diff options
Diffstat (limited to '38437.txt')
| -rw-r--r-- | 38437.txt | 3074 |
1 files changed, 3074 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/38437.txt b/38437.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4c7d78a --- /dev/null +++ b/38437.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3074 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Woman's Part, by L. K. Yates + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Woman's Part + A Record of Munitions Work + + +Author: L. K. Yates + + + +Release Date: December 29, 2011 [eBook #38437] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN'S PART*** + + +E-text prepared by David Edwards and the Online Distributed Proofreading +Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by +Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 38437-h.htm or 38437-h.zip: + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38437/38437-h/38437-h.htm) + or + (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/38437/38437-h.zip) + + + Images of the original pages are available through + Internet Archive. See + http://www.archive.org/details/womanspartarecor00yate + + + + + +[Illustration: THE MANUFACTURE OF 4.5-INCH CARTRIDGE CASES: OPERATING THE +DRAWING PRESS] + + +THE WOMAN'S PART + +A Record of Munitions Work + +by + +L. K. YATES + + + + + + + +New York +George H. Doran Company + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE ADVENT OF WOMEN IN ENGINEERING TRADES 7 + SHARING A COMMON TASK 9 + DILUTION 11 + HEROISM IN THE WORKSHOP 12 + + II. TRAINING THE MUNITION WORKER 14 + THE QUINTESSENCE OF THE WORK 15 + THE INSTRUCTIONAL FACTORY 17 + FIRST STEPS IN INDUSTRIAL LIFE 18 + + III. AT WORK--I. 20 + SHELLS AND SHELL CASES 21 + IN THE FUSE-SHOP 23 + CARTRIDGES AND BULLETS 25 + + IV. AT WORK--II. 28 + THE MAKING OF AIRCRAFT 28 + OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS 30 + IN THE SHIPYARDS 33 + + V. COMFORT AND SAFETY 37 + WELFARE SUPERVISION 37 + PROTECTIVE CLOTHING 41 + REST-ROOMS AND FIRST AID 42 + WOMEN POLICE 43 + + VI. OUTSIDE WELFARE 45 + RECREATION 45 + MOTHERHOOD 47 + THE FACTORY NURSERY 48 + + VII. GROWTH OF THE INDUSTRIAL CANTEEN 52 + GENERAL PRINCIPLES 54 + THE WORKER'S OASIS 55 + + VIII. HOUSING 57 + BILLETING 58 + TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION 59 + PERMANENT ACCOMMODATION 61 + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + + THE MANUFACTURE OF 4.5-INCH CARTRIDGE CASES: + OPERATING THE DRAWING PRESS _Frontispiece_ + + PAGE + + TURNING THE COPPER BAND OF A 9.2-INCH HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELL 16 + + DRILLING SAFETY-PIN HOLE IN FUSE 16 + + INSPECTING AND GAUGING FUSES 17 + + TURNING THE OUTSIDE AND FORMING THE NOSE-END OF A 9.2-INCH + HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELL 17 + + ASSEMBLING FUSES 20 + + COOLING SHELL FORGINGS 20 + + OPERATING A LUMSDEN PLAIN GRINDER: RE-FORMING 8-INCH + HIGH-EXPLOSIVE CUTTERS 21 + + ENGRAVING METAL PARTS FOR COMPASSES 28 + + COLOURING AEROPLANE PLANES 28 + + CHIPPING AND GRINDING BLADES OF CAST IRON PROPELLER WITH + PORTABLE TOOLS 29 + + WOMAN ACTING AS MATE TO JOINER MAKING SEA-PLANE FLOATS 29 + + CUTTING FRAYED-EDGE TAPE 36 + + BRAZING TURBINE ROTOR SEGMENT 36 + + MOUNTING CARDS FOR DRY COMPASSES 37 + + TREADLE POLISHING-MACHINES, FOR SMOOTHING LENSES 37 + + SLITTING AND ROUGHING OPTICAL GLASS 44 + + VIEW OF CANTEEN KITCHEN 44 + + WEIGHING FERRO CHROME FOR ANALYSIS 45 + + BALSAMING LENSES 52 + + MAKING INSTRUMENT SCALES 53 + + PAINTING A SHIP'S SIDE IN DRY DOCK 60 + + GENERAL VIEW OF WOMEN AT WORK ON AIRCRAFT FABRIC 61 + + THE CANTEEN 61 + + + + +THE WOMAN'S PART + + + + +CHAPTER I: THE ADVENT OF WOMEN IN ENGINEERING TRADES + +SHARING A COMMON TASK--DILUTION--HEROISM IN THE WORKSHOP + + +In a period of titanic events it is difficult to characterize a single +group of happenings as of special significance, yet at the end of the war +it is likely that Great Britain will look back to the transformation of +her home industries for war purposes as one of the greatest feats she has +ever accomplished. The arousing of a nation to fight to the death for the +principle of Liberty is doubtless one of the most stirring of spectacles +in the human drama; it has repeated itself throughout history; but it has +been left to this century to witness in the midst of such an upheaval the +complete reorganization of a nation's industry, built up slowly and +painfully by a modern civilization for its material support and utility. + +Before the outbreak of hostilities Great Britain was supplying the world +with the products of her workshops, but these products were mainly those +needed by nations at peace. The coal mines of Northumberland, the +foundries of the Midlands, the cotton mills of Lancashire were aiding vast +populations in their daily human struggle, but the demand of 1914 for vast +requirements for war purposes found Great Britain unprepared. The +instantaneous rearrangement of industries for war purposes, possible to +Germany by reason of forty years of stealthy war preparations, was out of +the question for a nation that neither contemplated nor prepared for a +European conflagration. Eight or nine months had to elapse before the +people of Great Britain were aroused to the realities of modern warfare. + +It was then only that a large public became aware that the Herculean +struggle was not merely a conflict between armies and navies, but between +British science and German science, between British chemists and German +chemists, between British workshops and the workshops of Germany. The +realization of these facts led to the creation of the Ministry of +Munitions in May 1915 and the rapid rearrangement of industries and +industrial conditions. Before the war, three National factories in Great +Britain were sufficient to fulfil the demand for output for possible war +purposes; to-day, there are more than 150 National factories and over +5,000 Controlled Establishments, scattered up and down the country, all +producing munitions of war. The whole of the North Country and the whole +of the Midlands have, in fact, become a vast arsenal. + +Standing on an eminence in the North, one may by day watch ascending the +smoke of from 400 to 500 munition factories, and by night at many a point +in the Midland counties one may survey an encircling zone of flames as +they belch forth from the chimneys of the engineering works of war. The +vast majority of these workshops had previously to the war never produced +a gun, a shell, or a cartridge. To-day, makers of agricultural and textile +machinery are engaged on munitions, producers of lead pencils are turning +out shrapnel; a manufacturer of gramophones is producing fuses; a court +jeweller is engaged in the manufacture of optical instruments; a maker of +cream separators has now an output of primers. Nor is this all. New +industries have been started and languishing trades have been revived. + +The work of reorganization has been prodigious, and when the history of +Britain's share in the war comes to be written in the leisured days of +peace, it is unlikely that the record will transmit to a future generation +how much effort it has taken to produce the preponderance in munitions now +achieved. With the huge task of securing an adequate supply of raw +material has gone hand in hand the production of a sufficiency of suitable +machinery and machine tools, the equipment of laboratories for chemical +research, the erection, or adaptation, of accommodation in which to house +the new 'plant', and the supply of a continuous stream of suitable labour. +In face of the growing needs of the Navy and Army this labour question has +been a crucial test; it is a testimony to the 'will to win' of the whole +people that the problem from the outset has found its solution. As soon as +the importance of the demand for munitions workers was widely understood, +a supply of labour has continuously streamed into the factory gates. There +are now 2,000,000 persons employed in munitions industries--exclusive of +Admiralty work--of which one-third are women. + +The advent of the women in the engineering shops and their success in a +group of fresh trades may be accounted as an omen of deep significance. +Women in this country have, it is true, taken their place in factory life +from the moment that machinery swept away the spinning-wheel from the +domestic hearth, and it is more often the woman mill-hand, or factory +'lass', who is the wealthier partner in many a Lancashire home. Women +before the war, to be sure, took part in factory life where such +commodities as textiles, clothing, food, household goods, &c., were +produced, but by consensus of opinion--feminine as well as masculine--her +presence in Engineering Works, save on mere routine work, or on a few +delicate processes, was considered in the pre-war period as unsuitable and +undesirable. + + +_Sharing a Common Task_ + +At the outbreak of hostilities, a few of the most far-sighted