The Dallas express. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1893-1970, 1919-12-13
Y. W. C. A. REPORTS ON
WOMEN IN INDUSTRIES

A survey showing what the war
has done for women in industry,
probably the most comprehensive
study of conditions affecting women
in industry yet made, is to be one
of the final contributions of the War
Work Council of the Young Women's
Christian Association to women in
dustrial workers.
This survey embraces reports from
nearly $4,000 firms employing APP
proximately two and one half mil
lion people, one fifth of them wom-
en-, and all of whom were engaged
in what were termed as industries
essential to war-varying from soda
fountain apparatus and chicken feed
to the making of guns and munitions,
There result of the survey are
five-fold. Firstly, ii aims to deter
mine how far women served in the
so-called war industries; Secondly,
it will show the relative efficiency
of women in new occupations such
as those into which they were called
for the first time as a war emer-
gency; Thirdly, it makes clear the
extent to which they were not repre-
scented formerly; Fourthly, the at
titude of organized labor toward the
admission of women to membership
in unions controlling the occupations
into which women were introduced
as war emergency will be disclosed
Filthy, it will show the extent of
courses of training for women in
industry and the direction to which
hA
such industries are to accord with
the changes wrought by war. The
figures will also show how many
men were displaced with each one
hundred women introduced into in
dustry and will give the number of
women inducted into industry after
each draft during the war.
In all, twenty-nine groups of in
dustries, each group made up of as
many as twenty-five branches were
investigated in the compiling of this
report. These twenty-nine groups of
industries include such divisions as
the iron and steel industries, having
two branches, one of them firearms
and munitions, chemical and allied
products; one of the nineteen
plosives; metals other than iron and
steel Fifteen branches: lumber and
timber products Fifteen branches)
electrical machinery, apparatus and
supplies; aeroplanes and sea-planes;
automobiles and parts; rubber goods;
sporting goods; mems furnishings in
Guiding branches for the manufac-
turing of such necessary things as
belts and buttons; textiles including
everything from balloon and para
chute silk to shoe and clothing in
dustries Of all kinds; a miscellan-
eous group which in mattresses and
spring beds, soda fountain appara-
tus, chicken feed and long list
of products necessary to the fur
nishing, equipping and maintenance
of an army.
Figures and statistics were COM
piled from government records, infor-
nation which did not violate the
pledge of confidence-through con-
nectiou with the National League
for Women's Service and direct
questionable to the $4,000 firms of
which such questions were asked as,
the number of women substituted in
that particular industry from Jam
uary, 1917 to November. 1918, the
number of men displaced in that
industry the basis of payment for
the men and for the women, the
time required for women substitutes
to become experienced, the relative
output by women. 1t also takes cog
nizance Of the changes required in
an industry by the substitution Of
women foreign workers such as more
supervision, additional labor service
changes in machinery. The employ