The Girl Who Earns Her Own Living/Chapter 20
No girl who has read the preceding chapters with any degree of earnestness can fail to realize that between the day of leaving school and the day of actual economic independence there is bound to be a period of financial stringency. This may be represented by an underpaid or even unpaid apprenticeship, or by a dreary search for work on the part of the untrained girl who must secure some sort of livelihood and her training through experience at one and the same time. Even the girl from out-of-town who has a trade or who has had office or store experience must prove her worth to the city employer, and this represents a period of living on very small wages.
A social worker who has given much earnest thought and investigation to the problem states that the average wage paid to the out-of-town girl during her first three months in a large city like New York, Chicago or Denver is five
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dollars per week. Her list includes stenographers, bookkeepers, cashiers, salesgirls, factory workers, telephone operators, and even fairly good helpers in dressmaking shops. The exceptions are girls who have influence or an introduction through an employee standing high with the firm.
"What experience have you had in this city?" is the question hurled at the newcomer, until she begins to dread it, knowing that the preference will be given to applicants having local references.
It is not to be denied that often the girl from a smaller city or even a village develops into the better clerk or office worker for a Chicago or New York employer than dees the city-born girl; but until she has proven her worth, the newcomer must work at the salary of a local apprentice, no matter what her experience in her home town.
The inexperienced city girl must also start at the smallest wages which the superintendent of the establishment dares to offer, simply because, as I have explained in other chapters, the employer feels that her mistakes will be many and costly, and she will not earn the sum he pays her, no matter how small that may be.
Both the city and the country girl are forced to accept three, four or five dollars per week, quieting their fears by repeating the superintendent's consoling words: "But we will increase your salary as fast as you prove your worth."
But even when a girl tries her level best to prove her worth, and when she gives her undivided attention and efforts to the firm's business, it takes weeks and months to master details and to avoid mistakes. And all that time she must live somehow on what the firm pays her. If out-of-town mothers realized just what this period of probation represented in privation, loneliness, perhaps actual physical discomfort, suffering and hunger, they would do all in their power to keep ambitious but untrained daughters at home. But, unfortunately, mothers who have never worked for their living have false ideas of business life. They see only the well-clad, smiling girls behind counters or in offices, and they do not stop to inquire what price these girls paid for their business training, their present economic independence.
And so, every week of the year, and every day of the week, even including Sunday, the railway trains bring to every large city hundreds of girls utterly unprepared to offer skilled labor in return for living wages, girls who must somehow live while being trained to become real wage-earners.
Only women engaged in social work, representatives of the Travelers' Aid Society and matrons of homes or temporary shelters for working-girls, have any conception of the number of unskilled, untrained girls who plunge into cities without sufficient funds to tide them over a fortnight. These girls honestly believe that within a week they will be working somewhere, somehow, on a salary which will not only permit them to live in city comfort, but to send something home to "the folks." The pathos of their ignorance is not a matter for consideration here. Their relief, their social salvation, is a matter of moment.
No mother should permit her daughter to go to a strange city unless she can provide the girl with funds to pay board and room for a month, which will amount to not less than twenty dollars, and the price of her return ticket in case she fails to find work in that time. The mother who recklessly allows her unskilled daughter to enter a strange city armed only with a week's board and high hopes, is guilty of criminal neglect as the guardian of her child's future.
I wish I could drive this lesson into the heart of every mother who feels that her daughter must go to some large city in order to succeed. If the two are convinced that the home town offers no future for the daughter, then let them prove the sincerity of their conviction by earning enough money at home, even if it means taking in washing and ironing, to insure all or part of the daughter's living expenses for at least three months after she goes to the city.
Earnest women in every large city are trying to cope with the social problem of the underpaid girl in store and factory. They are building homes and investigating boarding and rooming-houses, but where there are dozens of self-supporting hotels for men who must live for a song, in only a few cities have hotels for working-women been placed on a business basis. As yet they are semi-charitable institutions, so managed that they appeal neither to the girls who must seek them as a refuge nor to the citizens who are asked to support them. And when I add that $3.50 per week is the minimum charge for board and lodging at these "homes," excepting a few in New York City which are conducted by the Roman Catholic and Episcopal sisterhoods, the country girl and her mother should have a very fair idea of how hard it will be to make the five-dollar-a-week salary meet current expenses.
