Naturally, this lack of system and standard is reflected in the demands made upon workers. In general, it may be said that there are four stages in making a hat,--designing it, making the frame, covering the frame, and trimming it. And in general it may be stated that there are seven kinds of positions open to a girl looking for work in millinery. She may be a learner, an improver, a preparer, a milliner, a copyist, a trimmer, or a designer. But when a girl starts to look for work as preparer, for example, she may turn toward a Fifth avenue shop where she must be a “neat worker” who can make frames accurately by hand, and “have an eye for color and form”; here she may advance from preparer to designer; or she may find her way into a shop a few doors away where she does not need to make frames because they have two girls who make all the frames; or she may apply at a department store where in one department she will have an opportunity to do all the kinds of work found in the Fifth avenue shop, “only not so particular”; or she may go into the ready-to-wear department where “you never make a frame but cover with straw and stick on a rosette”; or she may join the throng of girls pouring into a Broadway wholesale house, and as she walks up the stairs she may stop at any one of the five floors and enter a “millinery establishment.” But in one she will be asked to do straw operating all day; in another to make dozens of wire frames a day; in another to trim hats by the dozen and never make frames; in another to work at nothing but millinery ornaments. In the autumn of 1908 she finds it difficult to get a position as preparer because “the machines are driving them out”; and in the spring of 1909 preparers are in great demand because “the styles have changed this season, and hand work has come back this month.” In any case, she thinks herself fortunate if she works more than six months a year at $5 a week in not more than three or four positions. No prophecy can be made about the kind of skill which will be demanded in any shop. But if no two establishments are alike in methods of work, they all have one characteristic in common. The slack season descends upon employers and workers alike. Taking the employers’ statements, the millinery year is at best only seven or eight months long, divided into fall and spring seasons. The fall season, starting on Division street and lower Broadway in July, gains headway in August, rushes up Fifth avenue in September, and then gradually spreads out north and south, east and west, lingering for the longest time where the current is least swift. Third avenue and Fifth avenue, Grand street and Harlem cannot buy early and all at once. In any case, the season disappears before Christmas. The spring season begins in January, and gains speed until the Easter rush, after which workers are laid off in great numbers.