The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's WorkPenny, Virginia
General
The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's Work
Penny, Virginia
Women -- Employment
=47. Designers for Calico Prints.= This employment is well adapted to
women. It requires taste and ingenuity. Its labors are light, but rather
confining. A person of lively fancy and nice powers of discrimination
succeeds best. The gay, rich, dark colors of winter clothing are not
suitable for summer; nor are the light, delicate ones of summer suitable
for winter clothing. This inviting field of labor, now that it is
unbarred to woman, we hope will be well improved. Let her enter, and she
will find sufficient to "reward a careful gleaner with a valuable sheaf
or two." We do not speak of inventing and preparing designs for calico
prints particularly, but of the general field for designers. Some
proprietors engage a designer (here and there a lady) to stay at their
establishments, and devote all their time to the preparing of
designs--paying a fixed salary for the month, year, or any time
specified. Some adopt the same plan in wall-paper establishments. The
price generally paid for a design pattern for calicoes is from $1 to $3.
=48. Designers for Wall Paper.= One of the most important branches of
designing is that of preparing patterns for wall paper, fire screens,
&c. In the report of the Philadelphia School of Design it is stated that
one of the ladies of that school received $60 for a design some time
ago. They seldom bring that much, and all designs prepared will not
sell. The usual price for a good hall design is from $12 to $20; and of
paper for a room, from $12 to $16. We fear it will be long before the
beautiful designs of the French are equalled by Americans. Their taste
must be more highly cultivated before such is the case. Mr. C., of New
York, employs a designer (Frenchman), paying him $1,000 a year, who
receives in another manufactory a salary of $3,000 a year. N. C. & Co.
get some of their patterns from the school of design in Paris, because
the French have more taste in designing, or, rather, that taste has been
more cultivated. Brande gives the merits of designing as follows: "Every
work of design is to be considered either in relation to the art that
produced it, to the nature of its adaptation to the end sought, or to
the nature of the end it is destined to serve; thus its beauty is
dependent on the wisdom or excellence displayed in the design, in the
fitness or propriety of the adaptation, and upon the utility of the
end."
=49. Draughtswomen.= There are several kinds of draughting, or drawing
on stone: architectural, mechanical, letter, figure, and landscape. Very
few women have undertaken draughting in any of its branches. But we do
not see why it should be confined to men. We suppose the minds of some
women are as well adapted to the business as those of some men. Our
ideas of the fitness of women for architectural drawing are given under
the article Architects.
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