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Title: The Making of a Trade School
Author: Woolman, Mary Schenck, 1860-
Language: English
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THE MAKING
OF A TRADE SCHOOL
_By_ MARY SCHENCK WOOLMAN
_Director of Manhattan Trade School for Girls
Professor of Domestic Art, Teachers College, Columbia University_
[Device]
WHITCOMB & BARROWS
1910
BOSTON
Copyright 1909
By Teachers College
Thomas Todd Co., Printers
14 Beacon Street
Boston
CONTENTS
PART PAGE
I. ORGANIZATION AND WORK 1
II. REPRESENTATIVE PROBLEMS 38
III. EQUIPMENT AND SUPPORT 53
IV. OUTLINES AND DETAILED ACCOUNTS OF DEPARTMENT WORK 58
THE MAKING OF A TRADE SCHOOL
PART I
ORGANIZATION AND WORK
History
The Manhattan Trade School for Girls began its work in November, 1902.
The building selected for the school was a large private house at 233
West 14th Street, which was equipped like a factory and could
comfortably accommodate 100 pupils. Training was offered in a variety of
satisfactory trades which required the expert use of the needle, the
paste brush, and the foot and electric power sewing machines.
Beginning with twenty pupils on its first day, it was but a few months
before the full 100 were on roll and others were applying. In
endeavoring to help all who desired instruction the building was soon
overcrowded. It thus became evident that, unless increased accommodation
was provided, the number already in attendance must be decreased and
others, anxious for the training, must be turned away. It was decided
that even though the enterprise was young the need was urgent, demanding
unusual exertion. It would therefore be wise to make every effort to
purchase more commodious quarters. In June, 1906, the school moved to a
fine business building at 209-213 East 23d Street, which could offer
daily instruction to about 500 girls.
The movement owes its existence to the earnest study that a group of
women and men, interested in philanthropic, sociological, economic, and
educational work, gave to the condition of the working girl in New York
City. They were all intimately acquainted with the difficulties of the
situation. Early in the winter of 1902 this committee made a special
investigation of the workrooms of New York. They were but the more
convinced that (1) the wages of unskilled labor are declining; (2) while
there is a good opportunity for highly skilled labor, the supply is
inadequate; (3) the condition of the young, inexpert working girl must
be ameliorated by the speedy opening of a trade school for those who
have reached the age to obtain working papers; (4) if public instruction
could not immediately undertake the organization of such a school, then
private initiative must do it, even though it must depend for its
support upon voluntary contributions. The result was that an extreme
effort was put forth and the following November the first trade school
in America, for girls of fourteen years of age, was begun.
The first Board of Administrators, composed largely of members of the
original committee of investigators, was as follows:
President, Miss Virginia Potter; Vice-Presidents, Dr. Felix Adler, Mr.
John Graham Brooks, Mrs. Theodore Hellman, Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer,
Mrs. Henry Ollesheimer; Treasurer, Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes; Secretary,
Mr. John L. Eliot; Assistant Secretary, Miss Louise B. Lockwood;
Director, Professor Mary Schenck Woolman.
Purpose and Scope
The immediate purpose of the school was to train the youngest and
poorest wage-earners to be self-supporting as quickly as possible. It
was decided to help the industrial workers rather than the commercial
and professional, as the last two are already to some extent provided
for in education. The function of the school was, therefore, that of the
Short-Time Trade School, which would provide the girl who must go to
work the moment she can obtain her working papers (about fourteen years
of age) with an enlightened apprenticeship in some productive
occupation. Such training cannot be obtained satisfactorily in the
market. The immature workers are present there in such large numbers
that they complicate the industrial problem by their poverty and
inability, and thus tend to lower the wage. Jane Addams, of Hull House,
Chicago, says these untrained girls "enter industry at its most painful
point, where the trades are already so overcrowded and subdivided that
there remains in them very little education for the worker." The school
purposed to give its help at this very point.
Trade, on its side, is eager to have skilled women directly fitted for
its workrooms, but finds them hard to obtain. The school's duty was to
discover the way to meet this wish of the employers of labor. It is true
that the utilitarian and industrial education offered by public and
private instruction has benefited the home and society, but such
training has not met the problem of adequately fitting for specific
employments the young worker who has but a few months to spare. The lack
in this instruction has been in specific trade application and
flexibility as to method, artistic needs, and mechanical devices. These
points are essential to place the girl in immediate touch with her
workroom.
Therefore the Manhattan Trade School assumed the responsibility of
providing an economic instruction in the practical work of various
trades, thus supplying them with capable assistants. Hence its purpose
differed not only from the more general instruction of the usual
technical institution, but also from those schools which offered
specific training in one trade (such as dressmaking), in that it (1)
offered help to the youngest wage-earners, (2) gave the choice among
many trades, and (3) held the firm conviction that the adequate
preparation of successful workers requires more factors of instruction
than the training for skill alone. The ideals of the school were the
following: (1) to train a girl that she may become self-supporting; (2)
to furnish a training which shall enable the worker to shift from one
occupation to another allied occupation, _i. e._, elasticity; (3) to
train a girl to understand her relation to her employer, to her
fellow-worker, and to her product; (4) to train a girl to value health
and to know how to keep and improve it; (5) to train a girl to utilize
her former education in such necessary business processes as belong to
her workroom; (6) to develop a better woman while making a successful
worker; (7) to teach the community at large how best to accomplish such
training, _i. e._, to serve as a model whose advice and help would
facilitate the founding of the best kind of schools for the lowest rank
of women workers.
In other words, the Manhattan Trade School aimed to find a way (1) to
improve the worker, physically, mentally, morally, and financially; (2)
to better the conditions of labor in the workroom; (3) to raise the
character of the industries and the conditions of the homes, and (4) to
show that such education could be practically undertaken by public
instruction. The four aims are really one, for the better workers should
improve the product, make higher wages, react advantageously on the
industrial situation and on the home, and the course of instruction
formulated to accomplish this end would help in the further introduction
of such training.
It was not expected that immature girls of fourteen or fifteen years of
age would, immediately on entering the market, make large salaries or be
broad-minded citizens. The hope was to give them a foundation which
would enable them to adapt themselves to situations best fitted to their
abilities and to make possible a steady advance toward better
occupations, wages, and living. In order to do this, each girl on
entering the school must be regarded as having capacity for some special
occupation. This aptitude must be discovered that she may be placed
where she can attain her highest efficiency as rapidly as possible. She
must be treated individually, not as one of a class. Her own efforts
must be awakened, her handicaps, such as inadequate health and
unadaptable education, must be removed, and her training proceed in a
way to give her possession of her powers.
Conditions among the Workers
The conditions of life among many of the wage-earners of New York City
are, briefly stated, as follows: Thousands of families are so poor that
the children must go to work the moment the compulsory school years are
over. In 1897, 14,900 boys and girls dropped from the fifth school
grade, most of them going to work from necessity more or less pressing.
To rise to important positions in factories, workrooms, or department
stores will require a practical combination of any needed craft with the
ability to utilize their school education in rapid deductions, business
letters, accounts, and trade transactions. The public school offers such
children a general education which will be completed in the eighth
grade, but the majority leave before that time. For varying reasons,
such as their foreign birth, irregular attendance, the impossibility of
much personal attention in the crowded classes of a great city, poor
conditions of health, and the desire of the pupils to escape the routine
of school as soon as the law will allow, the greater number of them, who
go early into trade, have not had a satisfactory education for helping
them in their working life. Year after year are they found wanting, and
yet young workers still come from the schools at fourteen with poor
health, little available hand skill, unprepared to write business
letters or to express themselves clearly either by tongue or pen,
uninterested in the daily news except in personal or tragic events,
unaware of municipal conditions affecting them, ignorant of the simple
terms of business life, and with their arithmetic unavailable for use,
even in the simple fundamental processes when complicated with details
of trade. The mechanical processes, therefore, which they do know are
now useless unless they can first think out the problem.
These boys and girls have no regret at leaving the schools, and are, as
a rule, glad to get to work. The tragedy of life, however, begins when
they become wage-earners, for they are only fitted for unskilled and
poorly paid positions. A little fourteen-year-old girl finds it
difficult to obtain a satisfactory occupation in the teeming workrooms
of New York. She, or some member of her family, eagerly searches the
advertising sheet of one of the daily papers. Most of the "Wants" are
entirely beyond her crude powers to supply. An unskilled worker is
perhaps desired in some business house, but the applicant finds that
hundreds of other girls are flocking to obtain the same position, and
her chance is too remote for hope. Or perhaps, after weary days of
wandering about from place to place, she is recommended to the boss of
some shop, and finds herself in the midst of machines which rush forward
at 4,000 or more stitches a minute. She assists a busy worker on men's
shirts, her duty being to pin parts together, to finish off, or to run
errands. From early morning to late afternoon, with an interval for
lunch, she must be ready to lend a hand. She can get at best but $2.50
or $3.00 per week. No rise is possible in this shop unless she can work
well on a machine. Her fellow-workers are too busy to teach her, for
each moment's pause means reduction in their little wage. Perhaps she
does persist and finally can control a machine. By learning to do one
thing rapidly she can obtain a better wage, but two or even more years
in trade often pass before she can earn five dollars a week. After
several seasons spent in doing the same process thousands of times, her
desire for new work becomes deadened, and she is afraid to attempt
anything different from her one set task. She usually refuses to try
more advanced work, even if offered a good salary while she is learning,
for she has lost her ability to push ahead.
In general, it may be said that the untrained girl has to take the best
place she can find, without reference to her ability, her physical
condition, or her inclination. The most desirable trades are seldom open
to her, for they require workers of experience, or, at least, those who
have had recognized instruction. Even if a green girl enters a skilled
trade, she cannot rise easily in it, and is apt to be dropped out at the
first slack season. The sort of positions open to her have usually
little future, as they are isolated occupations that do not lead to more
advanced work. Illustrations of these employments are wrapping braid,
sorting silk, running errands, tying fringe, taking out and putting in
buttons in a laundry, dipping candy, assorting lamps, making cigarettes,
tending a machine, and tying up packages. These young, unskilled girls
wander from one of these occupations to another; their salaries, never
running high, rise and fall according to the need felt for the worker,
and not because her increasing ability is a factor in her trade life.
After several years spent in the market, she is little better off than
at her entrance.
Some Difficulties of Organization
It was to relieve this serious situation that the Manhattan Trade School
was founded. It began its work in the face of great discouragements.
Employers were prejudiced against such instruction, for girls trained in
former technical schools had not given satisfaction in the workrooms.
The parents of the pupils felt that they could not sacrifice themselves
further than the end of the compulsory school years, but must then send
their children into wage-earning positions. It was impossible to obtain
state or municipal aid, and it was known that the experiment must be
costly, for: (1) A trade school must be open all the year for day
classes, and for night work when needed (schools usually are open from
eight to ten months). (2) The work must be done on correct materials,
which are often expensive and perishable; but pupils are too poor to
provide them, therefore the school must plan to do so. (3) The
supervisors must be well educated, with a broad-minded view of industry,
capable of original thought, and having a practical knowledge of trade
requirement (women of such caliber can always command the best
salaries). The teachers and forewomen also must combine teaching ability
with competence in their workrooms; but as the market wishes a similar
class of service and gives excellent wages to obtain it, the school must
offer a like or even a larger amount. (4) Teachers of highly skilled
industries are expert, usually, in but the one occupation, such as straw
hat making by electric machine or jewelry box making; consequently, even
if the student body is small, the teaching force can seldom be reduced
without cutting off an entire department or a trade. A trade school
differs from the high school in this particular, for in the latter, when
necessary, two or more academic subjects can be taught by the same
instructor.
Another difficulty confronting the school at the beginning was, that
while numerous occupations in New York are open to women, there was
reason to think that some of these were not well adapted to them. Little
was known at that time of the trades offering opportunities for good
wages, steady rise to better positions, satisfactory sanitary
conditions, and moderate hours of labor; of the physical effect of many
of the popular occupations; of the specific requirements of each kind of
employment; of the effect of the working girls in their workrooms and in
their homes; of their health and how to improve it; of the needs and
wishes of the employers; of the relation of the Trade Union to trade
instruction, and of labor legislation already operative or which should
be furthered. Before deciding on courses of instruction in the Manhattan
Trade School some accurate knowledge of these facts had to be obtained.
Selection of Trades
The selection of definite trades was made after five months of
investigation in the factories, workrooms, and department stores of New
York City. In general, it can be said of the occupations chosen that
they employ large numbers of women; require expert workers; training for
them is difficult to obtain; there is chance within them for rise to
better positions; the wages are good, and favorable conditions, both
physical and moral, prevail in the workrooms. Some trades employing
women were rejected, as they failed to meet necessary requirements,
while others were not chosen, as there was little chance in them to rise
on account of men's trades intervening. Slack seasons occurring in many
otherwise good employments were considered, and plans were made whereby
the worker could be enabled to shift to another allied trade when her
own was slack. If a girl gains complete control of her tool she can
adapt herself to other occupations in which it is used with less
difficulty than she can change to a trade requiring another tool.
Women's industries, to a great extent, center around the skilled use of
a few tools. These tools were selected as centers of the school
activities, and the connected trades were radiated from them. The most
skilled occupations were found to require the use of the sewing machine,
foot and electric power, the paint brush, the paste brush, and the
needle. Statistics show that teaching the use of this last tool will
affect over one-half of the women wage-earners of New York, of whom
there are at least 370,000. In addition to the general scheme of fitting
a worker so that she may take up another allied occupation in slack
seasons, specific training for this purpose is given to those students
who choose trades where the busy season is short and of frequent
recurrence.
Trade Courses
The curriculum includes instruction in the following trades; the courses
are short and the teaching is in trade lines:
I. Use of electric power sewing machines.
1. General Operating--(cheaper variety of work--seasonal; fair
wages. Better grade of work--year round, fair and good wages,
piece or week work): Shirtwaists, children's dresses (cloth and
cotton), boys' waists, infants' wear, children's clothing,
women's underwear, fancy petticoats, kimonos and dressing
sacques.
2. Special Machines--(seasonal to year round work, depending on kind
and demand, wages good): Lace stitch, hemstitching, buttonhole,
embroidery (hand and Bonnaz), and scalloping.
3. Dressmaking Operating--(year round, wages good): Lingerie, fancy
waists and suits.
4. Straw Sewing--(excellent wages for a short season, but the worker
can then return to good wages in general operating): Women's and
men's hats.
II. Use of the needle and foot power sewing machines.
1. Dress and Garment Making--(seasons nine to eleven months, and
fair to good wages): Uniforms and aprons, white work and simple
white embroidery, gymnasium and swimming suits (wholesale and
custom), lingerie, dress embroidery, dressmaking (plain and
fancy).
2. Millinery--(short seasonal work, low wages, difficult for the
average young worker to rise): Trimmings and frame making.
3. Lampshade and Candleshade Making--(seasonal work, fair pay). This
trade supplements the Millinery.
III. Use of paste and glue: 1. Sample mounting (virtually year work,
fair wages). 2. Sample book covers, labeling, tissue paper
novelties and decorations (seasonal and year round work, good
wages). 3. Novelty work (year round work, changed within workroom
to meet demand, wages good). 4. Jewelry and silverware case
making (year round work, wages good).
IV. Use of brush and pencil (year round work, good wages): Special
elementary art trades, perforating and stamping, costume
sketching, photograph and slide retouching.
