Atlanta Georgian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, 1913-01-17

Girls OF the farms and little towns are
better off at home than in Atlanta,
where little money, no friends and hard
work await them, according to Mrs. J.
w. PAYNE. matron a the Atlanta Ter
minal station. Mrs. Payne's work deals
with the girls and women who come
and go at the station, and she has eX-
perienced enough with the girl who
comes blindly to the city for work to
offer the advice which is embodied in a
don't"
Most OF the girls who come from lit
tie towns and farms are helpless in the
city and lack the qualities necessary to
make good she says, being unframed
and unlearned. Such girls are best
away from the city.
Mrs. J. n. Howard matron at the
| Union station. related experiences iden-
teal with those Of Mrs Payne
| Atlanta today is the city Of dreams
| for hundreds of boys and girls of the
! villages and farms Of Georgia, who
come each year, impeIled by a yearning
| for new things or by a dissatisfaction
at the old, weighted by the millstones
Of ignorance and Incompetence, to en-
! ter its life, to exist for awhile on pit
| lance occasionally to make good,
usually to fail
Boys Shift For Themselves.
Records kept by such institutions as
the Atlanta Woman's Missionary asso-
citation and the Y w. c. A. tell the
story Of many of these simple fortune
hunters, especially of the girls. With
the boys it does not matter so much.
They can take care OF themselves after
a fashion.
AT the railroad stations are matrons,
placed by the missionary association
Mrs. ]. w. Payne and Miss Emma ANA
son at the Terminal station: Mrs. j. n.
Howard and Mrs. Watson at the Union
station. They, more than any one else,
know of the girls who come to the city
seeking work And they say that no
less than 200 girls each year-the fig
ures probably are nearer 300-are found
in the two stations
These girls come to Atlanta without
prospects, without friends, without
money, and stop perforce at the sta
tions because they can get no farther
They come in the blind search for work
the matrons say, having listened too
eagerly to the talk of those who say
that salaries of SIS to $40 a week are
to be had for the asking
Most of the girls from the country
helplessly lost as soon as they reach
the station, have the same story. Mrs
Howard. at the Union Station. and
Mrs. Payne, at the Terminal. talk to
several each week. The number Of
those who come to the Union station,
trusting and penniless, averages one a
day. according to the matron
Have Dreams of Big Wages.
Most OF the girls have been told more
that work. work with good pay, is
awaiting them. Many of them. reach
ing Atlanta, have little left after they
pay their railroad fare. A girl came
into the Terminal station late one day
last week Night was falling. She
knew nobody, and she told the matron.
who found her by chance. that she had
only fifteen cents.
Most of them know nothing but to
get to the city" said Mrs Payne. ut is
| appalling. They have no outlook. and
no plans, except that they will get work
somewhere-they don't know where"
These girls whose plights the matrons
! or other agents of missionary associa-
| tons discover must be placed in posi-
lions. Most of them are placed, but not
as they dreamed.
One girl came recently to Mrs. How
| ard, at the Union station, and said that
she had come to Atlanta to work She
wanted TO be a milliner and had been
| told that she could get SIS to $50 a
week. She confessed that she had
never trimmed a hat in her life An
| other girl from the farm wanted to be a
trained nurse. She had heard that
there is such a profession
See Their Dreams Fade.
The two, said Mrs. Howard are ex-
amples of the many. Most OF the girls
are given work where 1t can be found
| in the cracker factories. in candy fac
| tories. in laboratories, the more intelH-
gent-the few-as telephone girls or as
shop girls, And, starting in to work
usually at so cents a day, they see the
city of their dreams fade, to be re-
placed by a city of disillusionment
They expect 80 much and get so lit
! tie" said Mrs Payne.
| Most OF them win not go back home
at first. Maybe II is pride, for one
thing. Certainly. In many cases, says
Mrs. Payne. II is because they have not
the money to pay for a ticket home.
And so they go to work
The matrons say the girls who come
to the city in this manner are uninteln-
gent and incompetent. for the most
part. And, being dull, they find it hard,
| impossible perhaps, to make more than
the 60 cents a day that the factories