In rural districts the poor found life equally hard. Hamlin Garland, novelist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, wrote graphically of the hardships of life on the Middle Border. He described the hard work on the farm. There was no romance in getting up at five oclock in the morning with the temperature thirty degrees below zero. It required military discipline to get us out of bed in a chamber warmed only by the stovepipe, to draw on icy socks and frosty boots and go to milking cows.
The Salvation Army.
In times of distress poor people were chiefly dependent upon private charities, political clubs, and religious organizations for charity.
The Salvation Army, which had its beginning in England, was also organized in America in 1879. It was more than a religious organization concerned with the spreading of Christian faith among the poor and the outcasts of society. Its workers went into the slums and worked among the poor and destitute. Long before the twentieth century this organization had set up employment agencies, lodging houses for the homeless, soup kitchens for the hungry, and was carrying on a whole program of social service for those in need. Its little chapels and houses of refuge were to be found in every city.
The YMCA and Other Religious Agencies.
In the same spirit the Young Mens Christian Association expanded its program to more than social and religious work among the young men of the great cities. It began to branch out into educational programs and practical service to the needy. To many of the poor immigrants coming from the Catholic countries of southern Europe, the only refuge was the Church; and the Catholic Church during the period of the 1890s and the early 1900s carried on a great and worthy program of real service to many who were in great need. The Jewish synagogue and leaders of their faith took an equally active part in the program of social service among their people. Settlement Houses.
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