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TENEMENT CONDITIONS
IN CHICAGO
REPORT
BY THE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE
OF THE
CITY HOMES ASSOCIATION
TEXT BY
ROBERT HUNTER
CHICAGO
PUBLISHED BY CITY HOMES ASSOCIATION
igoi
JTijr
R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY
CHICAGO
C. o p<
PREFACE
7^ ///<? Executive Committee of the City Homes Association :
This report is submitted by your Investigating Committee as
a result of their work undertaken in the beginning of the sum-
mer of 1900. After consulting with various charitable and reform
societies, and receiving from them many suggestions as to the best
methods of obtaining accurate information concerning the evils
of tenement-house conditions, it was decided that an investiga-
tion should be made of representative portions of the city. The
advice of the Settlements, the Bureau of Charities, and the Visit-
ing Nurses' Association as to which districts showed the worst
sanitary and housing evils was requested, and the districts as
shown in the following maps were selected. Dr. Frank A. Fetter,
Professor of Economics at the Leland Stanford Jr. University,
directed the work of the enumerators. Through the courtesy of
Mr. William R. Stirling and Hunger, Ebbert & Co., copies of the
insurance maps covering District One were obtained. Mr. Dun-
lap Smith permitted the Committee the use of real-estate maps of
the districts. The Department of Health supplied all of the
enumerators with stars worn by their sanitary inspectors, which
gave them the right to enter every tenement. Dr. Fetter was
assisted by Dr. Edwin Ryerson and the following enumer-
ators, mentioned in the order of their length of service:
E. D. Solenberger, Roswell H. Johnson, S. G. Lindholm, Miss
Jennie Dupuis, Mrs. M. S. Johnson, Miss Alice Winston, Mrs.
L. W. Taft, Miss Pease, Miss Katherine B. Davis, and H. Wirt
Steele. Of those who gave clerical help, Mr. C. W. Price
deserves special mention. Acknowledgment is due Miss Kath-
erine B. Davis, Ph.D., for especially valuable co-operation in the
investigation of the Bohemian district. The plumbing investi-
gation was done, with the advice and assistance of President
Clinch of the Plumbers' Union, by the following licensed plumb-
ers: F. B. Mower, Joseph Mooney, P. J. Mitchell, J. J. Malone,
and H. Jacobson.
3
201016
4 PREFACE
The actual work of the inquiry was commenced about the is
of August, 1900, and was carried on with as much speed as wa:
compatible with thoroughness. The work of compilation and tin
making of maps, charts, and diagrams was completed about th<
last of October. On the completion of the work, Dr. Fetter fur
nished the Committee with a statement of the actual condition
found, and with maps, diagrams, and statistical tables.
All of the materials collected in this investigation, with th<
returns of the enumerators, are filed at the office of the Secretary
of the City Homes Association, 215 Dearborn Street, and ma;
be consulted by any one who is interested to go more deeply int<
the subject.
The report as now submitted not only shows the result of th<
inquiry, but also compares conditions in Chicago with those else
where. These original materials have all been most carefull]
worked over, and the tables and diagrams verified.
Respectfully submitted.
ANITA MCCORMICK ELAINE,
JANE ADDAMS,
CAROLINE MCCORMICK,
L. V. LE MOYNE,
ERNEST P. BICKNELL,
ROBERT HUNTER, Chairman,
Committee on Investigation
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY: PURPOSES AND IMPORTANCE OF
THE INQUIRY
PAGE
SECTION i. THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD AND THE THREATS OF
THE NEW HOUSING EVILS - - 11
SECTION 2. A SMALL AREA is CHOSEN FOR INQUIRY FROM A
WILDERNESS OF HOUSING AND SANITARY NEGLECT 12
SECTION 3. THE PURPOSE OF THE INQUIRY is TO LAY A FOUN-
DATION FOR REFORM - 14
SECTION 4. OFFICIAL NEGLECT AND CORRUPT POLITICS ARE NOT
ALONE TO BLAME FOR BAD CONDITIONS - 16
SECTION 5. THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE INTERESTS OF THE
INDIVIDUAL AND THE LARGER INTERESTS OF THE COMMUNITY 18
CHAPTER II.
OVERCROWDED AREAS
SECTION i. ECONOMY OF LAND AND THE TENEMENT PROBLEM 21
SECTION 2. OVERCROWDING THE BLOCK, AND ITS MEANING - 24
SECTION 3. OVERCROWDING ON LOT AREAS - 31
SECTION 4. THE EVILS AND EXTENT OF REAR TENEMENTS - 36
SECTION 5. THE GROWTH OF THE DOUBLE-DECKER - 43
CHAPTER III.
THE OVERCROWDED POPULATION
SECTION i. TESTIMONY ON THE EVILS OF THE CLOSE CROWD-
ING OF PEOPLE 51
SECTION 2. CHICAGO'S TENEMENT POPULATION is OPPRESSIVELY
DENSE 52
SECTION 3. A STUDY OF THE DENSITIES OF POPULATION - 53
SECTION 4. A DETAILED STUDY OF ROOMS AND APARTMENTS 58
SECTION 5. FAMILIES IN CROWDED QUARTERS 60
SECTION 6. THE SACRIFICE OF DECENCY, HEALTH, AND MORALS
IN OVERCROWDED APARTMENTS - 67
SECTION 7. THE DENSITY is INCREASING IN CHICAGO 71
5
CONTENTS
CHAPTER IV.
INSIDE SANITARY CONDITIONS
PAGE
SECTION i. CAUSES OF INSANITARY CONDITIONS IN HOUSES 73
SECTION 2. A STUDY OF APARTMENTS WITH DEFECTIVE LIGHT-
ING AND VENTILATION 77
SECTION 3. A STUDY OF THE AIR-SPACES IN OVERCROWDED
APARTMENTS 83
SECTION 4. THE EXTENT AND EVILS OF CE-LLAR AND BASEMENT
DWELLINGS - 88
SECTION 5. HOUSES UNFIT FOR HABITATION ... 94
CHAPTER V.
DEFECTIVE PLUMBING AND BATHS
SECTION i. THE PRINCIPLES OF SANITARY PLUMBING 100
SECTION 2. THE CONDITION OF SINKS, CATCH-BASINS, AND
UNDRAINED LOTS 101
SECTION 3. THE PREVALENCE OF THE OUTLAWED PRIVY VAULT 104
SECTION 4. INSANITARY WATER-CLOSETS 105
SECTION 5. THE NEED OF BATHS 108
CHAPTER VI.
OUTSIDE INSANITARY CONDITIONS
SECTION i. THE IMPORTANCE OF OUTSIDE SANITARY CONDITIONS in
SECTION 2. BADLY PAVED AND UNCLEAN STREETS AND ALLEYS 112
SECTION 3. THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF DANGEROUS SIDEWALKS 117
SECTION 4. FILTHY VACANT LOTS, YARDS, COURTS, AND PASSAGES 124
SECTION 5. OFFENSIVE STABLES AND MANURE BOXES 128
SECTION 6. THE NEGLECT OF GARBAGE 133
SECTION 7. MISCELLANEOUS OUTSIDE INSANITARY CONDITIONS 141
CHAPTER VII.
SOCIAL PATHOLOGY, DISEASES AND DEATHS
SECTION i. THE SOURCES AND VALUE OF THE DATA 144
SECTION 2. POVERTY AND PAUPERISM IN THE TENEMENTS 145
SECTION 3. INTEMPERANCE AND BAD HOUSING 147
SECTION 4. CRIME IN THE HOMELESS AND YARDLESS TENEMENTS 149
SECTION 5. SICKNESS AND INSANITARY CONDITIONS 152
SECTION 6. DEATH-RATES IN NEGLECTED DISTRICTS 154
CONTENTS 7
CHAPTER VIII.
CONCLUSION : A REVIEW OF REMEDIAL EFFORTS
PAGE
SECTION i. THE HOUSING PROBLEM AND CHICAGO'S LACK OF
PREVENTIVE MEASURES 161
SECTION 2. THE TREND OF ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION IN
OLDER CITIES - 162
SECTION 3. THE NEW LAWS MOST NECESSARY AND THE IMPOR-
TANCE OF REGULAR INSPECTION 164
SECTION 4. THE NEED OF SMALL PARKS AND GARDENS 166
SECTION 5. PUBLIC BATHS SHOULD BE RECREATIVE AND EDUCA-
TIONAL - 172
SECTION 6. THE WORK OF SANITARY AND HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS 174
SECTION 7. THE EXTENT OF REMEDIAL EFFORTS - 177
APPENDIX 181
BIBLIOGRAPHY .... - 203
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTORY; PURPOSES AND IMPORTANCE
OF THE INQUIRY
THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD AND THE MENACE OF THE NEW
HOUSING EVILS
Section i. There could not be a more opportune moment for
announcing and describing the serious housing problem which
exists in Chicago. A few years ago, and to a limited extent even
now, the worst features of certain neglected portions of the city
appeared but temporary and transitional. The optimism of citi-
zens interested in this phase of municipal development led to the
belief that conditions would improve with time; at least no one
could have done more than to prophesy the growth of a serious
tenement problem. In fact, it could not have been known,
until the results of such an inquiry as this were studied, that the
housing conditions are growing steadily worse, and that the slum
now building is likely to repeat the history of those in other
cities. An important factor, on the one hand, is the natural
desire on the part of landlords to cover every inch of their
ground space with large tenements without sufficient provision
for light and ventilation. On the other hand, it is the short-
sighted policy of the municipality which permits the growth
of housing conditions for whose improvement years of agitation
and vigorous effort will be necessary. The histories of many
other cities show that the forces which built their slums are
almost exactly those at work here. Tenement-house conditions
in other cities have cost the lives of many thousands of innocent
working people, and the public expenditure of millions, before
the municipalities have been able to destroy the most dangerous
districts. In view of what follows, it is safe to say that the night
of the double-decker, the worst of all tenements, is enveloping
12 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
the West as yesterday it blackened the East.* To present this
new problem in relation to the old, at a time when preventive legis-
lation and the enforcement of restrictive laws on tenement-house
construction have great possibilities, is the purpose of this report.
A SMALL AREA IS CHOSEN FOR INQUIRY FROM A WILDER-
NESS OF BAD HOUSING AND SANITARY NEGLECT
Section 2. The endeavor has been to seek out and explore
typical or representative portions of the city where the problems
of the old and the menace of the new housing evils are both mani-
fest. If the purpose had been merely to select the worst houses
and blocks that the city can show, portions of the North and the
South sides would have been chosen. The Stock Yards district and
portions of South Chicago show outside insanitary conditions as-
bad as any in the world. Indescribable accumulations of filth
and rubbish, together with the absence of sewerage, make the sur-
roundings of every dilapidated frame cottage abominably insani-
tary. These evils do not extend over a large area. They are,
in their worst forms, extraordinary and not typical of conditions,
elsewhere in Chicago. If the worst evils of covering the whole
of lots with tenements, or the worst examples of the misery and
degradation of rear tenements had been chosen, certain blocks
in the First Ward would have been investigated. If the worst
examples had been chosen of the destruction to morals and health
resulting from overcrowded dark rooms, or the manifold dangers,
to those who are compelled to live in sunless, airless, and yardless
double-deckers, certain blocks in the Twenty-second Ward and
portions of the South Side would have been selected.
Examples of various forms of housing at its worst are to be
found in the First and Twenty-second wards, and in the districts
for eight miles along the North and South branches of the river. -j-
The districts selected as typical of bad conditions throughout
the city are: First, the Jewish and Italian district, in the
Ninth and Nineteenth wards, between Polk Street on the north,
*The double-decker, or dumb-bell, is described and defined on pages 43-
46. The terms are applied to a large tenement covering too much ground
space, and without proper provision for light and ventilation.
t See appendix, pages 181-184.
hf POLK.
D
Q
L
on
D
D
DISTRICT ONE
H TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Fourteenth Street on the south, Halsted Street on the west, and
Canal Street on the east; second, a Polish district in the Six-
teenth Ward, bounded by Division Street on the south, Blanche
Street on the north, Noble Street on the east, and Ashland Avenue
on the west; and third, a Bohemian district in the Tenth Ward,
bounded by Sixteenth Street on the north, Twentieth Street on
the south, Laflin Street on the west, and Allport Street on the
east.* In these districts are seen, side by side, the old sys-
tem of housing — which, in spite of its evils, never presented a
serious problem — and the beginning of a new and much worse
system with the appearance of the double-decker. Forty-five
thousand people live in these districts, and the insanitary condi-
tions which surround them are typical of the conditions in which
from three to four hundred thousand people in many parts of
Chicago are now living.
THE PURPOSE OF THE INQUIRY IS TO LAY A FOUNDATION
FOR REFORM
Section 3. The Committee, in publishing this report of the
investigation, have in view certain definite objects. Above all,
they consider that accurate knowledge of existing conditions
must be the basis for future reform. As the results of their in-
vestigation will probably surprise many people, who have believed
that there is no serious housing problem in Chicago, the Com-
mittee wish to say that the statements in this report are all based
upon actual facts gathered in their investigation, which, though
restricted to a small area, they have tried to make scientific,
thorough, and exhaustive. In presenting the facts, they have
tried to cover the subject intelligently, and to give under each
heading a brief account of the experiences and decisions of other
and older cities on the subjects in hand. This method of presenta-
tion was chosen with the hope that those would be reached who
might build upon this small beginning a great and important work
of reform. Therefore, it should be understood that the Committee
have no desire to present a harrowing picture of the misery of the
tenement-house population simply to create a sensation. Indeed,
this report will be of little value unless it proves an incentive, and
* See maps opposite.
DISTRICT TWO
DISTRICT THREE
16 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
perhaps a partial guide in the future, to persistent and organ-
ized preventive and reform efforts.
The Committee are aware of the many obstacles in the way
of obtaining lasting and useful results in tenement-house reform.
In the first place, reforms are apt to be sporadic and short-lived ;
municipal officials are likely to be conservative, and even obstruc-
tionists; the slum landlord is sure to be shrewd and persistently
attentive to his own interests. The history of almost every older
city shows how great these obstacles are. Liverpool once arose
in wrath at the dangerous housing conditions and the fearful
death-rates prevailing in certain portions of that city. In obedi-
ence to the strong public sentiment, the overcrowded houses
were destroyed. The wretched tenants were compelled to leave
their old overcrowded houses to still further overcrowd the neigh-
boring ones. Basements, cellars, attics, sheds, and all available
forms of shelter were put to use, but the evils meant to be reme-
died were increased tenfold,* as the increased death-rate fully
proved. Action being taken, however, the emotion subsided.
Since 1842 New York has had many reform movements. f
Many investigations have been made; again and again the city
has been aroused to a high pitch of excitement, but the efforts
have been ephemeral. Of the little done, a part was injurious.
The double-decker itself was introduced to slum landlords by
well-meaning reformers. What is most needed in all reforms has
come only recently to New York, namely, an organized body of
public-spirited citizens who are determined, if necessary for suc-
cess, to fight another "Ten Years' War." It is well for Chicago
to realize, therefore, that the serious conditions presented in the
following pages will not be quickly or easily abolished.
OFFICIAL NEGLECT AND CORRUPT POLITICS ARE NOT ALONE
TO BLAME FOR BAD CONDITIONS
Section 4. The second obstacle exists in the fact that a radi-
cal change in policy on the part of the city is hardly to be ex-
pected without the constant and unmistakable pressure of public
opinion. Being thus far without definite demands on the part of
* See Liverpool newspapers of summer of 1899.
I See Veiller's Tenement-House Reform in New York, 1834-1900.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 17
the people regarding the enforcement of tenement-house laws,
the city has permitted the slum landlords to build as they chose.
And, therefore, the onus of neglect lies not alone upon the muni-
cipal authorities. Many evils charged to corrupt politics exist
because there is an absence of public opinion against them.
Most of the problems brought out in this report are the products
of great social improvements and changes. Within the last few
years there have been marvelous industrial, commercial, and
agrarian revolutions, through which populations have been redis-
tributed upon the earth; country districts have been depopulated;
small factories have given way to large ones; country and subur-
ban stores have succumbed to the department and mail-order
stores; the millions have thronged to the cities, which were not
prepared for their coming. The municipal authorities had not
planned to protect the citizens against insanitary dwellings, and
landlords were permitted to build as they wished. To municipal
governments in the entire western world have been presented a
thousand new problems.* That these problems have not all had
a satisfactory solution is not entirely the politician's fault. Un-
paved and unclean streets, dangerous sidewalks, garbage disposal
and removal, rubbish and refuse upon open spaces, the outlawed
privy vaults, houses unfit for habitation, damp basement dwell-
ings, overcrowded, dark, and unventilated rooms are not inev-
itable or necessarily permanent evils. If Chicago will take the
matter in hand, it can abolish existing evils and prevent the
growth of a great tenement-house population crowded in stifling
quarters. It can provide needed breathing-spaces, parks, play-
grounds, and baths. As Albert Shaw says: "The abolition of
the slums and the destruction of their virus are as feasible as the
drainage of a swamp and the total destruction 3* it miasmas. "f
* Shaw's Municipal Government in Great Britain, pages 1-19.
t Shaw's Municipal Government in Great Britain, page 3.
l8 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE INTERESTS OF THE INDI-
VIDUAL AND THE LARGER INTERESTS OF
THE COMMUNITY
Section 5. The third and most important obstacle to reform
is the slum landlord. He will vigorously protect his property
interests. Indeed, this whole question resolves itself into a long
struggle between the interests of the individual on the one hand
and the larger interests of the commonweal on the other. In
Chicago the interests of the slum landlords have been thus far
protected and promoted by the municipality itself. But tene-
ment-house reform means that the interests of landlords owning
property injurious to the welfare of tenants and neighbors are
of secondary importance. To permit landlords to build without
careful municipal regulation is to encourage a tenement-house
blight. For it should be understood that the construction of
houses, the relation of one house to another on the same and on
adjoining lots, and the size in height and length decide the inside
conditions. In the absence of careful municipal regulation, tene-
ments are built without uniform and adequate provision for light
and ventilation. Builders of tenements, and even of many new
and cheap apartment buildings, disregard all principles of good
construction and erect dangerously insanitary dwellings.
In fact, pressure for the economical use of land has estab-
lished within certain limits a new and vicious kind. of private
property. It is the private ownership of the rays of the sun and
the health-giving properties of the air. A landlord who builds a
tenement to the limits of the lot and several stories high takes
from his neighbors both air and sunshine. He also provides
many of his own tenants with dark and foul homes. The returns
of this investigation are replete with such instances. For the
landlord's tenant and his neighbor's tenants, the airless and sun-
less rooms nourish disease germs. Babies, almost like blind fish
inhabiting sunless caves, suffer from ophthalmia.* Tuberculosis
thrives, and cannot be stamped out without the aid of sunshine, j-
* Dr. Bowmaker's Housing of the Working Classes, page 15.
| Dr. S. A. Knopf's Testimony, Chapter VII, page 152.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 19
It is the common testimony of physicians that the working people
are being noticeably affected by city habitations. People cannot
live without air and sunshine, and strange as it may appear that
any one should have to plead for these things, this Committee
and all other tenement-house committees exist pre-eminently
for this one purpose ; that is, to insure to every one the necessary
light and air, and to make it impossible to build or use as tene-
ments those houses where the light and air are insufficient. It is
the mass of the working people who are the sufferers. The whole
question is, How long will interests of landlords, through igno-
rance or thoughtlessness, be allowed to remain an obstacle to
necessary reform? It is possible that at first many people will
object to a municipal policy of interference which will hold in
check the individual. But objections of this kind will come only
from those who have interests involved or who know nothing of
the evils caused by the present policy. That property interests
must give way to health and sanitary necessities is a recognized
municipal prerogative.
When shall this increased restriction of the individual com-
mence? New York, London, Liverpool, Glasgow, and Birming-
ham were slow to act even when delay meant more deaths, and
when it also meant a larger and more costly struggle with slum
landlords. It did not, however, mean that the struggle could be
avoided. The clash between the interests of the individual and
the needs of the community had to come. To take away from
slum landlords their property and demolish it is a costly matter;
$3,504,760.83 was paid by the taxpayers of Glasgow for the
demolition and renovation of wretched slums in that city.* Edin-
burgh, before 1892, spent $2,725,240.00 for sanitary amelioration
carried out under an improvement scheme.* New York has had
a long and hard struggle in destroying two or three slum areas.
A million dollars a year has been given by the city for the pur-
pose of making small parks in overcrowded tenement districts.
It cost a million and a half and many years of effort to condemn
and demolish the more notorious rookeries. f Such experiences
have taught the older cities the extravagance of neglect and the
* Report of New York Tenement-House Commission, 1894, page 353.
t Jacob Riis's Ten Years' War, pages 177 and 178.
20 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
economy of prevention. This Committee is of the opinion that
Chicago, being forewarned by the experiences of other cities, will
give immediate thought to this important political question and
prevent the growth of such serious conditions as those afflicting
the older cities.
CHAPTER II.
OVERCROWDED AREAS
ECONOMY OF LAND AND THE TENEMENT-HOUSE PROBLEM
Section i. There is no more important test of the tenement-
house conditions than the amount of space covered by buildings.
Where there is overcrowding of houses upon lots and blocks
there arise all of the most dangerous results of bringing together,
in the artificial surroundings of large cities, vast populations.
Close and often indecent crowding, natural accumulation of filth,
insufficient provision for light and ventilation, lack of yard and
breathing-spaces, and a high tax upon the health and life of the
people are a few of the results which inevitably accompany crowd-
ing of houses upon ground space
The history of tenement-house building in Chicago is much
the same as it is in every large city, in that it shows a growing
economy of land space. In the earlier days, when tenements were
built covering no more than forty or fifty per cent of the depth
of the lot, no interference from the municipality was necessary.
The individual could be permitted, without injury to the com-
mon-weal, to build as he chose, since it was not then profitable for
him to cover more than fifty per cent of his lot with build-
ings. But when it becomes to the financial interest of landlords
to build high tenements covering every inch of the lot, the muni-
cipality should formulate laws and regulations restricting the
height of tenements and limiting the percentage of the lot which
may be covered by buildings. The time for such interference
has been reached.
For over ten years Chicago has been in that stage of develop-
ment where landlords have been winning increasing profits from
large tenements and groups of tenements, covering from sixty to
one hundred per cent of the lot space. A study of the four tables —
first, front and rear houses; second, material of houses; third,
front and rear houses classified according to stories; fourth, one
22 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
story frame dwellings compared with all others introduced on
subsequent pages — will supply those interested with definite and
valuable information on the genesis and evolution of the present
housing conditions.*
The small frame house, formerly the characteristic dwelling
of the working class, survives, usually in dilapidated form, as is
shown in the following photograph, or has undergone radical
changes. Often it has been moved to the rear of the lot to give
place to a larger tenement, and has been partitioned, in a slovenly
and unsatisfactory manner, to adapt it to the uses of more than
one family. Occasionally the remodeling has taken the form of
raising the small frame house onto a lower story of brick. (See
photograph, page 35.)
The degeneration of the two-story frame and brick houses
from the home of one family into a tenement for several families
is a commonplace in the housing histories of all large cities. The
lack of conveniences and the partitioning of large rooms into
small and dark ones are a part of the mischievous results. The
next step in the evolution is the tenement-house built for several
*See pages 189-195.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
23
families, and this varies in size from a two-story house covering
fifty per cent of the lot to a four or five story tenement covering
from eighty to one hundred per cent of the ground space. It is
now almost universal in the tenement-house districts to have
either one large tenement or two smaller ones, or occasionally
three very small houses, covering a large percentage of the ground
area. This is very much the same history as that of London,
New York, and Boston. Their problems are, and will be, very
likely, our problems.
To prevent the foregoing evils the older cities have restrictive
laws. As early as 1879 New York passed a law permitting only
sixty-five per cent of the interior lots to be covered by buildings.*
In Boston the same legal maximum has been established, f
Both Boston and New York have also limited the height of
*Veiller's Tenement-House Legislation in New York, 1852-1900
page 74.
fVeiller's Housing Conditions and Tenement Laws, etc., page 16.
24
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
dwellings.* To the shame of Chicago, no limit in height
and only an inadequate one in depth has been set by the
city. The law with regard to depth provides that ten feet shall
be left uncovered at the rear of the lot, but it is not sufficient and
the law is not enforced. As a result, a landlord may build upon
every inch of his lot. Indeed, in this investigation eighty-seven
lots were found entirely covered. This is in violation of the very
inadequate city ordinance. This and the information to follow
will show the serious conditions found in this small region. Chi-
cago may take to account that the neglect which permitted these
conditions to arise is at the expense of the health and welfare of
thousands of working people who are now living in these tene-
ments. They are at the risk of even greater danger when the
tenements covering a large amount of space are built to a consid-
erable height, as is being done to a large extent already.
OVERCROWDING THE BLOCK AND ITS MEANING
Section 2. The general statements in the last section find
ample proof in the special study of selected areas. The per-
centage of space covered by buildings, the amount taken up in
vacant lots and unoccupied spaces in the forty-four blocks of
District i are given in the following diagram. f
This diagram shows that two of the blocks were covered over
seventy-five per cent with buildings. Fourteen of the blocks
* Veiller's Housing Conditions and Tenement Laws, etc., page 16.
f Based upon insurance and real-estate maps and verified to a certain
extent by the enumerators. Like figures were not collected for the other
two districts.
26 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
were covered more than seventy per cent of their area. Twenty
(nearly one half of the forty-four blocks) were covered -sixty-five
per cent by buildings. It will be a great surprise to most
students of tenement-house conditions in Chicago to learn that
so many blocks were covered more than the Boston and New
York law permits on a single interior lot. Over a large area this
is an amazingly high average, and clearly and forcibly foreshad-
ows what will be shown later, namely, the overcrowding which
exists on many lots in each block.
An excellent idea of what these figures mean will be obtained
by a study of the following photographs. The photographs on
page 27, show how closely the ground is built upon. The
front houses to the right run far to the rear of each lot. A
mass of rear cottage tenements are placed almost against
the front houses, without regard for light or ventilation.
There being no yards, the roofs of the houses are utilized as
a space for drying clothes. This somber and hideous conglom-
eration of tenements very clearly shows the need for municipal
regulation.
The photograph on page 28, in a general view, shows the great
variety of tenements which occupy a very crowded block in the
Jewish quarter. People are crowded into the basements. The
dark passageways between the houses are almost the only open
spaces in the block. The view shows clearly the small, dilapi-
dated rear houses, the poorly constructed two-story frame
and large three-story brick tenements. The photograph on
page 29 shows a block built up almost solidly with tenements.
There are several new brick tenements covering a large per-
centage of the lot. The rear of almost every lot has a brick
tenement, or a small frame house. The three small ones at the
left are each occupied by more than one family. Almost the only
open spaces are the passages, the streets and alleys, with their
filth and garbage boxes.
The last view of rear tenements in the Polish district,
(page 30) shows one large rear house and many tenements running
along the entire length of the alley, consuming a large amount
of ground space. The old stable in the foreground completely
shuts the light from half of the neighboring house. This is a
fair type of a block in the Polish district. Worse conditions of
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 31
overcrowding on the block exist in that quarter than in the
Jewish and Italian districts, which we are now considering.
To further illustrate the overcrowding by buildings, the fol-
lowing diagram is given of a block well covered by tenements.
In the middle of the block almost all the houses are of two
stories. Often in the rear a one or two story tenement is seen.
Sheds or one or two story tenements occupy the rear of every
lot. "A" and "B" are examples of front and rear houses resem-
bling the English "back to back houses" spoken of later.* At
the right end of the block the conditions are extremely bad.
Almost every lot facing on this street is entirely covered. The
height of the buildings here accentuates evils. The overcrowd-
ing is excessive, and for parts of these houses light and ventilation
are impossible.
The following photograph (page 33) will supplement the dia-
gram to illustrate how little uncovered ground space there is in
this block. It has a population of over one thousand people.
The ugliness of the street, its wretched tenements, and its ill-
smelling garbage boxes in front of each house cannot be imagined
from the photograph. Photography seems to mellow or soften
the disagreeable features, which when seen with the eye are
extremely offensive. The tall building at the end of the street
is shown on the diagram by the darkest shading.
OVERCROWDING OF LOT AREAS
Section 3. While what has already been said will show to a
certain extent the general overcrowding of houses which exists
in this part of the city, the worst conditions can be seen only by
*See page 37.
32 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
observing the crowding on certain selected lots. In this investi-
gation many lots have been found so built upon that no provision
has been made for proper lighting or ventilation. Previous to
this inquiry it was supposed that the housing problem consisted
mainly of small frame houses. It was, therefore, a surprise to
find entire blocks covered more than the Boston law permits on
a single lot.* The Report of the Bureau of Labor on the Slums
of Great Cities stated in 1894 that fewer people in the slums of
Chicago had the use of yards than in either New York, Balti-
more, or Philadelphia, and it was natural to infer from that, that
the small rear tenement was universal in the poorer districts. f
But it depended upon this inquiry to show that 628 lots, or thirty-
nine per cent of all lots investigated, were covered more than
sixty-five per cent, which is the limit in other cities, and that 275
lots, or seventeen per cent of all lots, were covered more than
eighty per cent. After these figures were placed before the Com-
mittee, it requested a list of lots covered more than ninety per
cent, with the height of the buildings and the number of people
living in them. There were reported 144 lots covered from
ninety to one hundred per cent by dwellings, exclusive of all
other buildings; 108 of the lots had houses over three stories in
height, and 46 had tenements over four stories high; 3,181 people
lived in these dwellings.
The following table shows the number of lots covered more
than the specified percentages in the forty-four blocks in District i.
A few of the lots are covered with factories, warehouses,
churches, etc., but if that happens to be the case the conditions
of light and ventilation in the block are worse. J The crowding
of houses grows steadily worse in going from the Italian district
(blocks i to 24) into the Jewish district (blocks 25 to 44).
The reader will see that in several blocks from 13 to 22 lots
are covered eighty per cent by buildings. The worst conditions
seem to prevail in the long, narrow blocks of the Jewish district.
(See map, page 56.) These blocks, 34, 36, 39, 41, and 43, are
also the most thickly populated blocks in that quarter. The
* Report of the Improved Housing Association on Chicago's Housing
Problem, by Robert Hunter. (Not published.)
t Federal Report on the Slums of Great Cities, page 96.
JSee Chapter IV., page 82.
34
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
LOTS IN DISTRICT I COVERED MORE THAN CERTAIN PER-
CENTAGES
Block
No.
No. Lots Cov-
ered 65 per cent,
No. Lots Cov-
ered 80 percent.
Block
No.
No. Lots Cov-
ered 65 percent.
No. Lots Cov-
ered 80 per cent.
I
9
4
23
15
4
2
2
I
24
16
7
3
3
I
25
9
4
4
7
2
26
28
8
5
IS
7
27
8
5
6
5
i
28
13
5
7
3
—
29
9
5
8
9
4
30
13
5
9
13
6
31
16
6
10
2
i
32
8
4
ii
—
—
33
6
4
12
9
4
34
38
20
13
21
9
35
12
ii
14
6
2
36
44
15
15
17
—
37
16
8
16
9
6
38
9
3
17
21
9
39
23
13
18
7
3
40
28
19
19
7
2
4i
36
13
20
8
5
42
10
7
21
25
13
43
47
22
22
10
3
44
16
4
excessive economy of ground space, seen in this table, in the
diagram on page 31, and in the photographs, is in violation even
of local laws. But what is allowed by the inadequate laws of
Chicago would be impossible under the laws of other large cities.
This overcrowding is a serious matter; a dwelling, or group of
dwellings, built upon ninety per cent of the lot area causes mani-
fold evils. It not only makes no provision for its own light, but
also interferes with the light and ventilation of neighboring
houses.
The photograph (opposite) is an illustration of overcrowd-
ing. It is a picture of a rear court, taken from the alley. The
two-story frame house perched on a brick foundation, making
a basement story, is in the rear of a four-story brick building.
The two houses cover ninety per cent of this lot. The house at
the right is a three-story tenement in the rear of a three-story
brick house. These two houses cover ninety-five per cent of the
36 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
lot. In the ba'sement of the rear house is a stable where four
horses are kept, and the basement of the front house is a dwell-
ing-place. There are ninety-eight people in the four houses, and
the crowding in the rooms is shocking. There are fifteen fami-
lies crowded on a small twenty-five foot lot. This court is only
10 by 25 feet, and it is inclosed on three sides by high brick
walls. The court is like the bottom of a well, and the rooms
opening on it are damp and unwholesome. Eight little children
live in the brick basement at the left. Their rooms are never
touched by sunlight, which reaches the pavement of the court for
only a few moments each day, and the air is polluted by a foul
alley and overflowing garbage and manure boxes.
