The Making of a Trade School

by Mary Schenck Woolman

EQUIPMENT AND SUPPORT

Housing and Equipment

The first home of the Manhattan Trade School was a large four-story and basement dwelling house, for which a rental of $2,100 per annum was paid. The initial permanent equipment and first temporary stock provided for one hundred students, and cost $9,500. This amount was utilized principally for the furnishing of special rooms for electric power operating; for sewing; for dressmaking; for millinery; for pasting; and for the more general equipment of offices, academic and art rooms, a kitchen, and a lunch room. The following lists show the range of expenses for furnishing the main workrooms with necessary equipment:

Garment or Dressmaking Workroom

Sewing machines, each	$18.00	to	$70.00
Work, cutting, and ironing tables, each	6.00	to	20.00	upward
Electric irons, each	7.75
Gas stove (necessary when electric irons are not used), each	2.00	upward
Cheval glass, each	20.00	to	100.00	upward
Chairs, each	.50	to	3.00	upward
Exhibition, stock closets, cabinets, and chests of drawers, each	10.00	to	100.00	upward
Fitting stands, each	2.00	to	30.00	upward
Fitting room (a curtained alcove), each	10.00	upward
Fitting room (a furnished room), each	100.00	upward
Dress forms, per dozen	30.00	upward
Waist forms, per dozen	6.00	upward
Sleeve forms, pair	1.00	to	1.50	upward
Lockers, per running foot	3.00	to	8.00	upward

A room for twenty workers may be plainly furnished at a cost of $300 to $500. If a large number of expensive sewing machines are desired, the estimates must be increased by several hundred dollars. The Manhattan Trade School has forty foot-power machines of the kinds most in use in the workrooms of New York.

The equipping of a workroom for electric power operating, including general and special machines, motor, cutting and work tables, cabinets and chairs, will be considerably more expensive than the one for garment making. In the latter, one sewing machine can be used by several workers, but in electric operating each worker must have her own machine. The electric motor adds also to the expense. The minimum cost of equipping a shop for twenty workers would be $1,000 to $1,500. The necessary equipment would be as follows:

Electric Operating Workroom

Plain sewing machines in rows, per head	$22.50	upward
Troughs for work between the rows and tables for the machines (per every two machines)	10.00
Special machines (two needle, embroidery, lace stitch, buttonhole, straw sewing, and the like), each according to kind	35.00	to 125.00
Motor, each	140.00	upward
Electric cutter, each	25.00	upward
Cabinets, tables, chairs, and irons, see above

The Manhattan Trade School has fifty-five plain electric sewing machines and thirty-two special machines, as follows: three buttonhole, one two-needle, one binding, one zigzag, five hemstitching, five tucker, four Bonnaz, one braider, one hand embroidery, one scalloping, nine straw sewing.