The trustees of the House of Industry, commiserating the fate of the many thousand females in the city toiling by the day or week, with no relatives or homes, resolved, in 1867, to open a Working Women's Home, where this class might find clean, well-ventilated rooms, wholesome food, and facilities for self-improvement, under Christian influence, at moderate expense. An immense building, No. 45 Elizabeth street, was accordingly purchased, refitted, and furnished, at an expense of $120,000. The building extends from Mott to Elizabeth streets, is fifty-six feet wide, two hundred feet deep, and six stories high, besides basement. It was dedicated September 26, 1867, and thrown open for boarders on the first day of the following month. The House at this writing has two hundred and sixty boarders, and has rooms for about one hundred more. Room-rent, gas, washing, use of parlor and bath-room, are furnished for the small sum of $1.25 per week. Meals are provided on the restaurant plan at such moderate rates, that the whole expense of living does not exceed three or four dollars per week. This Home has a separate superintendent, and a distinct Institution, though managed by the same board of trustees. This eminently philanthropic movement has been very successful, though the largest expectations of the founders have not yet been fully realized.

The entire expenditures of the Board from 1855 to 1870, including both Institutions, amounted to $600,000. The organization employs no travelling solicitor, but makes its appeal through the press, and depends upon the generosity of the public for the several thousand dollars necessary to defray its monthly expenses. The society, in 1857, commenced the issue of the "Monthly Record," which now has a circulation of 5,000 copies. It up sent to subscribers at $1.00 a year. Nearly all the shoes worn in the Institution and given away in the neighborhood, amounting to fifteen or twenty hundred pairs every year, are received gratuitously at second hand, and are repaired in their own shop. At least ten thousand garments are given away annually. Boxes of clothing and provision are received front all parts of the country, and from some of the large hotels in the city liberal donations of provision are sent daily. Since the organization of the society there have been five superintendents successively employed—Messrs. Pease, Talcott, Barlow, Halliday, and Barnard. Upon this officer is laid a heavier burden than is usually borne by similar officials in other institutions, as to his discretion is committed the whole matter of admissions, dismissals, and the dispensing of outside charities. That these officers have been wise and efficient, the present prosperous condition of the Institution attests.