Sunday, March 26, 2023

Teenage Girls Misbehaving, March 25, 1923

Norwalk Maidens Shocked Teachers. . . New England School Girls Are Swearing, Smoking and Drinking

Norfolk, Va., March 24—“What to do! What to do,” is the plaint of the school board in this commuting town that daily sends train loads of business men to labor in Manhattan. High school girls are smoking and drinking, wearing knickers and paint and other things that set against the New England conscience, the school board claims, and the girls simply ignore the board’s orders, nor will their parents apply the slipper.

When the school board put an end to “official high school dances,” hoping to curtail alleged wild doings, the girls simple said: “Very well, we will hold unofficial dances.” And they did. When a school board member in a public speech declared school dances were wrong because they led young people to marry too soon, the girls laughed and a sudden rise in engagements were noted.

Things came to a climax when the high school put on its annual musical show, “A Glorious Girl” in a local theatre. A group of eight “chorus girls” smoked in their dressing room as they donned their flimsy costumes, and then they returned from doing their turn the dressing room was afire and the eight girls lost their street costumes. The girls put out the fire and concealed the facts for two days.

So the school board is meeting occasionally and the query rises: “What to do,” as the commuting fathers say “girls will be girls.”

From page 8 of the Durham Morning Herald, Sunday, March 25, 1923. While boys may have been whipped with a hickory stick, girls were turned over the parent’s knee and struck with a slipper.

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