VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR GIRLS
The discussions in the preceding chapters have been limited
intentionally to a consideration of the needs and possibilities of
training for wage-earning pursuits in which men predominate. The
conditions which surround vocational training for girls are so
fundamentally unlike those encountered in the vocational training of
boys that a combined treatment leads to needless complexity and
confusion.
Cleveland uses a relatively smaller amount of woman labor than most
other large cities. In only one of the 10 largest cities in the
country--Pittsburgh--is the proportion of women and girls at work
smaller as compared with the total number of persons in gainful
occupations than in Cleveland. In 1900, 20.4 per cent of the workers
in the city were women; by 1910 the proportion of women workers had
increased to 22 per cent, a shift of less than two per cent for the
decade.
A consideration of the occupational future of boys and girls shows at
once how widely their problems differ. The typical boy in Cleveland
attends school until he reaches the age of 15 or 16. About this period
he becomes a wage-earner and for the next 30 or 40 years devotes most
of his time and energy to making a living. The typical girl leaves
school about the same time, becomes a wage-earner for a few years,
then marries and spends the rest of her life keeping house and rearing
children. To the man wage-earning is the real business of life. To the
woman it is a means for filling in the gap between school and
marriage, a little journey into the world previous to settling down to
her main job.
The most radical and important difference between the two sexes with
respect to wage-earning is found in the length of the working life.
The transitory character of the wage-earning phase in the life of most
women is clearly seen in the contrasted age distribution shown in
Table 13.
TABLE 13.--PER CENT OF TOTAL POPULATION ENGAGED IN GAINFUL OCCUPATIONS
DURING THREE DIFFERENT AGE PERIODS
----------------------+-------------+------------+
Age period | Women | Men |
----------------------+-------------+------------+
16 to 21 | 60 | 85 |
21 to 45 | 26 | 98 |
45 and over | 12 | 85 |
----------------------+-------------+------------+
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 PRINCIPAL 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 publishing 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, cashiers, 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 class
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 classes 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
finishing 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 class 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-class
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 classes 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, cashiers, 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 attitude of our public toward the
so-called menial occupations sufficiently to consider training
servants. At present such a possibility seems remote.