The Woman Worker, 1942

 Half a million women were estimated early this year [1942] to be serving their country in war industries. The number of these increases day by day. In some 30 plants making small-arms and artillery ammunition, where 40,000 women were employed in the last quarter of 1941, over 70,000 are expected to be at work by late summer. In some of these the woman labor force will be doubled, in others trebled, and some will employ 10 times as many women as before. These are chiefly new jobs, not those vacated by men. Before 1941 almost no women were in aircraft.

Women in Jobs Vacated by Men

 Many reports from all parts of the country show that men called to war service actually have been replaced by women in types of work formerly not done, or done only very rarely, by women, though of course there is no way to discover the full number of these. They include clerks, cashiers, and pharmacists in drug stores, theater ushers, hotel elevator operators, taxi drivers, bank tellers, electricians, acetylene welders, milling-machine operators, riveters, tool-keepers, gage checkers, gear cutters, turret and engine lathe operators. Women are operating service stations. They are replacing men as finger-print classifiers. A southern city reports a woman manager of a parking lot. One of the country's major airfields has women on maintenance work, engaging them chiefly in cleaning spark plugs and painting luminous dials. One woman hired as a secretary now directs landings and take-offs by radio. In another city a woman has entered for the first time an airfield office as a meteorologist. Both an eastern and a southern airport have definite plans to place women in their reservations departments, and in flight watch or in the traffic operations departments, and the Civil Aeronautics Administration is considering training women as radio operators. Women telegraph messengers now number 325 in New York City alone, and in the country as a whole 3,000 women are expected to do such work this year. In New York, they must be at least 21 years of age. Girls also are performing other messenger service, formerly done by boys, in many plants and offices. A major chemical company is now training a few women as its chemists. Labor Shortages Open Jobs to Women There are many types of work long done by women but in which women now are being taken on in large numbers, because of plant expansion as well as declining supply of male labor. For example, as armature winders, inspectors, power-press and drill-press operators, assemblers. Shortages of workers are reported in many places in fields usual for women; for example, i,n hotel and restaurant work, as retail clerks, stenographers, and as sewing-machine operators in certain great clothing centers. Shortages of school teachers are growing, because of better-paid jobs in industry as well as the drafting of men, and the National Education Association reports that the enrollment in teachers' colleges and normal schools has declined by 11 per cent. Certain of the army camps already have employed considerable numbers of women in their offices and laundries, jobs formerly done by men but of a type frequently performed by women. A woman's job at present done by men in camps is canteen work, but serious consideration is being given to employing women in this.

Unemployment of Women

Contrary to the movement of women into the manufacture of war products, and into jobs being vacated by men, runs that opposite line of women losing jobs due to curtailment of civilian goods and of critical materials. Such "priorities unemployment" became acute at certain points in the second half of 1941. Plants making many of the products curtailed employed large numbers of women-as on aluminum kitchenware, refrigerators, silk hosiery, washing machines, radios, typewriters, photographic supplies, metal toys, costume jewelry, slide and snap fasteners, and so forth. Others depend on equipment now curtailed, as for example the apparel industry threatened with shortages of steel needles and consequent danger of unemployment. In many cases it takes longer to place women than men in new jobs, since their industrial experience is less similar to the new types of work required. Moreover, some of these products are made in localities that offer women little chance of other plant jobs.

SOURCE: U.S. Department of Labor, Women's Bureau, The Woman Worker ('Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, May 1942)