The economic position of womenAcademy of Political Science in the City of New York
History
The economic position of women
Academy of Political Science in the City of New York
Women -- Employment -- United States; Women -- United States -- Economic conditions
The school buildings are very imposing. One finds no difficulty in
locating them at night even at a distance of two or three blocks. A
great dark building occupying about one-third of the noisy, crowded
block, gives notice to the visitor that she is headed in the right
direction. The school always looks impressively quiet and remote. Few
windows are lighted and only one door is open. After picking her way
through crowded streets, stepping around small children, narrowly
avoiding collisions with innumerable boys and girls darting in and out
among the crowds, the visitor finds the inside of the building quite
deserted, and her footsteps echo in the great, gray, empty basement.
She can find no one to direct her to the principal, but presently
seeing a few girls straggling up the fireproof stairs she follows them
to the assembly room, a waste of empty desks. At one end is a long
desk where the principal is seated. Often she has been teaching all
day in a day school. Soon a girl enters slowly and hesitatingly, and
slips into a chair near the door, where she stays until the principal
turns to her with, “What can I do for you?” Bashfully the girl comes
up to the desk and whispers down into it that she wants “to take up
millinery.”--“Your name?”--“Sadie Schwartz.”--“Address?”--“-- East
----.”--“Age?”--“Fourteen.”--“Have you left school?”--“Yes.” Sometimes
the question is asked, “Are you working? At what occupation?” Sometimes
it is omitted. Then the principal concludes, “Here are two cards. Keep
one and give one to the teacher. The millinery class is down the hall
on the right-hand side.” This is the extent of the consultation before
entering a class.
After the girl has been in the class a short time, she learns that most
of the girls are taking the course so that they can learn to make their
own hats. More and more girls come as Easter approaches. They can stay
as long as they like, and go when they like. They can even keep on
making their own hats for two years or more.
“It is rather unfortunate that the board of education supplies the
materials,” said one teacher; “because I have known of cases where the
girls come simply to get a hat and then leave. For example, I know of
one case where a girl at the end of a few weeks asked to be transferred
from the millinery class and when asked her reason, said that she
wanted to go into dressmaking because ‘I’ve got a hat and now I would
like a dress to match.’”
“You don’t learn anything in evening school,” said a girl who was in
trade; “every night it is a little on a hat, and one hat a year.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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