The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1882-10-21
HOW ART REMUNERATEs WOMEN

If the reader of these lines is a young
woman between fifteen and twenty years
of age. it is she whom | have the honor
of addressing. Have you ever thought
what you would do if thrown upon your
own resources for support? Perhaps your
parents are rich, and have provided for
Jour comfort in the future. But the
newspapers and our own observation
teach us that rich persons often become
poor. An old merchant once said that
nine -tenths of the business men of New
York city come to commercial grief.
Perhaps your parents are able to take
good care Of you in their lifetime, but
unable to continue that provision after
their DEATH This is the case with the
this country. Perhaps, again, your
parents can not take care of you even
now. If So of course the subject of
taking care of yourself is not Il stranger
to you and in the other two cases l have
mentioned it may sson force itself upon
your attention.
Now no young woman can obtain means
for her support without inheriting them,
stealing them, earning them, or begging
them. To beg, of course, you would be
ashamed. You would not steal them,
and if circumstances are such that you
30 not inherit them from the living or
the dead, you must earn them; and all
this is true whether you marry OF remain
single. However much or often you may
become entitled to support from hus-
band, he may by sickness, death, OF other
misfortune, become unable to pay the
debt. tits a mistake to suppose that the
ability to supper. herself is useful only to
a husbandless woman. Happily though
they may be married, many women would
become happier by reason Of some dol
lars in their own saving bank.
Clearly, then, you, whoever you are, are
interested in the question, How can |
earn money!" Though you may not need
to earn it to-day, perhaps to- morrow you
will.
Well. there is variety 0. ways in
which women are supporting themselves
in the United States of Amt RIGA. They
sew for Ii, ing, they are clerks in stores,
they teach in schools they are nursery
governesses, they are house servants and
housekeepers, they are operatives in fac
tories, and in addition to other things
they do art work.
This last is, think, the pleasantest way
of all, chiefly because it associates them
with the beautiful--the beautiful being
that which most pleases us. 1t is also
the most renumerative of all, because We
pay most, and are the most ready to pay,
for that which most pleases US.
II you have never informed yourself on
the subject, it would surprise you to know
how many young women in this country
to-day are making money by art-work,
and how much money they are making.
To the Free Art School for Women of
the Cooper Institute in New York city,
seven hundred and eleven young women
were admitted last session, and thirteen
hundred and ninety seven applied for ad-
mission, but there was not room to ac-
commodate them all. The schools Of the
National Academy of Design and of the
Art Students League are always full.
Drawing is taught Systematically i'll the
public schools. in the private schools, and
in homes. In hundreds of studios young
wemen are studying art. 9 \ little girl,
as Peter Cooper recently described her to
me, call at the house of that gentleman
to thank him for what she had learned in
the Cooper Institute. Il have earned
three hundred dollars this year." she ex-
claimed, with enthusiasm, ''by painting
photographs, and anything else | could
get hold Of \ man in middle life met
Mr. Cooper on the stairs of the Institute.
"My daughter" he said, I'm axes thir-
teen hundred dollars a year by teaching
painting aud drawing in 4 Brooklyn
school, and | never earned more than
twelve hundred a year myself" \ young
woman from California sat ON the sofa in
Mr.. Cooper's library. Il have come to
thank you," she observed. 81 feel as
rich as a queen. l have thirty pupils in
wood engraving" Like her two sisters
Just mentioned, she had studied art in
the Cooper Institute. Another graduate
is earning annually from two thousand
to three thousand dollars as Il teacher of
drawing in the New York public schools.
Still another has just received from New
Orleans an appointment as manager of
society of decorative art, at a salary of
one hundred and fifty dollars month,
with opportunities to earn as much more
by private tuition. Similar instances
might be multiplied indefinitely. Every
year about hundred young women on
leaving the Cooper Institute make from
four hundred to twelve hundred dollars
apiece by art work. The largest demand
is for teachers of drawing, and for max
ers Of crayon photographs. To this latter
class of artists the rest of this article
shall be devoted.
Cray"n photographs are photographs
usually portraits which have been
worked over" with cray ems, pastels,
charcoal, OF India ink. 1t is not the pho
tographs which you or your friends are
in the habit of getting taken of your
selves at a photographers that are thus
worked over" the paper on which such
photographs are printed is too smooth.
1t is that special kind Of photographs
known as solar prints, and printed on
rough paper, in order to catch the point
of the artists pencil, pen, or crayon.
You can buy them at any solar print
shop for from two dollars and half up
ward, the lowest priced being large
enough to contain picture of a child's
head one-third the natural size.
The principal demand for crayon pho
tographs-you cannot make money by
selling unless there is a demand for what
you have to SELLS from two sources.
first. from persons who possess old aud
faded dasuerreotypeS. ambrotypes, "tin
types photographs, or oil portraits of
friends, long ago dead perhaps, and who
desire pleasing reproductions of them.
There are many such persons; almost
every family in the United States owns
some such specimen of diapidated por-
traiture. Suppose, for instance, you