Fortunate is the out-of-town girl who has relatives located in the city where she goes to seek work. She should communicate with them, and, if possible, make some business-like arrangement for boarding in their home. This is an important step for two reasons. First, when the out-of-town applicant announces to a superintendent of employees that she is living with relatives, this is a social guarantee which always appeals to the city employer. Second, in the home of relatives the price paid for board includes privileges, such as doing one's own laundry work, pressing tailored suits, using a sewing machine, etc., which are often impracticable in a boarding-house or "home," or for which an extra charge is made.
Many girls deliberately avoid relatives on the plea that they prefer "to stand on their own feet." This independence is charming in theory, especially when enunciated in a quiet village, several hundred miles from the turmoil and loneliness of city life. But when the first wave of homesickness sweeps over the country girl in a dreary hall bedroom, she will wish that she had sought the shelter which the home of the despised relatives might have offered. We all know that relatives, on occasion, may be unnecessarily frank in their expression of advice and opinion, but to the girl who finds herself alone in the great city any sort of bloodties affords comforting protection.
The girl who has no relatives or friends in the city should secure all the information obtainable about boarding-places, "homes," etc., before leaving her home town. Such information can generally be secured through the Young Women's Christian Association. In Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington and Boston this association maintains "homes" or boarding-houses, where room and board can be secured at a very low figure. Good employment bureaus also will be found in connection with these boarding-houses. The Harlem Branch of the same association in New York City, and the Brooklyn rooms carry reliable lists of "homes" and boarding-houses. The bureau of information at the downtown branch of the Y. W. C. A. in New York City, generally known as the Margaret Louise Home, recommends boarding and rooming-houses that are beyond the means of the average girl seeking work in New York. This branch of the association, despite the misleading title, "The Margaret Louise Home," appeals to the successful business woman or tourist, rather than to the girl seeking work. No out-of-town girl should make the common mistake of going unannounced from a New York depot to the Margaret Louise Home. She must write in advance for a room. This is purely a hotel for women, with reasonable charges, and it is always crowded. It is in no sense a shelter or "home" for the girl in search of work.
Pittsburg is building new headquarters for the Y. W. C. A.; Omaha, Neb., has just opened a fine new building; Minneapolis and Los Angeles have inviting headquarters; but not all of these have rooming-houses or dormitories attached. It is always much safer for the out-of-town girl to write well in advance for information, addressing her letter "Secretary, Young Women's Christian Association," and the name of the city where she plans to seek work. She should ask whether this particular branch of the association maintains dormitories and a restaurant, what rates are charged, or, if the rooms are all occupied, what rooming-houses and boarding-places the association recommends; also whether a representative of the Travelers' Aid Society will be found at the depot where she expects to arrive. With this request for information she should enclose a stamped and self-addressed envelope. The very manner in which she approaches this, her first city problem, will betray her thoroughness and her business instinct, incidentally making a good impression on the secretary who receives her letter.
The girl who for any reason is obliged to leave home suddenly and who arrives in a strange city unarmed with advance information, should ask for the representative of the Travelers' Aid Association or the matron in the depot. She should not consult the advertising columns of the daily papers for a boarding-house, as she is ignorant of neighborhoods and their dangers. Any woman connected with the depot staff wil be able to guide the stranger to a "home" or temporary shelter.
The "home" or temporary shelter for working-girls has its disadvantages, I admit. Very often the girls living in such places complain that they feel like inmates of an institution. This is due to the attitude of the matron or superintendent, who is not always a tactful person. But the stranger in a big city will make no mistake in seeking such a refuge. Not only will the low board help her to stretch her small savings to the limit, but she will meet at these "homes" practical working-girls whose knowledge of city life and methods of securing positions will be worth more to her than columns of advertising for work. The proprietor of a second or third-grade boarding-house knows little or nothing of industrial conditions or of openings in the mercantile field. Other boarders at such establishments are either undesirable acquaintances without influence, or they are absorbed in their own affairs. But the bond of fellowship between self-supporting girls at "homes" is strong and vital.
For instance, I know of a college girl from Maine who for weeks tried unavailingly to secure a position in a publishing house. As her means dwindled and her pride rebelled against returning to her native town, she sought refuge in a "home," where she met a little woman who addressed envelopes in a publishing office at six dollars per week. In exactly three days there was an opening in this same office for a filing clerk at five dollars per week, and on the advice of her new-found friend the college girl took it. To-day she is manuscript reader with the same firm and lives in her own little flat. Her employer, talking for the first time with this girl of evident refinement and good social connections, would never have thought to offer her the humble position of filing clerk, which she secured only through her acquaintance with a fellow-worker.
