SUMMARY OF REPORT ON THE GARMENT TRADES
The clothing industry in Cleveland has grown very rapidly in recent
years. During the 10 year period from 1900-10 the number of persons
employed in the industry increased approximately 100 per cent. This
increase was much greater than the increase throughout the country as
a whole and was more than twice as large as the increase in the
population of the city. There is every indication that this rapid
growth is still continuing. It is estimated that approximately 10,000
workers are employed in the industry at the present time.
The distribution of men and women in the industry is most interesting.
The making of men's garments has been more fully standardized and is
subject to fewer changes than the making of women's garments. In this
standardized and systematized branch of the industry the women now
outnumber the men. In the manufacture of women's garments, where the
styles change more frequently and the work is of a more varied
character, more men than women are employed.
The methods of work are of three general types: The old tailoring
system known as "team work," or a slight modification of it; piece
operating; and section work. Under the team system, used extensively
in the making of women's coats, a head tailor hires his own helpers
(operators and finishers), supervises them and pays them by the week
out of the lump sum he receives for the garments from the clothing
establishment. Under the piece operating system each operator sews up
all the seams on one "piece," or garment, and each finisher does all
the hand sewing on one garment. Each operator and each finisher is an
independent worker. The whole body of finishers keeps pace with the
whole body of operators. Piece operating is used almost entirely in
dress and skirt making, and to some extent in coat making. The section
system is based on the subdivision of processes into a number of minor
operations. The workers are divided into groups, each group making a
certain part of the garment. The various operations are divided into
as many minor operations as the number of workers and quantity and
kind of materials will warrant. Each of these minor operations is
performed by operators who do nothing else. This specialization has
been carried to a high degree in the manufacture of men's clothing,
and section work is increasingly used on women's coats.
CHARACTERISTICS OF THE WORKING FORCE
One of the objects of the study was to find how many positions there
are for men and women in each occupation in the industry. Through the
coöperation of employers data were obtained from the records of 50
establishments employing a total of 8,337 garment workers,
approximately four-fifths of the total number in the city. The
distribution of workers by sex in the various occupations is shown in
Diagram 7. The apportioning of work to the two sexes seems to depend
partly upon the weight of materials and partly upon previous training.
The men are mostly foreign born tailors who have had the kind of
training necessary for the more complicated work. The women are
largely American born of foreign parentage, trained in American shops
and employed chiefly upon operations that may be learned in a
relatively short time. Cutting and pressing are practically
monopolized by men. Nearly all hand sewers are women, except for a few
basters on men's clothing. Most designers are men, although a few
women designers are found in dress and waist shops.
In the largest trade,--machine operating,--about two-thirds of the
workers are women. In no trade in which both sexes are employed is the
difference in their work more apparent. The weight of materials
decides to some extent the division of operating between men and
women. Some employers are of the opinion that garments made of such
thick materials as plush, corduroys, and cheviots are too heavy to be
manipulated under needle machinery by women and consequently employ
only men operators. Where light weight materials are used, as in the
manufacture of dresses and waists, delicacy in handling is required,
and nearly all the operators are women.
[Illustration: Diagram 7.--Distribution of 8,337 clothing workers by
sex in the principal occupations in the garment industry]
Four-fifths of the men and two-fifths of the women employed in the
industry are of foreign birth and the majority of the native born
workers are of foreign parentage. There is an increasing demand for
workers who understand English, due to the fact that they are able to
follow directions more intelligently.
There are relatively few workers under the age of 18. Many firms will
employ no one under this age because of various complications which
arise in connection with the age and schooling certification of girls
between the ages of 16 and 18. Of 25 women's clothing factories
visited during the Survey only nine had any workers under 18.
According to the report of the Industrial Commission of Ohio for 1914
only eight per cent of the workers employed in making men's clothing,
and less than two per cent of the workers employed in making women's
clothing were under 18 years of age.
EARNINGS
In general the wages paid in garment making compare favorably with
those of other manufacturing industries. This is particularly true
with respect to the earnings of women workers. A considerably larger
proportion of the women employed in the garment industry earn what may
be considered high wages for industrial workers than in any of the
larger factory industries of the city. This is clearly shown in
Diagram 8 which lists nine of the principal fields of industrial
employment for women. The proportions of women receiving under $8 a
week are lower in men's and women's clothing than in the other seven
industries. In the proportion of women receiving $12 and over, women's
clothing ranks first and men's clothing third.
[Illustration: Diagram 8.--Percentage of women in men's and women's
clothing and seven other important women employing industries
receiving under $8, $8 to $12, and $12 and over per week.]
The comparison of the wages paid men employees shown in Diagram 9 is
somewhat less favorable. Women's clothing ranks with printing and
publishing as to the proportion of male workers receiving the highest
specified earnings per week. Men's clothing ranks sixth among the
industries compared.
The various kinds of work do not command fixed wage rates, as do many
other types of industrial employment. Quantity of output as well as
quality of workmanship is an important factor in the determination of
wages. Men generally turn out a greater output than women on the same
kind of work and piece workers usually earn more than those paid by
the week. The lowest, average, and highest wages for each of the
principal occupations in the two branches of the industry are shown in
Tables 16 and 17.
One reason often given for the higher earnings received by workers on
women's garments is the greater irregularity of employment in this
branch of the industry. This, however, does not sufficiently account
for the difference. The most weighty reason is that a higher degree of
adaptability is required of workers than is the case in the
manufacture of men's clothing.
