Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements
History
Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements
Tuskegee Institute
The girl in the millinery work, shaping forms, trimming hats, blending
colors, drawing designs, studying textiles and fabrics for analysis in
her theory classes twice during her three days of work, finds added
inspiration for her three days of class-room study. If she is in the
Senior class, she specializes in geometry on her school-days and
mechanical drawing on her work-days. When our girl has finished her
course in drawing and begins one of the uniform hats worn by the
hundreds of girls, she ranks among the first milliners of the land in
the estimation of the beginners. She completes hat after hat, drapes
them until the number meets the requirement, and then comes her own
creation, a pattern hat, undersized of course, but a real dress hat and
a thing of beauty. It usually finds its way to the old home for her
mother and neighbors to admire. The commendation that comes back to the
school is worth its weight in gold.
[Illustration: A CLASS IN MILLINERY.]
But there are backward learners. Some there are who excel in embroidery,
crocheting, making ties and other fancy articles, but who have no
aptitude for shaping and trimming hats. They plod on, and win at last.
Then there is the girl whose parents wish her to open a millinery
establishment in their town. She tries, but finally agrees with her
long-suffering instructor that she would succeed at mattress-making and
upholstering instead.
The work in the Mattress Division begins with sheet, pillow-case,
table-linen, and comforter-making for the endless demands of the lodging
division of the boys and girls. Pulling shucks for the mattress is the
next step in advance, and when shucks are covered by the cotton layers
in the making, they prove an excellent substitute for the hair filling
of a more expensive manufacture, and they have an advantage in the
matter of cleanliness. Covering screen frames made in the Carpentry
Division for the numerous rooms, caning couches, rockers, and stools,
help add to the variety of work in the division. The girl is not
awarded her certificate until she has completed the round of work,
including the fashioning of a bedroom suite from barrels finally covered
with neat-figured denim. The semiweekly theory classes are not unlike
those of the plain-sewing division, and the girl is as proud of her
achievement with needle, hammer, and saw as if she were an adept in
lighter work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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