Manhattan Trade School for Girls: Report cards from the 1920s and the stories they tell. (1) - By Paul Lukas - Slate Magazine

Manhattan Trade School for Girls: Report cards from the 1920s and the stories they tell. (1) - By Paul Lukas - Slate Magazine:

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How I Found the Report Cards, and How They Changed My Life

By Paul Lukas
Posted Sunday, Sept. 18, 2011, at 10:12 PM ET

Meet Marie Garaventa.

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What you see above is the front of her report card from the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, a vocational school she attended in the late 1920s, after she had finished the eighth grade. As you can see, she had a perfect attendance record—this despite moving several times, having a deceased father, and being hard of hearing.

If you click through the rest of Marie's student record, you'll see that the school's staff initially described her as "slow" and "irritable" (perhaps due to her hearing problems) but that she eventually gained confidence and made the honor roll. You'll also see that the school helped to place her in more than a dozen sewing and dress-finishing jobs after she graduated, and that at one point she was scolded for not returning to a job after her lunch break.

It all reads like the storyboard for a movie or a play—the rough outline of a young