Wage Earning and Education Part 10

Trimmers and a.s.sorters learn their work as helpers to experienced employees. A year or so of experience is required before they can be entrusted with responsible work.

Foremen are selected from the working force or, in a few cases, trained especially for their positions. Although there are few opportunities each year for advancement to foremanship, employers declare they cannot get enough persons of ability to fill vacancies. A study of the previous experience of foremen and forewomen made by the survey shows that they come from nearly every department of the factory. The length of previous experience among the cases studied ranged from three months to nine years.

EDUCATIONAL NEEDS

The quality which proprietors of garment making establishments value above all others in their employees is adaptability. The reason for this is that the manufacturing of clothing differs from almost all other kinds of industrial work in the frequency with which changes take place in the size and shape of the product and in the range of materials which must be handled by the same workers. There is an annual change in the weight of cloth used for the different seasons, from light to heavy and from heavy to light. The size and shape of the pieces which compose the finished garment are determined by changes in style which vary from the minor modifications occurring yearly in men's clothing to the radical changes in the style of women's clothing. A wide variety of fabrics is employed, ranging from thick to thin, smooth to rough, closely woven to loosely woven and from plain weave to fancy weave. In one season a single establishment will make garments from as many as 200 different fabrics, and each operator is likely to work upon 60 or more different kinds of cloth.

In view of the fact that many of the workers are foreigners or of foreign parentage, and that the frequent changes in styles and materials require the giving of detailed instructions by foremen, instruction in English is of more importance in the garment trades than in occupations where there is a larger proportion of native born and where the products and processes are more uniformly standardized.

All clothing workers should have a practical knowledge of the fundamental operations of arithmetic. Where the piece and section systems are in operation it is important for the worker to keep account of what she has accomplished and to know enough arithmetic to check her own record with the tally kept by the foreman or payroll girl. Some of the occupations, such as cutting, involve a considerable amount of arithmetical computation.

As in other trades, all workers and prospective workers need a general knowledge of industrial conditions. They would greatly benefit from a better understanding of the supply of labor, factors affecting prices, organization of workers, industrial legislation, the relative importance of the field of employment in different industries, the nature of important industrial processes, and the like. At the present time there is little opportunity for gaining such information either before entering any specific line of work or afterwards.

For certain small groups within the clothing industry there are needs in the way of technical training that are important and at present unsupplied. Training in applied mathematics, drafting and design would be of benefit to a considerable number of employees who are occupying or working towards advanced positions.

A large proportion of the women workers need skill in hand sewing.

Before girls enter the industry they should have careful and systematic training in plain sewing st.i.tches, sewing on b.u.t.tons and other fasteners, and b.u.t.ton hole making.

Machine operating is the most important occupation in the industry, and employs more women than any other occupation in the city, except perhaps dressmaking. After a careful study of the characteristics of this occupation and the various conditions affecting it, the survey reached the conclusion that there should be established by the school system a trade course for prospective power machine operators.

SEWING COURSES IN THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

In the elementary schools manual training sewing is given in the fifth and sixth grades. It consists of one hour a week of hand sewing taught by a regular grade teacher or sometimes by teachers of domestic science or other special subjects. The aim is to give the girls a knowledge of practical sewing which may be of use to them in the home.

In five of the elementary schools hand and machine sewing is taught by special sewing teachers. About four per cent of all the seventh and eighth grade girls in the elementary schools receive this instruction.

In the technical high schools the sewing course covers four years work. During the first two years all girls are required to take plain hand and machine sewing three and three-quarter hours a week. In the third and fourth years they may elect either millinery or dressmaking, and special courses in these subjects are provided for girls who wish to prepare for trade work. The aim of the sewing course as stated in the outline of the East Technical High School is "(1) Preparation for efficiency in the selection of the materials used in sewing and the construction of articles relating to the home and family sewing: (2) laying the foundation for courses in college, normal school, or business school." A two year elective course in sewing is provided in the academic high school as a part of the home economic course. The aim of this sewing, which is called domestic art, is stated thus: "Problem--my personal appearance is one of my chief a.s.sets. What can I do to improve it?" Dressmaking and millinery cla.s.ses are conducted in the night technical high schools to teach girls how to make their own clothes and hats.

