Motion Picture Story Magazine (Feb-Jul 1911)

LIFE AT HULL HOUSE— CHICAGO'S MELT IX G POT 81 its restaurant features in a manner not thought of originally. The busiest scene at noon, however, is in the cafeteria, where the service is informal. Hundreds of factory employees come in during their limited time, serve themselves with good, wholesome food, at surprisingly low prices, eat amid clean, moral and attractive surroundings, and hurry back to work feeling that the brief interval of conversation and recreation during their lunch time has given them renewed strength for the work of the afternoon. The polished tables, the long rows of tempting pies, crullers, baked beans, and other foods, the shining line of huge coffee, tea and cocoa pots, steaming forth delicious fragrance, is all doubly attractive to those who must spend day after day, and week after week, in the darkness and sordid atmosphere of the neighborhood. Since January, 1897, the boys' club building has been the center of interest. It is usually the first place to which a party of visitors is conducted. ' ' We will begin at the top floor and come down," says the resident guide. "Some of the boys in residence are having a late breakfast, and others are getting an early lunch, but I think they will not object to our looking in upon them for a moment." The boys of the Culver residential club were too courteous to object, but they plainly were not happy to have visitors arrive before they were prepared to receive them. They were clean-faced, bright-eyed boys of sixteen and over, who had small-paying positions — some of them worked nights— and who rented rooms in the club building at small cost. One, a most attractive, energetic Italian, was waiting as a guest until suitable employment could be found for him. The boys were serving themselves with breakfast from the kitchen, and were attending to the various little housewifely duties with quite as much care and regard for neatness as their sisters would have done. The study and library rooms on the floor below were practically deserted. The majority of the boys in residence were at work, and it was not yet three o'clock, the hour when the house is opened to outside members. In a club of twelve hundred, where the payment of monthly dues of five cents entitles each member to full privileges, there must be system in order to insure no overcrowding, and to keep all games, classes and recreations harmonious. For this reason the club is opened to grammar school boys from 3.30 to 6 o'clock, and for high school and working boys every evening from 7 to 10 o'clock. The club members themselves guard the preservation and good order of the club, and each one takes a personal interest in its success. On entering the club, each boy receives a card on which is mentioned the various classes and instructions offered. He selects the three or four subjects that appeal to him, and from these applications the classes are organized. The carpentry shop and the electrical classes are always well filled. Four afternoons and four nights each week woodworking is taught. Down in the foundry four classes in brass molding and four classes in tinsmithing are conducted weekly. Two evenings a week there is applied electricity ; typesetting and typewriting, four nights a week; management of telephone and switchboard, two nights a week; cobbling, two nights a week. From all of these classes the boys enter into goodpaying positions. Those to whom the arts and crafts appeal, and who have the time to devote to them, are given opportunity for drawing, stenciling, design, metal-work and basket weaving. Equally complete and comprehensive is the arrangement of the social clubs; one meeting of each is held weekly. The history, and the parliamentary law, clubs never lack for members. Younger boys enjoy the story club and the older ones the debating society. Then there is the checker club for those who are not fond of more athletic sports, the scrapbook club, and the dancing class,