Board at these homes can be secured as low as three dollars per week, if the newcomer is willing to share a dormitory with from three to five other girls. For four dollars and fifty cents or five dollars she can secure a small hall-room that will be hers exclusively. Girls in dormitories have no separate dressing-rooms, and usually two girls must share a locker or closet for clothes. Baths are provided, and the halls and sitting-rooms are heated in winter. The dormitories are not heated. Boarders are governed by somewhat strict rules as to hours of rising and retiring, meals, etc., and no one may stay out later than 10:30 p.m., save by special permission.
The Trowmart Inn, Abingdon Square, New York City, Franklin Square House, Boston, Mass., and the Eleanor Homes in Chicago, are managed on a more liberal scale. They are really self-supporting hotels for women at moderate prices, where the girls may and do feel entirely independent. These hotels appeal particularly to the girl who earns between six and ten dollars per week. Single rooms, with breakfast and dinner on week-days, and three meals on Sunday, cost from four dollars and fifty cents a week up. Girls who share rooms with one or more girls secure proportionately lower rates. The price of board and room carries with it many privileges, such as use of a sewing-room supplied with machines, cutting tables, etc., a well-equipped laundry, a gymnasium, parlors, library, etc. Both the sewing and laundry privileges are invaluable, for the out-of-town girl is fairly staggered by the prices charged in cities for both sewing and washing.
The girl who seeks cheap board in a private household, rather than a "home," generally finds herself in wretched quarters, unventilated rooms, mere closets, with no toilet facilities, and a diet of bread, tea, coffee and cheap meats. At three dollars a week she must board in a tenement district, or share a furnished room with several other girls at a cost varying from seventy-five cents to a dollar a week, and make the remaining two dollars cover a week's food.
In the larger cities like New York or Chicago, such landladies as offer board and room for five dollars a week expect two girls to share one room, and one bath is considered sufficient for an entire household of ten, fifteen or twenty. The food is plentiful, but illy prepared. Meats of the cheaper sorts form the important dishes, and bakery stuff of all sorts is served. The bedrooms are not tidy, and the supply of gas is cut to a point so low that a girl must supply herself with a lamp for reading purposes. At some of the better class boarding-houses, neat hall bedrooms can be secured with board for one dollar a day, and for ten dollars per week comfortable quarters with good, wholesome food may be had. The girl who comes from a good family in a small city must count on allowing at least a dollar a day for board and room, if she would live as she is accustomed to at home. In addition to this she must buy her lunch downtown.
I know of several cases where young women have secured board and room, or a portion of it, for domestic services, but to do this one's business hours must be out of the ordinary, and the girl herself must have exceptional strength and endurance. The average working-woman needs every atom of her strength for store, office or factory, and should rest when the day's work is over.
One of the young women referred to is a saleswoman in a millinery establishment, whose manager permits her to leave the store every night at 5:30, and she does not report in the morning until 9. She waits on table at the place where she boards at breakfast and dinner, and pays room rent only. Another girl, who is employed as secretary to an editorial writer, works only from 9:30 to 5, and she keeps house for another business-woman whose hours are much longer. She prepares both breakfast and dinner, does all the dishwashing and marketing, and has a woman come in once a week to do washing and cleaning.
Many girls who desire to avoid both "homes" and boarding-houses write to inquire whether it is not possible to club with other working-girls and rent furnished rooms or a flat for light housekeeping purposes. Such an arrangement can be made, but not when the girl first goes to a strange city. Danger lurks in her ignorance of neighborhoods and in the too sudden intimacy with girls of whom she knows nothing. She should wait until she becomes acquainted with the city and has tested the girls who offer her such a partnership. Girls who have lived in this way say that the household should not include more than four girls, and the ideal arrangement is for two.
To show the out-of-town girl that the task of finding desirable housekeeping rooms in New York or any other large city is anything but easy, I offer here the actual report of two girls who made some investigations at my request. Their first step was to insert an advertisement in a Sunday paper, as follows:
"Wanted, by two young women, one or two furnished rooms, with privilege of light housekeeping."
