The Greatest Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
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Just some women with a real business sense, and enough capital. They wisely concluded that a block of apartments was the natural field for their services; and that professional women were their natural patrons.”
“The unprofessional women — or professional wives, as you might call them — had only their housewifery to preserve their self-respect, you see,” put in Owen. “If they didn’t do housekeeping for a living, what — in the name of decency — did they do?”
“This was called the Home Service Company,” said Hallie. “(I will talk, mother!) They built some unusually attractive apartments, planned by women, to please women; this block was one of the finest designs of their architects — women, too, by the way.”
“Who had waked up,” murmured Jerrold, unnoticed.
“It was frankly advertised as specially designed for professional women. They looked at it, liked it, and moved it; teachers, largely doctors, lawyers, dressmakers; women who worked.”
Sort of a nunnery?” I asked.
‘My dear brother, do you imagine that all working women were orphan spinsters, even in your day?” cried Nellie. “The self-supporting women of that time generally had
<<< other people to support, too. Lots of them were married; many were widows with children; even the single ones had brothers and sisters to take care of.”
“They rushed in, anyhow,” said Hallie. “The place was beautiful and built for enjoyment. There was a nice garden in the middle ”
“Like this one here?” I interrupted. “This is a charming patio. How did they make space for it?”
“New York blocks were not divinely ordained,” Owen replied. “It occurred to the citizens at last they they could bisect those 200x800-foot oblongs, and they did. Wide, tree-shaded, pleasant ways run between the old avenues, and the blocks remaining are practically squares.”
“You noticed the irregular border of grass and shrubbery as we came up, didn’t you, Uncle?” asked Jerrold. “We forgot to speak about it, because we are used to it.”
I did recall now that our ride had been not through monotonous, stone-faced, right-angled ravines, but along the pleasant fronts of gracious varying buildings, whose skyline was a pleasure and street line bordered greenly,
“You didn’t live here and don’t remember, maybe,” Owen remarked, “but the regular thing uptown was one of those lean, long blocks, flat-faced and solid, built to the side-walk’s edge. If it was a line of private houses they were bordered with gloomy little stone-paved areas, and ornamented with ash-cans and garbage pails. If the avenue end was faced with tall apartments, their lower margin was infested with a row of little shops — meat, fish, vegetable, fruit — with all their litter and refuse and flies, and constant traffic. Now a residence block is a thing of beauty on all sides. The really necessary shops are maintained, but planned for in the building, and made beautiful. Those fly-tainted meat markets no longer exist.”
“I will talk!” said Hallie, so plaintively that we all laughed and let her.
“That first one I was telling you about was very charming and attractive. There were arrangements on the top floor for nurseries and child gardens; and the roof was for children all day; evenings the grown-ups had it. Great care was taken by the management in letting this part to the best professionals in child culture.
“There were big rooms, too, for meetings and parties; places for billiards and bowling and swimming — it was planned for real human enjoyment, like a summer hotel.”
“But I thought you said this place was for women,” I incautiously ventured.
“Oh, Uncle John! And has it never occurred to you that women like to amuse themselves? Or that professional women have men relatives and men friends? There were plenty of men in the building, and plenty more to visit it. They were shown how nice it was, you see. But the chief card was the food and service. This company engaged, at high wages, first-class houseworkers, and the residents paid for them by the hour; and they had a food service which was beyond the dreams of — of — homes, or boarding houses.”
“Your professional women must have been millionaires,” I mildly suggested.
“You think so because you do not understand the food business, Uncle John; nobody did in those days. We were so used to the criminal waste of individual house-keeping, with its pitifully low standards, and to monotonous low-grade restaurant meals, with their waste and extortion, that it never occurred to us to estimate the amount of profit there really was in the business. These far-seeing women were pioneers — but not for long! Dozens are claiming first place now, just as the early ‘Women’s Clubs’ used to.
“They established in that block a meal service that was a wonder for excellence, and for cheapness, too; and people began to learn.”
I was impressed, but not convinced, and she saw it.
“Look here, Uncle John, I hate to use figures on a helpless listener, but you drive me to it.”
Then she reached for the bookcase and produced her evidence, sparingly, but with effect. She showed me that the difference between the expense of hiring separate service and the same number of people patronizing a service company was sufficient to reduce expenses to the patrons and leave a handsome payment for the company
Owen looked on, interpreting to my ignorance.
“You never kept house, old, man,” he said, “nor thought much about it, I expect; but you can figure this out for yourself easily enough. Here were a hundred families, equal to, say, five hundred persons. They hired a hundred cooks, of course; paid them something like six dollars a week — call it five on an average. There’s $500 a week, just for cooks — $26,000 a year!
“Now, as a matter of fact (our learned daughter tells us this), ten cooks are plenty for five hundred persons — at the same price would cost $1,300 a year!”
“Ten are plenty, and to spare,” said Hallie; “but we pay them handsomely. One chef at $3,000; two next bests at $2,000 each, four thousand; two at $1,000 apiece, two thousand; five at $800, four thousand. That’s $18,000 — half what we paid before, and the difference in service between a kitchen maid and a scientific artist.”
“Fifty per cent, saved on wages, and 500 per cent, added to skill,” Owen continued. “And you can go right on and add 90 per cent, saving in fuel, 90 per cent, in plant, 50 per cent, in utensils, and — how much is it, Hallie, in materials?”
Hallie looked very important.
“Even when they first started, when food was shamefully expensive and required all manner of U Jand — ations, L saving was all of 60 per cent. Now it is fully 80 per cent.”
“That makes a good deal all told, Uncle John,” Jerrold quietly remarked, handing me a bit of paper. “You see, it does leave a margin of profit.”
I looked rather helplessly at the figures; also at Hallie.
“It is a shame, Uncle, to hurry you so, but the sooner you get these little matters clear in your head, the better. We have these great food furnishing companies, now, all over the country; and they have market gardens and dairies and so on, of their own. There is a Food Bureau in every city, and a National Food Bureau, with international relations. The best scientific knowledge is used to study food values, to improve old materials and develop new ones; there’s a tremendous gain.”
“But — do the people swallow things as directed by the government?” I protested. “Is there no chance to go and buy what you want to eat when you want it?”
They rose to their feet with one accord. Jerrold seized me by the hand.
“Come on, Uncle!” he cried. “Now is as good a time as any. You shall see our food department — come to scoff and remain to prey — if you like.”
The elevator took us down, and I was led unresistingly among their shining modernities.