Robert Booker: On cross-dressing, rail travel, funding - Knoxville News Sentinel
One hundred years ago, in January 1911, several interesting items appeared in the Knoxville Journal and Tribune: A new train made its first stop in Knoxville. A 14-year-old girl was discovered masquerading as a man working on the railroad in Corryton and Mascot. The city water plant reported to City Council that it had made a hefty profit. The cities of Mountain View, Park City and Lonsdale touted their populations. The Bell House School mothers fretted about the clothes children were wearing to school. County school funds ran low and the term was shortened.
The Jan. 3 issue gushed over the arrival of the "Carolina Special" that ran from Charleston, S.C., to Cincinnati, with stops in Asheville and Knoxville. It had a combined baggage and smoking car, one first-class day coach, a drawing Pullman, a dining car and a Pullman observation and sleeping car. Several Southern Railway officials were aboard.
The issue of Jan. 5 carried the story of Ella Faigs, a 14-year-old girl who "Appeared among men, in men's clothing and performed the labor of men largely possessing the strength equal to many men, for more than a month, the girl who adopted a man's Christian name, that of Allen, has been in the employ of the Southern Railway.
"Left alone in this world, this young girl believed that were she a man it would be easier to forge her way through the world. So about a month ago she left the farm on which she had been reared and which she tilled during the summer. On the railroad she claimed to be 'Allen Faigs.' The work proved to be too much for her, however, and she let her true identity be known. She became a cook in the boarding house where she had lived as a man."
The Jan. 21 issue reported to City Council that the expenditures of the water plant in 1910 were $120,330.20. Its total income for the year was $177,000.55. The profit for the agency was $56,670.35.
"The annual budget, which is in pamphlet form and contains some forty or fifty pages, gives a comprehensive and exhaustive statement of the operations of the plant," the article said.
In showing how the population could be boosted, a Jan. 25 item lists the population of Knoxville as 36,346; Park City as 5,126; Lonsdale as 2,391; and Mountain View as 1,436. It says, "Had these corporations been annexed by Knoxville previous to the 1910 enumeration, this city would have shown growth during the past decade of nearly fifty per cent."
On Jan. 26 it was reported that Dr. Dora Lee Wilder, who addressed the Mother's Association of Bell House School, said, "The majority of school children, even from the most cultured and wealthy homes are not properly clad for schools, as either their hosiery is too thin, the shoes not sufficiently heavy and their clothing too light weight to keep them warm when out of doors The present day method of dress is not suitable for the child to be out on the street at all."
It was reported on Jan. 29 that the Knox County Board of Education was low on funds and had to close schools early. Superintendent M.W. Wilson said he had visited West View, Beaumont, Claxton, Lonsdale (colored), Cedar Grove, Vestal, Camp Grove, Fountain City, Bearden, Edgewood (colored), Fairgarden and Dante Dale (colored) and found them, in the main, very satisfactory. The board voted to close the rural schools on March 3, and the suburban schools April 7.
30 Aug, 2011--
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