The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1942-12-15
MARGARET HICKEY
TRAINS HER SEX
FOR WARTIME JOB
SHE HEADS FIRST WARTIME.
COMMITTEE OF AMERICAN
WOMEN WHICH SETTLES
IMPORTANT ISSUES
BY ADELAIDE KERR
Wide World Features Writer

49, WV IA Il VIII
MARGARET HICKEY holds Z
bigshot war job no other woman
has ever held before.
AS chairman of the new WON,
ans policy committee of the
War Manpower Commission, she
heads the first wartime commit
tee of American women which
settles important policy.
SO she is my nomination for
the Woman of the Month.
Miss Hickey, dark-eyed, silver
haired and smooth skinned as a
girls a good-looking Missouri
lawyer who founded and heads
a st. Louis training school for
business women.
She and her committee of IL
other women leaders of labor
and industry have one of the
toughest jobs in the war effort.
They will help recruit 100000
more women for war production
by the end of 1943, and cooper
ate with the War Manpower
Commission to obtain the most
effective utilization of women
power.
The training, placement and
grading of women factory work
ers, the conditions under which
they work and the maintenance
OF health and safety standards
will be among their problems.
One of their greatest concerns
will be the older woman.
She shouldn't be pushed out
by age prejudice just as she APP
proaches her years of greatest
usefulness with experience and
maturity of viewpoint to her
credit, Miss Hickey said recent
ly in New York. eff woman is
able and can qualify, let her
work"
Miss Hickey is one of those
women who will always be
known as "a swell person.
quick-witted, friendly and pos
sessed of a million dollar smile.
In private life she is Mrs. Joseph
Strubinger, wife of st. Louis
lawyer.
She really headed toward her
present war job during the first
World War. She took wartime
typist's job and devoted her
spare time to speeches pushing
Liberty Bond sales.
BY the time she had reached
an office managers job in %
she had become so impressed
with the problems women met in
business that she dropped her
office work and began to study
law with the idea of helping
her sex all she could. She was
graduated from Kansas City
University Law School and adj
m1tted to the Missouri bar in %
The community spirit she had
acquired during those Liberty
Bond speeches never died. When
the depression jolted thousands
of women out of jobs she was up
to her neck in efforts to help
them.
Back in the pos I had felt
that most business women were
like vocational butterflies" she
said. They would not invest
time and energy in training and
eXperiance. When the depres-
sion came I found the butter
flies of the eos with singed
wings.
THOUSANDS of women had lost
their jobs because of faulty
training and faulty job outlook.
They needed training in eco
Monies and social problems as
we'll as training in skills. So !
founded the training school for
secretaries"
She says: Women won't lose
their femininity because of the
work they are doing in this
war. But they will lose some of
their glitter and gloss. In their
place will come some old-fashion-
ed qualities-kindliness, friendli-
ness, usefulness and the kind of
charm that is not dislodgedi by
a smudge of grease or a broken
fingernail.''