employers, +contemplating a shortage of labour through the recruitment of men for +military service, hazarded the opinion that women might be employed on all +kinds of simple repetition work in the Engineering Shops. Further than +that even the optimist did not go. There was also no indication that women +would be willing to adventure into a world where long hours and night-work +prevailed, from which evils they were protected in the days of peace by +stringent Factory Acts. Events have proved that the women of Great Britain +are as ready as their menfolk to sacrifice comfort and personal +convenience to the demands of a great cause, and as soon as it was made +known that their services were required, they came forward in their +hundreds of thousands. + +They have come from the office and the shop, from domestic service and the +dressmaker's room, from the High Schools and the Colleges, and from the +quietude of the stately homes of the leisured rich. They have travelled +from far-off corners in the United Kingdom as well as from homesteads in +Australia and New Zealand, and from lonely farms in South Africa and +Canada. Every stratum of society has provided its share of willing women +workers eager from one cause or another to 'do their bit'. + +Even in the early days of the advent of women in the munitions shops, I +have seen working together, side by side, the daughter of an earl, a +shopkeeper's widow, a graduate from Girton, a domestic servant and a young +woman from a lonely farm in Rhodesia, whose husband had joined the +colours. Social status, so stiff a barrier in this country in pre-war +days, was forgotten in the factory, as in the trenches, and they were all +working together as happily as the members of a united family. + +Employers and former employees likewise often share a common task in the +workshops of the war. At Woolwich, for example, a lady of delicate +upbringing could, at one period, have been seen arriving at the Arsenal in +the early hours of each morning, accompanied by her former maid, both +being the while 'hands' in the employ of the State. It is well known in +certain circles how Lady Scott, the widow of the famous Antarctic +explorer, put aside all private interests to take up work in a munitions +factory, how Lady Gertrude Crawford became an official, supervising +women's work in shipyards, and how Lady Mary Hamilton (now Mrs. Kenyon +Slaney), the eldest daughter of the Duke of Abercorn, and Miss Stella +Drummond, daughter of General Drummond, have won distinction as workers in +'advanced' processes of munitions production. + +These are but a few distinguished names amongst a crowd of women of all +degrees of society who have achieved unexpected success in work to which +they were entirely unaccustomed. Amongst this nameless multitude, +attention has been called from time to time to the remarkable feats in the +engineering and chemical trades, in electrical works, and in the +shipyards, of kitchen-maids and of dressmakers, of governesses and +children's nurses. + +The underlying motives, all actuated by war conditions, which have turned +the tide of women's work into new and unfamiliar occupations, are, +however, more diverse than is generally supposed. Unquestionably, the two +main driving forces have been patriotism and economic pressure, and of +these patriotism, the love of country, the pride of Empire, accounts for a +large proportion of women recruits. Yet there are other motives at work: +the old human forces of family love and self-sacrifice, pride, anger, +hatred, and even humour. I have questioned workers at the lathes and in +doping rooms, in Filling Factories, and in wood-workers' shops, and find +the mass of new labour in the munitions works is there from distinctive +individual reasons. It is only by the recognition of all these forces that +successful management of a new factor in the labour problem is possible. +An indication of the life-history of one or two individual munitions +workers may exemplify the point. + +There is the case of a girl tool-setter in a factory near London. She is +the only child of an old Army family. When war broke out, she realized +that for the first time in many generations her family could send no +representative to fight the country's battles. Her father was an old man, +long past military age. The girl, although in much request at home, took +up work in a base hospital in France, but at the end of a year, when +broken down from over-strain, was ordered six months' rest in England. +Recovery followed in two months, and again, spurred by the thought of +inaction in a time of national peril, she entered a munitions factory as +an ordinary employee. After nine months' work she had only lost five +minutes' time. + +Another factory worker is a mother of seven sons, proud-spirited, +efficient, and accustomed to rule her family. The seven sons enlisted and +she felt her claim to headship was endangered. She entered a munitions +factory and, to soothe her pride, sent weekly to each son a detailed +account of her industrial work. At length, the eldest son wrote that he +thought his mother was probably killing more Germans than any of the +family. Since then, she says, she has had peace of mind. + +In another factory, in the West of England, there is an arduous munitions +maker who works tirelessly through the longest shifts. Before her entry +into the industrial world she was a stewardess on a passenger-ship. The +vessel was torpedoed by a German submarine, and she was one of the few +survivors. Daily she works off her hatred on a capstan lathe, hoping, as +she tells the visitors, some day to get equal with the unspeakable Huns. + +Then there is a typical case of a wife who has learned some of life's +little ironies through her work on munitions production. Her husband, an +old sailor, worked for the same firm before the war. He used to come home +daily and complain of the hardness of his lot. It was 'a dog's life', he +constantly reiterated, and his wife was careful to make reparation at +home. + +War broke out and the naval reserve man was recalled to sea. The firm were +put to it, in the labour shortage, for a substitute, and invited the +wife's aid. Having heard so much of the hardships of the work, she +refused, but after some persuasion agreed to give the job a trial. At the +end of a week, she surmised the task was not so hard as she contemplated; +after a month had passed she realized the position. The job had been a +capital excuse to ensure forgiveness for domestic short-comings. The wife +awaits her husband's return with a certain grim humour. + +Having arrived in the engineering trades, actuated by whatever motives, +the woman munitions maker has more than justified the hopes of the pioneer +employers who sponsored her cause. As soon as organized labour agreed that +trade union rules and pre-war shop practice should be suspended for the +duration of the war, women were rapidly initiated in the simple repetition +processes of shell-making and shell-filling. Machinery was adapted to the +new-comers, and the skilled men workers were distributed amongst the +factories to undertake the jobs possible only to experienced hands. + + +_Dilution_ + +Thus, the principle of dilution, as old as Plato's _Republic_, which as a +theory was reintroduced to British students by Adam Smith, has widely come +into practice through the urgency of the war. Women have been successfully +introduced into a new group of occupations, men have been 'upgraded', so +that many semi-skilled men have become skilled; and the skilled men have +been allocated entirely to employment on skilled jobs. + +Once introduced to the munitions shops, women soon mastered the repetition +processes, such as 'turning', 'milling' and 'grinding', as well as the +simpler operations connected with shell-filling. The keenest amongst them +were then found fit for more 'advanced' work where accuracy, a nice +judgment, and deftness of manipulation are essential. Such are the +processes connected with tool and gauge-making, where the work must be +finished to within the finest limits--a fraction of the width of a human +hair; such are the requirements for the work of overlooking, or inspection +of output; and such are the many processes of aeroplane manufacture and +optical glass production, upon which women are being increasingly +employed. + +They are also undertaking operations dependent on physical strength, which +in pre-war days would have been regarded as wholly unsuitable to female +capacity. War necessity has, however, killed old-time prejudice and has +proved how readily women adapt themselves to any task within their +physical powers. One may, for example, to-day watch women in the shipyards +of the North hard at work, chipping and cleaning the ships' decks, +repairing hulls, or laying electric wire on board H.M. battleships. High +up in the gantry cranes which move majestically across the vaulted factory +roof, one may see women sitting aloft guiding the