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social mobility to them, so that they wouldn't have "to work and slave in the white folks' kitchen," 33 but rather could become teachers and enter the major prestige occupation open to black women in this period. In contrast to white women, black women could not hope for white collar positions as store clerks, secretaries, or bookkeepers. 34 Nursing, too, was largely closed to them. In 1910 two out of three professional black women were teachers; in black families, eager to insure their daughters' futures, a "dignified job" meant teaching. It is not surprising, then, that so many of the women of the Thomas kin became teachers or that later Alma would enter that profession.

Thus, in spite of its rigid segregation, Washington offered hope to the Thomas family. The trip by railroad from Columbus to the nation's capital (on a segregated train) took two days and one night. Alma Thomas often repeated the story that, as the family crossed the Potomac River from Virginia into the District, her mother said to one of the girls, "You take your shoes off and knock that Georgia sand out of them. Don't ever go back there again." 35