Part 2

I wish to cordially thank the members of the Executive Committee and of the sub-committees of the Survey, and not the least the wage-earners of the community for the help and encouragement I have had. In spite of queries which briefness of time allotted to the study made it necessary at times to make directly of the latter, I have been received with the utmost good will and helpfulness by workers of all nationalities.

I am especially indebted to the books of Miss Josephine Goldmark, Fatigue and Efficiency; and of Miss Elizabeth Beardsley Butler, Women and the Trades, for valuable information and suggestion. No one interested in the welfare of wage-earners can fail to have his vision widened and clarified by these two pieces of work, prepared with infinite devotion and infinite care in the service of humanity both employing and employed.

FOREWORD

There is a world movement in uplift work for women. Along with the rest of the world Hawaii is awaking to this call. In all lines of endeavor there must be a working plan. But first must be facts “writ large” and plain. In view of this interest and the desire to do a vital work for the wage-earning girls and women of Honolulu, the Trustees of Kaiulani Home secured the services of a trained investigator, Miss Frances E. Blascoer of New York City, to make a study of industrial conditions among the working girls of Honolulu and to present a plan for the organization of a Vocational Bureau here in the islands.

With the coming of Miss Blascoer the vision grew; a social survey was attempted, a survey which should be the means of presenting to citizens and social workers the real state of industrial and housing conditions; the character of the amusements offered to our community; facts anent dependent children; facts concerning the devastation of the social evil.

Religious, moral, intellectual, professional and vocational education; community hygiene; sanitary regulations; the beautifying of Honolulu; all these demand the concerted action of women and men. And then, too, there is the “call of the children” that comes with such strength of appeal from the findings of the Juvenile Court. The dependent child must be considered. The crimes that imperil the virtue of unprotected little girls must not be hidden. The fact must be faced of the incursion of Hawaii by large numbers of unmarried men and the accompanying menace to young women. Unquestionably, the conditions under which girls and women work should be known by the public.

Churches, associations, clubs, individual philanthropists, should have accurate knowledge of social conditions; that pauperizing may be avoided and that the waste of duplication in charitable work may be avoided. Undoubtedly more light is needed for the conduct of benevolent enterprises, perhaps not more giving, but more “efficient giving.”

Miss Blascoer’s report on the industrial conditions of women and girls, it is believed, will prove a basis for the working out of many programs for community betterment. May it prove rich in suggestion to the women of Honolulu. May all put shoulder to shoulder in the task of solving the industrial problem of the girls and women in our midst, and may it give to those who earnestly seek, a mission, a vision of great opportunities. To those who give and to those who receive, may there result a meeting, not at the “crossroads” of mistrust and suspicion, but on the “main traveled thoroughfare” which leads to mutual helpfulness. Hasten the day of its arriving!

IDA M. POPE, President, Board of Trustees of Kaiulani Home.

TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF KAIULANI HOME FOR GIRLS

The Industrial Committee of the Social Survey is composed of the following members:—

Bishop Restarick, Miss Ida M. Pope, Father Stephen, Dr. Doremus Scudder, Professor Edgar Wood, Mrs. May Wilcox, President A. F. Griffiths, Miss Kemp (who takes Miss Bosher’s place), Mrs. Walter F. Frear, Mrs. Frederick J. Lowrey, Miss Louise Gulick, Miss Nora Sturgeon, Mrs. Francis M. Swanzy, Chairman.

Its mission of inquiry into the condition of working girls and women in Honolulu has been conducted by three sub-committees, viz.—

(1) On Conditions in Homes. (2) On Conditions of Work. (3) On Conditions of Recreations and Amusements.

The first work done was in the way of inquiry into certain individual cases presented by Miss Blascoer; this brought helpful results. A seamstress inquiry was made by Mesdames Frear, Lowrey, Wilcox and Swanzy, in which 250 circulars were sent out. The various responses emphasize strongly the need of a training school for unskilled workers in this line. A stenographer and typewriter inquiry was conducted by Professor Wood, assisted by Messrs. George R. Carter, Walter Dillingham, A. F. Judd, G. P. Wilder and W. H. Baird, temporary members of the Sub-committee on Conditions of Work and constituting a representative group of business men especially interested. Perhaps the most interesting as well as most valuable inquiry was that into the social activities of the community, its Recreations and Amusements. President Griffiths prepared a list of the Public Amusements and, assisted by some twenty-six persons, undertook the investigation of the theatres, moving picture shows, dance halls, and parks. Mrs. Frear personally made a most exhaustive inquiry into the social activities of the many Churches of Honolulu, and Misses Bosher and Kemp did the same for the Schools; Miss Gulick did the work for the Missions and Settlements, Mrs. Lowrey for the several Miscellaneous Associations, while Mrs. Swanzy collected information regarding the fifty-odd Lodges and Fraternal Organizations.

