e various social and
community agencies of the city, from which much valuable information
on the cost and standard of living was secured.[1] To obtain the cost
of the various items entering into the family budget and the increases
in cost over a five-year period, figures were collected from retail
food and clothing stores, coal dealers, and other corporations,
associations and individuals in close touch with the local situation.

[1] The following organizations and individuals were consulted:
Chamber of Commerce, Association for Community Welfare, King
Philip Settlement, Instructive District Nursing Association,
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Women's
Union, Boy Scouts, Immigrant Aid Society, Fall River Cotton
Manufacturers' Association, President of the Textile Council,
Superintendent of Schools, superintendent of one of the mills,
physician in charge of the city clinics for children, a Roman
Catholic priest, mill operatives.

FALL RIVER AND ITS PEOPLE

The population of Fall River in 1915 was approximately 125,000, of
whom 75,000 were native born and 50,000 foreign born. A large
percentage of the native born are of foreign parentage. French
Canadians and Portuguese are the leading foreign nationalities and are
represented in approximately equal numbers. Together they comprise
over half the foreign-born population. The English are next most
important in numbers, approximately 10,000. Over 4,000 were born in
Ireland, over 3,000 are Poles and some 2,000 are Russians, the
majority of the latter undoubtedly Jews.

The people originally settled in neighborhood groups of a single
nationality rather than around the particular mills in which they were
employed. There are, in fact, ten different villages, so called, into
which Fall River outside of the center may be said to be divided. The
nationalistic character of these villages, however, is now to some
extent breaking up, owing to decreased immigration, the Americanizing
effect of the war, and the efforts of the Immigrant Aid Committee and
other local social agencies, so that French, Portuguese, Irish and
other foreign nationalities are coming in closer contact one with
another.

Families in Fall River often are large; the French Canadian and
Portuguese not infrequently have eight or more children, and sometimes
12 or 15. This means that in many families there is inevitably