventing young people of one economic class
from freely marrying individuals of another class, nor yet merely
to postponing the time of marriage and increasing the age of wedding
couples. It goes much farther. The unfashionableness of having
children must also be attributed to economic and social standards.
Children mean expense and trouble and constant attention and
"being tied down at home." Many people in the city, moreover,
are constantly seeking expensive modes of enjoyment frequent
threatre parties, popular cafe* suppers, automobiles, and a dozen
other things they cannot afford. If the average mercantile employee,
no matter whether he is well paid or not, can only ape the manners
and habits of the rich, he thinks he is having a good time. The
trouble lies in the fact that so many people have false standards
and do not know how to get lasting enjoyment out of the money
they earn. The consequence is seen in row on row of apartment-
1 62 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
houses filled with childless couples, in the considerable number of
such couples in lodging-houses, and in the surprisingly large prac-
tice enjoyed by the particular class of medical specialists who some-
times figure in criminal cases.
But the standard does not always act in this doubly deplorable
way. Absence of children may be noted in sections of middle-class
society where even the most Puritanical critic of wants and their
satisfaction could not bring a charge of economic Philistinism.
Reference is made, of course, to that large number of persons who
do not feel that they ought to bring children into the world to whom
they cannot give education and opportunities conforming to con-
stantly heightening standards. Moreover, standards of living have
become legitimately higher than they were formerly. Income that
used to go to buy food for a dozen hungry mouths now goes for food
plus other things, for a smaller number. Nor can we doubt seriously
that so long as the number is not reduced beyond reason, and so
long as false, purely imitative standards of expenditure are not set
up, the aggregate happiness will be greater. The danger in the pro-
cess of a rising standard of living lies precisely in the fact that it
may change from a family standard to an individual standard. The
very advantages of city life tend to make this danger all the more
acute. Modern ways of living call forth individual wants undreamed
of by our fathers and mothers. We demand as necessities things
which even a few years ago would have been expensive luxuries.
The existence of good theatres, of good music, and of all the multi-
form means of recreation, enjoyment, and improvement in the mod-
ern city tends to render the individual selfish and self-centred, and
to emphasize the individual life at the expense of that of the family
and the home. And it is not yet proved that the individual, rather
than home and family, is the unit upon which the solidarity of the
state and society rests. 1 The lodging-class is exposed more than any
1 " There are increasing reasons for fearing that while the progress of medical sci-
ence and sanitation is saving from death a continually increasing number of children
of those who are feeble physically and mentally, many of those who are most thought-
ful and best endowed with energy, enterprise, and self-control are tending to defer
their marriages and in other ways to limit the number of children whom they leave
behind them. The motive is sometimes selfish, and perhaps it is best that hard and
frivolous people should have but few descendants of their own type. But more often
it is desire to secure a good social position for their children." Marshall, Princi-
ples of Economics, p. 281.
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 163
other, perhaps, to the danger of this individualization of stand-
ard.
Certain moral influences cooperate with the economic and social
causes to render the lodger slow in marrying. The prevalence of
prostitution, of temporary and informal unions, and of general
looseness of moral texture in the lodging-house world has been
considered elsewhere. Can we doubt that all this has a direct and
baneful influence upon the lodger's attitude toward the marriage
tie ? Economic and social conditions determine the number of illicit
unions, but once formed they become immoral forces tending in-
definitely to postpone marriage, or to dispense with it in toto, and to
debase the ideals of a holy and spiritual union into those of tem-
porary passion and economic expediency. The general psychological
attitude of the lodger toward marriage, home, and family undergoes
a change, or develops under distorting influences. Indifference,
inertia, and cold, hard, calculating cynicism are too often the pro-
ducts. The general absence of any family life with which the lodger
may come in daily or even occasional contact removes the influence
of imitation, which is so often the motive power to action; and the
lodging-house world continues to ingraft habits and habitual view-
points which the individual will not easily outgrow.
When the lodger does take the step of marriage, where does he
go to live? Usually the couple continue to live in lodgings, but
invariably they move to another house from the one in which they
were married. The coming of the first child, which, it may be, is
deferred as long as possible, as a rule takes them from the lodging-
house into more commodious quarters. In two minutes a minister
of the South End enumerated to the writer nearly thirty lodging-
house couples of his acquaintance who have been married from
three to five years and are still childless. We need not be surprised,
then, at the comparatively large numbers of married couples to be
found in lodging-houses. Here again enters the standard of living.
It is a shock to the pride to move from a lodging-house to even a
model tenement-house. It is much easier to board at a dining-room
or cafe* than to keep house. In the lodging-district we are near the
heart of the city; when we are married and have children we have
to move out to nobody knows where. Metropolitan Boston is
unique, among the cities known to the writer, in having scattered
1 64 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
by the hundred all through its outlying districts frame apartment-
houses, between which and frame tenement- houses there is no dis-
tinct line of cleavage. Some are in first- class districts with pleasant
surroundings and high rental charges, but between these and the
grimy three-story frame tenement on some muddy side street where
dirty children swarm and the hurdy-gurdy grinds in the blare of the
sun, there is a continuous series. Somewhere in this series, unless
they go out still farther into the suburban districts and rent a cot-
tage, the couple will have to settle. When they do move it is gen-
erally to this "outer limbo," where in a short time they become
indistinguishable from the rest of the population, and doubtless
wish they had come from the lodging-house sooner. Their reluc-
tance to make the change, we think, must be attributed in large
measure to two chief causes, dislike of housework, and fear of
dropping down in the social scale.
The writer would not be misunderstood, in what is said above
concerning the probable tendencies of the lodging-house to lower
the marriage- and birth-rate, to imply that such a reduction is neces-
sarily and absolutely an evil. He can conceive of conditions under
which the lower birth-rate and the general disposition to limit the
size of families might be taken as signs of increasing enlightenment,
and is not one of those who constantly cry out for more people
and a higher birth-rate, without regard to the quality of either. In
recent years there has been, even in this country, a recrudescence of
the old Mercantilist idea, and of the old notion of Continental
Officialdom, that a great population is the one and only basis of
national prosperity. At the bottom of this notion in the old times
lay the idea that a large population is the basis of a large standing
army, and of increased tax-receipts. No doubt these same notions
obtain on the Continent to-day, and it would be interesting to ascer-
tain how far they form a sub- conscious stimulus to the present cry
in America for earlier marriages and larger families. But the real
interests of the country and of society demand not so much a high
birth-rate in general as a higher birth-rate from those classes which
are now not even holding their own. A higher sense of social duty
is necessary on the part of the well-to-do middle class, which will
make them see that upon them, above all others, devolves the task
of maintaining the vitality of the population. Motives which now
THE PROBLEM OF MARRIAGE 165
lead to very small families or to none at all, must give way to such
as will render the child a welcome comer, and its rearing and edu-
cation, in the broadest sense of that term, a task and pleasure to be
turned to as a welcome relief from the mad rush after great wealth
and social standing. The same remarks apply to the highly educated
classes as well. At present, as every one knows, the high birth-rate
is among the classes least equipped for the rearing of children likely
to prove a benefit to the state, while the low birth-rates are among
just those educated and well-to-do people who inhabit the healthiest
and finest portions of our cities, and who have the resources for the
performance of a duty they are now shirking.
The question to which we come is this: Is the lodging-house
population, in which we find the lowest birth-rate in Boston, apart
from the conditions which surround it, the kind we wish to see
reproduce itself ? The answer, we think, must be in the affirmative.
For we must remember that with all its shortcomings and with all
the dangers and evils with which it is beset, the lodging-house popu-
lation is still appreciably above the population of the thickly inhab-
ited tenement-districts, where the birth-rate is highest, not only in
physical vitality, but in education and ambition. And we must
remember that the shortcomings of the lodger as an individual
are due in no small measure to the conditions in which he lives and
from which marriage and the coming of children must necessarily
remove him. Considering the sources and the character of the
young men and women who become lodgers, we can scarcely ques-
tion that the sooner marriage rescues them from the lodging-house
world and its sophisticating, leveling, and contaminating influences,
the better it will be both for the individuals and for society. Moder-
ate marriage- and birth-rates in the classes now anchored indefin-
itely in the desolate stretches of lodging-house existence, and played
upon by only here and there a deceptive little flurry of recreation
or excitement, would not only increase population from a more
desirable source than now furnishes the main growth, but in the
long run would result in a higher degree of social vitality, physical,
mental, and moral.
Whether this higher marriage- rate can be looked for in the near
future is doubtful. The indispensable prerequisite for it is better
accommodation for young couples of moderate means, in the shape
1 66 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
of small, low-priced flats and apartments. Fundamentally, however,
the solution of these questions carries us far afield. Higher wages
for the mercantile employee, and in some way a removal of the hard,
grinding struggle for existence at his customary point in the social
scale, and of the more demoralizing social evils of the lodging-house
world, are certainly necessary steps to any lasting improvement.
CHAPTER XVII
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
THE problem of the lodger is a complex of many problems, due
primarily, as we saw in Chapter I, to economic and social causes
of far-reaching character. In so far as the imperfect data at our
command would allow, we have seen the nature of the lodging-house
world into which these social and economic necessities throw so
large a part of our metropolitan populations.
There will always be a lodging- or boarding-house problem of
some sort. Enough was said in Chapter i to make it clear that
modern industrial conditions render some such institution an eco-
nomic necessity. Men can no longer live at home with parents or
master until their apprentice years are past and they are ready to
settle in homes of their own, as was, ideally at least, the case a hun-
dred, even fifty years ago. The call for hands and brains takes them
in a thousand directions, over indefinite distances, in an infinite net-
work of crossing paths. Without doubt, much of the roaming occa-
sioned by modern industry is unnecessary, but it cannot be helped.