movement of the huge +molten ingots; in the foundries, one may run across a woman smith; in the +aeroplane factories, women welders work be-goggled at the anvils. + +An engineering shop is now sometimes staffed almost entirely by women +'hands', and it is no uncommon sight to find in the centre of the shop +women operators at work on the machines; at one end a group of women +tool-setters, and at another women gaugers who test the products of this +combined women's labour. In the packing-rooms the lustier types of women +may be seen dispatching finished shells, and on the factory platforms +gartered women in tunic suits push the loaded trollies to waiting +railway-trucks for conveyance to the front. One of the most surprising +revelations of the war in this country has, indeed, been the capacity of +women for engineering work, and to none has the discovery been more +surprising and more exhilarating than to the women themselves. + + +_Heroism in the Workshop_ + +The work has, in fact, called for personal qualities usually thought to be +abnormal in women. The women in the engineering shops have disproved any +such surmise. Where occasion has demanded physical courage from the +workers, the virtue has leaped forth from the average woman, as from the +average man. Where circumstances call for grit and endurance, there has +been no shirking in the factories by the majority of the operators of +either sex. The heroism of the battlefields has frequently been equalled +by the ordinary civilian in the factory, whether man or woman. Sometimes +incidents of women's courage in the works have been reported in the press +as matters for surprise. They are merely typical instances of the spirit +that animates the general mass of the workers in Great Britain. + +A few examples may be added in illustration. On a recent occasion, a woman +lost the first finger and thumb of her left hand through the jamming of a +piece of metal in a press. After an absence of six weeks, she returned to +work and was soon getting an even greater output than before. + +Another instance relates to a serious accident in an explosives factory, +when several women were killed and many were injured. Within a few days a +considerable number of the remaining female operators applied and were +accepted for positions in the Danger Zone at another factory. Another +incident is reported from some chemical works in the North. The key +controlling a valve fell off and dropped into a pit below, rendering the +woman in charge unable to control the steam. An accident seemed imminent +and the woman, in spite of the likelihood of dangerous results to herself, +got down to the pit, regained the key and averted disaster. + +In a shipyard on the North-East coast, a woman of 23 years had been +engaged for some time in electric-wiring a large battleship. One day, when +working overhead, a drill came through from the deck, piercing her cotton +cap and entering her head. She was attended to in the firm's First Aid +room and sent home. To the surprise of every one concerned, she returned +to work at 6 a.m. on the following day, and laughingly remarked that she +was quite satisfied that it was better to lose a little hair than her +head. + +In the trivial accidents which are, of course, of more frequent +occurrence, the women display similar calmness and will stand +unflinchingly while particles of grit, or metal, are removed from the +eyes, or while small wounds--often due to their own carelessness--are +dressed and bound. The endurance displayed during the early period of +munitions production, when holidays were voluntarily abandoned and work +continued through Sundays, and in many hours of overtime, was no less +remarkable in the women than in the men. Action is continuously taken by +the Ministry of Munitions to reduce the hours of overtime, to abolish +Sunday labour, and to promote the well-being of the workers, but without +the zeal and courage of the women munitions makers the valour of the +soldiers at the Front would often be in vain. + +As the Premier remarked in a recent speech: 'I do not know what would have +happened to this land when the men had to go away fighting if the women +had not come forward and done their share of the work. It would have been +utterly impossible for us to have waged a successful war, had it not been +for the skill and ardour, enthusiasm and industry, which the women of the +country have thrown into the work of the war'. + + + + +CHAPTER II: TRAINING THE MUNITION WORKER + +THE QUINTESSENCE OF THE WORK--THE INSTRUCTIONAL FACTORY--FIRST STEPS IN +INDUSTRIAL LIFE + + +When, in answer to the demand for shells and more shells, factories were +built, or adapted to the requirements of war, it was soon found that a +supply of suitable labour must be ensured, if the maximum output was to be +maintained. The existing practice of the engineering shops, by which a boy +arrived by gradual steps, counted in years, from apprenticeship to the +work of a skilled operator, was obviously impossible where an immediate +demand for thousands of employees of varying efficiency had to be +fulfilled. The needs of the Navy and Army further complicated the problem +by the withdrawal of men of all degrees of skill from factory to +battlefield. + +The discovery of an untapped reservoir of labour in women's work, and the +adaptation of a larger proportion of machines to a 'fool-proof' standard, +certainly eased the situation, yet the problem remained of the immediate +provision of workers able to undertake 'advanced', as well as simple work, +in the engineering shops. Factory employers were from the outset alive to +the situation, and at once adopted measures for the training of new-comers +within their shops, but harassed as the managers were by the supreme need +for output, it was hardly possible to develop extensive schemes for +training within the factory gates. Hence, arose a movement throughout the +United Kingdom among the governing bodies of many institutions of +University rank, among Local Education Authorities, and among various +feminist groups, to make use of existing Technical Schools and +Institutions for the training of recruits in engineering work. + +The effort was at first mainly confined to the instruction of men in +elementary machine work, and the London County Council may fairly claim to +have acted as pioneer in this connexion. Yet, as early as August 1915, a +group of women connected with the National Union of Women's Suffrage +Societies (of which Mrs. Fawcett, widow of a former Postmaster-General, is +the president) decided to finance a scheme for the training of women +oxy-acetylene welders, converting for this purpose a small workshop run by +a woman silversmith. + +It was soon observed by the Ministry of Munitions that these sporadic +efforts--sometimes successful beyond expectation, and sometimes failing +for want of funds, or for lack of intimacy between training-ground and +factory employer--must be co-ordinated, if they were to tackle +successfully the growing task imposed by war conditions. The conception of +a Training Section for factory workers within the Ministry of Munitions +arose, took root. The section was established in the early autumn of 1915. + +In the October of that year, authority to finance approved training +schemes throughout the country was given to the new department. Some fifty +colleges and schools, undertaking independent schemes, were then brought +into touch with the Ministry, and steps were taken to develop the existing +systems. Equipment was thereby improved, recruiting of students +stimulated, and a scheme for the payment of maintenance during +training--such as the Manhattan Schools in New York had previously +introduced to social investigators in this country--was established. The +extension of the courses of training from instruction in simple processes +to such advanced engineering work as lead-burning, tool-setting, and +gauge-making soon followed, and was accompanied by necessary theoretical +instruction in the methods of calculation of fine measurements. + + +_The Quintessence of the Work_ + +For these advanced classes, men alone were at first eligible as students, +women being only instructed at the outset in elementary parts of the work. +In the early days, the women were invited 'to do their bit', by learning +how to bore, how to drill, how to plane, how to shape, and above all, how +to work to size. The chief battle of the Training Centre with regard to +the instruction of women was then, and still remains, the implanting of a +feeling for exactitude in persons accustomed to measure ribbons or lace +within a margin of a quarter of a yard or so, or to prepare food by a +guess-work mixture of ingredients. I remember, at the beginning of a +course of training for women, how an instructor at a large metropolitan +Centre remarked that 'ninety-nine per cent. of the new students do not +know what accuracy means', and he detailed how difficult it was to instil +into