I | The Nature of the Cases
1. Introductory
In Parts I and II frequent mention has been made of the important rehabilitation rôle played by the Associated Charities. In this fifth part of the Relief Survey, measure is taken of the burden carried by the Associated Charities for the two years after it resigned as an investigating agent of the San Francisco Relief and Red Cross Funds and took up, with the financial aid of the funds, its independent work of caring for the remnant. The remnant was composed of the people who had suffered from the earthquake and fire but had asked for no help until more than a year had elapsed; of those who continued to need aid because of the extraordinary vicissitudes of their life; of others who had formed the habit of turning to a relief agency for assistance; and of those who required further succor because that given by the Corporation had been inadequate.
The Associated Charities was selected for special study, not only because it had been continuously the agent of the Corporation, but because its work promised to give the fullest answer to the question: To what extent has the San Francisco problem of dependency deepened? This study is, then, in a sense, an exhibition of the aftermath of the great disaster.
The range of the inquiry involved the asking of three questions: First, what was the character of the rehabilitation? Second, how was it done? Third,—a quadruple question,—how much was induced by the disaster itself, how much by the fact of the existence of relief measures the year after the disaster, how much by the administration of these measures, and how much by conditions that tend at all times to produce dependency?
The field of investigation plainly defines itself as: first, to know the number and character of the persons that remained dependent after the fifteen months of conscientious rehabilitation work, and to compare them in regard to number and character with the lesser number of persons that for two years before the disaster were under the care of the Associated Charities; second, to learn what methods of relief were used to render these persons once more effective members of the community; and third, to measure in some degree the efficiency of these methods.
The primary purpose of this study was to learn as far as possible the psychological effects of the disaster by studying a group of refugees who continued to draw on the relief funds after the general public had fallen out of the bread line. It has been impossible, however, to hold strictly to the purpose, because the Associated Charities,[225] in resuming its normal place in the community, aimed rightly to administer to the needs of the city’s poor whether or not the individual applicant could show a relation between his necessity and the disaster. From the point of view of the Associated Charities, all persons applying for aid from June, 1907, to June, 1909, had an equal claim on its funds. Its power of realizing this aim of impartially meeting the needs of the applicants has been limited by the fact that as a society it was known by the public at large, as well as by the direct and indirect sufferers from the disaster, by their relatives, and by their friends, to be acting as the financial agent of a corporation that continued to have large sums of money to disburse.
[225] Before and since the disaster the Associated Charities has been, except for the work done by the Hebrew Board of Relief, the accepted general relief society. It has had, throughout, the active co-operation of the Catholics.
2. Nature of the Dependency
The interest in the relief administration centers in the desire to know to what extent it altered the poverty situation of the city. The presumption is, of course, that the work of the Associated Charities and kindred agencies was greatly increased by the disaster, but it is important to get a specific idea of the increase for the two selected years, and to determine what proportion is a distinct result of the social upheaval brought by the earthquake and fire of 1906.
To answer this question required a knowledge of the work of the Associated Charities for the two years before the fire as exact as for the two years under consideration.[226] By one of the most notable incidents of the great fire, the building containing the records of the Associated Charities escaped the flames. These records, no previous study of whose facts had been made, were therefore available. The stories of the applicants to the Associated Charities for the two years preceding April 18, 1906, have been analyzed, and in order that comparison might be possible, a similar study of records has been made of the post-disaster cases.
[226] At the time of the fire the Associated Charities had been in existence for over seventeen years. Its original aim had been to confine its work to organizing charity; but as there was no general relief society in existence it was called on more and more to do relief work. By 1905 the society had a list of 900 subscribers; an annual income of not more than $5,000; a staff consisting of a general secretary, two or three paid investigators, and a stenographer on part time. In addition to these, the office had the exclusive use of two district nurses supported by special funds. With a staff and an income so limited it was possible to give little beyond emergency aid to needy families in their homes. The problem of homeless men was not touched. The initial steps had been taken looking to co-operation with other philanthropic agencies along several lines. In conjunction with the Merchants’ Association, a charities endorsement committee had been formed; a children’s agency had been established, and a department of legislation and law organized to originate needed social legislation and to give free legal aid to applicants. For a résumé of the development of the work of the society after the disaster, see Part V, pp. 317-318.