Men and women will go where employment is, to a great extent
regardless of home ties. Indeed, to some degree, the individual's
native locality is without honor in his mind. The old adage is
reversed. The prophet refuses to honor his own country. Other
cities and other commonwealths look more attractive to him.
To economic necessity, therefore, must be added social, and
certain subtle psychological forces, all conspiring to produce the
peculiar restlessness, the gregariousness, the nomadism, characteris-
tic of the modern American populace. It is a population which
moves rapidly with no impedimenta save a valise and a trunk. It is
fortunate for the nomad that shelter is offered ; fortunate, too, for
the landlady that he comes; and fortunate for the landlord that she
stands ready to undertake the business.
A district like the South End lodging-house section is the product
of three forces this restless flow of people to the city from the
1 68 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
country and from city to city; the intra-urban migration of city
populations from district to district, leaving thus an area of old
houses; and the drifting in of widows, thrifty young couples, and
people of broken fortune to open the deserted houses to the lodger,
in answer to his demand for shelter.
A lodging-house district so produced has a definite situation and
boundary, and within these boundaries we have the external en-
vironment of the lodger.
Such statistical data as are available show that in Boston the
boarding-house is practically extinct, and that it is being displaced
by the lodging-house in many other cities throughout the country.
The probable causes of this movement lie largely in the advantages
of the cafe* over the boarding-house, and in the greater freedom of
life in the lodging-house.
The character of the landladies varies greatly. It determines in
no small measure the conditions of life for the lodger, and in turn
is reacted upon strongly by forces largely beyond the landlady's
control. Her economic position is precarious and her effort to make
both ends meet is a prominent cause for the existence of immoral
tendencies. She is product of hard circumstances, one whose life
is as isolated and monotonous as that of many of her lodgers. She
is, moreover, often the prey of various sorts of sharpers, chief of
whom is the "real estate" agent who sells her lodging-house furni-
ture and good- will at exorbitant rates and ensnares her in the toils
of installment payments and mortgages.
The real-estate situation lies back of the landlady's economic
struggle, and constitutes an element in the economic and moral
problem of the lodger. While an enormous depreciation in the
value of South End real estate has taken place, the present owners
are probably receiving a fair return on their investment. Never-
theless the fact that the depreciation has taken place, and is still
probably going on to some extent, renders the average landlord
penurious in making repairs and stringent in exacting the highest
rent obtainable. The burden thus laid upon the landlady is partly
transferred to the lodger in the shape of high room- rents, and to
the public in loosened moral conditions.
The lodgers themselves are characterized primarily by four
qualities: (i) the tendency to move frequently the nomad pro-
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 169
pensity, (2) isolation of the individual, (3) heterogeneity, and (4)
the economic struggle which in general they are making rela-
tive poverty. By occupation they are largely mercantile employees
and skilled mechanics, but there is a larger percentage of profes-
sional men and women than we should expect. There is among
them some tendency to geographical grouping by occupation, enough
to lend a characteristic tone to different localities within the dis-
trict, but probably not enough to present any very effective social
bond.
A striking connection is noticeable between the lodging-house
and the vital statistics of the city. The lodging-house tends to in-
crease the density of population, while nevertheless few children
are to be found in the lodging-house district which has the lowest
birth-rate of any in the city lower, in fact, than the lowest death-
rate of any ward in the city. It follows that the lodging-house
population is not reproducing itself, and probably that it has a low
marriage- rate. The question of the influence of the lodging-house
in postponing marriage was discussed in Chapter xvi and certain
dark phases of lodging-house life were outlined in Chapter xv.
It is not necessary to review these chapters here.
Our task is in a sense finished, for it is perhaps not within our
province to suggest solutions for a problem so difficult and one for
which, undoubtedly, no single solution can be found. We tnist,
however, that it is evident to the reader whose patience has lasted
through these pages that the lodging-house question is a moral
problem, the permanent solution of which, if any there be, must
lie in attacking the social and economic conditions which produce
it, conditions which lie far beyond the narrow limits of the lodging-
house district itself or even of the city as a whole. Before we indi-
cate the changes which seem needful in these broader conditions,
we will note a few remedial measures within the district itself, some
of which should be taken at once, while others would be equally
desirable could a way be found to bring them about.
First of all the general public should be taught something of the
conditions. Both as a help in turning attention to the problem and
to secure very much needed exact statistical data, the State Bureau
of Statistics of Labor should be empowered to make a comprehen-
sive investigation. A special appropriation should be made by the
1 70 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
Legislature for this purpose; more than ordinary return would be
reaped for the time and money invested.
In the mean time a movement which has already been started
in a small way to organize an effective public sentiment among the
landladies of the district should be pushed faithfully and untiringly.
Much can be done toward actual improvement of conditions if the
better class of lodging-house keepers can gradually be brought into
friendly discussion and cooperation. This might result eventually
in formal organization as an "improvement league." The writer
believes the reputable landladies, as soon as they understand the
motive and nature of such a movement, would be willing and eager
to affiliate themselves with it. With such an organization once
under way effective discussions could be brought to bear on ways
and means of improving the external environment of the lodger.
Attention should be directed to such small economies and con-
veniences as hot water and towel supply, adequate bath-room
facilities, methods of keeping a house clean and fresh, the kind of
furniture to buy, etc. Gradually the burdensome legacy of old days
the plush rocker and the dusty, thick carpets and hangings, the
folding-bed and the worn rugs might be relegated to the junk
dealer, and light, clean iron beds, painted floors with clean rugs
and mattings, and furniture at once clean, durable, and attractive
could be introduced. 1 Gradually, also, landlords might be brought
to make more liberal provision for repairs and for improvement
in the external appearance of the district; and the run-down-in-
the-heel look now so prevalent might pass away. Of more vital
importance, however, would be the influence such an organization
might exert in gradually clarifying the moral atmosphere of the
district. A room registry run on disinterested principles has been
started by the South End House, and through it the attempt is
being made to secure the cooperation of landladies in requiring re-
ferences from their lodgers. A hard struggle will have to be made
before it is on a sure basis, but such attempts should not be lightly
given up. The room registry and the improvement league should
be parts of the same organization. Gradually through it attention
1 Some interesting remarks on lodging-house furniture and landladies' ideas may
be found in a short article entitled " Furnished Lodgings," in the Living Age for
May, 1904, pp. 380-382.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 171
could be brought to the real-estate sharks who prey upon inno-
cent people by selling them lodging-house furniture and good-will
at double rates, and by all manner of chicanery and treachery cheat
them out of their hard-earned money. Enough evidence could be
collected in a short time to convict more than one of these sharp-
ers.
Calling most of all for instant action is the connection that un-
doubtedly exists between the lodging-house and prostitution. The
contamination of young men, the deterioration in the modesty and
morality of young women, the existence of actual houses of prosti-
tution in the guise of lodging-houses, the laxity of landladies, the
large number of informal unions, the general loosening of moral
texture, these things cannot be looked upon impassively. Nor
can the actual criminal tendencies that the lodging-house may pro-
duce in the individual be overlooked. The remedy for these evils
will not soon be found. Police and courts and public sentiment
must apply remedies which must be found by patient, scientific
research and experiment. So long as there is prostitution, on the
one hand, and grinding economic struggle on the other, we may
look to see the record of the lodging-house suicide and homicide
continue.
Obviously one of the first things to be done toward wiping out
the conditions which give us this darkest aspect of the lodging-house
is to require every house to have a public parlor. It may be objected
that the landlady cannot afford it. She must, then, either charge
more for her rooms an undesirable step or the landlord must
reduce his rent. The reform is so palpably necessary that the eco-
nomic changes it might necessitate must be left to look after them-
selves. A public parlor would not in itself cure all abuses or solve
the moral problem of the lodging-house, but it would dispense
with the custom and necessity of taking callers to rooms, and would
thus abolish one great excuse and opportunity for immoral asso-
ciations and conduct. 1 Whether, as some have suggested, this re-
1 " The most important necessity of the model working-woman's hotel or lodging-
house would be, not a luxurious table, not a dainty sleeping-room, but a parlor! The
number of young girls who go wrong in a great city like this for want of the various
necessities of a parlor must make the angels in heaven weep. The houses where the
poorly-paid girl lives have no accommodations for the entertainment of her male
friends. If the house is conducted with any respect for the conventions, the girl-lodger
THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
form and other needed regulations could best be brought about by
a law requiring that every lodging-house should be licensed and
inspected, the writer is not ready to say. If no other way can be
found, the license act should be passed and enforced. As said
before, community of interest and public sentiment on the part of
the better class of landladies can do much, and perhaps without
such common feeling and action not much can be accomplished
by external authority.
In many ways the general opportunities open to lodgers should
be increased. Those that already exist, some of which we men-
tioned in Chapter xm, should be made more widely known to
lodgers, and others should be added. A city bath-house and a gym-
nasium should be erected near the centre of the district; two or
three more public reading-rooms should be established; and per-
haps above all some organization should be perfected to adver-
tise to the lodger the great advantages of the city and its beautiful
surroundings opportunities for rest, recreation, amusement, and
improvement, free to all who know of them and can afford the small
expense of reaching them. 1 No city in the country has so magni-
ficent a system of outer parks and reservations as has Boston
thanks to Charles Eliot, a true lover of nature and a benefactor of
the people, and to a public-spirited and progressive Metropolitan
Park Commission. No other city of the country possesses the Charles
River, the Blue Hills, the Middlesex Fells, the Lynn Woods, or the
magnificent variety and extent of seashore within half an hour's
ride. But the common people in great measure have yet to learn
and appreciate all this, and to take advantage of the opportunities
offered. The average dweller of the tenement or the lodging-house
must meet her young man on the ' stoop ' or on the street corner. As the courtship
progresses, they must have recourse either to the benches of the public parks, pro-
vided the weather be favorable, or else to the light and warmth of the back room of
a saloon. The average cheap lodging-house is usually conducted, however, with but
scant regard for the conventions, and the girl usually is forced to adopt the more
convenient, and as it would seem to her, really more self-respecting habit of receiving
her company in her room. And either one of these methods of courtship, it is evident,
cannot but be in the end demoralizing and degrading to thoughtless young people, how-
ever innocent they may be of any deliberate wrong-doing." The Long Day, pp. 287-288.