_Note._ Year round work, in general, includes a holiday of longer or
shorter duration, usually without pay.
Entrance Plans
The school is open throughout the year in order to train girls whenever
they come--the summer months being slack in most trades are especially
desirable for instruction. The tuition is free, and in cases of extreme
necessity a committee gives Students' Aid, in proportion to the need.
Entrance to day classes for girls who are from fourteen to seventeen
years of age and who can show their working papers or be able to produce
documentary evidence of age, if under sixteen, can occur any week.
Each girl who enters, after selecting her trade, is given a typewritten
paper showing the possible steps of advance in her chosen course. She
takes this home in order that the family may know what is before her.
She can by special effort or by outside study lessen the length of her
training. The first month in the school is a test time. If the girl
shows the needed qualities she is allowed to continue.
During the month of trial her instructors decide what she needs and if
her chosen trade is the best for her. The right is reserved to make a
complete change if her health will not stand the one she desires, if she
has no ability for it, or if she gives evidence of special talent in
another direction.
Industrial Intelligence
Every student has, as a part of her trade education, such academic work,
art, and physical training as seems necessary; when she passes certain
standards she is then allowed to devote full time to her selected
occupation. It is not possible for a worker who has skill with the hand
and no education to back it up to rise far in her trade. There is many a
tragedy in the market of the woman whose poor early education prevented
her from getting ahead. Accurate expression, whether oral or written,
the use of arithmetic in simple trade transactions or detailed accounts,
the ability to grasp the important factors in any situation and then to
go to work without waste of time or motion, are required for positions
of trust and for supervision in any workroom. It was soon discovered
that the girls entering the school know arithmetic in an abstract way,
but are at sea when asked to meet the ordinary trade problems. They are
inaccurate in reading and copying; they cannot write a letter of
application, conduct correspondence, make out checks, or keep simple
accounts. They are ignorant of the laws already made which concern them
and of their own relation to future laws. They have no ideals in their
trade life. They need to see the relation of their chosen trade to the
country, of their work to their employer's success, the effect they may
have in bringing about a better feeling between the employer and the
wage-earner. A practical, immediately available business education is
absolutely essential to make workwomen of executive ability. Therefore
specific trade instruction in arithmetic, English, history, geography,
and civics was planned to supplement and enrich the trade courses.
Steady progress has been made in determining the kind of cultural trade
instruction which will best assist such young wage-earners. A new field
in practical education had to be opened, and subject matter which could
be of service in the workrooms selected from it. The many trades of the
school had to be studied in order to know their needs. The work has
grown more valuable each year and has proved itself to be a truly
necessary part of the curriculum. A concrete evidence of its worth is
the fact that many of the girls in slack seasons have taken clerical
positions and have been complimented on their grasp of the subject,
their orderliness, their ability to think, and their reliability.
Naturally all departments unite to develop character in the students,
but the Academic Department feels this to be a special aim. Pleasure in
the subject of instruction, followed by mental and moral improvement,
has indicated clearly that the academic dullness which is shown at
entrance comes frequently from lack of motive in former studies. The
interest is all the more encouraging as there are many handicaps in the
teaching, for the students enter at any time, are graded by the trades
they select, and are placed in the market as quickly as possible; hence
the work cannot be uniform in its advance. Nor is the academic work a
help to the girls in their business life only, for such subjects as the
keeping of accounts, the consideration of the cost of living, and the
value and price of materials are of direct use also in home life.
Trade Art Instruction
Courses in Trade Art were also organized as a fundamental part of the
instruction. Each trade has its own art, and the school has tried to
adapt the work in the studios to each different occupation. It
recognizes that the art applied in dressmaking differs from that in
millinery, and this again from that required for decorating jewelry
boxes and calendars. It consequently offers each student the kind of
elementary art training needed in her trade. The time is too short to
develop designers, but it does help a girl to be more exact,
resourceful, and useful in her workroom, and often enables her to make a
higher wage. A worker who can place trimming, adapt designs to new
purposes, stamp patterns, draw copies of garments, and combine color
attractively is especially desirable in her chosen employment.
Health
The young wage-earner of New York is much handicapped by her poor
physical condition; heredity, poor habits of life, and unsanitary homes
show their effects upon her. The girls who come to the school are young
enough to remedy many of their defects. In a few months they will be in
positions demanding eight or more hours a day, in which they must
strain every nerve and bend all of their energies to meet the standard
brought about by trade competition. The Physical Department of the
school studies the health of each girl and trains her to care adequately
for it. The specific treatment needed by some of the students takes them
many hours a week from their department work. While this has its
disadvantages, it is felt to be more important to improve the physical
condition than to develop skill alone when the health is too poor to
stand the strain of exacting positions. It is often difficult at first
to persuade parents that such close attention to health is necessary.
The results, however, in the majority of cases have proved the wisdom of
this procedure.
Immediately after entering the school and being assigned to a department
each girl must report to the school physician. Beginning with the family
history, a complete record of all the important events relating to her
physical life is taken. She is closely questioned as to all bodily
functions, and a careful record is kept of irregularities. Eyes, ears,
teeth, nose, throat, and feet are likewise examined, and measurements
are taken of height, weight, and the principal expansions. After the
examination, instruction as to treatment is given, if any is needed.
The work in the gymnasium has three purposes: invigorative, reactive,
and corrective. Every girl who is not restricted on account of physical
defects takes the prescribed gymnastic work. Nor has this a physical
effect only, for through the active games such qualities as judgment and
accuracy, self-control, and the harmonious working with others are
developed. Slow, uncertain, vague movements denote lack of mental
quickness and strength. Motor activity, rightly directed, leads to poise
of mind as well as of body. These girls live mostly in crowded
localities of the city, where free exercise is unknown. The school aims,
as far as possible, to supply the lack of wholesome outdoor life and
give joyous active exercise. Talks on hygiene are a regular part of the
work and aim: (1) to give each girl a knowledge of her body and of its
functions which will enable her to care for her health in an intelligent
manner; (2) to show her the relation of food and its preparation to her
physical condition; (3) to establish in her mind ideals of correct
living which can be made practical in her surroundings; and (4),
recognizing the right and desire of every girl for amusement, to create
a love for wholesome and simple pleasures that will take the place of
the too strenuous and often unwise recreations which tend to undermine
the health of the girl who works.
The Lunchroom and the Cooking Classes
From the opening of the school, hot soup, hot chocolate, or cold milk
had been served daily, at two cents a cup, to those wishing to
supplement the cold lunch which they had brought from their homes. The
teachers also had an opportunity of buying a simple, hot meal which was
prepared by one of their number, assisted by students who aided in the
preparation, serving, and clearing away. At first the average girl felt
she could not give much time to her trade training, consequently such
time had to be devoted to making her able to command a living wage. The
hope, however, that in the future the opportunity would come for
offering increased domestic training was never forgotten. The opening at
the school of a temporary workroom for unemployed women during the
financial stress of 1908 provided them with regular work and pay. It was
advisable also to serve nourishing lunches daily to these underfed
workers. There was already a simple lunchroom in the basement of the
school, containing such bare necessities as plain tables on horses, long
wooden benches, a gas stove with four burners, a few cooking utensils,
and a closet filled with inexpensive china. The complete cost of
equipment had been $300.
The school was now, however, face to face with the need to feed daily
more than 500 people--teachers, workers, and students--and yet no
additional money could be spent for equipment. The necessity was so
great, however, that in addition to the usual lunches a hot, nourishing
meal was given daily to the hundred workers in the temporary workroom,
for which they paid one-half of the price of materials.
With this inauguration of regular cooking it seemed especially desirable
to take the opportunity of training at least some of the students in the
selection, care, and preparation of food. The majority of these girls
will be the mothers of the next generation, and yet they know nothing of
food values or food preparation. This is evident from the daily lunches
they bring and from their discussions in the class on hygiene. On the
other hand, girls who can remain but a few months in the school have a
serious need to face, that of self-support, for the wage for unskilled
girls ($3.00) is not sufficient to live on with decency. The physical,
mental, and moral future of these young girls demands that they should
be able to make more than this pittance. In the few months during which
the majority are in attendance both a trade training and a knowledge of
cooking cannot be given, therefore the former must take the precedence.
The school has been able to prove, however, that girls educated there
can command a fair wage in trade, but that a longer time given to this
training will enable them to obtain better positions and salaries. Hence
an increasing number have been willing to remain longer, giving even a
year or more to preparation. It was with this latter class that the time
was ripe to offer some training in lunchroom cookery which could teach
them what could be procured at low prices and yet be nourishing; how to
prepare food at home, and how to use the hot table often found in an
up-to-date factory. For this purpose, therefore, some simple additional
equipment was installed and a daily menu was offered, comprising
inexpensive, attractive, wholesome dishes, at the lowest possible cost.
Many of the students care for so little variety in food that all of the
necessary elements for building strong, healthy bodies are not supplied,
hence they are under-nourished. They require encouragement to even try
the food which is essential for improving their physical condition. The
girls have taken great interest in their lunchroom cookery. They
appreciate the inexpensive menus and admire the simple table
decorations. Gradually they have given up spending their few pennies
for poor fruit, cake, or candy at some cheap shop, and now purchase
nourishing dishes cooked by the students at the school.
The cooking course connects directly with the talks on hygiene. The plan
of work is the following: (1) Twenty girls are chosen at one time. These
work in two groups of ten each, and for six weeks have daily one-hour
lessons. This gives them thirty lessons, which is almost equivalent to
what the public school offers in a year, but, being concentrated into
daily work and practical use in the lunchroom, is of equal, if not
greater, efficacy. (2) The students set the tables, cook a definite part
of the lunch, dish the articles, prepare the counters, sell the various
dishes, keep and report sales, and clear the counters afterward. The
groups alternate in order that preparing food, watching its progress,
and taking it from the stove may be done by all with a minimum loss of
time from their trade instruction. (3) The selection of girls to take
the course is made from (_a_) those who can remain long enough in the
school to combine trade training with the simple cooking course, (_b_)
those who have such poor health that a knowledge of what to eat and how
to cook it is the first consideration, and (_c_) those who are already
little housekeepers in their homes, as their mothers are incapacitated
or dead.
After several months of experience it was felt that the six weeks of
constant practice was well worth while. More elaborate courses of
cookery would demand a more thorough kitchen equipment, entailing much
expense, and would require students to remain a longer time in school.
With the present arrangement they learn the most important cooking
processes in a very practical way, and discuss the relation of food to
themselves and to their families.
Trade Orders
The handwork in the various departments falls into three grades: 1.
Practice work, which not being up to the standard is ripped up and used
again. 2. Seconds; fair work, not quite up to the school standard for
trade work. This is sold at cost to the students or to needy
institutions. 3. Trade work; up to the standard. This is sold to the
trade or to private customers at regular market prices. This feature of
the school work, entailing, as it does, the taking of many varieties of
orders from the outside factories and workrooms, has proved itself to be
an important educational factor. After six years of experience in
utilizing orders from the outside workrooms, it can be said that this
part of the instruction serves the following purposes: (1) It provides
the students with adequate experience on classes of material used in the
best workrooms; these girls could not purchase such materials and the
school could not afford to buy them for practice. (2) The ordinary
conditions in both the wholesale and the custom trade are thus made a
fundamental part of the instruction. Reality of this kind helps the
supervisors to judge the product from its trade value (amateur work will
thus be rejected), and the teaching from the kind of workers turned out.
Through the business relation the students quickly feel the necessity
of good finish, rapid work, and responsibility to deliver on time. (3)
The orders bring in a money return and thus aid the school in the
expense for material. (4) The businesslike appearance of the shops at
work on the orders and the experience trade has had with the product
have increased the confidence of employers of labor in the ability of
the school to train practical workers for the trades. The school is
constantly urged by trade to increase its order work, but its
unfaltering policy is to take only the amount needed for educational
purposes. (5) The business organization and management required in the
adequate conduct of a large order department can itself be utilized for
educational purposes, and has its value for training students who show
promise of becoming good stock clerks.
Trade workers are employed in the business shops connected with the
various departments. These assistants have proved their value in making
the best utilization of the order work. They facilitate the completion
of the work on time and help train the girls to feel responsible for
their share of it. As the students work slowly at first, and as their
hours in the shops are interrupted by other studies, the trade workers,
when necessary, continue with or complete the articles while the girls
are absent. They make possible the tradelike organization of the shops,
for each one has around her her own little groups of assistants, and she
teaches them while she also works. Constant repetition of the same
process ceases, after a time, to be valuable to a student, hence her
time must not be wasted by too simple work or by unnecessary details.
It often happens also that an article may require expert work in its
completion which the students cannot yet do; the trade workers select
for each girl the process which will be of value to her, and then do the
work the students cannot do or should not do.
The following lists will show the class of orders which have been
demanded by trade and turned out by the school:
_Operating Department Orders_: 1. Trade Work: Ribbon run on webbing
for suspenders, infants' dresses--eight different styles,
children's aprons--two different styles, hemstitching and
embroidery for yokes, ruffling--hem and hemstitched, faggoting.
2. Individual Custom Orders: Dressing sacques, aprons (kitchen,
gingham, and work), gymnasium suits, waists, children's dresses,
corset covers, drawers, skirts and chemise, sheets, pillowslips,
curtains, straw hats, fancy petticoats, kimonos, handkerchiefs,
fancy neckwear, infants' outfits, boys' waists, quilting,
hemstitching by yard, silk waists and dresses hemstitched,
tucking by yard, waists, collars, cuffs, and cloth embroidered,
initials on linen and monograms on saddle cloths, ruffling by
yard.
3. Order Work for Other Departments: Dressmaking: Machine work on
nightgowns, corset covers, drawers, combination suits, petticoats,
kimonos, gymnasium bloomers, swimming suits, buttonholes,
hemstitching on silk skirts, dresses, waists; Bonnaz embroidery on
dresses, waists. Millinery: Veils hemstitched. Art: Pencil and
brush cases. Office: Coats and overalls for janitors employed in
school.
_Dressmaking Department Orders_: Aprons, petticoats, maids' dresses;
machine-made underwear; collars and neckwear; nurses' uniforms;
swimming, bathing, and gymnasium suits; children's and baby
clothes; fine handmade underwear; plain shirtwaists, fine waists,
afternoon gowns, street suits, evening gowns, cloth suits
tailored.
_Pasting and Novelty Orders_: Mounting suspender webbing, mounting
corset samples, pasting suspender tabs and sockets, case making.
Desk sets, lampshades, and candleshades.
_Art Department Orders_: 1. Trade Order Work: Stamping, perforating,
coloring fashion plates, stencil cutting.
2. Custom Work: Stenciling curtains, scarfs, table covers, sofa
pillows; designing patterns for embroidery for table covers,
doilies, bags, buttons, shirtwaists, skirts, parasols, and
chiffon scarfs.
3. Order Work for Other Departments: Decorating book covers, desk
sets, boxes, dress trimmings--panels, lapels, vests; collars and
cuffs, insertions for hand and machine; banding for hats, letters,
monograms: designs for doilies, scarfs, curtains, work-bags.
