The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-18
WOMEN DESIGNERS KEPT BUSY
FOUR THOUSAND or THEN EARN
ING GOOD LIVINGS.

They Make Designs for Everything From
Silks to Houses DO Well In Competition
with Men Experiences Of Some VINO
Worries Their Way Through school.
When Mrs. Dunlop Hopkins founded the
School OF Applied Design for Women in
1892, it was a work Of faith on her part.
Ever since the world began to talk about
women at all one thing that was always
insisted on was that they had not the in
ventive or creative faculty.
To-day there are women regularly en-
ployed 10 design silks, rugs and other goods
which are extensively advertised al m
ported wares. The goods are imported,
for they are made in foreign countries,
where they can be made better and cheaper
than IN America; but they are made from
designs by New York women.
One graduate of his school works for a
Turkish firm in New York. She is con-
stantly designing patterns and color
schemes which are suited to the New York
market. These are sent to the Orient and
made up into Turkish and other Eastern
rugs.
The same is true OF French and Japanese
az "tAN AOuH Wv socNHs NV hAhS o'h
designers may not excel the foreign ones,
but they understand better what Ameri-
al want.
our thousand former pupils OF this
school are now earning a living in designing.
They are scattered all over the country, but
the mi majority are in and around New York.
Most of them are employees Of mamufactur-
ing firms at salaries ranging from $40 to
t25 a week, few receiving less than SIS.
In New York some two hundred have
cache the point where they do better by
free lance work in their own studios. The
regular price is s25 for a design for printed
silk, SIS for woven silk and IS for dress
six. For hanging wall paper the price
10 SIS and for frieze and ceiling as well the
price is $50. One girl sold six SIS designs
in one week recently, and there is none Of
them who does not average at least SIS
a week.
Several Of these girls are employed as
renderers for leading house decorators.
One renderer for a celebrated man in this
line receives $50 a week. Thu decorator
talks with the owners and then tells the
renderer his plans. the color scheme and
style for each room. She makes a water
color sketch of each room, which ia sub
mitted and amended Then she finds and
buys everything, superintends the putting
on of the wall coverings. finds the right
furniture, sometimes antique, at great eK-
pense of time and trouble.
Two women who did ulis sort OF thing
very successfully have now for some years
had an establishment OF their own on Fifth
avenue, where they do the most expensive,
high class interior decorating. Nc sign of
femininity appears in the firm name, and
only their patrons now they are not men.
Another woman who is ut the head OF
her OWN business in Philadelphia has had
a rather remarkable career. She worked
as an employee and independently five
years after leaving school. and at the end
OF that time had saved money enough TO
buy out a stained glass business.
One Of the leading publishing firms re-
Gently got out an edition Of Shakespeare
in fifty volumes. Two girls who are in
dependeA& studio workers obtained the
contract of Illuminating this work by hand.
They received 50 a volume, or 5000 for each
Of the sets, several hundred in number.
They designed all the capitals and other
i~lluminations in conventional designs, and
then had the manual work lone by a large
nuTNDeT VI OtneT girls.
One studio worker is exceedingly SUCCESS
full as a rug designer. being known through
out the trade. Other women design all
manner Of things-burnt leather, portieres,
lamp shades, furniture. cretonnes, chintzes,
jewelry, tableware, linens. china, menu
cards. cotillon favors and a thousand
articles of Use and luxury.
One student was called upon the other
day TO design a very beautiful box Ia be
made Of rare woods a. the receptacle for a
rare and valuable c~ruciflx. Some OF the
best known books of recent publication
have had covers designed by these girls.
and one lately published book, written by a
woman, had a cover designed by her sister.
The sloWest of all offices 10 open TO these
women have been those of the architects,
for here they encounter the only disability
attendant upon their sex. 1t is customary
for the architect who designs a building to
superintend its erection, and this is difficult
for women. There are, however, about
fifty women mechanical ~draughtsmen In
architects offices in New York.
One of them recently designed a court
house for a Long Island town. Her en-
ployer will superintend the erection Of the
building, but the design was really accepted
as she submitted it.
In Twilight Park in the Catskills there is
one summer cottage which was actually
erected by the woman who designed IT,.
A number OF women are now busy at land