The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-11-16
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information, Bureau
FREDERIC }. HAsKns. Director.
Washington, d. C.
TEACH WOMEN TO WORK.

Whether you like it or not, more wom-
en- are going to work every year. And
whether they like it or not, more
women have to go to work every year.
A good living earned in office or
factory looks better to many of them
than cooking on a gas stove in little
flat for whatever a man chooses to
give them. They are finding also that
it is possible to have Ajob and a hus-
band both. And lots of them have to
take the job because they can't find
| 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 training for the struggle
she is up against? The woman of
brains may write for the newspapers
or be a lawyer or doctor. The one
seeking a trade is almost always forced
I into stenography, millinery or dress
making. And, worst of all, compare
! lively few of them are encouraged 10
learn any trade or profession at all.
/ While the boy is coached and encour-
Jagged and inspired, the, girl is left alone
on the old-fashioned assumption that
some man will come along and take
care of her. And II this assumption
proves false, as it~now so often seems
to do. she starts out in her working
life with only4a 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 csnvassed by the woman's
bureau of the labor department. which
| has made a survey to find out what
sort of work women are doing in the
trades, and what training they are Of
fered in the schools.
Whore 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, ana
! at such work as making paper boxes
and artificial flowers. Recently they
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 neaVy,
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 a slight reductloR~nn
! 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.
J According 10 the woman's bureau,
the chances are that women VIII De
used in increasing proportions in IN
dustry as time goes on For one thlnS,
the proportion of women immigrants
as compared to men is ncreasing
The woman's bureau regards IT as
highly significant that there were
more women coming into this country
than leaving it in 1919.-altho in that
year our total emigration exceeded our
immigration.
With this coadition in mind. and
also the fact that women are IN ne-
I 1nand in some states in the so-called
( mems industries, the bureau set QUITO
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
| wood working, or blueprint reading.
| While boys are encouraged to take up
! such trades girls are either not ad-
! United 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-
/ Of1O4. 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
wood working; in eight matchmaking
and jewelry trades; and in two glove
ma king.
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 cAamor
for courses in, say. automobile me-
chanics, if they merely knew that
they would not be excluded if they
4 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.
The old contention' that a girl looks
upon a job merely as a dull interlude
between school and husband is fail
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
there is no figures available-that it
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.
Women have made good in work re-
curing attention to fine detail, in in
spectlng products, in milling and
finishing furniture, and grinding and
polishing optical lenses. They are not,
as a Glass, 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 othe r
mechanical apparatus bears the strain.
From its observation of women in
factories and shops, the bureau con-