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Show Women's Bureau of Labor Department 25 Years Old; Busy With Present and Postwar Needs of Workers Agency Watches Over Rights and Security Of Eighteen Million By C. V. PETERS Eighteen and a half million women are now working for wages, mostly in jobs essential essen-tial to war. Some five million of these are new to the labor markets; they have gone into factories and fields since 1940, when the nation began to buckle down for the great conflict. con-flict. All in all, women have been doing a magnificent job. No task has been too dirty, or dangerous or difficult; they have cheerfully accepted all discomforts and hazards. In World War I, when, as now, millions of women were called upon to replace men in a thousand occupations, occu-pations, the department of labor became be-came interested in the special needs and problems of working women. In 1920 a permanent subdivision, the Women's bureau, was established, which superseded the temporary Woman in Industry Service, set up in 1917. Miss Mary Anderson, director of the war agency, was appointed head of the Women's Bureau. After developing the Bureau to its present pres-ent impressive status, she retired last June at the age of 71, with 25 years of service to working women wom-en accomplished. Under the guidance of Miss Anderson, An-derson, the bureau made intensive study of conditions and problems of women workers In various types of employment professional, business, Industrial and domestic. She was responsible for calling two important impor-tant conferences of women in industry. indus-try. In 1923 and 1936, attended by representatives of all important women's organizations. The principles princi-ples she advocated were: 1. Complete equality of opportunity opportu-nity for men and women on the basis of their individual merit, skill and experience. 2. Wage rates based on job content con-tent without regard to sex. 3. Establishing of precise and objective ob-jective standards for determining Job content as a basis for determining determin-ing wage rates. In 1918 there were eight and a half million women workers. In the Mrs. Nora T. Sterns, outstanding member of a class of "Tractorettes" pilots a big machine on the 260-acre 260-acre Sterns farm. She is a Triple-A woman, and organizer of her class of women tractor operators. spring of 1940 there were 13 million. Now there are 18 million women in the labor force. These 18 million women make up 36 per cent of the total nonagricultural labor force, and 20 per cent of the agricultural labor-force of the United States. Machine Age Changes Life. The amount of gainful work done by women at home has decreased steadily, while the amount of their gainful work outside the home has increased. At the beginning of the 18th century women still were spinning spin-ning at home, but the yarn was brought for weaving to large rooms where looms were in use. The earliest ear-liest cotton mil was established in 1814, and thereafter weaving became be-came a factory occupation. In 1831 there were 39,000 women employed in various cotton factories in the United States. By the middle of the century, the sewing machine came into effective use, usually operated op-erated by women. Thus into a world of gardening and raising sheep in the back yard, of grinding flour, of weaving cloth In the "front room," the first machines ma-chines appeared and revolutionized our whole manner of life. Since many of the earlier machines did work that had always been done by women at home, manufacturers N A V k , t f i i - v a . . 1 I ! 1 - t V - .b6 , I I ' ' ."" ' i 'X : : - ' 1- '-iff . - : I '"'' j C i -!-' i I VJ!, ' I ' This specially trained girl makes some adjustments on the nose assembly as-sembly of a P-39 Airacobra. There is scarcely any task in aviation manufacture that women have not mastered. looking for factory operatives turned to women. The factories, located with a view to available power and future marketing, mar-keting, soon developed communities, and these attracted other workers in various lines of activity. As towns grew in size, many of the older household occupations became impossible. im-possible. The entrance of women into wage-earning wage-earning occupations was tremendously tremen-dously speeded up by the Civil war and World War I. Of the role women wom-en played during the first World war, we have a dramatic picture. The war itself wrenched the whole industrial machine. In the quick shift from peace to war, women as well as men were rapidly absorbed ab-sorbed by the iron and steel mills, metal factories and foundries; they were practically drafted to make munitions and other war supplies. Aerial warfare created a new industry, indus-try, in which women were indispensable, indispen-sable, and it expanded the industries indus-tries that made the material necessary neces-sary for aircraft manufacture. Meanwhile the army of 4,000,000 men had to be fed and clothed, and in addition the nation's industries had to continue to supply the needs of the people at home. There are striking parallels between be-tween the first World war and the present one in regard to women workers. In steadily increasing numbers, then as now, women entered en-tered fields which had been regarded regard-ed as men's exclusive province although al-though thousands of women carried on in traditionally feminine food and fabric industries. Experienced women wom-en who were already in manufacturing manufac-turing