A wonderful article, and with so many echoes today.

‘The Chorus Lady as a Working Girl’ by Phyllis Meltzer from The International Socialist Review. Vol. 13 No. 1. July, 1912.

HAVE you ever longed to go “upon the stage”? Have you ever felt that it would be the summit of your ambition to occupy the spot-light with a handsome leading man kneeling adoringly at your feet while the “house” got up on its hind legs and beat blisters onto its hands giving you curtain calls? Have you pictured to yourself a life “on the road” where you traveled in luxury from one end of the country to another enjoying the sights you had heard about? If you have longed for and imagined these things I hope you will read the experiences of one who looked upon stageland just as you do only a few years ago.

When I was very young and foolish I was obsessed with the idea of my own personal charm and magnetism. I was very fond of the theater and it seemed to me, with all the egotism of my seventeen years, that the foot-lights were the proper setting for my talents. Behind the mysterious curtain lay a wonderland of fame and romance. I was perfectly sure that I would be a success.

I remember the morning I selected a trusted girlfriend, who also nursed histrionic ambitions, donned my longest frock and sallied forth. We were two pretty and attractive girls, full of absurd confidence in ourselves.

We were both duly impressed with the gorgeous costumes of the girls who had reached the manager’s office before us. But the manager looked us over and seemed to prefer my friend and me. He talked to us a long time, asking us questions that sent the blushes to our cheeks and trying various kinds of familiarities.

I was told to appear the following morning to have my voice “tried out,” but as the manager attempted to kiss me as I was leaving, I never returned.

But my hopes were not killed. They were only checked and inside of two weeks I had decided to venture into the drama. This time I went to Mr. Daniel Frohman. I was horribly afraid of the great man, but he listened sympathetically to my ambitions while I assured him that I felt I was born to become a great actress. I have never forgotten his kindness in treating my illusions gently and seriously. He told me that if I worked hard, determined to shirk nothing, I could probably succeed. Then he advised me to go home and grow up before I embarked on a career!

In August, that same year, I ran away from home. I took the train to New York and went direct to a friend who had been on the stage a year. She sent me to the office of one of the biggest New York managers next day and, after trying my voice, he engaged me for a road production.

My heart bubbled over with delight. I was going to see the world. I was about to begin my “career.” Every desire of my heart seemed gratified.

Rehearsals were called for the next morning- very early. Full of anticipation, I left for Lyric Hall. The girls all seemed to be very beautiful to my unexperienced eyes and in spite of the hard work it was some time before the glamour began to wear off. Most of the girls, I found, wore a part of their make-up all of the time. They were not nearly so lovely as I had at first supposed.

Now you, who see only the light and laughter of the stage, cannot know the horrible heart-breaking fatigue that the chorus girls endure to produce the effects you enjoy. In the hottest part of summer we had to be at rehearsal from 10 a.m. to 6 and from 8 to 10 or 11 o’clock. And how we worked! There was never a moment of shirking with Burnside as overseer. I was a plump girl when we began, but I looked two years older by the time we left New York.

The girl who forsakes the store counter for the stage, hoping that she may at least escape the agony of being on her feet all day; the girl who leaves the office, with a yearning to escape its monotony; the girl who deserts her home because of a hatred for housework and with a yearning for the romance and color which she imagines she will find in stage life-all are bound to be disappointed, and desperately so.

Instead of a life of ease and plenty, she finds, only too often, an unvarying round of hard work that renders her body numb with weariness and her mind stupid. Sleep seems to come but seldom and then only in hasty snatches. Just before the opening of a musical piece, I have seen a rehearsal last from Saturday morning till Monday afternoon and during that time none of the girls were allowed to leave the building. Their food consisted of sandwiches brought in at intervals and their sleep was taken in chairs or in the comers of the wings.

I remember once seeing a stage box filled with sleeping little dancers. They toppled in there after hours and hours upon the tips of their toes and went to sleep where they fell, their little faces, still with their make-up on, showing a ghastly red-and-white under the electric lights.

Nothing could have destroyed my illusions more quickly than my first rehearsal. We had neither the time nor the strength for anything in the world but work, during the weeks when the play was being whipped into shape.

We were booked for Philadelphia as our first stop and we arrived at midnight tired and dejected. Then every young girl in the company had to find lodging. My chum and I came to a glad halt at a dingy hotel and crept dismally into a dingier bed.

We opened the next night after an entire day of rehearsing. The audience seemed to like the show. That night I had my first taste of stage “Johnnies.” At first I regularly rebuffed them. Beginners often do. But when it becomes a wearing gamble whether slender salaries may be eked out to cover absolutely necessary expenses every week, even the most refined chorus girl gradually permits herself to be sometimes dined in order to stretch out her dollars a little further. Every meal paid for by somebody else means a little bit saved. And it is only by scrimping on the little things that the chorus girl manages to live.

I am not yet quite certain why it is that certain types of men regard the show girl as legitimate prey. It is true that most of them are better looking than the average young woman. It is also true that many of them are little short of being geniuses in the art of appearing well dressed on next to nothing a week. The stage begets a sort of camaraderie and a directness of manner that comes of seven railroad jumps a week. Perhaps the girl’s longing for friends and a little social life, a few of the pleasures she had hoped to find on the stage, render her a little more susceptible to the advances of men than other women.

We suffered a most humiliating experience at Easton, Penn. Three of us girls were taking a walk through the Lafayette college campus when we were surrounded by a small army of young men who insisted that a song and dance by each of us would be the price of our freedom.

