Immigrant mother and child: Chicago, 1910.

Abstract

THIS PHOTOGRAPH WAS published in the Fourteenth Annual Report of the Chicago Lying-In Hospital and Dispensary for 1910. Through 1910, more than 12 000 women had delivered babies at home, attended by dispensary physicians. This image was used as part of a fund-raising effort by the Women's Board of the dispensary to help build 3 small hospitals for women who could not safely be attended in their homes. The mother and child in the photograph are identified as part of a Hungarian Jewish family with 10 children. The entire family occupied 3 crowded rooms, including the kitchen, shown here. Nine of the children slept in a single windowless bedroom. The father, who spoke little English, made his living in the winter by carrying advertising signs for a clothing store; in the summer, he sold ice-cream sodas from a stall in front of the tenement.