PLACEMENT BUREAU
From the first the school made some provision for placing its pupils
satisfactorily in the trades for which they are trained. Originally the
heads of departments attended to it, each for her own students, but as
the school grew and the department work increased this method ceased to
be practical. An arrangement was made, therefore, with the Alliance
Employment Bureau to place the girls of the Manhattan Trade School when
they were ready to leave the school or whenever they applied for help
thereafter. This was a most helpful connection when the work was
beginning, but it was understood that when the school reached the point
in its development where the volume of business was great enough, and
other conditions warranted it, a Placement Bureau should be opened in
the school itself. This long-cherished idea went into operation in
October, 1908, when a Placement Secretary was engaged and the school
bureau was opened. This plan has already proved advantageous. In the
first place a bureau so situated can, by keeping in constant touch with
the departments, obtain intimate and detailed information about the
character, the work, the special aptitudes, and the physique of each
girl. Such data are extremely valuable in making wise placements, but
are difficult of access for an outside agency. In the second place such
a school bureau, open to graduates, tends to bring them occasionally to
it, and thus strengthens their interest in and loyalty to the school by
giving a practical reality to their connection with it.
Aims
The aims and working plans of the Placement Bureau are the following:
(1) To secure suitable positions for girls leaving the school--those
forced out by poverty as well as those who have really completed their
courses. The problem is to get the square peg into the square hole, and
it is solved by having a very intimate knowledge of each peg, and by
knowing of as large a variety of holes as possible from which to choose.
(2) To be a means of connection and communication between the school and
the trades, on the one hand, and the school and its former pupils on the
other. (3) To gather data about trade conditions that shall be helpful
to the several departments, or in deciding school policies. (4) To build
up a series of records that shall be of general sociological value as
well as of immediate use for school purposes.
Kinds and Methods of Work
In connection with the placement itself there are four lines of
activity:
1. _Interviews_ in the office, when girls come in to apply for
positions, and when employers ask for workers. Much valuable data as to
the experiences of the girls who have been some time in the trade have
been gathered in this way. In the case of the employer, if he is not
already familiar with the school, an effort is made to induce him (or
her) to go through it.
2. _Trade Visits_ of investigation. It is the policy of the Bureau not
to place a girl in any establishment until it has been visited, unless
it is one already well known to the school, in which case the visit may
follow instead of preceding the placement. These visits are often made
upon the request of employers or in response to advertisements, if, as
sometimes happens, a girl wishes to be placed and the employers already
known do not need additional help.
3. "_Following up._" After the girls are placed it is necessary to keep
track of them. In order to do this satisfactorily, blanks have been
printed in two different forms, one for the employer and the other for
the worker. The former asks about the quality of the girl's work
(whether it is satisfactory, and if not, why not) and about her wages.
The latter asks the girl to report on her work, wages, and shop
conditions. By this system the Placement Secretary is able to keep in
close touch with the students who have been placed, and to hear and act
upon complaints from either employer or girl with a promptness that
often has the result of establishing the worker in a "good" place or,
occasionally, rescuing her from a poor one. Employers are almost
uniformly prompt and courteous in returning the reports, and all but a
very small percentage of the students are equally responsive. In cases
where a girl is not heard from, the Students' Aid Secretary makes a
personal visit to her home.
4. _Keeping of Records._ Card catalogues are kept, giving the full data
obtainable in each case: (1) for girls applying for positions; (2) for
girls placed; (3) for employers visited; (4) for employers applying or
worth investigating, but not yet visited. All data from employers and
girls which have been obtained from the blanks before mentioned or from
other sources are recorded on the cards.
The Placement Bureau, in addition to its specific work, performs certain
services for the general benefit of the school. Data are obtained as to
the conditions of work and wage in certain trades and the length of
training advisable in others. Advice from the trade is often needed in
one or another of the departments, and through the Bureau's acquaintance
with employers, managers, or foremen and forewomen, it is able to
ascertain and report their expert opinion. It is also possible to induce
some of these busy people to come and view the problem in the light of
conditions at the school as well as in their own business.
General Results
Although the Placement Bureau is still in its infancy, some results may
be recorded. It is already in touch with some 700 employers, about 550
having been personally visited. The table below gives the facts as to
placements in former years, and may be interesting for comparison.
GIRLS PLACED AND REPORTED UPON
--------------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
| By Self or | By Alliance | |
| School. | Employment | Total. |
| | Bureau. | |
--------------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
| | | |
1902 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| | | |
1903 | 39 | 7 | 46 |
| | | |
1904 | 52 | 36 | 88 |
| | | |
1905 | 29 | 61 | 90 |
| | | |
1906 | 22 | 81 | 103 |
| | | |
1907 | 10 | 77 | 87 |
| | | |
1908 | 119 | 39 | 158 |
| | | |
1909 By school | 157 | 1 | 158 |
| | | |
+-------------+-------------+--------+
| | | |
| 428 | 302 | 730 |
| | | |
--------------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
This refers merely to the original or first placement of a girl. The
total of _re_-placements for 1909 was an additional 230, including those
of many former pupils who had heretofore placed themselves or been
placed by the Alliance Employment Bureau.
The crucial question of wages is one that is extremely difficult to deal
with in brief. The accompanying table gives a very general statement as
to the range of wages obtained by graduates and the future possibilities
in their trades, and read in the light of the comment below it is as
specifically accurate as any "summary" can be.
---------------+--------------------------+--------------+----------------
Trade. | Wages When | After Two to | Future
| First Placed. | Five Years. | Possibilities.
---------------+------------+-------------+--------------+----------------
| 1903 | 1909 | |
| | | |
Dressmaking | $3 to $5 | $4 to $6 | $6 to $13 | $25 or own
| | | | establishment
| | | |
Millinery | 2.50 to 4 | 4 | 5 to 15 | 12 to 25 or own
| | | | establishment
| | | |
Operating | 3 to 6 | 4 to 11 | 6 to 25 | 15 to 40
| | | |
Novelty | 4 to 5 | 4 to 9[A] | 6 to 11 | 18 to 25
| | | |
---------------+------------+-------------+--------------+----------------
| | | |
Art since 1907 | 5 to 8 | 4 to 7 | 7 to 15 | 20 to 30
| | | |
---------------+------------+-------------+--------------+----------------
The column for 1909 shows that at last a minimum wage of $4.00 has been
established for all the trades named, even Millinery. There are
exceptions, but they are almost always due to some special disability on
the part of the girl, and do not fairly affect a statement regarding the
wage for girls of normal capacity, who have done satisfactory work
during their course. The small percentage of pupils who fall below $4.00
for their initial wage are those who either did not complete the school
course, or who did poor work, or who are subnormal mentally or
handicapped physically, or can work only an eight-hour day because they
are under sixteen. It is true that when they are obliged to start on
piece-work instead of a week-wage their earnings may fall below our
minimum for a short time, but the first week or two is in that case not
usually a fair test of the girl's training or ability. Some little time
is necessary for the readjustment involved in the change from school to
workroom, and especially for attaining the "speed" necessary to earn a
fair wage on trade piece-rates. The compensating advantage is that when
she does begin to "make good" her improvement is usually registered in
her earnings more quickly and accurately than it would be by the safe
but slowly advancing "week-work." If after two weeks, however, the girl
is earning less than $4.00, and thinks she "never can make out there,"
she is given an opportunity to change her place. But very often there is
a sudden jump in earnings after ten days or so, as the girl gains
confidence and speed. (One pupil earned $3.97 her first week on
buttonholes, and over $7.00 the second.) Another point to be considered
in connection with the wage is the length of the season and the duration
of any one place. The comparatively steady work and regular, if small,
advance in the dressmaking, for instance, will often counterbalance the
larger week-wage or piece-work earnings of the trades where the season
is short or the positions of uncertain duration.
On the "rate of advance" in wage the Bureau is as yet too young to make
any general statements.
Students' Aid
On account of the extreme poverty in the families of many of the
students, some system of aid has always been necessary. The manner of
giving it has changed, however, that it may be free from all tendency to
pauperize or to deprive the recipient of self-respecting effort. At
first it took the form of a scholarship, paid at the school every week,
in equal amounts, to each student. A few months' experience, however,
showed that it would be better to require a month's apprenticeship
without pay. If after that the girl was allowed to continue her course,
she was given a dollar a week during her second month. Each month
thereafter the amount was increased according to the skill and good
spirit which were evident in her work. The maximum amount a student
could receive in one year was $100.
Early in the second year it became clear that a still more radical
change was advisable, and a plan was adopted whereby the need of the
girl's family became the only basis upon which money was given. A
committee was formed, whose membership was composed principally of
workers from the leading social settlements. Each applicant for aid was
referred to the member of the committee living nearest her home. An
investigation was made by the settlement worker, and aid was given in
proportion to the necessity, varying in amount from car fare to the
equivalent of a small wage. The girl went weekly to the settlement for
the money. In this way the aid was separated as far as possible from the
school atmosphere, and it was made clear to the girls and their
families that the money was in no sense pay for work. As indicative of
this change in viewpoint, the term "Scholarship" was replaced by that of
"Students' Aid." In addition to its other advantages, the new method
reduced the cost for aid to less than one-half of its original
proportion.
Since this time the aim has been always the same--to aid the girl
handicapped by poverty so that she might prepare herself for efficient
wage-earning. A member of the school staff is secretary of the Students'
Aid Committee, and she knows personally every applicant wishing aid, and
makes the initial visits and investigations. This plan has proved
advantageous in making a closer connection between the school and the
home, and in securing a more uniform standard of relief.
The Students' Aid Committee consists at present of representatives from
sixteen settlements, who meet twice a month to discuss and decide upon
the merit of each applicant. If aid is granted, the girl is assigned to
the settlement nearest her home and goes there weekly for her money. An
envelope showing the amount due the girl is sent from the school to the
settlement worker, and on this is indicated any absence or tardiness. It
is one of the duties of the member of the committee to inquire the
reasons for any irregularity in attendance, and, if necessary, to report
to the parent. In addition, each settlement worker renders valuable
service by giving friendly oversight to the girls and families in her
group, by doing as much for their welfare as time will allow, and by
reporting any unusual conditions to the Students' Aid Secretary.
Students are at times sent to the school for instruction with a request
for aid from some charitable institution, church, hospital, school, or
settlement which knows and is interested in the family; but, in general,
a girl needing financial help comes without such recommendations, and
consequently a more thorough investigation of the case is necessary.
Inquiry is always made at first of the Charity Organization Society, in
order to learn whether her family has received or is receiving other
relief. The "trial month" without aid gives time for the gathering of
facts about the family, and for a test of the girl's ability and
character. Aid is never promised to a girl before her admission.
A useful method has been worked out for determining the amount of aid
which may be given in any one case. The total amount of the family
income is obtained, and from it are deducted the fixed expenses for
rent, insurance, and car fare. From the remainder the per capita income
is found which must provide for all other expenses, that is, for each
person's share of food, clothing, light, fuel, medicine, and all
incidentals. It was estimated that a family could not maintain a decent
standard of living on a per capita income of less than $1.50 a week.
Although each case is considered on its merits, aid is almost always
given when the per capita income is less than $1.50; in some special
cases it is granted when the income exceeds this amount. The following
table shows the income of the seventy-eight families that were being
aided by the school on June 3, 1909.
------------------+--------------------
Weekly per Capita | Number of Families.
Income. |
------------------+--------------------
|
$ .00 to $ .49 | 16
|
.50 to .99 | 26
|
1.00 to 1.49 | 20
|
1.50 to 1.99 | 10
|
2.00 to 2.49 | 3
|
2.50 to 2.99 | 1
|
3.00 to 3.49 | 2
|
------------------+--------------------
Relief given by charitable institutions has not been included in this
income.
Each girl receiving aid is told the reason for its bestowal in such a
way that she will neither look upon it as money earned nor feel
humiliated as a recipient of charity, but will understand that it should
mean for her an opportunity to obtain a good education. It therefore is
incumbent upon her to show a realization of its value by becoming a
responsible and earnest worker. Students receiving such assistance are
expected to attend regularly, unless for excellent reasons, and the
reports from their departments must be satisfactory in regard to their
work, attitude, and effort. If a girl varies from this standard and,
after talking with her or with one of her parents, no improvement
follows, the aid may be suspended or withdrawn. Improving circumstances
in a family occasionally make it possible to decrease or even to give up
the aid. On the other hand, it is often found necessary to ask
additional assistance from special philanthropic sources when the need
is very great.
Night Classes
Night continuation classes are a part of the aim of the school. They
have offered training in expert parts of the Operating, Dressmaking,
Novelty, Millinery, and Art trades. The classes were well attended, the
work successful, and continued application for the renewal of the
instruction has been received. This class of education requires the most
skilled teachers and is consequently expensive. Lack of money to conduct
both the day and the night work adequately has made it necessary to
close the night classes temporarily. There is every reason to hope,
however, that they will be reopened in the near future, with still
greater facilities for teaching the advanced parts of the trades.
Student Government
The Student Council concerns itself with the government of the school,
the aim being to place it as far as possible in the hands of the
students. It also assists in developing their sense of responsibility.
The Council is composed of representatives elected from each class, who
have been chosen for their executive ability and good character. They
meet once a week with one of the supervisors to discuss questions of
general school discipline and regulations. Each member is responsible
for maintaining order in her class when it is not under other
supervision, for settling disputes among the girls, and for reporting
disobedience to school laws.
Graduate and Department Clubs
Some form of alumnæ association has been in existence since the end of
the first school year. This important phase of the Trade School work is
now thoroughly organized, and gains for us the warm coöperation of those
who have benefited by the instruction. The Graduate Association includes
those who have received the certificate of the school; the department
clubs, however, are more democratic, and admit to membership any girl
who has been in attendance. These associations work together for the
benefit of the school. They hold frequent business as well as social
meetings. They plan definite ways for getting in touch with Manhattan
Trade School girls who are just entering trade, in order to help them to
adjust themselves to their work and to increase in them loyalty and
responsibility to the school; for improving themselves and working girls
in general by discussing topics of interest concerning their trades, and
by giving entertainments which are of real interest and value. They have
carried out schemes for adding to the general finances of the school or
for obtaining money for special objects, such as shower baths for the
gymnasium. They have given several suppers to bring the faculty and
former students together, in order to discuss informally trade and
school matters.
FOOTNOTES:
[A] This maximum is not in paste or glue work, but in the silk lampshade
trade.
PART II
REPRESENTATIVE PROBLEMS[B]
The organizing of a girls' trade school in any given locality
necessitates the meeting of many problems of a serious nature. Some of
these appear immediately and require consideration before a satisfactory
curriculum can be developed, but most of them are hydra-headed, and one
phase is no sooner settled than another arises. Attention must be given
to them whenever they come if any progress is to be made in solving the
question of the broadest and yet most practical education for the girl
who must earn her living in trade. These problems are so connected with
the keenest yet most obscure social and industrial questions of the day
on one hand, and, on the other, with the future of the race, that they
are often very puzzling. Some of them can never be entirely settled,
though they can be temporarily adjusted to immediate needs. The
following are selected as representative.
Direct Trade Training
Many schools of a domestic or technical nature have been opened in the
United States, but the instruction in them is for the home or for
educational purposes rather than for business. The trades, if they are
represented at all in these schools, are general in character, covering
often many branches of an industry in a short series of lessons, and
not having the particular subdivisions and special equipment which are
found at present in the regular market. Employers of labor have not been
favorably impressed with the practical usefulness of the graduates in
their workrooms. As the sole reason for the existence of the Manhattan
Trade School is to meet this requirement of employers, and therefore to
develop a better class of wage-earners directly adapted to trade needs,
the instruction must be in accord with methods in the shops and
factories of New York City. Such specific trade education for
fourteen-year-old girls was new, and therefore the problem of
organization had to be faced for the first time in America. Careful
study of the workrooms and the industrial conditions of New York City
was essential before the aims or the curriculum could be decided upon
and the school could be opened for instruction. Furthermore, if the
training is to be kept up to date this study of trade conditions must
not cease, and readjustments of the curriculum must equal the changes
taking place in the outside workrooms. Consequently these problems must
be met repeatedly.
