Chapter 3

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.