their mind 'that quintessence of their work'. + +Scientific methods of tuition, helped no doubt by women's proverbial +patience, have, however, enabled the lesson to be learned after a few +weeks' intensive training. The courses last but six to eight weeks and, at +the conclusion of the carefully graduated tasks, it is not too much to +say that the success of the women has been, in an overwhelming number of +cases, surprising both to teachers and pupils. + +I have before me a batch of letters from factory employers, written in the +early period of the training schemes. They all bear testimony to the value +of the outside instruction. One manager notes how the trained women from +the Schools were able 'to become producers almost at once'; another states +that the drafting of the women students from School to factory has enabled +the work of munitions to be carried on 'with greater expedition than would +otherwise have been the case', and yet another, with a scarcely concealed +note of astonishment, relates that his students were able to be engaged at +once on 'all kinds of machinery, capstan lathes, turning lathes, milling +and wheel cutting machinery'. + +This discovery of the employer, of the potentialities of women's work in +the engineering trades, soon led to a development of the instruction of +female students in the Training Centres; more advanced machine work was +added to the curriculum, as well as tuition in aeroplane woodwork and +construction, in core-making and moulding, in draughtsmanship and +electrical work, in optical-instrument making, including the delicate and +highly-skilled work of lens and prism making. + +New Training Centres are constantly being opened in provincial areas, the +instruction being adapted to the needs of local factories. There are now +(December, 1917) over forty training schools for engineering work in Great +Britain, as well as nine instructional factories and workshops, and the +proportion of women to men trained in all the processes may be reckoned +roughly as two to one. + +The system of instruction is based, in some of the Centres, on the general +principle that the School undertakes the preliminary work of tuition in +the simpler engineering processes; the Instructional Factory, or workshop, +specializing in the more skilled processes, acts as a clearing-house for +promising students from the schools. The urgency of warfare does not, +however, permit the application of any hard-and-fast rules. I have seen +specimens of some of the most 'advanced' work produced in a School; +indeed, the delicate work of lens polishing and centring, the intricacies +of engineering draughtsmanship, the precise art of tool-setting and +gauge-making have become specialisms of the Schools in certain localities. + +[Illustration: TURNING THE COPPER BAND OF A 9.2-INCH HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELL] + +[Illustration: DRILLING SAFETY-PIN HOLE IN FUSE] + +[Illustration: INSPECTING AND GAUGING FUSES] + +[Illustration: TURNING THE OUTSIDE AND FORMING THE NOSE-END OF A 9.2-INCH +HIGH-EXPLOSIVE SHELL] + +As I write, the face of an eager girl of 21 years recurs to memory. She +was showing me, the other day, a master gauge produced at a School in the +Eastern counties. 'I made it all myself,' she said joyfully, 'dead exact, +and all the other gauges of this size in the School are made from it. I +have just been appointed assistant instructor in gauge-making.' When it is +recalled that the deviation in the measurements of a gauge is only +tolerated within such limits as a 3/10000 part of an inch, the production +in a School of a master gauge, 'dead exact' in all its dimensions, is a +proof that the student has already gone some way in the mastery of the +craft of the engineer. + + +_The Instructional Factory_ + +On the other hand, the Instructional Factory is often forced by war +conditions to enrol raw recruits who seem likely material for the urgent +needs of surrounding factories. In such cases, the candidate is placed on +trial for a week or two in the Instructional Workshop, as in the School. +If, at the close of the period of probation, she is deemed unsuitable, she +is advised at that preliminary stage to return to her former occupation. + +Speaking generally, the rejects are extraordinarily few, and although it +would be premature to draw definite conclusions, the experience of the +Training Section suggests that there is considerable latent capacity for +engineering work in a large number of women. A tour of the Instructional +Workshops emphasizes the point; everywhere, women may be seen mastering in +the short intensive course the one advanced job for which each is being +trained. In the Instructional Workshop, the atmosphere of a School is +exchanged for that of a factory, the conditions of a modern engineering +shop being reflected within its precincts. Thus the students 'clock on and +off' on arrival and on departure, observe factory shifts, work on actual +commercial jobs, obtain their tools from an attached store, and so on. The +work varies in these Instructional Factories as in the engineering shop of +the commercial world. + +In one section of such a hall of tuition you may see the women intent on +the production of screws, or bolts, or nuts; in another part, such objects +as fuse needles may be in the course of manufacture. You stop to see the +magic which is answerable for the birth of the tiny factor which shall +detonate the explosive, and you are amazed to find that a fuse needle +requires six tools for its production and eight to nine gauges for testing +the accuracy of its measurements. Or, you may perhaps pause before a +machine which is turning out tiny grub screws. To see a rod of steel offer +itself, as it were, to the rightful instruments on a complicated machine +to impress the thread and slit, to watch it proceeding on its way until a +tiny section is divided and a complete screw is handed over to a tray +outside the machine, is, to the uninitiated, a miracle in itself. + +To see the whole of these complicated processes guided and operated by a +smiling girl makes one hopeful for the national industries of the future. +Setters-up of tools are at work in another section of the same +Instructional Factory and at other machines are students grinding, +milling, or profiling. + +You may then visit another Instructional Factory to find that aircraft is +the specialty. I recall one such training-ground in a bay of an aeroplane +factory. There the girls learn almost every part of aircraft production, +from the handling of the tiny hammers used on the woodwork for the body +and wings, to the assembling, or putting together the tested parts. In +this training factory, a system prevails of lectures by the practical +instructors on the use of necessary tools; questions from the students are +encouraged at the close of the lecture, and, I was informed, when on one +occasion I was one of the audience, that the saving of the instructor's +time by the adoption of this method was beyond expected results. + +Again, you may visit an Instructional Factory where foundry work is +included in the curriculum, or where advanced machine work is a feature. I +have stood in one Instructional Workshop where some 600 machines were +whirring simultaneously, and where the spirit of energy and goodwill of +both students and instructors seemed as tangible as the metal objects +produced. In this institution all the accomplished work is for production; +night as well as day shifts are worked, and the needs of our armies, or +those of our Allies, are frankly discussed with the operators. There is no +occasion for other incentive: raw recruits, students from the Schools, +discharged soldiers from the Front, men unfit for active service, all +these denizens of the training-shop vie with each other to produce a +maximum output. + +It speaks volumes for this workshop that in spite of the continual changes +of operators--each set of students remaining only for a course of six to +eight weeks--it is entirely maintained on a commercial basis. To reach +such a standard in these circumstances is to imply that the heroism of the +workshop has become an ingrained habit in operators and staff. + + +_First Steps in Industrial Life_ + +I remember watching in this training-ground the manufacture of small +aero-engine parts, exact in dimensions to within the smallest limits of +tolerance. I put a query as to the wastage of material in such an +operation, when handled by comparative new-comers. 'Scrapping from this +process', replied the production manager with pride, 'does not exceed a +total average of one per cent.' The women at work at the time had come +from the most varied occupations. A large proportion had never worked +outside their own home, others were domestic servants, cooks, housemaids, +and so on, others were dressmakers from small towns, and one, I recall, +was an assistant from a spa, where she had been engaged handing out +'waters' to invalids. 