Need of Preliminary Training
On beginning the trade courses at the school a difficulty was discovered
immediately which brought home the truth of the complaint made by trade
that young workers are utterly incompetent. The students coming to the
school were allowed by law to enter trade, as they had met all
requirements for obtaining their working papers, but they were not found
to have sufficient foundation to begin the first simple steps at the
school without some preliminary training. The defects which were
especially evident were: (1) lack of sufficient skill with the hand; (2)
inability to utilize their public school academic work in practical
trade problems; (3) dullness in taking orders and in thinking clearly of
the needs which arise; (4) absence of ideals; and (5) need of knowledge
of the laws of health and how to apply them. Preliminary, elementary
instruction in all of these subjects had, therefore, to be organized and
given to the entering students before they could begin upon their true
trade work. Such instruction is and will continue to be necessary unless
the public elementary school arranges to give, between the fifth and
eighth grades, a more satisfactory preparation to those who must earn
their living. The Manhattan Trade School has been obliged to give from
two to eight months to elementary branches of instruction alone. The
kind of work needed varies constantly with the condition of the
students. Every one requires some of it, but many must take months of
tutoring. Public instruction could readily give the practical academic
work which the school has organized. Such instruction would not only
directly help the pupils who must leave early to work, but would lay a
good foundation for the vocational education which is being planned for
the early years of the public secondary schools.
Vocational Training
As the courses at the Manhattan Trade School developed, an intermediate
phase between the preparatory work and the direct trade training took
definite shape. This middle ground partakes in many ways of trade
processes and lays a good foundation for shop work. It utilizes the
early education, gives point to it, awakens in the student enthusiasm
for her chosen trade, and shows her that it is worth her while to work
hard if she would succeed. It takes from four to eight months, according
to the student's ability to meet the requirements. Public instruction
could also develop this intermediate field to advantage for those who,
not wishing to enter the regular high school course, would be glad to
avail themselves of further practical education. Such occupations for
women as cooking, sewing, garment and dressmaking, millinery, laundry
work, home nursing, household administration, care of children, novelty
work, electric power operating, salesmanship, and other interesting
activities can well be offered in Vocational Education. As the student
in her chosen field plans, considers expenses, and contrives to utilize
her material she gains skill, adaptability, judgment, and the true basis
of criticism. The world's work interests her as its meaning becomes
clear through her own experiences, and she begins to see ways to better
her condition and to be a factor in the improvement of her home. She
appreciates the value of her early education, and finds it worth while
to think clearly and to act wisely; she listens to instructions, asks
sensible directions, and goes to work without waste of time. The
elementary and intermediate training just described, which the school
found it must give preparatory to its real trade instruction, has proved
advantageous as an introduction, for the student can now quickly adapt
herself to the work in the school shops, as she possesses the foundation
qualities needed to make the best worker. She has to begin at the
simplest trade work, to be sure, but can rise as rapidly as she shows
ability. She has been carefully watched by her instructors and turned
gradually in the direction best fitted to her.
Trade Shops
Offering courses in many varieties of trade work exactly as they are
found in a city like New York has many recurring difficulties, as has
been before stated. The constant and rapid adaptations to fashion, the
new mechanical devices introduced, and the labor situations are factors
to be considered. The management must be ready at a moment's notice to
change, increase, or drop work according to the demands of a fickle
market. It would seem, therefore, that at present the problems of the
school trade shops are of too serious and unsettled a character for
adequate solution by public instruction as at present organized, for (1)
it would be difficult to persuade the mass of taxpayers that added tax
rates are advisable for beginning a continually altering form of
education which has not yet commended itself to all employers or to all
wage-earners, and which must be more or less expensive; (2) the usual
public school committee man knows little of trade conditions, and would
probably be averse to allowing a school the freedom to change at will
its course of study and even the very trades it teaches; yet, on the
other hand, if the trade school must wait for board action before
altering its plans, it would prejudice the value of its instruction,
which must be flexible if it would train its students directly for the
market; (3) the impossibility of obtaining its teachers from the usual
"waiting list" and the difficulties attending the selection of a
satisfactory teaching force.
The possibilities for offering highly specialized, skilled work are
great, but the poverty of the students limits their time at the day
school. To help all girls who work, and who wish to get ahead, night
classes have been organized from time to time, and during the day also
temporary instruction is offered to any one who has a slack time in her
trade. As the school is organized into trade shops, with the same
specialization as in the market, a student can enter or be placed from
almost any point. This increases its usefulness but complicates its
management.
Obtaining and Training Teachers
As trade instruction is new in education, the normal schools have not
begun training teachers regularly for these positions, nor, indeed, are
they yet prepared to do so. The organizer of a trade school faces,
therefore, a serious difficulty in obtaining instructors who are
adequate to the task before them.
The following trade teaching staff is needed: supervisors of the various
trades; forewomen to direct the school shops; trade instructors to teach
the various groups of students the specialized processes; assistants to
attend to minor matters in the workrooms; art teachers, who have had
experience in designing for the various trades represented; academic
instructors who know the working world practically and can give the
students a training which, while helping them in their trades, will
broaden their knowledge of and sympathy in the world's work. All of
these teachers must not only have had experience in trade, but must
continually keep in touch with the methods of the outside market.
Unsuccessful trade workers, who often wish to teach, or teachers who
know nothing of the needs of trade workrooms, cannot adequately prepare
students for specific trade positions. Trade knows what it wants, is a
severe critic and an unsparing judge. The trade school, therefore,
cannot afford to rely on instructors who would be themselves
unsuccessful in the market, for the result would be certain failure in
the students. Such specific training requires exceptional knowledge in
its teaching force. The usual teacher of manual training knows too
little of the ways of the workrooms and is too theoretical in her
instruction to be trusted to train workers who must satisfy trade
demands. On the other hand, the trade worker, good as she may be in her
specialty, seldom knows how to teach. She can drive her group of
workers, but she cannot train the green hands to do more than work
quickly at one thing. She can make them work, but she cannot make them
better workers. When she has orders to turn out, her lifelong training
makes her think of the rapid completion of the articles rather than the
careful development of the students who are making them. If she is not
watched she will choose the girl to do a piece of work who can do it
well and quickly (but who does not need this experience), rather than
the one who should do it in order to have practice in it.
The problem is to find a way to unite the good teacher and the
successful worker. Such a combination appears at rare intervals. At the
present time the teacher who can adequately prepare young workers for
trade has to be taught while she is herself teaching. She may be chosen
from either the industrial or the educational field, if she has certain
qualities of mind and spirit, but she must now make up the points she
lacks, be it experience in trade or ability to teach. Supervisors need
special insight and capability, as they are called upon to investigate a
new and difficult field, to select from it the subjects needed, and
after that to organize education of a most practical kind. They combine
the duties of school principal, teacher, forewoman, factory
superintendent, and business manager. They must be willing to give
themselves to the cause, as they are responsible for the conduct of
their departments throughout the year, at night as well as during the
day, at least until they can train some one to whom they can delegate
some of their responsibility. They need a broad, cultural education and,
at the same time, interest and knowledge of the industrial problems of
the time, as well as experience in their particular trade. They must
have sympathy with the working people and their lives. It is evident
that such women are hard to find, and when found or when trained are in
demand by other institutions or in business life, in which places they
can command high salaries. All efficient trade teachers also are equally
in demand in workrooms, hence the school must compete with good business
salaries in place of the usual underpay of educational institutions.
In addition to the trade teachers, practical instructors in healthful
living and special secretaries needing social knowledge of various kinds
are also essential in the modern trade school for girls. Their training
adds to the director's responsibilities, for no one at present has the
knowledge and experience necessary.
The many problems connected with obtaining an adequate teaching staff
seem at present to have but one solution, _i. e._, the school has to be
its own training school for its faculty to a greater or less extent. One
source of assistant teachers has been found in students who have made
good in trade. Pupils of fair education who show skill and executive
ability in their department work and who later succeed in their trade
positions have already proved helpful when brought back to the school.
Such girls know the courses of instruction, their needs and
difficulties, and also the outside workroom demands. If they are given
some hints in methods of teaching, their success is greater. European
trade schools for girls have drawn many of the best teachers from the
student body and have organized teachers' training classes for them. A
course of regular training for trade pupil teachers should be given
later in American training schools to meet this situation.
Courses of Study
As the changes about to occur in the market must be recognized and
inserted in the curriculum in time for the students to be prepared for
the new work when they are placed, set courses of study cannot be
followed without endangering the practical value of the teaching.
Furthermore, the pupils must be advanced as they show ability, and their
different characteristics should have consideration; hence the work must
be sufficiently flexible and adaptable to allow for increasing one kind
of training and decreasing another, in order to develop a girl's best
ability. It is not the trade courses only which should be fitted to the
need, but the trade-art, trade-academic, and physical education must
also shift and introduce needed material as quickly as would the market
grasp at new plans for the workrooms. Nor is it sufficient that the
curriculum should adapt itself merely to training girls for trade
positions. It is never to be forgotten that these students are to be
made into higher grade workers and citizens, and that the greater number
of them will marry. In general, it can be said that woman's entrance
into industry is more or less temporary in that it is apt to precede or
to follow marriage, and, as a rule, is not continuous. Good citizenship
for these young wage-earners should mean the better home as well as the
broader views of industrial life. The inserting into an already too
brief training the important factors for making the better home-keeper
requires study of the ethics and economics of home and social life in
addition to the study of the industrial situation, and places continuous
problems before the faculty.
Investigations
In order to be in vital touch with the practical needs and changes of
the market, special investigations of trade have been and are
continually conducted by the faculty of the school. Effort is made by
them also to keep in close contact with industrial and social
organizations of workers in settlements, clubs, societies, and unions,
that all phases of the wage-earner's life, pleasures, aims, and needs,
may be appreciated. The pupils in attendance are studied to know their
conditions of health, their tendencies, their needs, their improvement.
After their entry into trade they are kept in touch with the school
through the Placement Bureau, clubs, graduate associations, and also by
visits from the school's investigator, in order to note the effect of
their training on their self-support, their workrooms, and their homes.
Groups of trained and untrained girls are compared, that differences and
benefits may be noted and the true situation may be clearly understood.
That the essentials of this class of education might be grasped as far
as possible, the director of the school made a six months' investigation
of the professional schools for girls on the continent of Europe. This
study was made after the Manhattan Trade School had been organized and
was running successfully. The problems were then well in hand, and
advantage could be taken the better of differing standpoints. In some
European countries such practical instruction has been established for
half a century. Each country has organized the work according to its own
view of woman's position in industrial and domestic life. Many aspects
of the problem can therefore be studied and various courses of
instruction consulted. This investigation covered three interesting
fields. First, the organization of the schools, including the equipment;
the teachers and their training; the budget; the order work; the
relation of the school to employers; the placing of the girls in
positions; the wages; the schemes for financial aid, and the work of the
alumnæ associations. Second, the trades taught and the courses of
instruction; the general education required at entrance and that given
as an integral part of trade; the trade-art courses; the housekeeping
and training of servants; the development of ideas of better living and
the training for responsibility in home and trade life. Third, the
visiting of workrooms employing women; the obtaining information on the
effect of trade schools; the students' usefulness and ability to
advance, and a survey of the crafts conducted in the homes of the
people.
Trade Order Administration
A trade school must do its skilled handwork in the fashion of the day
and on correct materials, yet the students are too poor to work for
themselves. A school budget cannot supply such large quantities of
valuable materials unless it can get some return for them. The school
shop in each department, where orders both private and custom are taken,
has proved advantageous, but involves great problems of administration:
(1) the actual business methods and management connected with the
invoices, sales, and delivery of goods; (2) the obtaining of orders
needed and of the quantity desirable; (3) the taking of custom orders,
fitting the customer, and delivery of orders on time; (4) a satisfactory
apportionment of the order work so that the students may profit by it
and not be expected to continue it after they have had sufficient
experience of one kind, or if they are not yet able to do the elaborate
work involved; (5) the finding of operatives who will do what the
students cannot or should not do; (6) the expense involved in employing
workers at trade prices and for shorter hours; (7) the cost of articles,
and other details which are involved in entering into competition with
trade. It may be stated that no trade school should underbid the market,
but should charge the full prices and expect to give equivalent returns.
A trade school cannot afford to be an amateur supported by a
philanthropic public, but must have a recognized business standard.
Placement
Problems of varied kinds meet the school in placing its students. Each
new enactment of child labor or industrial laws has its influence. Even
a good law will sometimes have a temporary serious effect in lowering
wages or turning capable girls out of satisfactory positions. Care must
be exercised that students are not placed where there is a possibility
of running counter to the best interests of labor. The desire to place
each pupil where she can develop to her highest condition requires
continual knowledge of the market needs and of the characteristics of
the many girls. Records of students entering, studying, and placed, the
kinds of positions open, and industrial and labor information must be
kept up to date, yet such data are often hard to secure.
Trade Union Attitude
An important question that is always before a trade school is the effect
the instruction may have on the working people. It is difficult for one
not continually in the midst of the pressure of the actual trade to
know the many ways that thoughtless advance in trade teaching may react
to the disadvantage of the very ones that the school wishes to help.
Injury may be done by preparing too many for certain occupations,
filling places where a strike is on, replacing well-paid positions with
trade school girls at a less price, placing the girls at too small a
wage for their skill, doing order work at too low a price or when a
strike is on, considering too closely the fitting of a worker for the
employer's benefit rather than for the broadening of her own life, and
like thoughtless actions. The difficulties of the situation are great
and the solution frequently obscure, but a fair-minded school must be in
touch with the effort the working woman herself has inaugurated to
better her condition. The apparently unnecessary suspicion with which
the laboring class regards the organization of trade instruction would
have foundation if no thought were given to the trade conditions as the
working girl sees them. A trade school for fourteen-year-old girls need
not make a point of their immediate entrance into unions, but it should
consider the subject simply and wisely in all its bearings, that the
students may know the full aims and advantages of coöperation as well as
the point of view and many difficulties of the employers.
Contact with Trade
The faculty of a trade school needs the coöperation and assistance of
the working people and the employers of labor. Only through intimate
interrelation with them can the best and most practical results be
obtained. Auxiliaries and committees of employers and of wage-earners;
visits of the staff of the school to trade, and of employers, forewomen,
and workers to the school; the carrying out of orders for workrooms and
assisting them at busy seasons, are some of the ways by which the
Manhattan Trade School has tried to gain the help of the busy industrial
world.
Problems of Financial Aid
The aid given to enable the poorest students to attend the school has
brought its own questions, such as: the danger of pauperizing the
recipients; the methods of selecting the beneficiaries; the best way to
give the weekly aid; the development of a spirit of earnest work and
regular attendance in the girls thus aided; the stimulation of a desire
to return some equivalent in special helpfulness to the Manhattan Trade
School or to its students, and the eliminating of this philanthropic
effort from any apparent relation to school work.
FOOTNOTES:
[B] In order to explain these problems, it will be necessary to repeat
some of the data in Part I.