THE EVILS AND EXTENT OF REAR TENEMENTS
Section 4. A large part of the overcrowding on the lots is
caused by the rear tenement. Rear tenements have always been
considered the most unhealthful of dwellings. This is as true in
England, where they are rarely if ever more than two stories
high, as it is in New York, where they are frequently built to a
greater height. Sickness, epidemics, high death-rates, are uni-
versally more common in rear tenements than in other dwellings.
In fact, almost all insanitary conditions are found in and about
rear tenements. The houses are usually in bad repair, and are
permitted to become damp and unwholesome. The front houses
cut off the source of light, and the rooms are dark. These tene-
ments are, as a rule, on an alley, with windows opening directly
over manure and garbage boxes. In some the ground floor is
used as a stable. The ill-smelling privies are near, and the filth
of rear yards and alleys is all about. The poorest class of people
live in these houses, consequently there is often overcrowding
in the rooms. The demoralization and degradation to which
the people living in the filthy surroundings of these alley houses
eventually descend is obvious. With all these evils combined,
rear tenements make the worst possible dwellings for human
beings.
A realization of the evils of some of the rear tenements can
be gained from the photographs. The first (page 38) shows a
two-story house with a basement. It stands at the rear of a large
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 37
front tenement, which cannot be seen in the photograph, with
almost no space between the two houses. Eight families live in
the rear house. The rooms on the first floor in the front of the
rear house are overshadowed by the front house, and are damp
and dark. The surrounding conditions are very insanitary, and
the ill-smelling broken garbage boxes, overflowing into the alley,
offend even the passer-by at the end of the alley.
The next photograph (page 39) shows the general insanitary
conditions which surround the houses on both sides of the alley.
The first house on the right is a small dilapidated frame house.
Beyond it are three larger rear tenements. The outbuildings at
the left are all dilapidated, and contain privies which are in a foul
condition. There are not enough garbage boxes to supply the
needs, and the ones provided are so seldom cleaned that the
families dump their slops and garbage in the alley.
The next photograph (page 40) shows a typical alley scene.
Rear tenements occupy nearly every lot. The second on the left
is a new brick rear tenement with a basement. The second tene-
ment on the right is a three-story frame. This alley, as do many
others, serves as a playground for the children living in these
alley houses. The playground is filthy and by no means a
healthful place for growing children, but neither it nor the foul
garbage boxes are offensive to the little ones. One of these
children lives in the cottage, the basement of which is used for a
stable.
The rear tenements are often not unlike the "back to
back houses" which have caused such an outcry in English
cities. For example, the side or back of a rear tenement
will often be placed almost or quite against the rear of the
front house. In consequence, parts of each house are made
unfit for habitation, because of the dark rooms and the lack
of through ventilation. Enormous sums of money have been
spent by English municipalities to remodel or destroy property
of this kind.*
Study of the following table will give facts concerning the
extent of rear tenements in these districts. A rear tenement is
one which does not open upon the street, and stands in the rear
*See Bowmaker's Housing of Working Classes, page 19; or almost any
book on English housing conditions.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
41
of another house. The figures below show the number of front
and rear tenements and the number of people living in them.
The diagram shows further the percentages of front and rear
tenements in three selected blocks.
STATISTICS OF FRONT AND REAR HOUSES AND THEIR
POPULATION
Districts.
Front.
Rear.
Total.
No.
802
696
529
360
Per Cent.
No.
PerCent.
One, N. of Twelfth.
One, S. of Twelfth.
Two -
75-5
82.5
68.6
81.8
260
I48
242
80
24.5
17-5
31-4
18.2
1,062
844
771
440
Three
Totals
2,387
76.6
730
23-4
3.H7
POPULATION
Districts.
Front.
Rear.
Total.
No.
PerCent.
No.
PerCent.
One, N. of Twelfth.
One, S. of Twelfth.
Two
12,217
9-395
11,225
6,261
85
80.3
81.2
89-3
2,143
1,057
2,6oo
745
'5
IQ.7
18.8
10.7
14,360
10,452
13,825
7,006
Three
Totals
39.098
85.6
6,545
14.4
45.643
This diagram and table shows that 730, or 23.4 per cent of all
houses are rear houses. In the Polish district this percentage
runs very high, and nearly one-third of all houses are rear tene-
ments. In this district alone there are 242 rear houses. Two
thousand six hundred people in the small Polish district, less
than one-half the size of District i, find it necessary to live in the
abominable conditions common to these alley houses. Altogether
over six thousand five hundred people in the districts investigated
live in rear tenements. In the diagram we see that in Block 51,
42.3 per cent of all dwellings are rear houses. One-third of the
42
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
PERCENTAGE OF FRONT AND REAR HOUSES IN DISTRICTS
AND. IN SPECIAL BLOCKS
Rear.
Front.
Dist. i, N. of I2th.
75-5
Dist. i, S. of 1 2th.
82.5
Dist. 2.
Dist. 3.
Total.
Block 17
Block 46.
Block 51.
dwellings in Block 17 face on the alley. In this block there are
294 people living in the thirty-seven dwellings situated on the
alley. Dr. Fetter says in his report: "There are thirty-six rear
dwellings in a total of eighty-five in the block bounded by Holt,
Cleaver, Blackhawk, and Bradley streets. In these rear houses
dwell 432 persons, 211 adults and 221 children. There are thir-
teen blocks in District i with over one hundred persons in rear
dwellings. Every one of the ten blocks in District 2 has at least
147 persons, and six of them have over 200 persons in rear dwell-
ings." The average in the Bohemian district shown in this table
is low, largely because the small triangular blocks do not admit
of rear dwellings, but in the other blocks the average of rear
dwellings is quite high.
To stop the growth of these evils foreign cities have passed
restrictive laws which are preventive. Miles of sunless, ill-venti-
lated back to back houses and rear tenements have been closed,
at such great cost in most of the older cities that they have
learned the hard lessons of neglect, and appreciate the wisdom of
prevention. Chicago has upon her statute books* a law which
provides that there shall be spaces between front and rear houses
as follows :
* See Veiller's Housing Conditions and Tenement Laws, etc., page 40.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 43
If one story 10 feet.
If two stories 15 feet.
If three stories 20 feet.
If four stories 25 feet.
But the law is entirely ignored by builders, and there are hundreds
of flagrant violations.
THE GROWTH OF THE DOUBLE-DECKER AND ITS MENACE
TO CHICAGO
Section 5. Overcrowding on space is done either by building
two or three houses on the lot, as has been shown, or by building
a single large tenement covering the entire lot. The problem is
to prevent the growth of this large tenement. It is neces-
sary to realize that Chicago has entered upon a new era in ten-
ement-house building. It is an era which promises a regular
and determined growth of this tenement which offers great dis-
comfort to the wretched people sheltered under its roof. A city
of double-deckers would be indeed "a homeless city. " A slum of
small houses may be a serious municipal problem, but the slum
of double-deckers, which is likely to appear if our lax municipal
policy continues, is a certain and appalling evil.
The two photographs following (pages 44, 45) represent two
good examples of this tenement. They are handsome enough out-
side, and appear to be quite well built. A casual observer might
even consider them a very good sort of home for poor people.
Those unacquainted with the lives of the people living in these
tenements, and those without imagination, might look at them
with considerable local pride in comparison with the slum dwellings
of village communities or foreign cities. But these people do not
understand the real evils of these large tenements. The dumb-bell,
or double-decker, was described as follows by the New York
Tenement Commission of 1894:* It "is the one hopeless form of
tenement construction. ... It cannot be well ventilated; it
cannot be well lighted; it is not safe in case of fire. . . . Direct
light is only possible for the rooms at the front and rear. The
middle rooms must borrow what light they can from dark hall-
ways, the shallow shafts, and the rear rooms. Their air must
*See page 13.
46 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
pass through other rooms or tiny shafts, and cannot but be con-
taminated^ before it reaches them. A five-story house of this
character contains apartments for eighteen or twenty families, a
population frequently amounting to one hundred people, and
sometimes increased by boarders or lodgers to one hundred and
fifty or more. " Mr. Jacob Riis adds:* "The Committee, after
looking in vain through the slums of the old world cities for
something to compare the double-deckers with, declared that, in
their setting, the separateness and sacredness of home life were
interfered with, and. evils bred, physical and moral, that 'conduce
to the corruption of the young. ' '
Double-deckers are being built almost every day in Chicago.
In this investigation of the small territory on the West Side,
eighty-seven of these dwellings have been found and many more
approaching this type. All of these large tenements have been
built since the passage of the law compelling the plans and con-
struction to be approved by the Department of Health and the
Building Department. In addition, it will be remembered that
144 lots were found covered more than ninety per cent of their
area by dwellings.
One of the worst of these double-deckers is shown on page 45,
and following is a side view of the same tenement. The genesis
of the dumb-bell can clearly be seen by the way this is built. It is
a front and rear tenement joined together by passageways.
Another double-decker has forty tenements, each of which rent for
four to seven dollars monthly. There are 127 people living in it.
Some apartments are badly overcrowded. For instance, there
is one set of three small rooms in which six adults and four chil-
dren live. Two of the rooms are dark. Another apartment of
two rooms has six people living in it. Another apartment of
three rooms, all of which are dark, houses three children and six
adults. In this tenement-house there are seventy dark rooms, most
of which are bedrooms. The photograph introduced on page 48 is a
picture of the interior court of this great building. It is an area
of seven feet seven inches by eighty-two feet. The photograph
suggests the dark, damp well by which the adjoining rooms are
aired. Some apartments have no windows opening upon any
other space. The sun reaches the bottom for a few moments.
*See "A Ten Years' War," page 57.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 49
only each day, and the lower rooms opening upon it are always
dark.
It is well to consider the result of permitting a further growth
of the double-decker. These large tenements not only rob others
of light, air, and ventilation, but do not provide for their own,
and the results are dark rooms and other insanitary conditions.
Imagine, for the sake of illustration, a block in which every lot
is covered by these large insanitary tenements; the result would
be a block such as is shown below:
If landlords, with greed for profits and economy of ground
space, continue to erect such tenements, the city man will soon
have new conditions to confront. The factory by day, the tene-
ments by night, will be his environment. By living in the city,
man has divorced himself from the soil. He must now live in
rooms where the sun never enters. The air he breathes must
reach him through dark passages and foul courts. He must be
content with about two yards square* of earth's space for him-
self, for each one of his children, for each one of his thousand
close neighbors, and for each one of their children. These re-
strictions of the crowded tenements become all the more oppress-
ive when they are viewed in the light of the past lives of most of
the inhabitants of these crowded districts. Comparing the life
* See page 88.
50 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
of the dweller in the city to that of the olive-grower of Southern
Italy, or the plowman of Roumania — the ancestors of many
tenement-house dwellers — the hardships of the present are more
serious than those of the past; for whatever difficulties life of-
fered, the people still had air to breathe and expanse of earth.
This overcrowding has been prevalent for many years in the
older cities; and it partly explains why the death-rates of the
newer American cities are so much lower than those of the older
foreign cities. Here the newness and open construction of the
dwellings have been important agents in preventing illness, and
in keeping down the death-rates. In contrast to the sunny short-
lived frame cottages (now passing away) are the century-old stone
and brick houses of foreign cities. The recently constructed
dwelling-houses, with their frame walls, are aired and purified by
sun and wind. The old well-built brick and stone houses of for-
eign cities are filthy and alive with disease germs. One of the
witnesses before the Royal Commission on the Housing of the
Working Classes testified that: "In Liverpool nearly one-fifth
of the squalid houses, where the poor live in the closest quarters,
are reported as always infected, that is to say, the seat of infec-
tious disease. It is not surprising to learn that among the fever
dens of that city overcrowding is growing less, owing to the fall
of the population which mortality produces."*
The double-decker begins again this train of misery, which is
a menace to the coming century, a force for evil creeping into
the newer cities while the citizens are unaware, but which might
be averted if they would open their eyes to see the danger and
would assume the responsibility of its prevention. While we may
congratulate ourselves upon the past, we must forewarn ourselves
ot the future.
* Report of Lords Committee on Housing of the Working Classes,
Vol. II., pp. 498-499.
CHAPTER III.
THE OVERCROWDED POPULATION
TESTIMONY ON THE EVILS OF THE OVERCROWDING OF
PEOPLE
Section i. The density of population is an important con-
sideration in estimating the evils of tenement-houses. Over-
crowding is common among working people, and it is found in
its worst form among the very poorest of the tenement-house
inhabitants. Overcrowding is one method of reducing rent
charges, and as the necessity for a low rent is most pressing
among the very poor, the overcrowding often becomes frightful.
Not only among the very poor is overcrowding found, but also
many of the thrifty and industrious of the working class, especi-
ally the Polish, make constant efforts to reduce the rents of
their narrow quarters by keeping lodgers. One of the most
important reasons for the overcrowded sweat-shops is the desire
to reduce the rent cost in the cost of production. These and
many other causes increase overcrowding.
The evils are manifold. The medical officer of the London
County Council has shown that the death-rate steadily increases
with the density of population.* The secretary of the New York
Tenement-House Commission of 1894! says that overcrowding
has evil effects of various kinds, for example: "Keeping children
up and out of doors until midnight in warm weather, because
rooms are almost unendurable; making cleanliness of house and
street difficult; filling the air with unwholesome emanations and
foul odors of every kind; producing a state of nervous tension;
interfering with the separateness of home life; leading to a pro-
miscuous mixing of all ages and sexes in a single room, thus break-
ing down the barriers of modesty and conducing to the corrup-
tion of the young, and occasionally to revolting crimes."
*Bowmaker's Housing of the Working Classes, page 15.
tSee Report, page 12.
5'
53 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
The Royal Commission of 1884, in London, gathered a wealth
of testimony on the evils of overcrowding.* In England the
school board visitors, clergymen, charity agents, and others
know far more intelligently and intimately than similar workers
in this country the lives of the poor in their homes. From their
testimony it was gathered that immorality, perverted sexuality,
drunkenness, pauperism, and many forms of debauchery were
caused in some instances, in others abetted, by the indecent over-
crowding which existed. The testimony further showed most dis-
tressing physical results due to overcrowding. High death-rates;
a pitiful increase in infant mortality; terrible suffering among
little children; scrofula and congenital diseases; ophthalmia, due
to dark, ill-ventilated, overcrowded rooms; sheer exhaustion and
inability to work; encouragement of infectious diseases, reducing
physical stamina, and thus producing consumption and diseases
arising from general debility, were some of the evils of over-
crowding. With these facts in view, the following statements of
overcrowding of the districts investigated in Chicago will perhaps
be more intelligently considered by the general public.
CHICAGO'S TENEMENT-HOUSE POPULATION is OPPRES-
SIVELY DENSE
Section 2. It is often said, and it is probably quite true, that
New York has the densest and most overcrowded population in
the world. But no idea can be gained of the comparative evils
of overcrowding in two cities entirely unlike each other, by a
comparison of the density of population per acre. The density
of population per acre in the Polish quarter in Chicago is three
times that of the most crowded portions of Tokio, Calcutta, and
many other Asiatic cities. f On the other hand, Chicago's densest
quarters are not as thickly populated as those in New York.
And yet all of these cities are said to have stifling conditions of
overcrowding. It is said that Asiatic cities, although having in
their overcrowded portions only a third of the population per
acre of one of our districts, have the most serious and oppressive
%
* Report, Housing of Working Classes, Vol. I, pp. 13-14.
"fSee Dr. Roger S. Tracey's tables in New York Tenement-House
Report, 1894, pp. 256-257. «.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
53
conditions of overcrowding in the world. Of course this simply
means that a comparison of people per acre in various cities gives
one a very superficial idea of the real conditions of overcrowding.
Chicago has larger houses than Tokio, and New York has larger
tenements than either. If all houses in the districts investigated
were as large as a typical double-decker, a population of seven
hundred persons per acre would not be oppressive. And although
as is shown in older cities certain terrible and for us altogether
new evils are likely to arise because of so many people living
together on a single acre, one of the evils would not be, neces-
sarily, dense crowding of population. That overcrowding is not
always associated with a large population on a given acre is shown
by the conditions prevailing in certain large and fashionable
apartment buildings. In considering our density of population
we must remember that n.8 per cent of the front and 35.4 per
cent of the rear tenements are houses of one story.* Over ninety
per cent of the rear tenements are two stories and under, and
about sixty-two per cent of the front houses are so classed. Con-
sidering the size of our dwellings, our density of population is
most appalling. It is very probable, if we could compare the
height of the dwelling and its density of population in the Jewish,
Italian, Polish, and Bohemian districts, with the like in districts
elsewhere, the real density would equal the worst in the world.
A STUDY OF THE DENSITIES OF POPULATION
Section 3. The following table is the first of a series to show
the density of population in the portions of the city covered by
this inquiry:
STATISTICS OF POPULATION
District.
Population.
Families.
District I N of Twelfth
Id. ^60
3,108
District I S of Twelfth
IO 4C2
2 060
District 2, Polish
I -1.82C
2,7l6
District 3 Bohemian
7 006
I ^44.
Total
4.C 64. •}
Q.4.28
*See Appendix, page 191.
54
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
As will be seen, this investigation covered the conditions of
9,428 families, or 45,643 individuals.
The following table shows the density of population per acre.
But the averages in this table include streets and alleys, and it
therefore is not the same as the one printed later.
DENSITY OF POPULATION PER ACRE
COMPARISON BY DISTRICTS
District.
Gross Area
in Acres.
Population.
Persons to
the Acre.
District I
I ~V7 ~\
24 812
I go
District 2 --
W
n 82;
265 8
District 3
•12
1 006
2IQ
Total
221.^
AC 64.^
2o6 2
The greatest density is in the Polish district, and the least
density in the Italian and Jewish districts. It will be interesting,
merely for the sake of comparison, to place alongside of these
figures some others, showing the conditions in certain towns having
a population of the same size as that covered in this inquiry.
Name of City.
Gross Area
in Acres.
Population
1900.
Persons to
the Acre.
Norfolk, Va
2,240.00
46.624
20.8
\Vaterbury Conn
2 400 OO
4C 8^O
in o
Holyoke, Mass.
10,464.00
AC. 712
4..O
Fort Wayne Ind.
^ 1.OO OO
4.C i K
n6
Youngstown O -
6 144 oo
44 88;
7 4.
These Districts
221 ^
d? 643
2o6 2
Of course in these towns the houses are small and there is
ample ground space, but it is fair to remember that in Chicago
many of the people in these badly overcrowded districts are still
living in the little village homes of one and two stories. To be
sure they are crowded in most instances to the rear of the lot,
but that accentuates the evils of a dense population. By com-
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
55
parison it will be seen that in the districts investigated there is a
great crowding of population in a small area.
The figures to follow give the density per acre in each block
of the first two districts and a final summary.
DENSITY OF POPULATION PER ACRE BY BLOCKS
DISTRICTS I AND 2
~-d
6°
Zffl
a •
B|
< 0
•"<
D
fc.s
>-,aJ
._ <j
£<
<u u
Q u
c.
"o.*
62.
ZM
a ^
gS
< b
**•<
1.S
£>SU
!<
V ,_
Q«
"°"d
6«
ZM
a •
£g
<d
*-<
" _
KS
!^<U
11
A ^
Q£
I
4.48
214
19
1.9
25O
37
i-7
326
2
1.9
283
2O
1.6
267
38
1.63
230
3
1.9
181
21
4-97
148
39
1.6
295
4
1.82
184
22
2.05
287
40
2.8
249
5
4.04
219
23
2
254
4i
2.8
327
6
1.9
350
24
I.9
254
42
1.65
190
7
I .Q
290
25
1.7
I76
43
2.7
283
8
I «o
192
26
2.9
I9O
44
2.82
253
9
4.24
268
27
1.6
l62
45
3-41
333
10
1.9
177
28
1.65
227
46
3-41
3?2
ii
1.9
196
29
1.63
139
47
3.21
368
12
i-7
205
30
2.8
150
48
3.15
368
13
3-7
247
31
1.68
280
49
7-6
239
14
1.66
'234
32
1.65
195
5°
6.2
375
1|
!.65
412
33
I.6S
142
51
3-5
457
16
1.66
194
34
2.8
292
52
3-53
372
17
4.2
357
35
1.65
248
53
3-4
286
18
1.9
262
36
2.7
396
54
3-27
340
SUMMARY OF DISTRICTS
District.
Net Area.
Density per Acre.
District
i, N of Twelfth Street -
58.67
24.4.6
District
District
I, S. of Twelfth Street
I, total
42.11
100.78
248.2
216.3
District
2 (Polish)
40.68
-I-JQ.8
This table shows in a most interesting way the varied densities
of the different blocks. In certain blocks the density falls to 139
and 142 persons per acre, which are only a few more persons than
W. FOURTEEHTH ' or
I39-I6E .176-195 2O5-25O e53-260 280-295 .5Z6-.350
DENSITY OF POPULATION DISTRICT ONE
W. D/V/S/OM
200 to 250 250 to 300 300 to 350 350 to 400
DENSITY OF POPULATION DISTRICT TWO
58 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
are housed on certain lots in other portions of the districts, but,
as it happens, the density in certain rooms of both of these blocks
is frightful. In both instances the houses are usually small and
a great deal of space is occupied by factories, stores, livery-
stables, etc., which have no population. The population on the
other hand in certain portions runs to a great density, and in
blocks 15 and 51 there are over 400 persons per acre. The con-
ditions which result from such densities are pictured in the first
part of the chapter, but to understand how dense the popula-
tion really is, Dr. Frank Fetter's figures are herewith inserted:
"The area of Chicago is 187 square miles, which contain
119,768 acres.* At 200 per acre this area would hold a popula-
tion of 23,953,600, and at 270 persons per acre it would house
32,337,360. Let one imagine this vast multitude of people, equal
to the whole population of England, on the present area of Chi-
cago and he will have an idea of what is meant by a population
of from two hundred to two hundred and seventy persons per
acre. The density of some of the blocks is over four hundred
per acre. If this were extended over the whole area it would
mean that nearly the entire population of the United States fifteen
years ago could be housed in Chicago. This, however, is far
from being the maximum density possible, for a large part of
these districts is covered with small detached buildings. In one
lot of less than one-seventh of an acre in one of the newer tene-
ments one hundred and twenty-five people are housed, or at the
rate of nine hundred per acre. Applying this figure to the whole
area of the city would mean that more than the population of the
Western Hemisphere could be housed in Chicago."
A DETAILED STUDY OF THE ROOMS AND APARTMENTS TO
THE HOUSE
Section 4. What precedes shows very graphically the over-
crowding which exists in these districts of the city. But some
other figures collected in the inquiry will add valuable details to
these general statements. The statistics following will show the
number of apartments, or tenements, in each tenement-house.
*This is approximate. The actual figures are 122,240 acres in Chicago.
See Bulletin Federal Bureau of Labor, September, 1900.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
59
NUMBER OF APARTMENTS PER DWELLING
District.
In Front.
In Rear.
Total.
-°.E
ZQ
Number
Apartm'ts.
Ratio
Apts. to
Dwellings.
Number
Dwellings.
OJ^
~K ^
Ratio
Apts. to
Dwellings.
Number
Dwellings.
Number
Apartm'ts.
o m
'B ' c
""o
District i
District 2---
District 3.--
Total
1,498
529
360
4,705
2,242
1,413
3-14
4.27
3-92
408
242
80
769
554
176
1.88
2.28
2.2
1,906
771
440
5.474
2,796
1,589
2.87
3.62
3.61
2,387
8,360
3-5
730
i,499
' 2.05
3,117
9,859
3.16
These figures show that the average number of apartments to
a house is over three. But this is deceiving, as averages always
are. Some tenement buildings have a very large number of
apartments; for instance, one tenement-house has forty apart-
ments. A great many have from ten to twenty apartments. And
there were five hundred and nine tenement buildings in these
districts having over eight apartments in each. Despite the large
tenement-houses, the average is very low. It is brought down to
3.16 apartments per house by the great number of tiny rear tene-
ments with one and two families or apartments. In the Polish
district, where the population is most dense, there are 4.27 apart-
ments to a front house. This shows that the apartments in that
district shelter more people per acre than those in District i ;
that is, the apartments average somewhat over three to each
tenement-house, and the following figures show that in the average
apartment there are somewhat over three rooms. The average
home, therefore, of the working people in these districts is
approximately an apartment of three rooms in a tenement-house
accommodating three families.
The following table shows that the density of population,
averaging in the Polish district 339.8 and in the Italian and
Jewish districts 216.3 per acre, is not a density of people living
in large double-deckers, but in houses which average 3.16
apartments to the dwelling and 3.65 rooms to the apartment.
It is clear that this means an oppressive density in the rooms of
these tenements.
6o
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
NUMBER ROOMS PER APARTMENT IN THE THREE DISTRICTS
District.
In Front Houses.
In Rear Houses.
Total.
No.
A parts.
No.
Rooms.
Ratio.
No.
Aparts.
No.
Rooms.
Ratio.
No.
Aparts.
No.
Rooms.
Ratio.
District i---
District 2 —
District 3.--
Total- —
4,705
2,242
1,413
17,550
8,374
5,258
3-73
3-73
3-72
769
55i
176
2,397
i,943
509
3-n
3-5
2.89
5,474
2,796
1,589
19,947
10,317
5.767
3-64
3-68
3.62
8,360
31,182
3-73
1,499
4,849
3-23
9,859
36,031
3-65
FAMILIES IN CROWDED QUARTERS
Section 5. In a certain sense averages always convey wrong
impressions. The fact that the average apartment is of some-
what over three rooms partially conceals the fact that many
apartments are of one and two rooms. The worst conditions, of
course, prevail in these rooms. The diagram just following will
explain what is meant. It illustrates an examination of 571
apartments, showing the number of families having one, two,
three, four, five, six, and seven rooms each.
571 APARTMENTS CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THE NUMBER
OF ROOMS
7 Rooms
6 Rooms
5 Rooms
4 Rooms
3 Rooms
2 Rooms
I Room
As before, it is shown that the largest number of families
occupy three and four rooms. Ten families occupy but one room
each, and one hundred and sixteen families occupy but two rooms
each. This last is about twenty per cent of all families. Com-
puting from this percentage, which is based upon an examination
too limited to be safely used without question, we find that
of the 9,428 families living in the entire three districts, 1,971
families are living in apartments of but two rooms each. 1.7 per
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
6l
cent occupy but one room. An estimate with this as a basis indi-
cates that 167 families are living in but one room each.
To say that an apartment has two or three rooms gives the
ordinary reader an exaggerated notion of the size of these quar-
ters. When one sees a statement concerning two and three room
tenements, one unconsciously likens them to those with which he
is most familiar. To know what the following figures mean, that
forty-one per cent of all apartments investigated have under three
hundred square feet of floor area, let any one measure off in one
direction by seven paces the length, and at right angles by five
paces the width, and he will have about three hundred square feet
of floor area.
FLOOR AREA OF APARTMENTS BY SELECTED BLOCKS
Location.
Number of Apartments, with Floor Area.
Under 300
Sq. Feet.
3oo to 399
Sq. Feet.
400 to 409
Sq. Feet.
Over 500
Sq. Feet.
Block 15
35
i5
152
2
12
51
32
30
34
17
30
25
4
15
12
31
24
I
I
4
Part of Block 34 _ -
Selected houses in District i
Selected houses in District 2
Selected houses in District 3 -
Total _- -
216
41.
164
*i.
86
16.1
61
n.6
Percentages .
CLASSIFICATION OF APARTMENTS ACCORDING TO FLOOR SPACE
PERCENTAGE IN EACH OF THE FOUR CLASSES
FLOOR AREA
to 399
"$06 ' ' *
400
and over
500
-'
n
n
62
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
CLASSIFICATION OF 527 APARTMENTS ACCORDING TO FLOOR
SPACE
Over 500 sq. ft.
400 to 499
300 to 399
Under 300
61
86
164-
216
It will be seen that 380 apartments have less than 400 square
feet of floor area, and that 216, or 41 per cent, have space vary-
ing from 80 to 300 square feet. An estimate on this basis indi-
cates that 4,042 of the 9,859 apartments have less than 300
square feet of floor area. It would be shocking to believe that
4,042 families are crowded in this small area for all the purposes
of life. Eating, sleeping, giving birth to children, the nursing
and rearing of children, the care for the sick and the care for the
dying are all managed after some painful fashiorrnn these cramped
living quarters. Any one who will measure this space off on the
floor will agree that it is inhumane and hardly credible.
The few instances which follow, of the number of people living
in crowded quarters, are not chosen because they are the worst.
There is no need for that, even the good (comparatively speak-
ing) conditions denote painful overcrowding.
No. Rooms.
No. Persons.
Floor Area.
Average per Person.
3
7
228 sq. ft.
33 sq. ft.
3
8
228
28
2
3
96
32
3
6
I76
28
2
6
1 68
28
3
10
320
32
The apartments indicated by these figures are inevitably
uncomfortable and are never free from the friction of overcrowd-
ing. If there are over four thousand families in these three small
districts of Chicago, crowded in these narrow quarters, how many
are there in the entire city? One day the writer visited the
family of a man who had been prostrated by heat while at work
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 63
with the street-paving gang. They were a family of seven, living
in a two-room apartment of a rear tenement. The day was in
August, and the sun beat down upon one unintermittently and
without mercy. The husband had been brought home a few hours
before, and the wife, in a distracted but skilful way, found path-
ways among the clamoring children. The air was steamy with a
half-finished washing, and remnants of the last meal were still
upon the table. A crying baby and the sick husband occupied the
only bed. The writer had known before of five people sleeping in
one bed, so he supposed the father and oldest child usually slept
on the floor. As he watched the woman on that day he under-
stood a little of what it meant to live in such contracted quarters.
To cook and wash for seven, to nurse a crying baby broken out
with heat, and to care for a delirious husband, to arrange a pos-
sible sleeping-place for seven, to do all these things in two rooms
which open upon an alley, tremulous with heated odors and
swarming with flies from the garbage and manure boxes, was
something to tax the patience and strength of a Titan.
64
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
In the light of the aforegoing studies, showing the small
apartments and few rooms for each family, the following figures
on the number of people in rooms and apartments will be sig-
nificant of overcrowding:
District.
Average No. Persons
per Room.
Average No. Persons
per Apartment.
Front.
Rear.
Both.
Front.
Rear.
Both.
District i
1.24
1-35
1.2
1.36
1-34
1-47
1.26
1-35
1.22
4.8
5-i
4-5
4-4
4.8
4-3
4.8
5.09
4-53
District 2
District 3
Totals
1.23
1.36
1.28
4.8
4-5
4.8
The average number of persons per room, which includes all
rooms and not simply bedrooms, it will be seen, is 1.28. The
average runs considerably above this in the Polish district.
In the rear houses the crowding is greater in Districts i and 3,
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 65
but less in District 2. The average number of persons per apart-
ment is larger in the front houses than it is in the rear houses.
But the floor space in the rear tenements averages less per apart-
ment than the floor space in the front houses, consequently the
overcrowding is greater in the rear dwellings. That the crowd-
ing is greater in the Polish district than it is in the Italian and
Jewish districts is shown by the large average number of persons
per apartment. An average of over one person per room for
every room in three districts of considerable size is evidence of
a very close crowding of population. It shows that if the whole
population, with a density in certain places of four hundred
persons per acre, were equally distributed throughout the entire
36,031 rooms in the three districts, every room would shelter
more than one person, and every single apartment, large and
small, would contain nearly five persons.
But averages are deceiving, and in some parts of the district
there are houses in which every room is crowded, and in other
parts houses only sparsely populated. The following table and
diagram shows an examination of 1,114 occupied apartments in
six different blocks, classified according to the number of persons
per room:
APARTMENTS WITH CRAMPED LIVING QUARTERS IN SIX
SELECTED BLOCKS *
With 2 to
With 2.5 or
Total No.
Per Cent of
Block.
Occupied
Apart-
With 1.5 to
1.9 Persons
2.49 Per-
sons
More Per-
sons
of Apart-
ments,
All Apart-
ments,
ments.
per Room.
per Room.
per Room.
Cramped.
Cramped.
No. 16
64
13
10
4
27
42
No. 21
155
23
23
7
53
35
No. 51
316
72
58
14
144
45
No. 53
I87
33
26
25
84
45
No. 60
2I9
42
32
37
HI
5°
No. 62
173
3i
16
19
66
38
Totals - -
1,114
214
165
1 06
485
43-5
Percentage -
IOO
19.2
14.8
9-5
43-5
43-5
* The apartment includes all rooms except closets and pantries.
