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Mildred Lawson
(Georgia)
The last step had been reached of the
long flight of steps. I paused in the empty hall to get my breath before
entering Mrs. Lawson's Beauty School. A placard was tacked on the door
advertising the price of her work.
I opened the door and entered the longue. It is nicely furnished and
pictures of different styles of hair dress lined the wall, which is common
in these establishments. The lounge is partitioned off with a screen, and
is used as a class room. There is a long table filled with books, chairs
around the table and a large blackboard on the wall. Mrs. Lawson is the
instructor.
As I entered the lounge, I saw Mrs. Lawson sitting before a large mirror
in the practice room. "Hello!" she said, Come in and have a chair by the
window." She was wearing a white skirt, pink sweater, tan oxfords and hose
to match. She is of medium size and about five feet tall, she has blue
eyes. One of her students was busy engaged in applying dye to her hair of
some reddish shade. This is a very large room and all the apparatus that
goes with a beauty parlor is conveniently placed in the room.
"So you want to know about the ways of a beauty parlor? Well I have been
in the game fifteen years. The reason I went into the beauty parlor was
because at that time I did it was a profitable business. I was just a
stenographer in a small town, in a fertilizer and peanut shelling plant in
South Georgia I had a son to put through school and I wanted him to have a
good education, I selected Athens to live in so it would be cheaper to
educate him and now he wants to be a doctor. I am looking toward my beauty
school business to see him through.
"Don't let anybody fool you it is hard work, and we have lots of fun too.
I want you head these paragraphs like this. "WHAT I ALWAYS WANTED TO SAY
ABOUT MY CUSTOMERS AND NEVER DID."
"There was a woman who came to my place every day. She was a large and all
out of shape. She gave me the impression that her husband stepped out on
her for the more attractive people. She was about forty-five or fifty,
everytime she came to me for a manicure, facial, and her hair fixed she
would say: 'Please make me look pretty so my husband will think I look
nice and won't run around.' I did my best, but there are some people you
can't help no matter how much pains you take with them.
"People come to the beauty parlor to gossip about their neighbors, and
sometimes they talk about us. We often go to them and say to 'em "we can
hear what you say about us." It is hard to please people in my line of
work. There is a woman in town who is a business woman. She was the
world's worst. When I was at the Georgian Hotel, we had an awful time with
hot water. From three until five o'clock in the afternoon the water would
get too cold for our use. One day she came in for a shampoo. I told her
the water was too cold, she said; 'I want a shampoo' and began to get
ready for it. Again I told her the water was cold, anyway she sat down I
told one of the operators to give her the shampoo, when the cold water was
turned on her head she jumped up and blessed us all out. I told the girl
to dry her hair, she said: 'I can't go out of here looking like this.' I
told her, 'You don't look any worse than you did when you came in.' She
had the worst looking mop of red hair you ever saw.
"One day last year a northern woman came to my shop for a permanent wave.
She was a haughty type of person. Her nose was turned up as if everything
smelled bad. She was large, and was clad in a white dress that had large
pink flowers on it. Her legs are twice the size of mine, and she wore gun
metal hose to hide the size of them which made her look that much worse. I
did her work myself, she began to ask personal questions. 'Do you have
many customers!' she asked. I told her, 'More than we can manage some
days.' Oh, she replied 'How can you do so much at your age?' "At my age I
asked? Why, I am only forty-one." 'Forty-one! is that all.' That remark
made me fighting mad, however she didn't know it. I meant to get even with
her before she left my shop. I worked on, she never stopped talking. After
she had talked about everything else, she asked me, 'How do you like the
new materials this year?' "Oh, I think they are beautiful, but I simply
can't stand large prints on large women, and I always did hate gun metal
hose. I knew it was catty but I couldn't resist the temtation. I give her
the wave but I must admit I would have given her a better job if she had
been nicer.
