Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1916-05-29
BOARDING HOUSE LIST
FOR GUIDANCE OF GIRLS
WHO WANT "HOMES"
Registration Bureau, Backed by
Philanthropic Men and Wom-
en-, Undertakes to Solve
Problem
MISS MORRIS EXPLAINS
Miss Gillette, Bishop Rhinelander and
His Secretary Also Inter
ested in Plan

II a working girl were asked to give her
idea Of heaven she'd say It was eight hours
work day under sanitary conditions and
honey" clean boarding house, where she
could iron her shlrtwalsts receive her girl
friends and entertain her beau in peace.
There wouldn't be an odor of cabbage
around her Utopia.
II is to do away with these and worse
evils that phllanthroplc men and women of
Philadelphia are undertaking the work of
listing all the boarding houses in the city.
Every single house will be classified, and at
the mere mention of the name the Regis
tration Bureau of Boarding Houses will be
able to tell you just in what class the house
In question belongs.
Miss Mary Morris, of the Welfare De-
partment of the Curtis Publishing Com
pany, together with Miss Mary Gillette, of
the Travellers Ad( Society, apd Edwin Lane,
Bishop Rhinelanders secretary, are doing
some OF the work of classification.
There Is no system of investigating
boarding houses in Philadelphia unless the
neighbors insist and there is no law to
prevent any one from starting a boarding
house, Miss Morris said in explaining the
work. ut requires no license to be
boarding house keeper in Philadelphia.
I'm this way many of the disorderly
houses that existed in certain districts be-
fore the police started to close them up
now exist in the form of boarding
houses No boarding house is safe unless
1t Is investigated A girl comes here from
out OF town, or lives here alone and how
can she tell what sort of a place she is
getting into? The Travellers Aid Society
makes list OF approved places but since
boarding houses in this city may change
character over night, constant investiga-
ton is imperative
why, Philadelphia has more boarding
hptt ", 10
New York has. l place an average Of IS
girls In houses in a month. All employers
should be sufficiently interested in their
employees to know how and where they
live. There are boarding houses for girls
from 81 a week up to $40 week surely
every girl would be willing to live in a
place she felt sure of. The Registration
Bureau keeps a list of the clean ones. the
sectarian ones, the cheap ones and the
more exclusive ones. There Is a house to
suit every type of working girl.
with this information at hand II is pos
sble for the bureau to do a tremendous
work. Our plan is very much like the sys-
tenn now in practice in New York. The
list of approved boarding houses is sent to
every department store, factory and cor
poration in Philadelphia They pay so
much a year for the use of 1t. Then as
long as we guarantee to keep each board
ing house filled the landlady pays n per-
mutual affair, for a boarding house mis-
tress likes to feel that her tenants are de-
sirable. just as much as her tenants desire
the samr of her."
Herding girls together in two-by -four
apartments, forbidding any light laundry
work, freezing them in the cold weather,
forcing them to seek warmth and shelter
in nearby movie or cafe when their beau
calls-al these things are the trials that
send the girls away from boarding house
In disgust.
Every girl has the home instinct" de-
clares Miss Morris mo matter how little
they aet, they want privacy and they want
a room TO themselves If it's only a hall
room, it's theirs, and they want to have
1t to themselves. The committee in charge,
Bishop Rhineander, Mrs. Louis
Mrs. Charles String, of the Board
ing House Association; Mrs. Martha Fal-
OF the Girls Reformatory; Miss
Pratt. of Alcott House; Mrs. Samuel Fels
and Father O'Donnell. of the Catholic Chill
drens Bureau, are enthusiastic over the
plan. How 1t works out remains to be seen,
but the worthiness of the object fairly guar
antees success"