'It is not the rank of society from which the +student is drawn that matters,' remarked an instructor; 'it is the +personality of the individual that counts.' + +Every care has been taken by the Ministry of Munitions to make it easy for +women of all classes to participate in their schemes of instruction. The +middle class girl who has never undertaken independent work, the woman who +has always lived and worked within the shelter of her own home, +undoubtedly felt in many cases debarred from entering industrial life. The +necessity of living away from her family, in order to enter a +Training-School, the absence of home conditions in school or factory, the +dread of an entirely masculine superintendence, all helped to strengthen +artificial barriers between potential students and the needed engineering +work. The Training Section, watching the development of its schemes, +became aware of the necessity of making arrangements for students from the +Welfare point of view, and an organization has thus developed by which the +first steps in industrial life are made easy for the most apprehensive of +new-comers. + +Girl students by rail are met by a responsible woman official and are +accompanied to suitable lodgings, or to hostels. In the event of pressure +in accommodation, the new student is introduced to temporary apartments, +or to a 'Clearing Hostel', where she awaits in comfort a vacancy. In the +large Training Centres, a woman supervisor is in charge. She makes all +arrangements as to the provision of meals, rest-rooms, cloak-rooms, +First-Aid centres, and so on, and is ready to advise the women students on +all points relating to their personal interests. + +Women students are also enabled to wear a khaki uniform, as members of the +Mechanical Unit of the Women's Legion, a privilege found to be of distinct +value to girls unaccustomed to steering an independent course in the more +boisterous streams of life. The appreciation of the students of the +safe-guarding of their individual desires crops out in unexpected places. +In a handful of correspondence from students, one gleans such remarks as +the following: + + 'Mrs. H. never spares herself any trouble as long as she can make + things pleasant for me, she considers it her "war work" to make + munition workers happy, and it is very nice to meet people that + appreciate what we are doing for our country.'... + + 'We were met at the station by the works motor. All at once we turned + up an avenue of lime-trees and drew up at the door of our country + estate. It is a real lovely house and we revel in the glories of fresh + air, lawns and gardens, good beds and well-spread tables. We cross a + field to the works. Dinner and tea await us when we get here, and + there is a well-stocked vegetable garden to give us fresh vegetables, + so we all feel indeed that our lines are fallen in pleasant places, + and we are very grateful.' + +In these ways a bridge has been built by the Ministry of Munitions between +the normal life of the women in this country and the work in the munitions +factory. + + + + +CHAPTER III: AT WORK--I + +SHELLS AND SHELL CASES--IN THE FUSE SHOP--CARTRIDGES AND BULLETS + + +Arrived in the munitions factory, the new-comer, whether from a Government +Training Centre, or from another occupation, is given two or three weeks' +trial on the task she has come to undertake. Only a very small proportion +of the women offering their services--one experienced manager puts it at 5 +per cent.--are found unsuitable, and these are discharged during the +probationary period. + +Except in the case of those who have received a preliminary training, or +of those who have merely transferred their energies from other factory +work, the average woman has, at the initial stage in the munitions shops, +to overcome an instinctive fear of the machine. Occasionally, the fear is +intensified into an unreasoning phase of terror. 'One has to coax the +women to stay with such as these,' said one understanding foreman, +pointing to a monster machine with huge-toothed wheels. 'We don't ask a +woman to sit alone with these at first, for she wouldn't do it, so we put +a man with her, and let her sit and watch a bit, and after a while she +loses her fear and won't work anything else, if she can help it.' + +The women, in fact, soon get attached to the machines they are working, in +a manner probably unknown to the men. 'I've been here a year on this +machine, and I can't do near so well on any other,' is a remark many a +girl has made to me as I have watched her on a difficult job. From time to +time, a girl will even confess that she 'can't bear to think of some one +on the night-shift working _her_ machine'. An understanding has arisen +between the machine and the operator which amounts almost to affection. I +have often noticed the expression of this emotion in the workshops; the +caressing touch of a woman's fingers, for instance, as a bore is being +urged on to the job on the machine. This touch, which cannot be taught, or +imparted, enables the operation to be started in the most effective method +possible, and goes to the making of an excellent and accurate worker. + +The femininity of the worker has, however, its drawbacks, and for the sake +of successful handling of women in the munitions factory, it is as well +that these psychological points should be noted. If, for example, a +machine is out of gear, or if the operation is held up for any other +cause, the women munition makers will sometimes behave in an unreasonable +manner, quite bewildering to a foreman accustomed only to dealing with +men. The temporary cessation of work may make only a slight money +difference to the woman operator by the end of the week: 'not enough to +fuss about,' as the foreman judges. But the woman nevertheless often +_does_ fuss, because in her eyes the wages do not loom so large as the +interruption to her work. She 'hates standing-by', she will say, for she +cannot express the emotion of which she is but dimly conscious, that a +woman's deep instinct is to give freely of her fullness, and it frets her +very soul to be balked in the middle of a job. + +[Illustration: ASSEMBLING FUSES] + +[Illustration: COOLING SHELL FORGINGS] + +[Illustration: OPERATING A LUMSDEN PLAIN GRINDER: RE-FORMING 8-INCH +HIGH-EXPLOSIVE CUTTERS] + +Other initial obstacles in the employment of 'new' female labour in the +factories result from the exchange of the manifold duties of the woman in +her own home for repetition work performed in the company of hundreds of +other human beings. These difficulties are, however, soon overcome, and +the new-comer, generally speaking, rapidly becomes one of a large and +merry company. The whirr of the wheels and the persistent throb of the +machinery may at first distract her, but after a short time the factory +noises are unnoticed, save as an accompaniment to her thoughts, her +laughter, or her song. I have indeed met in the England of to-day nothing +more inspiriting, outside the soldiers' camps, than the women munition +workers at work or at play. + +In August 1916, there were some 500 different munitions processes upon +which women were engaged. To-day, they are employed upon practically every +operation in factory, in foundry, in laboratory, and chemical works, of +which they are physically capable. Within the limits of this publication +it is not possible to follow them into every field of their endeavours, +yet a glance at their work in a few typical products may give some slight +indication of women's contribution to Britain's effort in the World War. + + +_Shells and Shell Cases_ + +Of the numbers of operations that go to the making of a shell, women now +undertake every process, in some works, including even the forging of the +billets in the foundry. It was the urgent need of a greatly increased +output of shells in 1915 which led to the widespread introduction into the +engineering shops of female labour, and the women have repaid this unique +opportunity by their unqualified success. So rapid, and so marked, has +been their progress in shell production that by the spring of 1917 the +official announcement was justified, that, by March 31 of that year, +Government contracts for shells of certain dimensions would only be given +where 80 per cent. of the employees were women. + +At first, the women were mainly engaged in simple machine operations, such +as boring, drilling, and turning, or in filling the shells. They are, at +present, working hydraulic presses, guiding huge overhead cranes, +'tonging', or lifting the molten billets, 'setting', or fitting the tools +in the machines, inspecting and gauging, painting the finished shell +cases, making the boxes for dispatch of the finished product, and trucking +these when finally screwed up and ready for exit from the factory to the +Front. It is not possible to describe here in detail women's entire +contribution to the production of a shell, but, from foundry to railway +truck, she has