in 1917 were utilized largely for munitions making. They helped to train new groups formerly otherwise other-wise employed, such as school teachers, teach-ers, who joined their ranks, as well as the large numbers of inexperienced inexperi-enced women never before in the labor force. Growing numbers of women were hired in such industries indus-tries as iron, steel, lumber, transportation trans-portation equipment, chemicals, metal and metal products and others. oth-ers. The Women's Bureau had recorded record-ed World War I experience in the use of women labor, so it was natural nat-ural that the bureau should be recognized rec-ognized as the official agency for all matters relating to women's employment em-ployment in the present war effort. ef-fort. . On March 15, 1941, the Undersecretary Un-dersecretary of War indicated that he would take measures to see that the War department take up all matters of concern to women workers work-ers with the Women's Bureau, and there has been close cooperation since that date. Cooperative relationships rela-tionships have been established with the Navy Department, with other Government departments, and with state organizations and war contractors. con-tractors. Can Do Any Job If Trained. The peacetime work women were tioing on punch presses, drilling machines, ma-chines, milling machines, lathes, grinders, and polishers, as well', as their high record of achievement in inspection, assembly, filing and other bench work in metal and electrical industries was well known to the bureau. The extent to which these developed skills would be useful to war-implemented industries was easily demonstrated. In the last war women had proved themselves able in an emergency to make good on any job if adequately trained. The transfer of vast numbers of agricultural workers to the war industries, in-dustries, as well as the rapid Induction Induc-tion of others into the armed forces, resulted in a growing demand for the employment of women in agri- J w J: ( ' if '. . F - 4- i ' cultural work. In interesting women wom-en in such work, the bureau cooperated cooper-ated with other government agencies agen-cies concerned, and in addition formulated for-mulated and helped put into practice prac-tice standards for women's employment employ-ment on farms. Today, women are being utilized in three broad categories of jobs: 1. Those that women have always done, now multiplied by the demands de-mands of war. Z. Those where they have been nsed as substitutes for men, either as replacements or in expanding industries. in-dustries. 3. Those that are new processes never performed by either sex (some of these are the result of subdivision sub-division of skilled operations to facilitate fa-cilitate mass production, while others oth-ers are the result of manufacture of new kinds of equipment). Though men are still found in most of the top and highly skilled industrial indus-trial jobs, women to an increasing degree are doing the more skilled, difficult and disagreeable jobs, as well as certain dangerous and sometimes some-times inappropriate types of work. During World War I the question was: Would women remain as workers work-ers when the war ended? Many people thought this question would be answered by the return of women to their homes or their old occupations. occupa-tions. This time the question is: How may we best organize and carry car-ry out the shift from wartime to peacetime employment? Three Million Will Quit. The Women's Bureau believes that at least 3 million women will voluntarily vol-untarily withdraw from the labor market young girls will go back to school; older women at retirement age or past, will retire; many of the 3,710,000 housewives who joined the labor force for the duration only, will be glad to take over full time homemaking duties. This will leave a force of about 15 million women workers for the immediate postwar period. Miss Frieda S. Miller, who became Director of the Women's Bureau on August 17, 1944, believes the shift to peacetime jobs is a manageable thing, if we are both forehanded and farsighted as to planning. She believes this planning must begin at local levels, and provide for advisory advi-sory counsels for all groups, and facilities for training and retraining of war workers for peacetime employment. em-ployment. After the last war, the Assistant Secretary of War, acting as the Director Di-rector of Munitions at that time, paid this tribute to women. "For the successful carrying out of our program for the production of vast quantities of explosives and propellants, as well as shell loading, the women of America must be given giv-en credit on account of the highly important part they took in this phase of helping to win the war. Fully 50 per cent of the number of employees in our explosive plants were women, who braved the dangers dan-gers connected with this line of work, to which they had been, ol course, entirely unaccustomed, but whose perils were not unknown to them." Miss Miller believes that women's contribution has been much more extensive in World War II. In the postwar world, she says, "Let us dovetail the skills and experiences of men and women workers so as to produce all the varied and numerous numer-ous goods and services needed for a well-balanced economy and well-rounded well-rounded living for all our people." With the war still far from being won, women of America give every indication of surpassing all previous goals in war production. |