As the means to aid during the two years from June, 1907, to June, 1909, were drawn almost exclusively from the Corporation and the Board of Trustees of Relief and Red Cross Funds, a statement of the work of the Associated Charities is practically a survey of the further use made of the disaster relief funds.
The Associated Charities, as an independent agent, reopened its doors to applicants on June 17, 1907; but since it had assumed the responsibility before the complete transfer of duties was effected, data are here given for the period beginning June 1. From June 1, 1907, until June 1, 1909, 6,766 applications were made to it in the following order:
| June 1, 1907, to December 31, 1907 | 2,547 |
| January 1, 1908, to December 31, 1908 | 3,154 |
| January 1, 1909, to June 1, 1909 | 1,065 |
| Total | 6,766 |
From April 18, 1904, to April 18, 1906, 1840 cases had applied for aid at the office. There was therefore a nearly fourfold increase in applications during the two post-disaster years under comparison. There are no data to show the sequence of increase or decrease of cases for the earlier period. The number of monthly applications during 1908 and 1909 was as follows:
TABLE 96.—NUMBER OF APPLICATIONS TO THE ASSOCIATED CHARITIES FOR ASSISTANCE, BY MONTHS. 1908 AND 1909[227]
| Month | 1908 | 1909 |
|---|---|---|
| January | 474 | 229 |
| February | 815 | 237 |
| March | 417 | 219 |
| April | 219 | 145 |
| May | 172 | 135 |
| June | 195 | 274 |
| July | 146 | 113 |
| August | 152 | 97 |
| September | 115 | 84 |
| October | 173 | 42 |
| November | 126 | 161 |
| December | 150 | 183 |
| Total | 3,154 | 1,919 |
[227] As the figures in this table are for the calendar years 1908 and 1909, the totals do not correspond with the figures for the period from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, presented in other tables in this Part. While there were some inconsistencies between various records consulted, as to the number of applications per month, it is believed that the figures presented are approximately correct.
Although for three of the months of 1909, June, November, and December, there was an increase of applications over the corresponding months of the previous year,—an increase of 41, 28, and 22 per cent respectively,—the work for 1909 as a whole, compared with 1908, decreased 39 per cent.
In relating the facts found in the case records of applicants from June 1, 1907, to June 1, 1909, 815, or 12 per cent, of the 6766 records are omitted,—107 because they were found to be the records of cases belonging not to the Associated Charities but to other relief societies; 606 because they were not relief society records, but were those of cases cared for in the City and County Hospital which for reasons of office organization were, during a number of months of the year 1907, filed with the Associated Charities’ records; 102 because they were too incomplete to give the required data. The facts drawn from the remaining 5951 cases are compared with 1550 cases of the earlier pre-disaster period. Two hundred and ninety cases, or 15.8 per cent, of the 1840 cases of that period (April 18, 1904, to April 18, 1906), had to be omitted, some because they were records of cases handled by other relief societies, and a larger number because the statement cards lacked sufficient data to permit tabulation. The large number of cases marked “Unknown” throughout this study makes it incontestably plain that the records are lacking in many details. Though admirably complete as compared with those before the fire, and much more so during the years 1908 and 1909 than during 1907, yet data have failed with regrettable frequency.
TABLE 97.—ASSOCIATED CHARITIES CASES CLASSIFIED AS HAVING LIVED OR NOT HAVING LIVED IN THE BURNED AREA, AND BY NUMBER AIDED, AND NUMBER REFUSED AID. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[228]
| Classes of applicants | Appli- cants aided | Appli- cants re- fused aid | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| Applicants who had lived in burned area: | |||
| With rehabilitation record | 1,309 | 571 | 1,880 |
| Without rehabilitation record | 1,512 | 604 | 2,116 |
| Total | 2,821 | 1,175 | 3,996 |
| Applicants who had not lived in burned area | 1,303 | 439 | 1,742 |
| Grand total | 4,124 | 1,614 | 5,738 |
[228] Data are not available as to the former place of residence of 123 of the 4,247 applicants aided, and of 90 of the 1,704 applicants who were refused aid.
