Montana oil and mining journal. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1931-1953, 1942-05-30
WOMEN COMING
INTO THEIR OWN
AT WAR PLANTS
SOON TO HOLD MORE THAN HALF
THE JOBS IN CHICAGO ORD
NANCE FACTORIES

Women, preferably thin ones with
out college education or white-collar
experience. soon win hold more than
half the Jobs In the Chicago ordnance
districts shell production plants, army
ordnance officers forecast recently.
Their great dexterity and patience
makes them superior TO men IN as
sembly and inspection work, shell plant
managers said. The same traits VIII
win women thousands of additional
war implements.
Women already outnumber men
to / on day shifts in some shell plants.
Hundreds of women serve the ordnance
department as inspectors.
A plant personnel director said thin
girls were preferred because they were
faster and less troubled by heat. Wom-
en- with college education or Office ex-
perience are considered undesirable 1or
assembly work because they were
afraid to get their hands dirty"
Ordnance officers said women are
more content to work with their hands
than men and are less inclined TO agi-
tate for better jobs or pay.
Wives Of soldiers. In overseas service
perform many war factory tasks.
One woman worker encountered on
the inspection tour pointed to pic
ture of doughboy on the shop wall
Below it was slogan which read:
You make 'em, buddy, wen use EN-
and howl
were all soldiers together. Our VIC
tories in battle come right after your
victories in production. Produce LOT
victoryl"
A large American flag, bought by
the workers, hung from the ceiling at
the plant. Similar flags were In every
plant in the area. Il
A workman Of foreign birth waved
toward sign in another plant which
read:
'Tm an Ellis island American. left
the old country to be free and nobody
is going to take that freedom away.
That's why I'm fighting on the pro-
duction line-to help destroy the enc
mics of freedom. Let's keep 'em roll
ingI"
The workman said:
"It was hell at first with these new
making things we never saw
before but we're rolling now. We're
turning out the goods faster than the
Japs or Germans can ever produce
theml"
plant owners as well as workmen
point with satisfaction to the CONVEX
zion of their factories almost overnight
from peace to war work. From that
time on, the keynote everywhere has
Been speed.
A cartridge case manufacturer de-
vised a machine to turn out seven I
tines as many cartridges minute as
we're formerly produced.
Engineers In another plant worked
nut q complex machine tool that pro-
iuces several hundred explosive shell |
use caps daily.
Separate machines formerly took
killed men 20 times as long to COM
lIete the same job.
One machine now turns out Cnou- I
ands of cartridges minute. A dollar
lie brass disk enters an assembly line I
nd In 80 operations is transformed {
nto cartridge case. e
A former manufacturer of electrical 2
appliances now Is In mass production /
n rs nm armor-piercing antitank I
bells. A manufacturer who once made p
Iectric shavers, automatic mixers, cof- \
ee pots and coasters showed reporters :
lines packed with high ex- a
losive shells.
These plants typified the 1000 fac S
ories working on prime contracts ana C
he 1900 smaller plants active on sub
ontracts in the Chicago ordnance dis
let. J.
The attitude of management and =
len in these factories was illustrated Y
' a former manufacturer Of pinbaI = :
nd cigaret-vending machines, who =
ow produces 20 nm. cartridge cases y
nd armor piercing shells for bomber N
nd pursuit plane cannon.
eff the Japs don't have any more :,
ck stopping our bullets than the Gus h
,mers had playing our pinban ma y
lines, we're a cinch to win this war,
le plant manager said. +,