become an alert and promising worker. + +In the foundry, her appearance is as yet exceptional, yet in the North +country it is no unusual sight to find a woman in the cage suspended from +the overhead travelling crane, operating its protruding arm. Now, she will +pick up with the clumsy iron fingers a pig of iron and thrust it into the +glowing depths of a furnace, or she will lift the red-hot billet and bring +it to the hydraulic press, where it is roughly hollowed into its +predestined shape. + +In the shell shop proper you may watch the woman operator on some scores +of processes; at one machine, she may be attacking the centre of the +billet with a revolving nose, at another she may be 'turning' the outside +of a shell. The shavings curl off in this process like hot bacon rind and +fall in iridescent rings around her: blue, purple, peacock, or gleaming +silver. Or, you may watch the woman worker 'threading' the shell, a +process by which the screw threads are provided, into which the nose of +the shell is afterwards fitted; or, you may stand and marvel at the skill +of the worker who so deftly rivets the base-plate into the shell's lower +end. But, perhaps, the most attractive operation to the visitor to the +shell shop is the fitting and grooving of the shell's copper band, a +process which leaves the machine and worker half-hidden in the glory of +sunset tints, as the copper scrap falls thickly from the machine. + +At every stage, the shell is gauged and tested, examined and re-examined, +since accuracy is the watch-word of its production. Sometimes, the +machine-operator will gauge her own product; at other stages, the shell +passes into the hands of women overlookers of the factory, the final tests +being made by Government 'viewers'. The inside, as well as the outside of +the shell is submitted to such inspection, and you may see women peering +into the interior of the shells, aided by the light from a tiny electric +bulb, mounted on a stick. This contrivance is thrust successively into +rows and rows of shells. + +Women are now exclusively used for the painting of the shells, a process +accomplished, not by means of a brush and paint-pot, but by the operator +playing a fine electrically-worked syringe on to the surface of the shell. +This process is undertaken in what is often called 'the butcher's shop', +the shells, in pairs, being swung up on a rope into a compartment where +the operator works from behind a protective iron screen. + +In the Filling shops, women's devotion to their work has been proved once +and again. Whether the process undertaken be in company of a few comrades, +or in isolated huts where lonely vigils are kept over stores of +explosives, the munition-girls are hardly known to flinch in their duty. + +Sometimes, they have volunteered to work throughout the night when +air-raids are in progress, at other times, women-workers have returned to +the Danger Zone immediately after some bad experience there; and, in every +case, the woman worker in the Filling Factory cheerfully sacrifices much +which she holds dear in life. It may signify but little to a man to give +up his small personal possessions whilst at work in the danger areas, but +to many a woman worker it means much, that she may not wear a brooch, or a +flower, while on duty, and that her wedding-ring, the only allowable +trinket, must be bound with thread while she works. Her tresses, which she +normally loves to braid, or twist into varying fashions, must also be left +hairpinless beneath her cap. She must relinquish her personal belongings +before going to her allotted task; no crochet-hook or knitting-pin may +accompany her into the zone where friction of steel, or hard metal, might +spell death to a multitude of employees. Yet this sacrifice of +individuality is given freely by the woman in the Filling shop, and she is +still merry-hearted and blithe as she fills the small bags with deadly +powder, or binds the charge which shall fire the shell. + +When the shell is finally filled and passed 'O.K.', or perfect, it is a +woman who packs it into its box and who wheels it on a truck, sometimes +for a mile or more over narrow platforms, to hand it to another woman who +stacks it into the waiting railway-wagon. Any one who has watched +throughout the production of a shell in a factory of to-day can only echo +a well-known author's recent salute: 'Hats off to the Women'. + + +_In the Fuse Shop_ + +The fuse, that small and complicated object which explodes the shell, is a +war-product now largely produced by women's labour. A few inches in +length, it requires some hundreds of operations for its manufacture, even +if the initial processes on the metal are excluded from the count. In +section, it looks like a complicated metal jig-saw puzzle of exquisite +finish and cohesion: viewing it externally, a child might mistake it for a +conjurer's 'property', a bright metal egg, or roll often surrounded by a +metal ring marked with time measurements. + +The care and accuracy necessary for the production of this small object +can hardly be imagined by the uninitiated: it is measured and re-measured +in every diameter, since on its perfection depends the life of the gunner +and his team. The fuse shop is usually characterized by its cleanliness +and quietude. I recall one such shop stretching far away into distance +both in length and breadth. Under its roof some 1,500 women were at work. +Conversation could be held in any part of the shop, undisturbed by the +usual factory noises. The fuse parts are, indeed, so small that the +machinery is necessarily light, and in such a shop it is dexterity and +accuracy that tell, rather than physical strength. + +Rows of graceful women and girls were standing at their machines, and I +recall how their overalls and caps of varied hues made a rainbow effect, +as one watched from a distant corner. Some were in cream colour and some +in russet-brown, or apple green, the caps sometimes matching the overall +and sometimes offering a strong contrast. A splash of purple, or a deep +magenta, mingled with the head-dresses of softer hue, for in this shop, +away from the Danger Zone, no insistence was made on uniformity of factory +costume. Other women, wearing a distinctive armlet, were passing in and +out between the rows of workers, now stopping and bending over a machine, +now making some bright remark to the operator, as a ripple of laughter +indicated, or again, pointing out in sterner wise some danger, or some +error in the job. These itinerary women are the overlookers, who since the +war have perfected themselves in their special job and can now supervise +the operators. + +At long tables, other women were sitting; some quite elderly and +grey-haired, some mere girls. They were measuring with small gauges parts +of the fuse, some the size of a good-sized bead. There are 150 different +gauges authorized for the measurement of one type of fuse, and in practice +even more are used, to ensure perfection of accuracy. I stood spell-bound +at one of these gauging tables and watched the examination of small screws +and flash plugs. There were six little squares of felt on the table, on +which the examiner placed rejects, classified according to the detected +flaw. The work proceeded with the utmost dispatch, the 'accepted' or +'perfect' heap growing as if by magic. + +At another table, a girl was testing springs of about an inch long. If any +of these showed the smallest fraction too much length after being +submitted to a given pressure, they were put aside as 'scrap'. At yet +another table, tiny fuse needles were being examined for length, +thickness of phlange, and accuracy of point, and on a high flat desk, +near a machine, I noticed seventeen different gauges were ranged for the +examination of the percussion end of the fuse-body, one ten-thousandth +part of an inch being the limitation or variation allowed in such parts. + +When all the parts have been examined they are passed to other tables for +assembling, or putting together. In this operation almost superhuman care +is required, and the work is reserved for the best operators and +time-keepers as a reward for long service. 