The Making of a Trade School Part 1

The Making of a Trade School.

by Mary Schenck Woolman.

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 h.e.l.lman, Mrs. Anna Garlin Spencer, Mrs. Henry Ollesheimer; Treasurer, Mr. J. G. Phelps Stokes; Secretary, Mr. John L. Eliot; a.s.sistant 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 apprentices.h.i.+p 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 a.s.sumed the responsibility of providing an economic instruction in the practical work of various trades, thus supplying them with capable a.s.sistants. Hence its purpose differed not only from the more general instruction of the usual technical inst.i.tution, 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 s.h.i.+ft 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 apt.i.tude 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 cla.s.s. 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 cla.s.ses 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 munic.i.p.al 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 st.i.tches a minute. She a.s.sists a busy worker on men's s.h.i.+rts, 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 pa.s.s 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. Ill.u.s.trations of these employments are wrapping braid, sorting silk, running errands, tying fringe, taking out and putting in b.u.t.tons in a laundry, dipping candy, a.s.sorting 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 munic.i.p.al aid, and it was known that the experiment must be costly, for: (1) A trade school must be open all the year for day cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ft 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): s.h.i.+rtwaists, 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 st.i.tch, hemst.i.tching, b.u.t.tonhole, 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 ap.r.o.ns, 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): Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs 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 cla.s.ses for girls who are from fourteen to seventeen years of age and who can show their working papers or be able to produce doc.u.mentary 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.