PART III
EQUIPMENT AND SUPPORT
Housing and Equipment
The first home of the Manhattan Trade School was a large four-story and
basement dwelling house, for which a rental of $2,100 per annum was
paid. The initial permanent equipment and first temporary stock provided
for one hundred students, and cost $9,500. This amount was utilized
principally for the furnishing of special rooms for electric power
operating; for sewing; for dressmaking; for millinery; for pasting; and
for the more general equipment of offices, academic and art rooms, a
kitchen, and a lunch room. The following lists show the range of
expenses for furnishing the main workrooms with necessary equipment:
GARMENT OR DRESSMAKING WORKROOM
Sewing machines, each $18.00 to $70.00
Work, cutting, and ironing tables, each 6.00 to 20.00 upward
Electric irons, each 7.75
Gas stove (necessary when electric irons are
not used), each 2.00 upward
Cheval glass, each 20.00 to 100.00 upward
Chairs, each .50 to 3.00 upward
Exhibition, stock closets, cabinets, and
chests of drawers, each 10.00 to 100.00 upward
Fitting stands, each 2.00 to 30.00 upward
Fitting room (a curtained alcove), each 10.00 upward
Fitting room (a furnished room), each 100.00 upward
Dress forms, per dozen 30.00 upward
Waist forms, per dozen 6.00 upward
Sleeve forms, pair 1.00 to 1.50 upward
Lockers, per running foot 3.00 to 8.00 upward
A room for twenty workers may be plainly furnished at a cost of $300 to
$500. If a large number of expensive sewing machines are desired, the
estimates must be increased by several hundred dollars. The Manhattan
Trade School has forty foot-power machines of the kinds most in use in
the workrooms of New York.
The equipping of a workroom for electric power operating, including
general and special machines, motor, cutting and work tables, cabinets
and chairs, will be considerably more expensive than the one for garment
making. In the latter, one sewing machine can be used by several
workers, but in electric operating each worker must have her own
machine. The electric motor adds also to the expense. The minimum cost
of equipping a shop for twenty workers would be $1,000 to $1,500. The
necessary equipment would be as follows:
ELECTRIC OPERATING WORKROOM
Plain sewing machines in rows, per head $22.50 upward
Troughs for work between the rows and tables for the
machines (per every two machines) 10.00
Special machines (two needle, embroidery, lace stitch,
buttonhole, straw sewing, and the like),
each according to kind 35.00 to 125.00
Motor, each 140.00 upward
Electric cutter, each 25.00 upward
Cabinets, tables, chairs, and irons, see above
The Manhattan Trade School has fifty-five plain electric sewing machines
and thirty-two special machines, as follows: three buttonhole, one
two-needle, one binding, one zigzag, five hemstitching, five tucker,
four Bonnaz, one braider, one hand embroidery, one scalloping, nine
straw sewing.
In workrooms conducting trades which use paste, gum, and glue, the
following special equipment is required:
Glue pots, gas, each $7.50 upward
Glue pots, electric, each 21.75 upward
Hand cutter, each 50.00 upward
Cabinets, tables, chairs, see above
The cost of equipping a shop would be from $200 to $400.
Special machines for perforating designs or for pleating materials are
often needed in teaching the garment trades. Wholesale prices can
usually be obtained when the order is large. Dealers have also shown
themselves willing to sell their machines at low prices, to loan them,
and even to give them to a school which has proved its ability to train
good workers.
When it was appreciated that the original quarters of the school were
too limited, the Board of Administrators went to work with great
enthusiasm and in a few months collected the requisite money and bought
a large business loft building at 209-213 East 23d Street, at an expense
of $175,000. To put it in order for work cost $5,000 in addition. The
former equipment was used and $5,000 more was spent for such needed
items as: machines, $3,200; motor, $352; perforating machine, $38;
additional master clocks, $233; chairs and tables, $850. The school is
furnished in a simple, businesslike manner, the equipment merely
reproducing good workroom requirements, _i. e._, essentials only.
The budget for the first year, 1902-1903, was $22,094.16, of which the
salaries for teachers took about one-half and the rent and maintenance
covered the other half. During this year there were 113 students
admitted. In 1908-1909, after six years of rapid growth, the educational
budget is $49,000, or more than double the original, of which the
salaries are $38,806; the supplies, $1,710; printing and publishing,
$600; maintenance, $9,900. At the beginning of 1908 there were 254
students in the school; 689 were registered during the year, making a
total of 943 girls, being almost nine times the number in attendance
during the first year.
The Support
The Manhattan Trade School has depended for its support entirely upon
voluntary contributions. There have been few large donations and the
donors represent all classes of the community--patrons of and workers in
sociological, economic, philanthropic, and educational fields, employers
of labor, and auxiliaries of many kinds of workers organized for special
purposes. The most significant help, perhaps, and the largest in
proportion to its income, has been that of the wage-earners
themselves--not only the girl who has benefited by the instruction, but
the general mass of women workers. These women, knowing the difficulties
in their own struggle to rise, have shown themselves willing to set
apart weekly a small sum to help young girls to attain quickly
efficiency through systematic training. The auxiliaries of wage-earners
are a mainstay of the school on account of their helpful enthusiasm,
their practical suggestions, their interest in girls trained there, and
their regular subscriptions on which the Board of Administrators can
depend.
PART IV
OUTLINES AND DETAILED ACCOUNTS OF DEPARTMENT WORK
The Faculty and Staff
The original staff of the Manhattan Trade School, 1902-1903, consisted
of a Director, an Executive Secretary, 4 supervisors (Operating,
Dressmaking, Pasting, and Art), 5 instructors and forewomen, 4 or 5
assistants and occasional workers, a janitor, and 2 cleaners. The
present staff, 1909-1910, consists of (1) _Office Administration_, 11:
Director, Executive Secretary, Assistant Secretary, 2 Stenographers
(office and placement), Placement Secretary, Investigator, Business
Clerk, Buyer, and 2 Assistants (records, telephone, etc.). (2) _Teaching
Force, Supervisors, and Assistant Supervisors_, 7: Dressmaking,
Dressmaking workroom, Electric Operating, Millinery, Novelty, Physical
Education, Art. _Instructors, Teachers, and Forewomen_, 11: Academic, 2;
Dressmaking, 3; Operating, 5; Art, 1. _Assistants_, 14: Dressmaking, 7;
Novelty, 3; Operating, 1; Physical Education, 2; Art, 1. (3) _Doctor._
(4) _Care of Building_, 7: Engineer, Janitor, Machinist, Cleaners 2,
Elevator boy, and Night watchman.
ADMINISTRATION
Admission Requirements
I. Age: fourteen to seventeen years. The law requires a child to remain
in public school until fourteen. The Manhattan Trade School has found
that under fourteen a girl is too immature to specialize in trade work,
and that over seventeen most girls are too mature to fit into the work
planned for the majority of the class.
II. Public School Grade: 5-A or above. The subject matter of 5-A grade
or its equivalent is required by the state before a child can leave to
work. If for illness or other good cause a girl has not made this grade,
she is admitted to the Trade School with special permission of principal
of last school attended, and, while studying her trade, the necessary
amount of schooling is made up to her by special classes and coaching.
The Board of Health recognizes this substitute.
Grade of girls admitted since beginning is shown in following table:
GRADE UPON LEAVING SCHOOL
-----+-------+-------+-------+---------+--------+----------+-------
| Below | Fifth | Sixth | Seventh | Eighth | Graduate | High
| Fifth | Grade | Grade | Grade | Grade | Per | School
| Grade | Per | Per | Per | Per | cent. | Per
| Per | cent. | cent. | cent. | cent. | | cent.
| cent. | | | | | |
-----+-------+-------+-------+---------+--------+----------+-------
| | | | | | |
1902 | 8 | 19 | 35 | 26 | 2 | 10 | 0
| | | | | | |
1903 | 11 | 18 | 19 | 29 | 6 | 15 | 2
| | | | | | |
1904 | 6 | 11 | 15 | 25 | 16 | 25 | 2
| | | | | | |
1905 | 7 | 15 | 19 | 19 | 17 | 19 | 4
| | | | | | |
1906 | 8 | 16 | 20 | 23 | 17 | 13 | 3
| | | | | | |
1907 | 7 | 10 | 25 | 23 | 15 | 18 | 2
| | | | | | |
1908 | 4 | 15 | 26 | 20 | 13 | 16 | 6
| | | | | | |
-----+-------+-------+-------+---------+--------+----------+-------
During 1908, 143 older women were admitted to a special workroom opened
for the "unemployed."
III. Filing of working papers is required of girls under sixteen.
1. No girl under sixteen can work in New York unless she has an
Employment Certificate issued by the Board of Health, and then only from
8 A.M. to 5 P.M., or for eight hours daily.
2. The public school last attended by the girl is responsible for her
until she is sixteen, or has her working papers, or is dismissed to
another school. If dismissed to Manhattan Trade School her attendance
there cannot be made compulsory, and she may attend a few days and then
leave and work illegally. Our facilities for following up such cases are
limited. With her working papers on file we know she is not evading the
law, and can dismiss her to work if she is not a success in trade lines
of training.
3. Exceptions: Lack of proper birth record, on account of foreign birth
or failure to make record of it by officials, may prevent the obtaining
of an Employment Certificate. A special provision is made by the Board
of Health in such cases, and, pending adjustment, the girl is admitted
upon notice of date of future issuance.
IV. Reference: Some reliable person's name is required of each applying
student, in order to have some one to communicate with in case of
difficulty of any kind.
V. Application in person: Each girl fills out an application blank
giving name, address, and birthplace of self, father, and mother, public
school attendance, previous trade experience, if any, trade desired,
reference. This must be written at the school, for the manner in which
it is done is a large part of test for admission.
Times of Admission
The school year begins in July, but a girl is admitted any Monday when
there is a vacancy in the department she wishes to enter. The following
table gives record of yearly admission:
-------------------------+--------
|
Nov. 2, 1902 (first day) | 20
|
Rest of 1902 | 93
|
1903 | 139
|
1904 | 193
|
1905 | 239
|
1906 | 328
|
1907 | 433
|
1908 | 689
|
1909 | 517
|
|--------
|
Total | 2,651
|
-------------------------+--------
Some of these students did not remain long enough to take a thorough
training, for home demands made even a small wage imperative, and the
girl had to join the ranks of earners ill prepared. Some were not
adapted to trade conditions, and soon fell out by the way. Many
persisted until they took more than the average twelve months' course,
and went into business at a proportionately higher wage.
Records
I. Attendance: 1. Daily, Monday to Friday inclusive. The factory method
of time cards punched by a clock upon entrance and leaving has been
adopted as being most exact, businesslike, and time saving. It registers
the exact time when rung, and so indicates tardiness as well as absence.
2. Weekly. A small filing card ruled for fifty-two weeks summarizes the
daily record of time cards and requires the marking attendance only once
a week. This file is subdivided into departments and again into classes,
so that the statistics of enrollment are easily gathered.
II. Individual records: 1. Upon admission a record card is started for
each girl, no matter how long she may attend. This contains (1) the data
given upon the application blank copied in detail; (2) Student Aid, if
given, amount, date, and remarks.
2. Upon leaving, entries are made on the same card of (1) date and cause
of leaving; (2) record in different departments--Art, Academic, Trade,
and Health; (3) certificate--kind, record, date. This is not granted
until the pupil has proved satisfactory in her trade both in the school
and in business; (4) Trade Record--upon the reverse side of the card is
the "record in trade after leaving school," with columns for date,
employer, kind of work, wages, remarks. This is kept up by the Placement
Secretary by frequent visits and letters, and gives the basis for many
valuable deductions as to the practical results of the training.
III. Other records kept in departments are (1) Student Aid: application
and information; (2) Health: examinations upon entrance and future
reëxaminations; (3) Department: records of each girl as she passes from
class to class, such as "attitude," speed, and skill.
Length of Year
The school is in session forty-eight weeks each year, four weeks being
given up to one-week vacations at Christmas, Easter, Fourth of July, and
Labor Day. The summer session is the beginning of the regular work, and
not a unit for summer training. No one is admitted for the summer only,
as the time is too short for real trade standards to be approached.
Tuition
The tuition is absolutely free. The Manhattan Trade School aims to reach
the poorest girl who has little chance to advance rapidly unless some
one gives her a lift. In order to do this most effectively it is
sometimes necessary to assist her. (See the report of the Student Aid
Work.)
Choice of Trade
A girl upon application can select the trade into which she wishes to
go. If after a month's trial she proves competent, she is allowed to
continue; if not, she is advised to change to another department or to
seek employment in work not taught at the Trade School. If a girl has no
choice of trade because of ignorance of possibilities, she is shown the
kinds taught and given a chance to make a selection. If then she is
undecided, she is advised to take what seems best adapted to the time
she can spend and the type of girl she appears to be.
Business Management
However simple a school is, some bookkeeping is necessary, and when with
the running of the school is combined the management of trade order
supplies and receipts the problem becomes very complicated. (See Trade
Order Work.)
I. General: A system of up-to-date bookkeeping of General Ledger,
Invoice Book, and Daily Exhibit, with details worked out in Petty Cash
and Maintenance Books, has been adopted. These few simple books so
distribute accounts of expense and receipts that one can soon see the
standing of the whole school or of a single department. All bookkeeping
is centralized in one office, except the taking of orders and the
details of filling them, which must be in the hands of the department
concerned.
II. Departmental: 1. Requisition blanks for purchases made. 2. Order
blank and duplicate for order given by customer. 3. Time slips, wherever
possible, to get exact record of time value of work done. 4. Material
slips, to keep account of what has gone into any orders. 5. Final
billing, to give data for bills sent out from main office and duplicate
filed there for final records.
THE POWER MACHINE OPERATING DEPARTMENT
Aim
To train girls to work on sewing machines run by electric power and to
put a thinker behind every machine as its operator. The department hopes
by awakening intelligent interest in the tool, _i. e._, the machine, to
kindle ambition in the workers. It is only through the intelligent use
of the tool and consequent love of work which follows that we can look
forward to supplying the skilled machine workers of the future. This
training must be given while the girls are in the formative period, to
develop habits of thought and action which will counteract the bad
effects upon the worker that follow division and subdivision of work,
with consequent subdivision of ability, which takes place in all
factories today. When a pupil has been thoroughly trained in the
intelligent use of her tool, when she has learned to construct complete
garments, if she is then, through force of circumstances such as modern
production entails, compelled to carry out one process on the machine
indefinitely, or to make one part of a garment, she still holds the
balance of power in being prepared to do something else when opportunity
or necessity demands.
General Steps in Training
I. A pupil must be given a short time to adjust herself to the workshop
environment, consequently she is put first at some simple work, such as
ripping or cutting up old garments. This gives her freedom while using
her hands to look about the workroom and to get accustomed to the sight
as well as to the sound of machines in action.
II. The pupil is taught to control the power by which the machine is
run, and is then given an intelligent understanding of the mechanism of
the machine or machines she is to operate.
III. The pupil then begins her regular course of work, and her feeling
of responsibility of the value of _time_ is awakened--that is, her
seconds, minutes, and hours, days, weeks, and months are now important
factors in her life, and they may be used for good or evil. In the
language of the department, time may be spent wisely or foolishly, and,
while studying at the Manhattan Trade School, seven hours out of every
day of the girl's life is given over to productive work and should be
accounted for. The department has developed its own plan of time
payments, which is much like the piece-work system employed in trade.