66
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
CRAMPED LIVING QUARTERS
Distribution of apartments in six selected blocks into four
classes according to number of persons per room. Total num-
ber of apartments is 1,114.
56.5 per cent.
19.2 14.8
per cent, per cent.
9.5 per cent.
Average number Less than
of persons per 1.5
room
to
1.99
2.
to
2.49
and
This table shows that 43.5 per cent, that is to say, 485 apart-
ments, have more than three persons in every two rooms ; twenty-
five per cent, or one-fourth of all the apartments, were so crowded
that two persons were compelled to occupy every single room,
living-rooms and bedrooms alike. This table and the diagram
further shows that about (9.5 per cent) one apartment in every
ten was fearfully crowded, and that often more than three people
were crowded in every room of each apartment. The following
examples are a few of the cases of overcrowding commented upon
by the enumerators:
Street.
Rooms.
Persons.
Adults.
Children.
Taylor
•3
A
5
Taylor
2
1 1
"3
8
Dekoven - -
2
8
•3 •
e
Dekoven
2
8
•3
e
Dekoven -
2
8
2
i
Bunker
2
8
•3
e
Bunker
-i
1 1
2
Thirteenth
2
6
Thirteenth - -- -
l
Liberty
4.
12
e
7
Fourteenth
•3
II
Holt
2
6
-3
3
Holt
2
7
A
Holt
2
e
2
Holt - .--
2
o
2
7
Holt
2
6
2
4
Noble
0
10
2
8
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 67
Some of the comments on these and other cases are:
Dekoven. Case of eight persons in two rooms, Polish. " The
woman says four sleep in the kitchen and four in the bedroom.''
Cleaver. "Two double beds and crib in bedroom 10 by 8,
with one window opening on passage one and one-half feet wide. "
Holt. "Thirteen persons in four rooms, two of them bed-
rooms 6 by 8. Family consisted of father and mother, three
grown children and eight others.
Holt. "Old residents say families keep boarders in winter.
A family of five, two adults and three children, living in four
small rooms near, take as high as seven boarders and roomers in
winter, making nine adults and three children in four rooms."
The following photographs are two excellent examples of
tenements badly overcrowded. The first is a rear court sur-
rounded by four-story houses. The cellar in the middle of the
picture looks as it really is, dark and unwholesome. One family
with five children live in it. The crowds of children which call
these barracks home have only this low, damp court to play in.
It is five feet below the level of the street, and is not drained.
The tenement directly in the middle has thirty-seven people in
five apartments. The house at the right has a stable in the base-
ment story. Its manure box is used for garbage. When the
enumerator passed it was full and weeds were growing in it.
There are no fire-escapes on the houses and the lives of the large
population would be in great danger in case of fire.
The second photograph shows a passageway between three
tenements, two large brick tenements on the front of the lot and
one large frame tenement on the rear. Almost every inch of the
two lots is Covered by buildings. The little group of tenements,
of which these are three, house forty-four families, altogether
182 individuals. The lower rooms never receive sunlight, and
are consequently dark and unwholesome.
THE SACRIFICE OF DECENCY, HEALTH AND MORALS IN OVER-
CROWDED APARTMENTS
Section 6. To understand the full value of the figures given
in this chapter, it will be necessary to explain to the general pub-
lic what overcrowding really means to the working people. A
A "BACK YARD"
HOUSES COVERING ALL OF LOT
70 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
little imagination will show you how difficult or impossible deli-
cacy or decency is in such narrow quarters. Note what the
Polish woman on Dekoven Street says, and the t'wo comments on
the Holt Street tenements. These conditions present grave
dilemmas to these poor people who try to reduce their rent by
overcrowding a few rooms. If the doors are closed between
bedrooms, which is desirable when boarders are taken, three or
more people will be crowded in a bedroom with not enough air-
space for one human being. This is decency at the high price
of health. Many times the kitchen is used as a bedroom. But
as Mr. George Haw says* in "No Room to Live": "Thousands
of families try to make their overcrowded living as decent as
possible for the children's sake. They avoid sleeping in the
living-room as far as they can, so that the son of twenty, who
leaves home for the factory at eight, can have his breakfast apart
from the room where the daughter of eighteen is dressing to
* See page IQ.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 71
begin her work in the warehouse at nine." The late Lord
Shaftsbury, speaking of the influence of indecent overcrowding,
especially among children, said before the Lords' Committee:*
"It is .totally destructive of all benefit from education. It is a
benefit for the children to be absent during the day at school,
but when they return to their houses, in one hour they unlearn
everything they have acquired during the day." A probationary
officer of the Juvenile Court recently said that almost all of her
children lived in overcrowded rear tenements.
The moral influences set in motion by the necessity, in over-
crowded quarters, of disregarding decency and forgetting sex are
not the only evil results of overcrowding. Because of it the health
of tenement-house people is in constant danger. Unconsciously
but irresistibly, the physical demands of their bodies, which can-
not be satisfied indoors, impel the people to stay on the streets
as much as possible. Besides this, overcrowded rooms are not
pleasant. That overcrowding makes the houses unbearable is
attested by the crowds of men, women, and children which
swarm into the streets on evenings when the weather permits.
The air, the light, and the breathing-space which cannot be had
in their crowded tenements they get in the streets at night. On
hot summer evenings the people sleep on the streets, sidewalks,
and in the yards, where there are yards. The nervousness, list-
lessness, and wearisome depression frequently noticed in the
people of the tenements is largely due to their overcrowded sleep-
ing-rooms. It is a fact that the mass of people in tenements
have not what people commonly call a home. It is a place of
shelter for the sleeping-hours of the night, and in the hot weather
it is often abandoned even for that purpose.
THE DENSITY IS INCREASING IN CHICAGO
Section 7. As it is worth while for Chicago to give some
consideration to the problem of overcrowding upon the ground
space, so it is worth while for Chicago to consider, without delay,
the serious problems which result from crowding people in tene-
ments, almost as stock cars are crowded with cattle. The evil
does not stand still or abate; it is steadily growing, and to-day it
* See Report, Vol. II. page 2.
73 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
is worse than yesterday. Nor are these evils confined to these
small districts on the West Side. These districts are representa-
tive of what exists throughout the entire river wards. Over-
crowding affects nearly three hundred thousand people.
The down-town districts here present problems similar to those
of down-town areas in London and New York. The Great Inner
Belt in London is where the most serious housing problem in the
world exists, and the crushing of the overcrowded population is
a terror to the nation. The cry of the "no room to live"
population to-day outdoes in its threatening character the "bitter
cry of '84." There is a mass of people there, as here, who are
compelled to live down-town. The tailors must be near the work
which is given out on Fifth Avenue,* The common laborers,
whose work shifts from one extreme of the city to another, must
live near the center of their working circle. Peddlers must live
in close proximity to their base of supplies in order to reach, in
the early hours, the districts where their wares can be sold.
People who own stands and small stores must live in or near
their places of business. Where several members of the family
work down-town, transit costs are saved by living near their work.
The natural gregariousness of people belonging to the same
nationality establishes colonies of working people in the inner
circles of large cities, -j- In Chicago there are a Bohemian, an
Irish, a Jewish, a German, a Negro, a Chinese, a Greek, a Scan-
dinavian, two Polish, and four Italian colonies in the central part
of the city. The dreariness of suburban life and the pleasures of
certain excitements in the down-town districts draw to it certain
classes. Back of all this, the temporary low rentals of the poorly
constructed tenement-houses attract, at first, the colonies, and
the mass of unskilled workers. But the experience of every older
city has gone to prove that this advantage is ephemeral, and rents
increase with the overcrowding, until the combination is reached of
exorbitant rents for miserable and overcrowded accommodations.
Chicago is moving toward this goal seemingly without fear.
Until within the last few years, no thought has been given to the
housing problem, and now, in the results shown here, are seen the
beginning of all and the realization of many of the frightful evils
depicted in the Report of the Royal Commision.
* See page 197. t See page 196.
CHAPTER IV.
INSIDE SANITARY CONDITIONS
CAUSES OF INSANITARY CONDITIONS IN HOUSES
Section i. The chief insanitary conditions in houses are
darkness, lack of air, uncleanliness, and poisonous gases. Upon
the construction of houses and their relation to one another on
the ground space depend the inside insanitary conditions of
darkness and lack of ventilation. Uncleanliness, outside of
the house, depends upon the law concerning cleaning and its
enforcement. As an inside condition, it depends greatly upon
the crowding of people allowed in the apartments, and then upon
the individual caretaker of the apartment. The lighting of the
apartment affects the question seriously, since the problems of
cleaning a light room and a dark room are materially different.
The condition of the air as affected by poisons from sewer gas,
uncollected garbage, etc., is entirely dependent upon the law con-
cerning these matters and its enforcement, although overcrowd-
ing in apartments also vitiates the air. But the overcrowding of
houses upon the lots and blocks dealt with in Chapter II, is the
most important cause of insanitary conditions.
Musty, fetid rooms, which cannot be ventilated because of
brick walls overshadowing the windows, inevitably accumulate
in their dark corners dirt, mold, and vermin. Emanations from
the body and foul air in dwelling and sleeping rooms have no
outlet except by through ventilation. The overcrowding in
rooms shown in Chapter III, moreover, complicates all difficulties
of bad building and construction, and doubles the cost to the
tenants of dark, unclean, and badly ventilated rooms. The
limited amount of cubic air-space for each individual caused by
overcrowding has been known to suffocate children.* The miser-
able construction and ill-repair of many tenement-houses cause
*See report of inquest in Dr. Bowmaker's Housing of the Working
Classes, page 13.
73
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 75
damp and unwholesome dwelling-places which are obviously unfit
for human beings to dwell in. Basements and cellars are
inhabited, and in some of them all of the most serious inside
insanitary conditions are found. The construction of a house,
the relation of one house to its neighbors, the size and height
and length, decide largely the inside insanitary conditions.
Originally, the small old-fashioned frame cottages had ex-
cellent light and ventilation. Even the old ones with certain
other insanitary conditions cannot be criticised on these grounds,
but occasionally even these small houses will be partitioned off
for the use of two or more families, and in such instances it
sometimes happens that a dark room is made. More frequently
these small cottages are placed on the rear of the lot and a
large three or four story tenement placed on the front. The
small house is then overshadowed and deprived of its sunlight.
The photograph opposite is an illustration of this. The five
rear tenements in the middle of the picture are built to the rear
line of the lots at the right. That there is perhaps sufficient light
now depends upon the fact that the lots at the left are only par-
tially built upon, and that there are three large vacant lots adjoin-
ing. The low square brick house is occupied by two families in four
rooms. This house is overshadowed by a large brick front house
in which thirty people live in three apartments. The two-story
rear frame house is back of a large four-story tenement. The
next rear tenement is a three-story brick house at the rear of a
front house of three stories. This lot is covered seventy per cent
and the court between the two houses is dark and wet. The
lower rooms adjoining have insufficient light. The next rear
tenement is a house of one story entirely surrounded on three
sides by tall buildings. A baker occupies the basement and a
family the first floor. This house is a good example of a small
cottage overshadowed by surrounding houses which cut off its
light and air. Its chimney has been lengthened to reach out of
the well into the freer air.
The large brick tenement in the next photograph is a good
example of a dumb-bell. It is practically a front and rear house
joined together, covering the whole lot. The houses on both
sides by its erection have been robbed of light and air. Most
of the recent tenement-house construction is of this character.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
77
From this study of the construction of buildings and the amount
of lot covered it is seen how often insanitary conditions are
caused by the evils of overcrowded lot areas.
A STUDY OF APARTMENTS WITH DEFECTIVE LIGHTING AND
VENTILATION
Section 2. These photographs show various methods of build-
ing which are harmful. But it will be necessary to follow the
tables and diagrams if an exact idea is desired of the worst con-
ditions. These facts were not obtained in the general investi-
gation, but were the result of a special study into the inside
conditions of light and ventilation. This inquiry included in its
scope 1,961 rooms, which were not selected solely because they
were considered the worst examples of bad lighting.
CLASSIFICATION OF ROOMS IN APARTMENTS HAVING INSUF-
FICIENT LIGHT
(Special Investigation.)
o
Rooms with Bad Lighting.
. w-0
0 E~
tfl .
c
.^
u
c
x
c
Location of Rooms.
1Ǥ
o oi
o'Q
0)
U
<u
M
Q
o
U
u
ll
0)
U
01
Totals.
H
*
M
Z
PH
O
P-i
Block 15
CO2
,o
6
1^1
26
f
189
2<;6
CO.Q
Block 34
I
OI
81
16
188
31 6
27O
4.7.7
Selected houses in Dist. i-
5°5
34
6.7
207
2Q
27O
Selected houses in Dist. 2-
Selected houses in Dist. 3.
201
1 66
79
79
39-8
47-5
20
3
10
1.8
i
49-8
52.9
6
3-6
Totals _ ...
1,961
7i
3-6
577
29.2
335
17.1
983
49.9
Location of Rooms.
No. of Rooms
with Window
Space Less Than
1-10 of Floor Area.
Windows not Supplying Good Venti-
lation.
No. on Narrow
Courts,
Six Feet or Less.
No. on Other
Rooms.
Block 15
92
I
41
3
15
169
359
118
7'
56
U3
152
227
42
3°
Block 34 -
Selected houses in Dist. i-
Selected houses in Dist. 2-
Selected houses in Dist. 3.
Totals
152
773
564
78 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
1,961 ROOMS SPECIALLY EXAMINED AND CLASSIFIED
ACCORDING TO GRADE OF LIGHTING
. 3.6
17.1 29.2 per
50.1 per cent. per cent, per cent. cent.
Light Dark
Gloomy Very Dark
The first table gives the classification of 983 rooms, or 49.9
per cent of all rooms as they were found to be either very dark,
dark, or gloomy. The second table gives the number of rooms
existing in violation of the Chicago ordinance requiring every
room to have window space equal to at least one-tenth of its floor
area.* The second part of this table gives the number of win-
dows of small use for the purpose either of lighting or ventilating
rooms.
The diagram shows that the rooms classified as having insuffi-
cient light are about half of all rooms investigated. It also
shows by its shading what is meant by the terms gloomy, dark,
and very dark. The first part of the table, of which the diagram is
explanatory, shows that 49.9 per cent of all rooms are badly
lighted. Block 34, in district one, is an exception, but even
here 47.7 per cent of all rooms are dark. As the apartments
selected are fairly representative of conditions in several different
places in the three districts, the total percentage of 49.9 per cent
could perhaps be applied with fairness to most tenement-house
districts in this city.
The number of badly lighted rooms in Chicago's tenement-
house districts would be enormous if an estimate were made on
this basis. In these districts alone about eighteen thousand
rooms would be either very dark, dark, or gloomy, and about
twenty-two thousand five hundred people would live in rooms in a
more or less unhealthful condition. The showing is amazing, and
there is sufficient reason for alarm. If these figures were based
upon the casual observation of an unskilled and hurried enumer-
ator they could hardly be accounted trustworthy. But they are
* City Ordinances, 1934, sec. 1371.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
79
based upon measurements of floor areas, of windows, and a study
of their sources of light, and every statement can be reinforced
by a great body of facts.
The table shows some striking things in Block 15. More
than half the rooms are badly lighted. One-third of the rooms
have conditions which are designated as either dark or very dark,
161 rooms are considered not fit for people to live in. As is
shown in the lower part of the table, 113 windows open upon
other rooms and not to the outer air; 169 windows open upon
narrow courts; 92 rooms have windows too small to furnish suffi-
cient light. The sunless bedrooms are crowded to the point of
suffocation; 41.9 percent of the people have less than 250 cubic
feet of air-space per occupant,* which is 150 cubic feet less than
is required by State law for each homeless and vagrant man in
the down-town lodging-houses. There are 412 persons to the
acre in this block; over 122 persons live in alley homes; 52 per-
sons live in basements, and the worst of many bad conditions
reach a climax here, for not only are the inside conditions of
light and ventilation most reprehensible, but the serious over-
crowding of population also complicates and intensifies the evils
of sanitary defects.
The following table is a careful examination of lighting in this
block. A graphic representation of the table is also given in the
diagram.
LIGHTING OF APARTMENTS IN BLOCK 15
Location.
Total No.
of Rooms.
Dark and
Very Dark.
Percentage
of All.
No.
Gloomy.
Percentage
of All.
Basement
?6
VJ
66
8
11 2
First inhabited floor (in-
cluding basement)
i=;6
7O
w
"U
21 1
Second inhabited floor. ..
190
40
21
50
f °
26.3
Third inhabited floor
102
16
15-7
14
I3.8
Fourth inhabited floor-
7
2
28.6
2
28.6
Fifth inhabited floor
7
I
14.2
3
42.8
Totals -
462
138
30
103
22
This table shows not only the total number and percentage
of rooms badly lighted, but also the number and percentage of
*See page 87.
8o TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
rooms in the various stories which receive insufficient light. In
the basement the conditions seem to be extremely bad. Sixty-
six per cent of all rooms have insufficient light. Half of the
rooms in the first story, which include all basements, suffer the
worst conditions. Thirty per cent of all rooms in the block have
conditions which should not be permitted by sanitary laws.
To further illustrate defective lighting, the following dia-
grams showing the lighting of all apartments in the first and
second stories of this entire block are given.
In looking over the diagram it will be seen that seventy-nine
rooms are either dark or pitch black. The latter should be abol-
ished by the Department of Health, as almost every one exists in
violation of the city ordinances. At the left of the diagram you
will see at figures 28, 29, and 30 ten rooms marked black. Two
of these are bedrooms without any openings to the outside air;
eight of the rooms get their entire light and ventilation from air-
shafts measuring 4 by 4 feet. The building occupying three lots
covers seventy-five per cent of the entire ground space. Another
instance of rooms — bedrooms, more's the pity — without light and
ventilation is at No. 22. The rooms open upon a passageway
one foot and a half wide. Three children under five years of
age sleep in these rooms, where there is never any daylight.
They are always foul and fetid, and it is hard to understand
how people, and especially babies, live at all in such condi-
tions.
A glaring instance of the possibility of fearful results under
the existing building regulations is to be seen in Lots 2, 3, and 4.
The owners of Lots 2 and 4 built up their property with tenements
to within three inches of their lot boundaries, perhaps trusting
to chance that the owner of Lot 3 would be compelled to leave
sufficient space for lighting and ventilating any building he might
put up, and that they could in this way impose on him to furnish
them with light and ventilation. However, as it turned out,
Lot 3 was built up almost solidly to its lot line by a building
having no need for windows on the sides, and so covered the
windows of the adjoining buildings. In these tenements sixty-
one people live. On the second floor of one house sweat-shop
workers toil in darkness over their tasks, being deprived of any
chance of light and air. Until the law requires that only a defi-
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 83
nite percentage of the lot shall be covered by tenement buildings,
such a'case as this can be repeated at any time.
The second floor apartments are shown in the diagram opposite:
While these apartments are much better lighted, there is even
on this floor a considerable number of rooms to be classed as
unfit for human habitation because of defective lighting and
ventilation. The influence of the high buildings is still evident.
The following diagrams show the lighting in certain apart-
ments covered by the investigation. The diagram at the lower
left-hand corner shows a common type of dwelling-house in the
Polish quarter. The rooms opening on the small shafts, 2^ by
6 ,feet, receive almost no light. The middle diagram at the
top is a long three-story tenement with a basement. The rooms
in the front part of the house are all dark because overshadowed
by the adjoining houses. It is a type of dwelling becoming more
and more common in the Polish district. It is one of the worst
forms of tenements, and has been described before.*
A STUDY OF THE AIR-SPACES IN OVERCROWDED APARTMENTS
Section 3. Even under favorable circumstances, badly lighted
rooms which cannot be well ventilated are not fit to live in.
But when such rooms are overcrowded the air becomes poison-
ous. No chemical tests were made of the air found in over-
crowded apartments, nor was any effort made to collect disease
germs. The purpose of our special inquiry was to determine
how many cubic feet of air-space each individual had. There
are many well-authorized standards by which we may determine
how much living and sleeping space is needed by every human
being. Professor Huxley, the eminent scientist, once a medical
officer in East London, says 809 cubic feet of space is desirable, j*
A recent law gives the Illinois State Board of Health power to
compel lodging-house keepers to give each lodger four hundred
cubic feet of space. J In the light of these statements, judge of
the frightful conditions in which the following people live:
* See photographs, pages 44, 45.
j1 Worthington's "Dwellings of the People," page 103.
George Haw's "No Room to Live," page 18.
J Revised Statutes of Illinois, 1809, Chapter I26A, sec. 16.
PASSAGE TO REAR TENEMENTS
86
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Street.
No. of
Persons.
No. of
Rooms.
Cu. Ft. per
Person.
All Rooms.
Cu.Ft. per
Person, Sleep-
ing-Rooms.
Taylor
10
•j
2?6
I7Q
Jefferson
7
1
•3Q1
2;6
Jefferson
•3
•324
24. C
Jefferson
g
•I
^O
1 80
Jefferson
A
2
J?
i;6o
US
Dekoven
C
•l
1 68
Uc
Dekoven --
Q
7
•\Q2
128
Dekoven
8
1
•3.12
112
Taylor
Q
•i
221
81
Dekoven
6
2
266
1 06
Dekoven
10
•J
•JC2
64
Dekoven
8
2
?IQ
112
The above examples were chosen out of many, and represent
but a few of the worst cases found. Some of these families are
not only painfully crowded, but in several of the cases mentioned
above one or two of the rooms in each apartment are dark.
The eight people on Jefferson Street have three rooms, two of
which are dark. The family of nine on Dekoven Street also live
in three rooms, two of which are dark. Here are found together
the evils of dark rooms without ventilation and a bad state of
overcrowding.
The following table and diagram give the total results of this
investigation:
CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO THE AMOUNT OF CUBIC AIR-
SPACE PER PERSON IN APARTMENTS SPECIALLY
INVESTIGATED
No. of Apartments with Cubic Air-Space per
Person.
Under 400.
400 to 699.
Over 700.
Totals.
Block 15
lo
t"t
76
148
Part of Block 34
o
12
i^,
•\f\
77
Selected houses in
District I
64
71
41
176
Selected houses in
District 2
6
16
22
44
Selected houses in
District 3
8
17
16
41
Totals
Percentages
-
106
22
189
39
191
39
486
IOO
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
87
Location of Apartments.
No of Sleeping Apartments with Cubic
Air-Space per Person.
Total.
Under
250.
250 to
399-
400 to
699.
Over
700.
Block 15
57
33
94
25
25
28
29
53
ii
13
31
27
23
7
3
20
I
6
i
I36
90
I76
44
41
Part of Block 34
Selected houses in District i
Selected houses in District 2
Selected houses in District 3
Total
Percentages
234
48
134
27-5
Qi
18.6
28
5-7
487
IOO
CLASSIFICATION ACCORDING TO CUBIC AIR-SPACE PER OCCU-
PANT IN THE APARTMENTS SPECIALLY INVESTIGATED
Under
400.
Under
250.
700 and
400-699. over.
250- 400- 700 and
399. 699. over.
• Entire
Apartment.
Sleeping
Rooms.
The first table includes all rooms in the apartments except
pantries and closets. It assumes that ail doors are thrown open
at night so that the apartment is a unit of air-space. Upon this
assumption each individual in twenty-two per cent of the apart-
ments had less than four hundred cubic feet of air-space. In
over sixty-one per cent of all apartments, each individual had
less than Professor Huxley's standard, which it will be remem-
bered was 809 cubic feet of air-space per person. The second
table gives the cubic feet of air-space per occupant in sleeping-
rooms only. The figures show that over ninety-four per cent of
all apartments have less than seven hundred cubic feet of air-
space per person. As will be seen, three-fourths of all apart-
ments have less than four hundred cubic feet per occupant.
Applying these figures to all the apartments in the three districts,
it is estimated that in the sleeping-rooms of over 7,392 of the
88 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
9,859 apartments there is less than four hundred cubic feet of
air-space per occupant, or less than the Illinois lodging-house
law provides. To realize how small the quarters are in which
forty-eight per cent of the people live, let the reader measure on
the floor two paces at right angles, and imagine himself sleeping
in that amount of walled space. The average space accorded to
each individual is a little over two yards square.
These figures are as astonishing as those previously considered
in reference to dark rooms. Dark rooms are the ones commonly
most overcrowded. The very poorest, who cannot afford the cost
of well-lighted rooms, accept, at a money saving, the dark insani-
tary ones. Wretchedly clad and poorly nourished, fortunate if
they have a basket of slate coal, they crowd together to economize
the warmth which their bodies give out. They dare not open a
window for ventilation, and consequently they breathe again and
again into their sickly bodies the poisoned air and filthy emana-
tions which nature tries to throw off.
CELLAR AND BASEMENT DWELLINGS
Section 4. Cellar and basement dwellings are classified under
inside insanitary conditions partly because they are mostly with-
out sufficient light and with difficulty admit of ventilation, and
partly because of dampness and odors from neighboring closets,
privies, and other insanitary conditions. They have all the evils
of rear tenements with several serious ones added. Indeed,
many basements are a part of rear houses. Two hundred and
forty-one persons in the three districts investigated lived in the
basements of rear houses. In the basements examined the floors
were mostly of wood and were rarely water-tight. They were
not properly cemented at the sides or under the floors. The
water and sewage from the neighboring yards drained under
the floors and around the walls. Often where the land is low the
sewage backs up in the sewer for days at a time, and menaces
the health of the people in the underground homes. Very often
(173 cases were found), against all rules of sanitation, water-
closets not open to the outer air — that is to say, ventilated into
the house — were placed in the basement and endangered the health
of the people who had to live in the rooms adjoining. There is
BASEMENT WINDOWS
9° TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
usually no ventilation to carry- off the odors; and the rooms made
unwholesome by these insanitary conditions often cannot be
reached by the sun, which might dry out the floors and walls,
and drive away the vermin. Filth accumulates undiscovered in
the dark corners, and rats, which overrun these neighborhoods
and forage in the dark places, communicate disease and become
a plague to the cellar and basement inhabitants.
As this subject has been frequently discussed in Chicago, it is
needless to give extended proof of the insanitary conditions of
these dwellings, and the selected comments of the enumerators
introduced below should suffice:
Throop Street. — "Water-closet out of order, sewerage bad,
water has stood under house for three months. Thirty-three
people live in the whole house, and fourteen in the basement.
Both families sick and a child has just died. Neighbors also
are affected. "
Fourteenth Street. — "Seven people, two adults, five children,
in cellar of two rooms, dark and unfit for habitation."
Noble Street. — "House fills almost the width of the lot.
Cellar rooms very dark and apparently damp. Three people live
there. Bad odor, probably from closets under sidewalks."
Noble Street. — "Cellar damp and unwholesome. Three
people live in it."
Cleaver and Holt Streets. — "Insanitary in periods of rain,
when water accumulates in the low lots with basement dwellings. "
Polk Street. — "Living-rooms in cellar all dark, very unwhole-
some. Three people live there."
Twelfth Place. — "Six people, two adults, four children, in
basement unfit for habitation."
Twelfth Place. — "Six people, three adults, three children, in
low basement, which appeared to receive water from the street.
Unfit for habitation."
A few comments concerning cellars and basements not occu-
pied or not intended for occupation as dwellings are such impor-
tant features of bad sanitary conditions in houses as to warrant
publication:
Jefferson Street. — "Cellar full of rubbish and filthy."
Ewing Street. — "Cellar wet and ill-smelling."
Ewing Street. — "Basement bad. People complain of bad
odors."
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
91
Ewing Street. — "Unoccupied cellar is damp and unwhole-
some. "
Canal Street. — "Basement flooded during rains and filled with
water. ' '
Desplaines Street. — "Horrible cellar." This comment re-
peated of a number of other houses in the neighborhood.
Dekoven Street. — "This building should be condemned; the
basement is awful." This is the plumber's comment.
Blue Island Avenue. — "Cellar filthy and filled with rubbish."
The results of the general investigation are placed in the
following table. A cellar is defined in the city ordinances as
"every basement or lower story of any building or house of which
one-half or more of the height, from the floor to the ceiling, is
below the level of the street adjoining." * A basement has been
understood to mean "a room or apartment less than one-half the
height of which is below the street level."
STATISTICS OF CELLARS AND BASEMENTS
District.
Cellars and Basements Compared with
All Apartments.
Rooms in Cellars and
Basements.
All
Apart-
ments.
Cellars.
Base-
ments.
Total.
Per-
centage
of All.
Cellars.
Base-
ments.
Total.
District i -
5,474
2,796
1,589
2O
49
32
I92
507
121
212
556
153
3-8
19
9.6
46
151
97
582
1,917
391
628
2,o68
488
District 2
District 3
Totals -
9,859
10!
820
92I
9.2
294
2,890
3,184
District.
Population in
Cellars.
Basements.
Cellars and Basements.
Adults.
Chil-
dren.
Total.
Adults.
Chil-
dren.
Total.
Adults.
Chil-
dren.
Total.
District i -
District 2 -
District 3 -
44
97
85
37
103
58
8l
2OO
143
432
1,251
284
454
1,676
324
876
2,927
608
476
1,348
369
491
i,779
382
967
3,I27
751
Totals --
226
198
424
1,967
2,454
4,421
2,193
2,652
4,845
* City Ordinances, 1938, sec. 1375.
92 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
An examination of this table shows that about one apartment
in ten was either a basement or cellar. In the Jewish and Italian
districts there were altogether 212 of these dwellings; but they
were not a large percentage of all dwellings. In the Polish dis-
trict the conditions are quite bad. Here the percentage of people
in these unsatisfactory dwellings constitutes nearly one-fifth of
all, which is about the same percentage of people in this quarter
living in rear tenements. These two things are significant, and
clearly show that the Polish people are the most wretchedly housed
of all the people investigated. The worst of the facts shown are
that 424 people live in 101 cellars. The small number of children
as compared with adults would indicate that families with children
keep out of cellars whenever possible. However, we see that
nearly five hundred more children than adults live in basements.
The totals in this table show the fearful extent of this evil in
these small districts of Chicago; nearly five thousand people are
living in basements!
It is not intended to say that ail basements are unfit for habi-
tation. Where houses are built upon ground below the street
level, such as is shown in the accompanying photograph, and
where the basement rooms are not .excluded from light and are
properly protected against damp and other insanitary conditions,
there is no appreciable difference between a basement and a first-
floor apartment. Some of the five thousand people live in such
basements. A great many people in the Bohemian and Polish
quarters live in rows of good basements. The lots of these
houses are below the street level, as is shown in the photograph,
and they have naturally been utilized for three-story houses
with basement apartments. Sometimes there are three apart-
ments in the basement, one in the front, one in the middle, and
one in the rear of the house. A passage, dark and below the
street level, leads to the middle and rear apartments. Almost
without exception basement rooms, except those opening on the
street, have wretched light and are insanitary. That this is true
is well illustrated in the diagram (p. 81) showing the lighting of
all the apartments in one block. Every basement has one or
more rooms absolutely pitch dark.
With the land lying as low as it does in most parts of Chicago,
no cellar can be made fit to dwell in, and a basement which is
TYPICAL LOT BELOW STREET LEVEL
94 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
not constructed with water-tight floors and an unobstructed
access to light, is a dwelling of dubious situation. It is said by
an eminent authority* that damp walls absorb much more heat
than dry ones, and that they are frequent agents in causing
rheumatism, kidney disease, and colds, f In Philadelphia all
cellars deprived of light and ventilation are declared nuisances
and ordered vacated. In Buffalo the law is that no cellar is to
be used as a dwelling-place or place of sleeping. J In Chicago
there is an ordinance requiring cellar floors to be cemented
water-tight, but it is not enforced.
HOUSES UNFIT FOR HABITATION
Section 5. Upon the construction and repair of houses
depends good inside sanitation. Chicago has an enormous
number of frame tenements, some of them poorly constructed
and in decay. The table on page 190 of the Appendix gives
complete information regarding the number and percentages
of frame and brick houses in these districts. Suffice it to say
that over 51.7 per cent of all houses investigated were frame.
In the Italian and Jewish districts 54.6 per cent of the front
houses and 79.9 per cent of the rear houses are frame. Although
small houses — and these are mostly frame — are excellent houses
for working people, they often fall into decay unless kept in good
repair. A great deal of the tenement-house property is old and
in a bad state. Aggravated conditions arise from habitual neg-
lect of needed repairs; many of the houses are in a wretched and
dangerous state of dilapidation. The roofs are leaky and the
spouting defective. The interiors of the houses become damp
and the paper hangs loosely from the crumbling and rotting
walls. The staircases, the window-sashes, and the floors are
rotten, and many injuries result from their feeble condition. It
is almost impossible to keep such houses clean, and filth and ver-
min are most common. The smaller old frame cottages intended
for one family have been turned to the use of two and three
families, and the flimsy partitions and hasty reconstruction add
* Dr. Max Von Pettenkofer.
| Worthington's "Dwellings of the People," page 105.
