1 There is a growing literature on the impact of the Depression on Indonesia. See, for example, Weathering the storm: The economies of Southeast Asia in the 1930s Depression, ed. Peter Boomgaard and Ian Brown (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2000); Booth, Anne, ‘Living standards and the distribution of income in colonial Indonesia: A review of the evidence’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 19, 2 (1988): 292–309CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ingleson, John, ‘Fear of the kampung, fear of unrest: Urban unemployment and colonial policy in 1930s Java’, Modern Asian Studies 46, 6 (2012): 1633–71CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Fauzia, Amelia, Faith and the state: A history of Islamic philanthropy in Indonesia (Leiden: Brill, 2013), pp. 99–172CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Quoted in Frances Gouda, Dutch culture overseas: Colonial practice in the Netherlands Indies 1900–1942 (Jakarta: Equinox Publishing, 2008), p. 114Google Scholar.

4 Quoted in Soeara Oemoem, 9 Nov. 1935.

5 A report in the Dutch-language newspaper De Indische Courant stated that ‘Many women are drawn to the town in search of work, but frequently are deeply disillusioned. It is also a fact that one can speak of an invasion of beggars, vagabonds and similar people.’ De Indische Courant, 31 July 1930.

6 Prochaska, F.K., Women and philanthropy in nineteenth-century England (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980)Google Scholar and The voluntary impulse: Philanthropy in modern Britain (London: Faber and Faber, 1988).

7 The European press was full of comments on the impact the sight of unemployed Europeans was having on the image of their community in the colony. Early in 1932, for example, a correspondent for the relatively liberal Surabaya newspaper De Indische Courant spoke of walking through a kampung and seeing impoverished Europeans, probably Eurasians: ‘Even the western pauper needs to maintain a certain standing in a European environment. If he can no longer do so then he will not longer be considered as being one of us!’ Quoted in De Telegraaf, 3 Mar. 1932. Sneevliet Collection 585, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam (IISG). By the 1930s Eurasians were probably 80 per cent of the people legally classified as Europeans. See Ingleson, ‘Fear of the kampung, fear of unrest’: 1633–7.

8 See Ingleson, ‘Fear of the kampung, fear of unrest’.

9 See Breman, Jan, Taming the coolie beast: Plantation society and the colonial order in Southeast Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar and Stoler, Ann Laura, Capitalism and confrontation in Sumatra's plantation belt, 1870–1979 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2nd ed., 1995)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 I have discussed this at length in Ingleson, John, Workers, unions and politics: Indonesia in the 1920s and 1930s (Leiden: Brill, 2014), especially pp. 41–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

11 Susan Blackburn has argued that women's organisations in the 1920s and 1930s paid little attention to the plight of female wage-earners because they were led by middle-class women who, apart from daily contact with domestic workers, had little understanding of the plight of women in factories and workshops. Blackburn, Susan, Women and the state in modern Indonesia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 170–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Gooptu, Nandini has written about ‘the mission of social and economic reform … of the Indian elite to what they identified as the poor and lower classes’, in The politics of the urban poor in early twentieth-century India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar. There are strong similarities in the attitudes of the Indian and Indonesian elites towards the poor.

13 Soeara Oemoem, 15 Feb. 1936.

14 Nawi Husin, ‘Tolonglah sesama manoesiamoe!’, Soeara Oemoem, 1 Dec. 1933.

15 The Gang Tengah kampung in Batavia was probably typical. In 1932 it was reported as having at least six support groups, including a cooperative, a savings and loans body and a death benefits fund. Siang Po, 3 June 1932.

16 For a discussion of the evolution of mutual benefit societies see van der Linden, Marcel, ed., Social security mutualism: The comparative history of mutual benefit societies (Bern: Peter Lang, 1996)Google Scholar, especially the introduction (Van der Linden) and chapters on Indonesia (Ingleson), India (Das Gupta) and China (Ownby).

17 For discussion of European pauperism in colonial Indonesia see Stoler, Ann Laura, Carnal knowledge and imperial power: Race and the intimate in colonial rule (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), especially pp. 34–8Google Scholar, and Bosma, Ulbe and Raben, Remco, Being ‘Dutch’ in the Indies: A history of creolisation and empire, 1500–1920 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2008)Google Scholar.

