Page:Jay Lovestone - Blood and Steel (1923)).djvu/15

 where three different persons occupied each bed in the twenty four hours of each day, sleeping in eight hour shifts."

Senator Kenyon, Chairman of the Committee, speaking of Braddock, said:

"This is the worst place I have ever seen and I have watched housing conditions of many immigrants."

Finally, let us turn to the conditions in Gary itself to bring our horrible picture up to date. Said Elizabeth Hughes of the Children's Bureau of the U. S. Department of Labor in Bulletin No. 112, published in 1923 as a "Field Study in Gary, Indiana":

"A number of long, one story frame buildings, cheaply constructed and designed to bring in a maximum in rental, which were built on the South Side, perhaps epitomize the worst ills of uncontrolled housing. They were planned for lodging houses, and divided into two rooms, or more ready three room apartments. These small apartments were occupied by families, however, with consequent overcrowding. When two such long buildings occupy adjoining 'shoe-string' lots with only a narrow passage between, used common by the tenants in both buildings, the congestion is great and but little relief is afforded by the small yards at the end of each lot. Two adjoining houses of this type supplied but a single water faucet and four privies for the use of twelve families. In another instance a single flush toilet was provided to accomodate nine families. Inadequate at all times, during cold weather it was rendered useless, due to its location at the end of the last apartment where it was not protected against freezing."

What these working and living conditions of the steel workers spell for the mothers is thus portrayed by investigator Elizabeth Hughes in a study of the conditions in Gary for the Children's Bureau:

"All conditions of family and individual life are likely to be less favorable when the income is low; housing inferior, ignorance of sanitation and hygiene greater, and power to satisfy physical wants reduced."

Miss Hughes did not sugar-coat her findings. She showed that:

1. "Mothers employed during pregnacy—29.4 percent of the total births."

2. "The mothers of 279 infants (68 percent of the total whose mothers were gainfully employed) did not cease work even within two weeks of confinement, and the mothers of 256 infants confined followed gainful work up to the very day or hour of confinement."

3. "Seven-tenths of the mothers had no prenatal care whatever."

4. "A minimum of ten days rest in bed after a normal delivery is commonly recommended by obstetricians and resumption of house-