Chapter One
New York City
Summer 1909
My family built this country with muddy hands and a spark of madness. On my grandfather's side, we were brickmakers, shoveling clay out of pits along the Damariscotta River in Maine. On my grandmother's side, we were rebels, writing pamphlets against taxation without representation and taking up muskets against the redcoats.
Alas, just like some bricks break in the kiln, so, too, did some of my kin crack in the fire of the American Revolution. Madness runs in families, they say. Courage too. And I wasn't entirely sure which of those inheritable traits was most responsible for my decision as a young woman to move to New York City, where I'd be living in Hell's Kitchen, one of the most notoriously violent tenement slums.
The neighborhood-insofar as one could call it that-was so much under the thumb of gang leaders that policemen couldn't enter without fear of being pelted with stones by lookouts who then escaped down the drainpipes into a maze of rat-infested back alleys.
Yet here I was-with my lace parasol in one hand, traveling valise in the other-jostling past shabby storefronts with soot-stained awnings, noisy saloons selling three-cent whiskey, and a rogue's gallery of ruffians brandishing penknives, looking to separate me from my valuables.
Fortunately, I hadn't any valuables on my person unless one were to count my fashionably ornamented hat and the few pennies I hid in my lace-up boot.
No doubt, I made a curious sight in the tenements, where strangers stood out. I also had an unfortunate moon face with dimples that gave the impression of doe-eyed youth even though I was twenty-nine years of age. And because my previous employment at the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association hadn't afforded a salary generous enough to pay for more than the occasional banana sandwich, I was thin enough to sometimes be confused with a teenaged girl.
But I wasn't a lost little naïf. I had learned from hard-won experience that in places such as this-where the foul odors from the docks mixed with the smell of horse dung and unwashed humanity in the streets-it was best to stride with a purposeful gait, keeping fixed upon my face an expression that said, Ill-intended gentlemen will very much regret trifling with me.
I'm convinced that stride and expression are all that account for how I arrived unmolested at the tall wrought iron stairway entrance of the brick settlement house on West Forty-Sixth Street.
Amid surrounding squalor, the settlement house was surprisingly well kept, its front stoop graced with pots of scarlet chrysanthemums. This place was meant to be a sanctuary for the poor where they could bathe, seek nursing care, or attend classes. And no sooner had I approached that sanctuary than did the curious, cold, and calculating looks I got on the street melt into something a little more civilized.
When I rang the bell, the supervisor was waiting for me. She introduced herself as Miss Mathews and ushered me inside while scrutinizing my fashionably narrow skirt with a whiff of disdain.
The dour-faced Miss Mathews was herself dressed all in black like social agitators of the older generation, adhering to the S-shaped corset. And I noticed her manner was just as constrained when she sniffed and said, very stiffly, "Welcome to Hartley House, Miss Perkins."
"Thank you," I chirped cheerfully, taking in the lovely foyer, then following her into a little office, where I sat at the edge of my seat, gloves folded in my lap, the heels of my lace-up boots lined up primly as she reviewed my file. "I'm very much looking forward to my time here at Hartley House."
"You come to us highly recommended," she said, as if she couldn't possibly imagine why. "And I see you have a fine education. Mount Holyoke College. Wharton Business School. And now New York's School of Philanthropy. Our understanding is that you're here on a fellowship from the Russell Sage Foundation."
"Yes," I said. "I've been given the opportunity to pursue a master's degree in economics, and I intend to make a survey of child malnutrition for my thesis."
Her eyes narrowed over the top of the file. "Not many women go to college, much less graduate school. Unless they are quite wealthy. Are you an heiress to a family fortune, Miss Perkins?"
In what I hoped was a crisply professional manner, I replied, "No, but my father owns a stationery store on Main Street in Worcester, Massachusetts, if you've ever been. Perkins & Butler Paper and Twine."
"I haven't had the pleasure."