1 The American Institute of Social Service, 287 Fourth Avenue, New York, has
issued "a practical handbook to the resources and progress of New York" called
The Better New York (copyright, 1904), with this special end in view.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 173
has about as much elasticity as a brick. There is in each a tremen-
dous amount of inertia to be overcome. But it must be overcome,
and the lodger must be got out into the open air in summer-time
and autumn, and in winter to church, a church which will show
some vital interest in, and knowledge of, his needs, to lecture
and concert, and to a good theatre, endowed, if we can have it
no other way. And, if it be not heresy to say so, bring back the
bicycle, now cheap enough to be within the reach of those who
need it most, and create, too, an interest in that athletic and edu-
cative pastime, walking, walking in the fields and parks. In
a word, advertise to the lodger a little of the salt of life, that the stale
flatness of his existence may at least be a little disguised.
The isolation of the lodger's life and the insufferable monotony and
dreariness of it must in some such composite manner be removed.
The individual must be put into a more real and healthy touch with
himself and his environment. At every possible vantage-point, the
artificiality and deceptive sham of lodging-house life the false
freedom of lodging-house irresponsibility must be attacked. When
such movements are started and begin to be effective, we may look
for more permanence of abode on the part of the lodger, and the
"population nomade" may cease increasing at so rapid a rate. 1
The lodger, not wishing then to move every other month, may be
willing and able to acquire, say, a few books and a piece or two of
furniture; and perhaps in some unconscious manner a better home
than a lonely room on the third floor of some lodging-house may sug-
gest itself. In all these ways, too, the lodger must be given more of
the personal element in life. In the academic world there is the com-
panionship and personal touch with books, and to a certain extent
unfortunately too slight with men and women; in the world
of business and industry there is contact with men, but not with
books; in the lodging-house too often there is neither. The lodg-
ing-house perhaps stands for the latest step in the progressive loss
1 " Ce developpement de la population nomade est le point le plus important peut-
tre de ce que Ton appelle la question sociale. A de"faut de proprie^ terrienne, il est
bon de posseder au moins sa maison; a defaut encore de cette propriet plus re"pan-
due, il y a une propri^t6 rudimentaire, essentielle dont tout individu devrait jouir,
qu'il devrait avoir le desir et les moyens de se procurer et de conserver; c'est la pro-
priete de ses meubles, de son lit, de sa table et de tout qui forme le mobilier le plus
simple." Leroy-Beaulieu, Repartition des Richesses, pp. 214, 215.
174 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
of the personal element in life which we seem to have suffered. In-
dustry expands and employer and employee lose touch with each
other. The college grows into a university, and despite the many
compensatory advantages, the mass of the students are deprived of
much of that close relation with the instructor as above all a teacher
and friend, which is so effective an element in education. Social
customs crystallize, and mistress and maid become as two isolated
beings, void of personality to each other. And finally the lodging-
house supplants the boarding-house, and the lodger is deprived of
even the slender personal connections it afforded him.
There are also sweeping reforms that should be made in the
lodgers' broader physical environment.
Perhaps it is too much to expect, for a long time to come, any
broad improvement in the eating facilities of the district, but such
improvement is sorely needed. The food served in the cafe's, as a
rule, and in the $3. 50- a- week basement dining-rooms, is neither of
the right quality nor of the right preparation to sustain the labor-
efficiency of the lodger. The opportunity exists for some persons
of means and philanthropically disposed to establish two or three
large, modern restaurants in the district, and do the population a
great service, without in the long run losing anything on their
investment. The writer sees no reason why a really large eating-
establishment, capable of catering to at least one thousand persons
for breakfast and dinner, should not be able to earn fair interest on
the investment, if run on scientific and business-like lines, and at the
same time give the South End lodger much better fare and service
than he gets now. The economies of large-scale productions should
enable this to be done. Of course there would be the difficulties of
finding a central location and a large enough building, or site for
building, but difficulties are overcome in the business world and there
is no reason why they should not be in the philanthropic. But the
undertaking would have to be a large one, backed by capital. The
advantages it would give the lodger are obvious: first of all, good
food, well cooked and well served, at rates not higher than he is
paying now in the struggling, ill-managed, little dining-rooms and
cafe's; secondly, more congenial surroundings at meal- times a
large and airy, well- lighted, and not architecturally ugly hall, in-
stead of a hot cafe"-room inhabited by swarms of flies and tousle-
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 175
headed waitresses; thirdly, a chance for some friendly intercourse
at meal-times. It would be possible to have "club-tables" just as
students do in college commons. Were there smoking-rooms and
the like added, for the use of which a small additional weekly or
monthly due might be charged, the establishment would have many
of the attributes of a club-house, and it would furnish more than
one avenue by which social betterment could enter the South End.
Could we have a few such large, liberally managed eating-halls,
and at the same time could the present system of lodging-houses
be reformed by the introduction of public parlors, better sanitary
resources, and an enlightened moral opinion on the part of both
landladies and lodgers, there would be no necessity for wishing to
do away with the lodging-house and bring back again the board-
ing-house. In the absence of such reforms, we are inclined to be-
lieve that the boarding-house, with all its imperfections, its oftentimes
ill-cooked and insufficient food, its intrigue, its vulgarity, would
prove in the long run a better way of living than the present lodg-
ing-and-cafe* system. It is not likely, however, that the boarding-
house will come back spontaneously the drift is the other way,
as we saw nor is it probable that it can be reintroduced generally
by any combination of philanthropic and social forces likely to be
available. The reform of the lodging-houses on the one hand, and
of the eating facilities on the other, seems to the writer much more
practical and feasible than any plan looking toward the abolition
of the lodging-house. Given our modern American economic and
industrial organization, drawing in its wake the constant change
of residence, the constant drifting and shifting to which we as a
people are subject, the lodging-house is a necessary form of habi-
tation. Capital has made model lodging-houses pay. Presumably
the Mills Hotels for working-men in New York, which are well
known to every one who takes the slightest interest in the housing
question, are yielding a fair return on the investment. 1 Why could
1 At least this was the intention of their owner. In his address delivered at the
opening of the Bleecker Street Hotel, Nov. i, 1897, Mr. Mills said: "Let me make
clear, however, at the outset that it is in no sense a charitable concern. . . . Mills
Hotel No. i will differ from the ordinary lodging-house most of all in its effort to give
the man what he pays for the very fullest possible equivalent for his money. But
it is the intention, from the very beginning, to conduct the enterprise upon a business
basis; and this implies that it will be self-supporting. . . . No patron of the Mills
176 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
not a like fair return be made on investment in large eating-halls,
and in similar hotels in Boston?
No permanent solution of the lodging-house question can be
looked for, can even be approached, for a long time to come, un-
less some such action is taken, unless, in other words, very broad
changes are made in the lodger's environment. The lodger will
continue to exist and demand accommodations. Educative pro-
cesses taking a long time to institute, starting far out beyond the
lodging-house district or the city, and working their effects out only
very gradually may change the character of the lodger; but that
is neither here nor now, and even if it does take place within the
next quarter century it will still be working against the adverse
current of lodging-house environment and its influence. The
present kind of environment must be in large measure destroyed.
No single line of reform will do this. The establishment of work-
ing-women's and working-men's hotels and of large eating-estab-
lishments (all on a paying basis), the general institution of a public
parlor, the abolition, so far as possible, of prostitution from the dis-
trict, the introduction of model lodging-houses of the ordinary size,
and of model boarding-houses for such as prefer that type of habi-
tation, all these are not too much to hope for, nor is any one
superfluous if it can be had.
The establishment of philanthropical hotels for working-girls,
however, is fraught with certain danger. There is a comparatively
large number of these establishments in Boston already, and re-
cently one of the largest experiments of the kind ever tried has been
inaugurated. In almost every instance, we believe, these "homes"
or "hotels" or "houses" are not self-supporting, that is, the guests
or " inmates" do not pay for all they get. The last large experiment
pays all running expenses, but does not pay the interest on the in-
vestment in building and plant. This has to be covered by private
subscription, notwithstanding that the girls and women living there
belong very largely to the better- paid mercantile employments.
No amount of circumlocution or euphemism will disguise the fact
Hotel will receive more than he pays for, unless it be my hearty good will and good
wishes. . . . He will think better of himself and will be a more self-reliant, manly
man, and a better citizen, if he knows that he is honestly paying for what he gets."
