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.
Il w. Payne matron at 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, vino
| come each year, impelled by 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 J. 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 3OO-are found
in the two stations
These girls come to Atlanta without
prospects, without friends, without
money, and stop perforce at the sta
tons 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 $15 to $40 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 'lanta, 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
I who found her by chance, that she had
! only fifteen cepts.
| 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-
| tions. 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 $40 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 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 intelli-
gent-the few--as telephone girls or as
shop girls, And, starting in to work
usually at 60 cents a day, they see the
! city of their dreams fade, to be re-
placed by a city of establishment.
They expect so much and get so lit
tie said Mrs. Payne.
Most of them will not go back home
at first. Maybe 1t is pride, for one
thing. Certainly in many cases, says
Mrs. Payne, II is because they have not
the money to pay for 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 il hard
impossible perhaps. to make more than
the 60 cents a day that the factories