18 Soerabaiasch Handelsblad, 25 July 1935.

19 Ibid.

20 De Indische Courant, 28 Aug. 1937; Bataviaasche Nieuwsblad, 13 Oct. and 27 June 1937; Het Nieuws van den Dag, 18 Sep. 1936.

21 Soeara Oemoem, 7 Jan. 1938, and ‘Report of the General Support Committee for Destitute Natives for the 3rd quarter of 1936’, Sneevliet Collection 587, IISG.

22 Bataviaasche Nieuwsblad, 14 Dec. 1935 and 13 Oct. 1937; De Indische Courant, 8 May 1938. Kemajuan Isteri was founded in Bogor in 1926. See Blackburn, Susan, ‘The 1928 Women's Congress revisited’, in The First Indonesian Women's Congress of 1928, trans. and ed. Blackburn, Susan (Clayton: Monash University Publishing, 2008), p. 6Google Scholar.

23 Soeara Oemoem, 7 Mar. 1940.

24 Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 12 Nov. 1931, Sneevliet Collection 587, IISG and Locomotief, 18 Mar. 1932.

25 Locomotief, 18 Mar. 1932. The executive of the coordinating body included representatives from Budi Utomo, Partai Indonesia, Persatuan Bangsa Indonesia and the pawnshop workers' union.

26 On Isteri Sedar, see Blackburn, Women and the state in modern Indonesia.

27 A recent history of colonial Vietnam has argued that ‘For women, charity offered not only an opportunity to discuss national concerns, but also an opportunity to challenge their lack of access to the public sphere.’ Nguyen-Marshall, Van, In search of moral authority: The discourse on poverty, poor relief and charity in French colonial Vietnam (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), p. 59Google Scholar.

28 See Ingleson, John, ‘Sutomo, the Indonesian Study Club and organised labour in late colonial Surabaya’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 39, 1 (2008): 31–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29 Soeara Oemoem, 30 Jan. 1932, 26 Dec. 1933, 19 Dec. 1935.

30 For an extensive interview with Mrs Sardjono see, ‘Pertjakapan dengan pemimpin Armenszorg, njonja Sardjono’, Soeara Oemoem, 14 Dec. 1934. She was active in women's sport as well as in most of the charities established by the Indonesian Study Club during the Depression.

31 See, Soeara Oemoem, 28 Feb. and 7 Mar. 1940, and Orang Indonesia jang Terkemoeka di Djawa (Jakarta: Gunseikanbu, 1944), p. 478. See also Blackburn, ‘The 1928 Women's Congress revisited’, pp. 4, 13. Mrs Sudirman was married to Raden Sudirman, a prominent member of the Indonesian Study Club and the PBI.

32 For a discussion of the welfare work of the nurses' union, see Ingleson, Workers, unions and politics, pp. 288–94.

33 Soeara Oemoem, 14 Dec. 1934.

34 In addition to Mrs Sardjono, the membership of the executive included Mrs Tukul, Mrs Sujono, Mrs Gondokusumo, Mrs Sugiman and Mrs Sudarmo. Soeara Oemoem, 15 Apr. 1932.

35 Ibid.

36 Soeara Oemoem, 15 Apr. 1932.

37 Soeara Oemoem, 8 Nov. 1932.

38 ‘Pertjakapan dengan pemimpin Armenzorg, njonja Sardjono’.

39 Soeara Oemoem, 3 Feb. and 15 Apr. 1932.

40 ‘Pertjakapan dengan pemimpin Armenzorg, njonja Sardjono’.

41 ‘Pertolongan kepada si miskin’, Soeara Oemoem, 22 Nov. 1933.

42 ‘Pendirian Armenszorg’, Soeara Oemoem, 14 May 1936. See also Soeara Oemoem, 21 Jan. 1938.

43 Soeara Oemoem, 2 Apr. 1938. In 1937 it received 2,353 guilders from all sources. 70 per cent came from the Batavia Municipal Council and 10 per cent from other Indonesian organisations such as Isteri Indonesia and Rumah Pintu Muslimin.

44 There is an extensive file on the trafficking of women and children in the colony in the National Archives of the Netherlands, The Hague, Ministry of Colonies, Inventory Number 802.

