How Jobless, Hungry Girls Live - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
I- "How Jobless, Hungry Girls Live Told by Adela Rogers St. Johns" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
Famous Writer Pens Vividly Dramatic Story of Hardships, Rebuffs and Suffering Endured in Battling Wolf
1931-12-20
". . .I didn't have a nickel. By the spirit of my compact to go as thousands of women today are going to seek work, I didn't have a friend among the million and a quarter people in the city of Los Angeles. I was starting from scratch, no money, no baggage, no friends. . ."
II-"'Penniless Woman' Fed by Stranger, Sleeps in Auto" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
Adela Rogers St. Johns Relates How She Spent First Night as 'Depression Victim', Tramps Street Fearing Man Would Accost Her
1931-12-21
". . .Upon my first night as a member of the army of unemployed women, I found myself broke, without baggage and wihout a room. A poor, shabby creature, moving alone among crowds, in a sort of bright, pitiless glare that is worse than any darkness. In every woman, young and old, pretty or ugly, is bred and trained a deep fear of the streets at night. Fear of insult and attack. . ."
III- "Any Woman Can Eat, Sleep if She Knows How to Do Housework, Writer Finds" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
'Mother's Helper' Jobs Always Open, but Hard Tasks – Pay Little – Most Unfortunates Steer Clear of Family 'Slaving'
1931-12-22
". . .I felt dirty, unkempt. I longed for a jar of cold cream almost as much as I longed for breakfast. A glance into a store window mirror showed me a lined, dirty face, rumpled clothes, straggling hair. Not much of a front. I didn't know where to go to clean up. The splendid doorway of a big hotel stood open. Like a criminal, I glanced around. Then I sneaked in. The doorman stared at me. I tried to give him glance for glance, to look as though I had business there. . ."
IV- "Suspicion's Gulf Separating House Worker, Employer" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
Writer Takes Job as Mother's Helper in Small Family – $15 Month – Tasks Prove Hard, but Kindness Shown Her Brings Joy
1931-12-23
". . .Slowly, my own home, my own life fading away before the terrific pressure of this hand-to-hand battle for existence. As though it were all a beautiful dream or a memory from some former existence. Many of the women I met have happy pasts that have become mere memories. . ."
V- "Writer Forced to Charity; Meets Bar as Transient" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
Refused Help by Community Chest After Long Wait, Finally Sent to Christ Faith Mission Where All Received With Equal Kindness
1931-12-24
". . .I cannot describe to you the feeling of humiliation, of actual guilt that welled up inside me as I walked through the gate of charity into that land where a woman abandons her pride, her inalienable rights and much of life's sweetness. And where of all places, she should be treated with the kindliness that her bruised spirit demands. . ."
VI- "Jobless Women Hunger Also for Cleanliness" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
Shabbiness Breaks Their Morale, and Soap Is Precious – Hard Road – Writer Penetrates Further Into Grimm Reality
1931-12-25
". . .Remember, we're a silk stocking and lip rouge nation. It's been bred and trained into us. As women, by the greatest advertising campaigns in the world, we have been sold the ides of beauty, of grooming, of cleanliness. It hurts so to feel yourself slipping below the tide. Down and out, unemployed, hungry, we are still women. . ."
VII- "$2 By Six o'Clock Cost of Avoiding Charity Maelstrom" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
Writer Tells How She Begged Money for Her Flowers - Rebuffs - Trials and Troubles of Girls Selling to Public Revealed
1931-12-28
". . .Panhandling is not a pretty business. You get the money. Nearly always, you get it especially if you ask for it in small sums. The desperate part of business is to get up your courage to ask. It seems to be against every fundamental instinct. You walk back and forth. You see a nicely dressed woman and you say to yourself, 'I will ask her.' You don't. . ."
VIII- "Present Facilities Can Aid Women in Need, Says Writer" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
'Chest Should Have Central Bureau to Direct Help' - 'War Times' - 'Agencies Not Awake to Desperate Need of Jobless'
1931-12-29
". . .Is there a way to meet the suffering, mental and physical, of our sisters who are trapped in a great economic upheaval as they might be trapped by an earthquake or a flood? Yes. Yes. In spite of the dark outlook, straitened circumstances on every hand, there is a way. And one that need not be too hard upon all of us, who have already done our very best to aid in this crisis, who have already given right up to the quick of our depleted bank accounts. . ."
IX- "Associated Group of 100,000 Women Best Bet for Idle" - Adela Rogers St. Johns - Los Angeles Examiner
Writer Finds It Provided 55,000 Hours Work - Many Helped - Financial Aid Urged for Committee by Miss St. Johns
1931-12-30
"Rent. Gas. Groceries. A chance to keep their little homes, to hold their heads up, to keep from becoming openly objects of charity. I know many women who today are facing that problem. You see, when I talked with unemployed women I was one of them. They had nothing to gain from me. They had no reason to lie to me. Most of them wanted to help me, to show me the ropes. . ."