It is, at present, difficult for a woman entirely ignorant of the trade, to get into any of the large establishments in New York, where such help is engaged, for the purpose of learning to become a type-setter. If her ambition lies in this direction, and she lives outside the large cities, she could do no better than obtain an introductory knowledge of the art in some country newspaper office, or, failing in that, get the necessary practical instruction in some job office, in either city or country.
Certain parts of the work of bookbinding are monopolized by young girls and young women. They are employed in folding, collating, sewing, pasting, binding, and gold-laying. There is probably no large establishment in the country where men are employed to do this kind of work. The industry seems to be peculiarly adapted to young women who are quick with their hands.
Employés in this trade are paid by the piece, with the exception of the collaters, who receive a stated salary of $8 a week. "Collating," it may be mentioned for the benefit of those who are not familiar with the term, means the gathering together of the various folded sheets or sections of the book, and seeing that the pages run right, preparatory to their being handed over to the sewers, who stitch them together. The pay of folders, binders, pasters, and sewers will average, during the year, from $6 to $7 a week. Gold-layers are paid by the hour and make a dollar or two more a week. This average, it must be understood, is for the whole fifty-two weeks. Some weeks the girls make $12 and $15, other weeks not one third as much. Girls as young as fourteen years are employed, and women forty and fifty years of age may be found working beside them. Nine hours and a half constitute a day's work. Some girls will make more than the average named. Those are the steady workers who, to use the expression of one employer, "work just like a man and don't care to hurry home and crimp up to see company in the evening." Such employés will, the year round, average each week two or three dollars more than the ordinary run of help.
It is said that there is always work in this trade for competent women. But it is a trade that no woman of ambition would want to enter, unless she was unable to find any thing better to do. There is no chance to rise in the business and get a better paying position, for the rule is to employ male foremen. In only one large establishment in New York is there a woman occupying such a position. It is proper to state, however, that she gives perfect satisfaction, that her employer would not replace her for a man, and that he believes other bookbinders will eventually see the advisability of having a female instead of a male overseer. A man, it is said, is apt, in giving out work, to favor the pretty girls at the expense of the plain-looking damsels, thus creating jealousy among the employés, while a woman is not influenced in that way.
The proprietors of the large bookbinderies make every effort to secure a respectable kind of help, but young women of loose principles, and sometimes, it is to be feared, of actual immoral character, get employment at the trade, and, when they do, their influence is any thing but good on their companions. It must, however, be largely a girl's own fault if she allows herself to associate with such company. During working hours, of course, nothing but business is attended to. Lunch is eaten in the establishment, and during the lunch hour the girls gather together in little knots and talk about the last picnic or the coming ball. But the place is so large, that a girl of reserved manners can generally keep by herself, or select such companions as she prefers.
The trade is not difficult to learn, the work is neat and clean, the rooms where the girls work—that is, in the large bookbinderies—are commodious, well lighted, and airy. If a young woman, getting her board free at home, wanted to make a little money by working only a few months, or a year, she could probably accomplish this object by entering a bookbindery.
THE DRAMA.—LECTURERS AND READERS.
A woman need not have the genius of a Rachel, a Modjeska, or a Clara Morris, to be able to make a good living in the theatrical profession. Probably the great majority of young ladies who go upon the stage are inflated with the notion that they are creatures of wonderful genius, and for this reason they fail; they are so taken up with the good opinion they have of themselves that they will not go through the necessary amount of work, in the subordinate positions, to perfect themselves for places up higher. They want to fly before they can walk. It would seem as if common-sense deserted a woman the moment she felt a desire to go upon the stage.