"We had a woman to come in last week who is more or less a crank, she
wanted her hair fixed a certain way. Well we did it. Then she wanted it
changed and done another way. We changed it for her. After we did that she
decided she would have a shampoo, and the operator in trying to please her
accidentally got some of the rinse water in her eye. She jumped up, cursed
the operator out, refused to pay for the work, and left. Her niece wanted
an appointment and told one of the girls she was ashamed to come because
her aunt had made it very embarrassing for her. We told the girl that
didn't made any difference as we were used to all kind of people. The girl
came and we gave her the wave.
"Do you know the best way to lose a customer is to credit them? After all
beauty work is a luxury. The only thing I ever lost on the university
girls, was just before the Christmas holidays of this year when a sorority
girl came to my shop for a permanent wave. After I had finished with her
she told me to charge it and she would pay me when she came back after
Christmas. She went home and I have never seen or heard of her since.
"I have a friend who is a widow, she is separated from her husband. She
has a nice car and gets a nice sum from alimony. I can tell when she is
ready to have work done, for a time before she springs it on me she can't
be too nice. I know what she is up to as it has happened too often. Then
she comes to have her work done. She thinks I do it for nothing, but I
don't. I charge it each time she comes and some of these days I am going
to present her with a bill. She tells her friends I do the work for her
free. She is instrumental however, in sending lots of her friends to me.
"I like men better than I do women,
therefore when I started to work oh, I just hated to touch a woman's hair
the odor of their oily hair made me sick often I have taken down a knot of
hair, maybe hadn't been washed in three months, in those days they didn't
have short hair, and when I smelled that rancid odor of oil I have had to
stop my work and run to the rest room to burp. If people knew what we saw
when we start with their hair they would be more generous with soap and
water. Not so long ago a mother brought her little girl to me for a
permanent wave. I turned her over to one of the girls. After she had
finished and they had gone the operator told me that child's neck, and
back of her ears also the edge of her hair was so filthy she took a scrub
brush to get the child clean. I mean a brush we have for scrubbing the
scalp in a severe case of dandruff. That child was from a nice family.
"I had a shop like this in South Carolina, it was during probition. You
notice I don't have booth's in my shop. The reason for that is, I was born
in the country and; I like 'plenty of room and wide open spaces.' To get
back to my story, a college girl came in one day for a wave. She was
talking down, to the operator, giving her the wave. I was doing a hair
dying. The sheriff in that town was a handsome man and single, so Mrs.
Brown and I were talking about him. The girl over heard us and said, 'oh,
if you think he is goodlooking you ought to see my bootleger,' "I said,
'Yes he is goodlooking, isn't he, Mrs. Brown?,' telling the girl Mrs Brown
was his wife. I said this so the girl would say nothing more about Mr.
Brown. She was the smart type and thought it was cute to let us know she
drank as girls had just started that and smoking. However, I must say Mr.
Brown was a nice man and from a lovely family. After he came back from the
war he couldn't find a job, and that was the only way he had of making a
living.
"In my time at least since I have been running a beauty parlor of my own.
I have bought about three bushels of end curlers and now I have about
three dozen. One trait some of my customers have, is, they go to the dime
store and buy a comb which looks very much like the ones used in beauty
parlors. They will come here to have work done. When our back is turned
they swap combs with us. I pay $1.25 each for my combs there is no
reduction on the quanity bought and to find someone has swapped combs with
me makes me down right mad. I reckon I had better not tell you any more
dirt, but what I have said is all right, but there are things that happen
here among the customers I had better not tell.
"Business men tell me since I have been in business that women are their
best bet when it comes to paying their accounts. On the other had the
National Cash Register men say a woman cashier knocks down more money than
men. They find it out through checking the cash registers.
"I find that business women and girls also sorority girls are my best
customers. They have to be, and want to look well groomed, and the
sorority girls try to see which one can look the cutest. You take the
women who stay at home they have more time to do these things for
themselves.
"Would you believe it if I tell you that married women with
responsibilities make the best operators?" The girls who were listening to
Mrs. Lawson telling her story spoke up, "why, you know girls look fresher.