Municipal Affairs, March, 1899, pp. 85-87; see also p. 106.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 177
that all such houses are a form of charity, to a greater or less ex-
tent. Some such establishments are undoubtedly necessary in every
large city, to take care of girls who are caught temporarily in straight-
ened circumstances. But the girl ought not to be led to think she
is fully paying her own way when she is not. There could be but
one effect of a multiplication of non-self-supporting working-girls'
homes above this minimum. It would tend to lower, or at least to
keep down to their present level (subsidiary- wage basis), the wages
of female labor. A large amount of female labor is already paid
on that basis, on the idea that the girl lives at home and does
not have to pay full board ; or that, if she is a married woman, her
husband is earning the main income; or perhaps that she is helped
by a "friend." And a "home" or boarding-house of any kind,
where she can get bed and food for less than ordinary normal or
market cost, is simply one more basis and excuse for the payment
and for the acceptance of wages below a fair living standard. It
is perfectly possible, however, to establish large and well-equipped
working-women's and working-men's hotels on a sound, paying
financial basis. It has been done both in this country and abroad,
and it can be done in Boston. All such enterprises, parallel to the
Mills Hotels of New York, should be welcomed, as they will neither
in the slightest way detract from a man's or woman's self-respect,
nor endanger the living standard of wages. 1
1 The following will he found valuable references on the subject of working-girls'
homes and hotels:
Harriet Fay&s, " The Housing of Single Women," in Municipal Affairs, March,
1899, pp. 95-107; an admirable article.
The Long Day, ch. xi, and Epilogue.
Third Annual Report of the Franklin Square House, Boston, 1905.
Mary S. Ferguson, " Boarding-Houses and Clubs for Working- Women " in Bulletin
No. 15 of the United States Department of Labor (March, 1898), pp. 141-196.
United States Department of Labor, Fourth Annual Report.
Carroll D. Wright, The Working-Girls of Boston, 1889.
The intelligent working-girls' view is strikingly and clearly stated by the author
of The Long Day:
" We have a great and crying need for two things things which it is entirely within
the power of a broad-minded philanthropy to supply. The most urgent of these needs
is a very material and unpoetic one. We need a well-regulated system of bparding-
and lodging-houses where we can live with decency upon the small wages we receive.
We do not want any so-called ' working-girls' homes,' God forgive the euphemism !
which, while overcharging us for the accommodations, at the same time would put
178 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
The improvement of housing conditions for the lodger class need
not wait upon such large enterprises, however. There is a heavy
demand, as we have seen, for single rooms, while the proportion of
double ("square") rooms to single ("side" or "hall") rooms in the
district is about eight to five. It would be possible with a change in
the building laws (a bill for which at the time of writing is before
the Legislature) to remodel the present lodging-houses so as to
have two single rooms where there is now one double room. It
us in the attitude of charity dependents. What the working-girl needs is a cheap hotel
or system of hotels for she needs a great many of them designed something
after the Mills Hotel for working-men. She also needs a system of well-regulated lodg-
ing-houses, such as are scattered all over the city for the benefit of men. My expe-
rience of the working-girls' home in which I lived for many weeks, and from my ob-
servations and inquiries regarding a number of similar ' homes,' which I have since
visited, justifies me in making a few suggestions regarding the general plan and con-
duct of the ideal philanthropic scheme which I have in mind.
" First and most important, there must be no semblance of charity. Let the work-
ing-girls' hotel and the working-girls' lodging-house be not only self-supporting, but
so built and conducted that they will pay a fair rate of interest upon the money in-
vested. Otherwise they would fail of any truly philanthropic object.
"As to their conduct as institutions, there should be no rules, no regulations which
are not in full operation in the Waldorf-Astoria or the Hotel St. Regis. The curse of
all such attempts in the past has been the insistence upon coercive morality. Make
them not only non-sectarian but non-religious. There is no more need of conduct-
ing a working-girls' hotel or lodging-house in the name of God or under the auspices
of religious sentiment than there is necessity for advertising the Martha Washing-
ton Hotel or any fashionable bachelor apartment-house as being under divine guid-
ance.
"A clean room and three wholesomely cooked meals a day can be furnished to
working-girls at a price such as would make it possible for them to live honestly on
the small wage of the factory and store. We do not ask for luxuries or dainties. We
do not get them in the miserable, dark warrens where we are now obliged to sleep,
and we do not get them at the unappetizing boarding-house tables where countless
thousands of us find sustenance. I do not know I suppose nobody does know
how many working-girls in New York City live in lodging-houses. But they are
legion, and very few of them are contented with that life
" In the model lodging-house there should be perfect liberty of conduct and ac-
tion on the part of guests who will not be 'inmates' in any sense of the word. Such
guests should have perfect liberty to come and go when they please at any hour of
the day or night ; be permitted to see any person they choose to have come, without
question or challenge, so long as the conventions of ordinary social life are complied
with. Such an institution conducted on such a plan and managed so that it would
make fair returns to its promoters, cannot fail to be welcomed ; and would be of
inestimable benefit as an uplifting and regenerative force with those for whom it is
designed." The Long Day, pp. 285-288.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION 179
would thus be possible, at relatively low cost it seems, to have in
the same building eighteen single rooms, two baths, and a public
parlor, where now there are eight double rooms, five single rooms,
only one bath, and no public parlor. Moreover, the dining-room
and kitchen will be retained in the basement, so that the house can
be run as a boarding-house if desired. The South End House has
at present a definite plan for taking two houses and remodeling
them in this way. The experiment will be extremely interesting,
and with little doubt, successful. Where a number of houses can
be put under the same business management it is believed they can
be made a satisfactory business proposition even after the expense
of remodeling. And there can be no doubt that from the lodger's
social and moral standpoint it is a desirable change. So far as
existing houses are concerned, in other words, this is a true reform,
because it changes old dwellings, by no means fitted for the purpose
to which they are now put, into structurally proper lodging- and
boarding-houses.
Along with this reform can go that other one of which we have
spoken in connection with the marriage problem, the remodeling
of South End houses into small apartments at moderate price to
supply a much felt need, and to encourage the lodger to adopt mar-
ried life. This form of remodeling can probably be safely left to
private enterprise, as soon as the building laws permit.
Not any one nor all of these reforms together will solve the
lodger problem in any permanent manner. The true reform
must come from changes in economic and social standards that
will fundamentally affect the lodger, or prospective lodger, him-
self. It must lie in better moral training for the boys and girls
whom economic conditions are almost surely going to send out to
do battle in the world a place where they will meet many trying
and dangerous situations. In more ways than one, as lodgers,
they will be thrown upon their own resources; economically they
will have to earn their own living; socially they will be, fora long
time possibly, more or less isolated, and will have to pick their
friends from the chance acquaintances they may make; morally
they will have no one to account to but themselves, for the restric-
tions of parents, family, home, and community are removed in
distance and in time, and their influence is in inverse proportion.
l8o THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
The lodger's own conscience must be his mentor, his own moral
judgment his guide.
Few thoughtful persons will deny that the man or woman whose
morals are strongly self-reliant, based on his or her own thought-
out standards, is in all ways better fitted to face the world in en-
joyment and in service than he whose standards and habits are
shaped by external control, be it parental, social, or any other. " Social
control" is a powerful thing within the social group to which an
individual belongs, for many it is almost an absolute despot, rul-
ing with an inflexible rod over conduct, but just as soon as the in-
dividual finds himself in a different group, the group-control to
which he has been subject comes in conflict with a new control,
new ways of living, new standards of thought and action, and be-
comes either of no force or worse than none. This is precisely the
position in which thousands of young persons find themselves who
flock to the cities for work, and through force of circumstances
become lodgers, answerable, for the most part, to no one but them-
selves for their conduct.
To throw a young person suddenly into such an environment is
like throwing a child into deep water and leaving it to sink or swim.
The mass of the young people who find themselves in lodgings are
by no means fitted for any such Spartan training; their moral con-
stitution is not sturdy enough to withstand the shock of such sudden
immersion in individual moral responsibility. They have not, at
least in very many cases, the moral training necessary to carry safely
the degree of freedom thrust upon them by the conditions of lodg-
ing-house existence. No small proportion of them come from the
country and small towns, with the no doubt sincere but often narrow,
inflexible, and generally inadequate training of the country. Taught
to exercise their conduct by precept and rule rather than by judg-
ment and reason, when they come to the city and enter into the
new, strange, sordid, half-cynical atmosphere of the lodging-house
world, with its isolation and its freedom, they find themselves at
sea without compass or rudder. The moral and religious precepts
by which they have been taught to regulate their lives, however
good in themselves, may have been sufficient for the rural district
and the small towns from which they came, but they break down
entirely when subjected to the strain and stress of the city, and
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION l8l
especially of that particular portion of the city which is fullest of
reefs and shoals. The result: before they have got their bearings
they have drifted hopelessly. Two deficiencies in their constitu-
tion, therefore, stand in the way of their safety. One is that such
moral education as they have had has been of the local, non-adapt-
ive sort, not touching the great and practical problems of modern
life, of the kind, too often, that strains at a gnat and swallows
a camel. The other lies in the way moral training has been admin-
istered by rule, and not by rational thought appealing to an
active sense of justice and right.
We can scarcely expect rural society to fit people once for all for
the complexities of city life, but before the most acute phase
of the lodger problem will pass away, a change will have to take
place in the home and school training of the boy and girl. Even
the inadequate, non-adaptable religious and moral training, for-
merly given in church and school, is dropping away, and in its place
not enough ethical instruction of either a direct or an indirect na-
ture has been substituted. The home is partially to blame, but
not so much as the schools, which fail somewhat to grasp the ethical
and social importance of what we may call the social studies, e. g.
literature and history, and have thrown proportionally undue em-
phasis upon the sciences and languages. However, this is not a
pedagogical treatise. We merely wish to point out that in larger
school funds lies one of the cures for the lodging-house problem.
If it is the business of schools to prepare the individual for life in
the world, it is also their business to try to conform their curriculums
to the demand the world is going to make on the individual. The
boys and girls of to-day, who are to be the men or women of to-
morrow, to go out and face all sorts of new situations, ought to have
above all things an education which will put them in possession
of themselves wherever they are, that when they leave behind the
setting of family traditions, customs, understandings, and of vil-
lage emulations and social demands, where nobody dares do
things contrary to local standards of action for fear of "what peo-
ple will say," and come into a place where one can do about as he
pleases and nobody will know it, much less say anything, they will
not lose moral grip on themselves.