The manual training sewing in the fifth and sixth grades cannot be considered as furnishing any important contribution in the training of those who will make their living in the sewing trades. Much the same must be said of the work in the technical high schools. It is taught not for the purpose of securing quick, accurate hand or machine st.i.tching, but to enable the girls to make a few garments for their personal use. Due to the fact that very few of the girls who become wage earners in these trades remain in school after the completion of the elementary course it is doubtful whether the technical high school offers a hopeful field for practical training. The work in the elementary schools is so hampered by lack of equipment that the results, from the standpoint of trade preparation, amount to very little.

ELECTIVE SEWING COURSES IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

The reduction of r.e.t.a.r.dation all through the grades is of fundamental importance to any plan of vocational training. The age of 15 is the final compulsory attendance age for girls, and those who enter at six and seven and make regular progress should be in the first or second high school year by the time they reach this age. Last year there were, however, 1,170 fifteen-year-old girls in the Cleveland schools who were from one to seven grades below normal. Instead of being in the high school, they were scattered from the second grade to the eighth, and they const.i.tuted more than half of all the girls of that age in the school system. It is clear that unless the schools can carry them through more nearly on schedule time there is no hope of providing industrial training for a large proportion of them, because they reach the end of the compulsory period before entering the grades in which industrial training can be given effectively and economically.

The report recommends that during the junior high school period girls who expect to enter the sewing trades should be given work in mechanical drawing, elementary science, industrial conditions, elementary mechanics and hand and machine sewing. The fundamentals of sewing can be thoroughly taught in two years. The work during the first year might well be limited to hand sewing. Machine sewing should be taken up in the second year, and the girls given an opportunity during the third year to specialize somewhat broadly in a trade school on the kind of work in which they may wish to engage--power operating, dressmaking, or millinery.

A ONE YEAR TRADE COURSE FOR GIRLS

Specialized training must be conducted under conditions closely resembling those found in the industry. This involves equipment similar to that used in the factory, an ample supply of materials, and a corps of teachers who have had practical experience. It might seem that on the score of adequate equipment the factory itself would be the place for such training. But the fact is that the main object of the factory is to turn out as large a quant.i.ty as possible of saleable product. In the school the main object should be to turn out as large a quant.i.ty of saleable skill and knowledge as possible, with the saleable product as a secondary, although necessary, feature.

The junior high school is not the place for specialized trade training, since it is reasonably certain that there would not be a sufficient number of girls in each junior high school desiring to enter a single trade to warrant the provision of special equipment and special teachers. For this reason the report favors a trade course in a separate school plant where girls who wish to specialize in any of the sewing trades can be taught in fairly large cla.s.ses. The work done during the past few years in such inst.i.tutions as the Boston Trade School for Girls and the Manhattan Trade School for Girls in New York City gives evidence of the practicability of this plan.

TRADE-EXTENSION TRAINING

The only instruction offered by the public school system at the present time which can be considered as trade-extension training for the garment industries is that given in the sewing cla.s.ses in the technical night schools. The enrollment in these cla.s.ses during the second term of 1915-16 was 229. Only a small proportion of the girls and women enrolled in the night sewing cla.s.ses make their living by sewing. The students employed by day in clothing factories or in any of the sewing trades const.i.tute somewhat less than 15 per cent of the total number enrolled. Nearly half of the enrollment is made up of workers in commercial, clerical or professional pursuits and approximately one-third are not employed in any gainful occupation.

In both technical night schools the emphasis is laid on training for home sewing rather than on training for wage earning. The courses now given are not planned for workers in the garment trades, but to help women and girls who want to learn how to make, alter, and repair their own garments.

If a trade school of the kind described in the previous section were established it would be possible to give at night short unit courses in machine or hand sewing to those workers who wish to extend their experience and prepare themselves for advancement, utilizing in the night cla.s.ses the equipment of the day school. It is probable also that special day cla.s.ses could be organized during the dull season to give beginners the opportunity to learn new processes and extend their knowledge of trade theory.

CHAPTER XV

SUMMARY OF REPORT ON DRESSMAKING AND MILLINERY

At the time of the last census the total number of women in Cleveland employed as milliners or dressmakers was approximately 5,000, of whom about seven-tenths were dressmakers and about three-tenths milliners.

For the most part they were of native birth. The proportion of young girls engaged in these occupations was relatively small, the age distribution showing that only about one-third of the milliners and less than one-fifth of the dressmakers were under 21 years of age.

DRESSMAKING

Four distinctive lines of work are done by those who are cla.s.sified by the census as dressmakers and seamstresses: dressmaking proper, usually carried on in shops; alteration work in stores; general sewing done by seamstresses at home or in the homes of customers; and the work of the so-called dressmaking "school," in which the dressmaker helps her customers do their general sewing.

