Document 12: "Workers Needed for Maternity Section," Bulletin, Women's City Club of New York, 3 (December 1919), p. 16, WCCNY Papers, Archives and Special Collections, Hunter College, New York, N.Y. (WCCNY microfilm, reel 17, frame 142).
Introduction
This appeal to club members to volunteer at the Center described three kinds of work available to them: home visiting, mothers' clubs; and doctor's assistance at the clinic.
WORKERS NEEDED FOR MATERNITY SECTION
The Maternity Center needs workers. Three kinds of service can be given. If you like visiting in the home you can help, at such time as you have free, in our "follow up" work. This consists in visiting a list of our former patients whom the nurses "discharged," usually at the end of the first or second month after childbirth, when the mother and baby are both well. But we always want to know if the baby is alive and well when it is one year old. So we need volunteers to follow up these babies, by visiting the home and reporting to the Center the condition of mother and child. This work is very important as serious home needs are often discovered and we are able to put a sick and discouraged household "on its feet" again.
Then there are the Mothers Clubs. Twice a week the mothers come for the "demonstration class." Usually they are mothers with their first babies. They are shown how to bathe, clothe, and handle the baby, told how to feed him, how they themselves should eat and dress--everything relating to the health of mother and child. Then tea or cocoa is served, there is a little music and a good time generally. The nurses prefer not to have more than twelve or fifteen mothers at a time, but in good weather twenty or twenty-five often crowd in, making a difficult task for the nurses, and they need help.
We also need assistance at the doctor’s clinics. This work consists in getting patients ready for examination, helping the doctor with instruments, records and being generally useful. Full information may be secured from the Secretary, Mrs. Andrews, by writing her at 131 East 23rd Street, or telephoning Gramercy 2589.