Evening star., 1943-03-06
Girls, Older Women
Now Produce Charts
For Fighting Forces
Replace Drafted Men,
Even in Pressroom, in
Geodetie Survey Work
By SUSAN b. ANTHONY, III.


Fighting airmen may be guiding
their planes over foreign territory
with the aeronautical maps their
own mothers have helped draft in
the Coast and Geodetic Survey.
Older women, former five-and-
dime salesgirls, art and architecture
students and women who worked in
laundries and restaurants are pitch
ing in today to compile, draft, re-
touch and print charts and maps
In the Coast and Geodetic Survey
for use by our soldiers, sailors and
airmen.
More than 300 girls and women
have been brought in to replace
drafted men in the past year in the
Chart Division of the Coast and
Geodetic Survey. The war has
caused 244 per cent increase In
the annual issue of aeronautical
charts which show whole nations.
or cities or topographic facts OF
foreign countries. In December,
1912, for example, the monthly
Issue of charts was in the millions
80 Do as Well as Men.
/, From the third floor of the build
ling where the first step of this
highly important work begins to
the basement where overalled and
slack-clad girls help print and do
the, final folding of the vital maps,
women are proving in one more
branch of activity that they can do
as well as men, it is reported.
Biggest innovation is the use OF
women in the pressroom, long a
male stronghold. Seven girls, six
Of whom were working in five-and-
ten-cent stores until February /, to-
day are helping operate even the
largest presses.
"The works easier than trying
10 please customers" said one girl.
Three sisters are among the group
working in the pressroom.
|. Twenty colored girls, former wait
fesses and laundry workers. are now
operating the machines that fold
charts. All wear slacks.
Negatives Carefully Retouched.
Upstairs in the big room where
negatives of charts are retouched
before the printing, six sweater girls
have invaded still another occupa-
ton formerly held by men only.
known as artistic uthographers" or
craftsmen, these young women, who
were art or architecture students
before being hired, do the delicate
job of perfecting every line in the
negative and of darkening any spots
that may appear. Rivers and other
bodies of water are printed in light
blue, geographical names in black
and aeronautical information is diff
terentiated in dark blue.
, Even before the charts are drawn
and the source material compiled
for drafting, woman does one of
the most painstaking and important
jobs of the whole process. This is
the job of making the framework
br geographic grid" on which the
chart is drawn by the women and
men in the drawing rooms. This
highly skilled woman also replaced
a man who has gone into the service
She operates big machine with
micrometers and mechanical pen
! ellis to make the longitude and lati-
tude lines on maps.
Largest number of women en-
ployed in the chart division are the
craftsmen who sit with the men
workers, bent over tables in great
light rooms, drawing the foreign
countries and cities. Other womer
do "stick-up" work, which means
pasting tiny names and numbers or
exactly the correct spot on the
charts.
The director of the Coast ane
Geodetic Survey is Rear Admira
l.. o. Colbert.