Take our mothers, for instance, they have to work so hard at home I don't
see why they would." "Nevertheless it is true." their teacher told them,
she continued: "Don't you think for a moment this kind of work isn't hard,
it is much harder than office work, this is physical labor. I know for I
have done both and know. A woman who works in the courthouse told me one
day she thought girls would make better beauty operators, because they had
more patience. I told her she was mistaken because this type of work is
harder. You only have one boss to please in a office and in this work you
have to please everyone who comes to you. You not only have to sell them
on your personality and work, but sell them on the idea of having things
done they have never had done before to make them look better. You take a
woman with a colorless face. If you can sell her on the idea of having her
eyebrows and lashes dyed it makes the eyes look larger and the face will
seem to have more color and expression.
"We are trying to make a real profession out of beauty operating. We are
trying to introduce a bill into the legislature, so that each operator
going out into the professional world after they have completed their
course will have to pay a license to the state of $100.00 before they can
begin work. This is to protect those who have made a study of beauty
culture, and to keep those out who are not professionals. The operators
use to learn the work or thought they know it and started to work. It is
not that way now. They have to have a blood test made and have a physical
examination before they can enter school and the health certificate has to
be renewed each as long as they remain in the service. This is required by
the State Board of Health.
"I have been doing this kind of work for fifteen years. I have run a
beauty parlor exclusively until a short time ago. I decided to teach
beauty culture and opened up a school in connection with my parlor. The
State Board of Barbers and Hair Dressers won't allow both going on the
same building so I gave up the parlor. However they do allow us to have
customers and we charge a nominal sum, not the regular price as my
students are not considered experts until they have completed their course
which takes six months or one thousand hours. Those are the requirements
of the State Board before they care take an examination.
"I never select my girls because they have nice hair or nails. However, a
pretty face and figure goes a long ways in a beauty parlor. See here, an
operator who is popular in her work don't always have time to keep her
hair nails and face jam up. And you can't judge a good operator by her
personal appearance you have to try them first. It is in this work like
everything else sometimes the ones I consider best gets the least to do.
"When I started to work, I worked in my sister's beauty parlor in a small
Georgia town. She learned the work in New York and Chicago. The only
beauty clinic in Atlanta at that time was Hern's,* I believe that was the
only one. It doesn't take talent to be an operator. *(Probably Herndon's -
or possibly Hearn's)
"I have girls in training from all over Georgia. They board out in town,
when my lease expires I am going to get a large house and have a dormitory
on the top floor and a training school on the first floor. Then I am going
to open up another beauty parlor in some convenient location of the city.
When I started to work, I was paid a commission, I have made as low as
$5.00 a week and as high as $65.00 lots of weeks. Most of the beauty
parlors pay their operators on a commission only. I pay my girls salaries,
because it keeps down confusion. If I had a popular operator and everyone
who came in wanted that particular person, than I would let the ones not
quite so popular help that one. I worked along with my girls and drew my
salary the same as they did this kept down jealousy. Salaries and
commissions have their advantage and dis-advantages. A girl on a
commission makes a better operator than those on a salary. An operator on
a commission works harder, she finishes her work quicker and does a better
job, she will also call her friends and ask them to come to her, and tell
her to ask others. The operators on a salary takes her work as a matter of
fact, knowing she will get her money as long as she pleases the customers
and manager of the establishment.
"There is a greater profit made in shampoos and manicures, than in any
other type of work, such as permanents and finger waves, facials, and
massages. The reason there is less expense attached to the material used.
"The youngest customer I ever had was fourteen months old, a doctor's
child. Her mother brought her up here, and held the child in her arms
while I gave her the permanent wave. I have old women come to my shop to
have work done so old they use a cane for support to walk. Women that age
are harder to please than younger people.
"When I started to work in a beauty parlor gum-chewing was not allowed,
you were fired as quick for that as for any other offence. Now since girls
smoke I think they are breath-conscious, and chew gum to kill bad breath.
Most all of our customers chew gum and smoke from nervousness while under
the dryer. And most all of them read during the entire time. Those who
don't read like to gossip with the operator who does her work. However, I
have always discouraged this sort of thing, for this reason. There are
always things said that shouldn't be passed on and should that operator
repeat the conversation there would be trouble, because if a customer
comes in and like her work she will tell her friends, you know how women
like to talk so this indulgence isn't allowed between customer and
operator.
