dardized apprenticeship wage. Girls may serve without pay for six
months, or may start at from 50 cents to $4 a week. At the end of six
months they may be earning from $1.50 to $6. The lack of any wage
standard in apprenticeship probably accounts for the fact that it is
difficult to get girls to enter this trade.

MILLINERY

Millinery requires the handling of small pieces of the most varied
sorts of material, most of it perishable. The materials must be
measured, cut, turned, twisted, and draped into innumerable designs
and color combinations, and sewed with various kinds of stitching.
The main processes are making, trimming, and designing. Making
consists in fashioning a specified shape from wire or buckram and
covering it with such materials as straw or velvet. The covering may
be put on plain, or may be shirred or draped. Trimming consists in
placing and sewing on all sorts of decorative materials. A combination
of the two processes of making and trimming, known as copying,
consists in making a hat from the beginning exactly like a specified
model. Designing is the creation of original models.

The increase in the use of the factory-made hat has decreased the
number of workers in custom millinery, and has also had an effect in
diverting business from small retail shops to millinery departments in
stores. The number of millinery workers constantly fluctuates, not
only from season to season, but from year to year. According to a
close estimate not more than 2,000 workers were actually engaged in
millinery occupations during the busiest part of 1915. Between 1,200
and 1,400 were in retail shops; about 300 were in millinery
departments in stores; and about 300 more were in wholesale houses.

The data collected indicate that the wages of workers in retail shops
are lower in general than the wages of workers in millinery
departments in stores and in wholesale houses. Makers in retail shops
earn from $3 to $16 a week, the average being about $8. Trimmers earn
from $10 to $40, with an average of about $18. Out of 45 retail
shops, only 22 paid as high as $10 to any maker; 15 paid as high as
$12; six paid as high as $15; and only one paid over $15.

In millinery departments in stores, trimmers, who are generally
designers, earn from $15 to $50 a week or more. The rate most commonly
received is $25. Makers are started at from $4 to $6 and may advance
to $15, with an average of about $10.

In wholesale houses designers