compromise measures increased as the weeks wore on. However, seventeen
contracts were signed in these latter weeks which did not give the
union a voice in determining conditions of work of all workers in the
factory. During the ten weeks previous, contracts were signed which
covered all the workers in three hundred and twelve factories. Before
the strike every shop was “open” and in most of them there was not a
union worker. In thirteen short weeks three hundred and twelve shops
had been converted into “closed” or full union contract shops.
But the significance of the strike is not in the actual gain to the
shirtwaist makers of three hundred union shops, for there was great
weakness in the ranks of the opposition. Trade-union gains, moreover,
are measured by what an organization can hold rather than by what it
can immediately gain. The shirt-waist makers’ strike was characteristic
of all strikes in which women play an active part. It was marked by
complete self-surrender to a cause, emotional endurance, fearlessness
and entire willingness to face danger and suffering. The strike at
times seemed to be an expression of the woman’s movement rather than
the labor movement. This phase was emphasized by the wide expression
of sympathy which it drew from women outside the ranks of labor.
It was fortunate for strike purposes but otherwise unfortunate that the
press, in publishing accounts of the strike, treated the active public
expression of interest of a large body of women sympathizers with
sensational snobbery. It was a matter of wide public comment that women
of wealth should contribute sums of money to the strike, that they
should admit factory girls to exclusive club rooms, and should hold
mass meetings in their behalf. If, as was charged, any of the women
who entered the strike did so from sensational or personal motives,
they were disarmed when they came into contact with the strikers. Their
earnestness of purpose, their complete abandon to their cause, their
simple acceptance of outside interest and sympathy as though their
cause were the cause of all, was a bid for kinship that broke down all
barriers. Women who came to act as witnesses of the arrests around the
factories ended by picketing side by side with the strikers. These
volunteer pickets accepted, moreover, whatever rough treatment was
offered, and when arrested, asked for no favors that were not given the
strikers themselves.
The strike brought about adjustments in values as well as in
relationships. Before the strike was over federations of professional
women and women of leisure were endorsing organization for working
women, and individually these women were acknowledging the truth of
such observations as that made by one of the strikers on her return
from a visit to a private school where she had been invited to tell
about the strike. Her story of the strike led to questions in regard to
trade unions. On her return her comment was, “Oh they are lovely girls,
they are so kind--but I didn’t believe any girls could be so ignorant.”
The strike was an awakening for working women in many industries, and
it did more to give the women of the professions and the women of
leisure a new point of view and a realization of the necessity for
organization among working women than any other single event in the
history of the labor movement in this country.
VOCATIONAL TRAINING FOR WOMEN
SARAH LOUISE ARNOLD
Dean of Simmons College, Boston
Popular discussions of industrial training are rendered difficult by
the fact that the subject has as yet no fixed vocabulary. Professional
training, vocational training, industrial training, manual training,
are often used interchangeably. We shall use the phrase “vocational
training,” and shall understand it to include such education as aims
to secure efficiency in the occupation followed for self-maintenance,
whether such occupation be the merest task or the complex
administration of a business or a profession.
It is evident that such training involves education for general
intelligence, as well as technical training with a specific end in
view. It is also clear that the training may be brief and elementary if
the task is simple; the trade school, or apprenticeship, or even the
brief course of lessons given by another worker may suffice where the
work calls for little skill and involves little variety. As the task
grows in difficulty, requiring application of principles, demanding
judgment, broad experience, ability to deal with and to direct others,
the training must be proportionately increased. The demand for general
intelligence also grows correspondingly.
The instrument for vocational training, then, may be the shop, in which
knowledge of the art is handed along from one worker to another through
simple apprenticeship; or the trade school, in which a brief course
of instruction is given, with emphasis upon technical details and
swiftness of accomplishment; or the technical college, which provides
longer courses of instruction, combining academic and technical
programs, alternating the lecture room with the shop; or actual
apprenticeship in business; or professional training, superadded to the
ordinary program afforded by school and college.
Is vocational training necessary for women? As a matter of fact,
women are already in trades and professions. For years they have been
filling our factories, stores, offices and schools. We have made public
provision for the preparation of teachers, and many states likewise
train women for the practice of medicine. Hospitals have provided
training schools for nurses. In these fields some provision has been
made for the appropriate education of women for their work. Enough
experience has been accumulated to show that training for the vocation
is always beneficial, and usually essential.