One point on which the records in many cases fail to supply information is as to whether or not the applicant had been burned out. In the previous studies of this Survey no division has been made of the refugees into the two classes of those who lived within or without the burned area, because dependency as a result of the disaster was known to be due not alone to having been in the first named class. Since one of the vital points of this study, however, is to determine how much of the relief work of the Associated Charities during the second of the two-year periods was due, directly or indirectly, to the earthquake and fire, an effort has been made to reach the point by dividing the 5,738 applicants about whom the fact was known into two groups: 3,996, or 69.6 per cent, of whom had lived within the burned area; 1,742, or 30.4 per cent, of whom had lived without. The further classification given in Table 97 reveals the interesting fact that a large number of persons who had lived in the burned area made no recorded application for rehabilitation until after June, 1907.
Fifty-three per cent of those burned out, who by June, 1909, had come to the Associated Charities for assistance, first made application for relief needed as a result of the disaster, after the rehabilitation work was done. Many of them had undoubtedly received their share of clothes, had stood in the bread line, and had lived in the camps, but as their names are not on the records of the Rehabilitation Committee they had had, up to the time that they applied to the Associated Charities, no rehabilitation in the accepted sense of the term.
3. Social Character of the Cases
The social characteristics of these cases are second in importance only to the question of their relation to the disaster.
What do the records show with regard to their nationality, their family relations, their ages, the size of their families, their occupations, and their characteristics in general? What were the disabilities that drove them to ask for help? What proportion of the disabilities from which they suffered can be marked against the rehabilitation methods?
Forty-one different countries, as shown by Table 98, are represented by the persons who made application in each of the two-year periods, and of whom the place of birth was learned.
Completely devastated. First tents in Washington Square
Partly Rebuilt. Cottages in Washington Square
Telegraph Hill and Washington Square
The situation as far as nationality governed application shows but slight variation between the two periods of time. There are, however, a few interesting variations; as, for instance, the falling off in the second period in the number of applicants born in the British Empire, in the Scandinavian countries, and in the United States. Only the Irish and Italians have materially increased their proportionate numbers. Did the relief funds cause this increase, or did the catastrophe bear most heavily on these nationalities? When it is recalled[229] that the Latin Quarter was wiped out and that “South-of-Market,” largely the residential quarter of the poor Irish, was entirely burned, the fire seems undoubtedly to be responsible.
[229] Part I, p. 4.
TABLE 98.—NATIVITY OF APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[230]
| Nativity | APPLICANTS OF EACH SPECIFIED NATIVITY | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| United States | 532 | 1,933 | 42.7 | 37.0 |
| Ireland | 135 | 734 | 10.9 | 14.0 |
| Italy | 65 | 541 | 5.2 | 10.4 |
| Spain, Mexico and Porto Rico | 113 | 500 | 9.1 | 9.6 |
| Germany | 118 | 475 | 9.5 | 9.1 |
| Great Britain, Canada and Australasia | 113 | 373 | 9.1 | 7.1 |
| Norway, Sweden and Denmark | 38 | 138 | 3.1 | 2.6 |
| Finland, Russia, Poland and Armenia | 32 | 150 | 2.6 | 2.9 |
| Other countries (24) | 97 | 381 | 7.8 | 7.3 |
| Total | 1,243 | 5,225 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
[230] Data are not available as to the nationality of 307 of the 1,550 persons applying for relief before the fire, and of 726 of the 5,951 persons applying for relief after the fire.
No question is of greater importance than that involved in the relation between relief and the family. In Parts I and II the effort of the Rehabilitation Committee has been shown to have been to limit closely the amount of aid given to single, able-bodied persons and to able-bodied men.[231] This policy is shown in the following table to have influenced the work of the Associated Charities also, so that the widow and the handicapped family received primary consideration in the extended rehabilitation work.
[231] See Part I, p. 47, and Part II, p. 123. This policy was, of course, being carried out in spirit when breadwinners were helped not with continued general relief, but with means to re-establish a home through a housing or business grant.