JSee Veiller's "Housing Conditions and Tenement Laws," page 40.
WITHOUT PLAYGROUNDS
96
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
to the general dilapidation. The rear houses are the worst,
and many should be classed unfit for habitation. The photo-
graphs elsewhere show many of these wrinkled and rotten old
houses. The old house patched with tin, shown on page 121, is
a good example.
In the following table and diagram the terms "good" and
"fair" are self-explanatory. "Dilapidated" was to be used by
the enumerators when a house had such serious defects as to
endanger the health and comfort of the tenants. A house was to
be called "unfit for habitation" when it was incapable of being
restored to sanitary conditions by any reasonable repairs. A
great many houses returned by the enumerators as dilapidated
should have been reported as unfit for habitation.
STATISTICS OF CONDITION OF HOUSES.
FRONT HOUSES
District.
Classified as
Good.
Fair.
Dilapidated.
Unfit.
Total.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Dist i
342
235
50
234
44-7
13-8
819
262
294
56
49-9
81.4
275
27
14
18.8
5-1
4
25
I
3
1-7
.2
.1
1,461
S1S
361
Dist. 2
Dist. 3
Total
627
26.7
i,375
58.6
3l6
13-4
29
1-3
2,347
IOO
REAR HOUSES
District.
Classified as
Good.
Fair.
Dilapidated.
Unfit.
Total.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Dist I
26
24
I
6.6
IO.I
i-3
216
.184
75
54-8
77-3
94-9
134
25
3
34
10.5
3-8
18
5
4.6
2.1
394
238
79
Dist. 2
Dist. 3
TOTAL.- -
51
7-i
475
66.8
162
22.8
23
3-3
711
IOO
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
97
FRONT AND REAR HOUSES
District.
Classified as
Good.
Fair.
Dilapidated.
Unfit.
Total.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Num-
ber.
Per
Cent.
Dist. I - -
368
259
51
19.8
34
1 1.6
1.035
446
369
55.8
58.4
83.8
409
52
17
22
6.8
3-8
43
6
3
2-3
.8
•7
1,855
763
440
----
Dist. 2 -
Dist. ^
Totals- --
678
22.2
1,850
60.5
478
15.6
52
1-7
3,058
100
CONDITION OF HOUSES IN THE THREE DISTRICTS, DISTIN-
GUISHING FRONT, REAR, AND TOTAL
District. Front Houses.
Rear Houses.
All Houses.
Good. Fair. Dilapidated. Unfit for habitation.
9$ TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
This table shows the result of an examination into 3,117
houses, of which 3,058 were classed as good, fair, dilapidated, or
unfit for habitation. As will be seen, 14.7 per cent of the front
houses are classed as dangerous to health and in bad repair.
The percentage of front houses in the Polish and Bohemian dis-
tricts which are reprehensible is small, only amounting to 5.3
per cent; but in the Jewish and Italian districts one house in
every five was considered dangerous. When both front and rear
houses of this district are considered, the figures are astonishingly
high. Four hundred and fifty-two houses are dangerous to the
health and comfort of the tenants. In other words, one house
in every four is a menace ! When the grand totals are considered,
we find that five hundred and thirty houses are in a dangerous
condition of decay. This makes a total of 17.3 per cent of all
houses.
The diagram shows graphically that dilapidation in the rear
houses exists to a larger extent than in the front houses. It also
shows very clearly that there are fewer rear houses in good con-
dition than those classed as dangerous and unfit for habitation.
As Dr. Fetter says: "It is clear that the rear houses average
worse than the front, that the first district averages worse than
the others, and that the third district is slightly better than the
second."
The following comments of the enumerators show concretely
what the above figures mean. They apply quite accurately to five
hundred and thirty of the houses investigated.
Union Street. — "Condition of rear tenement is awful, awful."
Maxwell Street. — "Bad lighting, very dirty."
Thirteenth Street. — "A typical bad tenement, cheap, narrow,
dark, dirty stairs."
Ewing Street.- — "The worst house in the region. The front is
brick, but this is only a shell, the rear being a tumbled-down
frame so old and rotten that the neighbors say they are afraid it
will tumble down on them. The halls are slippery with filth and
garbage, and stairs are so worn as to seem unsafe."
New York and Boston have laws which provide that houses
infected with disease, dangerous to life from want of repairs, or
unfit for habitation because of defects in drainage, plumbing,
ventilation, or construction, or likely to cause sickness among the
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 99
occupants are to be vacated within ten days.* Chicago has a law
providing that buildings unfit for habitation because so infected
with diseases, or from other causes likely to cause sickness among
the occupants, are to be vacated. This law could be enforced
with most beneficial results in many parts of these districts. -j-
Under the head of inside insanitary conditions have been
considered many of the dangerous results of defective and unen-
forced laws. Those houses, which are considered unfit for human
habitation because of bad repair, are not the only ones dangerous
to the health and life of the working people. The conditions of
dark and ill-ventilated rooms, of unwholesome basements, and of
overcrowded quarters are also dangerous and often pestilential.
It is unfortunate that the Board of Health does not constantly
and carefully watch certain blocks and houses for the purpose of
making known certain specific cases of disease and misery which
have resulted from inside insanitary conditions. The accumulated
evils in Block 15 surely warrant such systematic observation.
* See Veiller's "Housing Conditions and Tenement Laws, Etc.," p. 40.
| See Veiller's "Housing Conditions and Tenement Laws, Etc.," p. 40.
CHAPTER V.*
DEFECTIVE PLUMBING AND BATHS
THE PRINCIPLES OF SANITARY PLUMBING
Section i. The investigation in District i was a house to
house canvas made by five skilled plumbers. As far as possible
every portion of the plumbing was examined. In the other two
districts a general survey was made and some selected houses in
each block were carefully examined. In District 2, sixty-three
houses, containing a population of 1,014 people, were examined.
This is seven and three-tenths per cent of the total population.
In District 3, forty-nine houses, containing 735 people, or ten per
cent of the total population, were examined. As these houses
were not selected because they were thought to have worse
plumbing than others, but because they were typical of the houses
in the district, the returns can be relied upon as a safe basis for an
estimate of the conditions of plumbing throughout these districts.
The purpose of the examination was to see how far the plumbing
and waste disposal of the districts examined were sanitary, and
how far they were defective and dangerous to health. In order
to make clear the meaning of the figures obtained, a few prin-
ciples observed in good plumbing will be briefly stated.
The word "plumbing" applies to any and all pipes used to con-
vey gas or liquid to or from the house or yard. The pipes coming
into a house may burst or leak and thus endanger health; but
this rarely occurs, is easily seen, and is usually corrected at once.
The important part of plumbing, from -a sanitary standpoint, is
the drain which carries off all waste matter to the sewer. The
waste-pipes or drain must be so arranged that the waste water
and other matter will flow into the sewer without permitting the
odors and gases from the sewer to enter into the rooms to con-
taminate the air. To prevent the escape of gas, traps, vents
* This chapter was in part adapted from the report prepared by Dr.
Frank Fetter.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 101
and revents are used. The trap is an "S" shaped pipe, which
should hold in its lower half about three inches of water, called
a "seal," which prevents the back-flow of gases. If the drain or
waste-pipe into which the trap empties becomes filled with water
flowing to the sewer, a partial vacuum is created which sucks out
the water; that is to say, syphons the trap, and would, were it
not for the vent and revent pipes, thus leave a direct connection
between the rooms and the sewer. The vent is a pipe or ventilator
extending from the drain below the trap through the roof. The
revent connects the pipe or ventilator with the top of the trap to
admit the air so that no vacuum can be created below the water
seal. A waste-pipe without a trap is extremely dangerous,
and a trap without a revent is not much better, since it is
likely to syphon out and admit into the house the gases from the
sewer
The laws of Illinois and the ordinances of Chicago since
1889 specifically demand the above mentioned methods of good
plumbing, and all houses erected since then, if within the law,
should possess almost faultless plumbing arrangements.* All
plans for plumbing in houses must be submitted to the Depart-
ment of Health, and unless approved of by the Chief Sanitary
Inspector, the plumbing cannot be laid. After the approval of
the plumbing plans and specifications by the Sanitary Depart-
ment, an inspector is sent to examine the plumbing itself before
it is covered up, and unless, after tests and examinations, it is
found to be within the law, it should not be approved of by the
inspector. These precautions taken by our law-makers to pre-
vent defective and dangerous plumbing are ample, and if enforced
the plumbing in Chicago should be nearly perfect.
THE CONDITIONS OF SINKS, CATCH-BASINS, AND
UND RAINED LOTS
Section 2. The following facts brought out by this investi-
gation show most wretched and dangerous conditions resulting
from defective plumbing.
* See pamphlet on laws issued by Department of Health.
IO2
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
SINKS IN DISTRICT I — BLOCKS I TO 44
Number in
Front Houses.
Number in
Rear Houses.
Total.
Sinks --
d.nC'J
667
5,620
Sinks not trapped
68;
72
717
Percentage
2
n.6
IO.^
' 1^.4
MORE DETAILED EXAMINATION IN TWENTY-FIVE BLOCKS
2O TO 44
Front Houses.
Rear Houses.
Total.
No.
Per Ct.
No.,
Per Ct.
No.
Per Ct.
Sinks total
2,734
351
L385
1,736
I~2~8
50.6
634
320
23
133
I56
7-i
41.5
48.6
3,054
374
1,518
1,892
12.2
43.0
55-2
Sinks not trapped
Sinks trapped, but not revented -
Sinks defective
In District i, the 5,474 dwelling apartments have 5,620 sinks.
In certain front houses there are more sinks than one in a single
apartment; but in the rear houses there are several apartments
without any. In 769 apartments in rear houses there are only
667 sinks. The percentage not trapped is very high, there being
about one sink in eight untrapped. The results of the more
complete examination of the plumbing in twenty-five blocks,
show that 374, or 12.2 per cent of all sinks, were not trapped;
1,518, or 43 per cent of all sinks, were trapped, but not revented.
In the same blocks 12.2 per cent of the sinks had no traps and
43 per cent were trapped, but not revented, making altogether
55.2 per cent of all sinks in a dangerous and unlawful condition.
It is quite safe to say that over half of the population in District i
have in their living-rooms conditions prohibited by law, which
are a menace to health.
In District 2, 221 sinks were examined. Fourteen were
found, in seven different houses, with neither trap nor revent.
One hundred and fourteen, or sixty-four per cent of all sinks
inspected, were not properly revented. In the third district, 169
sinks were examined, nine of which had no traps, and 126 others
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 103
were not revented. Therefore, 135, or 80 per cent of all sinks
investigated, were in a dangerously defective condition.
A catch-basin is the outlet of the house drain coming from
the sink. The basin should be outside of the house and closed
at a level with the yard by means of a heavy iron cover. The
purpose of a catch-basin is to intercept the grease and prevent
it from clogging the sewer-pipes. The grease rises to the top
and the water is drawn into the sewer from underneath. If the
catch-basin is not cleaned regularly the grease is likely to stop up
the house drain.
The results of the inquiry upon this subject were most unsatis-
factory. The catch-basins were under the ground, and in only a
few cases could they be located. In many cases it could not be
determined whether they were catch-basins or the dangerous
cesspool. That there are cesspools in the districts investigated
is reasonably sure, since upon examination of some old houses,
recently torn down, the remains of some were discovered. The
old privy vault is made to serve as a cesspool in a few instances.
There are almost no returns from the inquiry, which is evidence
enough that a law is needed ordering all catch-basins to open on
a level with the yard where it is possible to inspect them. How-
ever, forty-two catch-basins were noted which should be
cleaned.
It was in many cases impossible to determine accurately
whether or not lots were drained into the sewer. However, very
few of the houses in District i were thus drained. In District 2,
fifty per cent of those examined were not drained, and in Dis-
trict 3 fifty-eight per cent were not drained. When the lots are
below the grade of the streets, as is the rule in these districts, it
is of great importance to have the lot drained, otherwise the
water will run into the basements or under the foundations of the
houses. Water was often seen standing under the rotten wooden
pavements in the courts, passages, and yards. The ordinance
of 1891 (Sec. 31, p. 17, in the pamphlet reprint of 1896) requires
"that yards and areas shall be properly graded, cemented,
flagged or well paved, and properly drained." This law is cer-
tainly not enforced.
104 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
THE PREVALENCE OF THE OUTLAWED PRIVY VAULT
Section 3. Privies are of two kinds: first, the old type of
vault, which is merely a hole dug in the ground, entirely without
sewer connections; and second, a vault connected with the
sewer, flushed intermittently and with some difficulty by the
rain-water from the roof or by water from a hydrant. The main
difference between the two kinds of vaults is the trouble in the
cleaning. They are almost equally offensive, and some of the
worst cases inspected were sewer-connected. The open, untrap-
ped sewer connection is more dangerous in a way, since it adds
to other evils the one of escaping gases. Both kinds are against
the law. An ordinance passed June 25, 1894 (Sec. 4956, p. 21,
in pamphlet reprint of 1896), declares it to be unlawful for
any one to maintain a privy vault or suffer it to remain where
there is a public sewer in the adjoining street or alley. A fine
of two hundred dollars is the penalty for each offense. The
results in the first district examined are shown in the tables which
give the number at the time of the inspection. There were
1,581 privies or separate compartments. As there are always
two compartments to a vault, the number of vaults is about one-
half of 1,581, which is the number reported. These outlawed
accommodations are now used by 10,686 people; that is to say,
about 40.3 per cent of the total population.
In District 2, twelve separate vaults, serving for twenty-four
privies, were found with the sixty-three houses examined. It was
found that 19.5 per cent of all the families used these accommo-
dations, which is an average of 1.9 families, or nine persons, for
each privy. In District 3, the proportion was much higher, there
being found in the forty-nine houses examined twenty-two vaults,
serving for fifty privies. These were used by fifty-two per cent
of the total number of families. An average of 1.6 families, or
eight individuals, used each privy.
The most shocking conditions prevail in the districts infected
with this remnant of the broad spaces of village days. It is
unworthy of Chicago to permit the evil to continue, and the
Board of Health without favoritism should execute the law which
provides for these privies to be abolished.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
I05
STATISTICS OF PRIVIES
Block
No.
No. of
Privies.
No. of
Families
Using.
No. of
Individuals
Using.
Block
No.
No. of
Privies.
No. of
Families
Using.
No. of
Individuals
Using.
I
47
56
250
23
29
41
197
2
33 112
538
24
33
27
152
3
18 26
133
25
19
19
89
4
17 22
83
26
23
24
118
5
82 143
637
27
9
18
00
6 45 73
313
28
5
9
40
7 di 60
288
29
ii
17
76
8
25
24
131
30
27
50
239
9
66
87
431
31
14
38
197
10
35
57
265
32
18
28
155
ii
3i
56
231
33
21
29
133
12
29
44
214
34
65
78
429
13
66
91
325
35
29
53
252
14
37
61
240
36
65
93
477
15
52
78
390
37
19
22 QI
16
28
26
I36
38
35
27 138
17
92
132
611
39
12
21
9i
18
40
58
244
40
36
57
273
'9
44
69
267
4i
74
98
476
20
35
34
146
42
8
ii
64
21
48
67
315
43
40
43
2.12
22
26
69
267
44
52
60
242
Totals -
44
1,581
2,308
10,686
SUMMARY
Families.
Individuals.
PerCent
Families.
PerCent
Individuals
District i
2,^08
10686
44.6
4O. T,
Selected houses, District 2
Selected houses, District 3
45
80
215
374
19.5
52.O
2I.O
51-7
INSANITARY WATER-CLOSETS
Section 4. A simple form of water-closet, called a bench range
or school range, consists of a trough filled with water, which is
emptied by drawing the plug that connects with the sewer. Only
one of these was found in the districts inspected. Another form
is the pan closet, an old and imperfect form, which cannot be
io6
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
used in the house without danger, and is forbidden by a city ordi-
nance, passed November 23, 1896 (see pamphlet reprint, p. 19).
A third form is the hopper closet, which is a basin connected
with a curved pipe to the sewer, and flushed with water by turn-
ing a rod which opens a faucet at the top. This form is much
used out of doors, under sidewalks, and in cellars. It is cheap,
simple, and not likely to freeze or get out of order. It is, how-
ever, found often in houses, and as it easily becomes corroded it
is then difficult to keep clean and becomes very insanitary. The
best form is the tank closet, in the basin of which stands a supply
of water, which assists in the flushing caused by the flow of water
from the tank above. The following table gives the number of
these different kinds of closets.
KINDS OF CLOSETS IN DISTRICT I
Front Houses.
Rear Houses.
Total.
Pan
CO
j
80
Hopper
77
O7I
Tank -
ZoZ
2C
80;
Unspecified
QT
Totals
1,762
103
1,958
As will be seen, there are eighty-nine pan closets which
exist in defiance of the law. The other closets are about equally
divided between the undesirable hopper and the tank closets.
In District 2, of the sixty-nine closets examined, four were in
a bench range, sixty-one were hopper, and four were tanks. The
last four were all in one house. In the third district, of the
forty-one closets reported upon, one was pan, twenty-three hop-
per, and seventeen tank closets.
The location of the closets in the first district was usually in
the house. Many, however, were in basements and yards; a very
few were under the sidewalks. In District 2, of the sixty-nine
closets, eight were in the house, two in the yard, and fifty-nine
were under the sidewalk. The sidewalk closets were never
revented, and three of those in the house were not. In District 3,
there were thirty-three in the house, two on the porch, and eleven
under the sidewalk. Those under the sidewalk were not revented,
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
107
and one-half of those in the house were not. While the closet in
the house is the more convenient, it requires more expensive
plumbing to be sanitary. For some reason the sidewalk closet
has been positively forbidden in a number of cases since 1891,
under a city ordinance, which reads, ''The general privy accom-
modations of a tenement-house or lodging-house shall not be
permitted in the cellar, basement, or under sidewalks." As the
definition of tenement-house is any house occupied by more than
three families living independently, etc., and cooking on the
premises, or by more than two families on a floor, the ordinance
prohibits most of the cases found. This is another of the many
instances, found in the plumbing investigation, of unenforced
ordinances.
The following table shows the number of places where the
plumbing was found to be in a condition dangerous to health :
INSANITARY WATER-CLOSETS
Location
Front
Rear.
Total.
All closets
I 838
1 2O
i o<;8
Closets not open to outer air_ .
Closets not revented -
157
I.IW
18
71
175
1,221
Closets not properly trapped - -
Closets not properly flushed- ..
Unclean
39
107
21,6
4
10
39
in
246
This table shows that 175 closets are not open .to the outer
air. The ordinances distinctly provide that closets shall be
ventilated by opening to the air either by means of a window or
an air-shaft. Twenty-six of the closets not open to the outer
air are situated in halls, thirty-eight in basements, and one hun-
dred and nine in rooms. Almost every large city has a law on
the subject. The more advanced communities prohibit a closet
being placed in any close connection with the living-rooms of a
tenement. A London ordinance compels all closets to open to
the outer air by means of a window of not less than two square
feet. It is most advisable, if sanitary conditions are to be main-
tained, that all closets should be thoroughly lighted, so as to
make it possible for them to be kept pure and clean. It is also
io8
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
essential that they should be adequately ventilated into the open
and outer air.
Among other facts furnished in this investigation are those
which point to the lack of sufficient accommodation in the num-
ber of water-closets. Although there is an ordinance providing
that there shall be a water-closet for every two families, several
instances were found where one closet was used by four or more
families. The importance of enforcing the law in this respect will
be at once seen, as it involves decency as well as health.
THE NEED OF BATHS
Section 5. In District r all of the houses were inspected for
the purpose of determining the exact number of bath-tubs; 164
were found. Only three bath-tubs were found in the 408 rear
houses, which it will be remembered have a population of 3,200
persons; 161 were found in 1,598 front houses, which have a
population of 21,612 people. Twenty-four of these baths were
found in one apartment building recently erected. In the Polish
district only one tub was found in the sixty-three houses exam-
ined, and it was not connected with the water-pipes. It is very
doubtful whether there are any bath-tubs in this district. In the
Bohemian district there were eight bath-tubs in the forty-nine
houses. Five of these were found in good flats on Blue Island
Avenue. It is probable that an estimate on this basis would
overrun the actual facts.
The following table shows the number and per cent of the
population in District i having and not having bath-tubs:
POPULATION HAVING AND NOT HAVING BATH-TUBS
Having 1
5ath-tubs.
Having no
Bath-tubs.
Number
Per Cent.
Number
Per Cent.
One (Italian)--
-117
2.O
17 041
O7.I
One (Jewish)
•17-3
2 c6
10 079
y/.i
06 11
Totals - -
790
3.18
24,022
96.72
This table shows that ninety-six per cent of the working
people have no opportunity in their own homes to bathe. These
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 109
percentages are in almost perfect accord with the results found
in the investigation of the National Bureau of Labor in 1894.
That inquiry covered some of the conditions in the First Ward
and only the Italian portion of District i.
It is surely safe, in view of the fact that both investigations
have found so nearly the same conditions existing, to use these
percentages for the basis of an estimate to show the number of
people in Chicago who are without baths. Leaving out the popu-
lation in the old 4th, i2th, i3th, i4th, 2ist, 22d, 24th, 25th, 26th,
28th, 3ist, 32d, and 35th wards, and taking only half the popu-
lation in the old ad, 3d, nth, 23d, 2pth, and 34th wards, and all of
the population in the rest of the wards, we find, according to the
school census of 1900, that over one million people live in these
districts. These wards, any one will agree, are fairly chosen,
and house, in certain or all portions, working people in not
much better circumstances than those in parts of District i, and
in the Bohemian and Polish districts. Those wards in which only
half the population has been taken are each more than half given
over to working people. Granting that four per cent of this
large population have baths, we find in this rough way that about
960,000 people in Chicago are without bathing facilities.
The choice for most laborers in Chicago is to pay the twenty-
five cents commonly charged for the use of a bath, or to bathe at
long intervals at home. In their own overcrowded and narrow
homes it is difficult to obtain privacy for bathing. If a bath be
taken, the water must be brought from the faucet, and at best
the bath is unsatisfactory. Generally the people do not take
baths, especially in winter, and upon children dirt often accumu-
lates in what might be called scales. This, however, does not
prove that the people do not wish to bathe ; that they do is
amply proved by the extensive patronage given the four public
baths owned and conducted by the city. The attendants in these
baths and those at the pumping station say that workingmen near
by, whenever possible, come in regularly for a spray bath before
going home to supper. Those having the dirtiest work, or work
arduous enough to cause their clothing to be foul with perspira-
tion, bring clean suits of clothing which they are in the habit of
wearing in the evenings or on Sundays. In the Stock Yards dis-
no TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
trict the women bring their children regularly to secure their
weekly bath. For the people living in the vicinity of public
baths, the need of bathing is supplied, but for the several hun-
dred thousand people who live in districts far removed from
these establishments, the difficulty of obtaining a bath is great.
CHAPTER VI.
OUTSIDE INSANITARY CONDITIONS
IMPORTANCE OF OUTSIDE SANITARY CONDITIONS
Section i. This study must also treat of the many conditions
outside of the houses which influence the life of the tenement-
house population. The constant though subtle and active influ-
ences of filth, disorder, and noxious conditions upon the habits
and tastes of the people are not the only bad effects of such sur-
roundings. The most important are those insanitary and danger-
ous conditions which add to the distress, weaknesses, and bad
health of the working people. When the home of a poor family
living in these overcrowded districts is entered from a broken,
dangerous sidewalk and badly paved, unclean street, with rows of
foul garbage boxes standing before the doors, how great is the
surprise if a clean, well-scrubbed, and orderly interior is found,
because it is easy to see what a struggle it has been to make it so
and what painful labor it has cost. The photographs introduced
in the following pages show how filthy these streets and alleys are.
Cleanliness is almost a luxury in Chicago and a high price is paid
for it. A family with much work to do — and most working
people have too much already — can hardly be clean. It is with
cleanliness in Chicago as it is with infectious diseases and most
other things, which cannot be disassociated from their surround-
ings, for the neglect of the municipality in trifling with the smoke
nuisance, in neglecting street cleaning and garbage removal,
penalizes the just and the unjust. A foul privy or decaying
matter in the garbage box respects the clean housekeeper no
more than the unclean one. Nor does a defective sidewalk
choose its victim by moral standards. In this and many other
ways, the outside sanitary conditions of streets and alleys, of
garbage and manure boxes, of vacant lots and other surrounding
conditions, bear an intimate and important relation to the housing
problems of Chicago. *
112
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
BADLY PAVED AND UNCLEAN STREETS AND ALLEYS
Section 2. The streets and alleys are to the people of a well-
to-do district only a convenience for transit. In an overcrowded
tenement district there is little else more important to the happi-
ness and welfare of the people. For the children of the rear
tenements, the alleys are playgrounds. They also assure by
their open spaces light and ventilation to the houses. If they
are clean they serve this purpose to the comfort and satisfaction
of many, but if they are foul and covered with undisturbed filth
they detract rather than add to the healthfulness and well-being
of the community. Streets, even more than alleys, serve the
purpose of playgrounds and open spaces. In the evenings, when
the weather permits, these places swarm with the people from
the neighboring overcrowded houses. This common property,
in the districts where it serves as little more than a convenience,
is given some care; while in the districts where it is a vital
necessity it is wretchedly neglected.
A study of these public thoroughfares in the neglected por-
tions of the city now under consideration will show how true the
above observations are. The following table gives the miles of
streets and alleys in the three districts investigated. It gives
the blocks with no alleys, those with blind alleys, and those
having through alleys.
STATISTICS OF STREETS AND ALLEYS
District.
Number of Miles of
Number of Blocks with
Street.
Alley.
No Alley.
Partial
Alley.
Through
Alley.
District i
7.6
2.6
2
L*
i.i
8
12
24
IO
8
District 2
District 3
I
---
Total
12.2
77
9
12
42
Investigation shows that alleys and streets together contain
approximately one-third of the entire area. Seven of the blocks
without alleys in District i are, as will be seen in the map on
H4 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
page 13, in the two northern rows, and one is just south of
Twelfth Street. The only block without an alley in the other two
districts is a small triangular one adjacent to Blue Island Avenue.
In District i, in August, 1900, there was not a single moder-
ately well-paved street, excepting Halsted. That street was
paved with brick about a year before. During the summer
Ewing Street was paved with brick, Liberty Street with cedar
blocks, and Desplaines Street is now being repaved. The
change in their appearance is notable. Several blocks south of
Twelfth have fairly well preserved cedar block pavements, par-
ticularly near the Foster School, on Union and O'Brien streets.
The other streets are in various advanced stages of decay and
dilapidation. The cedar blocks beginning to break up are
loosened by passing wagons, and are quickly taken by the people
and used for fire-wood. It is safe to say that three or four miles
of street in the district are practically unpaved. Apparently
these streets have never been paved. But in fact most of them
were paved about fifteen years ago. Ewing Street, for example,
was paved in July, 1885. Desplaines Street, done at the same
time, was repaved from Harrison to Taylor in November, 1892.
The streets in Districts 2 and 3 are nearly all paved with cedar
blocks and are in fair condition. Nevertheless there are many
ruts and holes in them. More alleys appear never to have been
paved than streets. Those that have been are usually in much
better repair, as they do not receive such hard usage.
The kind of pavement to be used in tenement-house districts
is important. Both the cedar block and brick pavements are
less sanitary and more difficult to keep clean than asphalt. The
New York Tenement-House Commission of 1894 made a careful
study of this subject, and in its report recommended:* "That
the system of asphalt pavements be extended as rapidly as pos-
sible throughout the streets of the tenement-house districts of
the city." In regard to the value of this kind of pavements it
says: "It would seem that this style of pavement is of all others
the easiest to keep clean, owing to its smoothness. Traffic
through the streets on which tenement-houses are built is not, as
a rule, heavy enough to require the more solid pavement of stone.
In the latter pavement, while it will stand more heavy trucking
*See pages 76 and 77.
Ii6 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
than any other, there are small cracks or interstices between the
granite blocks, and in these dirt and other matter lodges in such
a manner as to prevent the mechanical sweeps from removing
them. Most of the material found in street sweepings, espe-
cially in tenement districts, is composed of animal and vegetable
matter, containing micro-organisms of pathogenic character.
Not only can asphalt pavement be thoroughly swept, but when
necessary, as in times of threatened epidemic, it may be washed
as clean as the floor of a house. It was stated by a witness before
the Committee that an objection to the asphalt system had been
made on the ground that, owing to the absence of noise when
carts or wagons are driven over it, children on the streets are
not warned of the approach of these vehicles, and are, therefore,
in danger of being run over. The Committee has considered this
reasoning carefully, but it finds itself unable to attach any great
importance to the objection. This very absence of noise is one
of the greatest advantages of the system, especially in the more
crowded tenement-house districts."
Whether the paving is good or bad, the streets in Chicago are
always filthy. Almost no care is given by the city to the streets of
these districts. The following statements have been taken from
the enumerators' reports : "The resident property owners appear
willing to pay if they can have clean streets. One of them said,
'It pays, anything to be clean, if you had to pay interest and
compound interest. ' On West Twelfth Place the resident owners
wished to have the street paved, but alien owners, especially a
large corporation on the street, opposed and prevented it. A
thrifty and wealthy non-resident owner in the north part of the
district raised his rents a year ago, which the tenants were will-
ing to pay in anticipation of a new street pavement which has
not yet been laid. And yet, despite this desire for better con-
ditions, Polk Street has not been cleaned for fifteen months.
Several witnesses say that Taylor Street was last swept over a
year ago.* Residents of Dekoven Street say, with exaggeration
perhaps, that it has not been swept for years. But similar testi-
mony is given concerning the streets and alleys all over the dis-
trict. In some places the people do the sweeping themselves.
The alleys are much neglected everywhere. It is said that the
*Date of inquiry, August, 1900.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 117
reason given by the authorities for their failure to clean the
streets in some places is that the paving is too bad to be kept
clean. That this is not always the case has been proved by
effort on the part of certain residents. In another case the
authorities declared that an alley was not cleaned because it was
unpaved. But one who went prospecting found sound pavement
a foot beneath the surface. "
This neglect of the streets and alleys produces conditions of
filth. Badly paved and ill-kept as the streets are in Chicago, the
conditions near the lake on the South and North sides impress
one, coming from these neglected districts, as highly satisfactory.
It is common in District i to see teams stalled in the mud, the
wagon-wheels sunk to the hub. On any morning after a heavy
rain one can see, in the course of a half-mile's walk, a score of
teams, each straining every muscle to pull a heavily loaded wagon
out of a crevice in the pavement, or in the absence of pavements,
out of the deep mire. One never grows accustomed to this com-
mon occurrence. To see the nervous, steaming horses plunging
about in vain efforts to move the heavy load and the driver
beating them brutally is sickening.
The streets are not only unfit for their real purposes; their
filthy condition is also insanitary. This delinquency of the city
has other bad results, for the people seeing how unfit the streets
are, use them as catch-alls for garbage. It happens sometimes
that streets are not cleaned for a year or more. It is then that the
gradual accumulations of dirt, mud, rotting vegetables, and gar-
bage, makes them as noisome and insanitary as a city refuse dump.
Remember that the streets and alleys are almost the only breath-
ing-spaces of over three hundred thousand people living in the
river wards.
THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF DANGEROUS SIDEWALKS
Section 3. Sidewalks cannot be so insanitary as streets, but
in a different way they may be dangerous to human life. A care-
ful statement regarding the condition of all sidewalks and the
materials of which they are constructed was returned on the
schedules.* The tabulation following gives the results:
*A "walk" is here understood to mean only that part of the sidewalk
in front of each house.
iiS
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
STATISTICS OF MATERIAL AND CONDITION OF SIDEWALKS
District
Material of Pavement.
Number
Unpaved.
Number
Wood.
Number Stone
or Concrete.
Total Number
Reported.
One -- ---
25
2
1,481
479
295
'8
73
l,66l
549
368
Two
Three
Total
27
.OI
2,255
87.6
296
11.4
2,578
IOO
Percentage
Classification of Condition.
District.
Number
Good.
Number
Fair.
Number
Bad.
Number
Dangerous.
Total
Number.
One - --
E;QO
4O2
^04
no
1, 606
Two - _
-)^j
2O1
163
III
IT.
550
Three
284
so
20
c
368
Total
ImlV
615
644
128
2,524
Percentage - -
45
24.2
25-5
5-3
Condition of sidewalks.
