The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-11-15
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
washington, d. C.
TEACH WOMEN TO WORK.


A good living earned in office or
factory looks better to many of them
Khan cooking on gas stove in little
flat for whatever a man chooses to
give them. They are finding also that
it is possible to have job and hus-
band both. And lots of them have to
take the job because they can't find a
husband who is able to support them.
So many girl is just as much on
her own in life as her brother. Isn't
it right and fair then to give her
just as good a training for the struggle
she is up against? The woman or
brains may write for the newspapers
or be a lawyer or doctor. The one
seeking a trade is almost always forced
into stenography, millinery or dress
making. And, worst of all, compare
lively few of them are encouraged to
learn any trade or profession at all
While the boy is coached and encour-
aged and inspired, the girl is left alone
| on the old -fashioned assumption that
some man will come along and take
| care of her. And If this assumption
proves false, as it now SO often seems
to do, she starts out in her working
life with only few occupations open
to her and very likely with no train
ing for any of these.
| Is it fair? The question is raised
and ably canvassed by the woman
bureau of the labor department, whlcn
has made survey to find out wnat
| sort of work women are doing in the
trades, and what training they are OF
fered in the schools
Where Women Displace Men.
Women have in the past three years
| entered factories and shops to do work
| previously delegated to men only
| Women had for years been employed
in the textile and clothing trades and
| at such work as making paper boxes
a,rtfff RQCRntlV thew
have entered boundaries. machine
| shops, and factories making furniture
optical goods, instruments, gas masks,
! and airplanes. In a few of their jobs,
chiefly where the work was heavy
| women were found inadequate, but IN
the main they have developed salts
factory skill in running machines and
| handling tools.
AS industry gets back to a peace
basis, there is slight reduction in
the number of women employed IN
lumber industries, and a falling back
| to their pre-war status in chemical
| and miscellaneous industries. In the
metal trades, women are retaining
their wartime hold.
According to the womanS bureau,
the chances are that women will be
used in increasing proportions in in
| dustry as time goes on. For one thing,
the proportion of women immigrants
as compared to IN is increasing.
| Inc WOmdnS OUT IHSdLuS II as
/ highly significant I, there were
| more women comm to this country
! than leaving 1t in 1919, altho in that
year our total emigration exceeded our
| immigration.
with this condition in mind, ana
also the fact that women are in de-
! ri and in some states in the so-called
| ! ems industries, the bureau set out to
| discover what chances a woman has
to take a vocational training course
| for technical work.
| What Schools Offer
From statistics obtained, the bu-
reau found that high schools and
trade schools apparently still assume
that girls are interested in domestic
science, dressmaking, and millinery,
| but not in autOm bile mechanics,
woodworking. or blueprint reading
While boys are encouraged to take up
such trades. girls are either not adj
| mitted to the classes, or if there is no
ruling against their admission, no at
| tempt is made to interest them by ex-
planning the course and the opportun-
tiles in that line of work.
OF 104 hools in which women were
| enrolled in industrial training courses
last term, there were only three
| schools where women were taking au-
| tomobile mechanics and repair. In
! two schools women had machine shop
| training; in two they were taught
|
and jewelry trades; and in two glove
making.
Most of the courses in which women
and girls were enrolled were the ira
ditional ones. Sixty-six schools taught
the clothing trades. forty-seven milli-
merry, and eleven give instruction in
branches of the textile trade.
1t would be too much to expect that
| a large number of girls should clamor
for courses in. say, automobile me
| chanics, if they merely knew that
they would not be excluded if they
should apply. When the trade schools
| were new, boys had to be interested in
them. The Woman's Bureau main
tains that a large proportion of girls
could be interested in industrial train
ing.
upon a Job merely as a dull interlude
between school and a husband is fall
ing. There are thousands of women in
factories who have dependents at
home, and there are other thousands
who add their earnings to those of
their husbands. 1t is believed-tho
there is no figures available-that IL
is more common for girl workers to
turn in all of their wages to their
families than for their brothers to do
So, Most of these women are eager
for advancement and take a real in
terest in the work they do.
Where Women Excel.
Il Women have made good in work re-
curing attention to fine detail, in in
speeding products, in assembling and
finishing furniture, and grinding and
polishing optical lenses. They are not,
as a class, very desirable in foundries
and rolling mills where heavy weights
are to be lifted and smoke and heat
are intense. tho they have been used
satisfactorily at work requiring weights
to be lifted when pulleys or some other
mechanical apparatus bears the strain.
From its observation of women In
factories and shops, the bureau con-
cludes that abilities vary not so much
by sex as by the individual, and that
therefore it is difficult to say exactly
where a woman's limitations in in
dustry are to be fixed. A few women
are interested in blacksmithing. A
much larger number want to be auto
mobile mechanics. Few women have
IL L.