TABLE 99.—FAMILY TYPES AMONG APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[232]
| Family type | CASES OF EACH SPECIFIED TYPE | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | ||||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | ||
| Families | |||||
| (1) | Married couples with children | 500 | 2,012 | 34.2 | 33.9 |
| (2) | Married couples without children | 109 | 522 | 7.5 | 8.8 |
| (3) | Widows with children | 167 | 1,044 | 11.4 | 17.5 |
| (4) | Deserted wives with children | 53 | 258 | 3.6 | 4.3 |
| (5) | Widowers with children | 41 | 144 | 2.8 | 2.4 |
| (6) | Deserted husbands with children | 8 | 20 | 0.6 | 0.3 |
| (7) | Divorced men or women with children | 26 | 109 | 1.8 | 1.8 |
| (8) | Orphan families | 10 | 30 | 0.7 | 0.5 |
| (9) | Illegitimate families | 6 | 65 | 0.4 | 1.1 |
| Total families | 920 | 4,204 | 63.0 | 70.6 | |
| Detached persons | |||||
| Men | 362 | 916 | 24.8 | 15.4 | |
| Women | 163 | 798 | 11.1 | 13.4 | |
| Total detached persons | 525 | 1,714 | 35.9 | 28.8 | |
| Dependent minors | 16 | 33 | 1.1 | 0.6 | |
| Grand Total | 1,461 | 5,951 | 100.0 | 100.0 | |
[232] Data are not available as to the family type of 89 of the 1,550 persons applying for relief before the fire.
Since the term “families” covers the widest range of variations in social status, it has seemed wise to make the nine family classifications given in the above table. It is plain that the seventh group lacks in value as compared with the classifying of each group separately according to sex. The incompleteness of the records made a separation by sex impossible. The most notable difference in the numbers applying for relief before and after the fire occurs in the case of widows with children. If to the 1,044 widows with children—taking the figures of the second period—be added the 258 deserted women and the 30 orphaned families, all supported by women, 1,332, or 22.3 per cent of all the cases, are shown to be families dependent upon women as breadwinners. If the 798 childless, detached women be added to the 1,332, we have 2,130 women dependents, or 35.7 per cent of those that applied,[233] which must be compared with 26.8 per cent for the period before the fire. The 164 widowers and deserted husbands with children, 2.7 per cent of all the cases of the later period, is a relatively larger number of such cases than is usually found in charity records. The proportion of the group called “illegitimate families” rests upon facts open to challenge as to exactness or completeness. Though the presumption is that the number is too small, 65 such cases for the second period are all that can be proven by the records. The fact that the percentage of applications from single men was less after than before the fire shows that the policy to limit relief given to this class had a deterrent effect. The 49 dependent minors applying to the Associated Charities in the two periods for various reasons were not referred for care to the city’s child-caring agencies.
[233] See Devine, Edward T.: Misery and Its Causes, New York, Macmillan, 1909. The percentage of women breadwinners in the 500 cases, New York Charity Organization Society in the year 1908 is given as 40.8 per cent.
Of 1,375 married couples who had lived in the burned area 647, or nearly 47 per cent, had a rehabilitation record, while the majority of all the men applying were without such records. By actual count over 80 per cent of the single men who made the first application after June, 1907, had come to San Francisco within the year after the disaster, lured presumably by the expectation of work.
The age of the person entered on the statement card as the main source of support for the family group, has been chosen as the age basis for Table 100.
In the second period of time 55.6 per cent of all the cases in which the age was ascertained were over forty years of age. This proportion falls to 54 per cent when the family cases alone are considered.
From the records for the first period, it was possible to tabulate data relative to the age of the breadwinner for only 661 family groups. In only 175 of these 661 groups, or 26.5 per cent, was the breadwinner known to be over forty years of age.
TABLE 100.—AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909[234]
| Age of breadwinner | FAMILIES WITH BREADWINNER OF EACH SPECIFIED AGE | |
|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |
| Under 30 years | 682 | 16.2 |
| 30 years and under 35 years | 597 | 14.2 |
| 35 years and under 40 years | 647 | 15.4 |
| 40 years and under 60 years | 1,632 | 38.8 |
| 60 years or over | 646 | 15.4 |
| Total | 4,204 | 100.0 |
[234] Data are not available as to the age of the principal breadwinner in 1,747 of the 5,951 families applying for relief after the fire.
