The Survey, Volume 30, Number 2, Apr 12, 1913Various
History
The Survey, Volume 30, Number 2, Apr 12, 1913
Various
Charities -- Periodicals; Social problems -- Periodicals; United States -- Social conditions -- Periodicals
This law, social workers feel, marks a great advance for St. Louis. It
requires running water on every floor of every tenement house, and a
light from sunset to sunrise in every common hallway. Further provisions
are that all halls of every tenement house must be kept by the owner in
good repair and free from dirt, filth, ashes, or refuse, and that the
rooms must be so maintained by the tenant. Fruit, vegetables, rags,
junk, etc., may not be stored in a tenement house. For every tenement
dwelling containing more than eight families there must be a caretaker
or janitor.
Other provisions of importance are that cellars may never be used for
living purposes and basements only under certain restricted conditions.
Finally, no apartment nor any room of a tenement-house shall be occupied
by more persons than will allow for each adult 500 cubic feet of air
space, and for children 350 cubic feet each. This does not apply where
the occupants make up a single family. It is designed especially to
reduce the number of lodgers, whose presence results in so much
overcrowding and immorality.
Those who have won this battle look back over as varied a struggle as
social workers have ever encountered. In 1905 Charlotte Rumbold prepared
for the Housing Committee of the Civic League a report on tenement-house
conditions, so vividly written and illustrated that not only St. Louis
but many other localities were stirred and eventually framed reform
legislation. The St. Louis bill as first drawn was changed only in a few
small details during its long career before passage. At the beginning it
was fiercely fought by real estate men, who at one public hearing packed
the house with pleaders, mostly tenement-house tenants, against the
bill. Its defenders encountered hissing and hooting. All the lights were
suddenly turned out, and half a riot followed. After this the crowd
surged to the mayor’s office before it quieted down. The bill was
defeated.
Shortly after the Civic League and the Real Estate Exchange held a
conference and, to every one’s amazement, found that after all they
disagreed only in certain minor matters. The same bill was re-introduced
in 1911, but failed, owing to contention at the eleventh hour concerning
certain legal aspects. When a new Board of Health was organized in 1912,
its program included the passage of this bill. It was again introduced
in September, 1912, and, in spite of repeated efforts of several
legislative members to let it sleep to death, the constant prodding by
other members brought the bill to final passage.
THE SEATTLE CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES AND CORRECTION
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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