The Seward gateway and the Alaska evening post., 1917-04-23
SIMPLY FOLKS

of the employment of women in industrial occupations; credtng this alleged new departure to the present world war; and in at least instance declaring that It marks a sociological epoch in the history ot the race
 In point of fact these deductions are entirely un- founded in the main but find apparent justification in the conspicuous publicity recently given to the ndustal activities of women in the news
 Americans who have visited Europe any time within the last dozen years and were any pains to observe found women coal miners field hands shop workers and aboels in other natural occupations to be the usual and accepted order of things Possibly Onethrd Of the coal miners in Cornwall and certainly very large percentage of the agricultural workers in France were women SIX years ago.
 Most of us never train ourselves to the habit of noti cling: even color height pecuareS of things seen daily are overlooked but it is amazing that professional publcistS who are supposed to be highly efficient ob- servers should mislead themselves in matter in which the facts are so apparent.
 What is true of female employment in industrial oc equations in Europe is also true in the United States merely in smaller degree and as regards the nature of industries employing women.
 Bulletin 175 of the Bureau of Labor statistics at Washington in touching this very subject of female en- oment in machine shops and meta-working plants has the following to say:
 Tn these industries none of which belong to the ra dtonal field of womenS activities females formed more than onequarter of the total working force while in n dvidua industries their percentage is much higher In some eases the numbers studied too small to be sgn cant but in the twelve metal working industries, each o which furnished thousand more employees to the total group studied the proportion of females employed ranged from 58 per in foundres to SO45 per cent in the manufacture of corset seeS In only three of the more nmerOuSly represented industries did the propor ton of female workers fall below ore-fth; in it obo ,,+b md in tivaa
 The war may have accelerated the employment of women very perceptby but the entry of women into com pettve occupations with started long before the began and is merely an incident of the industrial eVOl tion the bud and blossom of which in this passing century but the full fruition of which fOree other than by guess
 During the halfdozen decades or so just past there burst upon the world the food Of inventive genius and tiyy which the accumulated experience of mankind made possible Before that virtually everything fabricated in the hOme-coth for clothing, leather for shoes and other uses earthenware for preserving foods and all down the line to sugar from the maple cane candles from talow, and medicines from herbs.
 Improved machinery resulting from inventions, and new applications of force in it's use revoutonized the economic status and became cheaper to buy things than to make them This left surplus of females in the home unemployed by taking away their traditional employ ment and thus forced out of the home and into the industrial labor market and other nondomestc occupations. The is in no sense cause but merely an incident contributing to the larger activity of in industrial pursuits.
 And in considering this question it may be well to member that the present scope of womens employment s itself but incident of of progress which prob ably is rapidly approaching the climacteric.
 few years ago, to most of us women were women and men folks. There is in fact difference be- tween and worthy the attention of philoso pher and his perspective sadly distorted who does not now look upon all the members of the human family as simply folks.