glibmm building and sigc++ problem

[tj <999alfred comcast net>]

I am trying to install inkscape which requires glibmm anf gtkmm. However 
I can not get glibmm to configure. the complaint.

Perhaps you should add the directory containing `sigc++-2.0.pc'
to the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable
No package 'sigc++-2.0' found
configure: error: Package requirements (sigc++-2.0 >= 2.0.0 glib-2.0 >= 
2.6.0 gobject-2.0 >= 2.6.0 gmodule-2.0 >= 2.6.0) were not met.
Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively you may set the GLIBMM_CFLAGS and GLIBMM_LIBS environment 
variables
to avoid the need to call pkg-config.  See the pkg-config man page for
more details.

I installed  libsigcc 2.0.16 form tar ball and a  ldconfig returns
       libsigc-2.0.so.0 (libc6) => /usr/local/lib/libsigc-2.0.so.0
       libsigc-2.0.so (libc6) => /usr/local/lib/libsigc-2.0.so

So why is the glibmm configure unhappy...
While I did the original Linux install with Slackware 10.1, I do not use 
just packages. I get the latest tar ball from the host site, like glibmm 
and sigc.

Does the configure script require that all requirments HAVE TO BE 
INSTALLED via some kid of package management system rather then just 
chacking fo the presense of the libraries?

I've never had a configure script saying that package information has to 
be there.

tj