The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-06-09
College Girls To Begin Serious
 Experiment
By CAROLINE CRAWFORD

I<TOLLEGE GIRLS are beginnint
 to see the factory girl in a diff
 ferent light. In fact, they envy her so much that eighty girls, who are college students, are to give up six weeks of their vacations this summer and hold down the hardest jobs they can find" said Miss Winifred Wygal, of the National Student Council of the Young Women's Christian association.
 ''There was a time when the public, generally speaking, preferred to think with pity or sentimentality about girls employed in industries, but today the college girl realizes that these factory girls are among the people who are going to bring about better social order. Their experience is a valuable one upon which to build for the com mon good for all.''
 "When do these eighty girls join the ranks of industrial workers?" I asked Miss Wygal.
 'The experiment will begin July 7," she replied, land one of the main req sons these college girls want to tackle this type of work is because they wish to cast aside their theory and book work. They want experience with real life and they know the industrial worker gets this.
 ''The girls are to apply for unskilled labor. They're to find their own jobs and they are to live as they would if employed permanently i'm the occupa- tions they will seek out temporarily. They will live on the wages they earn and room among the industrial work CTS near their jobs.
 Three times q week, after working hours, the girls are to meet in groups, for seminar discussions of their experi- ences. These tri-weekly seminars for discussion and exchange of experiences are under the joint direction of em- ployers, labor leaders, social workers and association staff members among girls in the industrial fields"
 Miss Wygal then explained that this experiment is not entirely new, es- pecially in the west. College girls working in factories and even going into domestic services under the di- rection of the Y. W. c. A., was first launched in Denver in 1920. Here the experiment met with such success that Chicago took it up the following year and last year the student-i t-in-industry movement became popular in a number of the large cities.
 We have very small number of college girls working in factories last year in this city," said Miss Wygal, but the girls who did go in for that kind of work enjoyed it immensely. While the girls prefer factory jobs to domestic service, several in the group even took their fling at housework. One girl in domestic service last year changed her position twice during the LA IL. had heavy homework to do and un- At her next place she spoke of the kindness of the mistress of the home, but complained that there was no place to entertain her friends"
 ''It is quite natural for most of the college girls to prefer to go into the factories to doing domestic work" said Miss Wygal, because in the factories they have an opportunity to meet the girls and learn how they live and how fast they work. They are not going into the factory with any uplift ideals What they want to do is to see how fast the factory girl can do piece work and see If they can keep up with her in speed.
 Tn other worlds" concluded Miss Wygal, ''the college girl isn't going to teach the factory girl anything It's the factory girl who is to teach the col lege girl
 Many of the college girls of today iwAo have been spared drudgery are eager to share and to know at first hand the manual work of women on whom they depend for many necessities of life. Students today are seeking to acquire concrete facts upon which to base their studies of industrial prob lems. The eighty girls who have en- rolled with us this year are willing to give up six weeks of their summer vacation in order to gain this. Some of them actually need the money, but many of them feel that they would rather gain this experience with real life than to spend the time at the sea- shore or mountains"