45 Soeara Oemoem, 17 Feb. 1933.

46 Pemandangan, 24 Nov. 1933.

47 See ‘Kaum pengangguran perempuan: Prostitutie dengan vrouwenhuis’, in Pemandangan, 17 Oct. 1933 and ‘Penolong Penganggoeran Kaoem Iboe’, Pandji Poestaka, 13 Nov. 1934, p. 1711. See also Soeara Oemoem, 25 Feb. 1936 and Pemandangan, 28 and 30 Nov. 1933.

48 Pemandangan, 17 Oct. and 24 Nov. 1933; Soeara Oemoem, 25 Feb. 1936.

49 There are reports on the visit by Mrs de Jonge in Het Nieuws van den Dag, 12 Aug. 1932 and Soerabaiasch Handelsblad, 15 Aug. 1932.

50 See the extract from its constitution in a summary of its 1935 annual report in De Indische Courant, 26 Aug. 1936.

51 Quoted in De Indische Courant, 26 Aug. 1931.

52 Soerabaiasch Handelsblad, 24 June 1932.

53 De Indische Courant, 26 Aug. 1936.

54 De Indische Courant, 4 June and 31 July 1930. While sympathetic to its work, readers were nevertheless reminded that ‘The refuge functions more or less as a recruiting office for domestic workers, and in the one year of its existence has received numerous requests for workers, from Natives as well as from Europeans and Chinese’. De Indische Courant, 31 July 1930.

55 Soeara Oemoem, 1 Sept. 1936. The Indonesian Study Club established a small textile school alongside the women's refuge. Women reportedly came to the school not only from Surabaya itself, but also from nearby towns and villages hoping it would give them a chance to gain a skill and get work. In its first year 18 of these women passed its examination. Its annual report for 1929 expressed the hope that in the following year it would teach another 100 poor women to be textile workers. Soeara Oemoem, 27 Jan. 1933.

56 De Indische Courant, 4 June 1930.

57 In 1925 the franchise for Municipal Councils was extended to males who were at least 21 years of age, literate in any language, and had an annual taxable income of at least 300 guilders. Women were permitted to stand for election from 1938 but were not given the right to vote until 1941. The electorate for the Batavia Municipal Council in 1938 consisted of 8,563 Europeans, 3,468 Indonesians and 718 Chinese, at a time when the total population of the city was in excess of 600,000. See Verslag van de Commissie tot Bestudeering van Staatsrechtelijke Hervormingen (Batavia: Landsdrukkerij, 1941), Part 1, pp. 143–4 and Abeyasekere, Susan, Jakarta: A history (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 118Google Scholar.

58 This information comes from the annual report of the Surabaya refuge for 1934/1935, summarised in De Indische Courant, 26 Aug. 1936.

59 Soeara Oemoem, 27 Jan. 1933.

60 For a discussion of Dutch organisations working with orphans and children sentenced by the Courts see Annelieke Dirks, ‘For the youth: Juvenile delinquency, colonial civil society and the late colonial state in the Netherlands Indies, 1872–1942’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Leiden, 2010).

61 Soerabaiasch Handelsblad, 24 June 1932 and 22 July 1935.

62 Information on the Indonesian orphanages is scattered and minimal. See: Soeara Oemoem, 11 Dec. 1934, 14 Apr. and 23 Mar. 1936, 16 Feb. and 11 Mar. 1940.

63 Quoted in Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant, 23 June 1932, Sneevliet Collection 587, IISG.

64 Interview with Djajadiningrat in Het Nieuws van den Dag, 29 Jan. 1931.

65 De Indische Courant, 8 Apr. 1932.

66 Petty theft in Surabaya in 1932 was about 50 per cent higher than in 1930. In 1933 total reported crime in the city was 10 per cent higher than the previous year, with 1,765 major and 2,554 minor crimes. See Soeara Oemoem, 15 Nov. 1932 and 4 Jan. 1934. For a discussion of crime in the Batavia area during the Depression see van Till, Margreet, Banditry in West Java 1869–1942 (Singapore: NUS Press, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

67 Soeara Oemoem, 22 Jan. and 6 Mar. 1936. When an official from the Labour Office visited Surabaya in mid-1936 he was reported as saying that he had yet to meet an unemployed person who did not want to work. Soeara Oemoem, 8 Aug. 1936.

