An ad placed in a Chicago paper brought over 300 job seekers to Proviso Township High School in Maywood, Illinois. The ad read, "WANTED—100 Laborers; bring shovels; good pay. Apply High School, Room 9, 1st av. and Madison st., Maywood, bet. 9 and 10 am." Some of the job seekers walked over twenty miles to get there, not having access to a car. School officials had to turn them away, explaining that the ad was a joke, but not of their doing. Seventy-five of the men ended up sleeping in the school yard. Eight members of the senior class were subsequently accused of having placed the ad and were punished "by denying them certain privileges." Their parents protested the punishment, but Principal Witmer said, "I'd do the same thing if they did it again." [
Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr 2, 1915.]
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