The country is not the only source which supplies the stream of
1 82 THE LODGING-HOUSE PROBLEM IN BOSTON
lodgers. A large percentage come from the city ; if not from Boston,
then from some other urban centre where they have been born and
bred. They have come down from the old-time boarding-house
and up from the tenement, and they are sophisticated to such an
extent that they feel habitually a certain leniency toward the loose-
ness of lodging-house conduct. And to this indifferent class we must
add the positively vicious and criminal.
With a mixture of these three classes and the conditions with
which we are now familiar, as the environment of the individual
lodger, are we to wonder if the influence of the lodging-house is
directly and specifically immoral? The unbroken routine of such
life will drive not a few to rash acts merely as a change and escape
from isolation and monotony. And beyond this, consciously or
unconsciously, the influence of imitation will be at work. If we stay
in Rome long enough, we do as the Romans do. Environment such
as the South End Lodging House districts constitutes is naturally
and necessarily stronger in the long run than precept. Indeed it is
a question whether a general training could be devised which would
render the individual permanently proof against its debilitating
influence. But education of the generation which replenishes the
lodging-house population will not only strengthen the individual
who must undergo the life of a lodger; it will also purify the en-
vironment of the lodger.
Finally, no ultimate cure of the problems now existing will be
reached until the economic conditions which produce them are
changed. When the tremendous rush to the cities abates, when the
underpaid mercantile employee is recognized by public and em-
ployer as entitled to a living wage as much as the skilled mechanic,
when the public realizes that the female stenographer is under
just as heavy expenses as the man beside her, who is doing the same
work at twice the wages, when, in short, we reach a juster sense of
economic proportion and social expediency than we have yet at-
tained, we can say that the chief of the basic causes of the lodging-
house problem has been removed.
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A. There is no book bearing directly and primarily upon the rooming-
house problem. The following books, however, recognize the exist-
ence of such a problem, and certain parts of them are suggestive.
Bushee, Frederick A., The Ethnic Factors of the Population of Boston, Pub-
lications of the American Economic Association, May, 1903.
Ferguson, Mary S., Boarding-Houses and Clubs for Working- Women, Bulletin
No. 15, United States Department of Labor (March, 1898).
Leroy-Beaulieu, Repartition des Richesses, Paris, 1881.
Picot, Georges, L'habitation ouvriere a Paris Le logement en garni, Insti-
tut de France, Acaddmie des Sciences et Politiques, Seances et travaux, n. s.
vol. 53 (1900), pp. 664-686.
The Long Day The True Story of a New York Working-Girl as Told by
Herself, New York, 1905; especially chapters I, in, ix, and Epilogue.
Woods, Robert A., and others, The City Wilderness, Boston, 1899.
Americans in Process, Boston, 1902.
B. The statistical material in this investigation has been gleaned from the
following sources:
Annual Reports of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, 1900, 1902.
Annual Reports of the Registry Department of the City of Boston, 1901-1904.
Massachusetts State Census, 1905, pamphlet on Population and Legal Voters.
Massachusetts State Census, 1895, vols. i, n, and iv.
Massachusetts State Census, 1885, vol. I.
Monthly Bulletin, City Statistics Department, Boston, October, 1903.
Municipal Register, Boston, 1901, 1902.
Precinct Lists of Male Residents, 1903.
Real Estate Assessment Books, Assessors' Office, Boston, 1868-1904.
Records of Deeds and Mortgages, City Hall, Boston.
Twelfth United States Census, 1900, Population, parts I and n.
Twelfth United States Census, Special Report on Occupations, 1904.
C. The following books and articles have also been of assistance in various
ways:
Addams, Jane, Democracy and Social Ethics.
l86 APPENDIX
Bowley, Elements of Statistics.
Bowmaker, The Housing of the Working Classes, London, 1895.
Brandt, Lilian, The Negroes of St. Louis, Publications of the American Statis-
tical Association, March, 1903.
Bushe*e, Frederick A., The Growth of the Population of the City of Boston,
Publications of the American Statistical Association. June, 1899.
DeForest and Veiller, The Tenement -House Problem, New York, 1903.
Dilke, Bulley, and Whitley, Women's Work, London, 1894.
Ely, Richard T., The Coming City, 1903.
Fayes, Harriet, The Housing of Single Women, Municipal Affairs, March, 1899.
Franklin Square House Association, Boston, Reports and pamphlets of.
Gould, E. R. L., Housing of the Working People, Eighth Special Report of the
United States Commissioner of Labor, 1895.
Hurd, Richard M., Principles of City Land Values, New York, 1903.
Kuczynski, Der Zug nach der Stadt, 1897.
Living Age, May, 1904, article on Furnished Lodgings.
McNeill, W. S., Die Aufgaben der Stadtgemeinden in der Wohnungsfrage,
Berlin, 1902.
Mayo-Smith, Statistics and Sociology.
Mussey, H. R., The "Fake" Instalment Business, University Settlement So-
ciety, New York, 1903.
Newsholm, Vital Statistics.
Octavia Hill Association, Report on Certain Aspects of the Housing Problem
in Philadelphia, American Academy of Political and Social Science, No. 345
(July, 1902).
Paine, Robert Treat, The Housing Conditions in the City of Boston, in the
same.
Phelps, R. F., South End Factory Operatives and Their Residence, South
End House, Boston, 1903.
Report of the Commission Appointed by the Mayor to Investigate Tenement-
House Conditions in the City of Boston, Boston, Municipal Printing Office,
1904.
South End House, Boston, Reports of, 1902-1906.
Sykes, John F. J., Public Health and Housing, London, 1901.
Thomas, John Lloyd, Workingmen's Hotels, Municipal Affairs, March, 1899.
United States Department of Labor, Fourth Annual Report, 1888, Work-
ing-Women in Large Cities; especially the chapter on Working-Girls' Clubs
and Homes.
Weber, Adna F., The Growth of Cities in the Nineteenth Century, Columbia
University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law, vol. xi, 1899.
APPENDIX 187
Whitmore, Henry, Real Estate Values in Boston, Publications of the American
Statistical Association, March, 1896.
Wilcox. Delos F., The American City : A Problem in Democracy, New York,
1904.
Wright, Carroll D., The Working-Girls of Boston, Boston, 1889.
Zeublin, American Municipal Progress, 1903.
APPENDIX B
MOVEMENTS OF POPULATION FROM THE COUNTRY TO THE
CITY SOME STATISTICS SHOWING THE NATIVITY OF
THE POPULATION OF BOSTON
For the light they throw upon the sources from which the lodging-house popu-
lation is probably derived, the following tables may not be without value and
interest.
TABLE 49. NATIVITY OF THE POPULATION OF BOSTON, 1885 l
Per cent.
Total population, 1885 390,393 100.0
Born in Boston 150,177 38.5
Born outside of Boston 240,216 61.5
Born in:
Massachusetts 50,304 12.7
Other New England states 38,869 16.0
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania 9,321 2.5
South Atlantic states 4, 120
North Central states 2,105
South Central states 551 2.2
Western states 370
United States, not specified 1,281
Total born in the United States, outside of Bos-
ton 106,921 27.4
Canada, etc. 27,322 7.0
Total born in the United States outside of Boston
and in Canada 134,243 34 4
Foreign born, excluding Canadians 105,973 27.1
TABLE 50. NATIVITY OF THE POPULATION OF BOSTON, 1895 2
Per cent.
Total population 496,920 100.0
Born in Boston 208,317 42.0
Born outside of Boston 288,603 58.0
1 Compiled from the State Census of Massachusetts, 1885, vol. i, p. 550.
2 Compiled from the State Census of Massachusetts, 1895, vol. ii, pp. 671, 672.
APPENDIX 189
Born in:
Massachusetts 39,568 7.9
Other New England states 40,500 8.1
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania 13,590 2.7
South Atlantic states 6,625
North Central states 3,561
South Central states 864 3.0
Western States 649
United states, not specified 1,832
American citizens born abroad 1,122
Total bora in the United States, outside of Boston 108,211 21.7
Canada, etc. 44,202 9.0
Total bom in the United States, outside of Bos-
ton, and in Canada, etc. 152,413 30.7
Foreign bora, exclusive of Canadians, etc. 136,190 27.3
The Federal Census of 1900 does not give the number of residents of Boston
who were bom in Massachusetts but outside of Boston. The total number born
in Massachusetts was 285,242, and if we assume that the same proportion of
these were born in Boston as in 1895, when the total number of residents of
Boston born in Massachusetts was 247,885, of whom 208,317 were bora out-
side of Boston, we get the proportion 247,885 : 208,317 : : 285,242 : 239,900,
the last term of which, 239,900, represents the probable number of residents of
Boston in 1900 who were bora in Boston. This leaves 45,342 bora in Massa-
chusetts but outside of Boston. We are now in position to construct a table for
1900 parallel to those given for 1885 and 1895.
TABLE 51. NATIVITY OF THE POPULATION OF BOSTON, 1900 l
Per cent.
Total population, 1900 560,892 100.0
2 Bom in Boston 239,900 42.7
2 Born outside of Boston 320,092 57.3
Bora in:
2 Massachusetts 45>34 2 8.1
Other New England states 43,77 7-7
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania 16,556 3.0
South Atlantic states 8,028
North Central states 4,686
1 Compiled from the Twelfth U. S. Census, Population, part I, pp. 706-709.
1 Estimated.
190 APPENDIX
South Central states i>i25 3.3
Western States 977
United States, not specified 2,556
American citizens born abroad, etc. ^,5^
Total born in the United States outside of Boston 123,863 22.1
Born in Canada, etc. 50,282 9.0
Total born in the United States, outside of Boston
and in Canada, etc. 174,145 31.1
Foreign born, exclusive of Canadians 146,874 26.2
The following table gives the percentages born in Boston and outside of
Boston for the three years 1885, 1895, and 1900.
