Trade Orders
The handwork in the various departments falls into three grades: 1. Practice work, which not being up to the standard is ripped up and used again. 2. Seconds; fair work, not quite up to the school standard for trade work. This is sold at cost to the students or to needy institutions. 3. Trade work; up to the standard. This is sold to the trade or to private customers at regular market prices. This feature of the school work, entailing, as it does, the taking of many varieties of orders from the outside factories and workrooms, has proved itself to be an important educational factor. After six years of experience in utilizing orders from the outside workrooms, it can be said that this part of the instruction serves the following purposes: (1) It provides the students with adequate experience on classes of material used in the best workrooms; these girls could not purchase such materials and the school could not afford to buy them for practice. (2) The ordinary conditions in both the wholesale and the custom trade are thus made a fundamental part of the instruction. Reality of this kind helps the supervisors to judge the product from its trade value (amateur work will thus be rejected), and the teaching from the kind of workers turned out. Through the business relation the students quickly feel the necessity of good finish, rapid work, and responsibility to deliver on time. (3) The orders bring in a money return and thus aid the school in the expense for material. (4) The businesslike appearance of the shops at work on the orders and the experience trade has had with the product have increased the confidence of employers of labor in the ability of the school to train practical workers for the trades. The school is constantly urged by trade to increase its order work, but its unfaltering policy is to take only the amount needed for educational purposes. (5) The business organization and management required in the adequate conduct of a large order department can itself be utilized for educational purposes, and has its value for training students who show promise of becoming good stock clerks.
Trade workers are employed in the business shops connected with the various departments. These assistants have proved their value in making the best utilization of the order work. They facilitate the completion of the work on time and help train the girls to feel responsible for their share of it. As the students work slowly at first, and as their hours in the shops are interrupted by other studies, the trade workers, when necessary, continue with or complete the articles while the girls are absent. They make possible the tradelike organization of the shops, for each one has around her her own little groups of assistants, and she teaches them while she also works. Constant repetition of the same process ceases, after a time, to be valuable to a student, hence her time must not be wasted by too simple work or by unnecessary details. It often happens also that an article may require expert work in its completion which the students cannot yet do; the trade workers select for each girl the process which will be of value to her, and then do the work the students cannot do or should not do.
The following lists will show the class of orders which have been demanded by trade and turned out by the school:
Operating Department Orders: 1. Trade Work: Ribbon run on webbing for suspenders, infants' dresses—eight different styles, children's aprons—two different styles, hemstitching and embroidery for yokes, ruffling—hem and hemstitched, faggoting.
2. Individual Custom Orders: Dressing sacques, aprons (kitchen, gingham, and work), gymnasium suits, waists, children's dresses, corset covers, drawers, skirts and chemise, sheets, pillowslips, curtains, straw hats, fancy petticoats, kimonos, handkerchiefs, fancy neckwear, infants' outfits, boys' waists, quilting, hemstitching by yard, silk waists and dresses hemstitched, tucking by yard, waists, collars, cuffs, and cloth embroidered, initials on linen and monograms on saddle cloths, ruffling by yard.
3. Order Work for Other Departments: Dressmaking: Machine work on nightgowns, corset covers, drawers, combination suits, petticoats, kimonos, gymnasium bloomers, swimming suits, buttonholes, hemstitching on silk skirts, dresses, waists; Bonnaz embroidery on dresses, waists. Millinery: Veils hemstitched. Art: Pencil and brush cases. Office: Coats and overalls for janitors employed in school.
Dressmaking Department Orders: Aprons, petticoats, maids' dresses; machine-made underwear; collars and neckwear; nurses' uniforms; swimming, bathing, and gymnasium suits; children's and baby clothes; fine handmade underwear; plain shirtwaists, fine waists, afternoon gowns, street suits, evening gowns, cloth suits tailored.
Pasting and Novelty Orders: Mounting suspender webbing, mounting corset samples, pasting suspender tabs and sockets, case making. Desk sets, lampshades, and candleshades.
Art Department Orders: 1. Trade Order Work: Stamping, perforating, coloring fashion plates, stencil cutting.