The Workingman and Social Problems (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Workingman and Social Problems
During r...)
Excerpt from The Workingman and Social Problems
During recent years many earnest men and women have surrendered lives of comparative luxury and given themselves to study and to work in settlement and city mission, in order to see and feel the actual conditions of the toilers in Shop and tenement.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
(Excerpt from Why Prohibition
About the Publisher
Forgot...)
Excerpt from Why Prohibition
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
American Social and Religious Conditions (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from American Social and Religious Conditions
Th...)
Excerpt from American Social and Religious Conditions
The consumption of liquor is on the increase. We are sometimes deceived by the statement that the consump tion of intoxicating liquor was greater during the times of our grandfathers than it is to-day, because in those days this practice was condoned or even encouraged. But statistics indicate that whereas in 1850 the per capita consumption of alcoholic liquors in the United States was gallons, in 1911 it was gallons. There has been a steady increase in the use of intoxicants, in Spite of the activity of the Church and temperance societies. The Commissioner of Internal Revenue reports that during the fiscal year ending in 1912 more whiskey and rum was produced than ever before in the history of the country. Stored in warehouses the country over are 263, gallons of this material. Incidentally it may be said that during the same period cigarettes were smoked, an increase over 1911 of nearly 2, 000, 000, 000. Here is a call to those who believe in the slogan for God, and home, and native land.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
The Call of the New Day to the Old Church (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from The Call of the New Day to the Old Church
W...)
Excerpt from The Call of the New Day to the Old Church
While it would be unfortunate for the Church were it to fail at this critical period in its history, it would be equally disastrous for those who are impatient for progress were they to leave the Church at this stage. There is no doubt that those who would accomplish the biggest things in behalf of the people can best do them through the Church, even though they may just now be forced to fight an array of conservatism which at times seems appalling. The same reactionaries are to be found in other organizations and institutions. The democratic form of gov ernment within the Church makes it easier to fight them here than anywhere else.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Boys of the Street, How to Win Them (Classic Reprint)
(Excerpt from Boys of the Street, How to Win Them
I was n...)
Excerpt from Boys of the Street, How to Win Them
I was number 8 in the now famous St. Mark's Boys' Club of New York City - the first boys' club started in America. That was over twenty years ago. Since then 1 have conducted a number of clubs of my own. My first attempt was with a mass club which had a membership of over five hundred, and which was composed princi pally of newsboys and bootblacks. This was followed, in another city, by a group club which was limited to eight members. Dur ing the past five years my interest in boys' work has been centred in self-government clubs.
The material in this book is the result of this varied experience. Abstract theories have been avoided. Nothing is suggested but what has been actually tested and found helpful, either by myself or by some other practical worker.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
(Excerpt from The Church and Labor
When the writing of th...)
Excerpt from The Church and Labor
When the writing of this book was first considered, it was a question as to whether the discussion should deal with methods of work or with the spirit of the Church and Labor. It was decided that the latter is of greater importance, hence this selection of the treatment of the subject. It is frankly acknowledged that better things might truthfully have been said about the Church and worse things about Labor, but there is already considerable literature telling about what the Church has done and what La bor has left undone, especially when the question is discussed from the viewpoint of the Church. This book is written largely from the standpoint of Labor. An attempt is made to present the spirit which under lies the labor movement, and to show that.
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This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
Charles Stelzle was an American Presbyterian minister, and intermediary between the church and the workingman. Stelzle's work contributed significantly to the spread of the social gospel movement, then making a considerable impact on American Protestantism.
Background
Charles was born on June 4, 1869 in New York City, New York, United States, the only son and oldest of the five children of John and Dora (Uhlendorf) Stelzle. Both parents had come from Germany as children.
His father, who owned a small brewery, died when Charles was a boy, and his mother maintained the family in a precarious tenement-house existence on Manhattan's Lower East Side by taking in sewing and washing.
Education
He attended night school during the five-year apprenticeship period, earned the title "superior workman". In 1890 he undertook a program of self-study and private tutoring to prepare for religious work in this field.
In further preparation in the program of self-study, he gave up his job as a machinist in 1893 and enrolled for ten months at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago.
Career
Charles took his first part-time job at the age of eight, stripping tobacco leaves in a sweatshop. He attended and became a member of Hope Chapel, a Presbyterian mission. When he was eleven he dropped out of public school and worked as a cutter in an artificial-flower shop. Later he went to work for R. Hoe & Company, printing press manufacturers, where at the age of sixteen he was enrolled as a machinist's apprentice.
Stelzle began his church service in 1895 as a lay worker in Hope Chapel, Minneapolis, Minnesota, a downtown mission of the sort that was then being all but abandoned by many churches as their parishioners moved out from the center city. In this chapel, characteristically located in a low-income working-class area, he sought particularly to reach boys, such as newsboys and bootblacks.