TABLE 52. NATIVITY OF THE POPULATION OF BOSTON, BY PERCENTAGES
1885 1895 1900
Total population of Boston 100.0 100.0 100.0
Born in Boston 38.5 42.0 42.7
Born outside of Boston 61.5 58.0 57.3
Born in:
Massachusetts 12.7 7.9 8.1
Other New England states 10.0 8.1 7.7
New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania 2.5 2.7 3.0
Elsewhere in the United States 2.2 3.0 3.3
Canada, etc. 7.0 9.0 9.0
Foreign born, exclusive of Canadians 27.1 27.3 26.2
The salient facts shown by this table are these: that about sixty per cent, of
the population of Boston was born elsewhere, but that there has been a slight
decrease (4.2 %) of this non-native element since 1885; that of this non-native
portion of the population the foreign born, exclusive of Canadians, etc., con-
stitute nearly one half, and that the other half is derived chiefly from New Eng-
land and the British American provinces. The Canadian element is of great
social significance. It appears to maintain an even level of about nine per cent,
of the total population, but increased somewhat in the ten years between 1885
and 1895. In these same ten years there was a striking fall in the percentage
from Massachusetts as well as from other New England states. The percent-
age from the near-by states of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania shows
but a slight decrease in the fifteen years.
APPENDIX C
STUDENT-QUARTERS IN BOSTON
A treatment, however summary, of the lodging-house question in Boston
should not omit some reference to the student-class. Perhaps no population
group is so thoroughly a lodging- and boarding-class as are the students. In the
nature of things most of them are away from home and have to live in board-
ing- or lodging-houses, however much they may dislike the life. This is espe-
cially true in Boston where as a rule the educational institutions are not pro-
vided with dormitories and eating-halls. In general the student must shift for
himself, find his own boarding- and rooming-places, and be his own judge of
suitable houses and localities. The general result leaves much to be desired.
With a word first as to the residence of teachers in Boston, we may turn to
the geographical distribution of students of a few typical institutions. The pro-
blem of the student-lodger is a separate problem in itself, and is one best left
to persons whose work has made them familiar with its special peculiarities,
its own points of difficulty, its own tendencies for good and for evil.
The public schools of Boston are presided over by approximately 2220
teachers (1903). Of these about 120, or only 5.4 % live in South End lodging-
houses. The inclusion of the West End would increase the percentage slightly,
but it is evident that most of the public school teachers live in suburban dis-
tricts, and that teachers as a class do not form an appreciable part of the lodg-
ing-house population.
It is said and with near approach to truth that there are between 20,000
and 25,000 students in Boston. This includes students in the large educa-
tional institutions like the New England Conservatory of Music, the Massa-
chusetts Institute of Technology, the Harvard Medical School, Tufts Medical
School, Emerson College of Oratory, Boston University, etc. Besides these we
have the students in all the miscellaneous little institutions the business col-
leges, the art schools, the schools of dramatic expression, etc. Many of these
students live at home in the city, many live in the suburbs near and far, but
most will be found in the lodging- and boarding-houses of the city.
Some idea of the geographical distribution of the students may be gained
from Chart xvii, which shows the distribution of some 1180 students from
one of the large educational institutions of the city. 1 Of these the South End
1 Out of some 1500 in the institution. The other 320 lived in the suburbs beyond
the limits of this map.
192 APPENDIX
lodging-district claims the greatest number, 238; the West End and Beacon
Hill claim 97, Newbury Street (Back Bay) 94, St. Botolph Street 88, and Hunt-
ington Avenue 37. The map represents fairly well what would be the general
distribution of students could we obtain data for all the institutions.
It is evident that the South End lodging-house district is one of the great
student-quarters of the city. Besides the South End there are four other stu-
dent-districts at present: namely, the West End and Beacon Hill district (A
on the chart), the Huntington Avenue and St. Botolph Street district (D and E),
the Newbury Street district (B), and finally the new student-quarter in the
western portion of Ward 10, between Massachusetts Avenue on one side and
Huntington Avenue and the Fenway on the other (F). The district between
Huntington Avenue and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad,
including St. Botolph Street and the cross-streets, Harcourt, Garrison, Follen,
Durham, Cumberland, Blackwood, and Albemarle streets, is perhaps at pre-
sent the most typical student-quarter of the city. But for the railroad it would
be continuous with the South End. The railroad, however, acts as a stone wall
between the two sections, and they are distinctly unlike in appearance and
in character. The South End is full of lodging-houses as such. The other
district is given over mainly to flat-dwellers, who re-rent rooms to students,
artists, musicians, and the higher class of business employees.
District F, the newest student-quarter, together with Huntington Avenue
and St. Botolph Street, is practically sure to become the one great, typical stu-
dent-quarter of the city, a district far more thoroughly and compactly given
over to students than is any section at present. This newer section includes:
Westland Avenue, Batavia, Gainsborough, Jarvis, and Hemenway streets,
and portions of St. Botolph Street and Huntington Avenue, and a large
amount of territory yet to be built up. Within this new district are already
situated the New England Conservatory of Music, the Emerson College of
Oratory, Simmons College, and the Harvard and Tufts Medical Schools. The
Museum of Fine Arts, with its art school, will move to the same district in the
near future, and it is possible that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
will sooner or later move to the same locality. When these movements are
completed we may expect to see the students, those of the better class at least,
leave the South End and Beacon Hill lodging-houses. Houses and dormitories
for the special accommodation of students will be built in the new district and
we may expect to see the problem of the student solved to some extent. The
New England Conservatory has already erected a residence-hall accommodat-
ing about two hundred women-students, divided into groups, each group
having its own private parlor, dining-hall, and servants.
INDEX
INDEX
Addresses, rapid change of, 83-85, 138, 142,
145-149. See also Nomadism.
Administrative districts not suitable units for
statistical purposes, 1 1 6.
Advertising, 62, 70, 144, 147.
Age, 117, 125-127, 129, 131.
Of landladies, 52.
Of lodgers, 81, 82, 83, 115, 125-127.
Alleys, 22, 27.
Altruism, 154.
Ambition, 165.
American Institute of Social Service, 172, note.
Americans in Process quoted, 25.
Amusement, 27, 29, 30, 172. See also Thea-
tres, Dance-halls, etc.
Anthropometry, 117, note.
Apartment-houses, 4, 24-25, 26, 79, 86-87, 91,
117, 119, 121, 125, 126, 128-129, 131, 144,
159-162, 164, 1 66, 179, 189.
Bachelor-, 4, 178, note.
Should be investigated, 159.
Architecture, 13, 21, 22, 34-37.
Assessed valuations, relation to real values, 72-
.74- _
Assignation, 30.
Associated Charities, 106, 107.
Astrologers, 32.
Back Bay, 12, 13, 14, 16, 19, 26, 75, 91, 117,
119, 124, 129, 131.
Bakeries, 28, 104.
Baltimore, 38, 40.
Banks, 14.
Basement dining-rooms. See Dining-rooms.
Bath-room, 34, 35, 36, 170, 179.
Beacon Hill, n, 16, 24-25, 118, 188-189.
Beds, 35, 37, 170.
Beer garden, 28, 30.
Besant, Walter, quoted, no, note.
Bibliography, 183-185.
Bicycling, 173.
Billiard-halls. See Pool-rooms.
Birth-rate. See Births.
Births, 115, 117, 121, 128-133, I 5~ I 5 I > J ^4
169. See also Children and Marriage.
Blue Hills, 172.
Board, price of, 3, note, 101-104, 174, 177.
Quality of, 102, 174-175.
Boarding-houses, 25, 38-51.
Distinguished from lodging-houses, 5.
Supplanted by lodging-houses, 25, 43-56,
152, 1 68, 174.
Bohemianism, 52, 155.
Books, 113, 173.
Booth, Charles, 115.
Boston Transcript, 112.
Boundaries, 20-26, 168.
Brandt, Lillian, quoted, 92, note.
Brighton, 120.
Brookline, 16, 124.
Brooklyn, 40.
Buffalo, 38, 40.
Building Department, 13, note.
Building laws, 79-80, 132, note, 178, 179.
Building trades, 96.
Bureau of Statistics of Labor (Massachusetts),
7, note, 53, note, 66, 97, 169-170.
Bushe'e, F. A., quoted, 19.
Business, 10, n, 16, 27-33, 47> ^3> 69-70, 1O S>
120, 173, 174, 179.
Business mediums, 32.
Cafe's, 5, 23, 24, 27, 39, 46, 47, 48, 49, 66, 102-
104, in, 139, 142, 145, 161, 163, 168,
174-176.
Distinguished from dining-rooms, 28.
Cambridge, 13, 29, 103.
Canada, 53-54, 81, 82.
Card catalogues, 47, 84.
Card readers, 32.
Carpets, 35, 36, 60, 107, 170.
Change from boarding to lodging, 38-51.
Charity, 94, 97, 106-108, 154, 175, note, 176-
178 and note.
Charles River, 16, 135, 172.
Charlestown, 13, 119, 120, 123.
Chicago, 30, 31, 38, 40, 41, 42, 134, 157, 159.
Child, Samuel M., quoted, 79-80.
Children, 13, 82, 126, 129, 131, 144, 150, 151,
159, 161-166, 169.
Chinese, 32.
Church records, 151.