TABLE 101.—AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE, BY FAMILY TYPE[235]
| Family type | Families for which informa- tion as to age of bread- winner is available | FAMILIES WITH BREADWINNER 40 YEARS OF AGE OR OVER | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent of all families | |||
| Married couples with children | ||||
| Before fire | 372 | 83 | 22.3 | |
| After fire | 2,012 | 946 | 47.0 | |
| Married couples without children | ||||
| Before fire | 84 | 26 | 31.0 | |
| After fire | 522 | 293 | 56.1 | |
| Widows and deserted women with children | ||||
| Before fire | 135 | 44 | 32.6 | |
| After fire | 1,302 | 864 | 66.4 | |
| Widowers and deserted men with children | ||||
| Before fire | 34 | 17 | 50.0 | |
| After fire | 164 | 110 | 67.1 | |
| Other family types | ||||
| Before fire | 36 | 5 | 13.9 | |
| After fire | 204 | 65 | 31.9 | |
| Total | Before fire | 661 | 175 | 26.5 |
| After fire | 4,204 | 2,278 | 54.2 | |
[235] Data are not available as to age of the principal breadwinner and family type for 889 of the 1,550 families of persons applying for relief before the fire, and for 1,747 of the 5,951 families applying for relief after the fire.
Largely rebuilt. Washington Square restored to park uses
Telegraph Hill and Washington Square
The preponderance of applicants past forty in the second period is not surprising. Given a prosperous community and care in dispensing aid in time of disaster it was to be expected that those approaching middle age would be the ones to apply for and to receive aid.
It is interesting to note whether the strain due to the conditions following the disaster was felt more by the native or by the foreign born married groups.
TABLE 102.—AGE OF PRINCIPAL BREADWINNER IN FAMILIES THAT HAD BEEN BURNED OUT APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BY NATIVITY AND REHABILITATION RECORD. JUNE 1, 1907-JUNE 1, 1909[236]
| Nativity and rehabilitation record | Families burned out for which information as to age of breadwinner is available | FAMILIES BURNED OUT WITH BREADWINNER 40 YEARS OF AGE OR OVER | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | ||
| Native born | |||
| With rehabilitation record | 558 | 322 | 57.7 |
| Without rehabilitation record | 473 | 226 | 47.8 |
| Total | 1,031 | 548 | 53.2 |
| Foreign born | |||
| With rehabilitation record | 966 | 666 | 68.9 |
| Without rehabilitation record | 1,032 | 583 | 56.5 |
| Total | 1,998 | 1,249 | 62.5 |
| All cases with rehabilitation record | 1,524 | 988 | 64.8 |
| All cases without rehabilitation record | 1,505 | 809 | 53.8 |
| Grand total | 3,029 | 1,797 | 59.3 |
[236] Data are not available as to age of the principal breadwinner, nativity, and rehabilitation record for 967 of the 3,996 burned out families applying for relief after the fire.
The answer given by the table is that the foreign born family was older than the native born, whether it had had rehabilitation aid before applying to the Associated Charities or not. The facts indicate that the courage and resourcefulness of comparative youth whether of the foreign or of the native born, tended to make men under forty wait until all other resources had failed before appealing for aid.
The number of children shown in Table 103 gives but the approximate number of living children of the different families. Though data were fairly complete for children, minor and adult, living at home, there were probably many instances in which children who were married or no longer members of the household, were not named on the statement card. The count, however, tells facts sufficiently interesting to a student of dependency to warrant its inclusion.
TABLE 103.—NUMBER OF CHILDREN IN FAMILIES HAVING CHILDREN APPLYING FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE
| Number of children | FAMILIES HAVING EACH SPECIFIED NUMBER OF CHILDREN | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| One | 263 | 1,204 | 32.4 | 32.7 |
| Two | 205 | 989 | 25.3 | 26.9 |
| Three | 150 | 608 | 18.5 | 16.5 |
| Four | 85 | 370 | 10.5 | 10.0 |
| Five | 58 | 255 | 7.2 | 6.9 |
| Six | 26 | 130 | 3.2 | 3.5 |
| Seven | 9 | 69 | 1.1 | 1.9 |
| Eight | 9 | 36 | 1.1 | 1.0 |
| Nine or over | 6 | 21 | .7 | .6 |
| Total | 811 | 3,682 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
In the first period only 6 per cent of these families applying had more than five children; in the second only 7 per cent. Seventy-six per cent of the families in each period had three or a smaller number of children. Large families evidently played a small part in the dependency situation. It is true that the cases which presented serious problems of treatment were often those with a large number of children, but the actual number of such cases was small. The high average age of the applicant and the likelihood, therefore, of his having unrecorded children living away from home must, it is reiterated, be borne in mind.
The applicants in 75 per cent of the cases of the second period, mentioned in Table 104, were found to be suffering from two or more disabilities. The classifications were taken from the case records.