'Assembling' is regarded as the +plum of the fuse-room. The operators are well aware of the importance of +the task, as they stow away in the time fuses the pea-ball, pellet, +spring, stirrup, ferrule, and other components of the fuse. The needle is +fixed by blows from a small hammer, and at length the fuse is completed +and passes out of the room of its creation to receive its 'filling' from +other hands. + + +_Cartridges and Bullets_ + +The production of cartridges and bullets is another branch of munitions +production in which women are mainly employed. These objects, which, when +completed, are together no longer than a ball-room pencil, make in their +manufacture no great demand on physical strength. + +On entering a cartridge and bullet shop, one is at once struck with its +individuality. There is more stir and movement than in a fuse-room, but +less of the imperiousness of the machinery than in the shell or gun shop. +There is in the cartridge and bullet room still the whirr of wheels and, +above that, the deep constant throb of the driving-force, that makes +conversation almost inaudible to the new-comer. But beneath this bass +accompaniment, one can hear the lesser sounds belonging to the cartridge +and bullet-room alone. There may be the buzz of the circulating gas +machines--which resemble miniature merry-go-rounds--the tap, tap, of the +cartridges as they are thrown out of the machine into a box below, and the +tinkle of bullets as they are poured into weighing machines, or on to +tables, or into huge barrels, such as are used on the wharves for the +transport of herrings. + +A cartridge and bullet-shop sometimes is as animated and as picturesque as +an open-air market under a southern sky. I remember such a shop where the +girls were in various factory costumes, some at the machines in khaki and +some in cream-coloured overalls and caps; some, who were 'trucking', or +removing the product in boxes, were in cream trouser-suits, with smart +head-dresses fashioned from brightly-coloured oriental handkerchiefs. In +between the rows of girls men in dark suits were passing to and fro, now +stopping to examine, or alter a machine and now taking up a box of +bullets and pouring out its glittering contents like a silver stream, so +that the output from each worker might be weighed and assessed. + +Through an open door, at one side of the shop, one could see other men, +like stern magicians, dropping cartridges into vats of acid, and just to +the side of the vats I caught sight of two girls vigorously shaking a sack +of cartridges, hot from the furnace. As they shook, they sang an army +refrain: 'Take me back to dear old Blighty,' with a chorus of laughter. At +the extreme end of the shop, near the door whence the product made its +exit, were long narrow tables, piled with bullets, reminding one of a haul +of silver sprats on the quay-side. These were the inspecting tables where +the bullets receive minute attention from women viewers. + +The women's work in the bullet-shop is of extraordinary interest to the +onlooker, although many of the processes must be infinitely more +monotonous, from the worker's standpoint, than operations in other +munitions productions. The elongation of the little metal vessel, +resembling an acorn-cup, into a full-length cartridge, or bullet, +necessitates many operations in which the dexterity of human fingers and +the ingenuity of the machine both come into play. In the shop I recall, in +one machine employed for semi-annealing, the cartridge was being 'fed' +into a metal revolving plate. This passed behind an asbestos screen into a +double row of gas jets, where the semi-annealing or hardening process was +being accomplished. The dexterity of the operators was so great that one +woman was often feeding two machines, apparently without effort, and never +missed placing the cartridge into the correct aperture in the revolving +plate. + +In another process, I watched young girls sitting round a table and +placing bullets into circular apertures in small trays, resembling +solitaire-boards. Many of the girls were working with such speed that it +was impossible to follow the movements of their fingers, but they, +unconscious of their prowess, worked with averted heads, smiling in +amusement at the visitor's astonishment. + +In yet another operation, it was the machine that held one's attention. +The operator was feeding cartridges into a metal band which slipped out of +view while the process of 'tapering' was performed. When finished, a metal +thumb and index finger appeared, which delicately picked up the +cartridges, one by one, and threw them aside. The displaced cartridge then +hopped out of the machine into a box at the side of the machine. + +Entranced by the many mysteries in the production of cartridges and +bullets in the shop I am recalling, I had not noticed that the +tea-interval had arrived, and suddenly found that the work-room was almost +empty of human beings. Only two girls remained. They were sitting sewing, +whilst they devoured thick slices of bread and butter out of a newspaper +packet. The woman inspector, who was my guide, turned sharply. 'What are +you doing here?' she said, 'Eating your tea in the workshop, instead of +outside, or in the canteen. Be off at once into the fresh air.' Then, with +the indignation fading out of a good-humoured face: 'What next?' she said. + +Looking out of the open door at the streams of bright and happy girls +laughing, singing, dancing, and running, as only healthy youth can do in +the midst of these dark days of war, I seemed to see other and brighter +days ahead stretching out into the years of the future, when the workfolk +would all taste a fuller joy in life. With renewed hope, I gave her back +her challenge: 'Well! and what next?' + + + + +CHAPTER IV: AT WORK--II + +THE MAKING OF AIRCRAFT--OPTICAL INSTRUMENTS--IN THE SHIPYARDS + + +_The Making of Aircraft_ + +The production of aircraft, undertaken in this country on a large scale +only since the outbreak of the war, has fallen more naturally into the +hands of women. The work is for the most part light, and the new +factories, often erected in open country, are bright, airy, and largely +free from the noise of machinery. Added to these special attractions to +the woman worker, there is apparently a distinct appeal to the youth of +both sexes and to women of all ages in anything connected with the art of +flying. + +It is no secret that our output of aircraft is steadily increasing, and +that during 1917 it has been doubled. In one factory in London, the output +has been trebled within three months; in Lancashire, there are instances +in which it has been doubled, and other areas show an improved production +varying from 25 to 50 per cent. Yet the increased demand for labour for +this work has always been immediately answered, and there is a steady flow +into the factories of the best type of women workers from every class of +society. Here and there, one already meets a woman who, during the short +period of the war, has risen to be manager or partner in an aircraft +factory. Unconsciously, such a one emphasizes the fact that the mastery of +the element of the future is likely to be an affair of both the sexes. + +A visit to any aeroplane factory repeats the hint, and reveals the +extraordinary versatility of skill latent in women, which can well be +applied to this form of industry. 'Women _must_ have been cabin'd, +cribbed, and confined before the war', said a foreman in taking me over +his shop in an aircraft works. 'Look what they can do at this kind of job, +and yet many of them are ladies, from homes where they sat about and were +waited upon.' The wonder of it cannot fail to impress a visitor, since +only four years ago women were allowed to undertake in aircraft +construction merely those parts which convention deemed suitable for +feminine fingers: such processes, for instance, as the sewing of the wings +by hand, or by machine, or the painting of the woodwork. + +[Illustration: ENGRAVING METAL PARTS FOR COMPASSES] + +[Illustration: COLOURING AEROPLANE PLANES] + +[Illustration: CHIPPING AND GRINDING BLADES OF CAST IRON PROPELLER WITH +PORTABLE TOOLS] + +[Illustration: WOMAN ACTING AS MATE TO JOINER. MAKING SEA-PLANE FLOATS] + +To-day, they undertake almost every other process both at the carpenter's +bench and in the engineering shop, and the chief impression you carry away +from a stroll through such a factory is that the women are thoroughly at +home in the work. The operations are often so clean that the workers' +overalls and caps of the daintiest shades of pink, blue, white, and +heliotrope, remain fresh; the material for aeroplane parts is usually so +light that the handling of it presents no difficulty to a slip of a girl. +When within the works, the visitor is constantly stimulated to the thought +that the hand which rocks the cradle should obviously be the one to make +the air-machine. + +One expects, of course, women's familiarity with the occupation in the +room where the fine Irish linen is cut out and fashioned into wings. One +is not surprised at the facility with which the measuring and cutting out +are accomplished, and, maybe, an emotion of admiration arises, similar to +that evoked by the contemplation of old tapestries, when one watches the +hand-sewing of a seam in a wing of some 10 feet in length. Not a stitch of +the button-holing of such a seam deviates by a hairbreadth from its +fellows. Such work has, however, been women's province through the ages. + +But a new sensation is awakened in the carpenter's shop where women are +working with dexterity at the bench, handling woodwork like the men, now +dealing with delicate wooden ribs, or again, fashioning propellers out of +mahogany or walnut with such