A sewing course for teachers - Mary schenck Woolman

directions for making the various stitches and
instruction in methods of teaching

Mary schenck woolman

​President of the Women's Educational and Industrial Union
and Professor of Household Economics in Simmons College
​

Mary Raphael Schenck

Birth:  26 Apr 1860, Roselle, Union, NJ
Father:  John Voorhees Schenck  (1825 - 1882)
Mother:  Martha McKeen  (1834 - 1909)
Spouse:  Franklin Conrad Woolman  (1856 - 1906)
Marriage:  18 Oct 1884, Camden, NJ
Death:  3 Aug 1940, Newton Highlands, Middlesex, MA
Burial:  Evergreen Cemetery, Camden, NJ
Memorial ID:  220552821

​Mary was one of the first women faculty members at Teachers College in NYC.  She was the founder of  Manhattan Trade School for Girls, the first vocational school for women in the U.S.

Educated at the Quaker Mary Anna Longstreth School in Philadelphia, Mary attended the University of Pennsylvania from 1883 to 1884, 
​before the school granted degrees to women.

"At the age of 22, she married Franklin Conrad Woolman. 
Franklin, an attorney, who was also from a prominent New Jersey / Philadelphia
​family, tracing their lineage back to the Quaker preacher John Woolman.

Woolman's father died in 1882 at age 58 from typhoid fever. This event, followed by serious illnesses for her mother and husband, forced Woolman to become both household manager and family health care provider. Having to learn additional skills such as cooking, care for invalids and budgeting impressed upon her the inadequacies of the training in practical matters provided to women at the time.

To avoid bankruptcy, she was forced to sell their house in Camden and move the family to NYC in 1891.  There she was employed as a copy editor, and the family stayed in a boarding house on Washington Square.

Several faculty members of the Teachers College also lived in the boarding house, and one of them brought her a book on the teaching of sewing to review. She had harsh criticism of the book, which impressed the professor and the president of the Teachers College. They asked her to write up her own ideas on the subject.  The manual she wrote de-emphasized then-current methods of teaching, involving fancy stitch work and repetition. Instead, she focused on the planning and making of practical garments. Her manual was well received."  -  source: Wikipedia

​First published in 1893, this copy is a fifth edition from 1913

​This is an interleaved edition, in which are inserted 31 leaves of bristol-board
​for mounting the practice pieces made by the student.  Price: $3.50, in 1913.

Interleaved copies with sets of models mounted on the bristol-board leaves
​were available from the Domestic Art Dept of Teachers College for $19.25, in 1913.

** A free online edition of the book, featuring all 62 instructional exercises,
can be found at Chest of Books and Internet Archive

​"The introduction of manual training as a necessary part of education has raised sewing to an art of great importance.  Outside of the practical advantage of being able to use the needle, the mental training through hand and eye has been proved to have a permanent effect on the character.  The training of the hand makes it dextrous in other employments,  Habits of thrift, cleanliness, patience, and accuracy are inculcated, economy taught and the inventive faculty developed.  Attention and the power of observation are increased by giving the lesson to an entire class at one time instead of by the old method of showing each pupil separately."

​~ MARY SCHENCK WOOLMAN