[Illustration: Diagram 9.--Percentage of men in men's and women's
clothing and seven other manufacturing industries receiving under $18,
$18 to $25, and $25 and over per week]
TABLE 16.--WAGES FOR FULL-TIME WORKING WEEK, WOMEN'S CLOTHING,
CLEVELAND, 1915
---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+
Workers | Lowest | Average | Highest |
---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+
Assorters, women | $6.00 | $8.75 | $14.00 |
Hand sewers, women | 6.00 | 10.00 | 20.00 |
Trimming girls | 7.00 | 10.25 | 15.00 |
Operators,* women | 6.00 | 12.00 | 30.00 |
Sample makers, women | 10.00 | 12.75 | 15.00 |
Examiners, women | 8.00 | 13.50 | 18.00 |
Models, suit and cloak | 10.00 | 15.25 | 21.00 |
Forewomen | 9.00 | 16.25 | 25.00 |
Operators,* men | 7.00 | 17.75 | 50.00 |
Pressers, men | 9.00 | 18.25 | 35.00 |
Cutters,§ men | 8.00 | 19.25 | 30.00 |
Pattern graders, suit and cloak, men | 13.00 | 22.00 | 27.50 |
Sample makers, men | 13.00 | 22.50 | 25.00 |
Examiners, men | 16.00 | 25.00 | 45.00 |
Head tailors, men | 18.00 | 25.00 | ... |
Foremen | 14.00 | 30.00 | 75.00 |
---------------------------------------+--------+----------+---------+
*: Includes piece and section operators and helpers to head tailors
§: Includes all cutters except foremen, apprentices, and pattern graders
TABLE 17.--AVERAGE WAGES FOR FULL-TIME WORKING WEEK FOR SIMILAR
WORKERS, MEN'S AND WOMEN'S CLOTHING, CLEVELAND, 1915
---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
Workers | Men's | Women's |
| clothing | clothing |
---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
Hand sewers, women | $9.50 | $10.00 |
Section operators, women | 9.25 | 11.25 |
Examiners, women | 7.00 | 13.50 |
Section operators, men | 16.50 | 15.25 |
Pressers, under | 12.00 | 15.75 |
Forewomen | 11.00 | 16.25 |
Pressers, upper | 18.50 | 19.50 |
Cutters, cloth | 18.75 | 20.00 |
Examiners, men | 17.75 | 25.00 |
Foremen | 29.25 | 30.00 |
---------------------------------------+--------------+--------------+
REGULARITY OF EMPLOYMENT
The making of women's clothing is seasonal, to meet a seasonal
purchasing demand. Most people purchase their summer clothes in April
and May, and their winter clothes in October and November. During the
months previous to these purchasing seasons a large number of workers
are needed, but after the height of the purchasing period employment
becomes less and less steady until the first demands of the new season
are felt. During the rush season a greater number of workers is
employed, or the output may be augmented by increasing the speed at
which the work is performed or the number of hours in the working day.
A combination of these methods is frequently used. During dull periods
the workers may be busy from a few hours a week to full working time;
while in rush periods they may work not only the regular working
hours, but in addition a good deal of over-time.
Compared with other manufacturing industries as regards regularity of
employment men's clothing makes an excellent showing while women's
clothing ranks low. In Diagram 10 the average number of unemployed
among each 100 workers is shown for men's and women's clothing and for
15 other large manufacturing industries in the city. Men's clothing
leads the list, with an average unemployment of four among each 100
workers, while women's clothing ranks 14th, with 15 among each 100.
TRAINING AND PROMOTION
Designers learn their work through apprenticeships to custom tailors
and cutters and by taking supplementary courses in drafting and
grading of patterns in a designing school. Most designers in
Cleveland have had training in designing schools in New York or
Chicago.
[Illustration: Diagram 10.--The black portions of the bars show the
average number of unemployed among each 100 workers in men's clothing,
women's clothing and 15 other specified industries]
With but few exceptions organized training for machine operating is
found only in the largest establishments. There is general agreement
among employers that it takes a girl who has never operated a machine
before about four weeks to learn an easy operation well enough to be
taken on at regular piece rates. A much longer time is required to
become a first class worker on a single operation, and to acquire
skill in a group of operations takes from one to two years.
Girls are not usually employed as hand sewers unless they know how to
do plain sewing. A girl who starts with this knowledge should be able
to learn factory sewing well enough to earn fair wages within from six
months to a year.
In cutting, which has a so-called apprenticeship lasting from two to
six years, there is no formal system of instruction. Boys must pick up
the trade from observation and practice. Beginners start as errand
boys, cloth boys, bundlers, or helpers.
Pressing is usually learned in cleaning and pressing shops. It takes
about eight weeks for a green hand to become a good seam presser. To
become a final presser on skirts and dresses requires from six months
to a year, and on jackets and cloaks from two to three years.
Examiners have usually had considerable previous experience as machine
operators or finishers. The length of experience depends on the kinds
of garments and ranges from three to eight years.
Trimmers and assorters 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 stitches, sewing on buttons and
other fasteners, and button 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 assets. What can I
do to improve it?" Dressmaking and millinery classes 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
stitching, 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 retardation 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 constituted 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 quantity as possible of
saleable product. In the school the main object should be to turn out
as large a quantity 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 classes. The work done
during the past few years in such institutions 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 classes in the
technical night schools. The enrollment in these classes during the
second term of 1915-16 was 229. Only a small proportion of the girls
and women enrolled in the night sewing classes make their living by
sewing. The students employed by day in clothing factories or in any
of the sewing trades constitute 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 classes the equipment of the day school. It is probable also
that special day classes could be organized during the dull season to
give beginners the opportunity to learn new processes and extend their
knowledge of trade theory.