Women and War Work

we have

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and meet

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velled in

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ll we kne

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ARD K

ain!"-Sir ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE i

unitions-today it has 100, and it controls over 5,000 establishments throu

ar greater. In guns, the production of 4.5 field howitzers is over fifty times as large; of machine

tained in the production of machine guns, aeroplanes motor bodies, and the other war supplies, for which demand and replacement have necessarily grown with the demand for

at has raised five million men, 75 per cent from

ry of their entry and work is a wonderful one. Women themselves were quicker than the Government to

he urgent, terrible need of our men for more munitions-the Germans could send

y started to find out if there were classes for training women, and found none in Technical Schools were open to women. They found welders were needed very much in certain aircraft factories in the neighborhood of London and the manager of one assured them that if women were trained satisfactorily for oxy-acetylene welding, he wou

f metal so as to make of them an autogenous whole is obtained, in thi

ortable gasometer. The tap, admitting water to the carbide trays, is turned on, and gas at once generates, and forces up the generator in the way so f

EN AS AEROPL

llow flame, a foot long, flares up, and in the centre of it, close to the nozzle, appears a very small, dazzling, bluish flame, which can only safely be gazed upon by eyes protected by c

right hand the blow-pipe of the craft, from which depends two long flexible tubes, one conducting oxygen from the tall cylinder in the corner, and the other acetylene from the generator. In her left hand she holds the welding-stick of soft Swedish iron, from

and gave every satisfaction in the factory, and

ceptions, educated women, which was undoubtedly a material factor in the success of their work. This School opened training to women and welding is now taught to wome

Educational Authorities, to have free munition training for women at every centre in the Kingdom. T

conditions and rates of pay of women and fully skilled and unskilled men. The provision of this much-discussed circular that affected women doing skilled work was in Cl

d Society of Engineers, when an agreement in regard to "dilution" was arranged. Circular L. 2 was adopted at this conference as the basis of the undertaking given by the Ministry in regard to dilution of labor. An employer under it can be punished as contravening the Munitions Act if he fails

Dilution Department of the Ministry of Munitions, which issues Dilution of Labour Bulletins and Process Sheets periodically, showing the work women are doing. A series of exhibitions of women's work have also been arranged

ING ON

OILER BL

for instance, was lent by the Air Board to illustrate the final assembly of the numerous parts of these engines being made wholly or partly by women. In the same way, many parts of complete Stokes Guns, Vickers Machine Guns and Servi

engine, which is completely manufactured and assembled by women, largely under women supervision; and magnetos, a very im

including details of locomotives, high spee

spectively with guns and com

eneral tool-room work. The gauges included plug, ring, cylinder and screw gauges to the closest degrees

of a screw gauge for a fuse, in which the women inspectors were described in the catalogue as examining these screws by an optical projectio

h accuracy, and a set of solid screwing dies has the particular interest that almost all the operations are carried out by women after they have been in the shop for a fortnight. The general tool-room wo

ooking and more beautiful than the long uncovered wing it would be difficult to find. A notable feature of the metal group was a number of parts that are marked off fr

ay tubes made entirely by women, and the Exhibitions record the pro

icer, in a recent speech on M

possible equipment of jigs and all available appliances for mechanically defining and facilitating the work, and of instruction by skilled men. By this means an output has been obtained that will compare favorably with that of any class of workers in any country. Comparing, for in

ible; but it is my assured conviction that foremost among the incentives by which women have been helped has been their constant thought of their flesh and blood, their husbands, brothers, sons, sweethearts, in the trenches. I know a typical example in a Yorkshire mother, who

vember 15, 1915, astounded women and men alike by its announcement that "figures were produced in proof of the

ion of Labour Bulle

OD BE

loyment of women, and the results are exceeding all expectations. As an instance it is reported that five wo

cannot be too highly praised-the success of "dilution"-the ability of women to help their country in thi

men control and manage large numbers of women in the big works extremely well. One girl of twenty-three, the daughter of a famo

omen's future in engineering has started what

omen, run by, and to a large extent managed by women, with the exception of two men instructors. In the ground floor the girls are working at parts of high power aeroplane engines, under their works superintendent, a woman who took her Mathematical Tripos at

Derby, on July 13, 1916, "without them it would be impossible for

ET FORGING OF 6-PO

e rendered as effective service in the prosecution of the war as any other class of the community. "It is true they cannot fight in the gross material sense of going out with rifles and so forth, but they fill our munition fact

tion cities we have built since the war. When our great arsenals and factories empty, women pour out in thousands. Night and day they have worked as the men have and it has been no easy

the enemy who thinks to demoralize our men and our women by bombing our homes

d that of their comrades. Working with T.N.T. they turn yellow-hands and face and hair-and risk poisoning. They are called the "canary girls," and if you ask why they do it they will t

bute to munition makers in on

whole thing anew it would have involved the loss of hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition at a time when we could not afford it. But the adaptation of the old element with a fuse is a very dangerous ope