Sewing school

“ The girl who does not go on to high school is greatly in need of more advanced training in sewing than can be given in the sixth grade. Each building having a household arts room should possess a sewing machine or two, at the very least. The academic high schools are now planning to offer courses in domestic science. ”

“ Hemenway started sewing-schools, obtained capable teachers, and in time sewing became a regular part of the public-school work, with a department of sewing in the Boston Normal School; so that hereafter the teacher will be as able in her department as another in mathematics. Drafting, cutting, and fitting have been added in many schools, so that thousands of women will be able to save expense in their homes through the skill of their own hands. ”

“ Some of the girls are able during the school year, but especially in vacation, to earn enough by their sewing to materially aid themselves in meeting their school expenses. Considerable sewing is done for the institution, such as making bedding and work aprons, hemming towels and table linen. Custom work is attempted to some extent also, and by this means sufficient income has been derived not only to keep the Department stocked with material, but also to supply it with appropriate furniture for preserving the work of the pupils and displaying the finished product.
Woodworking and Drafting. ”

“ This year the girls of the Sewing League of Pleasant Valley will receive credit for the garments they make. Miss James will help the girls to start the garments at school and will give full credit if the work is completed neatly. A nightdress, a petticoat, corset cover, or under slip, and perhaps a white summer dress skirt will be made. The school board has just furnished a machine, so Miss James is planning to teach the girls to use it. Many of them can practice at home too. ”

“ Before 1876 the inspection of needlework was very simple. That plain needlework—none of your crochet work—should be taught to all the girls, was a condition precedent of the annual grant. In country schools there was not much fear of neglect, for Mrs. Squire and Mrs. Rector kept vigilant eyes on this branch of education, and the subscribers to the school funds often got back part of the value of their money by sending their household sewing to be done in school. It was no unusual thing to find five afternoons a week entirely devoted to sewing. ”

“ It is interesting to see mothers of families taking their first lessons in hemming and overcasting, and creating for the first time with their own hands the garments for which they have always been dependent on the bazaar tailor. For these women have never been to school—their faces bear that shut-in look of the illiterate, a look impossible to define, but just as impossible to mistake when once it has been recognized. With the mothers are a group of girls of ten or twelve, who are learning sewing at an earlier age, when fingers are more pliant and less like to thumbs. ”

“ In their cooking laboratory they learn to cook simple foods, one thing at a time, until they reach the upper grades, where they must prepare entire meals on limited allowances.
The sewing is equally practical. The girls learn to patch, darn, hem and make underclothing and dresses. Then, going into homes where no intelligent needlework has ever been done—where frequently a darning needle is unknown—they teach the mother and older sisters how to sew, until whole families, under the influence of one school child, improve their wardrobe and reduce their cost for clothing. ”

“ If the girl is able to continue at school and has a natural gift for dressmaking, the best way for her to learn her trade is to spend some years at a technical school. Here she will be taught sewing in all its phases—fitting, finishing, designing, the choice and use of materials, and the business details of dressmaking. The dressmaker cannot learn her trade once for all and go on repeating operations which do not require originality. Styles change, and season by season she will have to adapt and carry out alterations in fashion which will tax all her ability. ”

“ Machine sewing should be taken up in the second year, and the girls given an opportunity during the third year to specialize somewhat broadly in a trade school on the kind of work in which they may wish to engage—power operating, dressmaking, or millinery. ”

“ The sewing-schools to which young ladies were sent in the last century, to sit [Pg 312] six hours a-day on hard benches, too high for their feet to touch the ground, compelled to hold themselves upright, and yet to pore over fine cambric and linen, to do microscopic marking and stitching, are heard of no more. In their day, they bent many spines, spoiled many eyes, and plagued many a young creature with back-ache for life; so we may rejoice that they are gone, and must take care that none of their mischief is done at home, while all really useful good sewing can very easily be taught there. ”

“ There is nothing which strikes more oddly upon the average intelligent visitor than to see boys as well as girls of ten, twelve, and thirteen years of age engaged in sewing and weaving. If we look at this from the standpoint of preparation of the boys for sewing on buttons and making patches, we get a narrow and utilitarian conception—a basis that hardly justifies giving prominence to this sort of work in the school. ”

“ Actual trade experience will teach her a great deal. If, however, she is obliged to leave school at fourteen, she should at least have had the advantage of the instruction in sewing which is given in the public schools. It is probable that she may be obliged, when she enters a dressmaking establishment, to act as a messenger girl. ”

“ All boys ought to be taught the use of hammer and plane and screw-driver, and, for that matter, plain sewing also. Girls need sewing no doubt; and they should be taught it at home, or at school, or wherever they can find a teacher. But, for all this, to assign to sewing any thing like the same relative importance that belonged to it a hundred 221years ago, or even twenty years ago, is to overlook the changed conditions of modern society. ”

“ Since the class period for sewing in the rural school will necessarily be brief, the pupils should be encouraged to continue their work at some other period. However, no work outside of the class period should be permitted until the pupil has mastered the stitch and can be trusted to do the work in the right way. The privilege of sewing may be 112made the reward for lessons quickly learned, home practice may be assigned, or the class may meet out of school hours. All outside practice must be carefully supervised, the pupil bringing her work to the teacher for frequent inspection. ”

