New Britain herald. [microfilm reel] (New Britain, Conn.) 1890-1976, 1918-04-16

ders placed by the Government with
! industrial firms other than makers OF.
munitions brings another division of
! the woman's army into view. IT takes
more than 30,000,00o yards of cloth
! to clothe, bed, and shelter an army Of
} million and a half men at the front
FOR one year. If there were any Pris-
| elias left at the spinning wheel or
Marthas at the ancient loom, they
| would not contest the outranlzing i'm
J portance OF the modern ring-frame
| sptnners, power-l loom operators, and
other textile-mill women, who. as
! nearly half of the total labor force I'm
) the textile mills of the country, must
| do their interlocking and inseparable
| part in producing this stretch OF
cloth In the cotton mills conferred SO
| largely in the South and New Eng
! land. in the wooden and worstcd mills
| Of Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and
| Rhode Island, there are not far from
| 275,00O women trained in textile &C.
| cUpations Failure to use. or waste
| full use OF this trained woman textile
| labor VIII continue to strip the men
| we send to the front Of the clothing
| and covering which all the eager war
| working women outside the mills can
| not supply.
| We do not need the war orders
! to tell us that the 3Oo,OOO,OO0 yards
| of ell sorts of cloth required for a
! million and a half fighting men are
| useless until the material has passed
| through the power driven sewing ma
| chimes Of the modern factory. There
are over $4,000 women trained in
| occupations closely allied with the
work performed by over 10000 men
| to turn the 30O.o0O,OOO yards of
| cloth into the required millions or
| Army and Navy uniforms and over
| coats and other personal wear; into
| bed sacks and shelter tents, and
scores OF other articles. These e13.-
| 600 women form a division of co-or-
| dinate Importance With the food and
| sustaining army.
| Recently the Navy regulations in
| cluded sweaters in the outfit OF the
| sea fighters and marines. It takes
about week to knit q sweater by
| hand as war Emitting is now done
| The little mill-trained girl at the
power driven knitting machines will
| furnish 500 sweaters in one day or
1900 sweaters while the hand knit
ter is making one. That million and
a half men at the front will require
over 100000 knit understands,
nearly 20,O00,000 pairs of drawers,
and 100000 pairs of socks during
| the year The 1870, 900 knitting and
hosiery mill women, working in close
industrial coordination with about
$4,000 men, are the only dependa BILE
supply of labor for the manufacture
of the hundred million dollars worth
of hosiery and knit goods which our
Government ordered for the Army
and Navy during the year ending De-
cember 81, 1917
Hannah binding shoes at the win
dow was like Priscilla at the wheel,
picturesque. and, of course, useful,
too, in her daN but in a war winning
test the Hannah who has reapDeared
iu the modern shoe factory far out
ranks her trade forebear, because the
modern Hannah has productive
power SO much greater than the girl
at the colonial window that in large
and we'll equipped shoe plant 10000
pairs of soldiers shoes may be made
in a day. 1T is fortunate that this is
so, for the War Department alone has
ordered 21,000,0 600 pairs of shoes to
be delivered by June next In the
highly organized shoe factory each
shoe passes through a firmly linked
chain of a hundred processes, and the
$4,000 trained women shoe workers,
stationed chiefly IN Massachusetts,
Missouri, and New York, are as in
dispensable links in the shoemaktng
chain as are the two hundred and
eight odd thousand trained men.
(To Be Continued)