The large class of the Dressmaking Division, spending the day from seven until half past five making the blue uniform dresses, filling orders for tailor-made dresses in silk and cloth, measuring, drafting, cutting, and fitting, has many a representative in the schoolroom the succeeding day; and still more is the lesson varied by the practical illustrations in Mathematics or the recital of the experiences of the day in the English classes.
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.
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.
When the machinery was introduced for Broom-making, the girls looked askance at the appliances. But when the broom-corn was delivered from the farm, and the pioneer girl broom-maker began threshing of the seed in the cleaner, an interest was evinced that has increased with the knowledge that the work, study, or manufacture (call it what you will) is very productive, especially in the confines of the girls' broom-factory at Tuskegee Institute. The poultry-yard bought the seeds threshed off the broom-stalks; the hundreds of old handles collected cost nothing, and when the wiring, stitching, and clipping were finished and the girl saw the first broom turned out, there was triumph in the fact that the industry was the most inexpensive and still the most productive of credit of all the girls' industries under the roof of Dorothy Hall. The evolution from the flag-straw broom used in cabins of the South to the ones now completed and labeled, creates the sensation of the girl-world in the trades school. The wonders brought out in the theory class in connection with broom-making were marvelous. Broom-making has come to remain with our other girls' industries.
Work in the Laundry presents another aspect to the onlooker, and he doubtless decides on the spur of the moment that all is drudgery here. Girls are then assorting countless pieces received on Mondays from students and teachers. They are placing the assorted articles in cages in the basement. Two boys are filling three washers with bed-linen, and in another apartment two girls are weighing and measuring materials to make more soap to add to the boxes standing in the soap-room. Girls up-stairs in the wash-room are busy rubbing at the tubs. Some girls are starching, and others are sending baskets down on the elevator for girls below to hang in the drying-room. Others are in the assorting-room putting away clothes-bags into numerous boxes. The ironing-room farther on is filled with busy workers. Days come during every week when time is spent in the study of laundry chemistry. Rust and mildew stains and scorching are some of the problems of the Laundry, and they find solution. Soap, starch, water, and bluing have their composite qualities and are analyzed, and no more interesting correlation is there than that of the laundry with the class-room.
Although each Tuskegee girl is expected to become proficient in one trade at least, all are required to attend the cooking classes. Girls belonging to certain classes are scattered in the various divisions, each busily engaged at her chosen trade. At the ringing of the bells in each division at stated hours, classes form and pass to the training-kitchen for their lesson in cooking. Both night-school and day-school girls report every day until every girl has received her lesson weekly. The normal classes have theory and practise one hour each, the preparatory girls one hour weekly for their trades.