“ They want to know how to sew, and nothing makes a lady so popular with school-girls as to tell them that they can have a sewing-class at her house. Then if after the sewing there can be stories and singing and games, the girls are sure to have a fine time. They save their pennies to buy the cloth on which they work. I have seen many a mother much pleased with the tiny stitches her daughter has learned to make. A blue cheese-cloth duster, neatly hemmed, makes a nice present from the youngest ones to their mothers, while the older girls make clothes for themselves or for the children at home. ”

“ The “Girls’ Sewing-Class!” “Thirty-eight Dollars!” Sunday-school workers of New England, think what that means! We venture to say there is scarce a Sunday-school connected with one of our churches in New England where the same amount of money would cost a girls’ sewing-class one-half the self-denial and labor that is represented by this $38 for the Mendi Mission. And it came from a colored girls’ sewing-class! ”

“ Now that so much time is occupied with the higher branches of education, and only an hour or so allotted to instruction in sewing, knitting, etc., the pupil leaves school in general with a very imperfect understanding of how to shape a stocking. ”

“ The mothers and grandmothers of Pleasant Valley are delighted to know that their children are to be taught at school. If we understand about materials, we will be able to help a great deal. Do you know that the women of the United States spend a billion of dollars every year for textile materials alone? Isn't it interesting to know, too, that our clothing materials come from plants or animals? Do you know how they are obtained and manufactured? Do you belong to a sewing club or society? Perhaps you can form a sewing club at your school or in your town as the girls of Pleasant Valley did. ”

“ The industrial school was opened in 1908. Since then 297 pupils have been received, 270 of these being Canadians, 19 English and 8 Indians. There are at present 60 pupils in this department.
These young girls are employed in the different departments and work rooms of the house.
In the sewing room they are taught sewing and mending as well as knitting, embroidery, etc. In the kitchen, laundry, book bindery, printing office and pharmacy, they are trained to become useful members of society. ”

“ All of these schools are still blundering in method and unsatisfactory in their results, but a certain trade school for girls, in New York, which is preparing young girls of fourteen for the sewing trade, already so overcrowded and subdivided that there remains very little education for the worker, is conquering this difficult industrial situation by equipping each apprentice with "the informing mind." If a child goes into a sewing factory with a knowledge of the work she is doing in relation to the finished product ”

“ This project is for you who have learned the lessons of Clothing Phases 1 and 2. You are now ready to do more advanced sewing.
Third phase clothing features clothing for school and play. It includes points on health and good grooming for you to study and use. You will learn to stretch the life of your clothes. Take turns leading discussions and giving demonstrations for your club. Look at “Tips for Easier Sewing,” page 13. They will aid you in improving your sewing.
What to study 1. Care of clothing—learn to keep your clothing in its proper place. 2. Buying anklets and how to care for them. ”

“ After two years in the laundry she was given an opportunity to learn plain sewing in that division. She was promoted to the Dressmaking Division at the end of the year, and received her certificate at the close of two years, after working every day and attending night-school. She spent the last two years of her school life in the Millinery Division, and received her certificate from that division with one from the Academic Department on her graduation. During these two years she taught the sewing-classes in the night-school of the town of Tuskegee. ”

“ He thinks that, apart from the value of the art, it would be worth while to spend half the school hours in sewing, for the sake of the effect on the girls’ characters. He speaks of the order, quiet, cleanliness, and cheerful repose with activity, which prevail in afternoon school hours devoted to sewing,—a real training for the home, while the occupation also tends to impress the intellectual lessons of the morning. Looking forward a few years, the sense of the fitness of the training to make good wives and mothers must be very strong ”

“ As teachers became better acquainted with the needs of their fields, sewing lessons were given, or sewing schools established in connection with daily work. While teaching deft use of the needle, to mend old garments and cut new, there is opportunity to speak apt words about love of finery, habits of wastefulness or extravagance, and improper hours, all of which find quick lodgment in minds eager for new ideas. It is no slight gratification to teachers that, in large assemblies, they can select their students by a more quiet, suitable dress and dignified bearing. ”

“ The boys have learned carpentry work by making things that were needed in the school building—tables, cupboards, and bookcases—and by doing some of the repairing on the building. The girls have learned to sew by making clothes for themselves, for their brothers and sisters, and by making curtains and linen for the school. They have learned to cook by making soup for hot lunches for the school and the neighbors, and by cooking a whole212 meal for their own class. Besides the cooking and sewing department for the girls, there is a class in millinery and in crocheting. ”

“ The various educational exhibits contain many samples of sewing and mending done by schoolgirls, and the subject is mentioned in a large number of school programmes. Samples of simple millinery, as well as of sewing, appear in the exhibit of the Workingmen's School, of New York. Plain needlework may be seen in the educational exhibit of Japan ”

“ In addition to my visits, I have tried to reach the women by means of cabin prayer-meetings, and to help the girls and young women by the medium of sewing-schools. I have two schools in successful operation in different parts of the city. One numbers twenty pupils, the other nearly forty. We begin with prayer and short Scripture reading, and then with great eagerness the girls set about their sewing, or lesson in cutting, as the case may be. When a garment is finished, each girl purchases her own work for a dime or fifteen cents. ”