"I remember one incident that happened in my shop in South Carolina. A
very prominent woman and her husband separated. It was really a very
tragic separation. Every woman who came in had a different story to tell.
One of my operators repeated what she had heard and it caused an awful
fuss. Of course I had to fire the girl. I had another girl who was
bubbling over with mischief. She would come in and no matter how many was
in my shop, she'd exclaim 'Oh, did you know there is to be a grand parade,
with floats and people all dressed up!' After a while when everyone was
busy, several horns would sound from cars on the street she would stop
what she was doing and run to the window; saying 'Oh, here that, the
parade is coming.' Every one would run to the window. One day she had a
water pistol, filling it with water, she went to the window and shot the
water on a policeman. Was he mad? He came up here and blessed her out. It
frightened her to death. I had to let her go, because that sort of thing
won't go when you work with the public.
"I give all type of waves manicures, facials, dyeing the hair, eyebrows,
lashes, hot oil treatments and shampoos. I have never had any trouble in
baking the hair too much. I have automatic out-off's on all my machines.
There is no guess work about permanent waving.
"I went into business for myself in 1929. I have been in business in
Athens 6 years. I came here to go in business because I am a Georgia woman
and I wanted my son to go to a Georgia College and it cost me less to send
him to send him here. The town I left in South Carolina was a mill town
and there wasn't much business at that place. Now I have given up my shop
for the present, and I'm teaching girls to become beauty operators.
"My girls pay me $60 for the 6 months course, or one thousand hours. When
I get four more students my price will be $90, the average price for a
complete course is $135. Each beauty parlor school fixes their own price.
The girls work from 9 o'clock in the morning until 6 o'clock in the
afternoon, they have an hour for lunch, and an hour of each day is devoted
to study. I have 5 electric heaters, 4 gas heaters and 1 electric blower
for drying hair after a permanent wave. The money taken in by the students
from customers goes to me. I require my girls to wear white uniforms, I
think the operators appear much nicer. Now that I have the training school
I don't do any of the work. When I open my shop again I will work like the
other operators.
"My students pay for their tuition in various ways. One girl from the
country wanted to take the course but told me she didn't have the money,
so I agreed to accept chickens, hams, potatoes, and fresh vegetables. That
helped her and me too. One man paid his daughters tuition with lumber,
which was used to remodel my apartment.
"I was born on a farm in the southern part of the State, and when I was
about four years old my parents moved to town. Four years later father's
health failed and the doctors advised him to move back to the country.
Father was a teacher and be built the first schoolhouse in that community
and taught in it. He and several other men organized the Baptist church
and built its house of worship. He was a deacon in that church as long as
he lived. One thing sure, just as soon as I am able I'm going back and buy
that little old pedal organ that I used to play Sundayschool songs on in
that old church when I was a girl. Although I quit school when I was only
13 years old, I've always liked to read and study, and my people were by
no means illiterate.
"Both of my grandparents fought in the War Between the States. Mother's
father was badly wounded. When he came home from the war one of his slaves
saw him coming and ran to meet him. Grandfather told the Negro not to let
grandmother know he had arrived until he
[MISSING TEXT]
bathing he burned all the clothes he was wearing even to his uniform, he
said his clothes were ragged and not worth saving. He was shot in his hip
and all the fingers on one hand were shot completely off. He reared two
sets of children, my mother was one of the younger set. He had several
children when he went to war, and when he came back several more were born
to them. General Clement A. Evans was my grandmother's brother on my
mother's side.
"I believe in religion and am a member of the Baptist church, but am
ashamed to say I don't go like I should. I had religion crammed down my
throat until I married. My mother and father were very strict and I was
reared on the front seat in church so to speak. I do want my boy to be a
good christian man, and I feel its my duty to talk to him and tell him the
right from wrong, by pointing out my mistakes to him. I have denied myself
every pleasure and the better things in life that he might have a good
education and make a man of himself. After all it is a pleasure for me to
help him I am getting old now and his future is ahead of him.
