The Woman Behind the Man

The Woman Behind the Man . . .

"Cherchez les femmes, hire women," is Washington's advice to armament manufacturers facing a labor shortage.

P:The War Department told Ford Motor to get 12,000 or 15,000 women for its giant Willow Run bomber plant, 10% of its ultimate labor force. Ford now employs 28 women at Willow Run, was already training hundreds more for jobs there (see cut).

P:The Washington Navy Yard called for women holders of degrees in mathematics, physics, and mechanical, electrical, metallurgical and chemical engineering, but warned candidates that they "will really have to work."

P: Sidney Hillman foresaw jobs for a million skilled women workers in armament plants.

P: Of 1,900 occupations in 21 defense industries surveyed by the Federal Security Agency, McNutt thought women could be used in 1,185.

P: About 12,000 women are working at shell loading in the Middle West. Another 12,000 are making small-arms ammunition. Over 5,000 make gunpowder bags. Some 7,000 have jobs in Government arsenals. At Frankford, half the workers on small-arms ammunition are women.

P:Vultee Aircraft in California has 536 girls (10% of its labor force). It started them filing off burrs, admitted them to training courses, promoted them to machine-shop operation, sheet metal, riveting, blueprint reading, inspection. Now they assemble all parts of the fuselage (but not the heavy engine). They slide under the conveyor; install power lines, electric systems, pedals, control parts; connect oil lines; rivet ailerons and stabilizers.

P: At Cessna Aircraft in Kansas women saw, sand, nail and glue wood; sew, stretch on and dope the covering fabric; install the instrument board and radio.

P:Another aircraft plant expects to take on 6,000 girls by next summer; another, 2,000. In World War I women were 23% of the labor force in 40 aircraft factories. In British aircraft plants now, they are 40 to 50%.

An average woman's lifting strength, says the Department of Labor, is about one-half of a man's, her pulling strength two-thirds. But she is superior to man in dexterity and patience. Women are peculiarly susceptible to certain chemical poisons; they are also more vulnerable than men to sickness and accidents from overwork. Protective laws got their impetus from overwork in World War I. But it was War I which emancipated them. From 1914 to 1918 the proportion of women workers in war industries more than doubled, from 65 per 1,000 wage earners to 139. Once in, they remained; in the same industries there were still 135 per 1,000 in 1939.

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