Through its rewards for time well spent it makes the fact real to the
pupils, as no form of punishment could do, that wasted time is gone
forever.
The department is divided into five classes, three of which must be
taken to make an all-round operator, namely: Elementary, two months'
course; Intermediate, four months' course; Advanced, six months' course.
In trade, salaries for such positions range from $5 to $15. The other
two classes train specialists on the electric machines, special machines
of various kinds, straw-sewing machines. Special machine work requires
from three months to one year in addition to the full course of
all-round operating. Salaries range from $6 to $30. An expert trade
worker is in charge of each class.
_Course of Work_
Regular Operating Course:
1. Control of power--learning names and uses of parts of machines.
Making bags, clothes, and operator's equipment.
2. Straight and bias stitching, equal distance apart.
3. Spaced bias stitching from given measurements.
4. Making and turning square corners, stitching heavy edge for
tension practice.
5. Machine table apron, using former principles. This is used to
protect operator from shafting and oil.
6. Seams: Plain seam, plain and band seam; French seam; bag seam on
warp; bag seam, one warp and one bias; bag seam, two biases.
7. Hemming: Different sized hems turned by hand for correct
measurements; hems run through hemmer to learn use of attachment and
give speed; seams through hemmer--bag seam, flat fell.
8. Quilting: Following designs made by pupils in Art Department.
Practice for control of power, starting and stopping machine at
given point.
9. Banding: Straight and bias bands placed by measurement from
design made in Art Department. Practice for edge stitching, turning
corners, accuracy of measurement.
10. Advanced seams on cloth and silk: Flannel seam, slot seam,
umbrella seam.
11. Yokes made and put on: Round yokes--petticoats; round front and
straight back--drawers and petticoats; bias yokes--waists; shaped
yokes--aprons; round yokes--children's dresses; miter corner
yoke--dresses.
12. Tucking: Free hand tucking for accuracy in measuring and use of
rule; special tucking on length and widths of different materials to
give speed and skill in handling different fabrics.
General Construction: Trade Stock and Order Work (See Order Work):
Infants' slips, children's underwear; children's rompers; children's
dresses; women's underwear; shirtwaists; aprons; house dresses;
fancy negligees.
Special Machine Work:
Buttonholes; tucking; two-needle work; hemstitching; Bonnaz
(Corneli) embroidery; machine hand embroidery, scalloping. Students
of special ability only are fitted to take this course. One girl in
fifteen has usually the requisite application and self-control to
operate a special machine successfully. Each machine is specialized,
_i. e._, does its own particular work and no other. Patient
attention to little things is required on the part of the operator
in order that good results may be produced. Such machines are
supposed to need only a hand behind them to guide the work. Our
experience has proved to us that good results are produced only when
intelligence and patience are factors. In the factories, machinists
keep the special machines in order, but the school aims to train the
operator to keep her own machine in good condition, thus saving her
valuable time.
Bonnaz (Corneli) embroidery work offers excellent opportunities for
correlation with the Art Department. Both Bonnaz (Corneli) and machine
hand embroidery must be felt in the muscles before they can be carried
out on the material, therefore the work with the pencil in making
designs which are to be carried out on the machine is of first
importance. Free-hand designs must be made first in large, free
movements on the machine until the arm muscles are thoroughly familiar
with the curve, sweep, and feeling to be executed. After mastery of
movement and sweep are acquired, the same designs may be reduced in size
ten or twenty times and the pupil will still work them out in perfect
rhythm. After the mastery of movement is acquired, the cording,
braiding, and three-thread attachment work are easily learned by a pupil
who has the necessary mechanical sense. The course of Bonnaz (Corneli)
work covers: chain stitch, lettering, appliqué work, cording, braiding,
three-thread work.
Machine hand embroidery should be given as a supplementary course to
Bonnaz (Corneli) embroidery. It gives excellent training in design and
color work.
Special trade machine straw sewing should also be taken up after the
regular course in operating. It gives splendid exercise for quick
handling of material, but makes a poor foundation of itself on which to
build a painstaking, expert, all-round operator. Speed is the first
requisite in getting a hat properly shaped, as the straw braid is flying
through the machine at the rate of four thousand stitches a minute;
hence the general operating is given first to the pupil to train her in
the requisite neatness. As straw-sewing has long slack seasons, the
operator can during such times return to the regular operating.
DRESSMAKING DEPARTMENT
Aim
The aim of the Dressmaking Department is to train girls in the elements
of the dressmaking trade, in order to enable them to immediately secure
employment as improvers and finishers or as assistants on skirts,
waists, and sleeves, and to give them a preparation which will help them
eventually to rise to positions of skill and responsibility. The
training eliminates the errand girl and apprenticeship stages, and makes
possible a living wage at the start. The result is accomplished in from
nine to seventeen months, the time depending entirely upon the
capability of the girl, her physical condition, her application to her
work, her regularity of attendance, and her previous training.
Classes
The department is divided into three sections: (1) The Elementary, which
consists of two classes for the teaching of simple sewing and machine
work. This section is rendered necessary by the poor preparation of the
students at the entrance. It would be not only practical but desirable
for elementary public and industrial schools so to train their students
that they could omit this part of the Manhattan Trade School course. (2)
The Vocational. This section also includes two classes. The work is
tradelike in character, but much time has to be given to developing
right habits of work as well as to learning specific kinds of handwork.
The public secondary schools could offer this section to advantage, and
through it train pupils for a better knowledge of the home or for future
livelihood. (3) The Trade Section. This is a business shop, which
reproduces trade conditions as nearly as possible and is subdivided into
the same progressive divisions. Although the object is to work as trade
does, the educational aim is also prominent, and the course of training
has been planned with both ends in view. Order work plays an important
part in this section, for it makes possible the quantity and variety of
material necessary to supply the many repetitions of important phases of
dressmaking, the new views of old principles, and the elaborate costume
manufacturing which are needed in the training. It would be impossible
for a school to adequately deal with the many varieties of garments in
this trade without some equivalent for the order work. The use of models
or of practice material is not satisfactory on account of the great
difference between theoretical and practical knowledge in handling
valuable materials. A girl may learn to run fine tucks on cheesecloth,
but this will not enable her to do satisfactory hand-tucking on chiffon.
Neither is it a correct educational or economic principle to cut up
quantities of good material, which the students will look upon as
"rags," and then, after working on them, to throw them into a receptacle
for waste or sell them simply to get rid of them. To secure the best
results in any line of instruction there must be interest and
enthusiasm. The aim, therefore, must be definite and the results vital.
The work is planned to foster these higher qualities. The students
produce articles for a definite use; they are given a required time in
which the work should be completed; trade itself sets the standard of
judgment, and a definite relation exists between the work of all the
classes, so that old principles may be recognized when presented in new
forms.
Courses of Work
I. Elementary Section. (1) Beginners' Class. First, a test is given each
girl when she enters which enables her instructor to judge of her
ability in sewing. It has been found necessary, in the majority of
cases, to teach all or the greater part of the following principles: the
use of sewing utensils, the making of the stitches, their application in
articles, and the running of the sewing machine. Hence the second step
has been a course of work covering the use of these needed principles,
each girl beginning at the point where she needs training. Third, the
final test. On the satisfactory completion of this very elementary
training a test is given to show a girl's ability to work, to think, and
to utilize ideas. If she is not yet fully prepared, further time is
spent in emphasizing the points she still requires.
The work in the Beginners' Class is done upon articles which have a
trade value and which are sold to customers or to the students for about
the cost of the materials. The school furnishes the materials for all
elementary work, but the students must provide their own tools and keep
them in good condition. These include a thimble, needles, scissors, a
tape measure, an emery, and a white apron.
Class instruction followed by individual criticism is the method of
teaching in the Elementary Section. Emphasis is placed upon the proper
use of the utensils, the position of the body, and the handling of the
work. Individual records are kept of the grade of work and of the time
taken to finish a problem. The course takes from two to three months to
complete, and the students are at work four and one-half hours per day.
OUTLINE OF WORK IN BEGINNERS' CLASS
1. Stitches and special forms of sewing: Basting, running,
overhanding, overcasting, hemming, blind stitching, sewing on
buttons (two hole, four hole), buttonholes, featherstitching.
2. Seams: Plain; selvage and raw edges; French; felled; straight and
bias edges; overhanded.
3. Machine stitching: Straight seams and rows; hems;
facings--points; use of tucker.
4. Principles: Measuring, seams, hems, tucks, cutting by a thread;
matching stripes; turning and basting hems; making casing for
drawstrings; putting on band--by hand, by machine--one and two
pieces; setting strings into bands; finishing ends of hems; putting
on pockets--straight and shaped; plain placket; cutting bias strips;
piecing bias strips; facing curved and straight edges (armholes,
neck, waist, points); joining waist and skirt with bias facing;
making straight tucked ruffle; inserting ruffle under tuck on skirt;
ripping.
5. Articles used in the work (this list is changed at will and is
merely representative): Handwork--Pin cushion, bag, towel, white
apron with ruffle. Machine work--Belt, gingham apron oversleeves,
child's dress with waist, uniform apron.
6. Supplementary work: Shoe bags, silver cases, holders, bibs, silk
bags, darning bags, needle books, traveling cases, baby caps and
work of a similar character.
7. Materials used: Cotton, linen, silk.
(2) Intermediate Class. The Beginners' Class gives most of its time to
hand sewing, the Intermediate Class emphasizes machine sewing. The work
is a repetition of the principles taught in the Beginners' Class, but is
presented in a different manner, with new applications. Orders are taken
from individuals or business houses for the garments which are made in
this course. The price is that of the trade. These orders furnish a
market for the entire output of the class. A certain amount of class
instruction is given, but the girls are expected to do independent work
under supervision.
OUTLINE OF WORK IN INTERMEDIATE CLASS
1. Review of former principles on new garments: (1) French
seam--straight edges, baby slips and nightgowns. (2) Hems, (_a_)
straight, (_b_) turned by hand, on princess aprons, bloomers,
sleeves, etc., (_c_) turned by machine--hemmer on ruffles, for
drawers and petticoats. (3) Overcasting--seams of skirts. (4)
Buttonholes--all garments. (5) Plackets--plain hemmed, on skirts,
baby slips. (6) Bias bands--joining and applying to straight and
curved edges, on princess aprons, drawers, top of petticoat. (7)
Ruffle--joining, measuring, and applying under tuck, on skirt and
drawers. (8) Machine instruction--threading, setting needles,
winding bobbin, scale of thread, needle, and stitch.
2. New principles: (1) Flat fell--shaped and bias edges on princess
aprons and drawers. (2) French seam--shaped edges in petticoat
seams. (3) Loops--on petticoats and dressing sacques. (4)
Hems--shaped edges in gored skirts, princess aprons and nightgowns,
baby slips and children's dresses. (5) Overhanding--pieces on
nightgowns, piecing ruffles and lace on underwear. (6)
Plackets--faced in drawers, petticoats, bloomers, and dress skirts.
(7) Bias band--applying to top of ruffle in petticoats and drawers.
(8) Bias binding--corset cover and nightgown. (9) Ruffle--finishing
with bias bands on petticoat and drawers. (10) Cuffs--making and
applying to nightgowns, baby slips, rompers, and house dresses. (11)
Sleeves--gathering on wrong side and putting into baby slips,
nightgowns, dressing sacques, etc. (12) Pressing. (13) Sewing hooks
and eyes on petticoats. (14) Machine instruction in cleaning,
oiling, and attachments.
3. List of articles made for stock and order: Aprons--princess,
maids', fancy. Women's clothes--dressing sacques, nightgowns,
kimonos, lounging robes, house dresses, chemises, drawers, skirts
(washable, mohair, silk), collars, and corset covers. Children's
clothes--nightdresses, night drawers, drawers, skirts, rompers,
dresses, and aprons.
4. Materials used: Cotton, silk, woolen, and worsted.
II. Vocational Section. The increasing demand for ready-made clothing
has opened a new field for girls obliged to enter the business world as
soon as the law will permit them to leave school. This requires hand
finishing on fancy waists and plain and fancy gowns, which are made by
the dozens on machines run by electric power. It is not necessary to
have a knowledge of actual dressmaking to be able to do this work. The
ability to do good handwork rapidly is the prerequisite. In some
establishments there are opportunities for girls of ability to rise from
finisher to draper, which latter position commands a high wage.
The producing of fine, handmade underwear, waists, and dresses is
another opportunity for girls who can take but a short time in which to
prepare to earn their living. Work of this character is of a much higher
grade than that of the wholesale finishing, and demands the ability to
do extremely good hand and machine work. The worker must be able to
handle the finest kind of materials and to do the most intricate work,
such as hand tucking, setting in lace, and trimmings.
Although the course in the Vocational Section trains for specific
branches, it is very necessary that all dressmaking students should have
experience in these lines in order to be better prepared for the actual
dressmaking. If, however, a girl has the ability to do the work of these
classes, she is allowed to skip either one or both of them.
Course of work in the Shop for Gymnasium and Swimming Suits: The
students are drilled for one or two months in putting garments together,
stitching, and finishing. As but two kinds of garments are made, speed
is acquired and a certain amount of accuracy is gained through much
repetition. Definite arrangements have been made through wholesale
houses for the disposition of the product. The materials are furnished
by the school. The price is that of trade.
(1) Articles: Swimming suits (patented), bathing suits, and gymnasium
suits. (2) Materials used: Cotton, wool, worsted.
Course of work in White Work Class: The previous training having been a
general one for accuracy, speed, and the mastery over mind and hand,
attention is now given for two and one-half or three months to fine
detail work and the handling and keeping fresh and clean of the
daintiest of cotton goods. The materials are furnished by the school and
the work is sold to customers at trade prices.
(1) Principles: Hand-tucking, rolling and whipping, mitering corners,
overhanding trimming, inserting lace and embroidery by hand and machine,
fine featherstitching, and white hand embroidery. (2) Garments for stock
and order; fine underwear, waists, and baby clothes. (3) Material used:
cotton.
III. Trade Section--The Business Shop. Trade demands skilled workers,
and preference is given to those who have had practical training. The
trade section aims to add experience to skill by offering the students
the actual work and conditions demanded in the outside market. The
general scheme is the one in use in moderate-sized dressmaking
establishments.
The workroom has its tables devoted to separate kinds of work, the
students obtain a definite amount of knowledge from each experience, and
pass from one to the other as rapidly as their ability to grasp the
principles will permit. Each division is in charge of an instructor with
practical trade experience, who prepares and supervises the work and
also does the skilled parts which the students, on account of their lack
of experience, are unable to do.
The girls are not taught cutting, fitting, and draping, as trade would
not permit a sixteen-year-old girl to attempt this work on account of
her lack of judgment and experience; but they have the opportunity to
see and assist in the preparation of work. No girl in the trade shop
will make a complete garment, but she will have worked upon all parts
many times.
Custom orders supply the shop with work. The customers are interviewed,
measurements are taken, estimates are given, and dates for fittings are
planned. The information obtained is recorded upon blanks prepared for
the purpose. The materials are purchased, the garments cut, and the
different parts (skirts, waists, sleeves) are delivered to the tables
where such work is done. Blanks are provided for the recording of all
materials used for customers' work, and from these the bills are made
out in the main office. Stock is obtained from the storerooms on signed
requisitions only. The stock clerk measures and delivers the materials
and notes the amount withdrawn on each package.
