Chapter 15

SUMMARY OF REPORT ON DRESSMAKING AND MILLINERY

At the time of the last census the total number of women in Cleveland employed as milliners or dressmakers was approximately 5,000, of whom about seven-tenths were dressmakers and about three-tenths milliners. For the most part they were of native birth. The proportion of young girls engaged in these occupations was relatively small, the age distribution showing that only about one-third of the milliners and less than one-fifth of the dressmakers were under 21 years of age.

DRESSMAKING

Four distinctive lines of work are done by those who are classified by the census as dressmakers and seamstresses: dressmaking proper, usually carried on in shops; alteration work in stores; general sewing done by seamstresses at home or in the homes of customers; and the work of the so-called dressmaking "school," in which the dressmaker helps her customers do their general sewing.

Shop dressmaking is in the main confined to the making of afternoon and evening gowns and fancy blouses. Nearly uniform processes of work are maintained and the workers in the different establishments need about the same kinds of abilities and degrees of skill. There is a strong and increasing tendency towards specialization of the work.

Among each 100 workers in dressmaking shops about 13 are head girls, 55 are finishers or makers, 16 are helpers, eight are apprentices, and the rest are lining makers, cutters, embroiderers, errand girls, shoppers, and stock girls.

Alteration work constitutes a separate sewing trade and consists of the adjustment of ready-made garments to individual peculiarities. It furnishes employment to several hundred workers in Cleveland.

The weekly wages most commonly paid to each class of workers in dressmaking shops may be roughly stated as follows: apprentices, $2 to $4; helpers $6 to $9; finishers or makers $10 to $12; and drapers $18 to $20. Lining making, done in most shops by apprentices or helpers, pays from $4 to $6 a week. In one shop a specialist on linings received $12. Women cutters, found in two shops, and doing supervisory work similar to that done by drapers, earned from $15 to $25. Hemstitchers earn $10 to $14 and a guimpe maker in one shop earned $12. Errand girls were found at $3 and $6; stock girls at $8, $12, and $13; and shoppers at from $3.50 to $10.

Beginners in alteration departments are started at from $5 to $7. Regular alteration hands earn from $7 to $18, the average being $9 or $10. Fitters earn about the same as drapers in dressmaking shops, averaging from $15 to $18, with a range of from $10 to $25.

As a rule comparatively little time is lost through irregularity of employment. Workers average from 10 to 11 months' work out of the year. Establishments usually close during the month of August and for one or two weeks in the spring. Workers in alteration department average 11 months of work. Dress alteration work is steady, while suit and coat alteration is irregular.

Apprenticeship in dressmaking comprehends a trying-out period of from six months to a year. Most shops take apprentices, the proportion in the trade being one to every 12 workers; and an effort is made to keep these new workers if they are at all satisfactory. There is no standardized apprenticeship wage. Girls may serve without pay for six months, or may start at from 50 cents to $4 a week. At the end of six months they may be earning from $1.50 to $6. The lack of any wage standard in apprenticeship probably accounts for the fact that it is difficult to get girls to enter this trade.

MILLINERY

Millinery requires the handling of small pieces of the most varied sorts of material, most of it perishable. The materials must be measured, cut, turned, twisted, and draped into innumerable designs and color combinations, and sewed with various kinds of stitching. The main processes are making, trimming, and designing. Making consists in fashioning a specified shape from wire or buckram and covering it with such materials as straw or velvet. The covering may be put on plain, or may be shirred or draped. Trimming consists in placing and sewing on all sorts of decorative materials. A combination of the two processes of making and trimming, known as copying, consists in making a hat from the beginning exactly like a specified model. Designing is the creation of original models.

The increase in the use of the factory-made hat has decreased the number of workers in custom millinery, and has also had an effect in diverting business from small retail shops to millinery departments in stores. The number of millinery workers constantly fluctuates, not only from season to season, but from year to year. According to a close estimate not more than 2,000 workers were actually engaged in millinery occupations during the busiest part of 1915. Between 1,200 and 1,400 were in retail shops; about 300 were in millinery departments in stores; and about 300 more were in wholesale houses.

The data collected indicate that the wages of workers in retail shops are lower in general than the wages of workers in millinery departments in stores and in wholesale houses. Makers in retail shops earn from $3 to $16 a week, the average being about $8. Trimmers earn from $10 to $40, with an average of about $18. Out of 45 retail shops, only 22 paid as high as $10 to any maker; 15 paid as high as $12; six paid as high as $15; and only one paid over $15.

In millinery departments in stores, trimmers, who are generally designers, earn from $15 to $50 a week or more. The rate most commonly received is $25. Makers are started at from $4 to $6 and may advance to $15, with an average of about $10.

In wholesale houses designers earn from $25 to $60, or more. Makers start at about $5, and the usual range is from $10 to $15. Those employed in straight copying may earn between $15 and $20. The 1914 report of the Industrial Commission of Ohio presents data showing that of the women 18 years of age and over employed in wholesale houses 37 per cent receive under $8, about 22 per cent receive between $8 and $12, while 41 per cent receive $12 and over. The girls under 18 years of age were, with one exception, receiving less than $4 per week.

Employment in retail shops averages about 32 weeks during the year; in the millinery departments of stores from 32 to 42 weeks; and in wholesale houses about 40 weeks. The proportion of workers employed the year round is very small. The majority of millinery workers are faced with the problem of tiding themselves over two dull seasons, aggregating from 12 to 28 weeks each year.

The millinery apprenticeship period lasts for two seasons of 12 weeks each. Almost all retail shops take apprentices in large numbers, there being one apprentice to every three or four workers in the trade. Few apprentices are found in stores and wholesale houses. The apprenticeship wage is extremely low. The usual rate is $1 a week during the first season and from $1.50 to $2 during the second.

THE PROBLEM OF TRAINING

The needs of girls who are soon to leave school and go to work can best be met by a modification of the junior high school course and by the establishment of a one-year trade school for girls. Before a re-organization of the junior high school work is made to meet the needs of these girls an effort should be made to reduce retardation so that more girls will reach the junior high school before the end of the compulsory attendance period. The present courses should be reorganized so as to give basic preparation for wage earning and should be as concrete and real as a thorough understanding of the requirements of the gainful occupations can make them. Thorough sewing courses planned from the standpoint of the sewing trades should be offered, extending over two years. The program suggested closely resembles that recommended for the garment trades.

It is also recommended that a one-year trade school be established for preparing girls to enter employment in dressmaking and millinery. The history of trade schools for girls, both private and public, indicates that such a school, if properly conducted, would be highly successful in Cleveland.

The classes in sewing and millinery in the evening technical high schools do not offer trade-extension training for workers and it is not likely that they could be easily reorganized to furnish such training. It is recommended that if a trade school is established in Cleveland, short unit courses in sewing and related subjects, such as design, be given in evening classes.