Omaha daily bee., 1902-12-21
TROOPS OF BACHELOR GIRLS
They 0verrun New York in All Their Glory
and Aggressiveness.
WINNING SUCCESS IN W0RK-A-OAY WORLD
why They Come from the west and
south, what Their Experiences
Are and what They
Do.
WINNING SUCCESS IN woRK-A-OAY WORLD

Copyright, 1902, by Kate Masterson)
New York is the home Of the bachelor
girl. In no other city In the world does
a girl dare to live alone and unchaper-
oned, inviting the criticism Of friends and
foes.
The large studio buildings are peopled
with these lone girl tenants, living singly
and in groups Of two and three on the CO.
operative housekeeping plan, which means
something weird and terrible in these
Adamless Edens.
Besides these settlements OF girl bach
elors hardly an apartment house in the
metropolis is without at least one of
these women wage earners whose home
is perhaps the only Joy Of her lonely ex-
istence. Not that the bachelor maid is
an ~unsocial creature. but because one OF
the first lessons that she learns In her
city experience is that she must be wary
in the making of close acquaintance
ships, which, II she be in earnest in her
work, she will find more Of a persistent
deterrent rather than a help, unless they
are strictly Of the right sort.
The Bachelor Girls Loneliness.
The loneliness Of the girl bachelor is
a stern discipline to which she must learn
~ bAA a AoSN NV - AoANAg w
by the eager girl who comes to town with
the ambition to succeed in a profession.
One Of the charms with which she invests
her life in the big city is the congenial
companionshlp, the host Of clever friends
with whom she will be in touch. In
variably she has come on from some dis
tant city, south or west, with the idea
Of pursuing her chosen work in New York.
She leaves the safe environment of her
home and friends and ventures into q
strange world that she has pictured in
her ina ~glnation as an enchanted land with
genial and open-hearted people. But the
reality is-loneliness
The army Of girls that come to New
York each year, seeking employment
which they could frequently find at home,
has never been enumerated. 1t would be n
hopeless task to attempt to estimate the
thousands that during a year besiege the
stage doors, newspaper Offices and studios
for, as a rule, they select those profess
sions that will best allow the putting forth
Of what they feel to be within them.
The AutumnRI Invasion of Girls.
The spring sees a goodly number of these
girl emigrants, but the autumn witnesses
the strongest charge of the eternal girl on
the ramparts Of fame and fortune, as they
picture them. With neat gowns and pretty
hats, often made by their own hands, these
girls throng into the avenues of profess
sional life, eager-eyed, earnest and enthusi-
astic in the pursuit OF the ideal that pos
sesses them.
They are vastly interesting and pictur-
esque, representing, as they do, an entirely
new phase Of femininity-the girl strenuous,
and anxious to compete with her
brothers in the strife for place and pelf.
Twenty years ago school teaching and
d~ressmaklng offered the only two oppor-
~tunities to girls DESTROYS OF making a liv-
ing. Today these two vocations are far in
the background from the modern girls view
OF desirability. Even manicuring stands
ahead Of dressmaking in the favor of girls
anxious to do things. T%ypewriting and
stenography have displaced school teaching
as a choice with girls, for 1t takes less time
to At them for the work, while returns are
and yield better results. The pretty
typewriter, at first taken as a joke, in re-
atty opened the door of the strenuous life
for women.
The Rush Overdone.
But the tremendous rush Of girls for the
metropolis in search Of work has been very
much overdone; and besides the coming Of
girls themselves, bushels of letters arrive
each day to editors and writer's, asking for
opportunities and chances in various fields.
Girls entirely unequipped for the struggle
Of work push on valiantly to the citadel, and
one out of twenty survives.
Very few of these girls are actually poor
and in need OF work. They start out as
a general thing from comfortable homes
the idea that they can study music,
- - "a A T. - - H. !
in their native town. Usually these
girls have an allowance, large or small,
from their people, and live on it until they
find opportunities to make money and be
self-supporting, although half Of them re-
turn home and many go on the stage as a
last resort, rather than as an ambition.
The girl who comes to the city to
enter the working field and secure a posi-
tion by which she may make money enough
live Is a more legitimate conner on the
FIELD. She is at once put to the test OF
what is in her. She does not find 1t diff
cult to obtain work. These bright young
faces and hopeful eyes find ready sympa-
thies with those who are in a position to
help the girl applicant, who, with her
southern drawl or western burr, betrays
her newness to New York.
They Find the Work Hard.
Work in the professions in New York
is no trivial matter TO a woman. It means
requirements that not one woman in twenty
in conjunction with one another.
Physical strength is one Of the first neces-
stiles and the girl who has this is
apt to be handicapped by a too great
fund Of animal spirits, fondness for fun and
adventure, which will help to keep her back
II INDUCED in too much.
Endurance, patience, serious purpose,
keen perception and intuition and, above
all, steady plodding industry, with i'm
mense concentration CT thought-all these
are required from the girl worker in New
York But anyone accustomed to talk TO