of avoiding the expense of transportation to and from work, are perhaps the most important economic factors. Friendly relations, kinship, language, religious affiliations, dietary laws and preferences, and the greater ease of securing boarders in districts where immigrants of the same race are centered, are some of the most important constituent elements of racial cohesion.

On the other hand, economic progress, education, and social ambition tend to distribute immigrants throughout a city and to hasten their absorption into the general body of residents. When the expense of moving ceases to be of great moment, when a firm economic footing is gained by the immigrant, he is likely to begin to look around for a more attractive place of residence. His ability to speak and read English, his greater familiarity with transportation facilities, and the increase in his general knowledge of conditions in other parts of the city, help him in selecting a new home. The pressure often comes through the children who grow up as Americans and prefer not to be identified with distinctly foreign sections of a city.

METHOD AND SCOPE.

In undertaking an investigation which was to cover over 10,000 households, the Commission felt that it must not attempt to investigate technical details of tenement-house construction or of sanitary conditions. It aimed simply at obtaining the most essential general facts about the lives of the immigrants in large cities.

The investigation included sections of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland, Buffalo, and Milwaukee. No student of congestion could omit any of the first four cities, while Cleveland was included because it was believed that this city is in process of transition from the state of a small town with no danger of overcrowding to that of a large center facing the problem of congestion. Buffalo and Milwaukee belong to the type of large cities in which village conditions have not disappeared. Tenements are few in either city and the usual home consists of a small house with a yard on at least one side. In studying cities of all three types the Commission's aim was to gain an idea of how the immigrants fare in various city environments.

Within each city the unit of investigation was a block or, more accurately, a frontage; that is, one side of a street between two other streets. The plan was to select a certain number of such blocks and then to secure information from every family living within their limits. The blocks were selected on the double principle of congestion and racial homogeneity; that is, an effort was made to study in each city the most crowded blocks inhabited as nearly as possible by members of one race. In determining congestion, two elements were taken into consideration-the number of households per lot and the general condition of the houses, the blocks inhabited by the largest number of households per lot and consisting of the poorest representative dwellings being chosen for study. It was comparatively easy to find the most congested districts; the building and health departments of the cities, charitable institutions, and social settlements are well informed as to the location of these districts. greatest difficulty was experienced in finding racial uniformity in the population of the blocks. Under the constantly changing conditions

The

of the cities it is no easy matter to find blocks inhabited largely by one race, and in some instances a block tentatively selected as being inhabited by members of one race proved, on closer examination, to be distinctly cosmopolitan, or inhabited by another race the members of which had recently displaced the previous residents. In some cases the final canvass disclosed that the race that was believed to predominate in a certain district formed in reality only a minority of the households; when such districts are included in the study it is because the race in question was not to be found in isolated colonies in the given city. In a few cases all the families belonging to one race and living in a limited area were studied and families of other races were omitted. In the search for racial uniformity the Commission's agents supplemented the information obtained from city authorities and social workers by interviewing physicians, district nurses, lawyers, clergymen, storekeepers, saloon keepers, letter carriers, and janitors-in a word, all persons who were likely to know the people in their neighborhood. Much difficulty was encountered in finding blocks inhabited by Germans, Irish, and Swedes, who are older immigrants and have had opportunities of scattering throughout the cities. As regards households whose heads are native-born white of native father, it proved to be impossible to study these in homogeneous blocks. The only such blocks discovered represented an economic level far in advance of that of the other families investigated, and since it was felt that Americans of native white parentage should be included in the study for purposes of comparison, in some cities selected families living in poorer neighborhoods were visited by the agents. It is a significant fact that the search for American families in crowded districts of American cities was attended with considerable difficulty.

As the investigation covered but 10,206 households comprising 51,006 individuals, the population studied constitutes an insignificant proportion of the eight or more millions of inhabitants of the seven cities studied. No attempt is made to estimate the proportion of each city's population living under the conditions studied by the Commission. The report aims to show the worst representative conditions found in each city.

SUMMARY FOR SEVEN CITIES.

The number of households and the number of individuals studied in each of the seven cities are as follows:

TABLE 1.-Number of households and of individuals studied, by city.

COMPOSITION OF POPULATION.

NATIVITY AND RACE.

The following tables present a detailed statement of the number of households and individuals studied in the various cities and the distribution of the households by city and by general nativity and race. The race distribution of the households studied in the seven cities is given in the first table following:

TABLE 2.-Number of households and of individuals studied in seven cities, by general nativity and race of head of household.

The next table classifies the households by general nativity and race of head and by city of residence.

TABLE 3,-Number of households included in detailed study, by general nativity and race of head of household and by city.

TABLE 3.-Number of households included in detailed study, by general nativity and race of head of household and by city—Continued.

Seventeen immigrant races are included in this study. Russian Hebrews and South Italians were found in considerable numbers in the congested districts of all seven cities. Poles were found in all cities except New York; Hebrews other than Russian in all cities except Boston and Buffalo, and the Irish in all cities except Buffalo and Milwaukee. Bohemians and Germans were studied in four of the seven cities. Households whose heads are native-born white of native father were found in small numbers in all of the cities. These and the households of the second generation of immigrant races wherever found in sufficient numbers have been included in the detailed study for comparative purposes.

The following table gives the race distribution of households studied by city of residence:

TABLE 4.-Race distribution of households studied, by city; percentages.

Of the 10,206 households studied the South Italians form 19.4 per cent, or nearly one-fifth. In no city do they form less than 12 per cent of the total number of households. Russian Hebrew households, which are second only to South Italian households in point of numbers, constitute 13.4 per cent of all households studied, and are represented in no city by as few as 9 per cent of the households included in the study.

The following table gives the city distribution of households studied by general nativity and race of head of household:

TABLE 5.-City distribution of households studied, by race; percentages.

Twenty-six and one-tenth per cent, or more than one-fourth, of all households studied are in New York City, 21.9 per cent are in Chicago, 13.9 per cent in Boston, 11.6 per cent in Cleveland, 11.5 per cent in Philadelphia, 8.2 per cent in Milwaukee, and 6.7 per cent in Buffalo. Of the Russian Hebrew households 35 per cent are in New York, 18.2 per cent are in Boston, and 15.3 per cent are in Chicago, the remaining 31.5 per cent being distributed through the other four cities. Of the entire number of Polish households 37.2 per cent are in Chicago. The South Italian households show a more uniform distribution than either Russian Hebrews or Poles.