Churches, 23, 84, 143, 151, 173. 181.
Cincinnati, 38, 40.
City Wilderness, The, quoted, 12, 13, note, 8 1,
137-
Class consciousness, 152-154, 161.
Clerks. See Manufacturing and Mechanical
Pursuits, also Mercantile Employees.
Cleveland, 31, 38, 40, 134.
196
INDEX
Closets, 34.
Clothing, 27, 31, 99, 101, 157-158.
Coal-bills, 58.
Coercive morality, 178.
Collective bargaining, 156. See also Trade
Unions.
Columbus Avenue, building up of, 14.
Combination meals, loz.
Commissions, 69, 76-77.
Common, the, 24.
Community life, 154.
Influence of, removed, 179-180, 181.
Companionship, lacking. See Isolation.
Competition, 32, 47-49, 154, 155, 156, 157-
158, 1 66.
Congregation, tendency toward, 90-92, 167, 169.
Conjugal condition of landladies, 54-57.
Of lodgers, 81, 94. See also Marriage.
Consciousness of kind, 90.
Consumption, uneconomic, 161.
Continent, the, lodging-houses on, 3.
Cooked meat, 28.
Coolidge, Dane, quoted, 39.
Cost. See Price.
Cost of living, 159-162. See also Price.
Counterfeiting, 134.
Country offers inadequate moral training for
city life, 179-182.
Courtship, 172, note. See also Public Parlor.
Crime, 4, 32, 69, 117, 134-149, 162, 171.
Criminals. See Prime.
Criminal statistics, backwardness of, 138.
Crisis of 1873, 14, 75.
Crowd, influence of, 10. See also Imitation.
Cynicism, 163, 180.
Dance-halls, 28, 30, 31.
Death-rates. See Deaths.
Deaths, 115, 117, 121, 128-133, J 3^ note > '5"
151, 169.
Delicatessen establishments, 28, 104.
Density of population. See Population.
Map of, how made, 121, note.
Department stores, 32, 94-95, 105, 156-158.
Depreciation, 76-77, 168.
Dining-halls, large, needed, 103, 174-176.
Dining-rooms, 23, 27, 101-102, in, 137, 163.
Distinguished from cafe's, 28.
Discount tickets. See Meal-tickets.
Disreputable houses in guise of lodging-houses,
140-141, 171.
Divorce, 161.
Doctors, 32, 92, 135, 143-144, 148, 151, 162.
Domestic and personal service, 87, 88, 89, 90,
9' 95-
Domestic servants, 82, 105, n8,note, 136, 153,
174-
Dorchester, 120.
Dormitories for students, 188-189.
Dover Street, 20, 26, 29.
Drink, 27, 29, 30, 31. See also Intemperance.
Drug-stores, 27, 32, 143.
Drunkenness. See Drink and Intemperance.
Dwellings, average number of persons to, n8-
I2O.
Dwelling-houses. See Private residences.
East Boston, 13, 119, 120, 123.
Education, 104, 105, 106, 113-114, 138, 165,
169, 172-173, 174, 176, 181, 182.
Moral, more intelligent, needed, 179-182.
Elevated railway, 79.
Eliot, Charles, 172.
Employers, attitude of, 101, 156-158.
Employment. See Occupation.
Environment, 27-33, IX 7> I 3 l > I 35~ I 3^> J 38,
145-149, 165, 168, 170, 173-182.
Equities, trading in, 70, 78.
Evening high school, 113.
Evidence, hard to secure, 140, 151.
Against real-estate sharpers, 171.
Evil, the lodger-, in tenements, 4.
Exodus, the, from the South End, 14 ff., 67, 75.
Expenses, of landladies, 57-60.
Of landlords, 76-77.
Of lodgers, 99-104.
Factories, 14, 16, 89, 91, 105, 125, 156.
Fakes, 32.
Family, 150 ff., 161-162, 163, 164, 179.
Fashion, 10, 13, 14, 31, 32.
Fees, 69.
Fens, 26.
Fire-escapes, 34.
Fire-proofing, 79-80.
Flats. See Apartment-houses.
Flats, filling of, 12, 14, 75.
Fluidity of lodging-house population. See No-
madism.
Foreclosure, 68, 69. See also Mortgages.
Foreigners, 8, 42, 53, 123.
Fort Hill, u.
Fort Point Channel, 13.
Franklin Park, 124.
Free-lunches, 48.
Furnished-room houses. See Lodging-houses,
definition.
Furniture, 33, 35, 37, 59, 66, 67-71, 106, 168,
170-171, 173.
Gambling, 134, 135-136, 148.
Gas-bills, 58.
Germany, 4.
Good-will, 63, 67-71, 1 68, 171.
Great Britain, lodging-houses in, 2, 3.
Grocery stores, 28.
Group- conflict, 154.
Group-control. See Social Control.
INDEX
197
Habit, 163, 180.
Hall-rooms. See "Side rooms."
Harvard Dining Association, 103.
Health, 28, 32, 36-37, 63, 66, 102-103, "S
131, 132, 165.
Heat, 34, 39, 58, 103, 107.
Heterogeneity of the lodging-house population,
82, 84, 93, no, 145-149, 169.
Home, supplanted by the lodging-house, 9,
150 ff.
Homicide. See Murder.
Hotels, 29, 30, 91, 141.
Hot water, 36.
Housekeeping, 5, 104, 159, 163.
House-rent, 58, 63, 64-66, 76-78, 100, 159-160,
164, 168, 171.
Kurd, Richard M., quoted, 16, 76.
Husbands, occupation of, 54, 56-57, 94.
Elicit love affairs. See Informal unions.
Imitation, 161, 162, 163, 182.
Improvement league, possible, 170.
Income, 158.
Of landladies, 57-58, 60-63.
Of landlords, 76-77.
Of lodgers, 90, 97-99-
Independence. See Personal freedom.
Individualism. See Selfishness.
Inertia, 172-173.
Infant deaths, 131, 132.
Informal unions, 135, 138, 142-144, 146-147,
153, 163, 171.
Inspection, 3, note, 172.
Installment sales, 33, 68 ff., 1 68.
Insurance, 77.
Intemperance, 117, 137, 146-147.
Interest law evaded, 69.
Investment, 174-176, 178, note. See also Real
estate.
Isolation, 31, 104, 106, 109, no, 112, 142,
1 68,
182.
Causes of, 109-110.
i73-'74> I79 l8o >
Jews, low infant death-rate among, 132.
Just wage, 155, 182.
Kitchen, 179.
Laborers, 90.
Labor efficiency, 30, 86, 174.
Landladies, 10, 19, 23, 37, 38-42, 47, 52-71,
no, in, 112, 124, 125, 136, 138, 139-140,
141, 145-149, 151, 152, 162, 167, 168, 170,
171, 172, 175.
Landlords, 10, 57, 60, 72-80, 145, 167, 170,
171.
Large-scale productions in the restaurant busi-
ness, 47, 174-176.
Laundries, 27, 31, 32.
Laundry, 59-60, 99, 135.
Leroy-Beaulieu quoted, 105, 173, note.
Library facilities, 113, 172.
License, lodging-house, 3, note, 172.
Marriage, 143.
Living-in, 3, note.
Liquor-stores, 27, 30, 137.
Local industries, 27-33.
Lodgers, number of, 6-7.
Lodging-house, cheap, i, 39, 124-125, 137, 138.
Common, 2, 3.
Definition, I, 2.
Distinguished from boarding-house, 5.
Municipal, 2.
Lodging-house keepers. See landladies.
Long Day, The, quoted, 171-172, note, 177-
178, note.
Losses in real estate, 75-76.
Lynn Woods, 172.
Made land, 12.
Mail, 138.
Mantels, 34.
Manufacturing and Mechanical Pursuits, 87,
88, 90, 91, 96.
Marriage, 12, 89, 115, 117,129,142-143,150-
166, 179. See also Conjugal condition.
Co-partnership of, 159.
Postponement of, 150-152, 155, 161.
Marriage-rate, 150-151, 153, 155-163, 164, 169.
Marshall, Alfred, quoted, 162, note.
Marshes, 13.
Massachusetts cities, lodgers and boarders in,
41-46.
Mealers, 49.
Meal-tickets, 49, 102.
Median, the, 130.
Melodrama, 31, 113.
Men often preferred as lodgers, 66.
Mercantile employees, I, 5, 97, 100-101, 104-
106, 156, 161-166, 169. See also Trade
and Transportation.
Mercantile establishments, 27-33.
Mercantile Library Club, 113.
Mercantilism, spirit of, still existent, 164.
Metal trades, 96.
Metropolitan Park Commission, 172.
Middle classes, attitude toward marriage and
children, 161-166.
Middlesex Fells, 172.
Migration, intra-urban, 11-19, '68-
Mills Hotels, 175-177.
Milton, 1 6.
Ministers, 84, 140, 143, 151, 163.
Mirrors, 34.
Model boarding-houses, 103, 176.
Model lodging-houses, 175-178.
Money-lenders, Ji.
198
INDEX
Moral responsibility, 179-182.
Morals, 46, 49-50, 57, 63, 64, 65, 1 1 1, 1 12, 1 17,
134-149, 152-153, 156-159, 163, 168, 169-
182.
Mortgages, 63, 66, 68, 69, 71, 78, 168.
Municipal baths, 172.
Municipal gymnasiums, 117, note, 172.
Murder, 134, 135, 138, 171.
Mussey, H. R., quoted, 68.
Mutual aid, 154.
Nationality, 117, 123, 131, 153.
Of landladies, 52-53.
Of lodgers, 81.
Nativity of the population of Boston, 185-187.
Neck, the, 13.
Negroes, 78, 82, 87, 90, 91.