TABLE 104.—CAUSES OF DISABILITY AMONG APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE
| Disability | CASES IN WHICH THE CHIEF DISABILITY WAS AS SPECIFIED | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| Death | 31 | 111 | 2.0 | 1.9 |
| Illness | 493 | 1,366 | 31.8 | 23.0 |
| Old age | 56 | 344 | 3.6 | 5.8 |
| Accident | 94 | 264 | 6.1 | 4.4 |
| Unemployment | 302 | 1,532 | 19.5 | 25.7 |
| Laziness | 26 | 184 | 1.7 | 3.1 |
| Desertion or divorce | 90 | 151 | 5.8 | 2.5 |
| Vicious habits | 143 | 295 | 9.2 | 5.0 |
| Other disabilities | 315 | 1,704 | 20.3 | 28.6 |
| Total | 1,550 | 5,951 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
The largest single disability for the second period was unemployment. Of those who applied to the office between June, 1907, and June, 1909, 1532, or 25.7 per cent, came for the alleged reason that they were out of work. The greater percentage of illness before than after the disaster is also noteworthy. Included in the other disabilities or handicaps that led to application for relief should be mentioned unsanitary surroundings and overstrain, the latter a term used to describe a general break-down of nerve due to the conditions following the disaster. Under the caption “vicious habits” are included all cases in which drunkenness, the drug habit, brutality, licentiousness, or professional mendicancy had played their part in bringing persons to be a charge upon a charity office. Add to those classed as having vicious habits those who were recorded as being lazy, as having deserted or divorced a partner, and 49 of those reported under “other disabilities” who had been neglectful or had served a penal term, and we have a total of 679 persons of the second period who may be said to have come to make application, or caused others to apply, by reason of the effects of wrong living. As this count does not include those whose illnesses resulted from evil practices or those whose unemployment resulted from disabling vice, it is not complete. It indicates, however, that dependency after the fire did not come in an exceptionally large number of cases as a result of evil living. Before the fire vicious habits were reported as responsible for 9.2 per cent of all the cases of distress.
4. Occupations of Applicants
In the table that follows all applicants for relief for the second period are classified by general occupation.
TABLE 105.—APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES CLASSIFIED BY GENERAL OCCUPATIONS, AS REFUGEES WITH AND WITHOUT REHABILITATION RECORD, AND AS NON-REFUGEES. JUNE 1, 1907, TO JUNE 1, 1909
| Occupation | APPLICANTS WHO HAD LIVED IN BURNED AREA | Applicants who had not lived in burned area | Applicants whose former place of residence is doubtful | Total of all classes | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| With rehabili- tation record | Without rehabili- tation record | Total | ||||
| Professional service | 44 | 38 | 82 | 45 | 6 | 133 |
| Public service | 11 | 7 | 18 | 10 | .. | 28 |
| Personal and domestic service | 574 | 366 | 940 | 252 | 13 | 1,205 |
| Unskilled labor | 255 | 372 | 627 | 288 | 20 | 935 |
| Transportation | 94 | 110 | 204 | 83 | 10 | 297 |
| Trade | 172 | 114 | 286 | 109 | 15 | 410 |
| Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 579 | 460 | 1,039 | 371 | 30 | 1,440 |
| Miscellaneous occupations | 24 | 32 | 56 | 30 | 3 | 89 |
| Unknown | 127 | 617 | 744 | 554 | 116 | 1,414 |
| Total | 1,880 | 2,116 | 3,996 | 1,742 | 213 | 5,951 |
A street, showing close quarters in camp
Washington Square Camp
In between 23 and 24 per cent of the cases, the facts of occupation were not stated in the records. A study of the cases remaining proves how widely need distributed itself through all economic classes in the community. The persons enumerated were engaged in about 200 different callings.
Of the 4,537 persons for whom data concerning occupation were secured, 32 per cent were employed in the manufacturing and mechanical industries, 27 per cent were in personal and domestic service, and 21 per cent were in unskilled labor. The proportion of applicants in trade was 9 per cent and in transportation between 6 and 7 per cent. Less than 3 per cent of the applicants were in professional service or in miscellaneous occupations and less than 1 per cent in public service. Whether considered as having lived within or without the burned area, no striking difference appears in the proportion in each group of occupations.