68 Pemandangan, 10 and 18 Oct. 1933.

69 Soeara Oemoem, 30 Sept. 1933.

70 Ibid.; Oetoesan Indonesia, 4 Oct. 1933; Pemandangan, 10 Oct. 1933; and Berdjoang, 11 Oct. 1933.

71 Locomotief, 4 May 1933.

72 Oetoesan Indonesia, 25 Oct. 1933; Soeara Oemoem, 7 Dec. 1935.

73 Soeara Oemoem, 23 Apr. 1936.

74 Locomotief, 15 July 1933; Soeara Oemoem, 3 Mar. 1936.

75 Moestika, 4 May 1931; Oetoesan Indonesia, 8, 16 and 22 Sept. 1932.

76 Oetoesan Indonesia, 20 Sept. 1932.

77 Het Volk, 25 June 1935, Sneevliet Collection 587, IISG.

78 Gedenkboek Pembrantas Pengangguran Indonesia, 1932–1936 (Surabaya: PPI, 1937), p. 4. I have discussed the extensive political, social and economic activities of Ruslan Wongsokusuma in Surabaya in Ingleson, Workers, unions and politics.

79 Ingleson, Workers, unions and politics.

80 A.G. Vreede, ‘De werkloosheid in Nederlandsch-Indie in het tweede halfjaar 1931’, Koloniale Studien, 1932, p. 204. For a discussion of Surabaya during the Depression years, see Dick, H.W., Surabaya, city of work: A socioeconomic history, 1900–2000 (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 2002)Google Scholar.

81 Detailed acounts for the first five years were published in Gedenkboek Pembrantas Pengangguran Indonesia, 1932–1936, p. 35.

82 Ibid., p. 11.

83 Ibid., p. 17.

84 Ibid., p. 13.

85 Ibid., p. 9.

86 In 1933 the Indonesian Study Club called on its 1,700 members to each donate 5 katis (about 3 kilos) of rice for distribution to the needy for Lebaran through its welfare organisations. Soeara Oemoem, 5 Jan. 1933.

87 Soeara Oemoem, 27 July 1932.

88 Soeara Oemoem, 6 Feb. 1932 and 19 Jan. 1934.

89 Soeara Oemoem, 27 July 1932.

90 Abeyasekere, Jakarta: A history, p. 93.

91 See De Sumatra Post, 25 May 1935; Algemeene Handelsblad, 11 Feb. 1908; and Het Nieuws van den Dag, 19 Aug. 1909.

92 There are detailed reports on the 1932 and the 1933 Pasar Malam National in Soeara Oemoem, 1–11 July 1932 and 1–18 July 1933.

93 Het Nieuws van den Dag, 10 June 1930 and Vreede, A.G., ‘De Omvang der werkloosheid in Nederlandsch-Indie over de periode December 1930/June 1931’, Koloniale Studien, vol. 15, 1931, p. 525Google Scholar. The attendance figures are a reminder that the Depression years had little impact on the material lives of many Indonesians. The entrance fee of 20 cents was a full day's wage for many manual labourers.

94 See the report on the Third Pasar Malam Nasional in Soeara Oemoem, 11 July 1932.

95 Soeara Oemoem, 1–18 July 1933.

96 Soeara Oemoem, 9 May 1933.

97 Pemandangan, 18 Oct. 1933 and 8 Jan. 1934.

98 ‘Pendirian Armenszorg’. See also Soeara Oemoem, 21 Jan. 1938.

99 Soeara Oemoem, 15 Feb. 1936.

100 De Indische Courant, 14 Feb. 1940.

101 Soeara Oemoem, 21 Jan. 1938.

102 ‘Attitudes like this are of course not uncommon among Europeans. They want to work cooperatively but the Native must always be subservient.’ Soeara Oemoem, 5 Aug. 1932. See also Soeara Oemoem, 11 Aug. 1932.

103 Kebangoenan, 2 Apr. 1940.

104 Bataviaasche Nieuwsblad, 27 Sept. 1941.