Neighborliness, 154.
New England, 53, 54, 71, 81.
New England Watch and Ward Society, 140.
Newsholme, Arthur, quoted, 129-130, note.
Newspapers, 112, 134, 138.
New York, 2, 3, 30, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 81, 134,
157, 178, note.
Nomadism of lodgers, 82-85, no, 138, 142,
145-149, 168-169, I73 '75-
North End, n, 119, 123, 125, 129.
Occupation, 25, 54, 56-57, 117, 131, 153.
Of lodgers, 81, 82,83,86-96, 97-99, 137, 169.
Opportunities, 9, 10, 29, 81, 113-114, 154, 162,
172-173.
Overcrowding, 3, note.
Palmists, 32.
Paris, 143.
Parker Memorial, 114.
Parks, 13, 16, 152, 172, note, 172-173.
Semi-private, 22.
Parlor, 34, 62. See also Public parlor.
Pavements, 22, 37.
Pawn-shops, 135.
Personal element, loss of, 173-174.
Personal freedom, 158, 168, 173, 178, note, 179-
182.
Personal service. See Domestic and personal
service.
Philadelphia, 38, 40.
Philanthropy, province of, in the lodging-house
problem, 174-180.
Picot, Georges, quoted, 141, note, 143, note.
Pictures, 35.
Pin-money. See Subsidiary wages.
Plumbing, 36.
Police, 136, 137, 138-139, 140, 144, 146, 149,
171.
Pool-rooms, 27, 28, 29, in.
Population, demand for large, not entirely ra-
tional, 164-165.
Density of, 115, 117, 118-122, 169.
Increase of, 8, 19.
In suburbs, 17-19.
Lodging-house, in various cities, 38-50.
Movement of, from country to city, 8-10.
Of lodging-house district, 6, 7.
Poverty, 105-108, 161, 169.
Precinct lists, 54-55, 83, 86, 125.
Precinct maps, 121.
Prices, board, 48-49.
Clothing, 31.
Coal, 58.
Gas, 58.
Lodging-houses, 70-71.
Provisions, 47.
Real estate. See Real-estate values.
Rooms, 99-100.
Water, 59.
Pride, 104, 153, 160, 163-164.
Change to lodging-houses, 15, 25.
In lodging-house districts, 7, 23, 25, 86-87,
117, 119.
Private residences, 13, 91, 118.
Probation officer, 138.
Professional service, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 95, 169.
Prostitution, 30, 32, 117, 134-149, 158, 159,
note, 160, 161, 163, 171.
Extent of, not generally realized, 139.
Need of detailed investigation of, 139, 144.
Segregation of, 144.
Provision stores, 28.
Public Garden, 12.
Public Library, 113. See also Library facilities.
Public opinion, 170, 171, 172, 175.
Public parlor, 35, 46, 57, 65-66, 112-113, 142,
152, 171-172, 175, 179.
Quacks, 32, 144.
Quick lunches, 28.
Race. See Nationality.
Race suicide, 115, 132-133, 161.
Reading-rooms, 172.
Real estate, 10, 14, 15, 16, 72-80.
Real-estate agents, 27, 58, 63, 67-71, 92, 168.
Real-estate transfers, 15, 1 6.
Real-estate values, 33, 72-80.
Decline of, 15.
Real income of the family not dependent upon
the husband alone, 159.
Reception-room. See Public parlor.
Recreation, 27, 162, 165, 172. See also Amuse-
ments.
References rarely required, 141, 146, 170.
On working- women's homes, 177, note.
Reform suggested, 169-182.
Registry Department of Boston, 119, 120, ff.,
150.
Religion, 178, note, 181.
INDEX
199
Remedial measures, 169-174.
Remodeled lodging-houses, possibilities of,
178-179.
Rent. See House-rent, Room-rent, etc.
Repairs, 59, 76-77, 168, 170.
Residence districts, II.
Restaurants. See Cafes and Dining-rooms.
Risk, 69, 71.
Rooming-house. See Lodging-house, defini-
tion.
Room registry, 62, 67, 100, 109, 170-171.
Room-rent, 5, 60-62, 99-101, 136, 140, 168,
171, 177.
Rooms, distinction between "square" and
"side," 34.
In tenements, 4, 5.
Price of. See Room-rent.
Situation of, in house, 34.
Room-signs, 23, 26, 63, 140, 147.
Rozbury, 13, 20, 26, 29, 119, 120.
Rules, undesirability of, 3, note, 178, 180-
181.
Rutan, Elizabeth Y., quoted, 25.
St. Louis, 38, 39, 40, 41, 134, 159.
Salesmen. See Mercantile employees and
Manufacturing and mechanical pursuits.
Saloons, 27-31, in, 137, 172, note.
Sampling (statistical method), 87.
San Francisco, 38, 39, 40, 41, 45, 107.
Sanitation, 35, 117, 131, 175.
School census, 125, 126-127.
School committee, 127.
Schools, 23.
Remiss in ethical training, 181.
Second-class construction, 79-80.
Seduction, 111-112, 135, 157, 158.
Selfishness, 154, 157, 161, 162-163.
Sex, 117, 122-125, I 3 I -
Of lodgers, 81-82, 115, 122-125.
Of lodging-house keepers, 52.
Shade, 22.
Sharpers, 63, 66, 67-71, 136, 167, 171.
Shawmut Church, 114.
Shop-girls, 6, 89, 94-95, ico-ioi, 153, 156-
158.
Shoplifters, 135.
Side rooms. See Rooms.
Single rooms, heavy demand for, 100, 178.
Skilled mechanics, i, 5, 9, 81, 89, 90, 100, 105,
153, 168.
Smoking-rooms, 175.
Social betterment, 85, 169-182.
Social control, 180.
Social cooperation, 154, 170.
Social dissolution, 138.
Social intercourse. See Isolation.
Social parasites, 32, 137.
Social standards, changes in, needed, 179-182.
South Bay, 13, 132.
South Boston, 13, 29, 119, 120, 123.
South Cove, 119, 123.
South End House, 103, 114, 179.
Speculation, 78.
Standard of living, 90, 101, 145, 154-155, 157,
161-163.
State House, 24, 25.
Statistical bureaus, 115.
Statistics, conflict of, 124.
Criminal, backwardness of, 138.
Lacking, 83,86, 115-116,124, 125-126, 130-
131, 138, 150, 169-170.
Purpose of, 117.
Stolen goods, 135.
Straw lodgers, 67.
Street plan, 21, 27.
Street railways, 12, 13, 17, 21, 29.
Stucco-work, 34.
Student quarters, 188-189.
Students, 26, 58, 82, 97, 174-175.
Style. See Fashion.
Subsidiary wages, 6, 156-159, 177.
Suburbs, 10, 12, 16, 17, 62, 104, 120, 129, 131,
159, note, 1 60, 1 88.
Population of, 17-19.
Suicide, 134-135, 138, 171.
Summer, effect of, on lodging-house population,
61-62.
Sundays, 3, note, 28, 36, 112, 148.
Sympathy, 90.
Tailoring establishments, 27, 31, 32.
Tapestry, 34, 36.
Taxes, 72, 76-77.
Tax-rate, 76.
Teachers, residence of, 188.
Tenement-House Act (New York), 2.
Tenement-House Act (Massachusetts), move-
ment for revision of, 79-80.
Tenement-House population. See Tenement-
houses.
Tenement-houses, 4, 24-25, 29, 31, 35, 54, 63,
79, 81, 86-87, i> i4 i*t 113, 117, 118,
120, 122, 126, 127, 129, 130, 131, 137, 144,
154, 160, 163, 164, 172, 182.
Theatres, 30, 31, 113, 162, 173.
Theft, 134, 135-137-
Topography, 131.
Towels, 36, 59-60, 170.
Trade and Transportation, 87, 88, 90, 92, 96.
Trade-unions, 9, 155-156.
Tramps, 2, 3.
Transients, i, 140, 141.
Transportation, 10, 12, 17, 29. See also Street
railways.
Union Park, 13, 22, 73~75 7 6 * 99-
Urban statistics, inadequacy of, 115-116.
200
INDEX
Vacant land, 121, note, 131.
Vacant rooms, 61-63.
Vaudeville, 31. See also Theatres.
Venereal disease, 143.
Ventilation, 35, 36, 37.
Vermin, 37.
Vitality, 164-165.
Vital statistics, 115-133, 169.
Available urban, 116, note.
Wages, 97-99, loo-ioi, 104, 154, 156-159, 182.
See also Subsidiary wages.
Wage statistics, 97-99.
Walking, 173.
Ward politicians, 8r.
Wards, location and character of, 119-120.
Population and vital statistics of, 115-133.
Water-bills, 59.
Water-closets, 36, 59, 60.
West Chester Park, 13, 22.
West End, n, 16, 24-25, 29, 81, 82, 118, 119,
123, 125, 129, 137, 138, 188.
West Roxbury, 120.
Whitmore, Henry, quoted, 72.
Widows, 54, 64, 1 68.
Winthrop, 24.
Woman-labor, 155.
Women, holders of real estate, 77-78.
Married, as wage-earners, 156.
Occupations of, 25, 47-48, 63, 93-95, 125,
158.
Wages of, 95, 97-102, 154-155, 177-
Women lodgers, statistics of, lacking, 83, 86,
124, 126.
Women's clubs, 65.
Women's Educational and Industrial Union,
H5-
Worcester Square, 13, 22.
Working-girls' homes, 176-178.
Effect on wages, 177.
Yards, 22, 79.
Yeggmen, 4.
Young Men's Christian Association, 114.
Young Men's Christian Union, 114.
Young Women's Christian Association, 62-66.
"Jiff
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