Their report runs thus:
"Being employed near Madison Square, we wanted rooms within walking distance of that point.
"Mrs. G, on East Twenty-eighth Street, off Lexington Avenue, had written that she had one furnished room big enough for two at one dollar and seventy-five cents per week. She was not in. I was relieved. One glance down the dirty, dark hall of a cheap tenement was quite enough for me without the interview.
"Mrs. G, No. 2, on Twenty-fifth Street, between Second and Third Avenues, paused in the act of lighting a fire in a cook stove, which promised to smoke out every occupant of the tenement house, to tell me that she had the cleanest rooms on the block. She then showed me the rooms. The front apartment contained only a bed, with linen furnished to the last lodger, unwashed and piled upon it. The back room, a regulation tenement kitchen, contained a filthy dish closet and a few broken dishes, also an egg-crate on the window-ledge filled with damp and odorous rags. She would provide a cook stove if we provided the coal. If we wanted to use gas, we must hire our stove from the company and pay her fifty cents per week for gas drawn from her meter. Rate, four dollars per week. Greatly offended when I asked her for references, as we were strangers in New York.
"Mrs. J, West Thirty-fourth Street. Stuffy old house; furniture reminded me of second-hand shop. Landlady talked much and nervously, but was singularly ladylike; one room, five dollars per week, and you supply gas stove and cooking utensils. Separate gas meter for each tenant. No closet, and clothes must be hung behind dirty plush curtains. After displaying the good points of this fairly large room, Mrs. J explained that it was already rented. Going out I met its future occupant, a sadly bleached blonde, still more in need of a bath and clean raiment. On steps met a veteran 'bum' carrying a pitcher of beer.
"Mrs. G, Sixty-eighth Street, near Central Park West, wrote that she had no other roomers and her husband was never home, as he worked in a hotel. An airshaft room at three dollars per week was her offering. Cooking could be done in her kitchen. Room could hardly hold one person comfortably, let alone two. While we talked another roomer (in spite of the fact that she had no other), appeared on the scene and offered her larger room, saying she wished to economize during the summer. Apologized for her appearance by saying that she had had a short vacation and had taken 'a drop too much.' Landlady talkative and anxious to show me the kitchen, to reach which we passed through a mere cubby-hole, in which the husband, who was never home, was comfortably sleeping off a jag.
"Took train for Harlem. Found large, comfortably-furnished front room for five dollars per week. Furniture old-fashioned, but clean, not stuffy. Little washroom off this room, nice wardrobe for clothes. Lots of closet room. We must buy our own cooking utensils, and only breakfasts could be cooked in washroom.
"Mrs. C furnishes references and asks for them. So clean it smelled good. As a result of investigations I would add: If you are a stranger in New York do not go into a house that neither gives nor asks references. Keep away from the business section and make up your mind to pay carfare."
As soon as a girl becomes established in her work and is reasonably assured of the permanency of her position and income, she is justified in seeking some sort of home-life with a congenial fellow-worker. In every large city will be found groups of two or three girls, who through economy and natural feminine adaptability solved the living problem in a perfectly satisfactory way. Two such girls I found living in a small model apartment on the extreme northern end of Manhattan Island, within walking distance of the subway, which whisks them to their work in a little more than half an hour. They are on the top floor, which means five flights of stairs to climb, but they have splendid ventilation, sanitary plumbing, steam heat in winter, and a good breeze in summer. In their wee parlor are an upright piano, a bookcase filled with good reading, an artistic and powerful lamp, which bespeak pleasant and profitable evenings after the day's work is done.
Here is the story of their housekeeping progress:
"We started in an attic," explained one of the girls. "We were working for seven dollars a week in an underwear factory and living in a 'home.'
"We waited until spring, when the question of steam would not enter into our arrangements, and then we struck out to keep house. We found a forlorn attic, whose one redeeming feature was its wealth of sunlight and fresh air. It was atop an old-fashioned house with three steep flights to climb, rent five dollars a month. When we had cleaned and let in the air and sunlight, it was sweet and wholesome. Our furniture consisted of an iron bed and springs, which we bought second-hand for four dollars (cleaned and fumigated thoroughly), a new mattress for which we paid five dollars, three sheets at forty-nine cents each, two plates, cups and saucers, knives, forks, spoons and cooking utensils, which, bought at the five and ten-cent store, amounted to one dollar and ten cents; six towels, two chairs (second-hand), one lightweight comfortable, a washbowl and pitcher, a lamp and a one-hole oilstove, broom, scrubbing-brush and soap. There was running water; also we found two good-sized packing-boxes, which we utilized for cupboards. One hand-glass we had between us for a mirror.
