The Audition at Leslie’s
When an art agency put out a call for a model, dozens of women showed up at a steep office staircase, each hoping for the stability of a steady wage.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In response to an advertisement for a young woman of good figure to serve as a model for an art department, two score or more women climbed the steep stairway that led to the art department of Frank Leslie’s establishment. Not one of them thought there was anything to be said against her figure. There were stout women, lean women, short women, tall women, women all curves and women all angles, tidy young girls and slovenly old women, modest maidens and females not modest, women with good figures and women without any figure in particular. One impulse animated the throng: the desire to earn the pay per week that the fortunate model would receive.
'I am willing to do anything, sir, that is right,' said a slender girl with hunger-pinched cheeks, 'and for very little pay. I do want to earn something.' But that slender form needed the rounding that comes with generous food, and the manager had to say 'no,' and the girl slowly walked away with lips slightly compressed.
An old woman, wrinkled and bent, insisted that she could and would 'do,' and a lame girl begged hard for the position. There could be but one successful competitor, and she was a plain-faced, ladylike girl with an excellent figure. 'Her duties are simply to be in the office when the artists are here,' said the manager, 'and when we want a female figure for a street scene, an accident, or anything else requiring good action, she will pose for it. We used to employ the services of some of the girls of our workshop, but they objected to being photographed in certain positions, and so we decided to have a model for that exclusive business.'
“One impulse animated the throng: the desire to earn the pay per week that the fortunate model would receive.”
This 1877 report captures a raw intersection of the gig economy and precarious labor. Much like contemporary gig workers waiting on app-based tasks, the applicants for this modeling position arrived in droves to compete for a single, low-wage role, underscoring the timeless desperation of the urban workforce in Seattle’s early commercial history.
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