CAMP FOR WOMEN

Evening Post, Volume CXVI, Issue 48, 25 August 1933, Page 7

CAMP FOR WOMEN

AMERICAN EXPERIMENT

NEW YORK'S UNEMPLOYED

(From "The Post's" Representative.) NEW YOEK, August 3. Federal and State authorities are already expressing deep satisfaction at the success of the first known unemployed women's relief camp, which, waa established a month ago in barracks at Bear Mountain Park, about a hundred miles up the Hudson Biver from Manhattan. The experiment is being extended. There are 200 women in camp, mostly over thirty years of age. They receive five dollars a week, from which they are required to pay their board. Selection is made from those who have no one to care for them. They are living under strict discipline, prescribed by an "Amazon" who was selected for her knowledge of how to control women. Only six have been expelled during the month, which is regarded as successful assimilation of a new life. The occupants of the camp wear "shorts" during the day. They do the regular chores of camp, and attend courses of lectures and practical work, assigned by members chosen from among them who have had previous experience. For instance, a woman who was a dramatic critic discussed, in her first lecture, Noel Coward, Eugene O'Neill, the Barrymores, and the critics. There aro courses in handcrafts, athletics, business training, elementary and advanced English.

High heels are taboo. "I order them two sizes larger than the size they say they wear," says the director, discussing their footwear. At ten o'clock each morning the whole camp assembles for tap-dancing, taught by a Negro girl, as that form of exercise is considered good for foot joints that have become enlarged through wearing cheap or worn shoes.

Strange as it may seem, almost all the Negro girls in camp, but less than half a dozen of the whites, have been to college. There was some doubt as to reception of the Negroes when they arrived, but the director's appeal to the white women to be as democratic as men are nowadays won a warm welcome for the coloured contingent.

Few knew how to swim or had ever played tennis. Some admitted that they had never been on a vacation trip outside New York City. They could never afford it. Now they are interested in Nature courses. In their extra-size shoes they enjoy hiking through the forest.

The camp has two expert cooks and a dietitian. Besides them, the' director and her assistant, there are no paid officials. The camp is run economically. Tho day is full of activities. The women are always kept occupied. They have no time to brood over their lot.