The Art of Survival on $4 a Week

In the wake of the great fire, a relief committee member inquired of a struggling laborer how he managed to sustain his family of four on only four dollars a week. The man explained his system: 'The fire took everything, so I, together with my wife, set out to survive. We had twenty-one pounds of flour and some bread, but we had to feed ourselves. We found that we could get four stews out of fourteen cents. We made breakfast for dinner and saved enough to be warmed up for breakfast.'

He detailed the strict rationing of bacon, pork, beans, and flour, noting that they could only afford meat once a week in bulk. 'We bought three pounds of beef for which we paid twenty cents. We boiled it in the water, taking out fat for broth, then used the meat for the stew, and the bones for soup.' By utilizing every scrap and boiling their meager rations into repetitive, calorie-dense stews, the family managed to stay fed while living out of a small, makeshift tent. Their account offers a rare, unflinching look at the extreme domestic austerity forced upon working families in the burned-out ruins of early Seattle.