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Approximately 85 per cent of the boys and slightly less than 60 per cent of the girls between the ages of 16 and 21 are at work. In the next age group--21 to 45--given by the census, 98 per cent of the men are at work, but the proportion of women employed in gainful occupations drops to 26 per cent, or about one in four; in the next age group--45 and over--it falls to about 12 per cent, as compared with 85 per cent of the men. Of the women still at work in the older age group, over one-half are engaged in domestic and personal service as servants, laundresses, housekeepers, etc.
TABLE 14.--NUMBER EMPLOYED IN THE PRINc.i.p.aL WAGE-EARNING OCCUPATIONS AMONG EACH 1,000 WOMEN FROM 16 TO 21 YEARS OF AGE
Manufacturing and mechanical industries: Apprentices to dressmakers and milliners 4 Dressmakers and seamstresses (not in factory) 20 Milliners and millinery dealers 17 Semi-skilled operatives: Candy factories 6 Cigar and tobacco factories 15 Electrical supply factories 10 Knitting mills 11 Printing and publis.h.i.+ng 8 Woolen and worsted mills: Weavers 5 Other occupations 7 Sewers and sewing machine operators (factory) 53 Tailoresses 25
Transportation: Telephone operators 19
Trade: Clerks in stores 28 Saleswomen (stores) 35
Professional service: Musicians and teachers of music 6 Teachers (school) 4
Domestic and personal service: Charwomen and cleaners 5 Laundry operatives 13 Servants 81 Waitresses 9
Clerical occupations: Bookkeepers, cas.h.i.+ers, and accountants 26 Clerks (except clerks in stores) 20 Stenographers and typewriters 62
The occupations in which the girls now in the public schools will later engage can be determined with a relative degree of accuracy by employing a method in general similar to that utilized in forecasting the occupations of boys. It must be taken into account, however, that the wage-earning period for women, except in the professional occupations, usually begins before the age of 21. For this reason the 16 to 21 age group probably offers the best basis for determining the future occupational distribution of girls in school. If all women at work up to the age of 25 were included the figures would be more nearly exact, but unfortunately data for the period between 21 and 25 are not available. The figures at the right of Table 14 show the number engaged in each specified occupation among each thousand women in the city between the ages of 16 and 21. The proportions given for the professional occupations, particularly teaching, are too small, because of the fact that few women enter the professions before the age of 21.
Applying these proportions to the average elementary school unit, it will be seen at once that the number of girls old enough to profit by special training is too small in any single occupation to form a cla.s.s of workable size. In such a school there would be about 80 girls 12 years old and over. Of the skilled occupations listed in the table stenography and typewriting offers the largest field of employment, yet the number who are likely to take up this kind of work does not exceed five or six.
DIFFERENTIATION IN THE JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL
The organization of the junior high school, where the enrollment is made up entirely of older pupils, obviates this difficulty to some extent. Instead of 80 girls there are from 300 to 500, with a corresponding increase in the number who will enter any given wage-earning occupation.
Not less than one-eighth and probably not more than one-fifth of these girls will become needleworkers of some kind. They will need a more practical and intensive training in the fundamentals of sewing than is now provided by the household arts course. The skill required in trade work cannot be obtained in the amount of time now devoted to this subject. It should be made possible for a girl who expects to make a living with her needle to elect a thoroughly practical course in sewing in which the aim is to prepare for wage earning rather than merely to teach the girl how to make and mend her own garments. As proficiency in trade sewing requires first of all ample opportunity for practice, provision should be made for extending the time now given to sewing for those girls who wish to become needle workers.
This can easily be done through the system of electives now in use.
The establishment of cla.s.ses in power machine operating during the junior high school period appears to be impracticable, due to the immaturity of the girls and the small number who could profit by such instruction.
A discussion of the present sewing courses in the public schools will be found in Chapters XIV and XV, which summarize the special reports on the Garment Trades and Dressmaking and Millinery. In the present chapter the consideration of these occupations is limited to an examination of the administrative questions connected with training for the sewing trades.
SPECIALIZED TRAINING FOR THE SEWING TRADES
The compulsory attendance law requires all girls to attend school until they are 16 years old. This forces a considerable number into the high schools for one or two years before they go to work. As a rule the type of girl who is likely to enter the needle trades selects the technical high school course, not because she has any idea of finis.h.i.+ng it, but because she believes it offers a less tiresome way of getting through her last one or two years in school than the academic course. The technical course requires three and three-quarter hours a week of sewing during the first two years. The student may elect trade dressmaking and millinery during the third and fourth years.
Very few girls who can afford to spend four years in high school ever become dressmakers or factory operatives. If the school system is to do anything of direct vocational value for them it will have to begin further down. Most of them leave school before the age of 17 and the years between 14 and 16 represent the last chance the school will have to give them any direct aid towards preparation for immediate wage-earning.
For successful work in machine operating the cla.s.s must be large enough to warrant the purchase and operation of sufficient equipment to give the pupils an opportunity for intensive practice. The only way this condition can be secured is by concentrating in large groups the girls who need such training. Little will be accomplished in training for the sewing trades without specialization, and specialization in small administrative units is impossible. The teaching and operating cost in a school enrolling, say 200 girls, who want the same kind of work, can be brought within reasonable bounds. In a school where the total number who need specialized training does not exceed 10 or 15 the cost is prohibitive.
In the opinion of the Survey Staff a one or two year vocational course in the sewing trades should be established. The entrance age should not be less than 15. Courses should be provided for intensive work in trade dressmaking, power machine operating, and trade millinery. A conservative estimate of the number of girls who could be expected to enroll for courses in these subjects is 500. A trade school might be established where only this type of vocational training would be carried on, or it might be conducted in the same building with the trade courses for boys recommended in a previous chapter. In either case the number of pupils would be sufficient to warrant up-to-date equipment and a corps of specially trained teachers.
Training for the sewing trades consumes more material than any other kind of vocational training. For this reason economical administration requires some arrangement for marketing the product. During the latter part of the course the school should be able to turn out first-cla.s.s work. The familiarity with trade standards the pupils obtain through practice on garments which must meet the exacting demands of the buying public has a distinct educational value. The Manhattan Trade School for Girls in New York City and other successful schools in the country operate on this basis. There is reason to believe that there would be little difficulty in making arrangements with the clothing manufacturers in Cleveland to furnish a good trade school as much contract work as the cla.s.ses could handle.
OTHER OCCUPATIONS
From one-fourth to one-fifth of the girls in the school will later enter employment in commercial and clerical occupations, as stenographers, typists, clerks, cas.h.i.+ers, bookkeepers, saleswomen, and so on. Their needs will be considered in Chapters XII and XIII, in which the findings of the special reports on Boys and Girls in Commercial Work and Department Store Occupations are summarized.
A relatively small number will become semi-skilled operatives in industrial establishments, such as job printing houses, knitting mills, and factories making electrical supplies, metal products, and so on. As a rule such work requires only a small amount of manual skill or deftness. Not much training is needed and it can be given quickly and effectively in the factories.
About one-ninth of the girls in the school will enter paid domestic or personal service of some kind. The household arts courses probably meet the needs of girls who may be employed in such occupations as far as they can be met under present conditions. The woman domestic servant occupies about the same social level as the male common laborer, and a course which openly sets out to train girls to be servants is not likely to prosper. The load of social stigma such work carries is too heavy. At some time in the future it may be possible to ignore the traditional and universal att.i.tude of our public toward the so-called menial occupations sufficiently to consider training servants. At present such a possibility seems remote.
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