The facts concerning the occupations of the needy show that the mass of poverty in San Francisco centered, as might be expected, in the same occupations before the fire as afterwards. The data for both periods are presented in Table 106.
TABLE 106.—GENERAL OCCUPATIONS OF APPLICANTS FOR RELIEF FROM ASSOCIATED CHARITIES, BEFORE FIRE AND AFTER FIRE[237]
| Occupational group | APPLICANTS IN EACH SPECIFIED OCCUPATIONAL GROUP | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number | Per cent | |||
| Before fire | After fire | Before fire | After fire | |
| Professional service | 67 | 133 | 6.1 | 2.9 |
| Public service | 13 | 28 | 1.2 | .6 |
| Personal and domestic service | 259 | 1,205 | 23.4 | 26.6 |
| Unskilled labor | 243 | 935 | 22.0 | 20.6 |
| Transportation | 85 | 297 | 7.7 | 6.5 |
| Trade | 107 | 410 | 9.6 | 9.0 |
| Manufacturing and mechanical industries | 297 | 1,440 | 26.8 | 31.8 |
| Miscellaneous occupations | 36 | 89 | 3.2 | 2.0 |
| Total | 1,107 | 4,537 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
[237] Data are not available as to the occupations of 443 of the 1,550 persons applying for relief before the fire, and of 1,414 of the 5,951 persons applying for relief after the fire.
In the two years before April 18, 1906, as in the two years following June 1, 1907, the largest percentage of persons was engaged in those vocations which are grouped as mechanical and manufacturing trades, as unskilled labor, and as personal and domestic service. The proportion of applicants in these three groups combined was, however, smaller before the fire, totaling 72.2 per cent before the fire as compared with 79 per cent in the later period. This is possibly due, in part, to the fact that the proportion of persons whose occupation was unknown was larger before the fire than after. The proportion of demand for help from persons in professional and public service was larger before the fire than after, for applicants in these occupations constituted 7.3 per cent of the cases in the period from April, 1904, to April, 1906, and only 3.5 per cent of the later cases. The disaster only slightly affected the proportion of persons in need who were in transportation employment or in trade. Before the fire 7.7 per cent of all applicants were in transportation employment and 9.6 per cent in trade, and after the fire 6.5 per cent were in transportation employment and 9 per cent in trade.
No specific data as to income are offered, because after some brief experimentation a study of income seemed futile. A person applying for aid may understate his income because he is humanly open to the temptation of trying to make as good a case for himself as possible, or may overstate it because he does not take into account the amount of irregularity to which he as a weekly or daily wage-earner is subject. In about 3000 of the cases in which income data were available for study, the potential earning power could have been in every case safely estimated by the occupations. The income for the average breadwinners, most of them semi-skilled, may be said to have approached during the periods stated the sum of $15 to $20 per week, an amount that represents something near the minimum earning power of the wage workers in San Francisco, a class of persons paid more highly than in any other part of the United States. For instance, among the American families burned out who were given aid, 32 gave their earning power at $10 to $15 per week, 27 at $15 to $20, and 21 at $20 or over.
It is of course of fundamental importance that the relief agent should know the total income of the families or individuals applying for aid. Only by learning what the income actually or approximately is can treatment be made to fit actual need. The record hurriedly written under pressure of work may fail to reveal the facts used by the investigator in determining treatment. The record may not, therefore, show the actual sum of knowledge held and used as the basis for treatment. The record, on the other hand, may be no more meager than was the investigation that it records. In the latter case, investigation, as well as treatment, has been in the hands of an agent who has lacked either time or training, or both, to do work such as is called for by the present standards of adequate case work.[238]
[238] See Part III, p. 173, for method of determining income of persons owning their own business.
Summarizing the facts concerning the character of the cases and the situation that forced these individuals to seek aid, it would appear that the cases group themselves into three leading types.
1. Dependency because of abnormal conditions.
2. Dependency because disaster had converted semi-dependency into complete dependency.
3. Dependency because character and circumstance, irrespective of abnormal conditions, induced dependency.
It is plain that each group requires a separate treatment and that in estimating the character and utility of the relief measures applied, each class will have to be kept in mind. A conscientious effort was made to find how many of the applicants belonged to both periods of treatment, but the results of the efforts were so inconclusive that they cannot be given.