Pratt Institute - Prattonia Yearbook (Brooklyn, NY)

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ordering of human relations, and women them- selves were content to occupy their exclusive place under the sun. So there soon came about the Women’s Department at the Institute which took charge of all matters “domestic.” So much so, that two departments were evolved —Domestic Art and Domestic Science—Art having to do with sewing, dressmaking, shirt- waist-making and millinery—the two latter of special significance in the hey-day of the balloon-sleeve shirt-waist, and when women’s hats were monumental structures of flowers and fruits, feathers and ribbons, each resultant tri- umph of art and ingenuity termed a “‘creation.” Domestic Science embodied hygiene, nursing, cookery, laundry-work—definitely utilitarian. Art and Science were later merged into a com- mon cause as the Department of Domestic Art and Science, which, after a second brief separa- tion, took on new dignity when the term “Household”? was adopted, implying the growth of the work into trade and institutional im- portance. The Department of Mechanic Arts at first

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the best exhibition galleries of New York.” Consistently the exhibits gave full value to the lesser arts, opening as it did at the highest pitch of the “‘poster craze.” The paintings of William M. Chase, the sculpture of H. A. MacNeil, the ecclesiastical glass of J. R. Lamb, the exqui- site wares of the Tiffany Glass and Decorating Co. gave place in turn to Rookwood, Grueby and Volkmar pottery, to textiles, rugs, posters, and, even, butterflies and moths. Music, too, was a fine art, and while the singing classes were drilled in the “tonic-sol- fa’ system, the Music Department had its little day. The Department of Museums was soon des- ignated “The Technical Museum” aiming to be a collection “illustrating all those processes which have as their ends the production of artistic as well as useful objects.” Though dis- continued in its initial phase, it was the fore- runner of the public Museum of Science and Industry of today. In 1887 ‘“‘Woman’s Sphere” was generally admitted to have a place of distinction in the

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Sates reflected the Founder’s intent to give training to young men in the trades and the shop. Classes were opened in manual training, wood- turning, tinsmithing, carpentry, plumbing, stone-cutting, house- and sign-painting, black- smithing, bricklaying, plastering—these rapidly to give way to more responsible technical pur- suits, the distinctly “trade” courses being later shifted to the Evening School, where they gradually yielded to work related to the main scientific concerns of the Department. The transition to larger things was progressive, and the earlier “engineering” courses included Electrical Construction, Steam and Machine Design, Applied Electricity, Applied Chemis- try, and Machine Construction, while the School of Science and Technology was steadily making its way into high standing and responsi- bility in the engineering field. The Department of Commerce did not prove quite compatible with the Institute’s scheme of de velopment, separating itself into an independ- ent business-school since known as Heffley School.