EQUIPMENT AND SUPPORT
Housing and Equipment
The first home of the Manhattan Trade School was a large four-story and
basement dwelling house, for which a rental of $2,100 per annum was
paid. The initial permanent equipment and first temporary stock provided
for one hundred students, and cost $9,500. This amount was utilized
principally for the furnishing of special rooms for electric power
operating; for sewing; for dressmaking; for millinery; for pasting; and
for the more general equipment of offices, academic and art rooms, a
kitchen, and a lunch room. The following lists show the range of
expenses for furnishing the main workrooms with necessary equipment:
GARMENT OR DRESSMAKING WORKROOM
Sewing machines, each $18.00 to $70.00
Work, cutting, and ironing tables, each 6.00 to 20.00 upward
Electric irons, each 7.75
Gas stove (necessary when electric irons are
not used), each 2.00 upward
Cheval glass, each 20.00 to 100.00 upward
Chairs, each .50 to 3.00 upward
Exhibition, stock closets, cabinets, and
chests of drawers, each 10.00 to 100.00 upward
Fitting stands, each 2.00 to 30.00 upward
Fitting room (a curtained alcove), each 10.00 upward
Fitting room (a furnished room), each 100.00 upward
Dress forms, per dozen 30.00 upward
Waist forms, per dozen 6.00 upward
Sleeve forms, pair 1.00 to 1.50 upward
Lockers, per running foot 3.00 to 8.00 upward
A room for twenty workers may be plainly furnished at a cost of $300 to
$500. If a large number of expensive sewing machines are desired, the
estimates must be increased by several hundred dollars. The Manhattan
Trade School has forty foot-power machines of the kinds most in use in
the workrooms of New York.
The equipping of a workroom for electric power operating, including
general and special machines, motor, cutting and work tables, cabinets
and chairs, will be considerably more expensive than the one for garment
making. In the latter, one sewing machine can be used by several
workers, but in electric operating each worker must have her own
machine. The electric motor adds also to the expense. The minimum cost
of equipping a shop for twenty workers would be $1,000 to $1,500. The
necessary equipment would be as follows:
ELECTRIC OPERATING WORKROOM
Plain sewing machines in rows, per head $22.50 upward
Troughs for work between the rows and tables for the
machines (per every two machines) 10.00
Special machines (two needle, embroidery, lace stitch,
buttonhole, straw sewing, and the like),
each according to kind 35.00 to 125.00
Motor, each 140.00 upward
Electric cutter, each 25.00 upward
Cabinets, tables, chairs, and irons, see above
The Manhattan Trade School has fifty-five plain electric sewing machines
and thirty-two special machines, as follows: three buttonhole, one
two-needle, one binding, one zigzag, five hemstitching, five tucker,
four Bonnaz, one braider, one hand embroidery, one scalloping, nine
straw sewing.
In workrooms conducting trades which use paste, gum, and glue, the
following special equipment is required:
Glue pots, gas, each $7.50 upward
Glue pots, electric, each 21.75 upward
Hand cutter, each 50.00 upward
Cabinets, tables, chairs, see above
The cost of equipping a shop would be from $200 to $400.
Special machines for perforating designs or for pleating materials are
often needed in teaching the garment trades. Wholesale prices can
usually be obtained when the order is large. Dealers have also shown
themselves willing to sell their machines at low prices, to loan them,
and even to give them to a school which has proved its ability to train
good workers.
When it was appreciated that the original quarters of the school were
too limited, the Board of Administrators went to work with great
enthusiasm and in a few months collected the requisite money and bought
a large business loft building at 209-213 East 23d Street, at an expense
of $175,000. To put it in order for work cost $5,000 in addition. The
former equipment was used and $5,000 more was spent for such needed
items as: machines, $3,200; motor, $352; perforating machine, $38;
additional master clocks, $233; chairs and tables, $850. The school is
furnished in a simple, businesslike manner, the equipment merely
reproducing good workroom requirements, _i. e._, essentials only.
The budget for the first year, 1902-1903, was $22,094.16, of which the
salaries for teachers took about one-half and the rent and maintenance
covered the other half. During this year there were 113 students
admitted. In 1908-1909, after six years of rapid growth, the educational
budget is $49,000, or more than double the original, of which the
salaries are $38,806; the supplies, $1,710; printing and publishing,
$600; maintenance, $9,900. At the beginning of 1908 there were 254
students in the school; 689 were registered during the year, making a
total of 943 girls, being almost nine times the number in attendance
during the first year.
The Support
The Manhattan Trade School has depended for its support entirely upon
voluntary contributions. There have been few large donations and the
donors represent all classes of the community--patrons of and workers in
sociological, economic, philanthropic, and educational fields, employers
of labor, and auxiliaries of many kinds of workers organized for special
purposes. The most significant help, perhaps, and the largest in
proportion to its income, has been that of the wage-earners
themselves--not only the girl who has benefited by the instruction, but
the general mass of women workers. These women, knowing the difficulties
in their own struggle to rise, have shown themselves willing to set
apart weekly a small sum to help young girls to attain quickly
efficiency through systematic training. The auxiliaries of wage-earners
are a mainstay of the school on account of their helpful enthusiasm,
their practical suggestions, their interest in girls trained there, and
their regular subscriptions on which the Board of Administrators can
depend.