Course in Dressmaking Shop:
1. Linings: Waist (practice materials): basting, stitching,
pressing, binding, boning (whalebone, featherbone); hooks and eyes;
facing; overcasting.
2. Shirtwaists and nurses' uniforms: Covering rings; making
shirtwaist cuff; making shirtwaist placket; putting on neckbands.
3. Skirts: Petticoats or drop skirts for; basting, stitching,
pressing; seams, bands, plackets; trimming, pinning, putting on
band.
4. Trimmed skirts: Slip stitching; milliner's and flat folds;
covering buttonholes; binding, shirring, cording, tucking, piping,
facing, braiding.
5. Trimmed waists: Application of principles; experience in making
and applying trimming and handling delicate or perishable materials.
6. Trimmed sleeves: Application in general knowledge and experience
in applying trimmings.
7. Garments made in the shop: Shirtwaists, fancy dressing sacques
and wrappers; nurses' and maids' uniforms; dancing dresses;
elaborate waists; street, afternoon, and evening gowns; tailored
suits.
8. Materials used: All varieties of cotton, linen, silk, woolen, and
worsted dress fabrics; chiffon, mousseline, and trimmings of all
kinds.
IV. Results of training. A change in the general appearance of the girls
is soon apparent, for which ability to make their own clothes and the
refining influence of the doing of good work on good materials is
probably responsible. The elements of good order, obedience,
thoughtfulness, judgment, self-control, industry, and thrift are
fostered, and every effort is put forth to make intelligent workers.
The fact that on entering trade the girls from the Trade School receive
nearly double the salary given untrained girls indicates that they are
fitted for the outside workrooms.
V. Departmental relations. The emphasis which the Academic and Art
Departments have laid upon accuracy, careful work, appreciation of
measurements, distances, color, and form has been of great value to the
students in the Dressmaking Department. The Operating Department has
also been of service in training some of the students to work on special
machines, thus enabling them to make dress decoration. The use of the
electric power machine in custom dressmaking establishments is on the
increase.
VI. Trade relation. The department is kept in close touch with trade
conditions through personal visits, through the houses which purchase
its output, and through those from whom the stock is bought. Many
opportunities to purchase materials at reduced rates have been secured
through the kindly interest of the trade.
An advisory board, composed of business men and women, has been
appointed to pass judgment upon the scheme of work, the standard and
quality of work, and the cost and market value of the products.
MILLINERY DEPARTMENT
Aim
The aim of the Millinery Department is to train assistants, improvers,
frame makers, and preparers for wholesale and custom workrooms.
Short Course
When this department was first opened the scope of the work for the day
classes was much more extended and included training for copyists,
designers, and milliners. The curtailing of the course to more
elementary preparation was brought about by a feeling of dissatisfaction
with this trade for the young, untrained, or partly skilled workers.
Close and continued contact with millinery shops showed that for young
wage-earners a small, initial wage and a not very rapid rise are usual;
that a short, irregular, seasonal engagement is almost inevitable; that
a long experience is needed before even the trained girl can rise to the
higher positions; that young workers become discouraged and are apt to
drop the trade altogether, even for lower wages, if they can obtain
steady work in another occupation. As it was the fourteen or
fifteen-year-old girl who came for the instruction, it was better for
her to be well trained as an assistant than to detain her at the school
for a more advanced position which she would probably not be allowed to
take on account of her youth and inexperience. Students in this
department need to be watched with especial care to determine whether
they are well adapted for their occupation, and the mediocre worker
would better enter some other field where the opportunities for her are
more encouraging. As the advance is slow the girl also whose poverty is
hurrying her into wage-earning would better not elect this work.
The night classes which have been offered at the school gave training in
the more advanced lines of millinery. The day classes are also prepared
to do so whenever older workers feel they can give time for the
instruction.
COURSE OF INSTRUCTION
Length of course: Six months.
1. Practice: Shirring, tucking, cording, rolled hem, plain fold,
milliner's fold, and cutting and joining bias pieces.
2. Making and covering buckles and buttons; wiring ribbons and
laces; making hat linings and wiring hats.
3. Bandeaux: Wire, capenet, and buckram.
4. Wire frame construction from dimensions and models; making frames
of buckram, capenet, and stiff willow.
5. Covering frames with crinoline, capenet, mull, maline, and soft
willow.
6. Facings: Plain, shirred, and in folds.
7. Bindings: Stretch, puff, and rolled.
8. Plateaux: Plain and fancy.
9. Making hats of straw, silk, chiffon, maline, and velvet.
10. Sewing trimmings on hats and sewing linings in hats.
11. Renovating: Ribbon, velvet, lace, feathers, flowers.
12. Machine work: Plain stitching, tucking, shirring, bias strips
stitched on material.
Orders are taken for a limited amount of trimmed hats in order to
provide the students with experience in preparing, sewing on the
trimming, and in finishing the hat.
As millinery is a seasonal trade, students are advised to take, in
addition, lamp and candle shade making in the Novelty Department, or
straw sewing in the Operating Department. They are thus provided with
good trades during the months when their own trade is dull.
NOVELTY DEPARTMENT
Aim
(1) To teach the use of paste and glue in several good trades. (2) A
short course in lampshade and candleshade making for girls who have a
dull season in their regular trade during November, December, and
January.
Lines of Work
Sample mounting, novelty work, jewelry and silverware case making,
lampshade and candleshade making.
Trades and Wages
Sample mounting is pasting or gluing samples of all kinds of material on
cards or in books to be used by salesmen in selling goods. New York is a
center for this class of work. It gives year-round employment to many
girls, and offers wages from $5 to $15 a week. The simpler lines of
sample mounting can be learned by almost any girl. A bright student can
learn this trade in six months.
Novelty work is the covering and lining of cases and boxes with
different materials. Girls can earn from $5 to $18 a week, and can learn
the trade in from eight months to a year.
In jewelry and silverware case making the girls are taught both to cover
and line up the cases; they earn from $5 to $15 a week. It takes from
eight months to a year to learn this trade.
Lampshade and candleshade making: A short course is offered to good
sewers who wish to learn a line of work that will give them employment
during November, December, and January, which is the busy season in this
occupation. Girls can earn from $1 to $2 a day. It is a very good course
for millinery workers, as the work is similar and therefore easily
learned, and the slack time in millinery is the busy time in this trade.
Course of Work
All pupils entering the Novelty Department take a short course in sample
mounting to learn the use of paste and glue. Some are advanced soon to
the novelty work, while others continue in sample mounting, taking up a
greater variety of work along that line. Those entering for lamp and
candle shade making do not take the sample mounting, but come from the
millinery or sewing classes, where they have had some training with the
needle.
Interrelation with Academic and Art Work
In the academic classes the girls are drilled in measurements and have
problems estimating the cost of materials and labor. Their discussions
pertain to actual processes and materials used in the classes of the
Novelty Department.
In the art classes the girls are trained to draw straight lines and
square corners, to miter corners, to fold on a line, to make good
letters and figures, and to appreciate good proportions and balance.
This work enables the student to arrange her samples in straight lines
on the card, with proper margins, and to print neatly on the card the
name of the materials and stock numbers. The discussion of materials
helps her to cut and place her materials on the cases so that the design
will appear to the best advantage. The color work aids her in choosing
the best hues of ribbons or linings to use with the figured coverings.
Orders
Where trade orders can be used without keeping the girls too long on the
one problem, they prove a great incentive and also help them to acquire
speed. Private orders give more variety in the work, and thus enable the
girls to adjust themselves more easily to each season's new styles. The
private orders, however, being smaller in number, do not help the
students to acquire the speed that the repetition does in the large
trade orders. Each kind of order work is used, as it can be of advantage
to the development of the student.
ART DEPARTMENT
The courses of work in the Art Department are shaped according to the
needs of each trade department. Various phases of work in dressmaking,
electric power operating, novelty, and millinery are made "centers of
interest." Each girl thus finds her art aiding her to be more valuable
in her trade. Her enthusiasm is awakened and she is stimulated to
self-expression directly along the line of her chosen work. The entering
students lack in the technical skill which can be used in their trades.
The first step, therefore, is to give the elementary exercises needed in
their departments. This is followed by more difficult and more artistic
work as the student shows ability.
Aims
To help the work of the trade departments, to improve the trade selected
by each student, to give ideals.
Conditions
Time of average student in art, seven months, three hours per week.
Previous art training little or none.
Difficulties
The students do not see or estimate correctly; they are not exact, and
they lack ideals.
Organization of Art Work
I. _General_ course for _all_ students, connecting Art Department with
Trade Courses. Approximate time, three months, three times a week.
1. Principles of Proportion: Measurements by ruler and free-hand.
Related lines and sizes, as in hems and margins.
2. General Use of Principles: (1) Horizontal, vertical, oblique
lines for machine practice. (2) Related margins and spots as used in
the writing of letters, the orderly placing of subject on a page.
3. Specific Department Work: Departments express their needs to Art
Department. (1) Machine operating: (_a_) Lines--horizontal,
vertical, oblique, for machine practice. (_b_) Quilting, banding,
practice for curves and square corners.
(2) Sewing: (_a_) Lines--horizontal, vertical, oblique, for machine
and hand practice and tailor basting. (_b_) Hems, tucks as
prescribed by department and proportioned to garment. (_c_)
Constructive drawing--giving different angles and figures with a
view toward an intelligent use of patterns for waists and skirts.
(_d_) Piecing bias and mitering corners.
(3) Novelty: (_a_) Lines--horizontal, vertical, oblique, for sample
mounting. (_b_) Spacings for sample mounting. (_c_) Letterings and
figures for sample mounting. (_d_) Margins for pasting different
shaped labels and samples. (_e_) Paper folding, mitering corners.
(4) Millinery: (_a_) Lines--horizontal, vertical, oblique, for hand
sewing practice. (_b_) Problems for proportions for the wire frames.
(_c_) Bias facings and mitered and square corners. (_d_) Color.
Students unable to benefit further by the Art Work are dropped from
course and devote this time to their trade.
II. _Supplementary_ course for students showing ability who have
finished the prescribed departmental course. Approximate time, seven to
nine months.
1. Machine Operating: (1) First step in designs, arrangement of
straight lines in borders, and orderly arrangement of spots in
borders. (2) Squared-off designs, stenciling same, for coördination.
(3) Sample curved line designs, continuous (limitation of machine
and for speed). (4) Patterns for practice work for the special
machine. (5) Special workers to practice the exercises for the
Bonnaz machine. (6) Color--three charts. (7) Exercises for
perforating.
2. Sewing: (1) Simple designs for shirtwaists and for braiding. (2)
Designs for revers, cuffs, vests, and yokes. (3) Proportions of
figure. (4) Copying from magazines for trade technicalities. (5)
Discussions on dress for trade workers. (6) Color harmony in dresses
and application.
3. Millinery: (1) Sketching different views of the hats. (2)
Sketching models. (3) Color harmonies and application. (4)
Discussions on how art principles can be applied to hats of the
present day.
4. Novelty: (1) Simple, squared-off designs stenciled for
coördination for hand and head, not gained in the trade work. (2)
Simple illumination of words and phrases. (3) The materials and
decoration to be used for pads, desk sets, and boxes discussed and
carried out.
In this supplementary course emphasis is put on the thought, invention,
and appreciation of the student.
III. _Special_ course for students who show unusual ability in art and
can utilize it in trade.
1. Costume sketching for making records in dressmaking workrooms.
2. Stamping and perforating: (_a_) Machine practice--pedaling,
guiding needle, threading machine, and learning to adjust the
different parts. (_b_) Stamping on different materials with the
different mediums; composition of the different mediums, liquid and
dry. (_c_) Copying patterns for perforating; nature study for
motifs; conventionalizing those to apply them to materials.
(All designs are such as can be used in trade and are made according to
trade methods.)
ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT
Aim
I. Elementary: To supplement previous schooling. Girls who have left the
public school from low grades need special tutoring in the common
branches. Special instruction is also needed for newly arrived
foreigners.
II. Trade: To quicken and enrich the mind, that the girl may become a
more efficient, intelligent, and enthusiastic trade worker.
The work falls under the following subjects: Civics, Industries,
Arithmetic, English.
Civics
This course is given as a means of enabling the pupil to recognize her
place in the family, the school, the community, and in the world's work.
For lack of a better term it is called Civics. It is dealt with under
two heads: (1) Community Life in General, (2) Community Life in New York
City.
1. Under the first head the discussion of life in a given community is
followed by the simple facts that lie at the foundation of civic life.
These are approached through the interests or desires which the pupil
feels in common with all other people. Building still further on the
pupil's own experience, she is led to apply the ideas received to her
own community, which ever widening its scope is carried from the
neighborhood or the school to the city, the state, and on to the nation.
Civics also gives to the pupils a knowledge of the existing laws under
which they will work, by whom these laws are made, and the possible
means for improving them. In the discussion of such subjects as Tenement
House Laws, Child Labor Laws, and Trade-Unions, there is opportunity for
the introduction of home and business economics which have been found to
be valuable. Economics is further taught by the detailed discussion of
the apportionment of an income of $6 a week for fifty working weeks,
considering car fare, lunches, savings, a portion toward family support,
and an allowance for clothes. The literature for this course is obtained
from the United States Department of Commerce and Labor, the State
Department of Factory Legislation, the Consumers' League, the National
and State Labor Committees, and current magazines. Mr. Arthur M. Dunn's,
"The Community and the Citizen," especially such chapters as those on
the "Making of Americans," "How the Government Aids the Citizen in His
Business Life," "Waste and Saving," "What the Community Does for Those
Who Cannot or Will Not Contribute to Its Progress," has given valuable
assistance in leading to discussions which have direct bearing upon
daily life and work.
2. The following outline shows the treatment of the second division of
Civics:
New York City: (1) City Government, (_a_) Officials, Mayor,
Commissioner, Borough President, Aldermen; (_b_) City Departments.
(2) Citizenship, (_a_) Who are citizens, (_b_) How to become a
citizen, (_c_) Duties and privileges of citizens, (_d_) Aliens. (3)
Child Labor Laws, (_a_) School attendance, (_b_) Working papers, how
obtained, (_c_) Hours for work. (4) Factory Laws for girls over
sixteen years old. (5) Sweatshop labor. (6) Tenement House Laws. (7)
Trade-Unions. (8) Commerce and Industries of New York. (9)
Philanthropies.
Industries
Aim: To furnish the worker with a background for her trade and to help
her to see her place in the working world of today. 1. A generalized
view is taken of the main steps in the early progress of the race. 2.
Textile materials are discussed as to their values, their uses, their
cost, the processes of their manufacture, the comparison of foreign and
domestic goods, with reasons for the differences, and the connected
problems of arithmetic which the students will meet. These subjects help
the girl to "get next" to what she is working with every day and to
arouse interest in her personal connection with the subject. The English
girl whose father was once employed in a lace house in London brings
mounted specimens of that sort of handwork to the class; the Hungarian
brings hand-spun articles from her mother's bridal outfit; the Italian
presents a skein of raw silk taken from the family's treasure box, and
the girl from Roumania brings an embroidered bed cover. The student
whose mother does not believe cotton ever grew on bushes asks that she
may verify her own statement by taking home a real cotton ball. A Labor
Museum is being collected to give reality to the instruction, and
exhibits from it, which show the steps in the manufacturing of the
fabrics and of other familiar articles, are put up in the classroom when
needed. A bulletin board provides for the numerous clippings brought by
the students or teachers.
