|
As part of its innovative work as a "scientific" charity that established
standardized guidelines and procedures, hired a professional staff to implement
them, printed a myriad of forms, and administered its operations through a
complex hierarchy, the Relief and Aid Society compiled detailed statistics on
all of its work. Here it presents the gross numbers on family assistance for
two weeks in November of 1871. The Society tabulated every washboard and
bedstead, every pound of sugar and bushel of potatoes, every cloak and vest, it
distributed. It classified applicants and recipients by nationality (Germans
and Irish were, not surprisingly, the two leading groups, followed by
"Americans"). According to its count, between October, 1871, and May, 1873, the
Society aided 39,242 different families and 156,968 different people--virtually
half the population of Chicago when the fire broke out.
|
The Relief and Aid Society 