"Of one thing I want to warn girls—the wee expenses that will arise. For instance, we next had to buy five cents' worth of nails, a hammer and an oilcan. When we took possession of the room we had spent every cent of our savings—sixteen dollars and twenty-five cents. We had no shades at our windows, so we pinned up newspapers. We ate on the packing-box which held our dishes and food, but from that moment we could speak of our home, and felt that we were working toward some given point. The first week we lived on bread and milk, making milk toast for variety.
"The next week we added fresh fruit, prepared cereals and eggs. During that entire summer our table cost us five dollars or less for two, and our room rent was one dollar and twenty-five cents, which represents individual living expenses of a trifle over three dollars. We had paid four dollars and fifty-cents per week at the 'home,' and enjoyed life less.
"With the first of September we realized that there was absolutely no way of heating the attic adequately. We spent four entire Sundays in flat-hunting. By this time our salaries had been raised to ten dollars per week, and we had saved quite a neat sum during the summer. We decided that our new home should be a permanent one.
"We moved here October 1st, two years ago. We pay twenty dollars per month, or less than five dollars a week, house rent; our gas bills average one dollar and sixty cents per month; we do our own washing, and almost the first important piece of furniture we bought was a sewing-machine, which we got, second-hand, for eight dollars.
"Next I remembered mother's attic in the Berkshire village, and wrote, stating that if she could spare us anything from the old boxes and chests we would be glad to have them for our new home. Carrie's aunt received a similar letter, making it very clear that we did not ask for new things—we were both too proud of our ability to make our way in New York. By freight, at our expense, came two boxes that were equal to a 'bride's shower'—bedding, quaint dishes, silver pieces, etc., only everything was second-hand.
"Barring the piano and lamp, there is hardly a new thing in the house, and yet you never would dream it. Together we make thirty dollars a week, and we live for twelve or fourteen, simply and happily; so if a girl is domestic in her tastes, by all means let her try housekeeping in an attic."
The figures presented in this chapter should prove to the girl who has had a comfortable home in a small city or town that she cannot duplicate home comforts in the larger city on a salary of five dollars a week. Hither she must bring with her funds to deposit in bank and draw upon for almost daily needs, or resign herself to a period of stern deprivation. For if she is fortunate enough to secure board and lodging in a working-girl's home for three dollars and fifty cents a week, the remaining dollar and a half must cover a multitude of small expenses.
Unless she is working very near the "home," she must buy her lunch, which represents at the least ten cents per day. In many cities, the "homes" are located at some distance from business centers. This means carfare, at least one way each day, often both trips. Some laundry work she must have done, even if she is permitted to wash gauze underwear, stockings, handkerchiefs, neckwear and other small pieces at her boarding-place. Her shoes will wear out with painful celerity, and her entire wardrobe may have to be renewed, piece by piece, before the promised raise in salary is forthcoming. If she comes to the city unprovided with a black dress, and works in a store, her first expenditure will be for a black skirt and waist. In nearly all city stores the wearing of black and white is obligatory.
Figure this out, item by item, and you will see that the life of the inexperienced and untrained girl in a great city is drab-colored indeed. It will be months before her income will permit her to purchase the pretty clothes of which she dreamed before leaving home, or to indulge in the small pleasures which she pictured as part of every city girl's life.
On the other hand, if a girl has the right sort of business ability behind her ambition, if she can deny herself many little luxuries and for a time devote herself exclusively to mastering the line of work she has chosen, the city holds wonderful possibilities for her. There is always room for the girl with an idea, for the girl who does one thing well, for the girl who is willing, nay, anxious, to learn and to work. But a girl of this sort must hold herself above the cheaper, tinseled life of the big city. She must learn to decline invitations which represent late hours, broken rest, associations that are anything but uplifting. She must find her recreation in the free lectures, the free concerts and the free art exhibits to be found in all progressive cities, and seek her companions at classes for self-advancement, gymnasiums and clubs conducted by institutional churches or organizations like the Young Women's Christian Association.
The end