The ordinary woman, however, has little specific training for the
most important work which she has to do in the world. It is left to
her mother alone to teach her how to maintain her home and to meet
the needs of her children. If the mother is ignorant, the daughter is
untaught, and a long train of evils follows in consequence. As this
matter concerns the general welfare the evils should be prevented, if
possible, by general education.
It is generally conceded that in preparing a girl for her work we have
to consider two vocations as probable or possible:--first, maintenance
of the home, with the care and rearing of children; second, the
vocation by which self-maintenance may be assured in the period before
she becomes a homemaker, or during the time when she is obliged to
support herself and her children. Since the first or major vocation
is essential to the general welfare it must always be linked with the
second or minor vocation. Therefore no work for woman can be urged or
defended which tends to lessen her efficiency in her major occupation.
Yet at this point we neither think nor speak clearly. Vocational
training for women would be less complex if their economic contribution
as homemakers were fairly considered. A woman is said to “earn her
living” only when she works outside her own home, receiving money for
her work. The moment her wage-earning power is transferred to her home
she is supposed to be dependent upon father or husband, no matter how
great the compensating service which she renders. A teacher earning
twelve hundred dollars a year resigns her position, marries, cares for
home, husband and children, transferring her income-earning power to
the duties required in the service of the household. Is she not still
self-supporting,--more than self-supporting? Out of the family income,
through her ability, knowledge and skill, she is enabled to save a fair
margin. If the family were bereft of her contribution the margin would
be quickly swallowed by wages paid to housekeeper, nurse, seamstress,
cook and others, who together fail to fill her place. Many a family
becomes a public charge when the mother dies. If it were possible to
fix according to some scale the economic value of woman’s contribution
in the home, it would immediately be evident that the training which
makes her a better and more efficient homemaker is of direct economic
advantage to the community. Vagueness of preparation would probably
disappear with clearer understanding of the relation of her work to the
public good.
One of the first principles of vocational training for women, then, is
that such training should insure greater ability, judgment and skill in
the major vocation, thus securing the intelligent maintenance of the
home. The second principle, or corollary, is that the minor vocation
should be so conducted as not to interfere with the fulfilment of the
first or major task.
The need of vocational training for women presses most heavily
where self-support is imperative in early years. Discussion of the
subject may be clouded by the fact that the obvious need varies
widely--according to the opportunity and environment of the group
under discussion. For the sake of clearness, then, we will consider
three groups. In the first group we count the young girls who are
forced to leave school at the earliest possible or permitted age in
order to engage in some specific occupation for self-support or to
assist in the support of the family. In this large company we find most
of the daughters of recent immigrants, as well as many other girls
whose families have very limited means, or who have suffered stress
through illness or other unusual hardship. The farm, the factory, the
office, the store, are already employing these girls in large numbers,
unskilled in the beginning and often, except as to some small task,
unskilled in the end.
Should such girls be deprived of the essential instruction formerly
accredited to the home, and go from their years of employment to their
future homes as ignorantly as they entered upon their daily task in the
shop? Are they in any sense fitted for the larger responsibility which
the major vocation brings? Are their years of trade experience made
profitable by wise choice and fair preparation, or do they encounter by
chance the immediate demand of some trade, using them for its advantage
as part of a machine demanding swiftness and dexterity in a single
operation, repeated countless times, and considering the salability of
the product and not the welfare of the young worker?
If such conditions exist--and we know that they do--these girls should
be as far as possible protected by suitable education in advance,
which should develop skill and judgment, acquaint them in some measure
with fair trade conditions, make choice of occupation to some degree
possible, and safeguard their health and the interests of their future
homes. Concerning the need of such trade training there is now little
disagreement--the fact is generally conceded. The main question is
whether it should be supplied at public expense, and by what means.
Private philanthropy, by intelligent and generous experiment, has paved
the way.
The second group to be considered may roughly include the girls whose
entrance upon gainful occupations is longer delayed, but who must as a
matter of course look forward to self-maintenance. These girls avail
themselves of the opportunities afforded by the ordinary program of
the graded schools, and may or may not add some portion or all of the
high-school course. They have had a more generous inheritance than
the first group. Their homes are usually better endowed, or they may
be the younger sisters of members of the first group. Their need is
less pressing--but by no means less real. The school should test, and
if need be, supplement their preparation for the responsibilities
centering upon the home. It should also make them to some degree
technically ready for a wholesome occupation, affording a living wage.