Meetings of the Committee and the Sub-committees were held during the months of July, August, September, and October; the last, of the committee as a whole, was well attended and the discussion in connection with the outline of a constructive program kindly given by Miss Blascoer proved highly profitable. The reports of the sub-committees have been turned in to Miss Blascoer, whose digest of conditions she presents to your Board. A slight sketch of the reaction of this industrial inquiry on the persons who took part in it may, however, be of interest. Without exception the effect of this work has been most stimulating and beneficial, so that it may safely be said that whatever the final outcome to the community of the Social Survey, each individual of this committee has been helped to a better knowledge of existing conditions and to a broader outlook on life. Especially for the lay members windows have been opened in various directions. May I quote an opinion or two? One says:—“This inquiry has aroused interest. We have learned how other people’s work runs along the same lines as ours; there has been too much of ‘going it alone.’” Another:—“It has been a decided help and stirred interest and work; it has promoted discussion and information generally.”

The School inquiry, which elicited a very generous and valuable response, in several cases of public school teachers proved a direct stimulus and assistance in affording opportune suggestion for ways of recreation and amusement; while the fact that an extensive work is done by the Lodges and Fraternal Organizations was made evident by that inquiry—a work that is kindly as well as charitable, a work that is conducive to the development of friendly feeling and good will towards men. The social activities of these societies also cover a large field. The Church inquiry showed that an astonishing amount is done among some of our Honolulu congregations for the welfare and wholesome amusement of young people and adults, and the Church of Latter Day Saints may be cited as particularly active in looking after its people on week-days as well as Sundays.

One of our women members states that she finds her personal interest in the welfare of working girls greatly broadened and now has a better idea of the needs of girls from poor homes, particularly those who have had few opportunities. In connection with the work of the Industrial Committee several Amusement Circles for girls have been started in different parts of town by Miss Nora Sturgeon and a band of volunteer helpers, and interest in this line of effort has been directly incited among others who were drawn into the detail of investigation.

Finally, Dr. Scudder says that he has been thinking along these lines for twenty years and feels that this industrial inquiry will be of immense value in bringing to the notice of many who are also interested, a tangible plan of action as the result of knowledge of conditions. He intends speaking on the necessity for child labor laws, to be enacted by the next Legislature, so that the deplorable conditions existing in other countries need never be known here, and he will endeavor to enlist the sympathy and influence of his congregation. His own interest has been quickened, and he believes that the Kaiulani Home Board should be heartily congratulated on having been the means of instigating an inquiry which it is hoped will crystallize into some definite and concerted program for the betterment of social and industrial conditions in Hawaii nei.

JULIE JUDD SWANZY, Chairman.

October 29, 1912.

GENERAL STATEMENT

TO THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE KAIULANI HOME, AND MEMBERS OF THE CITIZENS’ COMMITTEE OF THE HONOLULU SOCIAL SURVEY.

In this crossroads community of Honolulu—a community where defying Kipling, not only the East and West, but also the North and South meet (and like one another) there are almost as many races and admixtures represented as a man has fingers and toes.

A girl born of a mother whose blood is half-Hawaiian and half-Chinese, and of a Norwegian father, works side by side on the one hand with a Korean maiden and on the other with a young woman who is negro-American through one parent and German-Hawaiian through another. The daughter of a Portuguese-Japanese mother and an American father schoolmates with the child of a Basuto woman and an Englishman; while side by side Portuguese, Porto Rican, Japanese, Hawaiian, Filipino and Negro, with all these and other inter-racial variations, eat their lunches side by side in the pineapple canneries and laundries. Schools, athletic teams and other activities show the same racial composition.

And quite as assorted as the blood is apt to be the mode of life, dress and thought of this polyglot population. One sees a Chinese woman in her charming native costume of brocaded silk, her hair carefully pomaded and profusely ornamented, while her feet (not by any means the “golden-lilies” so rapidly passing into oblivion) of the small-footed Chinese are encased in silk hose and patent leather pumps. Furthermore, she leads by the hand a small daughter in full American panoply, not omitting the butterfly bow of ribbon in her hair. If followed to her home she will be found eating her bowl of rice or stewed mushrooms with a spoon, instead of the historic chop-sticks, her children doing the same or more likely making their fingers do duty.

Or, one meets a Japanese man, smiling with affectionate fatuity at the infant he carries in his arms; his own kimonoed and sandalled person topped with a regulation Panama hat. Or again, one attends a suffrage meeting with the audience made up of Hawaiian, Chinese and women of other nationalities, and listens to the familiar appeals for equal pay for equal work; amendments to the property laws; reduction of infant mortality; more schools. And so on, until one is permeated with a fine glow of wonder at the universality of it all, the “getting together” which is the surest promise of world peace, however much one may from an aesthetic standpoint regret certain of the departures.

Then, too, the workrooms, public utilities, public amusements (and very generally acquaintances and friendships) untrammeled by racial boundaries, cause one to wonder anew not alone at the ease with which Honolulu has dispensed with those boundaries but also at the fact that in this year of our Lord they still prevail in the caste-ridden communities of the mainland. One says prevail rather than exist advisedly, because race prejudice undoubtedly exists in Honolulu, and is openly expressed. Thus far, however, the women and girls of Honolulu are unhampered in their opportunities, and no man’s right to decent public courtesy is violated by race feeling. An Hawaiian incompetent is equally liable to be replaced with a Portuguese, a Chinese, a Japanese, or what not.