Percentage of all side- •—
walks in four speci-
fied classes. L
24.2$
25-5$ 5-3$
Good.
Fair.
Bad. Danger-
ous.
As will be seen in the table, the walks in District 3 are in
better condition than those found elsewhere. A large proportion
are of stone or concrete, and only thirty-four are considered
in bad condition. These are probably all wood. In District 2
a large number, amounting to twenty-two per cent of the walks,
are considered bad and dangerous. In District i, where the
wood sidewalk is universal, the conditions are extremely bad;
614 of the walks, or thirty-eight per cent of all, are either bad
or dangerous. Many walks are little more than bridges of rotten
wood. There is hardly a street in certain portions of the Italian
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
119
and Jewish district where the walks are not in places dangerous;
where they are five or six feet above the surrounding lots, to have
boards in the sidewalk break means serious injury. Many people
are injured each year in Chicago by dangerous sidewalks.
The cost of the defective sidewalks to the city each year is
very great. The City Attorney, in his report to the Council,
says:* "The total number of suits now pending against the City
of Chicago for personal injuries by reason of defective sidewalks
and streets is 1,404, and the total damages claimed in these cases
is $22,550,000. There are also pending 151 petitions and claims
referred to this department by the Finance Committee of the City
*See Proceedings of the Regular Meeting of City Council, January 8,
1900.
120 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Council, wherein no specific sum is claimed. The total number
of suits at law and petitions pending is 1,554.
"I desire to direct the attention of your honorable body to
the alarming increase of this class of litigation against the City
of Chicago during the past few years, and that it may be more
fully appreciated, I quote the following figures from the reports
of my predecessors: 'On January i, 1897, there were pending
716 suits at law, and petitions and claims for personal injuries,
wherein the City of Chicago was defendant. On January i, 1898,
there were 991 suits and claims of this character. January i,
1899, there were 1,115 suits and claims of this character. On
January i, 1900, there were 1,541 suits and claims of this char-
acter. '
"It will be noted that within three years this class of cases
has increased over one hundred per cent, and if the amounts of
judgments increase correspondingly, the report of next year will
show at least one million dollars' worth of judgments rendered
against the City of Chicago for personal injuries. This matter is
too important to be overlooked, and cases of this character are
becoming too frequent not to cause serious apprehension. There
are a number of reasons why this class of cases has increased so
alarmingly during the past few years. The cardinal one, how-
ever, is the condition of the sidewalks and streets at the present
time. I have directed the attention of a sub-committee of your
honorable body to the deplorable condition of sidewalks through-
out every ward in the city, and the difficulty of this department
in defending the interests of the city because of this existing
condition, and I have recommended that an ordinance be passed
prohibiting the further laying of plank or wooden sidewalks. Up
to the present time, no action has been taken by your body in
this respect, but I earnestly hope that an ordinance framed along
these lines will be speedily adopted. The judgment account
against the City of Chicago, because of these damage cases, is
increasing at a rate not appreciated, either by your body or the
tax-payer of the city and some effort should be made to minimize
it." The City Attorney gives a comparison of the number of
cases pending in other cities to show the conditions existing in
Chicago.
122 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
CASES PENDING FOR PERSONAL INJURIES RECEIVED FROM
DEFECTIVE SIDEWALKS
Name of City.
Number.
St Louis -
18
Boston - - -
280
Denver --- --
18
Cincinnati
1 2O
Minneapolis
2C
Milwaukee -
CO
St Paul
27
Louisville - -
22
Buffalo
6l
Total ... - - -- --
621
Chicago --
1.^4.
The total number of cases pending in these other cities does
not equal half of those pending in Chicago.
The City Attorney only presents one side of this question —
the cost in damages to the city. The cost in human life and in
serious physical injuries is not mentioned. Lives are endangered
every day and night by rotten boards and yawning holes in these
wooden sidewalks. There are 4,200.81 miles of wooden sidewalks
in Chicago.* On the basis of the investigation in District i,
therefore, there would be 1,596 miles of defective wooden side-
walks in Chicago — 1,596 miles of dangerous walks which may at
any moment select for a victim any one of thousands of people
going to work before dawn or returning after dark. A playing
child may slip through. The woman bringing home on her head
a bundle of sweat-shop clothing, or a sack of coal, may fall
through a rotten plank and suffer in consequence serious and
painful injuries. The costs to these people should be considered.
It is criminal for Chicago to continue this neglect, even if it has
millions with which to pay damages. The cost to the city is a
small matter in comparison to the cost in human suffering.
* See Report of Department of Public Works, 1898, page n.
124 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
FILTHY VACANT LOTS, YARDS, COURTS, AND PASSAGES
Section 4. In the absence of inspection and of enforcement
of sanitary laws, accumulations of filth, house refuse, dead ani-
mals, decomposing vegetable matter, and general litter upon
vacant spaces become serious in poor and overcrowded neigh-
borhoods. The lack of any system of adequate provision for
the disposal, and a regular and frequent removal, of garbage,
coupled with the ever present tendency in overcrowded tenements
to dump rubbish upon the nearest available open space, seriously
aggravates what in the better parts of the city is little more than
ordinary neglect. The landlords are to blame also. And the
city apparently neither holds them responsible for furnishing
garbage receptacles, nor for the uncleanliness of vacant lots,
courts, or passages. Noisome and insanitary conditions in the
courts of tenement-houses, against which some of the tenants
complain bitterly, are permitted to exist for months without
abatement by the city authorities. The following facts were
taken from the report to this Committee:
In District i the vacant lots have a frontage of 1,186 feet,
and an area of about three acres. They are distributed over
thirteen blocks, but nine-tenths of the area is found in the north-
ern part between Polk and Taylor. This is on the edge of a
factory district. South of Taylor Street an occasional twenty-
five-foot lot is vacant. In the other districts no statement was
taken of the vacant lots. However, in District 2 there are
several open spaces, ranging from twenty-five to one hundred
and twenty-five feet in frontage. In District 3 there is perhaps
half an acre in vacant lots. Between Polk and Ewing is a large
space extending from street to street. It is an abandoned fac-
tory site, six feet below the level of the street. Water stands in
parts of it, and weeds flourish, but for all that it serves as a base-
ball ground for small boys. At the corner of Polk and Jefferson
streets is a large lot covered with old wagons, garbage, rubbish,
and manure. At the corner of Polk and Canal is a lot twelve to
fifteen feet below the street level. Stagnant water and decaying
matter make it most unsightly and foul. On Ewing Street a
vacant lot is covered with garbage, manure, and rubbish. In a
lot on O'Brien Street, where an old house was recently torn
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 125
down, children were playing about some abandoned cesspools.
On Blue Island Avenue, in vacant lots below street level, ducks
disport themselves in a large mud-puddle. Not far away another
lot is covered partially by water with a green scum, and in part
by all sorts of rubbish. This is the condition of vacant lots.
They are inexcusably ugly and ill-smelling.
Vacant lots are not peculiar in their neglected condition.
Yards also are often permitted to become extremely insanitary.
By crowding houses upon the lots very little space is left in the
yards. These small bits of earth are often low and damp, with
no drainage to the sewer. The privy vaults, manure, and gar-
bage accumulations, and a general condition of filth make these
open spaces offensive in odor and no doubt dangerous to health.
The enumerators' comments run as follows:
Ashland Avenue. — "Garbage and refuse were scattered along
the passageway."
Dixon Street. — "Rubbish thrown under the sidewalk."
Holt Street. — "Two dirty and insanitary yards the only ones
in the block. "
Noble Street. — "Yard very dirty, rubbish all about."
Dixon Street. — "No sewer to hydrant, stagnant water in
yard."
Blue Island Avenue. — "Filthy yards, full of junk and boxes."
"Yard filthy, chickens kept." "Dreadful conditions of yards,
garbage thrown in a heap."
Throop Street. — "Yard very wet, undrained. " "Yard very
filthy." "All uncovered space in yard strewn with garbage."
Allport Street. — "Yard very wet, bad smelling."
The worst conditions are in District i. A great many yards
were found in a filthy condition.
Polk Street. — "Garbage thrown directly into the yard and
left to decay."
Ewing Street. — "Lots strewn with garbage and rubbish."
Ewing Street. — "Trash and old wood with rotten paving
blocks fill the yard." (This occurs many times.)
Taylor Street. — "Lots filthy, strewn with manure."
Taylor Street. — "Vegetables and fruit rotting in the yard. "
Taylor Street. — "Yard in filthy condition, chicken-coop in
wretched state, fruit and vegetables at the door."
126 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Forquer Street. — "Filth and rubbish all over yard."
Jefferson Street. — -"Rear yard very bad, a menace to health."
Liberty Street. — "A foot or two of rubbish between this
house and next." "Smell terrible, neighbors complain."
Maxwell Street. — "A horribly dirty place. Back yard littered
with broken furniture and rubbish. Manure piled three or four
feet high in yard."
There is no need of extended mention of the evils of these
conditions. The lack of garbage removal and accommodations,
combined with the inactivity of the Health Department, permits
these evils to assume importance as serious insanitary conditions.
Courts and passages suffer from the same neglect that make
yards offensive and insanitary. These spaces between buildings
are often dark and sometimes out of public sight. The courts
especially become the dumping-place for cans, decayed vege-
tables, and house refuse of all sorts. The passageways are most
always below the street level; the lack of sunshine and the water
from the roofs of houses and sidewalks make them damp. The
report says: "These open spaces are important as means of
light and ventilation to the rooms adjoining. But a narrow court
which does not have an unobstructed opening to the south rarely
receives sunlight to keep it dry and wholesome. This is also
true of passageways, except that when they are narrow they do
not get sunlight enough to make them even sanitary. In scores
of cases the space between houses, when not used as a passage,
was found filled with rotting stuff, and the passageways were
often filled with all kinds of garbage. The passageways to the
rear apartments are nearly always below street level. They usu-
ally are from two and a half to four feet wide ; they are damp
and receive very little sunlight in the course of the day. When
the houses face east and west, which is general in Districts 2
and 3, the sun never enters the passageways. They seem espe-
cially constructed to be microbe incubators.
"Despite these harmful conditions, they are the only play-
grounds of the younger children who must be kept close to the
mother. Sometimes the older children may be seen rolling the
baby back and forth to get a bit of air in these damp and sun-
less places. On diagram, page 81, in the rear of the house at
No. 7, is shown the plan of a court which is somewhat better
128 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
than the average. It is "L" shaped, and equal to about twenty
feet square. It is four feet below the level of the alley, and is
much shaded by surrounding three and four story buildings. It
gets the dripping water from the roof and is constantly damp.
The main exit to the alley gets the sunlight about one hour at
midday, and a photograph printed on page 35 was taken at that
time. The main portion is always sunless. A considerable part
of the place is obstructed by platforms and steps. One hundred
and four people live in the four houses for which this space serves
as yard, and forty-six children have no playground excepting the
street, the alley, or this court."
Locke Worthington says, in his book, that "there is per-
haps nothing in the management of a house which may be a
greater nuisance than the disposal of its refuse, if the tenants are
sloven and careless, and the local authorities corrupt or negli-
gent." * And indeed the worst of the evils in the vacant spaces
are a part of the garbage question. We have laws which prohibit
these conditions, but they are rarely enforced. There is prob-
ably no other city approximating the size of Chicago, in this
country or abroad, which has as many neglected sanitary con-
ditions associated with its tenement-house problem.
OFFENSIVE STABLES AND MANURE BOXES
Section 5. There is a surprising number of stables in the
three districts. In District i there are only one hundred more
rear houses than there are stables. Altogether there were 537 of
the latter; 1,443 horses were counted. Four or five hundred
were owned by large factories and transfer companies; probably
a thousand were owned by the people themselves. As before
mentioned, the Inner Belt is a convenient dwelling-place for ped-
dlers and expressmen, and it is usual for each one to have at
least one horse.
Peddling vegetables and fruit is not a very lucrative profes-
sion, and many peddlers can earn barely enough to pay rents and
buy food. Consequently the worst old shacks, dilapidated tene-
ments, and damp basements are used for stabling purposes.
Unmarried Greeks frequently share their own rooms with their
*See "Dwellings of the People," page 114.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
129
horses; and Italians often stable them on the lower or basement
floor of their tenements.*
The following figures give a complete statement of the num-
ber of horses, stables, and manure boxes, and a classification of
their condition.
STATISTICS OF STABLES AND HORSES
Dist. i.
N. of
i2th.
Dist. i.
S. of
i2th.
Dist. 2.
Djst. 3.
Total.
Occupied stables --
i6d
160
1 08
los
£-17
Vacant stables - --
17
23
1 1
24.
7;
Horses
W2
566
2O2
17-3
I dd^
No blocks with less than 10 horses
7
2
2
2o
No blocks with 11 to 25 horses
7
7
A
A
22
No blocks with 26 to 50 horses
7
e
•1
A
IO
No. blocks with more than 50 horses
I
i
2
Condition of stabtes:
Good 16 percent.
Fair 33 per cent.
Bad —51 per cent.
*See photographs.
130
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Condition of manure boxes:
Good 8 percent.
Fair -.34 per cent
Bad 58 per cent
CONDITION OF STABLES AND MANURE BOXES
PERCENTAGES IN THREE SPECIFIED CLASSES OF EACH
Stables.
34$
Manure
Boxes.
Good. Fair.
Bad.
Many facts in the table will interest students only. The
reports, however, on the conditions of the stables should interest
every one. One-half of the stables and manure boxes were con-
sidered in a bad condition. The comments further on will show
what the term "in a bad condition" means.
Nearly all the manure boxes are outside of the stables. Only
thirty out of the total of 478 reported on in this regard are
inside. They line the alleys, in some places making them almost
impassable. A photograph taken in the Seventh Ward, near
Maxwell Street, shows an alley two hundred feet long, in which
there are twelve manure boxes, nearly all overflowing. It also
shows a number of garbage boxes with their refuse scattered over
the alley. Manure piles, no part of which had been removed for
a year or two, were found after the stables had been removed.
Sometimes there is no box and the alley serves the need. The
following comments of enumerators show the extremely insani-
tary conditions which exist:
Polk Street. — "Cellar and first floor used for stables."
Twelfth Street. — "Stable complained of as the worst in
America." "Three cows kept in basement of dilapidated
house." "Three cows and four horses kept in stable; shocking
condition. "
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 131
Thirteenth Street. — "Stable in basement, four horses."
Halsted Street. — "Stable built up next to house, and contains
five horses; bad conditions for family on second floor."
Union Street. — "Bitter complaints by the neighbors of the
insanitary condition of the stable; two horses are kept in it, one
in the basement."
O'Brien Street. — "Conditions are bad in rear house, which is
a cottage and stable combined." Another: "Keep two cows and
sell milk. The stable is very offensive to the neighbors."
Maxwell Street. — "Stable under rear house, two horses.
Seven people live above it, and there is much complaint of the
smell. Walls dirty, alley littered."
Liberty Street. — "Much complaint of stable on Maxwell where
five horses are kept. Smell is so bad that no windows can be
opened."
Next in importance to the condition and location of the stable
is the proper removal of manure. The utter neglect of regular
removal is shown in the following comments:
Taylor Street. — "Manure pile has been in yard over a year.
Bitter complaints."
Taylor Street. — "Manure heaps from a large barn, and long
neglected waste fill the alley."
Taylor Street. — "Manure emptied in yard."
132 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Twelfth Street. — "Manure still remains in alley after the shed
has ceased to be used as a stable."
Liberty Street. — "Manure seven feet high in yard."
Fourteenth Street. — "Floor of stable covered two feet deep
with manure. "
Blue Island Avenue. — "Manure-box bottom is broken out and
manure falls to yard ten feet below. Yard wet and dirty."
Noble Street. — "Two horses kept in basement of front house,
causing disagreeable odors. Manure is thrown directly into the
alley. Neighbors cannot leave windows open day or night
because of noise and stench."
The above comments show how great a nuisance these offen-
sive conditions are to the people in the neighboring tenement-
houses. The fumes rise from fermenting manure and enter the
rooms of the rear tenements. Rats, insects, and flies swarm
about these accumulations of filth and become a source of great
offense to tenants in the neighborhood. Physicians have testi-
fied* that certain diseases are more prevalent in those tenement-
houses of which portions are used as stables.
The conditions here show how backward, in some respects,
the City of Chicago is. The reports on tenement-houses in other
cities do not include studies of these conditions, for the simple
reason that most other large cities would not permit to exist to
such an extent these horrible and filthy insanitary conditions.
In New York, under the law, no part of a tenement-house
can be used as a stable, and no stable can remain on a lot
where it is proposed to erect a tenement-house. This is in
marked contrast to the practice here, for horses are permitted
even in the basements of cottages and tenements where often
neither drainage nor other sanitary conditions are possible. Even
our own ordinance, demanding that, wherever two horses are
kept, the manure shall be removed twice a week, is ignored. As
a result of poor laws and the lack of enforcement of those
already existing, the most shocking conditions are prevalent in
these districts.
*See Report of New York Tenement-House Commission, 1894, page 482.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
'33
THE NEGLECT OF GARBAGE
Section 6. The conditions of filth-strewn alleys, of courts and
yards littered with rubbish, of ill-smelling stables and manure
bo-xes find their climax and in part their cause in the accumula-
tions of garbage. The latter is a most important question of
municipal sanitation. It is one of several problems intimately
connected with the sanitary conditions of overcrowded tenement-
houses. The cleaning of streets and alleys, the control and
inspection of tenement and lodging houses, the care of uncovered
spaces in overcrowded areas, and the systematic collection and
profitable disposal of garbage by the municipality are problems
of great importance. The older cities have spent large sums of
money in organizing and revolutionizing their village customs
and habits in these matters, and in adapting the scientific and
business-like methods of certain foreign cities to their own needs.
The economic sides of the question need not be dealt with
here, but a few words will be said about the importance of sys-
'34
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
tematic disposal and careful and regular municipal collection.
First, ashes should not be mixed with animal and vegetable mat-
ter; separate receptacles should be provided for different kinds
of house refuse and the tenant should be fined when he fails to
use the proper one. Landlords should be compelled to furnish
receptacles proportionate in size to the number of persons housed
upon the lot. The boxes and iron pails should be well made and
kept well repaired, so that they can be thoroughly cleaned when
necessary. In a time of epidemic this is particularly necessary.
The collections should be daily and before the middle of the
morning. Laws containing provisions similar to these are on the
statute books of almost all cities. With one or two exceptions,
these provisions are already in the sanitary code of Chicago.
The following table and notes from the report will show how
seldom, if ever, these laws are enforced:
STATISTICS IN REGARD TO GARBAGE BOXES AND DISPOSAL
OF GARBAGE
Material of Boxes.
Dist. i
N. of
i2th.
Dist. i
S. of
I2th.
Dist. 2.
Dist. 3.
Total.
Wood .
586
4.71
AAQ
247
I 7E; ?.
Metal
7
7
I
I
»i/M
16
Use neighbor's
no
60
2/1
r c
2^8
No box - - -
I IT.
uy
TC6
r/t
•7.2
*y>
ore
Condition of boxes:
Sound
27 C
274.
6:
B*
Broken - - -
on?
Io7
T» C
I7C
I 064
Partly filled. ... -
5OO
o IQ
r
11OA.
24O
I 4^.2
Overflowing
AA
22
7
7
80
Location:
Alley .- _ - -
-30 g
TCJ.
A~\r\
2^2
i 16^
Sidewalk
2IO
012
2o
cei
Yard ... -
-11
7
I
I
4.O
House - --
o
2
c
Collection :
Three to six times a week
84
6?
IO
4Q
2IO
One or two times a week
71
67
71
I IO
•30T
Less than once a week
6
21
7
7
41
Not known or renorted _
421
124
T.C.-2
nn
T.lnn
These statistics show that in the districts examined there are
1,769 garbage boxes, of which only sixteen are metal and the others
are all of wood. This is a little more than one-half the houses.
136 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
One box is nearly always used in common by a front and a rear
house. In 238 cases where there was no box on the lot it was
reported that the tenants used one near by. In the 355 cases no
garbage box at all was found. The absence was accounted for
by some of the comments to be quoted later; 1,064, °r nearly
two-thirds of those reported, were broken. This means usually
that the cover was off, and the contents exposed. But not infre-
quently the box has fallen to pieces and is utterly useless.
The locations of the garbage boxes in 1,659 cases were reported
as follows: 1,163 were in the alley; 551, or 33 per cent of all,
were on the sidewalk ; 40 were in yards, and 5 were in the house.
The garbage box on the sidewalk is seldom seen in Districts 2
and 3, but one-half of all the garbage boxes in District i are on
the sidewalks. Especially in those blocks where there is no alley
it is customary for the boxes to be placed on the sidewalks. For
this reason Polk, Ewing, the north side of Forquer, parts of the
Twelfth Place, O'Brien, Thirteenth, Maxwell, Liberty, and Four-
teenth streets are lined with garbage boxes. It is impossible to
describe adequately the sidewalk garbage box. If regularly
cleaned it is bad enough, but if the contents stand for long peri-
ods, or only a few shovelfuls at the top are removed, its condition
is always foul. Its offensive odor, its ugliness and filthiness, may
be only momentarily disgusting to the passer-by, but the residents
must suffer it every hour in the day. If it has a top, the children
sometimes use it for a play-house by day. On hot nights it is
common to see parents escape from their stifling houses, and
seek slumber and fresh air, stretched out over its festering con-
tents.
Five garbage boxes were kept in the houses. In many cases
garbage was dumped on porches and in courts and yards. A
large brick tenement on Polk, having been built without proper
provision for garbage disposal, has several boxes and barrels
standing at the door of a central court. For over one hundred
people in a four-story tenement, covering almost all of the lot,
this is the only provision for the disposal of house refuse.
Ten hundred and sixty-four garbage boxes were reported in
a broken condition, and eighty were reported in an overflowing
condition. Detailed information is given in the following com-
ments:
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
'37
Poik Street. — "The box is broken and garbage scattered half
way across the sidewalk."
Alley between Dixon and Holt. — "Garbage boxes all broken
but one."
Ewing Street. — "Garbage box thrown into the street; land-
lord will not furnish a box."
Dekoven Street. — "No box, a pile of garbage. Slops thrown
out of window."
Blue Island Avenue. — "As much garbage outside as inside of
box."
Forquer Street. — "Garbage thrown into yard and street."
"Garbage thrown into yard." "Thrown directly from windows
into alley."
Twelfth Place. — "Tenants throw garbage into narrow space
between houses, causing a bad stench."
Maxwell Street. — "Garbage piled in hall ; the smell is fearful. "
138 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Blue Island Avenue. — "Garbage mostly thrown on loose heap
in alley; part dries and blows broadcast."
Blue Island Avenue. — "Landlord refuses to supply garbage
box, even after order of Board of Health."
Several of the comments refer to landlords who refuse to fur-
nish adequate garbage receptacles. A single garbage box is not
sufficient fora large tenement; but in the following table the
reader will see there is an average, in some blocks, of only one
box to three houses. Hundreds of tenants have no proper con-
veniences in which to empty their garbage.
Block Number.
Number of Garbage
Boxes.
Number Dwellings.
Population.
41
26
73
917
28
9
27
375
15
25
42
679
17
52
103
1,501
50
77
139
2,327
Differences of opinion existed even in the same neighborhood
as to the frequency of the garbage collection. Answers were
given in 591 cases, and in thirty-eight per cent fairly satisfac-
tory service was indicated of from three to six times a week, in
fifty-six per cent of the cases it was once or twice a week, and
in six per cent it was less than once a week. The collection is
evidently better in Districts 2 and 3 than in District i. In Dis-
trict i the boxes were heaped and overflowing in sixty-six cases,
while only seven such cases were noticed in each of the other
districts. In many cases it was said that the box was not care-
fully emptied. A few shovelfuls, it was reported, were taken
from the top to keep it from overflowing. This method reduces
the number of overflowing boxes, but it permits old matter to
remain in the bottom of the boxes for long periods. The ratio
of overflowing boxes to all boxes was as one to thirteen in Dis-
trict i, as one to fifty-three in District 2, and as one to thirty-
seven in District 3. As illustrations of the complaints made, it
was said on Desplaines, that the collector "took only the top
layer"; on Twelfth, that "the garbage man will not empty the
box unless it is full, so it smells bad." The same remark was
repeated several times. On Union, it was said that "the garbage
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 139
box has a horrible stench arising from it, residents say it has not
been emptied for a long time"; on Dekoven, "that the garbage
box has not been emptied for a week ; the people say it is so
horrible they want to get away"; on Thirteenth Street it was
said several times; "That people are driven indoors by the smell
of the garbage boxes; they can't sit on the steps." A number
of touching appeals were made to our enumerators by mothers
anxious for the welfare of their children. One woman said that
she kept her children in the house nearly all the time because of
the filth all around. She pleaded with tears in her eyes that some-
thing should be done about the garbage collection. It was stated
on Twelfth Street that: "A private garbage collector was employed
because the city service is unsatisfactory."
In order to show more clearly the extremely bad conditions
in a particular portion of District i, the number and situation of
fehe privies and of the garbage and manure boxes which were
found in one alley and a portion of the adjoining alley have been
placed on a diagram. The location of the twelve privies will be
seen. Besides, in this small section of the block, there are four
stables and four manure boxes near the mouth of the blind alley.
140
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Nearly two hundred persons live in the neighboring houses. The
photographs printed herewith illustrate the abominable conditions
which exist. The garbage boxes are uncovered and the contents
strewn over the alley. The alleys are unpaved and filth of all
kinds has accumulated in large quantities. In one place a large
pile of manure and trash has been thrown against a barn. The
children shown in one picture live in a house of which the old
shed is the rear portion. A rear house of two stories with win-
dows opening upon the alley is shown in another picture. The
air of the people living in this rear tenement comes from this
same alley.
SHED
8#
25#
16#
SHED
P
SHED
SHED
STABLE
STA-
BLE
STA-
BLE
20#-
DIAGRAM SHOWING THE INSANITA]
CC
)NDITIO
NS IN j
\N ALLEY
15#
PPPPPP
0|0|0|0;0|0|
PP
lop
PP
m
\
M _
BLIND ALLEY
STABLE
121
*
:EY
G — Garbage box.
P— Privy.
:|: — Number of persons.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 141
There could hardly be a better illustration of the accumulated
evils in a neglected and uncared-for portion of Chicago. All the
evils mentioned in the sections on "The Neglect of Garbage"
and "Offensive Stables and Manure Boxes," were found com-
bined in this small portion of District i. The utter neglect on
the part of the municipal authorities, and the irresponsibility of
landlords, is shown in the photographs and diagram.
MISCELLANEOUS OUTSIDE INSANITARY CONDITIONS
Section 7. Many disagreeable and dangerous conditions,
which have not been spoken of elsewhere in this chapter, are
classed under this head. For a city possessing sanitary laws, the
conditions are extraordinary, to say the least. A few of the com-
ments of the enumerators will make the nuisances which result
from keeping animals in and about tenement-houses explain
themselves. The enumerators' comments:
Forquer Street. — "Chickens kept in yards, several places."
Taylor Street. — "Seven goats in back yard."
Union Street. — "Ducks and chickens in yard."
Jefferson Street. — "Two cows and chickens."
Holt Street. — "Hogs run loose in yard; Pigeons kept."
Noble Street. — "Chickens and ducks in yard, bad odor."
Noble Street. — "Odor from dog kennels where two big dogs
are kept."
Sixteenth Street. — "Ducks in front yard."
Throop Street. — "Keep poultry in cellar, great odor."
In New York a law passed in 1867, and one in Boston, pro-
hibits tht "keeping of a horse, cow, or calf, swine or pig, sheep
or goat in a tenement-house." * In 1897 the Greater New York
charter forbids the keeping of such animals on any part of the
premises of tenement-houses.* In 1901 Chicago still retains the
village custom.
From certain businesses, not cleanly to begin with, accumu-
late all sorts of decaying vegetable and animal matter. When an
enumerator is driven to call an odor a "terrific smell" in order
to describe it, there is some reason for alarm.
*Veiller's "Tenement-House Legislation in New York, 1852-1900,"
page 118.
142 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Union Street. — "Shop and fish market; smell terrific."
Jefferson Street. — "Odor of butchers' refuse very bad."
Thirteenth Street. — "Sidewalk a place for chickens and ducks ;
fifteen coops in front of house, which is excessively dirty and
dilapidated."
Thirteenth Street. — "Chickens and ducks sold here; feathers
flying all about the street."
O'Brien Street. — "Chicken-coops on sidewalk, poultry in back
of yard; very offensive to the neighbors."
O'Brien Street. — " 'Geese right under the window,' says the
tenant. 'You can't sleep nights and it stinks. If you sleep in a
room with that right under your head hollering the whole night
you can't stand it.' '
Maxwell Street. — "Poultry market in basement; sidewalks
with feathers and half covered with boxes of chickens."
Maxwell Street. — "Market in basement horribly dirty; vile
smell; sidewalk covered with corn and feathers."
Jefferson Street. — "Refuse from produce store dumped into
broken catch-basin in back yard, and into privy vault. Neighbors
complain of rotten eggs and other bad smells about the house."
Rag and junk shops and various kinds of depots for refuse
materials abound in the Italian and Jewish quarters, and there
are a few in the Polish district. Most of these shops have foul
odors. Rag-shops particularly are dangerous by communicating
disease. They should be prohibited in houses where people live.
Laws in other cities forbid rags to be stored in tenement-houses.
The comments of the enumerators on shops and upon other con-
ditions are printed herewith:
Polk Street. — "Rag-shops litter the street and make it at
times almost impassable. " A
Canal Street. — "Many back yards covered with musty rags,
old sail-cloth spread out to dry. Smell penetrates into all the
living-rooms about."
Ewing Street. — "Stumps of tobacco spread out to dry in
several places."
Twelfth Street. — "Tenants near cap factory say that the odor
from it is almost unbearable and makes them sick."
Canal Street. — "Smoke from the neighboring factories makes
bad light and air."
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 143
It will be possible to realize, if one has imagination, how
much there is in all of these conditions to degrade the individual.
Surrounded by foul conditions, the people almost lose their desire
for cleanliness. It is almost impossible for an individual to keep
free from the filth of the streets and alleys, the yards, courts, and
passageways. The protests of many tenants, compelled to live
in these places, are evidence enough of the struggle of many
weary housekeepers against the overwhelming odds. The whole
chapter is evidence of the pressing need for a municipal cleans-
ing.
CHAPTER VII
SOCIAL PATHOLOGY, DISEASES AND DEATHS
THE SOURCES AND VALUE OF THE DATA
Section i. The most serious of the evils which result from
the tenement-house system are various forms of individual and
social degeneration. Happily, the worst conditions in Chicago
are of recent origin and consequently those fearful results which
come from urban populations living amid surroundings wherever
most insanitary and artificial, are not as conspicuously present in
Chicago as in certain other cities. But surely no one will doubt
that unless active preventive work is soon begun this city will
suffer from many of the painful experiences of older cities.
Extraordinary sickness, death, pauperism, intemperance, and
crime are universally associated with bad housing conditions.
Many other cities have been benefited by special studies of these
evils and their relation to insanitary dwelling places. The results
of these investigations are the severest warning which the older
cities may furnish the newer ones. It is to be regretted that in
Chicago no studies have yet been made showing the relation of
many social diseases to the living and working conditions of the
people. There are few things which could be of greater value.
The Committee recognized this fact, but in drawing the line some
place, it seemed best to make the first inquiry into conditions,
a study of the insanitary and dangerous dwelling places them-
selves.
To show the relation of housing conditions to the death rate
and to various forms of social degeneration is in itself a separate
and very difficult undertaking.* What is offered, therefore, is
obtained mainly from studies made elsewhere and is given merely
to show the recognized relation existing between dangerous
housing and certain forms of social decay. After all, the results
of housing conditions elsewhere must be very much the same as
* Report of the New York Tenement-House Commission, 1900, page 72.
144
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO H5
those here. Pauperism, crime, disease, etc., are perhaps increased
by conditions here in less degree than in older cities, but they
are fed nevertheless from the same sources.
POVERTY AND PAUPERISM IN THE TENEMENTS
Section 2. The cause or causes of poverty in particular indi-
viduals have long interested students in economics and sociology.
