Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-01-22

AHlS 10 me SlLudllOA. NdIillLo DuI
roughs is meeting it. She describes
remedies and she shows how her
school is working them out. Voca-
tional training made practical is her
speciality. History, spelling, music,
st%enography, physical culture, and
other subjects taught in a boarding
school are taught to her students.
But the school s~pecialties are neat
ness, politeness, ideals, al the prac-
teal accomplishments of busting,
washing dishes, cooking, laundering
clothes, and good taste in dress.
The latest application of Mamie
Burroughs practical training Idea is
a. laundry business, the first ever
started in a school for colored girls,
In some schools, includil 2 her own,
the girls are taught to wash their
w clothes, but never until this
venture have students had an oppor-
tunity to work for the public, and at
the same time to earn money toward
their tuition,
The laundry at the National
Training School for Women and
Girls is a big white two-stoTy build
i. g. Inside is an office where a stu
dent of the school is handling the
business of customers. Back of the
OlllCS dIG IOOIIS COlltdlHlHS HIdCllllI~
cry of the sort used in any big laun-
cry is run by men, but last summer
when one of the men left unexpected
ly the girls decided that they would
run it, and they d.
The girls, however, ordinarily
work upstairs where the hand work
is done, During the school term
the students have very little time to
keep the business going, so 81 wo-
men from the neighborhood are en-
ployed here at ironing and folding.
They are picked car GULLY with a
view to their influence on the girls.
May Earn Their Tuition
The students who work here do so
to learn the business, or to earn
their tuition. Last summer outside
labor was dismissed and 40 students
the laundry, except for the ma
chine work and driving the trucks.
Mamie Burroughs is proud of her
latest project. The room where the
girls and ome work is spotIess-
ly clean. And not all laundries are
| clean" she comments significantly.
The women who are ironing by the
windows are dressed in white-ac-
cording to one of the rules of the
laundry.
1CI I'll EACGLl41 anu III
fashioned irons, electric washing
machines and ordinary wash tubs.
The girls who so out to work may
! have modern c~onVeniences. More
{ probably though they will not; and
they must be ready to use diffenent
kinds of equipment,
The plant has customers from all
over the city. One of the members
of the Presidents Cabinet sends his
family laundry to the Burroughs
school. Several fashionable board
ing schools are also on the list of
patrons. The business keeps four
trucks running to call for and de-
liver its work, 1t has all the trade
it can handle and if it had twice the
machinery it could easily get twice
as much work, the girls say.
The students attain a professional
standard in all work done for Gus
toners. Mamie Burroughs picks UP
a pair of stockings neatly rolled and
folded in a flat package.
"Our stockings" she says are all
washed by hand, first on the right
side, then on the wrong. They are
dried on the wrong side and pressed
just enough to make them comfort
ably smooth but not glossy"
The important fact about the
laundry is that the girls become &C
quainted with commercial traditions
and have a chance to do the differ.
ant kinds of work about the plant,
from holding administrative posi-
tons and answering the telephone to
washing, ironing, and folding. They
study, too, methods of washing diff
ferent colors and materials, how to
remove spots, and how to mend
clothes. They are taught never to
use chemicals Or any preparation
that will injure a fabric.
The principal of the school be-
lieves that training in the laundry
department will fit a capable girl to
manage her own business small
hotel laundry in a summe resort
for instance.
"Colored women working for tho
public are not holding positions OF
responsibility" she points out, "be'
cause they have never been trained
for such positions. The laundry bust
ness is one in which there is nc race
prejudice, and we want to enlarge
the opportunity for colored people
where there is no prejudice. I an
hoping that this laundry project viii
bs = etimnlps to insaxsek them. %
~