Читать книгу The Employments of Women: A Cyclopædia of Woman's Work - Virginia Penny - Страница 52

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Schools of design were established 444 BC, for the purpose of improvement in making statuary. The arts declined when Europe was overrun by barbarous tribes, but in the eleventh century began to recover, and in 1350 several painters, sculptors, and architects formed an academy of design at Florence. In Paris there are seven schools of design for males, and two for females, supported by the city. There are seventy schools of design in Great Britain, and there is an annual exhibition of their work in London, where premiums are awarded. It is about twenty years since the schools were commenced in England. In 1854 nearly I,500 students had been educated in the School of Arts in Edinburgh. There are schools of design in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Boston. The object of these schools is to give a knowledge of some industrial branches of the fine arts. "The greater part of the higher order of designs are practically unavailable, for want of knowledge, on the part of the designer, of the conditions of the particular manufacture in question. The economic possibility and aptitude are not studied; and hence, the manufacturers say, an enormous waste of thought, skill, and industry. This want supplied, a field of industry practically boundless would be opened to female artists, as well as artisans; and it would be an enlightened policy to look to this while the whole world seems to be opening its ports to our productions." Mrs. Alice B. Havens writes of the school of design in Philadelphia: "When novelty and jealousy shall have ceased to excite envy and suspicion among those who would keep our sex from honest independence, a wide sphere of employment will be opened by this and similar institutions to educate intelligent women; for surely, if English manufacturers are not content to be under the control of foreign influence, our own countrymen can never be." The largest class of wood engravers is in the school of New York; the largest for designing on wall paper, in Philadelphia. More time has been devoted to instruction in drawing in the New York than the Philadelphia school. Without some practice in drawing, nothing can be accomplished in either wood engraving or designing. Designing, in some of its branches, is taught in all of the schools. Designs for paper hangings, calicoes, and wood engraving receive most attention. Designs for carpets, silks, ribbons, furniture, lace, plated ware, silver, jewelry, &c., have received but little, if any attention—those for casts and moulds, no more. If women of taste and cultivation attain superiority in designing, we doubt not they will reap a very fair harvest for their work. Lithography, wood engraving, drawing and painting, are also taught in schools of design. There are now in the school of design, New York, between 200 and 300 pupils: some are wood engravers, some designers, and some painters. "The earnings of the pupils in the classes of drawing and engraving are as varied as their skill and experience, but are about the same as those of men who have been at those branches of art the same length of time. Engravers and designers are generally qualified to work on orders the second year of their practice. With industry and the use of their whole time during school hours, pupils may expect an increase of about a $100 a year for several years. The income from the branches of art taught in the school must always be proportioned to the talent, experience, habits of application, and rapidity of hand shown by the artist. The engravers in the school who best understand drawing have the best work, and even the highest wages. The pupils have the entire benefit of their earnings." "At Lyons, France, the manufacture of divers stuffs absorbs the hands of thousands of men and women; but the men, only, enjoy the privilege of inventing combinations of forms and colors destined to inveigle the eyes of fashionable caprice." In the school of design, Philadelphia, a charge of $9 per quarter is made to amateur pupils for instruction, and a charge of $4 per quarter to professional pupils. In the school of design, New York, a charge of $4 per quarter is made to pupils who acquire instruction as an accomplishment: to those fitting for a profession, no charge is made. A lady teacher in the New England school of design had a salary of $400. We will copy an article placed at our disposal on the artistic employments of women in America. It was written by a former principal of the school of design in Boston: "The artistic employments of women in this country may be divided into three classes: 1st, those devoted to the fine arts; 2d, those engaged in designing and the business departments of the arts; 3d, teachers of drawing, painting, &c.—1. Under this head comparatively few will be found; the number, however, is fast increasing, and as avenues of sale for their works are found, I doubt not that there will be a marked improvement both in the quality of their work and in the amount paid for their labor. Most who pursue this department are confined to portrait painting or crayon portraits. I have seen beautiful portraits in colored crayons executed by ladies. I regret to say a comparatively small price was given, varying from $10 to $25, while works executed by men not a whit superior in any respect would command from $25 to $50, and even more.—2. Designing, and the Business Department of the Art. This admits of several divisions, and first we will take designing for textile materials. When women are engaged in the mills, their labor is very poorly paid for, compared with the payment made to the other sex. I know of about twenty women who are so engaged. The prices paid for their labor varies from $1 to $2 per day—men receiving from $800 to $1,200 and even $1,500 per annum. The difference here, however, is not so great, when the time given by the two to the necessary study is compared. Many of the male designers serve an apprenticeship varying from three to seven years before they are supposed to be fitted to take the situation of designer in a mill, and even this does not include the preliminary instruction in the school. Women, on the contrary, after a year or little more of study, enter the mill on equal terms with the prepared designer, his pay at the commencement of his engagement usually being from $1 to $1.50 per day. The employment of women at all in this department is almost a new thing, and is not yet countenanced to any great