P.S. 7 Continuation School photographs
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Abstract
Photographs documenting a course in housekeeping conducted at the P.S. 7 continuation school on Manhattan's Lower East Side. The classes, modeled on the ideas of home economist Mabel Hyde Kittredge (1867–1955), began around 1913 and provided practical instruction in cooking, cleaning, waiting tables, and balancing a household budget to young women from the area's large immigrant population.
Historical note
In October 1913, Marietta J. Tibbits (1860–1948), the principal of P.S. 7 in Manhattan, requested from the Department of Education "that certain vacant rooms . . . be set aside in which to establish a course in Home-making." Following the ideas in the texts of home economist Mabel Hyde Kittredge (1867–1955), like her "Housekeeping Notes: How to Furnish and Keep House in a Tenement Flat" (1911), Tibbits offered instruction to girls who had perhaps already left school behind, but who desired practical training in tasks they might be assigned as working cooks, maids, and shop clerks. In the vacant rooms of P.S. 7 the students outfitted a functioning apartment—equivalent to one of Kittredge's "housekeeping centers"—complete with kitchen, dining room, sitting room, and a bedroom. In what Tibbits claimed was the first continuation school in America, they learned how to prepare meals, wait on table, make beds, launder clothes, and balance a household budget, estimating the cost of food, rent, and fuel. In study rooms they practiced sewing by hand and machine, and weighed out sugar and flour in a mock grocery store. Situated on the Lower East Side (at 66 Chrystie Street, on the southeast corner of Hester, a site occupied since 1934 by Sara D. Roosevelt Park), the program attracted the daughters of the area's predominant residents: the Jewish and Italian immigrants who settled there in the early twentieth century.
[For further details, see "Course in Homemaking. First to Be Established in Manhattan School," in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 28, 1913, and "Training Office Boys for Work. Interesting Experiment Tried at Public School 75, and Another Somewhat Similar for Girls at P.S. 7," in the New York Times, July 11, 1915.]
Arrangement
The photographs are housed in one box. The backs carry captions presumably in the hand of Marietta J. Tibbits, who also assigned identifying numbers (1 through 4) and letters (A through D) to the first four photographs. To the last three she assigned only letters (A, B, and C).
Scope and Contents
This collection contains seven 5 x 7-inch photographs (on 8 x 10-inch warped mounts), of the housekeeping course at the continuation school in Manhattan's P.S. 7, circa 1913. All the photographs are signed at the lower right "DANZIG N.Y.," presumably the photographers Albert M. and David M. Danzig (Danzig Bros.), who maintained a Bronx studio in the early twentieth century. The photographs capture the female students in caps and aprons engaged in housekeeping tasks appropriate to each room of their model apartment: stirring pots and leaning over a sink in the kitchen; setting a table in the dining room; making beds while their instructor observes; and dusting furniture and wall hangings in the sitting room. In study rooms they gather at tables to tally household accounts and make mock purchases from a grocery store, sew on treadle machines, and practice cooking. Some views contain advertisements for popular products: Kodak Film, Hershey's Cocoa, Borden's Milk, Readymaid Soups, and Gold Medal Flour.
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Access Restrictions
This collection may be stored offsite. For information on arranging to consult it, please go to www.nyhistory.org/library/visit.
Use Restrictions
Taking images of documents from the library collections for reference purposes by using hand-held cameras and in accordance with the library's photography guidelines is encouraged. As an alternative, patrons may request up to 20 images per day from staff. Application to use images from this collection for publication should be made in writing to: Department of Rights and Reproductions, The New-York Historical Society, 170 Central Park West, New York, NY 10024-5194, rightsandrepro@nyhistory.org. Phone: (212) 873-3400 ext. 282.
Copyrights and other proprietary rights may subsist in individuals and entities other than the New-York Historical Society, in which case the patron is responsible for securing permission from those parties. For fuller information about rights and reproductions from N-YHS visit: www.nyhistory.org/rights-and-reproductions.
Preferred Citation
This collection should be cited as: P.S. 7 Continuation School Photographs, PR 450, Department of Prints, Photographs, and Architectural Collections, New-York Historical Society.
Location of Materials
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Gift of Marietta J. Tibbits, March 30, 1938.
Physical Facet
(5 x 7-inch black-and-white prints on 8 x 10-inch mounts).About this Guide
Processing Information
Archivist Joseph Ditta arranged and described this collection in February 2023.