Of course she hadn't. And it wouldn't have mattered if she had. Because my family's brickmaking business dwindled before I was born, forcing my father to stray from the family homestead in Maine in pursuit of middle-class mercantile respectability. But we still had the land and the legends . . .
Before my beloved grandmother passed, she regaled me with tales of our family's fiery revolutionaries and abolitionists. James Otis. Mercy Otis Warren. Oliver Otis Howard. With such relations, was it any wonder I had set forth like a vagabond patriot bent on improving the world?
Clearing my throat, I explained, "I sought an education because it's a point of family pride to have learned women. You see, we are kin to the first female scholar in Revolutionary America."
Did I imagine that Miss Mathews was at least a little impressed? "Well, then, it seems you are a young lady of good breeding, but young ladies of good breeding pass through every day. They come for idle curiosity about the poor. Or to rebel against their parents. Or to mark time before marriage, after which we never see them again."
"I assure you that I am not marking time before marriage."
Miss Mathews closed my file. "Why not? Aren't your parents expecting you to marry respectably?"
My parents had, in fact, expected me to do just that, and despite my protestations, my mother continually pressed suitors upon me. But I chuckled and said, "Fortunately, my younger sister has fulfilled family expectations by becoming betrothed to a dentist in Worcester, so I consider myself off the hook and decidedly on the shelf."
Miss Mathews now seemed vaguely amused. "Aren't you interested in finding love, Miss Perkins? In marrying and starting a family of your own? You seem to be a pleasant enough young woman with the sort of dimples that might attract beaus."
I decided to ignore both my own frustrated desires and the slight mockery in her tone. "I'm not as young as I look. What's more, I believe God has called me to better the lives of my countrymen. I could never allow romantic love to obliterate my responsibility to love mankind."
Her lips remained pursed but twitched at one corner as if to fight off an approving smile. "Well, I do not doubt that you're a good Christian on a mission from the Lord with a fine patriot pedigree, Miss Perkins. Or that your intellectual interest is genuine, or that your motives for social work are pure. But I suspect you will find it difficult to live and work in a neighborhood like this."
"I don't see why," I protested. "I've worked in neighborhoods like this before. You know that I volunteered at Hull House in Chicago with Jane Addams, and most recently, of course, I worked in Philadelphia's rougher neighborhoods."
"Where I understand that you fell afoul of the criminal element."
Ah, so this was the reason for my chilly reception . . .
"I like to think that they fell afoul of me," I said. After all, my job in Philadelphia had been to defend impoverished young women-especially white and black girls coming off trains from the South-against the pimps, procurers, drug dealers, and fraudulent employment agencies in the city. "As it happens, the criminal element didn't appreciate my creative efforts to combat and expose them."
"I'm told you were attacked."
"I assure you that it was a nearly comical incident in retrospect." I waved a dismissive hand as if to laugh off the incident, though I had been really frightened at the time. A notorious pimp and one of his thugs accosted me on a rainy night when I was returning to my apartment, but I ran them off with my trusty parasol. After that, I persuaded the police to put him out of business, so now I said, "All is well that ends well."
Miss Mathews crossed her arms over her bosom. "We don't approve of courting mischief here at Hartley House. We don't mix with gangsters, politicians, and other criminals in this neighborhood. And we certainly don't confront them. Ever. Is that understood?"
I felt rather like a schoolchild having my knuckles rapped with a ruler, which made me slightly indignant. After all, the Philadelphia Research and Protective Association may have been a bit of a tin-pot operation with a laughable budget, but as executive secretary, I had gotten into the habit of making my own rules.
Now I had to remind myself that I'd left all that behind. So I nodded and smiled. "Understood. I'm only here at Hartley House to study starving babies. How much mischief could I possibly court doing that?"
She made a sound at the back of her throat, but my answer seemed to satisfy her. "Very good, Miss Perkins."
Assuming our interview was at an end, I began to rise with the expectation I'd be shown to my quarters, where I could finally put down my bag, take off my boots, and clean off the dust of my travels. But she stopped me by asking, "One more thing. Why in God's name would a woman want to study economics?"