Philanthropic associations in various cities have also collected
much data on the subject. A few years ago, with a few impor-
tant exceptions, nearly all who gave thought to the matter
agreed that subjective causes, such as drink, laziness, extrava-
gance, and incapability were the most important. The testimony
of those who gave alms contributed largely to this idea. More
recently even charity organizationists have broadened their views
of causes. A prominent one, Edward T. Divine, says: *
"It is possible that in the analysis of the causes of poverty,
emphasis has been placed unduly upon personal causes, such as
intemperance, shiftlessness, and inefficiency, as compared with
causes that lie in the environment, such as accident, disease
resulting from insanitary surroundings, and death of bread-winner
due to undermined vitality. Economists have duly recognized
the effect of climate upon national efficiency, but climate in the
sense in which it affects earning capacity is not simply a ques-
tion of latitude. It includes rather all those elements of the
immediate physical environment which give vigor, elasticity,
buoyancy, and recuperative power. It does its work at night when
the worker is asleep, quite as much as when he is employed. That
there is a favorable climate in Battery Park at the lower end of
Manhattan Island is, therefore, by no means evidence that the
toilers who make their homes in New York City are its benefici-
aries. The overcrowded, dark, ill-ventilated tenements of New
York City have a climate less favorable than that of any other
great city. Directly, therefore, in their influence upon the
physical well-being of human beings the tenements lessen pro-
ductive power and so inevitably increase the number who are
unable continuously to make a living.
*" Charities," weekly of the New York Charity Organization Society,
February 24, 1900, page 3.
146 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
"Their indirect effect upon the standard of living is no less
marked. One who lives in an attractive home with plenty of
light and air and with pleasant outlook from the windows will
instinctively improve the other conditions of living, will work
harder to provide decent furniture, will place a higher estimate
upon all the decencies and comforts of life."
In accord with this view many students have spoken of the
influence of housing in causing poverty. Robert Treat Paine,
several years ago, wrote that he considered bad housing one of the
four most important causes of poverty.* Sickness, often the result
of insanitary conditions, causes from 14. 6 per cent to 29.5 percent
of the poverty coming under the observation of the New York,
Buffalo, Baltimore, Boston, and Cincinnati Charity Organization
Societies. But as Dr. Amos G. Warner says: "Sickness is more
obvious than bad sanitation." j- Diseased appetites and under-
vitalization generated in the tenements, cause most degrading
forms of poverty. Among other causes are now classed bad
climatic conditions, defective sanitation, and degrading associ-
ations and surroundings. The overcrowding, foul air, dark
rooms, and insanitary housing conditions, shown in the previous
chapters, are the handicaps in the competitive struggle which
drag many families into a condition of painful and degrading
dependence upon public charity. Insanitary housing conditions
reduce industrial efficiency, promote exhaustion and weariness,
and are potent causes in the growth of a large, dependent
class.
Pauperism is a different thing from poverty. A pauper legally
is he who receives public aid. Charity Organizationists con-
sider a pauper one who has a craven, dependent spirit, and
willingly receives repeated and perhaps unnecessary aid. A
pauper, in the legal sense, may be one constrained because of
illness or other reason to accept relief. But he will not be a
pauper in the sense of the Charity Organizationist providing he
retains his independence and asserts it as soon as possible. In
the sense of the latter especially the tenement produces paupers.
It destroys the spirit of independence.
It cannot be said that the mass of tenements in these dis-
* Pamphlet, "Causes of Poverty."
t Warner's American Charities, pages 29 and 34.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 147
tricts are in such condition as to be an active cause of poverty
or pauperism. Occasionally, however, in. tenements broken,
dilapidated, and devoid of almost everything wholesome, with
dirt and evident overcrowding, you will find all the condi-
tions which make paupers and beggars. Even if insanitary
conditions did not weaken the families, the evil associations
would do so. For the pauper attitudes and customs are
contagious. A single pauper family in a tenement may be
looked down upon. But two or three such families set the
standard and the getting of free coal and groceries is emu-
lated. The Bureau of Charities knows of houses in which every
family is pauperized. Houses are known from which paupers
have been evicted; but the new families which move in sooner
or later apply for relief. Certain tenements have housed scores
of families dependent on charity. The contagion is interestingly
shown by the fact that the people in certain tenements all receive
aid from the county, while in a neighboring house the inhabitants
have applied only to the Bureau of Charities. In this way pauper-
ism sometimes spreads throughout an entire tenement. Self-sup-
porting families often apply unnecessarily for aid simply because
others in the same house receive assistance. Begging children
frequently encourage their playmates to beg with them. It is
this moral degeneration, going on in the bad tenements, which
presents a worse aspect than even sickness.
INTEMPERANCE AND BAD HOUSING
Section 3. Intemperance is caused by bad housing in very
much the same way as pauperism. The saloon is attractive. It
is warm in winter; it is cool in summer. It is clean, not over-
crowded, and is well lighted. It is in marked contrast to small
rooms overcrowded, badly ventilated and lighted. The "home-
less" tenement causes the greatest amount of intemperance.
It is almost unbearable while awake to stay in a close and
disagreeable apartment. To leave the home is to go to the only
"common" in the neighborhood. For the saloon preaches the
lesson of hospitality. No one is denied. Intemperance, there-
fore, is often the cost of a cheerful place to spend the even-
ings. Recognizing this, a legislative committee in New York,
148 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
appointed in 1866, recommended "the prevention of drunken-
ness by providing every man with a clean and comfortable
home." *
The men who live in the poorest tenements are usually those
who do the hardest and most disagreeable kinds of work. Stu-
dents of inebriety have given attention to drunkenness as caused
by occupations, but the work of a man consumes only a part of
his day after which he returns to his home with his strength spent
and physically depressed. He may be entertained at a theater if he
can afford it, but he is more apt to seek the cheaper attractions
of the saloon, not always because his house is small, but because
it is unattractive. Furthermore the demands which insanitary
conditions invariably make upon the human body cause a craving
for stimulants.
Dr. Norman Kerr, the eminent specialist on inebriety, saysf
that "bad hygienic conditions, ill-ventilated, and overcrowded
dwellings, from the vitiated state of the air within them,
occasion languor and sluggishness which leads to functional
derangement and produces a profound feeling of depression
which, in many cases, predisposes and excites to intemperance
in alcohol. This is purely a physical process, the blood is imper-
fectly aerated and charged with excess of carbonic oxide.
*******
"CrothersJ detected the influence of bad sanitation, unsuit-
able food and surroundings and neglect in thirty-eight out of five
hundred cases. My own observation in England, including about
three per cent of all my cases among the very poor, puts the pro-
portion at about twenty-five per cent."
As for the actual drunkenness which exists in these districts,
it is very hard to speak accurately. There are many other dis-
tricts where drunkenness is far worse. In certain vile tenements
here, as elsewhere, almost everybody, men, women, and older
children, are habitual drunkards. Very often the men are regu-
larly at work, but their evenings and earnings are spent in
saloons. It is safe to say that it will be the cheer of better
homes and the gymnastic and sporting features of playgrounds,
* Reynold's Housing of the Poor, page 22.
t" Inebriety," page 167.
JDr. T. D. Crothers, Walnut Lodge Hospital, Hartford, Conn.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 149
parks, and baths which will one day take the place of the warmth,
light, and companionship of the saloon.
CRIME IN THE HOMELESS, YARDLESS TENEMENTS
Section 4. Crime also is caused by the conditions which exist
in the worst tenement-houses. Bad hygienic conditions, evil
associations, and the collapse of home life produce criminals.
For the purpose of showing how bad conditions in Chicago really
are, these districts are by no means sufficiently representative of
the worst. The Italians, Jews, Poles, and Bohemians here lose
to criminality many children, but not in the same awful way as
their brothers and sisters in other portions of the city. The
effect upon these peoples in the First Ward, for instance, is most
pathetic. Coming to us ignorant, but honest and simple-minded,
they seek out the tenements whose rents have been lowered by
vicious inhabitants. Thousands of Jewish, Polish, and Italian
children are growing up in tenements inhabited by the wretchedly
poor, by drunkards, criminals, and immoral women. Almost
every word these growing children hear, and every action they
see, corrupts their minds and destroys forever their purity of
heart. No one who becomes a part of the life of these tene-
ments can escape their contaminated and corrupt atmosphere.
Let any one who doubts look into the demoralization of little
children going on along South Clark Street and Custom House
Place, Dearborn Street, Armour and Pacific Avenues from Harri-
son to Twenty-second Street. It was to just such places as these
that Dr. Elisha Harris referred when he said before the New
York legislative committee of 1866:* "The younger criminals
seem to come almost exclusively from the worst tenement-house
districts. When the riot occurred in 1863, every hiding place and
nursery of crime discovered itself by immediate and active par-
ticipation in the operations of the mob. Those very places and
domiciles, and all that are like them, are to-day nurseries of
crime, and of the vices and disorderly courses which lead to
crime. By far the largest part, eighty per cent at least, of the
crimes against property and against the person are perpetrated
by individuals who have either lost connection with home life or
* Jacob Riis' " How the Other Half Lives," page i.
15° TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
never had any, or whose homes have ceased to be sufficiently
separate, decent, and desirable to afford what are regarded as
ordinary wholesome influences of home and family." Although
written in 1866 this is applicable to Chicago to-day. Every state-
ment could be sustained by actual facts. The evil associations
in the worst tenements and the collapse of home life just spoken
of are reinforced as evil influences by the insanitary conditions.
For, as Dr. Frederick H. Wines says, in his recent book:* "In-
sanitary conditions, especially in the most crowded centers of
population, are a cause of crime, because they weaken the vital-
ity of those who might otherwise successfully contend against
these criminal tendencies."
In the districts investigated are present all of the influences
just mentioned. They are less patent perhaps than in a few other
places in Chicago. For instance, the collapse of home life,
because freer from contact with vicious surroundings, is here
seldom so complete as one finds it in the tenements in the
First Ward. When it does occur it is mainly due to industrial
reasons. For example, when the parents are both employed, or
are working long hours, their influence upon the children is very
slight, and they are left to range at will in the tenement and
street. This freedom can hardly be good for them, for in the
crowded quarters of the yardless tenement, the children suffer
manifold restrictions and are in contact with conditions, physical
and moral, which predispose them to criminality. Because of
these and other reasons the juvenile criminality of these districts
is enormous. Crowded in the tenements where the bedrooms are
small and often dark; where the living-room is also a kitchen,
laundry, and often a garment-making shop, are the growing chil-
dren whose bodies cry out for exercise and play. They are often
an irritant to the busy mother and likely as not the object of her
carping and scolding. The teeming tenements open their doors
and out into the dark passageways and courts, over the foul alleys
and upon broken sidewalks, flow ever-renewed streams of playing
children. Under the feet of passing horses, under the wheels of
passing street cars, jostled about by the pedestrian, driven on by
the policeman, threatened by the grocer, without rights any-
where, they annoy everyone. They crowd about the music or
*" Punishment and Reformation," page 275.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 151
drunken brawls in the saloons, they play hide-and-seek about the
garbage boxes, they "shoot craps" in the alleys, they seek always
and everywhere activity, movement, life.
This using the main open spaces as playgrounds is critically
called "the street habit." But both it and "the gang habit,"
are at first perfectly innocent and natural results of the crowded
tenements and of the universal necessity for play. In the failure
to satisfy this need of the children with properly equipped mu-
nicipal playgrounds, the street habit and the gang habit become
the causes of a large percentage of juvenile crime. Sneak thievery
and many other forms of vice and wickedness run their course
in these gangs of the tenements with the epidemic power. For
to contagious disease of all sorts tenements furnish the line of
the least resistance.
Now a healthy expression in play of the mental, physical, and
moral faculties of the children of the tenements is at present
almost impossible. In consequence they break windows, they
ring door-bells, they steal, they annoy everyone, they especially
rejoice in "making it warm" for the unpopular neighbor who
displeases them. Without the saving influence of an attractive
home or playground they obtain from street life the mental and
moral food they require. It impresses itself upon them and they
reproduce it all; gambling, drinking, the vaudeville, the fighting,
the torch-light processions, whatever they see, good or bad
alike, they imitate.
It is in this spirit of play that the children commit most of
their petty crimes. When one of them is caught stealing he is
brought to the juvenile court. He is taken away from father
and motV.er and the tenement and sent to the John Worthy
School, where he is put behind iron bars and uniformed guards
are placed over him, just as if he were a wild animal. And this
is often the innocent beginning of a life of crime. For the cause
of it all we must go back partly at least to the overcrowded, yard-
less, and homeless tenement. The boys become criminals because
it can almost be said that in these districts the only things to do
worthy of a boy's spirit are those things which are against the
law. At any rate the victim of overcrowding sees little differ-
ence between the laws which prevent him from "flipping" on and
off street cars or playing ball in the streets, and those which pro-
I52 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
hibit truancy, stealing, etc. He does see that whatever depends
upon bravado, which all boys love, is looked down upon by the
policeman. The causes of crime are many, but among the im-
portant ones are the evil association of the tenement, the bad
sanitary conditions, the collapse of home life, and lastly, the
yardless tenement itself.
SICKNESS AND INSANITARY CONDITIONS
Section 5. It is, however, in sickness and death that the tene-
ment-house evil exacts its chief tribute from the people. Always
and everywhere overcrowding, bad air, dark rooms, and other
insanitary conditions cause physical breakdown. The "Testi-
mony on the Evils of Overcrowding," Chapter III., Section i,
need not be repeated here"; but it will be recalled. The intimacy
of the people of tenement-houses makes the spread of disease
there almost unpreventable. Not necessarily of smallpox, which
receives extraordinary attention from the Board of Health, but of
tuberculosis, scarlet fever, and diseases of other kinds.
The dread contagion, tuberculosis, growing so fast in all large
cities, is in particular caused and fostered by the tenement-house
system. The relation of the tenement to this particular disease,
is becoming of great interest. Dr. S. A. Knopf, before the New
York Tenement-House Exhibition of 1900, in a very instructive
paper, said : *
"If I should be asked what conditions are most conducive to
the propagation of tuberculosis and especially pulmonary con-
sumption, I would have to reply, the conditions that prevail in
the old-fashioned tenement-houses as they still exist by the thou-
sand in this and other large cities. In these tenements there are
not only a far greater number of consumptives than in the same
area elsewhere, but the proportion is actually greater per number
of inhabitants. Thus they not only contain countless centers of
infection for old and young, and multiple foci of reinfection for
those already afflicted, but these dwellings with their bad air,
darkness, and filth make a cure of the disease impossible and a
lingering death for all those infected by the germ of tuberculosis
a certainty. If anyone thinks me an alarmist, let him glance at
* Pamphlet, "Tuberculosis in the Tenements," page i.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 153
the charts exhibited in this building. There he will see that
there are houses in which can be counted as many as twenty con-
secutive cases of tuberculosis during the last four years. This
number represents, however, only the cases reported to the Board
of Health. Now, you must not think for a moment that these
represent the actual number of cases of tuberculosis existing in
that particular tenement. They are only the ones where the dis-
ease had so far advanced that medical aid became imperative, a
physician had 1o be called in, and the case was reported. But
how many of the moderately advanced cases are made known to
either physician or Board of Health? I venture to say those not
reported are more numerous than the reported ones. They con-
stitute that class of pulmonary invalids who are still able to work,
and who imagine themselves to be suffering only from chronic
bronchitis, and the equally large number of children suffering
from tubercular manifestations other than pulmonary. To the
uninitiated it may sound like a paradox when I say that the
tubercular invalid who is still up and about, perhaps supporting
his family, is often the greatest danger to the community, to his
friends, his neighbors, and to those who may succeed him in the
tenement he lives in. It is this class of consumptives, which,
from either ignorance or carelessness, spread their disease broad-
cast by depositing their infectious sputum everywhere without
any regard to the danger."
But aside from contagious diseases, the insanitary conditions
of tenement-house life cause forms of debility and exhaustion.
Lord Shaftesbury said,* before the Lords Committee on Housing
that "the Board of Health instituted inquiries in the low neigh-
borhoods to see what was the amount of labor lost in the year,
not by illness, but by sheer exhaustion and inability to do work.
It was found that upon the lowest average every workman or
workwoman lost about twenty days in the year from simple
exhaustion, and the wages thus lost would go toward paying an
increased rent for a better house." That deterioration in health
which often does not figure in the death rates is perhaps the most
striking result of bad housing.
From the purely economic point of view the cost to working
people of insanitary dwellings is enormous. A sick rate would
* Report of Lords Committee on Housing, page 4.
154 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
be far more accurate than a death rate as a basis upon which to
judge the costs to the people of the tenement-house system.
Dr. E. R. L. Gould says:* "The economic value of sanitary
reform has never been fully appreciated. The loss to any nation
by allowing insanitary conditions to prevail is simply tremendous.
It is likewise twofold. There is in the first place a great waste
of productive power which might otherwise be utilized; and
secondly there is the expense of maintenance of hospitals and
pauper institutions, a large number of the inmates of which are
recruited through sickness caused by unhealthy living environ-
ment. "
In speaking of this subject it is safe to say that the experience
of all cities is more or less common. The cost of weariness and
various forms of sickness to the working people of Chicago is
doubtless greater than any estimate based on this investigation
would indicate. No inquiries were made concerning the sick-
ness which existed in the district; therefore, any conclusions
which could be drawn from the inquiry would be based upon the
observation of the enumerators and upon those complaints which
were offered voluntarily by the people. It is hardly worth while
to go into these data. It is safe to conclude that however much
or little sickness has resulted from the housing problem in the
past, its importance is slight compared with the increase which
invariably follows the growth of the double-decker.
DEATH RATES IN NEGLECTED DISTRICTSf
Section 6. It is well known that the published death rate in
Chicago is below that of other large cities, and this fact has in-
spired efforts to impeach the accuracy of the records of the
Health Department. So far as the present investigation has
dealt with this subject — quite incidentally — nothing, except the
fact that contrary to the practice of many cities no account is
taken of deaths occurring within twenty-four hours after birth,
has been found to justify the assertion that the Health Depart-
ment's vital statistics establish an unfairly low death rate for the
* Report of National Bureau of Labor on Housing, page 423.
fThe wards mentioned in this section are necessarily referred toby
their old numbers.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 155
whole city. It is, however, undoubtedly the fact that, perhaps
because of insufficient appropriation, the records of the local
health office are kept in a most antiquated way and afford very
meager information.
The Health Department of a large city performs one of the most
valuable functions of the governmental service. It has to do with
the life and death of a community. In its office are filed by law
all of the important facts concerning the cause of death, the age,
etc., of each decedent. It is particularly important for the wel-
fare of the community that none of these facts should be neg-
lected. Municipalities should require a perfect ordering of the
material collected and its classification in various forms fitted to
convey most successfully to the people a knowledge of the pre-
cautions which are necessary to save human life. In Chicago
deaths are recorded alphabetically and registered in huge volumes.
No other classification than this is observed. Such a method of
filing effectually buries an enormous accumulation of extremely
valuable material and makes it inaccessible even to those most
interested. For instance, to find the death rate in a particular
block or group of houses, is the work of weeks. The history of
deaths in particular houses is therefore totally lost, even to the
Health Commissioner. Charts and maps, so common in foreign
cities, showing the progress of diseases in particular localities
and their relation to bad housing and dwellings without sewerage,
with foul privies and low undrained lots, are absent from the
local records. There are houses in the districts investigated in
which a large number of deaths occurred last year, and blocks
where the death rate was as high as thirty-seven per thousand.
But at present such districts and blocks are unknown to the
Department. It is obvious that unless a system of cataloguing
is adopted in which deaths may be registered in several different
classifications, it will be impossible for Chicago to have such
information concerning its mortality statistics as will enable it to
deal effectively with local or neighborhood conditions.
In perfecting the local statistics it is also necessary to have
facts which only a census of the entire population can furnish.
For this reason it is of the greatest importance that the school
census should be taken as much for the benefit of the Department
of Health as for the Board of Education. For the use of the
I56 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Health Department, facts should be obtained concerning the
name, age, sex, race, and occupation of each person and the loca-
tion of his dwelling; that is, whether front or rear. Totals
should be made of these facts for each block in Chicago. If this
information were gathered and the records of the Health Depart-
ment made to conform, the vital statistics of Chicago would pass
beyond the stage of vague generalization and approach scientific
accuracy.
It is, however, necessary to say that students of vital
statistics have encountered great difficulty in reaching satisfac-
tory conclusions as to the degree to which any one cause is
responsible for death. But great advances might be made in
showing the relation between insanitary and bad housing condi-
tions and mortality rates if further progress were made along the
above lines in the collection of vital statistics. The difficulties
of the subject are so great that in the report of the New York
Tenement-House Commission of 1900 no attempt is made to draw
any definite conclusions from mortality statistics. How far bad
housing conditions contribute to the death rate is certainly a sub-
ject upon which no absolutely scientific deductions can be made.
The mortality rates of Chicago have long been collected and
published according to wards. This in itself makes it impossible
to show the relation of mortality rates to housing conditions,
because conditions may, and in fact do, vary widely in the same
ward. For instance, there is one ward in the city which has a
well to do and well housed population with a death rate of about
nine per thousand, a colored community with a death rate of
twenty-eight per thousand, and a death rate for the other resi-
dents of twelve. The mortality of the whole ward, when the
average is drawn, is low in spite of the high death rate among
the colored population. Ward death rates become in such cases
as this a generalization which conceals a high mortality in cer-
tain portions of the ward. In another ward there is a very
insanitary district, where the death rate may be in all probability
forty per thousand, but in a rural community adjoining in the
same ward the rate is doubtless not more than seven per thousand.
For the entire ward, therefore, the mortality may be about twenty-
three per thousand. What are the reasons for the difference in death
rates between the Eleventh Ward and the neighboring Eighteenth
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 157
Ward? The first has a death rate of 12.9 and the second one of
ninety per cent greater. To what is due this shocking difference?
There is no explanation given by the Department of Health.
Yet certain conclusions may be asserted with reasonable confi-
dence. Fifteen wards, eight of which border on the limits of the
city, have death rates not exceeding 12.76 per thousand; while
nine river wards have a mortality of from sixteen to twenty-three
per thousand. To what is this difference due? Why is it pos-
sible that nearly twice as many persons per thousand die in one
portion of the city as in another? In the river wards, which are
also, generally speaking, tenement wards, certain blocks covered
by this investigation had a death rate as high as 31.03 and 37.17
per thousand, and among the people in certain insanitary tene-
ments in these blocks there was a fearful mortality. Such a strik-
ing contrast between the mortality rates which exist in one part of
the city, where sanitary rules and regulations are observed, and
those of another part of the city, where the sanitary conditions
are abominable, would indicate very clearly that to a certain
extent the death rates differed because of the varying degrees
of sanitation. Death rates of a great city should be gathered for
the purpose of showing the difference which exists in various
portions of the city having the same characteristics (irrespective
of the local ward boundaries) so that the influences of drainage,
habitation, nationality, etc., upon mortality would appear. It is,
however, impossible with the facts now at hand, to explain the
causes of the difference in death rate in the various wards of
Chicago.
As the comparison between the various wards of the city may
result in erroneous notions, so the comparison of vital statistics
of Chicago with those of other cities is likely to result in inaccu-
racies. For example, the local death rate cannot be compared
with those of Southern cities. Such a comparison fosters a wrong
impression, because Chicago's death rate should naturally be
lower than those of Southern cities, since the colored people, who
make up so large a proportion of the population in the South,
have an enormous death rate. In order to compare the death
rate of Chicago with death rates elsewhere, it is necessary to
determine the mortality rate of the various nationalities, and the
death rate per thousand of all persons living in certain age
158 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
periods. Further reference will presently be made to these sub-
jects, but just here it may be suggested that the mortality rates
should be obtained for children under one year, for children
under five years, for persons between the ages of five and ten
years, and so on until the age limit is reached. Death rates
gathered in the various cities on such a basis could be compared
so as to avoid serious errors. There is another consideration
which invalidates comparisons between cities. Chicago's rate
is often compared with that of cities like Boston, which do
not include within their boundaries many surrounding districts
that are practically portions of the various municipalities. The
comparison of rates between this city and cities of that sort is
hardly justified. In Boston only the densest portion of a large
urban and suburban district is included in the city limits, while
Chicago includes in its boundaries many sparsely settled and
almost rural wards. A low death rate in these outlying districts
considerably lowers the average death rate of Chicago. If a true
comparison were made, Chicago would be compelled to drop out
several suburban wards where the death rate is extremely low.
Still, the question will be asked, Do conditions here urgently
demand reform? Chicago as a whole has fewer deaths per thou-
sand than the other great centers of population in the country;
is there, then, any pressing reason for remedying the conditions
which have been shown to exist by this Report? To such ques-
tions the answer is that there is every reason for reform. To be
sure, there are climatic influences here which, other things being
equal, will always tend to keep down the death rate; such are
the proximity of the city to a large body of fresh water, and
especially the searching south wind, which in hot weather con-
sumes animal and vegetable corruption and is even life-giving as
compared with the heavy humidity that in other localities satu-
rates the summer atmosphere. Besides this, Chicago has a large
population of Jews, among whom the death rate is low. A curious
illustration of this is found in a comparison of the vital statistics
of two of the river wards. In the old Seventh the death rate is
only 11.99 per thousand, while in the neighboring ward it is 45.9/6
higher. The sanitary conditions of both wards are as bad as
possible, but in the ward with a low death rate the Jews live.
The only known cause for the difference in death rate in these
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 159
two wards is the difference in nationality. There is still another
reason why the general death rate is materially reduced, and it lies
in the fact that any child not living to be twenty-four hours old is
not registered as having died. But despite all of these various
influences which are at work in keeping the death rate low, the
rate varies so enormously in different wards as to prove forcibly
the necessity for reform. The ill-housed people, — those living
in insanitary conditions, and those living in conditions most
unfavorable to life, — have such high death rates as to neces-
sitate on the part of public-spirited citizens an investigation into
the conditions in which they live. But even if the difference in
death rate were not great — and the death rate should not be the
only criterion by which to determine the welfare of a commu-
nity— there are other reasons for reform. The evils apparent in
Chicago tenement-house districts are prolific of misery, crime,
and moral degradation, to say nothing of disease in forms which
sap vitality without inducing death.
However, the tenement-house problem in Chicago is, in its
most important aspect, one of prevention, comparatively simple
if dealt with now, but full of danger for the future. For there is
a set of influences tending to lower the death rate here which
must in time be expected to disappear. For instance, the factor
of favorable age distribution may be but temporary. Chicago
has an enormous population between the ages of five and forty-
five years, at which time the death rate is extremely low.
A large proportion of this class are sturdy emigrants, and the
strongest and ablest of the young men and women from the farms
of this and neighboring states. When ill, especially with diseases
like consumption, the unmarried ones often return to their homes
to die. The vast population of Chicago (which, it must be re-
membered, has doubled in the last fifteen years) is perhaps, to a
greater extent than that of any other great city, made up of new-
comers who have been here a comparatively short time. They
are the first generation in the city and have excellent resistance
when placed in insanitary surroundings — resistance due to the
youth and strength and energy which are always found in the
mass of those who seek new homes. Is it to be doubted that this
vital advantage will steadily dwindle as time passes? Still another
thing which has kept the death rate "low is the condition of the
160 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
tenements in Chicago. In Manchester, England, the death rate
exceeds that of New York and the difference is largely due to
the fact that there are in the former city, which has very old
tenement districts, many houses fairly alive with germs accumu-
lated through generations, not to be long resisted by the hardiest
constitutions. And if the current tendencies in Chicago be not
checked, Manchester conditions will become Chicago condi-
tions. Tenement-houses in Chicago are still largely old, frame
buildings, affording a good quantity of light and air. As ground
becomes more valuable and the frame dwellings become unin-
habitable, they will surely be replaced more and more by the dark
and overcrowded double-decker, if this form of tenement is not
prohibited by law.
Such considerations as these emphasize the serious nature of
the problem with which the people of Chicago must deal. For
it is true to-day, and the truth if not dealt with now will grow in
significance as time passes, that to a very large extent, at least,
the people who die in neglected wards in excess of the natural
quota of deaths, die because of neglect. As William Farr, the
eminent student of vital statistics, said long ago: "If the people
were shot, drowned, burned, poisoned by strychnine, their deaths
would not be more unnatural than deaths wrought clandestinely
by disease in excess of the quota of natural deaths." *
* Vital Statistics, William Farr, page 148.
CHAPTER VIII.
CONCLUSION — A REVIEW OF REMEDIAL
EFFORTS
THE HOUSING PROBLEM AND THE LACK OF PREVENTIVE
MEASURES IN CHICAGO
Section i. Those who have read the foregoing chapters will
realize how many municipal problems are associated with that of
housing. The conditions presented in these pages represent
those in which the great majority of working people of low wages
are compelled to live. Two and even three tenements are placed
on certain lots, until either in this way or by entirely covering
the land with one house, it is made to yield maximum profits.
Under the faulty administration of the law, landlords can now
build dark rooms with impunity. Basements, dilapidated cot-
tages, tenements unfit for habitation, and houses with danger-
ously defective plumbing are used as dwellings. In addition to
these conditions directly connected with the dwellings, there is
great neglect of streets, alleys, and sidewalks, of garbage, etc.,
which result in disagreeable and unhealthful surroundings. Many
of these evils have long prevailed, but the worst of all is a new
one, the double-decker. Any foreshadowing of the future on
the basis of this inquiry must recognize the increase of this most
unwholesome form of tenement and suggest measures for its
prohibition.
Chicago has no intelligible, well-planned building and sanitary
code. Complicated and contradictory ordinances are common.
The laws concerning sanitation and the building of new tene-
ments are not classified and published in cheap form so that they
may be put to use by the residents of Settlements, the Visiting
Nurses, the Bureau of Charities, and others.* Representatives
from these various charities are constantly inspecting tenement-
*A11 the city ordinances are codified and printed down to 1897. The
Citv Homes Association has secured from the City Hall the codifying of
the Health arid Building Laws from that date to the present, and hopes very
soon to have them printed.
161
162 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
house premises and wishing to prevent and check insanitary con-
ditions. Without some ready method of referring to the statutes
and ordinances on building and sanitation, the public is quite
helpless either to assist the city departments or to learn how far
city officials enforce existing regulations.
Chicago is both uninformed and unprepared for the future.
The new evils of crowded areas, dark and overcrowded rooms,
lack of thorough ventilation, houses too dilapidated for use, and
many others, are not to be prevented or effectively restricted by
the present laws. To prevent these evils definite laws should be
enacted. At present the details of the sanitary construction of all
new buildings are left largely to the "discretion" of our Health
Department. It is easy to see in what a difficult position these
officials are placed. It would take a singularly brave and honest
department to force upon a landlord with political influence and
power a series of restrictions which are left for enforcement to
the "discretion" of the department. With present political
ideas it would never be "discreet" to enforce the very laws
which are now the ones most needed in Chicago. To leave
the control of the construction of all future dwellings to the
"discretion" of the Health Department, places upon it alone
the responsibility for deciding whether or not there will be
in twenty years a slum of double-deckers. In other words, if the
six hundred tenements built each year in Chicago are to be a
benefit instead of an injury to the city, there must be a compre-
hensive code of laws which will insure, if enforced, light, air, and
a sufficient amount of space to every human being. It is easier
to prevent than to reform. It is simpler and less expensive to
check in its infancy the anti-social tendency of certain classes of
property owners than it is to spend millions of dollars to destroy,
remodel, or renovate their insanitary property. The most im-
portant reason for an adequate code of laws is, that very great
preventive work is possible.
THE TREND OF ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION IN
OLDER CITIES
Section 2. Those cities which have suffered severely by the
tenement-house problem have all developed three lines in a pro-
tective policy. First, supervision and regulation of new tenement-
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 163
house building is planned so as to permit no new building which
will be injurious to the community. Second, tenements danger-
ous to health are demolished or altered and renovated. Third,
regular supervision and inspection of tenements is carried on for
the purpose of preventing conditions which endanger the public
health. Except for the second of these activities, Chicago has
already made a tentative beginning. But for some reason, perhaps
the lack of co-ordination in the activities of the various 'municipal
and state departments, many weaknesses exist in administrative
efforts.
Several different departments are depended upon for the
enforcement of the laws regarding tenement and lodging house
construction and regulation. The Building Department, the
State Factory Inspectors, the State Board of Health, the City
Board of Health, and the Bureau of Streets and Alleys, and
other official bodies now divide the responsibility. Each one of
these various departments is burdened with numberless other
duties and only a portion of its time can be given to the consider-
ation of tenement-house evils.
The French, with their remarkable gift for classifying and
systematizing all efforts, established in Paris several decades ago
a permanent commission of experts, including physicians, archi-
tects, and engineers, whose sole duty is the supervision of dwell-
ing-houses. Between the years 1872 and 1892 the Commission
des Logements Insalubres secured the alteration, improvement,
or destruction of fifteen thousand houses and in this manner
affected the lives of about a half a million people.* Paris
was first to see that the housing question was of sufficient
importance to require the services of a special commission
devoted to this "single feature of sanitary administration." The
London County Council has, after a certain fashion, followed
the leadership of Paris and appointed a committee on "Public
Health and Housing, "f This committee has taken a broad view
of the housing problem. It has seen that the question of furnish-
ing the people "room to live" is the most serious municipal prob-
lem of the century. It means the redistribution of a population
of over a million people. It involves the question of a cheap and
*Albert Shaw's Municipal Government in Europe, pages 90-92.