In Allentown my chum and I put up at a new hotel where we were the first and only guests. The keys had not been made for the locks of the doors as yet, but as the town was full, it being fair week, we were only too grateful for a place to sleep in. As a precaution my partner placed· a chair under the handle of the door before tumbling into bed. About 2 o’clock in the morning I awoke in a cold perspiration. Outside I heard voices, drunken ones, laughing and swearing. I ran over to my friend’s bed and shook her. I told her I was going to jump out of the window, but she shook me into my senses and then in a loud voice called out, “Charlie, Charlie I There’s someone trying the door I” She was a quick-witted girl and I loved her for it. They were indeed twisting the handle and swearing at us horribly. They tried to break in but that blessed chair held firm. Finally, after much talk and threatening, they left us, but there was no more sleep for us that night.

In every city we had some horrible experience or other. I will not try to tell all of them here.

Our trip took us south and we worked like slaves every day of our lives. We had three matinees each week and rehearsals nearly every morning or late at night. To make matters worse we sometimes made early morning jumps. Most of us were so tired that we dropped off to sleep with our make-up on.

We grew to hate the life horribly and some of us discovered that southern com whisky brought temporary strength. After morning trips, rehearsal and matinee it buoyed us up for the evening performance. We grew to shiver at the stations, at the thought of lugging our heavy suit cases about till we found a cheap hotel. There were absolutely no tips. We could not afford any.

There is no profession or industry that so sternly demands perfect health and absolute allegiance as the stage. Illness is prohibited. The show girl must appear under every and all circumstances or drop out permanently. One of our little dancers, about to become a mother, kept her secret and her job almost till the time of her confinement. Her wages were the support of her mother as well as herself.

If a girl dropped out from illness, she was forgotten at once. It is well known that managers do not waste time over the chorus slave.

Two of the girls, who were constantly ill, seldom stepped on the stage sober. Everybody loses self-respect and all sense of decency in such an atmosphere. Still there was seldom a young woman in the company who was not generous to a wonderful degree. When one of our comrades was sick or in trouble the girls denied themselves much needed food to contribute to her comfort or to pay for the services of a physician.

Our company broke up in Galveston with everybody so tired that she longed to imitate old Mr. Van Winkle. I took the horrible Mallory line boat for home and New York and joy once more began to bubble up in my heart. The stage would never allure me again. All my illusions were lost in the dreadful reality. I only wanted my own home and rest.

But for the average show girl there is no home going and no rest. She must be always chasing the elusive job, struggling to retain what good looks she may have in order to compete with her eager sisters for a place in the “profession.”

The usual wages of chorus girls are from fifteen to eighteen dollars a week, sums pitiably inadequate when you consider their expenses, particularly when on tour. Out of her wages she must pay hotel bills. Whether in city or village the very lowest rate for room alone by the day is $1. Then there are three very necessary meals, which total at least 75 cents daily, and car fares and small incidentals, to say nothing of laundry. No woman could possibly manage on less than $15 weekly for absolute necessities, and yet we were actually compelled to pay for sleepers when the company made night jumps. Often we would be forced to sit up all night to save our last remaining dollar.

I believe that usually half the girls in most road companies regularly draw less than their full wages. They are all fined for the most trifling mistakes, on every available occasion. Every time a girl is late at rehearsal she is fined 50 cents. Once, when we had a string of night jumps, I lagged a little at rehearsal from sheer exhaustion. The manager scolded me in a raucous voice and I retorted with all the spirit I could muster. For this I was fined five dollars.

The stenographer or telephone girl who goes on the stage will find that wages there are not what she had anticipated. Every month brings its new group of ambitious young girls, eager to start on almost anything. As a result, wages fall to a bare living. Competition is always keen for a place in the chorus- just as it is everywhere for work of any kind.

The chorus girl who has no one to depend on but herself is nearly always only a few dollars away from actual need. When the company fails, or she is taken sick or dropped on the road, her straits become desperate if she has no other way of earning a living. Then it is, perhaps, that she succumbs to the overwhelming odds against her and sells herself piecemeal to keep the wolf from the door. The chorus girls must sooner or later learn to organize. If they will stand by each other and stick together, they can compel managers to give them decent treatment. There is a Chorus Girls’ Union in Paris, I have heard, and another in St. Petersburg. The stage employees, the electricians, the scene shifters, and even the bill posters, already have their unions and no manager dares offend them, but the little chorus girl, who needs it most, is without any protection whatever. There is one union of theatrical performers called the White Rats, but they are vaudeville people and admission is hard to obtain. However, they have greatly improved their conditions and have stopped many abuses. The chorus girls must learn from them and organize for their own protection and benefit. Only in that way will they ever save themselves from the beasts who lie in wait for them in and out of theater.

The International Socialist Review (ISR) was published monthly in Chicago from 1900 until 1918 by Charles H. Kerr and critically loyal to the Socialist Party of America. It is one of the essential publications in U.S. left history. During the editorship of A.M. Simons it was largely theoretical and moderate. In 1908, Charles H. Kerr took over as editor with strong influence from Mary E Marcy. The magazine became the foremost proponent of the SP’s left wing growing to tens of thousands of subscribers. It remained revolutionary in outlook and anti-militarist during World War One. It liberally used photographs and images, with news, theory, arts and organizing in its pages. It articles, reports and essays are an invaluable record of the U.S. class struggle and the development of Marxism in the decades before the Soviet experience. It was closed down in government repression in 1918.

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