It wasn't so absurd a question, for in those days, the field of economics had been largely centered on finance, attracting business-minded fellows, aspiring tycoons, and the occasional wild-eyed Socialist. It was, in short, a field dominated by men. And at Wharton, my classmates often whispered behind my back, making no secret that I was unwelcome.
Check out Miss Dimples-
-never heard of a lady economist-
What's the world coming to?
But I had persevered, doing well enough to earn the admiration of my professor, who recommended me for a fellowship. Now here I was, contending with a social reformer who viewed my course of study as a puzzling, if not vulgar, fascination.
"Why economics?" I echoed gamely. "Because many people in America believe poverty is a moral problem having to do with sloth or some other sin we can blame on individuals. But I believe poverty in America is an economic problem that can be solved . . . and I intend to solve it."
Chapter Two
Hell's Kitchen
Summer 1909
Dear Mother,
What do you mean that you don't know what I am doing in New York? I have written you about it in detail two or three times. While it would be very nice to be with you all this summer, I simply can't afford to let this opportunity go by.
Love to all,
~Fanny
PS I'll try to come to Maine for July Fourth.
I settled into my small but tidy quarters at Hartley House, with a spare bed and desk against the wall. The rest of my luggage was due to arrive-just a hatbox and small trunk with books and clothing. For now, I pulled from my traveling valise a framed picture to set by my bedside.
It wasn't a portrait of family or a sweetheart. It was a landscape of the Perkins family homestead in Maine-a saltwater farm with an old brick house graced by lilac bushes near the door. A hundred acres of the most beautiful land in the country, where my white-haired, wire-thin, wise old granny had presided as matriarch until the age of ninety-eight, pickling fiddlehead ferns with Yankee frugality, and baking pies with nary a complaint about her shaky, arthritic hands.
As a child, I spent every summer with her playing in the meadows, swimming in the river, or helping her with the pump faucet in the summer kitchen. Those were idyllic days-my sanctuary and escape from my father's house in Worcester, where I spent my lonely adolescence buried in a book to escape my younger sister's violent tantrums and the resulting arguments between my parents over what to do about her.
Of course, my parents found other things to argue about, too, and their difficult and distant relationship certainly did not recommend the institution of marriage. Thankfully, my grandmother made me think other paths were possible for a woman. She supported my decision to leave home. And when I grew restless in my teaching job in Chicago, seeking solace in volunteering and writing, her pride and encouragement were worth far more to me than the pin money I earned selling short stories to a magazine.
Unfortunately, I hadn't been able to make my creative pen flow since her death, but I knew she'd have approved of my coming here to New York City on a fellowship for more serious study. After all, my grandmother believed I could make something of myself and do something good in the world. She even flattered me to think it might be something important . . .
If somebody opens a door of opportunity for you, it's the Lord's will, she always said. So walk right in and do the best you can.
Which was precisely what I meant to do.
I was awake early at Hartley House the next morning, pinning my long brown hair up in the style of the day and fastening an apron over my dress. I felt a yearning to explore Hell’s Kitchen and buy fruit for my breakfast from one of the urchins on the street corners, but Miss Mathews insisted I take some hearty porridge in the kitchens before giving me a tour of the facility.
Reciting from the annual report, she said, "Hartley House was founded on the premise that if the homes of the poor can be made more attractive and comfortable, there will be less cause for family dissension and disillusion, less seeking of the saloons by the men, less misery and wretchedness for the women, more happiness in the tenement districts, and less evil in the community. So we created a small housekeeping school where poor girls can be taught how to keep a home neat and tidy and attractive."
I did not believe, of course, that poor people lived in misery and squalor because they did not know how to keep a neat, tidy, and attractive home; I believed they could not afford to keep a neat and tidy home and did not have time to do so when working seventy-four hours a week without respite. This was to say nothing of my objection to the idea that a lack of women's housekeeping was the source of evil in any community.
Copyright © 2024 by Stephanie Dray. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
