The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1889-11-17
BREAKING NEW GROUND.
MRS. FLORENCE ELIZABETH CORY
THE FIRST WOMAN DESIGNER.

Success Encouraging Other Women
to Explore the Fields OF Industrial
Design.
! Ccopuioht)
! NEW YORK, Nov. 16-The story of how
industrial design has opened door to pay
ing occupations for women may prove of
interest to many although they have not
the advantage OF hearing it as l did from
the lips of the one who first found the key
and turned the knob and entered into the
treasure store room. Mrs. Florence
Elizabeth Cory was the first woman de-
signer in the country. Both as artist-arti-
san and as teacher of the school OF indus
trial arts and technical design she has
placed herself at the head of the industry,
and, in fact, it is she who to large extent
has created the industry as such for women.
| my case" said she yesterday" was a
| typical one. With baby to take care of,
could paint little, sing little for the
amusement of my friends, jabber little
french very ungrammatically, and do
nothing at all well enough to earn main
tenance for myself and my child.
"One day while calling on a friend hap
| pened to notice her carpet; it was very
ugly one. If l made carpets / would make
|
lnspira ton came the thought and 4 will
| design Them
| NO one of my acquaintance, no book
that could come by gave me any informa-
ton, but 1t was the year after the centeu-
NAL exposition at Philadelphia, and while
running over some old numbers of Frank
LeSae's to amuse my little girl with the
pictures came upon description of the
carpet department, with Illustrations The
Hartford, Yonkers and Lowell mills were
represented, and choosing the Hartford
carpet Company at random l wrote letter
asking If designs were merchantable articles.
what prices were paid for them, what sorts
OF paper they were made on, and if there
| were any color restrictions.
| Mr.. Martin, the New York agent of the
| company, sent me most encouraging an
sWer No woman, he said, had ever de-
signed carpets, but as a woman ought to be
| able to judge of the tastes of other women
he thought it might be a most excellent
| idea. With his letter came several sample
| designs, the first things of the sort I had
ever seen. studied them, then exami-
ned every carpet in the house on hands and
knees, picked pieces Of carpeting to pieces
and found out several things. Then /
made design and sent it to Mr.. Martin.
he returned 1t as not pretty enough to be
taking, but wrote taatit was practical. and
showed enough aptitude for the business to
warrant me in persevering.
II made more designs and took them to
MIR. Barber, of the Auburn Mills. He
| laughed at the notion of wasting his time
on woman on such an errsnd. but when 7
| spread my samples before him, he asked.
Where did you learn this, who taught yo,
| that? and ended by buying one for $50. the
first money had ever earned.
my next step was to get admission to the
art school at Cooper Institute, where was
told that could learn the art of designing.
| but my heart failed me when l discovered
| almost at the first Lesson that the teachers
knew less of practical carpet designing
than had been able to fiud out alone. They
taught the art pric ciples APPLYING TO de-
sign and taught them iutelligently. but of
the technical points to be observed in max
ing pattern which might be beautiful in
ltself also possible for the looms, they were
wholly ignorant"
THAT their designs are pretty but NOT
| practical is the usual criticism that has
been passed, has it not, by manufacturers
| on womenW
'How could it be otherwise The rnen
designers learn in the mills. They go in as
boys to grind colors. They are promoted
to ill IN backgrounds for the draughtsmen.
| then they are set to COPY and adapt. and
| little by little to originate under DESIGN
er's eye. There was no teaching whatever
to be had by women. The mills didn't
| want them as apprentices and no school
existed which made any account of mail
| machinery,
'In fact. no school in the east of which +
know is now teaching practical design.
| The wife of a wealthy wall paper manufsc'
turer in Philadelphia attended one of the
best known. She has artistic talent and at
the annual exhibition her design took the
| first prize. 1t was a beautiful thing. bnt
when, being practical woman.
she tested its merits by taking
it, not to her husband. but
to factory where she was not known they
| told her it was of no use; she bad not been
taught how many colors she could use. how
| the colors should fall, the dimensions or in
deed anything that would enable her to
| judge whether her patterns could actually
be printed by machinery. So many
women are disappointed because after Civ
ing their time and money they find that
while they are taught drawing they are
not taught design as applied practically to
any single manufactured article"
| "And what did you dog"
| II haunted the carpet stores. Being a
| woman the clerks had no suspicion that I
| was anything but a possible buyer and
showed me everything that was new. /
| jotted down schemes of color and notes of
pattern and worked out many of my own
problems. by and by got hold of a copy
| VI o-AS .N~OS 1eoUt6U anu ROG Cl0
address of Mr.. Kendall, then, 1 think, its
editor, and the agent of Bigelow
Carpet Company. His kindness took
a thoroughly practical form.
On the day after my visit his head DESIGNER
called on me and taking pencil and paper
sat down and gave me my first useful car
pet lesson. Mr.. Kendall also gave me a
note to the, head designer of a large Garnet
factory in the city and there, though it
amused the man at first that woman
should be interested in anything but dresses
and bonnets, was allowed to examine the
machinery, and, perhaps because of the
very novelty of the idea, six weeks free
| instruction was offered me-"
Having made a carpet designer of her
self by that overmastering desire and per-
sistent effort which somebody has said to-
gether constitute genius, Mrs Cory was
at once engaged as teacher at Cooper In
stitute of what she had herself come thore
to learn; but, her health failing through
over-exertion, she went west and it was
not until three or four years later that she
returned to New York and established her
self as practical designer, succeeding so
well that she had presently more work than
she could attend to.
Speaking from her own experience, she
says that not only is sex no obstacle to a
woman's success as designer, but the time
is coming, she thinks, when it will be a
positive advantage. The prices received