Otherwise they too are at the mercy of trade conditions, earning a
scant income at an employment selected by chance.
To the third group will be assigned all women whose opportunities of
education exceed high-school training. For them vocational preparation
may be assigned to the college period or may possibly follow it.
It is often assumed that academic training in itself gives technical
skill, that the young woman who graduates from college is thereby
prepared for any task which may confront her. This is a misconception
of the function of the college. If it does its work well, a good
foundation is laid, certain aptitudes and habits of thought are
developed, which should make progress in any art or craft more rapid,
and judgment more intelligent. On the other hand, long years given
to purely academic work, away from the normal conditions of the
working world, permit certain powers to lie dormant. Students are
trained to deliberation rather than to action. The college woman may
need adjustment to the conditions of the shop, the office, or even
the school. Training which presupposes the task and keeps it in mind
certainly advances the general preparation of any student for her
work. If we acquaint her with the immediate problems of the task the
necessary period of apprenticeship is shortened and rapid advancement
assured. Such training seems reasonable. Why should the education of
the girl lie completely outside her work in the world? Why should so
deep a gulf be fixed between the school and the later task?
The vocational aim need not diminish the so-called cultural value of
a subject. Need the study of bacteriology become less “broadening”
because the nurse-to-be recognizes its relation to her future work,
knowing that she is to apply its truths in sanitation and disinfection,
in antiseptic precautions, in securing surgical cleanliness? Is the
“social worker” of tomorrow a less intelligent student of economics
to-day because she is conscious of the problem with which she
personally is to deal? On the other hand, is a girl more liberally
educated because for four “finishing” years of her education her
program of studies tacitly ignores all reference to the sacred
responsibility which she is so soon to assume--or which she must help
others to meet? Rather, is not the whole course of study enlightened
and informed by recognition of the goal and by conscious endeavor to
reach it? If this be true, education which includes vocational training
is far more liberal than that which ignores or excludes it.
It seems to the writer that the trend of educational thought is in this
direction. The college woman as well as her less favored sister must
be trained, “not simply to be good, but to be good for something”,
not simply to be wise, but to be fully and definitely prepared
for service;--and this conception is perhaps the most important
contribution of higher education to the advancement of vocational
training. Remote as it may seem, it nevertheless influences the general
ideal. We cannot expect the average parent to take pains to insure in
his daughter’s education the thing which the college despises.
If we accept the proposition that the maintenance of the home is
woman’s major vocation, all women are included in the group for whom
vocational training is essential. The responsibility of providing such
instruction is divided between home and school. Exactly as practise
under shop conditions is essential for complete industrial training,
so practise in a home with wise guidance under normal conditions is
indispensable to the best preparation for maintaining a home. Girls who
are so fortunate as to live in homes where this instruction is afforded
are therefore least in need of supplemental instruction in the public
school or other instruction provided for the purpose. The girl who is
most in need of industrial training for self maintenance is also likely
to be in greatest need of training for home-keeping. Unless she is
taught better she will perpetuate the same type of home from which she
has sprung, and this in itself is a menace to the community. There is,
then, a double reason for providing adequate training in home matters
for girls in the more favored homes. Out of their abundance they must
help lift the standard of those who are less favored. Home training,
however, must be supplemented by general school instruction which
approves the higher standard of living, and shows its relation to the
community. It is to the advantage of both these groups that standards
of right living should be set forth in the schools and approved by them.
It follows that the largest possible influence is inherent in the
position of the college woman whose training leads her to recognize
the relation of the home to the community, who fits herself to assume
her own responsibilities intelligently, and who uses her influence in
lifting the standard of the homes which have been less intelligently
administered. The college has an indispensable part to play in the
development of vocational training. As soon as the college for women
incorporates into its accepted program courses which will assist in
conscious preparation for the maintenance of the home, the standard of
living throughout the country will feel its beneficent influence.
The vocational aim being openly and generally accepted, the public
schools will provide for appropriate training. This will include: 1.
Provision of courses tending toward intelligent home administration in
all programs outlined for women and girls. 2. Some means of testing
proficiency in these arts and principles, however acquired, so that at
least a minimum amount of preparation will be exacted of all girls.