•[Shaw's Municipal Government in Great Britain, page 288.
164 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
quick suburban train service; the regulation of factories situated
in the central portions of the city, and the prevention of the old
evils arising within growing suburbs. In a word, the whole time
of that committee is given to the work of managing on large and
comprehensive lines the sanitary housing of London's population.
Your committee would recommend careful consideration of
these efforts to place upon a single responsible body the duties
of regulating the existing tenements, of controlling the new build-
ings, and of rationally grouping the population of Chicago.
There are really magnificent opportunities in this city for a com-
mittee with such powers. With architects and men of business
and science on such a board, we could look forward to what every
citizen wants, a healthy and well built city. The New York
Tenement-House Commission is now planning a body whose duties
will be extended even beyond the ones indicated here.* Their
plan makes the commission assume, so far as tenements are con-
cerned, the duties of the Health Department. There may be
objections to a plan of this sort, which will be seen upon a more
careful study, and at this time a consideration only of these
previous efforts is urged, as affording suggestions which may be
of great interest and value.
THE NEW LAWS MOST NECESSARY AND THE IMPORTANCE
OF REGULAR INSPECTION
Section 3. Quite outside of the question of administrative
reform, a few new laws are necessary to prevent the building of
harmful tenements and gradually to secure good types of tene-
ment-house construction. That this is most important should be
realized at once, for in 1895, 957 new tenements were constructed ;
in 1896, 562 tenements; in 1897, 531 tenements, and in 1898, 410
tenements. These facts illustrate what power the Health and
Building departments of Chicago could exert in preventing evils.
But plans of each of these 2,460 tenement buildings were inspected
by these departments before the tenements were constructed, and
yet this inquiry shows that of this number many tenements were
improperly constructed and insanitary. The main fault with
the present law is, that too much is left to the "discretion"
*See advance sheets of its report, page 38.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 165
of the officials. Chicago doubtless needs some additional legis-
lation on the subject of tenements. A limit should be placed
upon the proportion of land which may be covered by buildings,
and upon the height of tenements. Stringent requirements for
lighting and ventilating all habitable rooms are needed, since a
prevention of the further growth of dark and badly ventilated
rooms is most important. A law is needed which, in its logical
outcome, will restrict overcrowding.
Laws should provide for a certain number of cubic feet of air-
space for each individual. Perhaps the most successful method
now in use to prevent overcrowding of apartments is the one
established in many English cities. Some of the dwellings most
often found overcrowded are ticketed by the local authorities.
By this method a card or ticket is exhibited upon the tenement
showing that no more than a certain number of people are per-
mitted to dwell in it. It enables the inspector, when making an
investigation, to know exactly how many people should be per-
mitted to dwell in a particular tenement. A more thorough plan
of making certain that landlords obey the law is a plan for licens-
ing tenement-houses. This is being very generally urged in New
York City. By this method all tenements are made to pay a
yearly fee of a few dollars. If any of the sanitary laws are vio-
lated, then the licenses are revoked and the tenement-houses
closed. This plan has two great advantages. First, it assists
the city in its control, and second, if applied to all tenement-
houses, new and old, it supplies a sufficient fund to carry on the
work of an efficient corps of inspectors.
Perhaps the next most important matter is the necessity
for some authority to demolish dangerous tenements. In 1895
a law, which is in substance a section of the English Hous-
ing of the Working Classes Act of 1890, was passed in New
York.* In 1897, Mayor Quincy, of Boston, copied this New
York expropriation act. As Jacob Riis says in "A Ten Years'
War," page 72: "It provides for the seizure of buildings that are
dangerous to public health or unfit for human habitation, and
their destruction, upon proper proof, with compensation to the
owner on a sliding scale down to the point of entire unfitness,
when he is entitled to the value of the material in his house."
* See Charter Greater New York, Chapter 567, Section 7.
166 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
Many houses have been demolished in both cities under this law.
No compensation is given to owners, because it is held that the
owner of property unfit for habitation has no claim for damages.
If a new method of administration and a new and model code
of laws were obtained in Chicago, the city would be little advanced
beyond its present situation if inspection and enforcement were
wanting. In the administration of sanitary and housing laws for
the regulation of existing tenements, great improvement can be
made. Regular and frequent inspection of all tenements should
be undertaken. The inspectors employed at present are able to
do little more than report upon complaints. This, of course,
handicaps the department. It has been repeatedly said that laws
were not enforced. Some laws of vital importance to the public
health seem to be entirely ignored. In commenting upon the lack
of enforcement, it is not meant that the Board of Health or other
departments of the city government are entirely to blame.
Undoubtedly the number of inspectors should be enlarged in
order to enforce the laws now on our statute books. To be
sure, the work of inspection decreases when the public realizes
that there is a determination to enforce laws. It would be diffi-
cult, therefore, to say how many inspectors, clerks, and other
officials would be necessary to properly enforce the old and the
laws here proposed. It is, however, an economy to have a suffi-
cient force to execute the important duties of the Health and
Building departments, for, above all, in sanitary measures there
is economy in quick and heroic action.
THE NEED OF SMALL PARKS AND GARDENS
Section 4. There are other reforms necessary than those con-
cerning mere tenement-house construction and management.
The subject of open air-spaces in the crowded districts should
occupy a chapter by itself, as so much is to be said of vivid
interest on this topic.
The National Bureau of Labor* after its investigation seven
years ago made the statement that Chicago's tenement-house
districts have fewer yard spaces than similar districts in Phila-
* See page 96 of the Report of the National Bureau of Labor on Slums
of Great Cities.
168 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
delphia, New York, or Baltimore. This is so startling that it has
been doubted by many people, and it is to be regretted that the
present investigation could not thoroughly cover the whole sub-
ject for the city. However, there were no parks or playgrounds
in the districts covered to report upon, and there are very few
in the whole city.
What open spaces there are consist of little more than streets
and alleys, small yards, passages, and courts. A few vacant lots
exist, but they are not available for use by the public, and are,
in many cases, so low and damp and filled with rubbish that they
would be of little service if free to the use of the neighborhood.
In some parts of Chicago, populations with a density of from
three hundred to nearly five hundred persons per acre live with-
out a single open space near them, and on summer evenings the
people, leaning from the windows, sitting upon the steps, the
curb, and the wooden garbage boxes, and walking up and down
the streets in crowds, are proof enough of the need of small
accessible parks or "places." At present the only alternative
to walking about and sitting in these streets, which seems to
many of these incomers from cleaner foreign towns impossible
to bear, is a trip over car lines for miles to find a spot of open
garden. This, on account of the expense, is impossible to vast
numbers of these families with young children.
The utter absence of beauty in these districts is a condi-
tion almost as important as the sanitary and social sides of the
subject. In District i there are but fifty-eight trees. About the
same number exist in the Polish district, and only twenty-eight
were found in the Bohemian quarter. The accompanying print
illustrates the charm bestowed by even a few straggling willows
and poplars in districts otherwise unattractive and bare. There
were found but 266 small gardens for 2,117 dwellings. Most of
these were less than ten feet square.
Many large cities see the necessity of furnishing numerous
breathing-spaces in the heart of congested districts. The Ger-
man cities have done most in this direction. Berlin has nearly
one hundred open spaces within the city limits. Munich has
forty-two, Breslau thirty-six, and Hamburg fifty-seven. Paris
has about the same number of small parks as Berlin and has cut
wide tree-bordered boulevards through tenement quarters. Glas-
17° TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
gow, besides thirteen large parks, has fourteen small recreation
grounds. The London County Council has established over forty
of these small breathing-spaces.*
Mr. Roy Maltbie, in a monograph on Municipal Functions,
published by the Reform Club of New York, says that:f "The
first public open-air gymnasium in the world was maintained by
the City of Boston in one of its small parks known as the Charles
River Embankment. A more complete model playground for
children has been established at Philadelphia, and many other
playgrounds have recently been provided In New York
a number of the schoolhouses are used for playrooms during the
summer months. Boston has recently been presented with a
large and well-equipped indoor gymnasium in East Boston, which
is maintained by the Park Commission free to the public. The
London City Council has six open-air gymnasiums for adults and
twelve for children." In 1897, Philadelphia had thirty play-
grounds, besides the model one mentioned above. It is fast
being recognized by the older cities as a municipal duty to
provide overcrowded districts with as many small parks as possi-
ble, and to give the children of the tenements larger opportuni-
ties for development.
Much has also been done by private initiative. The Metro-
politan Public Gardens Association, formed in London in 1882,
has done an important work of this kind. It is purely a volun-
teer effort which has for its purpose the establishment of public
gardens and playgrounds. It has placed seats in roads and recre-
ation grounds and has planted trees in thoroughfares. It aids in
acquiring public spaces and prevents encroachments upon com-
mons, burial-grounds, and other open spaces. It also supports
out-of-door gymnasiums. In these and other ways, it has pro-
moted those species of common possessions which yield untold
benefit to the people. J
Contrast what has been done in other cities with what has
been done in Chicago, and with the fact that of the one hundred
thousand dollars appropriation recommended by the Special Parks
Commission last year, but ten thousand dollars was appropriated
* Municipal Affairs, December, 1898, page 107.
fSee same, page 108.
JSee Reports.
Q
Z
D
O
M
O
I73 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
for the purpose. A strong plea must be made to the ultimate
arbiter of civic necessities, the public, for the holding, while
there is yet time, of space enough all through the city to afford
all of our citizens their needed refreshment. The children of
the tenements need, as part of their education, a place to swim,
skate, play base-ball, foot-ball, and games of all sorts. Play-
grounds fully equipped with a competent instructor are of as
much educative importance in this day of the yardless tenement
as the schools themselves. They are a municipal necessity.
Could not the city economize its efforts and meet many needs
by ordering that space should be made for parks and playgrounds
near every schoolhouse? New York has passed a law providing
that every schoolhouse shall have a playground, and is now
forced to comply with it oftentimes by utilizing the roof. The
Chicago Board of Education, in the spring of 1900, passed a
resolution that in future school sites should have provision for
playgrounds. This indicates the attitude of the school board on
this subject, but as yet it is not law. Will not the city see that
this becomes law and that this necessity is assured? The imagi-
nation could then see not far in the future many forces operating
together for the welfare of the community. With the school itself
more and more discovering the real educative needs of the indi-
vidual, and with a well-equipped playground in every case, these
two necessities of work and of play thus properly provided for
would undoubtedly keep out of the juvenile court many of these
more innocent than guilty offenders. Then, with the school-
house, a public possession already provided, and this allotment
of public space, part of which could be park-like and suiting the
needs of the older population, could not permission be had to use
the schools for neighborhood centers? It seems that this pro-
vision cannot long withstand the growing attention given to it
on every side. The benefits of such a provision might be untold
and capable of infinite expansion.
PUBLIC BATHS SHOULD BE RECREATIVE AND EDUCATIONAL
Section 5. Next in importance to the open space movement
should be considered the active efforts which are being very
generally made for the establishment of public baths. Over a
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 173
hundred years ago Liverpool began the movement which has
spread with rapidity, especially during the last fifty years, not
only throughout all European and continental cities, but also to
most large cities of this country. London has over thirty public
baths. New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Baltimore,
and many other American cities have undertaken to satisfy this
pressing need. Boston has progressed far beyond the others.*
There are at present four free public baths in Chicago, and in
several of the pumping stations arrangements have been made
to give spray baths; but without under-estimating these efforts as
important beginnings, several new lines of development are essen-
tial for a rounded municipal scheme of public baths. Bathing
should be made more than a dull chore which is to be put off as
long as possible. Public baths should be places of recreation. To
satisfy this need, large swimming tanks, which no one is allowed
to enter without having first taken a spray bath, have been estab-
lished in this country and abroad. In these baths swimming
clubs are encouraged and competition between the clubs of the
various bathing establishments lend interest and spirit.
In several cities the swimming tanks are in use both summer
and winter, but in some cities the larger swimming pools are
floored over in the winter season and turned into a gymnasium.
One of the most beautiful baths in this country is in Brookline,
Massachusetts. The location of the new baths is the center of
population of the town, close to its principal playground and its
new high school. Systematic instruction is given on regularly
appointed days to three thousand school children. f
Educationally, the bath in the public school ranks with the
playgroui.d; sprays should be established in connection with
every public school where children can be taught to bathe prop-
erly and with regularity. It is said of the baths of this kind that
have already been established: "Teachers are unanimous in
asserting that school baths are beneficial, that they foster bodily
vigor, brighten the minds of the pupils, increase interest in study,
dispel laziness, improve the air of classrooms, and increase neat-
* See reports of the various cities, and Municipal Affairs, December,
1898, pp. 108-113.
t Report of Mayor's (New York) Special Committee on Baths, etc.,
page 63.
174 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
ness, cleanliness, decorousness, as well as the general health and
happiness of the pupil." *
Mr. William P. Gerhard, in a paper on this subject before the
American Social Science Association, says: "In all sections of
this country, as in most other civilized and progressive countries,
great attention is being paid to school sanitation. But though
much care is here devoted to lighting, ventilation, and heating,
to drainage and furniture in the schoolroom, comparatively
little attention has hitherto been paid to the requirements of bodily
cleanliness of the pupils. In the best modern schoolhouse, sani-
tarily planned, drained and ventilated, children are brought
together who may and often do carry on their bodies and in
their clothing the germs of infection. It was this very obser-
vation which compelled the hygienist, Professor Fluegge, of
Gottingen, after an examination of the healthful and clean
school interiors of his city, to exclaim, f 'Of what good are all
these modern sanitary arrangements when dirty children with
disease germs lurking on their bodies or their clothes are brought
into these healthful classrooms?' "
THE WORK OF SANITARY AND HOUSING ASSOCIATIONS
Section 6. Sanitary and housing associations have been
formed in many cities. A sanitary aid society, such as the
"Mansion House Council on Dwellings of the Poor in London,"
or the "Sanitary Aid Society of New York," would find a great
field for usefulness in Chicago. The purposes of these societies
are, first, to create and maintain public sentiment which will
support the health department in doing its whole duty; second,
to obtain necessary legislation ; third, to make special inquiries
and investigations, and fourth, to educate the public by any
means possible in the elementary principles of sanitation and
hygiene. The chapters preceding show what scope there is for
such societies. For a law enforcement organization, years of per-
sistent effort could be planned.
This is a most opportune moment to investigate certain evils
and the cost of reforms. Suggestions by private associations to
* Journal American Social Science Association, 1900, page 30.
t Journal of American Social Science Association, 1900, pp. 30-49.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 175
assist our city council to deal effectively and economically with
the garbage and street-cleaning problems, would be most valu-
able at this time. Plans for the regulation of certain trades asso-
ciated with tenement-houses should be submitted to the public
authorities. A carefully prepared building and sanitary code,
including some necessary new laws, would be of great value. In
its largest usefulness a sanitary aid society should not only under-
take investigations, but should also follow up all its inquiries
with practical remedial efforts. For instance, the "Social and
Sanitary Society of Edinburgh" has inspectors who are constantly
engaged in reporting sanitary and housing evils to the municipal
authorities. The London society has groups of inspectors in
every district of the city which make constant inspections for
the purpose of bringing to the various vestry boards instances of
sanitary neglect.
The most important private effort in the direction of provid-
ing remedies to actual evils is the work of the housing associ-
ations. Almost every large eastern or foreign city has examples
of model tenement construction. Such tenements have been built
by companies which are first purely commercial; second, com-
mercial with a tinge of philanthropy — that is to say, limiting their
income to a small dividend; and third, philanthropic, where the
surplus income is devoted to the extension of the work. Besides
these efforts, many large employers with commercial interests in
view, have furnished housing accommodations to their employes.
This movement has spread with considerable rapidity throughout
foreign cities. In London alone there are eleven large housing
corporations, with capital amounting to fifteen million dollars,
yielding an income of six hundred and eighty thousand dollars a
year.* In New York the Riverside Buildings pay six per cent.f
The New York Improved Dwelling Association pays five per cent
regularly. J In 1896 the City and Suburban Homes Association
was organized with a capital of one million dollars. Dr. E. R. L.
Gould, the president, states as the objects of this association :§
"To offer to capital a safe and permanent five per cent invest-
* Christian Social Union Leaflet II (London).
| See annual statements.
JSee annual reports.
§ Prospectus of the Association, page I.
I76 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
ment and at the same time to supply wage-earners with improved
wholesome houses at current rates." The association has made
an effort to remove the better paid wage-earners from the con-
gested districts of the city. The inner circle of all large cities
almost always has a pressure of overcrowding from many differ-
ent sources. It is next to impossible to remove various classes
of unskilled wage-workers. To build tenements in the central
portion of a city for skilled laborers or those drawing sufficient
wages to enable them to live out of the inner circle, is to add
more crowding to the already congested district. But the New
York association has also built tenements which would furnish
poorly paid laborers with sanitary homes situated in the down-
town areas. It is certainly most important that model tenements
which are designed to house the better paid wage-earners should
not be built in the inner circle of any city.
Efforts in model housing are too numerous to specify. Wash-
ington, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Boston, New York,
and almost every foreign city, have model housing companies.
Many more such companies would be formed probably, if it
were known that model tenement building had been in the past a
very safe investment. Dr. E. R. L. Gould said before the New
York Tenement-House Exhibition that,* "Upward of one hun-
dred millions of dollars have been invested in improved housing
in the largest European and American cities; and eighty-eight
per cent, that is, eighty-eight million dollars, is now earning and
always has earned a commercial profit. Six per cent, that is, six
millions of dollars, has returned a savings bank rate of interest,
and only six million dollars out of the whole one hundred million
dollars have been invested less profitably." The purposes of the
improved housing companies have varied. The largest effort has
gone in the direction of establishing model block dwellings with
little or no personal influence exercised by the builders. In cer-
tain cases, some of the worst and most insanitary pieces of prop-
erty have been bought by model housing companies. Following
this, some skilled person has been placed in charge for the pur-
pose of improving the condition of the tenants. Certain extremely
valuable results have been attained in this kind of work by Miss
Octavia Hill and Miss Victoria Cons, of London, and by Miss
*See "Charities," February 17, 1900, page 9.
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 177
Collins, of New York. These few people have at least demon-
strated that the foul and insanitary conditions which exist in the
worst tenements are not due alone to the habits and neglect of the
tenants. They have shown that the mass of tenement-house
property is very badly managed.
A most interesting suggestion in the way of tenement-house
reform is made by Mr. Lawrence Veiller, of New York, and is
illustrated by models and plans.* It contemplates the condem-
nation by the city of a whole block as a park, from which a strip
of land forty feet deep on each side should be sold to a private
company, who would erect model tenements, under certain
restrictions. "This," says Mr. Veiller, "seems the most hope-
ful plan ever suggested. The company paying for only forty
feet, and being permitted to occupy all of it, can pay a good price
and still make six to seven per cent. The land being only forty
feet in depth, the buildings would be only two rooms deep, and
it would not be possible to have any dark rooms. The city sell-
ing two-fifths of the land to this company, would certainly get
back two-fifths of the cost. As a matter of fact, it will get back
more, for they can sell the outside for more than the inside, so
that the city gets 120 by 400 feet of park land, and also gets
model tenements at the same time. There is no reason why this
could not be repeated all over the city of New York wherever
parks are needed. There are sixteen proposed parks which are
absolutely necessary at this time. Why should not this scheme
be put through? Why should not this work be begun by the city?
It would, of course, require special legislation, but it would be
the best, wisest, and happiest solution of the problem ever made. "
THE EXTENT OF REMEDIAL EFFORTS
Section 7. In conclusion, we see what varied municipal and
private activities are necessary in order to control the housing
conditions in large cities. The most serious reform question
before the people of New York and London is the tenement-house
problem. In both of these cities, the formation of a responsible
commission of experts to control the distribution of population
*See Report of Tenement- House Commission, 1900, page 64. Also
" Charities," February 24, 1000.
178 TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO
is perhaps the most thorough expression of the reform move-
ment. With or without a change of administration, there have
been in all cities a growing control and regulation by the city of
the new buildings and of existing structures. Carefully planned
building and sanitary codes, with the most explicit provisions for
the sanitary construction and the maintenance of all tenements
exist in the older cities. Along with the effort to control the
distribution of population goes a carefully planned scheme of
dispersing the people by means of workingmen's trains; or in
other words, by cheap, rapid, and convenient transportation.
In all cities the movement for open spaces and baths is spreading
in response to the belief that much of physical weakness, debil-
ity, and juvenile criminality are due to overcrowding. Many
foreign cities are undertaking the construction of model tene-
ments, and are themselves becoming the landlords of large num-
bers of working people.
It has been said for years that Chicago has no serious tene-
ment-house problem, that owing to its prairie location it is free
from the pressure which the Manhattan Island site has forced upon
New York, so that it presents the most crowded tenement-house
district in the world ; that Chicago has not the squalid conditions
of East London, which have grown up in three generations of city
poor, because the poorer people of this city are for the most part
European immigrants who in one generation, or at most two, grow
prosperous and move to the newer quarters of the city. It is
further added to this statement that Chicago conditions are
changing so rapidly that no one district becomes identified with
the hateful word "slum," and that whatever the problems may
be, they are all in the future. But it is surely true that a problem
which arouses reform activity so varied and energetic is not a
mere phantom.
The results of the foregoing investigation were a surprise to
the people most intimately acquainted with the districts, for
although each knew of shocking isolated cases, it was supposed
that these were exceptional. It must not be forgotten, however,
that the temptation to each individual owner to cover his entire
lot with buildings is as great in Chicago as in New Yorjc ; and
that there is a tendency on the part of the city to neglect those
wards which for the safety of the whole community most need its
TENEMENT CONDITIONS IN CHICAGO 179
care, and that ten years' residence in an insanitary house would
ruin the health of the sturdiest immigrant. This report warns
the people of Chicago that the city's location alone will not save
it, but that public opinion and legal enactment are essential if
Chicago is to escape the housing evils of New York and London.
A CHILD OF THE TENEMENTS
APPENDIX.
I
OTHER WORK OF THE COMMITTEE
Besides the inquiry showing the sanitary evils in representa-
tive portions of the city, the Committee for a time considered a
plan for undertaking a series of monographs on certain other
neglected districts in Chicago. The conditions of the Stock
Yards district and of South Chicago are of special interest in that
they show most abominable outside sanitary conditions. These
districts show evils which are really anachronisms, and it will
surprise many Chicagoans to know that the application of sani-
tary principles to the urban standards of health are so extremely
backward in these industrial communities. As a matter of inter-
est and not as a conclusive or exhaustive treatment of conditions
in these and other portions of Chicago, the following hastily pre-
pared report, giving a general view of the conditions on the
North and South sides, is inserted: "The worst district in South
Chicago lies between Eighty-third and Eighty-seventh streets and
between Ontario and Green Bay Avenue. The district is almost
entirely inhabited by Poles, and there are but few residents of
other nationalities. The general impression in walking through
this district is that there exists some crowding of people in the
houses, although the houses themselves are not crowded upon the
lots. The dwellings are almost entirely made of wood. Some
of them are dilapidated; all of them seem to be neglected.
The houses are built on piles or stilts. The water stands upon
the ground almost the entire year, which makes it dangerous for
people to live in basements. However, several families in this
district live in such apartments. The entire district lies in a
swamp, and the houses are built upon land which is about eight
feet below the city datum. In some places the sidewalks are
eight feet above the lots and the street. There is no sewerage,
unless that name is given to a system of gutters by which a cer-
181
182 APPENDIX
tain amount of sewage is carried off. There is usually an odor
from the foul waste matter which accumulates in these places.
The land is undrained and in some cases the water stands for
months under the houses and upon vacants lots. In certain
places there was a green scum upon the water which showed that
it had been standing stagnant for some time. There are no
water-closets and the outlawed privy vault is in general use.
The yards, streets, and alleys are indiscriminately used for the
disposal of all sorts of garbage and rubbish. Almost no garbage
boxes were found. None of the streets are paved, and the whole
district is filthy beyond description. The atmosphere of the
neighborhood is clouded with smoke and the district is ex-
tremely dreary, ugly, and unhealthful.
In the Stock Yards district there is no large area, such as the
one in South Chicago, where the conditions seem to be uniformly
bad. On Avenue there are some old rookeries and
some new little brick boxes raised on stilts, which will probably
be sold on some installment plan to the working people in that
vicinity. Many working people have bought, or have tried to
buy, these houses, but before they paid up the installments
the houses were in bad repair and wretchedly dilapidated. Very
often workmen have tried to buy them on the installment plan
and have lost them again and again. There is a long row of
houses on Avenue where the conditions are about the
same as stated above. Very few of the houses in this locality
are deficient in provision for light and ventilation, and none of
them seem to be overcrowded. The worst features are the
external conditions which surround the dwellings. In many
parts of the district there are no sewers and the sewage from the
houses stands in stagnant pools. The south branch of the Chi-
cago River is really a ditch which accumulates a great deal of
sewage from the stock yards, and fills the air with poisonous
odors. The stench from the stock yards is also present. The
district is overshadowed by heavy clouds of smoke from "the
yards."
Between La Salle and State Streets, all the way from Fortieth
Street up to Harrison Street, there are some exceedingly bad
housing conditions. Near Thirty-sixth Street and Armour
Avenue there is a portion of a block which is called "Hell's
APPENDIX 183
Half Acre." The houses are badly overcrowded with colored
people, and many of the rooms are dark. People live in cellars
and basements which are very near overflowing privies. The
alleys are dark and are strewn with garbage. The houses in this
particular portion are badly overcrowded on the lots. In many
other places in this portion of the city down to Twenty-sixth
Street are either old dilapidated frame houses or large tenements.
Many rear houses exist, and they are usually overcrowded and in
bad condition. North of Twenty-second Street, there are many
large tenements. One block is almost entirely covered with
double-deckers from three to five stories high. There is no alley
in this block, and at the rear of the double-deckers there is a
small space which is altogether insufficient to provide light and
ventilation.
In the Italian quarter there are several large tenements hous-
ing hundreds of people. The most dilapidated houses in the city
probably exist on Pacific Avenue. Rows of houses in this part
of the city should be demolished. There is a group of double-
deckers on Pacific Avenue just north of Polk which completely
covers five lots. The place is overcrowded with tenants and
almost half of the rooms are dark and unfit for habitation. Water-
closets are in a hallway on the lower floor of the house. There
is a fearful stench arising from them at all times. The tenants
complain bitterly, both of the odor and of their location.
These tenements are as bad as any elsewhere in this country or
abroad. While this, as a whole, cannot be taken as even a super-
ficial statement of the evils existing in this part of the city, it is
suggestive of the need of a more complete inquiry.
On the North Side there are several places worthy of note.
On the northwest corner of and streets, there
are five or six tenements of four and five stories in height which
are built very closely together. The light and ventilation of the
houses are exceedingly bad, and the Italians who dwell there are
overcrowded in the rooms. At Indiana Street, there are
several brick tenements of three and four stories high. The
houses are crowded on the lots. At one place in this group of
tenements the only open space is a deep four-story shaft, or
court, which is mainly used for the purpose of inclosing water-
closets. Looking from the top story of these tenements to the
184 APPENDIX
bottom of the court, and seeing the children and mothers with
babies in their arms walking back and forth in this small
breathing-space, is a forceful reminder of New York conditions.
Much of the area lying between Franklin Street on the east, Erie
on the north, and Chicago River on the west and south, is
covered with insanitary tenements. On Court and
Street, near Chicago Avenue, there are two long blocks
where the houses are closely crowded on the lots. Almost every
house has a basement, and all the lower rooms seem to be occu-
pied. There is plenty of evidence to show that there is both
overcrowding on the lots and overcrowding in the houses."
II
HISTORICAL, DESCRIPTIVE, AND ECONOMIC FEATURES OF THE
DISTRICTS
The three districts investigated might be roughly taken to
include nearly all of the Italian quarter in the Nineteenth Ward,
a large portion of the Jewish Ghetto, a small part of the Bohemian
quarter, and a small portion of the Polish colony in the Sixteenth
Ward. Many other nationalities, however, are represented in
these districts. There are quite a large number of Germans,
Irish, and Bohemians in various parts of the Italian and Jewish
colonies. Scattered here and there are some Greeks and Austri-
ans. It is true here as in most cities that the Italian and Jewish
immigrants seek out the poorest and most neglected districts of
the city in order to obtain the advantages of a low rental. For
this reason and the necessity of both of these peoples living in
the inner circle of our American cities, they have chosen to reside
in what has been called in this report District i. It is one of the
oldest parts of Chicago, and lies in the inner circle, within a short
distance of the central business portions of the West and South
sides. Real estate has been declining for several years in this
locality. Before the great fire of 1871, which started in Block
15, one of the notoriously crowded blocks, this district was
largely populated by Americans, Irish, and Bohemians. Immedi-
ately after the great fire this district was covered over with small
frame and brick houses. But about the time the Jews and Ital-
APPENDIX
'85
ians began to move in, the better class of inhabitants were begin-
ning to move away and leave their houses in a more or less
dilapidated state. Almost no improvements, except the question-
able ones of enlarging and covering more of the ground space
with tenements, have been undertaken since the immigrants have
chosen this district for their homes.
The rents of the apartments in the districts investigated were
not gathered on the general schedules, but in the special investi-
gation of apartments it was possible to learn the rents of 420 differ-
ent apartments. In the Jewish district 27 families paid for their
apartments over $10 a month, 23 families paid from $8 to $10,
and 22 families paid under $6 per month. The average rent paid
per apartment per month was $8. 28, and the average per room was
$2.12. The rents in the Italian colony are considerably lower
than those in the Ghetto. Only one Italian family paid over $10
per month for rent; 7 paid between $8 and $10; 30 between $6
and $8; 88 between $4 and $6, and 26 families paid under $4.
The average rent per apartment in the Italian district was $4.92,
while the average rent per room per month was $1.78. The
houses in the Italian quarter are more dilapidated than those in
the Ghetto, which accounts for some of the differences.
The following is a tabular statement of the above and addi-
tional facts:
TABLE OF RENTS
District.
Classification of Rents Paid.
Average Rent.
$10 or
over.
$8 to
$10.
$6 to
$8.
$4 to
JS6.
Under
$4-
Per
Apt.
Per
Room.
Italian .
I
27
2
2
7
23
18
2
2
3°
22
41
18
22
88
12
36
17
10
26
2
3
7
2
$4-92
8.28
6.24
5.66
5-93
$1.78
2.12
2.O4
I.4O
1.64
Jewish.
Between Jewish and Italian
District 2, Polish
District 3, Bohemian -
The value of tenement-house property depends, of course,
upon the rents. But land in parts of District i is worth little,
if any, more than it was twenty-five years ago. It is worth less
than it was seven years ago. A place on Ewing Street for which
$17,000 was offered in 1893 can now be bought for less than
1 86
APPENDIX
$10,000. A vacant lot of 25 feet in width on Jefferson Street
was sold eighteen years ago for $2,500; it was bought back
recently by the former owner for $1,800. Property on the busi-
ness streets, such as Halsted, Twelfth, and Canal, is much more
valuable.
Many non-resident landlords own vacant lots and some tene-
ment-house property, all of which are permitted to be in a most
wretched state of neglect, mainly because they are holding the
property until it can be sold to advantage. In this district
44 factories, 116 stores, and 731 other places of business were
found. Many of these were cigar and tailor shops. Some were
saloons, but the mass were the small shops of Jewish and Italian
grocers, etc.
The following table shows the number of stores, factories,
and shops in the three districts investigated. The majority of
all businesses, as should be expected, is in District i. There were
33 tailor and cigar shops which are also used as living apart-
ments. In several places it was found that apartments were
partitioned off in the rear of saloons, groceries, and other stores.
Most of the provision stores and clothing establishments of one
kind and another were found on Twelfth Street, on Jefferson,
and on Halsted.
STORES, FACTORIES, AND SHOPS
District.
Exclusively Used as
Tailor and Cigar Shops
All Other
Shops.
Stores.
Factories.
Lived in.
Not Lived in.
District i
116
12
7
44
5
21
33
4
7
93
26
43
605
131
174
District 2
District 3
Total
135
70
44
162
QIO
District 2, or the Polish district, lies in the Sixteenth Ward.
