Workingman's Model Home. 395 



masses, would prove suggestive to those engaged in practical philan- 

 thropic work, and would perhaps stimulate more general study along 

 such lines. Secondarily, such an exhibit would be of the greatest 

 interest to foreign visitors as an example of the possibilities of the 

 workingman's ideal home in the United States. Mr. Thacher awakened 

 sufficient interest among the other members of the New York State 

 board to secure the appropriation of the funds necessary to carry out 

 this plan. Miss Katharine B. Davis, of Rochester, N". Y., was chosen 

 to work out the plan in its details and to take charge of the exhibit at 

 Chicago. 



Development of Exhibit. 



It was the 4th of March, 1893, when it was definitely decided that 

 the house should be built. The time was all too short for what was to 

 be done, and to this fact is largely due the incompleteness and imper- 

 fections in the working out of the scheme. 



Guided by the national labor statistics as well as by observation, 

 $500 was taken to represent the income of an industrious laborer in 

 times when steady work could be had. The earnings were to be 

 entirely those of the father of the family. To furnish a basis for work 

 an imaginary family was created. Their family history was constructed 

 with a view of illustrating in the exhibit what seemed to be vital points 

 in the history of any family. 



A young couple are engaged to be married. Both are wage-earners : 

 he, a laboring man, making $500 a year ; she, possibly a house servant, 

 the most favorable supposition, at three dollars a week and board. If 

 they have not others dependent on their earnings, with such an end in 

 view each can save $100 a year. If they cannot do better than that 

 let them wait at least two years before marrying. With $400 in cash 

 $100 can be put away in the bank as a nest egg or against " a rainy 

 day." "With the remaining $300 their house can be completely 

 furnished. Certainly, most young working people begin with less. 

 We are imagining the ideal thing. 



Having furnished the house and settled the young couple in it, we 

 pass on a dozen years or so and find them, in the year of the World's 

 Fair, 1893, settled in Chicago, living through the hardest period in a 

 family's history — that in which there is a growing family, each too 

 young to add to the family income. The mother, if the family is to 

 be an ideal one, does not herself try, through this period, at least, to be 

 a worker outside the home. If she is cook and sewing woman, nurse 

 and manager of the family income, she is as truly earning as if she 

 brought actual dollars and cents into the family treasury. For there is 

 no real economy in a home where the children are nncared for, the 

 house untidy, the food unpalatable and innutritious. We find them 

 there with a family of four children, all under ten years. We will 

 call them, for convenience, a girl of ten, a boy of eight, a girl of five, 

 and a baby boy in the cradle. Under these conditions, if the father and 

 mother are judicious, how will they apportion their income of $500 

 among the necessary items of family expeiise? 



This consideration gives us an opportunity to illustrate three of the 

 most vital points — the expenditure for rent, clothing and food. Here 