3. The establishment of centers where household administration can
be taught by example and practise as well as by precept. By means
of supplementary vacation schools, evening schools and continuation
schools, housekeepers, young mothers and others in need of specific
instruction may receive the necessary help exactly as the plumber may
now reinforce his knowledge through a course in an evening school.
The agencies thus far enumerated will provide the elementary
instruction immediately required. Such instruction, however, will
not be possible unless suitable teachers are provided, and these
must naturally be women of large opportunity and experience. This
presupposes higher courses in technical schools or colleges which
consider the problem in the large and train teachers and workers for
leadership. Again it becomes clear that the college should establish
proper technical courses.
The need of three agencies for vocational training is apparent: for the
immediate need of the young beginner, the trade school; for the middle
group, the technical high school; for the leader, the technical college.
The trade school and the vocational center meet the immediate need
of the young worker. Exactly as the girl from the poor and meager
home must depend upon intelligent instruction to raise her standard
of living, so her judgment and skill must be reinforced when she
confronts the problem of self-maintenance. She is pushed by necessity
into the ranks of wage-earners, knowing nothing of the field she is
entering, and she must make the best terms she can with those who take
advantage of her ignorance. As an unskilled worker she must follow the
crowd and take what she can get. General schooling has left the hand
unskilled and the judgment untrained. She has neither knowledge of
her own ability, nor the immediate advantage of a known employment.
She is entitled to instruction which considers not trade profit alone
but the advantage of the worker, which makes possible intelligent
choice of the best course available and shortens the period of unpaid
apprenticeship. In short, the education which she sorely needs as she
faces self-maintenance is specific preparation for wage earning and the
conditions involved in it.
Two conditions are essential to this training: first, a thread of
manual vocational work throughout the ordinary school program for all
girls, to train hand and eye and develop taste and judgment along
practical lines; second, special schools for industrial training,
with brief, intensive courses, to which girls may be sent for a
preparatory period when facing the necessity of self-maintenance, the
minimum requirement of general training having been covered in the
ordinary school. These centers of industrial or trade training should
be separate from the academic centers and should supply as far as
possible the conditions of apprenticeship. They should be free from
the fixed classifications and grades of the school, and should afford
illustrations and types of vocational experience. To such public
provision as may be made for such centers, private philanthropy will
for a long while bring its aid, for vocational training must be tied to
individual conditions and must ask for coöperation from manufacturer
and employer. Supervised apprenticeship in chosen places of work
will for a time take the place of organized training schools, as for
example, in the case of the hospital dietitian, the house decorator,
and the photographer. But elementary courses, requiring accuracy,
speed, and an ordinary degree of skill, may even now be provided by
the school. The seamstress, the machine operator, the saleswoman, the
typewriter, the clerk, the bookkeeper may be trained in such centers.
The technical high school meets the needs of the second group by
providing courses which develop manual dexterity, and acquaint the
student with the outlines of some practical employment. Notable
examples of such schools in New England are the technical high
schools of Newton, Springfield, and Boston. In these schools the
academic requirement is lessened and courses are arranged in sewing,
dressmaking, millinery, cooking, laundry work, household decoration,
and sanitation, with ample training in commercial subjects and
preparation for clerical work, including stenography, typewriting and
bookkeeping. So far as possible the school product is expected to be
of service just like the ordinary commercial product. In one school
the girls prepare the luncheons which are served to instructors and
classes. In another the garments made are sold to cover the cost of
material. These schools provide adequate instruction in household
arts and at the same time pave the way for a useful vocation. The
numbers that flock to them testify to the demand for such training,
and many girls who otherwise would have withdrawn at the end of the
grammar-school course are glad to remain and profit by the practical
opportunity thus afforded. Already the effect of the instruction is
shown in increased wage-earning power. Those who have followed the
movement are equally sure that the individual homes profit by the
vocational training.
An interesting example of the technical college is afforded by the
recent development of Simmons College in Boston. This college was
endowed by its founder, John Simmons, as an institution through
whose offices women might be prepared for self-maintenance through
appropriate training in art, science and industry. The trustees to whom
the gift was confided made a careful study of the problem of education
for self-maintenance, and eight years ago the college opened its doors.
It provided courses of training for high school graduates, the programs
in every case assuring technical instruction for certain fields of
work, with the related academic training necessitated by the task. The
work attempted is indicated by the various departments--household
economics, library training, secretarial training, training in science
(including preparation for nursing and for the study of medicine), and
training for social service. The regular programs cover four years.