The daily morning journal and courier., 1894-10-26
CHIoAGo,s roysoRIAL COLLEGE.
Women are Learning to Shave and Cul Hair, and They are Very Proficient.
 fFroyp tho Chicago Record

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 Women are Learning to Shave and Cut Hair, and They are Very Proficient.
 From the Chicago Record.l . On the second floor of 394 Wabash avenue Mir. A. B. Moler's school for barbers has full sway. MT. Moler mod estly confesses to being the sole origl- nator and founder of the first barber schools in America. Since the 18th of last February, when he opened his first school in Chicago, he has established branches in New York city, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Minneapolis, and is now admitting ladies into his classes, He already has three applicants in that dc. partment. His brown-eyed wife. who has recently learned her husbands trade; will instruct the women.
 Lady barbers are decidedly In de- mand." insisted the discover of regular training schools for his craft. "She may learn in my classes, while It IS de- cidedly difficult for her to do so, as men have formerly done, by serving an apprenticeship. Only the cheaper establishments care to bother with the raw material, and woman doesn't like to begin in one of the five-cent shops. When she has completed the course here she Is sure of a position, and gets the same salary as man.
 Lady barbers who own their places of business now have great difficulty in securing competent assistants Of their own sex. There Is even talk at present of !. a stock company being formed to open a large barber shop in the center of the city, fitted up in the best style, and presided over by as many as forty girls. The women stu dents here will pay the same tuition as the men-twenty-flve dollars for the course, which generally takes about eight weeks. By that time she will be complete barber The only girl l ever taught became decidedly proficient in that length of time, but left for Cal ifornia to start shop of her own. She learned much easier than the average man."
 Chicago boasts at present about twenty-five female artists in this line, several of them owning their own es- tablishments, while others work side by side with their husbands. Cottage Grove avenue between Thirty-first and Thirty-ninth streets, is especially for tunate in this direction, as three shops grace that particular locality. At i5 Thirty-first street Mrs. M. B. Willard has held her own for twelve years, and at present has two lady assistants, the only masculine attache of the place be- ing the ebony-faced young wielder of the whisk broom. One of these women stoutly rejected the idea of any barber learning his trade in only eight weeks, and was equally confident that women in the trade are far superior to men.
 "Why, their hands are lighter and then they are so much more reliable Men are apt to get drunk, while a wo- man is true to her trust. The only drawback to the work is the long hours fourteen every day. sixteen on Satur- days, and till one o'clock Sundays. No, our customers rarely give us trouble, for the men of this neighborhood are generally gentlemen, though shouldn't like to work in some parts of the city,
 Mrs. Marshall at S,109 Cottage Grove avenue, and Mrs. Leland at 3,62O of tl,e same street, complete the little colony of women barbers in that locality, per- forming their work as sedately as though they were not in reality prac- ticing a rather unusual craft for their sex.