"My husband and I are not living together. I met him in the room I was
born and reared in. My father owned a large farm, they say people in South
Georgia are land poor, that was us. Anyway father decided to sell that
part of the land and built another house. A friend of the family bought
the land our first house was on. One night one of the girls gave an old
fashioned square dance and invited me. I went, she had the dance in the
room that was our bed room and there is where I met my husband. I never
worked a day before I married I never had to. After I married I had to go
to work to help out.
"When I was in South Carolina, I had my shop done in green and tan, I had
bought a very expensive line of cosmetics that [?] in blue bottles. The
cabinet I had built for my goods the color didn't make those blue bottles
stand out so I had the back of the cabinet painted black. One day an art
teacher came in, while I was doing her work she began to critize the color
scheme of my shop and the black background of my cabinet. I told her I
liked it, she said: 'That is because you don't have any taste.' When she
called for an appointment I wasn't busy that day, but I told her I had all
I could possibly do for that day. I have those things said to me that hurt
than I have things to balance them up.
"Once I made a long distance call to Gainesville, Georgia, a few days
later that long -distance operator came in for a shampoo and finger wave.
She told me the reason she came to me was, when she was putting that call
through to Gainesville for me, she liked my voice and decided to come to
my place for her work. That reminds me of the time when I worked in a
telephone office. Fertilizer and the peanut shelling season didn't last
but a few months, when I weren't working at the plant I was a 'hello
girl.' In that town they had a radio station in a drug store. I doubt
whether it was ever heard out side of the town or not. Anyway, one day a
girl called the drug store, asked them to play Gene Austin's St. Infirmary
Blues. The operator connected her with the laundry The girls at the
laundry said 'we don't have any blues for Mr. Austin.' 'What do you mean?'
asked the girl. 'We don't have Mr. Austin's laundry listed.' Than the girl
discovered she had the wrong number and did we get blessed out.
"When I moved my shop to this end of town everything was on the decline,
there were several vacant store buildings, soon after that business began
to pick up. Now there isn't a vacant building, in this block. A business
man told me the merchants in this block ought to get together and pay my
rent.
"My one ambition in life is to be a writer. If I had gone through school
as I should I would have taken journalism in college and had I
accomplished my aim I would like to pay Erskin Caldwell back for the mud
he has slung on the South. I have written several stories and some day I
am going to get someone to edit them for me and have them printed.
"Well I believe I have told you about all that would do to put into print,
and too I have been so busy since you came, I am wondering if you will
ever get it straight," One of the students had just finished combing a
customers hair, whom she had given a finger wave. When she came to the
shop, she fussed because one side of her head had more curl than the
other, her hair was cut shorter in some places than in others. Mrs.
Lawson, said: "But Miss Black we fixed it exactly as you told us to." This
made the customer furious. "Well", she said, "I don't like it and I want
it done over." The work was completed, Mrs. Lawson asked her: "How do you
like it now?" "Oh, it is much better now. How much is it?" Mrs. Lawson
told her; "35¢"; Miss Black turned red in the face: "But surely you don't
charge a customer when they are not pleased with your work, do you?" "No,
when it is our fault, but we fixed your hair just as you directed it, and
we charge 35¢ for a finger wave and drying it." "Well," said Miss Black,
"here is the money, and I don't intend to come back I was sure you wanted
your customers to be pleased." "I am awfully sorry Miss Black, but it
isn't our fault." At this she snatched on her coat took her hat in hand
went out of the school, slamming the door after her. Mrs. Lawson turned to
me and said: "I have been in business fifteen years and when those things
come up, they still hurt." I told her I must be going. "Do come back," she
invited me; "and I hope you don't find my story too un-interesting." She
followed me to the door leading down the long flight of steps. "When I
told her good bye the tears were still in her eyes, she was putting up a
hard flight to keep them back.
February 1, 1939
Mrs. Sue S. White
Beauty School
10 1/2 E. Clayton St.
Athens, Georgia
Hornsby
Text from: Library of
Congress, Manuscript Division, WPA Federal Writers' Project Collection
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