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Citizenship Survey (1914)

“A Citizenship Survey in Chicago,” by Philip L. Seman for the Chicago Hebrew Institute (1914). “In accordance with the original suggestion made two years ago at the Baltimore conference, the Chicago Hebrew Institute began a house-to-house survey, the object being to ascertain the citizenship status of the residents as well as their literacy, particularly with reference to English.”

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Religion In Nineteenth-Century America

Written by Dr. Graham Warder, Keene State College. “Converts to the new religious ways ardently strove to eliminate sin from themselves and from their society. The result was a faith that promoted social reforms of various kinds, among them abolitionism, temperance, health reform, and the asylum movement.”

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Martyrs of Memphis

In 1878 the city of Memphis, Tennessee was struck by an epidemic of yellow fever, which so depopulated the area that the city lost its charter and was not reorganized for fourteen years. Almost everyone who could afford to do so left the city and fled to higher ground away from the river. There were in the city several communities of nuns, Anglican or Roman Catholic, who had the opportunity of leaving, but chose to stay and nurse the sick. Most of them, thirty-eight in all, were themselves killed by the fever.

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Home Missionary Society of Philadelphia

While some children required long-term placement, assistance was often temporary. One worker describes a case below which particularly displays the “uplift” mentality of the Society:

“After a meeting, I called on a widow with four children. She is sick. To secure daily bread, her boy, twelve years of age, sells papers. He called to see me, asking for a situation in the city, whereby he might help his mother. I knew a man of business who wanted a boy, took him with me and secured the place. He has been with him three weeks, and gives such good satisfaction that his wages have been raised, and he is promised permanent employment with a knowledge of the trade. When the mother had sufficiently recovered she came to thank me for the interest I had taken in her son. In this case it was not the money given which called forth her gratitude, but the fact that I had helped the family to help themselves.”

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Sisters of Charity of New York

Written by Michael Barga. “Some of the earliest sustained social service institutions and health care facilities in New York City were started by the sisters. Their allegiance to local Catholics in the city came in conflict with their obedience to their superiors … eventually leading to the establishment of a separate order recognized as the Sisters of Charity of New York (SCNY).”

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