The workers are nearly all unskilled, but are thrifty and indus-
trious. The business interests of the district are small, and it
will be seen in the foregoing table that very few businesses were
found in the districts investigated. There are, however, a few
APPENDIX 187
stores bordering on Milwaukee Avenue and quite a number of
tailorshops. The houses are nearly all owned by the Polish
people, and the owners in most cases live in their own tenement-
houses. There were very few pieces of property for sale, and
only 24 "for sale" cards were found. The Polish people are
content, of course, to hold this property as long as residents of
their nationality predominate. The majority of tenants, as will
be seen in the foregoing table, pay for their apartments between
$4 and $8 per month. The average rent per apartment is $5.66;
the average rent per room, $1.40. It is significant to note that
while the average rent per apartment is larger in this district
than in the Italian district, the average rent per room is less,
showing, of course, that the Poles receive, after all, more for their
money.
District 3, or the Bohemian district, lies near Eighteenth
Street and Blue Island Avenue. There are a large number of
tailoring shops and other factories in the district. The few
stores enumerated are on Blue Island Avenue. This district is
rather more prosperous than the other two. But many Bohe-
mians live in very poor homes. The rents for this district are very
nearly the same as those in the Polish district. The majority of
residents pay between $4 and $8 per month for rent. The aver-
age rental per apartment is $5.93, and per room $1.64.
The housing conditions in Districts 2 and 3 are in many ways
quite different from those in District i. The houses are larger.
They are built of brick and frequently cover a very large per-
centage of the lot. It is not uncommon in either district to see
a two and three story brick tenement covering the entire depth
of the lot. In a block without an alley in the Bohemian dis-
trict there are occasionally three-story tenements running solidly
through from street to street. Over half of the front houses in
these districts are of 3 stories in height and 63. 7 per cent are of
either 3, 4, or 5 stories in height. The majority of rear tene-
ments in this district are of two stories, although three-story
brick tenements are frequent. More evidence of the new housing
problem and of the excessive greed of landlords is exhibited in
the Bohemian and Polish quarters than in District i. But there
are no tenements in either Districts 2 or 3 which will equal in
size or viciousness several large double-deckers in District i.
1 88
APPENDIX
The mass of tenements in both the Bohemian and Polish districts
are more often reprehensible.
The statement in regard to conditions in these districts would
not be complete without some facts regarding saloons. The
following table will show the statistics on this subject:
RATIO OF SALOONS TO POPULATION
No. of
Sa-
loons.
No. of
Individ-
uals.
Ratio.
No. of
Fami-
lies.
Ratio.
Italian District north of Twelfth Street,
Blocks I to 24
c6
Id. ^60
2C6.4.
3,108
ee c
Jewish District south of Twelfth Street,
Blocks 25 to 44
24.
10.4.^2
A^.?
2,o6o
858
Polish District, Blocks 45 to 54
46
11.821;
-3QO i\
2,716
CQ
Bohemian District, Blocks 55 to 63, in-
clusive
•3Q
7,006
2H.IJ
I.C4.4.
ei.4.
Totals
156
4^.64^
2Q1.2
0,4.28
6o.4
This table shows the number of saloons in proportion to the
population. It will be seen that the largest number of saloons in
proportion to the population is in the Bohemian district. There
is, however, very little difference between the ratio in the Italian
district and that in the Bohemian. The lowest ratio, as expected,
is in the Jewish district. The saloons, however, in these districts
are not out of proportion. In Chicago as a whole the ratio of
saloons to population is one saloon for every two hundred and
sixty-two persons. Therefore, the averages here are about the
same as those existing in the city at large. The following small
towns with a population about the same as that of this district
have many more saloons, for instance Yonkers, New York, has
222 saloons; Waterbury, Connecticut, 193; Fort Wayne, Indiana,
160; Youngstown, Ohio, 179; Covington, Kentucky, 201, and
Galveston, Texas, which has a population of 8,000 less persons
than are found in these districts, has 317 saloons.
In the investigation of the Commissioner of Labor in 1894
into the number of saloons per person in Chicago as a whole, it
was found that there was one saloon to every 212 persons. While in
the investigation of the slum district of the First Ward, there was
APPENDIX 189
one saloon to every 127 persons. This shows quite clearly that the
conditions in these districts are fairly good compared with those
elsewhere. It is safe to conclude, what is after all an old obser-
vation, that the people in these districts are for the most part
sober and law-abiding citizens.
Ill
STATISTICS ON THE CONSTRUCTION AND THE SIZE
OF HOUSES
MATERIAL OF HOUSES
The following table shows that half of all houses investigated
were frame houses. The percentage runs much higher than this
when only the rear tenements are considered. In District 2 the
percentage is much smaller. This is of course what should be
expected from the studies made in the main body of the report.
The old frame cottages and two-story frame houses have been
moved to the rear of the lot. This is especially true in District
i, which is the oldest of the three districts investigated. The
Polish and Bohemian districts have, as will be seen, a large num-
ber and percentage of brick houses. But that there is a growing
number of brick tenements in District i is shown by the fact that
at present one-third of all the front houses are of brick. There
are not many houses of combined brick and frame. The photo-
graph on page 35 will show a common type of this kind of house.
Very often a frame cottage will be raised upon a basement story
of brick. The reconstruction makes a tenement-house of either
two or four apartments. In District i, where this type of house
is most common, we see that one in every nine houses is con-
structed of this material.
190
APPENDIX
MATERIAL OF HOUSES BY DISTRICTS
Com-
Frame.
Brick.
bination
Brickand
Loca-
tion.
Frame.
Per
Cent.
Total.
Num-
Per
Num-
Per
Num-
ber.
Cent.
ber.
Cent.
ber.
District i- j
Front --
Rear .:
8l5
329
54.6 I 5O2
79-9 ! 57
33-7
H
175
26
II.7
6.1
I.4Q2
412
District 2- \
Front --
Rear ..
'8
167
34-9
70.5
279
53
52.7
22.3
65
17
12.4
7.2
529
237
District 3. j
Front --
Rear .
74
39
20.5
48.1
266
28
73-6
34-6
21
H
5-9
17-3
361
81
Total
i,6og
5i-7
1,185
38
318
10.2
3,112
The tables and diagrams following show all of the front and
rear dwellings classified according to the number of stories. As
will be seen, the majority of front houses- in District i are of two
stories. This is also true of the rear houses in this district. A
considerable percentage, however, of all front houses are three
stories in height. A small percentage of front dwellings are four
and five stories in height. In District 2 the conditions are some-
what different. There are more three-story houses and more four
and five story tenements. In District 3 the conditions are con-
siderably different from those in the other two districts. Over
half of all the front houses are of three stories and one house in
every ten is of four stories in height. What is true of this district
is also true of all the others, namely, that the largest number of
rear tenements are of two stories in height. The tables show
that half of all dwellings are of two stories. It also shows
that there are almost as many houses of three, four, and five
stories as there are of one story.
I
APPENDIX
191
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II?
District i - - .. -
North of Twelfth Street-
District i
South of Twelfth Street
District 2 j
Districts — j
TJ
192
APPENDIX
CLASSIFICATION OF DWELLINGS ACCORDING TO STORIES
DISTINGUISHING FRONT AND REAR HOUSES
DISTRICT I, NORTH OF TWELFTH STREET
Front. 3
Rear.
DISTRICT I. SOUTH OF TWELFTH STREET
54-1*
35-6^
DISTRICT 2
34-9^
Rear.
42.5*
Front.
APPENDIX
DISTRICT 3
51.5$ Rear.
'93
Total front and rear. 3
2
52.1*
The following table shows that in District i about one-third of
all rear houses are one story and are built of frame. Only about
one in ten of the front houses are one-story frame buildings.
We see that one-story frame dwellings are about 14.95 Per cent
of all dwellings. This is a larger percentage than exists in either
of the other two districts. In all three districts, one-story frame
dwellings are most common as rear houses. There are, however,
only 11.64 Per cent of one-story frame dwellings in the districts.
The smallest percentage, the table shows, is in the Bohemian
district. It is quite common, as will have been noticed in the
photographs, to find these little one-story cottages sprinkled
throughout Districts 2 and 3. It would, however, be wrong to
assume that these little cottages are at present the dwelling-houses
of single families. Many times they have been partitioned off
and two families, one in the front and one in the rear, occupy the
little cottage. Too frequently it happens that three families
have been crowded into the area which was frequently used by
one family.
i94
APPENDIX
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APPENDIX
IV
'95
STATISTICS OF POPULATION, OCCUPATION BY NATIONAL-
ITIES, ETC.
STATISTICS OF POPULATION
Block No.
Adults.
Children.
Total.
Families.
I
Sl6
442
Qc8
212
2
-3QO
2^8
^38
1 12
•3
170
171
•314
77
4
IQO
I4C,
3Qi:
72
5
408
380
884
2O2
6
764
•^o^
665
148
7
•3Q1
248
CC2
1 14
8
j^4
163
183
->->t
346
7S
* "J
611
^2^
1,134
232
10
182
iw
337
71
ii
2O7
s
16^
372
88
12
1 80
1 68
348
72
IT
SO7
44 $
oC2
loo
14
228
160
388
08
1C
373
•^06
670
I 70
16
172
I4o
321
64
iy
828
'fV
67^
I SOI
-3-37
18
274
223
4Q7
116
IQ
244
232
476
1 13
2O - -
IQI
237
428
QO
21
428
2QQ
727
ISS
22
aOC
28;
rQQ
I3O
23
214
2Q^
c;o7
OQ
24
218
26s
483
QT.
2C
1 86
IIQ
2QO
68
26":::""
284
266
SSO
in
27
i IQ
141
33
260
S4
28
ISO
216
37S
60
2O
121
IO?
226
47
•3Q
2O6
212
418
IO3
O -
31
224
342
566
I O2
•32
1 20
IQ7
322
63
•3-3
y
116
118
234
47
•3.4.
41 1
c;o2
QI3
181
^1
2^^
176
4OQ
84
J5~
^6
^JJ
61^
led
I,O72
200
•37
2IQ
^^
SS4
1 06
38
mi
22$
•^f
376
65
^o
2'3,I
241
472
88
40
•^
342
607
136
41 --
386
C1I
917
178
42
1 70
138
314
58
4^
447
3l8
76s
161
44
2g8
4I1;
713
128
45 _
616
519
1,135
227
46-..
614
r-QQ
SOO
i, 202
230
196 APPENDIX
STATISTICS OF POPULATION — CONTINUED
Block No.
Adults.
Children.
Total.
Families.
ATI
co2
680
1,182
228
48 -
676
484
1,160
2^6
AQ
7Q-2
Ij023
1,816
•J72
co
078
1, 7 lO
2,^27
4^2
Ci
V/"
760
8-^2
»j /
1,601
u,-,*
^16
j
C2
"U8
767
I "^K
2^Q
C-I
478
406
O7Q
187
CA
C4C
568
I 11^
22O
ee
2 1O
1 20
^U
8q
11"
coy
4.74.
I. cm
2IO
$7
m8
424
042
2O4
58
31U
2O7
I7O
446
IOI
Co
coo
SlQ
I.IOO
2^^
?V
60
C7Q
•^84
^i'^y
QO^
2IQ
61
82
^8
I2O
26
62
J.-5Q
Vtt
781
61..
CQ2
66^
/"J
I.20I
28d
TOTALS
Population.
Families.
District I north of Twelfth Street, Blocks i to 24.
District I south of Twelfth Street
14,360
IO.4^2
3,108
2,o6o
District i, total
24 812
5 168
District 2_ ._.
n, 821-
2,716
District 3
7 006
I ^44
Total oi LI 'istricts
AC. f)AT,
o 428
OCCUPATIONS BY NATIONALITIES
Occupations.
Italian.
Jewish.
Bohe-
mian.
Polish.
All
Others.
Unskilled:
Laborers-
I30
3
6
42
27
4
Paper-sellers
Scrub-woman __ -
I
I
2
I
Express and teaming
2
2O
I
3
I
Janitors - 1 ..__
i
Peddlers--
Fruit-venders
Bootblacks -
2
Iceman
I
2
Rag-pickers
I
Totals .
117
12
AC
28
o
APPENDIX
197
OCCUPATIONS BY NATIONALITIES — CONTINUED
Occupations.
Italian.
Jewish.
Bohe-
mian.
Polish.
All
Others.
Skilled:
Cook -
Waiter
j
Bakers
0
I
Machinists
Q
2
A
Blacksmiths
Tinsmith
I
Printers
I
2
Bookbinders - -
2
Masons
I
2
Carpenters
I
8
\
2
Shoemakers
I
7
2
Tailors
T
27
21
Barbers
A
2
4
Butchers
2
I
Jeweler -
I
Cigarmakers -
A
2
Firemen _
j
j
Sailor - _
I
Coopers
I
j
\Veaver
I
Electricians
^
Whitewasher
I
Upholsterer -
I
Painters
I
I
Plumbers
2
Conductor -
I
Totals, skilled
16
=;6
60
18
16
Commercial:
Storekeepers
C
17
-3
j
2
Saloonkeepers -
2
•J
Bartender
I
Clerks
A
2
Horse-dealer -
I
Junk-dealers
I
I
Totals
7
24
8
i
•j
Special:
Rabbi
I
Teachers
6
Owners, retired-
I
I
2
i
2
Midwife -
I
Totals, soecial .
I
8
2
i
•}
198
APPENDIX
SUMMARY
Italian.
Jewish.
Bohe-
mian.
Polish.
All
Others.
Unskilled
IV7
T/2
A.S
28
Skilled
J£
16
r6
£
18
16
Commercial and special
8
32
IO
2
6
Per cent unskilled
85
26 7
-in I
;8i
2o
Per cent skilled
10
466
C2 2
V7 1;
C T C
Per cent commercial and special -
e
26 7
87
d 2
TO A
Totals
IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO
IOO
OCCUPATIONS AND NATIONALITIES
PROPORTION OF CERTAIN NATIONALITIES IN THE THREE MAIN GROUPS
OF OCCUPATIONS AS FOUND IN 475 CASES IN DISTRICT I
Italians.
Jews.
26.7$
46.6$
39-1*
Bohemians.
58.3^
37-5^
Poles.
All others.
194$
Unskilled.
Skilled.
Commercial and Special.
APPENDIX 199
It will be seen in the above tables and diagrams that the mass
of Italians are unskilled. Their occupations are usually street
work or various other kinds of shoveling or heavy lifting. They
have usually come from the rural districts of Southern Italy, and
when they arrive in this country they are handicapped by their
inability to speak the language and by their lack of general edu-
cation. They come quickly under the leadership of one of their
own nationality who is generally able to obtain for them work
from the railroads or the city.
The Jews are peddlers and tailors. Quite a number are
store-keepers, but a few do unskilled work. A great number
of Bohemians are tailors and skilled in other trades. The Poles,
like the Italians, are most often common laborers. The largest
number of Bohemians are skilled and the largest number of Jews
are store-keepers. The Poles and Bohemians are usually more
thrifty and hard-working than the Italians, and Jews have
these qualities more pronounced than either of the former.
V
MISCELLANEOUS
THE IMPORTANCE OF DRY SOIL
The sanitary importance of dry soil is not generally realized.
Land which has been made or built up in a swamp is apt to be
dangerous to health, unless by some artificial method it is pre-
pared to drain off water and the various other fluid accumula-
tions. Where the population is exceedingly dense and where the
waste slops of the population and the contents of the privy vaults
are not properly cared for, the results are perhaps more danger-
ous to health than those of any other outside insanitary condition.
Dampness, as has been shown elsewhere, is the cause of many
forms of sickness. Lung diseases and rheumatism are particu-
larly associated with dampness of the soil. A very large number
of houses in all three of the districts have been built upon low
land and made soil. In order that such a house may be sanitary
it is very necessary that the whole area on which the house is
built should be covered with a thick layer of some kind of con-
crete or cement. Damp courses also should be made to run
200 APPENDIX
about the walks. These may be of asphalt or slate imbedded in
concrete. Very few houses in the districts investigated have
been built with any provisions for preventing insanitary evils
resulting from the wet soil. In the three districts investigated
there were 1,017 lots which were from two to six feet below the
level of the sidewalk adjoining; 1,654 lots were at least two feet
below the level of the street adjoining. Only 603 lots in the
three districts were above or on a level with the street. This
shows a most extensive prevalence of bad conditions resulting
from a low land. Mr. Charles F. Wingate, a specialist on the
sanitary construction of houses, says in an article on that subject
published in the Municipal Affairs: "One of the most potent
things which affect health is dampness. Manhattan Island is
largely covered with rock, whose fissures collect and retain moist-
ure. Much of the water front is filled in soil, and there are
large sections of made land. Many natural water-courses have
never been properly drained, and saturate the soil with moisture.
To these combined influences we may ascribe much of the mor-
tality from consumption and kindred diseases, which will certainly
continue until the subsoil is drained and made dry, or the law
now on the statute books which requires all tenement cellars to
have an impervious flooring is strictly enforced. I consider the
influence of soil dampness far more potent and insidious than
the influence of bad plumbing, and therefore regard these forms
as of vital importance."
Many outside insanitary conditions will appear, in the light
of the foregoing, to be of more importance than they would
otherwise be considered; 738 lots covered in this investigation
in District i were not drained to the sewer; 781 cellars had no
kind of drainage. These conditions, of course, accentuate
the evils of the soil saturated with moisture. In parts of the
districts investigated it was also true that the land was so low the
sewer pipes were unable to be laid so that there was a sufficient
fall and flow. In consequence, during certain seasons of the year
the sewage backed up in the pipes and endangered the lives of
the many thousand people living in these portions of the city. In
fact, all drainage and sewer pipes are made more dangerous by
the conditions which prevail in a district where the soil is wet
and low.
APPENDIX 201
FIRE ESCAPES
Almost no attention has been given in this report to the ex-
ceedingly important question of fire escapes and fire construction.
There were almost no fire escapes reported, and there are many
violations existing in all three of the districts of the laws on that
subject. The law in Chicago requires that all tenements over
three stories in height are to have fire escapes and standpipes.
But only eight fire escapes were reported by the enumerators.
Our laws on fire construction are exceedingly defective. It
depends largely upon the Building Department whether or not
there is any construction in tenement-houses which will prevent
dangerous fires. By law the partitions between apartments are
to be made entirely of incombustible material. In tenements less
than five stories high the light shafts may be made of combustible
material. In other cases the light shafts are to be made from
incombustible material. Our laws are decidedly inadequate as
compared to those of New York and other cities. The writer
recently in looking at a tenement housing a very large number
of people saw that the fire escapes were covered with boxes and
barrels, and if a fire had occurred, the fire escapes would have
been useless. There is no law to prevent incumbrances such as
those spoken of. Enormous improvements can and should be
made in our laws and in the enforcement of the laws which we
already have.
There are hundreds of tenements in Chicago which are veri-
table fire-traps. Tenements housing five or six families and built
solely of frame are frequently found in District i. The writer
has one in mind in which the most dangerous conditions prevail.
There is a bakery in the basement where doughnuts are boiled
in fat. By the merest slip the fat may drop into the fire and the
whole tenement go up in a furious conflagration. Thousands of
lives are endangered night and day by reason of the extremely
faulty construction and the methods of escape which are now
provided. Many terrible fires in tenement-houses have already
occurred, and it is only a matter of time until some horrible and
cruel disaster will awaken Chicago to the need of radical reform
in this line.
202 APPENDIX
THE SCHEDULES
The data gathered by the investigation was systematized and
returned on the following schedules:
The purpose of Lot Card "B" was to obtain all facts regard-
ing certain inside and outside sanitary conditions in and about
all dwellings. Questions regarding the condition of the side-
walks, garbage boxes, and stables were gathered upon this
schedule. Facts regarding the material and condition of each
dwelling were placed in the section which have portions allotted
for the front, middle, and rear house. On the back of this same
schedule is a plumbing card. Information was gathered con-
cerning the sanitary condition of all plumbing in all dwellings.
Apartment Card "C" was used in investigating certain apart-
ments thought to have bad inside sanitary conditions. By this
means it was determined whether or not the cellar or base-
ment had good floor material, was water-tight, and whether
or not it was damp on dry days. In regard to the cellar and the
other apartments, the amount of cubic air-space per person was
determined, the openings upon which windows faced and the con-
ditions of light and overcrowding.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
HOUSING STUDIES REFERRED TO IN THIS REPORT.
Baths, Report of Mayor's Special Committee on. (New York.)
Bowmaker, Edward, " Housing of the Working Classes."
Bulletin, Federal Bureau of Labor, September, 1900.
"Charities," Weekly of New York Charity Organization Society.
Charter, Greater New York.
Christian Social Union Leaflet II. (London.)
Department of Health, Chicago, Pamphlet on Laws.
Department of Health, Chicago, Report, 1897-1898.
Department of Health, Chicago, Bulletin, December, 1900.
Department of Public Works, Chicago, Report, 1898.
Estabrook, Harold Kelsey, " Some Slums in Boston."
Farr, William, "Vital Statistics."
Gould, E. R. L., " Housing of Working Classes," Report of National Bureau
of Labor.
Haw, George, " No Room to Live."
Hill, Octavia, " Homes of the London Poor."
Hill, Octavia, "Work Among the Poor."
Housing of the Working Classes, Report of House of Lords Committee on,
1884.
Hunter, Robert, "Chicago's Housing Problem." Report of the Improved
Housing Association. (Not published.)
Journal of American Social Science Association, 1000.
Kerr, Dr. Norman, " Inebriety."
Knopf, Dr. S. A., "Tuberculosis in the Tenements."
Lincoln, Alice N.," Concerning the Management of Tenement Houses."
Maltbie, Roy, Monograph on Municipal Functions, "Municipal Affairs."
Mann, John (Glasgow)," Better Houses for the Poor; Will They Pay?"
Massachusetts Bureau of Labor, Reports for 1892 and 1893.
Metropolitan Public Gardens Association, London Reports.
Newsholme, Arthur, "Vital Statistics."
New York Tenement House Commission, Report of, 1894.
New York Tenement House Commission, Report of, 1900.
Paine, Robert Treat, " Causes of Poverty."
Prospectus of City and Suburban Homes Association. (New York.)
Revised Statutes of Illinois, 1899.
Reynolds, " Housing of the Poor."
Riis, Jacob, " Ten Years' War."
Riis, Jacob, " How the Other Half Lives."
203
204 BIBLIOGRAPHY
Shaw, Albert, " Municipal Government in Great Britain."
The Cottage Question: Reports from the Land Law Reform Association,
London.
The Slums of Great Cities. Report of National Bureau of Labor.
Thompson, W., Alderman, " Housing of the Working Classes." (Richmond,
Surrey.)
Veiller, Lawrence, "Tenement House Reform in New York, 1834-1900."
Veiller, Lawrence, " Housing Conditions and Tenement Laws."
Veiller, Lawrence, "Tenement House Legislation in New York, 1852-1900."
Warner, A. G., "American Charities."
Wines, Dr. Frederick H., " Punishment and Reformation."
Wingate, Chas. F., " Sanitary Construction of Houses," " Municipal Affairs."
Worthington, T. Locke, " Dwellings of the People."
INDEX
Air, need of fresh, 73.
Air shaft, law regarding, 201.
Alleys, badly paved, 117.
statistics of unclean, 117.
Asphalt, pavements, extension of,
recommended, 116.
Average number of persons per
apartment, 65.
per room, 64.
Badly lighted rooms, number of, 78.
Basements, conditions of, 88, 89.
fitted for habitation, 92.
Baths, difficulty of obtaining, 109.
public, 108.
Board of Health, 80, 99.
State, 83.
Bohemian district, 14, 42, 149, 187.
Bohemians, 199.
Boston, 32.
baths, 173.
Boxes, garbage, condition of, 136.
location of, 136,
refusal to furnish, 137, 138.
statistics in regard to, 134.
overflowing, 138, 139.
Brookline baths, 173.
Bureau of Charities, 161.
Bureau of Labor, National, 166.
Catch basin, definition of, 103.
Cellars, 88.
defined by city ordinance, 91.
Chicago river, south branch of, 182.
Chicagc " slum," 178.
Chickens, 141, 142.
Children, 125, 126.
City Attorney, 120, 122.
City and Suburban Homes Associa-
sociation, 175.
efforts of, 176.
Classification of air space, per per-
son, 86, 87.
Cleanliness of buildings, 73.
Closets, hopper, 106.
pan, 106.
sidewalk, 106.
tank, 106.
water, 105.
Collins, Miss, 177.
Commission des Logements Insaln-
bres, 163.
Commissioner of Labor, investiga-
tion of, 188.
Comparative density of population,
54, 55-
Cons, Miss Victoria, 176.
Construction and size of houses rela-
tive to districts, 189.
Courts, filthy, 126.
report of, 126.
Cramped living quarters, 66.
commented upon, 67.
Crime, cause of, 149.
Crothers, Dr. T. D., 148.
Data, manner of gathering, 202.
Dampness, results of, 199.
Death rate, 154.
impossibility to ascertain, relative
to housing conditions, 156.
in proportion to Boston, 158.
why materially reduced, 159.
Death rates by wards, 156, 157.
Defective sidewalks, in.
Degeneration, individual, 144.
moral, 147.
social, 144.
Degeneration of two-story frame and
brick houses, 22.
Devine, Edward 1'., 145.
District, Bohemian, 14, 42, 149, 187.
Italian, 13, 92, 94, 149, 183, 185.
Jewish, 12, 26, 32, 59,92,94, 119,
149, 158, 185.
Polish, 14,26,41,54,59,64,108, 149,
181, 186, 187.
Districts in the center of Chicago, 72.
Double-decker, defined, 43-46.
examples of, 46.
result of, if permitted to grow, 49.
Drainage, bad, 200.
Drained lots, 102.
Dry soil, importance of, 199.
Ducks, 141, 142.
Dwellings of the working class, 22.
Edinburgh, improvement of, 19.
Evils, prevention of, in New York
and Boston, 23.
205
2O6
INDEX
Exhaustion, 153.
Examination of plumbing, 100.
Examples of bad sanitation in base-
ment dwellings, 90, 91.
Expropriation Act, New York, 165.
Boston, 165.
Farr, William, 160.
Fetter, Dr. Frank, 58, 98.
Finance committee of city council,
report of, 119, 120.
Fire escapes, law regarding, 201.
incumbrances on, 201.
Fluegge, Professor, 174.
Frame houses, neglect of repair, 94.
Front and rear tenement houses, 30,
37, 75-
Garbage boxes, 31, 130.
statistics in regard to, 134.
location of, 136, 137.
Garbage, 133.
systematic disposal of, 134.
Gerhard, William P., 174.
Glasgow, demolition of slum quar-
ters, 19.
Gould, Dr. E. R. L., 154, 175, 176.
Gymnasiums, open air, 170.
indoor, 170.
Harris, Dr. Elisha, 149.
Haw, Mr. George, 70.
Health Department, 154, 155, 162.
"discretion of," 162, 164.
"Hell's Half Acre," 183.
Hill, Miss Octavia, 176.
Housing associations, work of, 175,
176.
Housing committee, whom it should
consist of, 164.
Housing conditions, in Liverpool, 16.
comparison of, by districts, 187.
Housing, examples of, 12.
problems, 11.
Indecent overcrowding, influence of,
7071.
results or, 71.
Insanitary conditions, 141, 142, 143.
Inspectors, 165, 166.
Intemperance, 147, 148.
Investigation.by committee on Tene-
ment Conditions, 14.
Italian district, 13, 92, 94, 149, 183,
185.
Jewish district, 12, 26, 32, 59, 92,94,
119, 149, 158, 185.
Jews, 199.
John Worthy School, 151.
Juvenile criminality, cause of, 150.
results of, 151.
Kerr, Dr. Norman, 148.
Knopf, Dr. S. A., 152.
Law, prohibiting sidewalk closet, 107.
Law regarding air shaft, 201.
air space, 83.
cellars, 94.
depth of building, 24.
fire escapes, 201
lodging nouses, 88.
of New York and Boston pertain-
ing to houses, 99.
partitions between apartments, 201
play grounds in connection with
schools, 172.
plumbing, 106.
removal of manure, 132.
window space, 78.
water closet, 106.
Lighting, need of, 73.
Liverpool, housing conditions in, 50.
Locke, Worthington, 128.
London county council, 163.
Lord Shaftesbury, 71, 153.
Lot, overcrowding by buildings, 31,
36.
percentage to be occupied, 24.
Low land, bad conditions resulting
from, 200.
Maltbie, Mr. Roy, 170.
Manchester, Eng., 160.
"Mansion House Council on Dwell-
ings of the Poor in London,"
purpose of the, 174.
Manure, neglect of removal of, ^131.
law regarding removal of, 132.
boxes, 129, 130.
Material of houses, relative to dis-
tricts, 190.
Method of legislation, relative to
building tenements, 165.
Metropolitan Public Gardens Asso-
ciations, the, 170.
Municipal authorities, difficulties
confronting, 17.
Municipal legislation, need of, 26.
Need of demolition of dangerous
tenements, 165.
Need of reform in laws relative to
construction of buildings, 201.
INDEX
207
New laws necessary for good types
of tenement construction, 164.
New York, crowded condition of, 52.
New York law regarding, keeping of
animals, 141.
play ground in connection with
school, 172.
removal of manure, 132.
New York tenement house commis-
sion, 43, 51, 114, 164.
New York Tenement House Exhi-
bition, 152, 176.
North Side, conditions on, 183.
Open space, need of, 168.
Ordinance, London, concerning
water closets, 107.
Outside sanitary condition, import-
ance of, ii i.
Overcrowding, illustration of, 34.
method of, 43, 51.
results from, 51, 52.
Paine, Robert Treat, 146.
Pan closet, 106.
Parks, 166.
need of, 168.
Pavements, asphalt, 116.
block, 114.
granite, 116.
kinds of, 114.
Pauperism, 146.
definition of, 146.
Percentage of families per apart-
ment, 61, 62.
Playgrounds, 170.
Plumbing, definition of, 100.
important part of, lop.
law regarding, in Illinois, 101.
Poles, 199.
Polish district, 14, 26, 41, 54, 59, 64,
108, 149, 181, 186, 187.
Povertv, 145.
Preventative measures, lack of, re-
garding housing problem, 161.
Privies, statistics of, 105.
Privy vault, definition of, 104.
Professor Huxley, 83, 87.
Public baths, establishment of, by
Liverpool, 173.
in Boston, 173.
Rag and junk shop, 142.
Rear houses, 88, 94, 96.
Rear tenement, definition of, 37.
their description, 36.
Report of Bureau of Labor, 32.
Dr. Fetter, 42.
Royal Commission, 52.
New York tenement commission,
43, Si-
Relative working qualities of the Bo-
hemians, Italians, Jews, Poles,
199.
Rents, in Bohemian quarter, 187.
in Italian quarter, 185.
in Jewish quarter, 185.
in Polish quarter, 187.
Restrictions of crowded tenants, 49.
Results of investigation of City
Homes Association. 178.
Riis, Jacob A., 46, 165.
Rooms, badly lighted, 79.
badly ventilated, 75, 77.
Saloons, ratio of, in different dis-
tricts, 1 88.
in proportion to other cities, 188.
Sanitary Aid Society of New York,
purpose of, 174.
Sanitary reform, economic value of,
154.
Sewage, 88.
Sickness, 152.
Sidewalk closet, law prohibiting,
107.
Sidewalks, 117.
defective, 119, 120, 122.
statistics of, 118.
wood, 1 18. , '
Social and Sanitary Society of Edin-
burgh, 175.
South Chicago, conditions in, 181.
Special Parks Commission, 170, 171.
Stables, condition and description
of, 130, 131.
offensive, 128.
Statistics regarding apartments
relative to floor space, 61, 62.
area and population of Chicago,
58.
conditions of houses, 96, 97, 98.
defective lighting, 80.
height of buildings, 190, 193.
lighting and ventilation, 77.
manure boxes, stables, etc., 129,
ISO-
population, 53, 155, 156.
rents, 185.
sinks, 102.
stores, factories, shops, 186.
streets, 112, 114.
tenants in each tenement house,
59-
Stock Yards District, condition of
buildings in, 182.
208
INDEX
Streets, badly paved, 112, 116, 117.
statistics of, 112, 114.
unclean, 112.
Supervision of new tenement house
buildings, 162.
Tenement house, history of, in Chi-
cago, 21.
Tenement house reform, manner of,
in New York and London, 177,
178.
suggestion of, 177.
"Ten Years' War" in New York, 16,
46.
'The Health and Housing," 163.
Tuberculosis, 152.
Unclean streets, 112.
alleys, 112.
Vacant lots, filthy, 124, 125.
" Visiting Nurses," The, lol.
Warner, Amos G., 146.
Water closet, 92.
definition and kinds of, 106.
insanitary, 107.
lack of, 108.
Wines, Dr. Frederick H., 150.
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