At the beginning of 1930s, the population of Shanghai increased fast, especially the number of women rose rapidly. An important reason was huge amounts of women from other provinces immigrating to Shanghai. The number of in-migrate women was about 80 thousand in 1929 as well as 100 thousand in 1930 and 200 thousand in 1932. Moreover among all the in-migrate women, young women took up a large number. Besides, there were still plenty of university and high school female students in Shanghai, after they graduated from school, most of them chose to work in Shanghai.In order to strive for the independence in life and finance, they desperately needed to find individual apartment.

The difficulty of housing presented itself along with the increase of single woman working in Shanghai. Though some of them could live with relatives and friends, it wasn’t convenient after all. As a result, more and more women decided to rent an apartment. The situation of “72 tenements in one block” has arisen. However, single women suffered from much inconvenience, first of all, the security problem. At that time, the people of different types converged in Shanghai and the zone of rascal gang expanded gradually, the security for single women was threatened. And the second one is the rent; it’s difficult for single women who started working for a short time to rent an apartment in the center of the city, because the rent was so high. In 1932, after the occurrence of “January 28th”, Japanese troop invaded Shanghai, a lot of houses ruined during the war, a large population crowded in the settlement area, and it aggravated the already serious shortage of houses. It became much more difficult for single women to find a suitable apartment. In order to solve the problem, the Chinese Women Temperance Association thought they should find a solution for single women in finding house. Finally they established a female cooperative.

The project of the female cooperative was completed during spring and summer of 1932; it located at Lvban Road no.504 (South Chongqing Road). Rooms in the female cooperative were all one room dwelling, there were two single beds, one chest of drawers, several chairs and a small alarm clock in each room. There was also a living room inside except for the bedroom. Additionally, a cafeteria was equipped for providing dinners. If the tenement didn’t like the meal in cafeteria, she could ask attendant to cook the meal only for her instead. The bathrooms were available too. Professionals were arranged for managing the female cooperative. If tenement came back late, they would wait for you until you entered. If tenement fell ill, attendants would send her to neighboring hospital. The main tenements in female cooperative were career women whose income was very low, so cheap-priced rooms were offered especially for them. Female cooperative was suitable for the career girls who graduated from college or high school not long ago very much. Tenements were able to reserve room or bed on the phone. Last but not least, rascal didn’t dare to make trouble here because of the brand with Chinese characters of “Chinese Women Temperance Association” hanging outside the female cooperative.

On January 2nd 1933, a New Year party organized by Y.M.C.A. was held in the female cooperative, every participant only needed to pay 0．5 Yuan for dinner. During the party, tenements gave performances, Miss Chen Weijiang who was graduated for the University of Shanghai performed monodramas <proposal> and <music of kitchen>, the atmosphere was very warm.