Shop dressmaking is in the main confined to the making of afternoon and evening gowns and fancy blouses. Nearly uniform processes of work are maintained and the workers in the different establishments need about the same kinds of abilities and degrees of skill. There is a strong and increasing tendency towards specialization of the work.

Among each 100 workers in dressmaking shops about 13 are head girls, 55 are finishers or makers, 16 are helpers, eight are apprentices, and the rest are lining makers, cutters, embroiderers, errand girls, shoppers, and stock girls.

Alteration work const.i.tutes a separate sewing trade and consists of the adjustment of ready-made garments to individual peculiarities. It furnishes employment to several hundred workers in Cleveland.

The weekly wages most commonly paid to each cla.s.s of workers in dressmaking shops may be roughly stated as follows: apprentices, $2 to $4; helpers $6 to $9; finishers or makers $10 to $12; and drapers $18 to $20. Lining making, done in most shops by apprentices or helpers, pays from $4 to $6 a week. In one shop a specialist on linings received $12. Women cutters, found in two shops, and doing supervisory work similar to that done by drapers, earned from $15 to $25.

Hemst.i.tchers earn $10 to $14 and a guimpe maker in one shop earned $12. Errand girls were found at $3 and $6; stock girls at $8, $12, and $13; and shoppers at from $3.50 to $10.

Beginners in alteration departments are started at from $5 to $7.

Regular alteration hands earn from $7 to $18, the average being $9 or $10. Fitters earn about the same as drapers in dressmaking shops, averaging from $15 to $18, with a range of from $10 to $25.

As a rule comparatively little time is lost through irregularity of employment. Workers average from 10 to 11 months' work out of the year. Establishments usually close during the month of August and for one or two weeks in the spring. Workers in alteration department average 11 months of work. Dress alteration work is steady, while suit and coat alteration is irregular.

Apprenticeship in dressmaking comprehends a trying-out period of from six months to a year. Most shops take apprentices, the proportion in the trade being one to every 12 workers; and an effort is made to keep these new workers if they are at all satisfactory. There is no standardized apprenticeship wage. Girls may serve without pay for six months, or may start at from 50 cents to $4 a week. At the end of six months they may be earning from $1.50 to $6. The lack of any wage standard in apprenticeship probably accounts for the fact that it is difficult to get girls to enter this trade.

MILLINERY

Millinery requires the handling of small pieces of the most varied sorts of material, most of it perishable. The materials must be measured, cut, turned, twisted, and draped into innumerable designs and color combinations, and sewed with various kinds of st.i.tching.

The main processes are making, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and designing. Making consists in fashioning a specified shape from wire or buckram and covering it with such materials as straw or velvet. The covering may be put on plain, or may be shirred or draped. Tr.i.m.m.i.n.g consists in placing and sewing on all sorts of decorative materials. A combination of the two processes of making and tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, known as copying, consists in making a hat from the beginning exactly like a specified model. Designing is the creation of original models.

The increase in the use of the factory-made hat has decreased the number of workers in custom millinery, and has also had an effect in diverting business from small retail shops to millinery departments in stores. The number of millinery workers constantly fluctuates, not only from season to season, but from year to year. According to a close estimate not more than 2,000 workers were actually engaged in millinery occupations during the busiest part of 1915. Between 1,200 and 1,400 were in retail shops; about 300 were in millinery departments in stores; and about 300 more were in wholesale houses.

The data collected indicate that the wages of workers in retail shops are lower in general than the wages of workers in millinery departments in stores and in wholesale houses. Makers in retail shops earn from $3 to $16 a week, the average being about $8. Trimmers earn from $10 to $40, with an average of about $18. Out of 45 retail shops, only 22 paid as high as $10 to any maker; 15 paid as high as $12; six paid as high as $15; and only one paid over $15.

In millinery departments in stores, trimmers, who are generally designers, earn from $15 to $50 a week or more. The rate most commonly received is $25. Makers are started at from $4 to $6 and may advance to $15, with an average of about $10.

In wholesale houses designers earn from $25 to $60, or more. Makers start at about $5, and the usual range is from $10 to $15. Those employed in straight copying may earn between $15 and $20. The 1914 report of the Industrial Commission of Ohio presents data showing that of the women 18 years of age and over employed in wholesale houses 37 per cent receive under $8, about 22 per cent receive between $8 and $12, while 41 per cent receive $12 and over. The girls under 18 years of age were, with one exception, receiving less than $4 per week.