Slum Social

The Tenement-House Social

A New Departure in Slum Work

This article was published in the The Christian Herald on March 13, 1901. The cover illustration was created by E.J. Meeker.

A novel feature in slum work was recently inaugurated in New York City, when Mrs. Conolly, scrub-woman, living in a room on the top floor of one of the most wretched tenements on Gouveneur Street, was hostess to a company composed of ladies in silks and satins, who passed neighborly compliments with washerwomen, seamstresses, and other humble toilers of the East Side.

For the rich and the cultured to be the guests of the tenement dwellers is, as far as the knowledge of the writer goes, a decided innovation. Mrs. Conolly’s tea - the first of its kind – was held under the auspices of the Gospel Settlement, and at the suggestion of The Christian Herald.

Wealthy visitors learn, as they could in no other way, the limitations and hardships of the poor. “How in the world do children and old people go up and down these steps without breaking their necks?” asked women in soft rainment, as they climb steep, rickety stairs to some sixth floor tenement.

All the tenement folk, knowing that Mrs. Conolly was going to have some “fine company,” had scrubbed the house from top to bottom. The place was at its best, yet up-town guests asked: “How can people live here?”

Mrs. Conolly made and poured the tea herself, and her neighbors and friends from the settlement helped her to serve it and to hand around the cakes and crackers.

A poor old woman was the happiest person at the feast. She was hungry and crackers and cakes were welcome. With tears shining in her dim eyes, she said, “It’s good to be here, it is. I ain’t got no kith or kin.”