In 1897 Stelzle moved to his own boyhood church, Hope Chapel in New York. Frustrated there by the undemocratic control of a conservative board, he moved on to the Soulard Market Mission - soon to become Markham Memorial Church - in St. Louis, where he served from 1899 to 1903.
He was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1900. Convinced that the alienation of workingmen from the church was deepening, Stelzle appealed to the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. , which in 1903 gave him a "special mission to workingmen. "
By 1906 his mission had grown into the Board's Department of the Church and Labor, with Stelzle as superintendent - the first official church agency to pursue an aggressive social gospel campaign through the efforts of a paid secretary. Through much traveling, speaking, preaching, and writing he formally and informally fulfilled his chosen special role, that of interpreter of the labor movement to the church and of the churches to working people. He encouraged the exchange of fraternal delegates between city central labor unions and ministerial associations; at its peak, the practice was observed in some 150 cities.
In 1905 he addressed the convention of the American Federation of Labor, and for a decade thereafter he served as fraternal delegate to this organization, representing at first his Department and after 1909 the fledgling Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, of whose new Commission on the Church and Social Service he became an officer.
He encouraged the observance of Labor Sunday (the day before Labor Day) in the churches, supplying program materials and urging union cooperation; the idea was widely adopted beginning in 1904.
Stelzle wrote many articles for religious periodicals, seeking to acquaint middle- and upper-class churchgoers with the conditions of working people. His first book, Workingmen and Social Problems (1903), was largely a collection of such articles. His second, Boys of the Street: How to Win Them (1904), was an outgrowth of his own experiences. In The Church and Labor (1910) Stelzle contributed greatly to the growing popularity of the use of sociological survey methods in church work.
His American Social and Religious Conditions (1912) employed charts and graphs to call attention to the unhappy situation of many of America's immigrant and minority groups. Stelzle also began writing a weekly column syndicated to some 250 weekly and monthly labor periodicals, a practice he continued for the rest of his life. Several later books were essentially compilations of these articles. Much of his writing grew out of his public speaking and retained a direct, anecdotal style. His messages to workingmen were brief, common-sense pieces often focused around his central theme of the need for cooperation between church and labor.
Stelzle put his ideas into practice with the founding in 1910 of Labor Temple, located in a building on New York's Second Avenue, at Fourteenth Street, which he had persuaded Presbyterian authorities to purchase. Here, in the manner of a social settlement, he directed for two years a widely publicized program designed to appeal to workingmen through a network of meetings and open forums.
He further advocated such methods across the nation in 1911-12 as dean of the Social Service Department of the Men and Religion Forward Movement, which conducted eight-day educational and inspirational campaigns in sixty American cities. From 1912, as religious views polarized toward what would emerge in the 1920's as the Fundamentalist-Modernist doctrinal controversy, and as the Presbyterian Church in the U. S. A. re-examined its social stand in an effort to effect consolidation with the more conservative Southern, United, and Reformed Presbyterian churches, Stelzle found his ministry facing mounting criticism and finally, in 1913, a steep budget cut. Committed more to his work than to any single institution, Stelzle resigned his post and undertook a third career, in the field of public relations.
His book Why Prohibition! (1918) brought together the results of his investigations on behalf of temperance. This work was financed by William F. Cochran, Baltimore philanthropist, who also paid for Stelzle's services as field secretary (1916 - 18) of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America, in which post he sought to make effective in program and action the "social creed of the churches. "
During the First World War, Stelzle took charge of publicity for the American Red Cross in Washington in the field of industry and the church.
In the postwar years, now no longer a prominent public figure, Stelzle directed many promotional campaigns for religious, patriotic, and community organizations.
In 1936-39 he was executive director of the Good Neighbor League, giving special attention to the celebration of a century and a quarter of peace on the Canadian-American boundary and to opposing totalitarian philosophy.
He died of uremia in New York City in 1941 after a long illness.
Deeply immersed in church activities from his youth and a Presbyterian elder from the age of twenty-one, Stelzle was distressed at the gap between the church and the workingman.
Personality
His speaking was quiet and without rhetorical flashes, but forceful in its sincerity. He was quick in retort and resourceful in illustration, "a tireless human kaleidescope. "
At the peak of his ministerial career, Stelzle was described as being below average height, with a broad, bald head, wide-set eyes, prominent nose, and strong chin.
Connections
On November 28, 1889, Stelzle had married Louise Rothmayer; they had one son, Robert Clarence. On September 11, 1890, following his first wife's death, he married Louise Ingersoll, by whom he had two daughters, Hope Ingersoll and Frances.