Arithmetic
Aim: The fundamental aim of arithmetic is to give the pupils working
methods for the problems that occur in trade practice. To make the
correlation clear to the girls, workroom methods of presentation and
phraseology and the customary materials are used. Sewing and operating
students make hems, tucks, and ruffles to actual measurements; novelty
girls cut and arrange cards for samples in accordance with their
workroom demands; and millinery students work out the measurements for
hat frames as closely as varying styles permit.
With the fundamentals of trade problems established, arithmetic is
further developed along special lines of trade to meet the demands of
the business world. The trained worker should not only be skilled in the
manipulation of tools and materials, but she should be able to compute
her own problems, such as estimates for garments, how to cut materials
economically, the cost of one garment or article as related to the cost
of many of the same kind, the prices, and similar trade questions. The
ability to deal with these subjects adds materially to the value of a
skilled worker.
The central scheme of the course is to lead the pupil to prompt and
accurate mental calculation. This is stimulated by frequent oral drills
in trade problems and business problems involving short methods of
computation. The extent and progress of this work are regulated by the
ability of the class.
The following outlines show the adaptation of arithmetic to the
different trades:
_Operating_: (1) Cutting of gauges, (_a_) For hems, (_b_) For tucks.
(2) Tucking problems, (_a_) With gauges, (_b_) As formal arithmetic
problems. (3) Ruffling problems. (4) Time problems, Department time
schedules as basis for the work. (5) Factory problems. (6) Income,
expenditure, savings. (7) Bills and receipts. (8) Computation of
quantity of material required for garments, (_a_) By measuring
garments, (_b_) By use of patterns on cloth, (_c_) Economy of
material. (9) Problems based on above work. (10) Civic problems.
_Sewing_: (1) Cutting of gauges, (_a_) For hems, (_b_) For tucks.
(2) Tucking problems. (3) Ruffling problems. (4) Computation of
quantity of material required for garments, (_a_) By measuring
garments, (_b_) By use of patterns on cloth, (_c_) Economy of
material. (5) Problems based on above work. (6) Store problems. (7)
Bills and receipts. (8) Income, expenditures, savings. (9) Textile
problems. (10) Civic problems.
_Novelty_: (1) Sample mounting, (_a_) Cards are cut a given size and
are divided with the ruler into spaces for samples, with proper
margins, etc., according to trade demands, (_b_) Problems involving
the various sizes and shapes of cards and samples, using cards and
rulers for the work. (2) Sample cutting. (3) Cutting materials for
boxes, (_a_) Pulp board, (_b_) Covering plain, flowered, (_c_)
Economy of materials. (4) Problems based on above work. (5) Trade
problems, (_a_) In sample mounting, accuracy, speed, (_b_) Cost of
materials. (6) Bills and receipts. (7) Income, expenditure, savings.
(8) Civic problems.
_Millinery_: (1) Measurement of frames. (2) Trade problems, (_a_)
Quantity of material, (_b_) Price of materials, (_c_) Economy of
material. (3) Orders, (_a_) By letter, (_b_) By order blanks. (4)
Bills and receipts. (5) Income, expenditure, savings. (6) Problems
on manufacture of silk. (7) Civic problems.
English
Aim: 1. To facilitate oral and written expression. 2. To give practice
in business forms: _Spelling_: (1) Technical terms of each trade
department; (2) Textiles and other trade materials; (3) Ordinary
business terms. _Descriptions_: (1) Written work on materials used and
articles made in each department; (2) Outlining and defining of
department work. _Business Forms_: (1) Letters of application; (2)
Letters ordering goods; (3) Telegrams, postal cards, etc.; (4) Writing
of advertisements.
In addition to practice in spelling and in the writing of business
forms, the work in English aims to be in close correlation with the
other subjects taught. As a rule, the latter part of each recitation
period is spent by the pupils in writing upon the subject in hand. The
purpose is to obtain from them freedom of expression after arousing
interest in a subject, rather than to get long compositions
necessitating home study and probably generating a dislike for written
work. Attention is called to paragraphing and emphasis is laid upon both
the form and the manner of writing, but form is made subservient to
thought. The interrelation of Art Department helps the student to
appreciate the need of good form in the appearance of a written page.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
The young wage-earner who goes into trade untrained at fourteen years of
age is greatly handicapped by her physical condition. Either through
ignorance or neglect early symptoms of disease are disregarded, and it
is not until she finds herself out of employment as a result of physical
weakness that she realizes that good health is the capital of the
working girl.
Many of the girls who enter the school are found to be suffering from
poor vision; enlarged glands caused by decayed teeth; poor nasal
breathing as a result of adenoid growths or enlarged tonsils; anæmia;
skin eruptions; slight asymmetries and poor posture. These defects
produce exaggerated nerve signs and poor nutrition.
Aim
The work of the Physical Department is to correct as many of these
irregularities as possible and also to train the student to a knowledge
of her body and how to care for it, that she may be able to stand the
long hours of confining work and be able to show efficient results in
her trade.
The following examination is required of each entering student:
_Physical Examination_: Beginning with the family history, a complete
record of all important events relating to a student's physical life is
taken. She is carefully examined for asymmetry; curvature, incipient or
well defined; traces of tuberculosis; weakness of heart and lungs;
enlarged glands; skin diseases, or signs of nervous disorders. She is
closely questioned as to all bodily functions and a careful record is
kept of irregularities. Eyes, ears, teeth, nose, and throat are likewise
examined. Impressions of the feet are made in order to detect weakness
of the arch or flatfoot. Measurements of height, weight, and the
principal expansions are taken for comparison with later records and for
the purpose of comparing with normal standard.
Prescribed Treatment
After the examination the girl is instructed as to treatment, if any is
needed. If perfectly normal she will report for gymnastics three times a
week. If any asymmetry, curvature of the spine, heart disease, or
nervous disorders are discovered, she must report for special corrective
exercises at the school. In some cases individual instruction is given
for supplementing the work at home. Cases demanding special apparatus
and individual attention have been treated in the Physical Education
Department of Teachers College, through the kindness of the director,
Dr. Thomas Denison Wood. The girls so affected have thus the advantage
of the latest methods known to science. If any of the numerous skin
diseases are present which demand frequent and regular attention, the
student is assigned to a group who go twice a week to a dispensary to
receive electrical or X-ray treatment. In cases of enlarged tonsils or
adenoids, the necessity for immediate operation is explained and every
effort made to gain the consent of the parents. When permission is
obtained the girl goes to a neighboring hospital on Sunday evening, is
operated upon on Monday, and returns home Tuesday. Each student must
have her eyes thoroughly examined by a doctor selected at the Ophthalmic
Dispensary. If glasses are needed they are procured at the expense of
the parent or donated by an optician who is interested in the school.
Dispensary treatment is also necessary in cases of catarrh of nose and
throat. Teeth are carefully examined and the girls directed to their own
dentists, or to the Dental Dispensary adjoining the school, where we are
fortunate enough to have a limited amount of work done free of charge.
Cases of asymmetry demanding braces, plaster jackets, and operations
have been treated at the Post-Graduate Hospital. Tuberculosis cases in
advanced stages have been placed on the special boats in New York Harbor
or are sent to Tubercular Camps in the country.
In sending girls to the hospitals and dispensaries the aim is to place
them in touch with institutions to which they will have independent
access after they leave the Manhattan Trade School.
Statistics
The statistics below show the condition of 278 girls when they
registered at the school. The charts are divided according to the
departments entered. From them can be seen the need of special care for
the health of the working girl.
|Dressmaking.
| |Art.
| | |Millinery.
| | | |Novelty.
| | | | |Operating.
| | | | | |Total.
--------------------+-------------------+-----+---+----+----+----+------
| | | | | | |
Nutrition | Good | 101 | 7 | 15 | 26 | 35 | 184
| Fair | 39 | | 2 | 6 | 18 | 65
| Poor | 7 | | 4 | 10 | 8 | 29
| | | | | | |
Mentality | Good | 122 | 7 | 19 | 33 | 40 | 221
| Fair | 21 | | 2 | 6 | 17 | 46
| Poor | 4 | | | 3 | 4 | 11
| | | | | | |
Nerve signs | Present | 39 | 3 | 6 | 13 | 16 | 77
| Absent | 108 | 4 | 15 | 29 | 45 | 201
| | | | | | |
Asymmetry, slight | Present | 53 | 4 | 12 | 23 | 29 | 121
curvatures, high | Absent | 94 | 3 | 9 | 19 | 32 | 157
hips or shoulders, | | | | | | |
etc. | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Posture | Good | 93 | 4 | 8 | 29 | 31 | 165
| Fair | 54 | 3 | 13 | 13 | 30 | 113
| | | | | | |
Skin | Good condition | 95 | 5 | 13 | 32 | 44 | 189
| Acne, comedones, | 52 | 2 | 8 | 10 | 17 | 89
| etc. | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Glands | Good condition | 66 | 3 | 10 | 19 | 20 | 118
| Enlarged | 81 | 4 | 11 | 23 | 41 | 160
| | | | | | |
Vision | Need glasses | 44 | 3 | 8 | 12 | 19 | 86
| Good condition | 103 | 4 | 13 | 30 | 42 | 192
| | | | | | |
Hearing | Defective | 6 | 1 | | 4 | 1 | 12
| Good | 141 | 6 | 21 | 38 | 60 | 266
| | | | | | |
Speech | Good | 170 | 7 | 20 | 37 | 56 | 260
| Defective | 7 | | 1 | 5 | 5 | 8
| | | | | | |
Nasal breathing | Good | 32 | 1 | 4 | 10 | 13 | 60
| Fair | 58 | 4 | 11 | 13 | 28 | 114
| Poor | 57 | 2 | 6 | 19 | 20 | 104
| | | | | | |
Tonsils | Good | 44 | 1 | 6 | 7 | 21 | 79
| Slightly enlarged | 75 | 2 | 11 | 25 | 24 | 137
| Much enlarged | 28 | 4 | 4 | 10 | 16 | 62
| | | | | | |
Teeth | Good | 103 | 5 | 16 | 30 | 40 | 194
| Poor | 44 | 2 | 5 | 12 | 21 | 84
| Need attention | 108 | 4 | 12 | 31 | 40 | 195
| | | | | | |
Hearts | Good | 122 | 4 | 21 | 23 | 44 | 214
| Weak, irritable, | 24 | 2 | | 17 | 13 | 56
| or with anæmic | | | | | |
| murmurs | | | | | |
| Organic trouble | 1 | 1 | | 2 | 4 | 8
| | | | | | |
Lungs | Good | 138 | 5 | 20 | 36 | 58 | 257
| Tuberculosis | 3 | | | 2 | | 5
| Suspected | 6 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 16
| tuberculosis | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Feet | Good | 125 | 7 | 16 | 38 | 53 | 239
| Weak arches | 10 | | 1 | | 4 | 15
| Broken arches or | 12 | | 4 | 4 | 4 | 24
| flatfoot | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Enlarged thyroid | | 12 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 7 | 23
glands | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
Exophthalmic goiter | | 2 | | | | 2 | 4
| | | | | | |
Chorea | | 2 | | | 2 | 1 | 5
| | | | | | |
Needing corrective | | 5 | | 3 | 4 | 7 | 19
exercises | | | | | | |
| | | | | | |
--------------------+-------------------+-----+---+----+----+----+-------
A second examination of the same girls six months later shows gain in
weight, height, and general health; 125 had their teeth put in order;
six were treated for defective hearing; twenty had attended the Skin
Clinic; all had their eyes examined; eighty-six were fitted with
glasses. In twenty-five cases where the adenoids and tonsils were
removed the result was increase in weight, better breathing and heart
action, alertness of mind, and a noticeable improvement in trade work.
Where the obstructions of nose and throat still remain there is loss in
weight and diminished chest expansion and a generally weakened
condition. The extraction of decayed teeth and the providing of
well-fitting glasses have diminished nervous irritability and the
frequency of headaches. Three cases of tuberculosis were sent to camps.
Seven cases of organic heart trouble were treated by specialists;
nineteen girls were given corrective exercises at Teachers College; two
were fitted with shoes and braces; two were put into plaster jackets,
one for lateral rotary curvature and one for neuritis; and one advanced
case of chorea has been placed in the hospital. Of the girls whose
records are given in the list it can be said that, with the exception of
the cripples and a few others needing simple operations, a year's care
shows that very few of them are in any way handicapped by the effects of
disease.
PHYSICAL EDUCATION COURSE
I. Gymnastics:
1. Elementary: 3 thirty-minute periods a week. (1) Swedish floor
work for general posture; (2) Work in control of breathing; (3)
Marching tactics for form and accuracy; (4) Light apparatus work:
(_a_) Wands, (_b_) Dumb-bells, (_c_) Indian clubs; (5) Heavy
apparatus for coördination; (6) Simple dances and rhythm work for
grace and poise; (7) Simple plays and games.
2. Advanced: 2 forty-five-minute periods a week. (1) Gymnastic
dances containing more than three figures; (2) Swedish and Danish
weaving dances in correlation with study of textiles (Academic
Department); (3) Folk dances of Sweden and Russia for form; (4)
Modern athletic dances for grace and poise; (5) Athletic
Competition: (_a_) Running and jumping, (_b_) Relay and obstacle
races, (_c_) Hockey and basket ball.
3. Special corrective work for spinal trouble or poor position: (1)
General floor work for mobility; (2) Free-hand work: (_a_) Single
assistive and resistive exercises, (_b_) Hanging exercises with and
without assistance, (_c_) Work with iron dumb-bells.
II. Hygiene: Talks on hygiene are a regular part of the work, and aim to
give each girl a knowledge of her body and of its functions that will
enable her to care for her health in an intelligent manner and to
establish in her mind ideals of correct living which can be made
practical in her surroundings.
1. _Personal Hygiene_: (1) Brief survey of the body as a whole; (2)
The use of the mouth, nose, larynx, trachea, and lungs in breathing;
(3) Care of nose and throat: (_a_) The nose as a source of
infection, (_b_) Dangers of enlarged tonsils and adenoids, (_c_)
Treatment of colds; (4) Structure and care of the teeth. (5) The
Digestive System: (_a_) Organs directly concerned, and (_b_) Their
care, (_c_) Disorders of the Digestive System; (6) The Nervous
System, Brain, and Spinal Cord; (7) The Skin, (_a_) Structure and
Use, (_b_) Hygiene of Skin; (8) Heart and Blood Vessels; (9) The
Hair; (10) The Ears; (11) The Eyes; (12) The Feet; (13) The Hygiene
of Clothes.
2. _Domestic Hygiene_: Construction and furnishing of Home: (_a_)
Internal arrangement, walls, and coverings, (_b_) Ventilation, (_c_)
Heating, (_d_) Lighting, (_e_) Water Supply, (_f_) Plumbing and
Drainage, (_g_) Toilet rooms, (_h_) Disposal of Garbage and Ashes,
(_i_) House Cleaning, sweeping, dusting, cleaning, and use of
disinfectants.
3. _Foods_: (1) Nutritive value of foods; (2) Purity of food
materials; (3) Cooking--Cooking utensils; (4) Planning of meals.
4. _Diseases_: (1) Causes and Transmission; (2) Contagious diseases,
care, prevention; (3) Hygiene of sick room; (4) Insects and vermin;
(5) Infectious diseases.
Transcriber's Note:
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note.
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