extent. Time, however, will remove all difficulties in the way, and, by steady perseverance I think woman will be able to show herself superior to man in this branch, because it is more in her own domain than in that of man. When the designs of women are presented to manufacturers and found acceptable, they will command a price equal to the designs of men. This I speak from experience, having disposed of designs for silver ware, printed coach linings, coach lace, paper for walls, calicoes, delaines, and muslins, and other articles of like nature. These have commanded the same price as the designs of men, but it is difficult at times to find a market for them. I remember presenting some designs to a manufacturer, about two years since, which were very much praised; but when I stated they were made by ladies, at first it was said to be impossible, and then they sunk in value, were wrong in the mechanical detail, were not adapted to the purpose for which they were intended; but, unfortunately for the truth of the latter statement, they were disposed of to another manufacturer in the same street, who had formed rather a different idea of the powers of women as compared with men. A second branch of business art is drawing for mechanical purposes and patent inventions. There are in this city many ladies who earn quite a handsome income by drawing for the patent office, patent agents, &c., the drawings chiefly linear mechanical ones, the remuneration varying according to ability. Some are paid by the piece, and others by the day. The day laborers earn from $1 to $2, and in two instances $2.25 and $2.50 per day. The price of work varies according to size, intricacy, finish, &c., the rate being nearly that which men receive, in some instances the same. This requires mechanical knowledge which is not very often possessed by women, but is a branch of study that would be found both pleasant and profitable, especially if they were prepared for it by an elementary course in the public schools. It is not a branch that admits of much display, and is therefore almost entirely neglected, or taught in such a way as to be utterly futile for all practical purposes. A third branch is architectural drawing. I know of but one instance of a woman pursuing this branch, which is both delightful, useful, and very profitable. Perhaps there is not any department of the fine arts to which woman might more successfully devote herself than to this. Such a devotion of woman's power would tend to abolish the gross deformities we so often see paraded before our eyes in the streets, in the form of buildings presenting every possible incongruity of shape and every perversion of the beauty of form. This requires much study, but would eventually repay for all the time and trouble that would be bestowed upon it. A fourth is wood and other engraving. This commands as high a price as men's labor, when brought into the market; but when women are employed in engraving establishments, the grossest injustice is shown them in the inequality of the payments made. A woman will receive, in the same place, for the same amount of labor, a sum not exceeding half of that paid to the men in the same employment. In England this department stands on a perfect equality as regards sex. The quality of the work being the test of price, it is the same to men as to women, if the quality is the same.—3. Teachers of Drawing and Painting. This is always most profitable when pursued independently of the schools. When it is so pursued, the rate of payment varies from $5 to $25 per quarter, for each pupil, excepting in the case of very small children, when the prices may be a trifle lower, but the same would be the case with men as with women. In most academies the service of teaching in this department is given by preference to women, and at the same price. When they are engaged simply as assistants, then a gross inequality begins. A man would be paid say $200 or $300 per annum for one half day a week—a woman $100 or $150 at most. The reason for this lies deeper than I can divine, but in other instances when a lower price is paid, it is generally the fault of the individual employed. There should, if possible (and I conceive it to be so), be a fixed rate for teaching a certain number of pupils, and so much more additional for every one added: this would give a general rate for all to make their demands upon. If more branches, or extended time, or any other demand was made upon the individual teaching, then they would have some standard whereby to regulate the extra charges. There is only one feature which requires to be somewhat changed, and that is a tendency to superficiality. Women oftentimes commence to teach before they themselves have taken more than the most elementary steps for their own improvement. Time will, however, regulate this deficiency; and as the resources of improvement open to all, those who devote themselves to the honorable employment of teaching will take all proper steps to fit themselves for the office.—There is no department of the fine arts—painting, sculpture, architecture, or manufacturing design—in which woman may not run an equal race with man, if she takes the same trouble and care to fit herself for it, and, when fitted, is faithful to her own interests and her profession. This will never be accomplished by schools of design as at present instituted, for they lose their character and become designing shops. This must be laid aside, and culture, with a general or specific object, be alone attended to for the time necessary to learn properly and thoroughly what they are about to practise. Men and women both, now expect to learn the art of designing fully in the course of six or twelve months. This can only be done to a limited extent, depending on the powers of the pupil, the mode of instruction, and the capacity of the teacher to win and to guide those committed to his or her care. If the profession is entered upon with unfitness and want of knowledge, then the prices of labor will be necessarily reduced to a low scale; if with fitness, and a certainty of our own capacity, we can demand 'a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.' The interests of this nation demand the production of native designs, and whenever her children are fully fitted to produce them, are competent to put their designs side by side with those of other nations and challenge a comparison, every other obstacle will dwindle into a shadow, and every difficulty that now stands in the way of woman's natural place, in art at least, will be finally removed—to which end 'may God speed the plough.'"