nicety that there is not the slightest +deviation between the dimensions of a pair. In the room where the linen is +stretched over the wooden ribs, I have seen women working with tiny +hammers, giving fairy blows that never miss their mark on tiny nails. + +It is with fascination that a visitor stands by be-goggled women as they +undertake the welding of metal joints by the oxy-acetylene process. Here, +conscientiousness is a vital quality in the operator, since an undetected +flaw in the weld, as a works foreman recently remarked, 'might easily send +an airman to Kingdom Come'. For this process, women of education are more +often selected. + +It is with awe that you watch the women at work on the metal parts of the +aeroplane, drilling, grinding, boring, milling on the machine, or +soldering tiny aluminum parts for the fuselage, and in each process +gauging and re-gauging, measuring and re-measuring. Women also work on +aero-engines, and help in the manufacture of the magneto, the very heart +of the machine. They even undertake special processes, which before the +war were only entrusted to a select body of men. I stood one day, for +example, watching a woman splicing steel rope, a process undertaken in +pre-war days by sailors. She was working with extraordinary speed and +unconcern, and had learned the job in three or four days. Before then, she +told me, she had been her employer's cook. + +But the most alluring scene of all is the assembling of aircraft. The +infinite number of separate parts are now ready; they have been tested by +factory overlookers and retested by Government inspectors. The greatest +care is taken in these examinations: it is the only possible insurance of +the lives of the brave youths on their journey above the clouds. All the +workers know this, and the seriousness of the job is reflected on their +faces. But now all the parts are ready and to hand in the Erecting +shop. Then wings and propeller are added to body, the engine and +leather-upholstered seats introduced, the electric apparatus fitted up, +the compass, ammunition box and other instruments and weapons placed in +position. + +The aeroplane is at length complete, and stands in the hangar like some +great bird, with outstretched pinions, awaiting its first flight into the +Unknown. Women undertake every process of this assembling, and have +acquired familiarity with all the parts. This was put to the test recently +in a certain works when a woman operator was directed to dismantle a +machine. Without hesitation, she stripped the complex network of the +structural stay-wires and the control wires, and then re-assembled them, +correct in every particular, at the first attempt. + + +_Optical Instruments_ + +Of the many industries developed by the war, the production of optical +instruments offers a striking example of rapid progress. Before 1914, the +optical glass industry of Europe was largely in the hands of Germany and +Austria, and the outbreak of hostilities meant the total closing of that +market to the Allies. The lack of optical instruments thus occasioned was +at first a source of grave national peril, since optical glass provides, +as it were, eyes for both Navy and Army. The eyes of the guns are the +range-finder, the director, the sighting telescope, periscope, prism +binoculars, and other instruments for observing fire and correcting the +aim; the tank would be blind without its periscope, and observations are +made from aircraft by means of photographic cameras and lenses. + +At sea, the tale is repeated; the submarine requires at least one eye, and +the submarine chaser needs many, while, by means of optical instruments, +the naval gunner can fire at a target which is about 15 to 20 miles away. +The very health of the army depends, in great measure, on optical glass, +since the Royal Army Medical Corps fights malaria and other diseases due +to parasites, which must be magnified by a microscope a thousand times +before they can be identified. Hence, the solution of the problem of +optical munitions was a vital matter in the early days of the war. + +With characteristic energy, Great Britain set to work and soon restored a +languishing trade. The task was enormous; the industry had to be revived +from its very foundations. The production of the peculiar types of glass +required for optical instruments in itself presented a formidable +obstacle, even its principal ingredient, a special quality of sand, being +formerly derived mainly from Fontainebleau and Belgium. But by widespread +investigation efficient substitutes were soon discovered, the problem of +mixing the ingredients was at length solved, formulae for special glasses +devised, and we are now producing large quantities of optical glass of +perfect quality. The production of the raw material was, however, only a +first step in obtaining an adequate supply of optical instruments. + +Numbers of delicate processes stand between the rough glass and the +finished implement. The glass must be cut, ground, and curved exactly to +the requisite design, which in itself takes many days of high mathematical +computation; it must be smoothed and polished, cleaned with meticulous +care, and adjusted to a nicety in the particular instrument for which it +is fashioned. The difficulties and pitfalls are incalculable; from start +to finish the glass obeys no fixed laws, but answers only to the skilled +handling of the scientist and craftsman. 'Optical glass is the mule of +materials', comments a recent writer with sincerity. + +The absence of requisite labour for what was practically a new industry +was a serious menace, and it is to the credit of Englishwomen that, as +soon as the need for their services in this direction was made known, they +stepped without hesitation into this unfamiliar and highly skilled +industry. Their success therein is remarkable, and many, from such +callings as high-class domestic service, kindergarten instruction, music +teaching, blouse and dressmaking, have achieved a wonderful record in the +delicate and highly technical processes of lens-smoothing and polishing +and in the production of prisms of faultless polish and cut. + +There is, I take it, no more interesting munitions development than in +factories where these lenses and prisms are produced. The work is so fine +and so delicate that one feels it might be more suitably transferred for +manipulation to elves, or fairy folk, who might undertake the various +processes standing at a large-sized toad-stool. But with the stern reality +of war upon us, willing feminine fingers have had to be trained to handle +these lenses, the smallest of which, when ranged in trays, resemble a +collection of dewdrops, and the largest of which would easily fill the +port-hole of an ocean-liner. + +Optical glass when it comes into the workshop has the appearance of small +blocks of rough ice of a greyish hue. These blocks are roughly sliced and +cut into shape by a rotating metal disk charged with diamond dust. The +prisms and lenses in their initial stage are then handed on to women, who +complete the work on their surfaces. Each process has its particular lure +for the interested visitor. You may watch the slices of glass being shaped +into prisms by handwork against the tool; you may follow these embryo +prisms through the various processes of smoothing and polishing until a +small magnifying prism is obtained for use in a magnetic compass, or until +a large prism is completed suitable for a submarine periscope. You may +follow the creation of a lens from the roughing and grinding of the glass +slices with emery, or carborundum, until the approximate shape is given, +or you may follow a later process of sticking the smaller lenses on to +pitch, so that they may form a single surface for smoothing and polishing. + +Again, you may watch the superlatively difficult operation of centring a +lens. This task is necessary to ensure the polished surfaces of the lens +running perfectly true and it requires a skilled touch and a trained eye +to undertake it satisfactorily. + +In a shop in a certain optical munitions factory I met the first woman who +worked a centring machine in that area. She was formerly a housemaid, and +told me that, at first, all the men had discouraged her from the job and +had said it was 'impossible for a woman to do such work'. But she 'stuck +it'--so she said--and in a few weeks, to her own surprise and the men's +dismay, this peculiarly skilled job became familiar to her. 'Now I feel I +am doing something,' she said in triumph. This sentiment was echoed by +another worker in that factory who was accomplishing the surprising task +of 'chamfering', or putting a tiny bevel onto the edge of a lens. + +The large lenses measure only 2 inches in diameter; the smaller ones are +about the size of a threepenny bit, and every operation, whether grinding, +trueing, smoothing, polishing, or centring, must be accomplished with the +utmost care. Even the final process in the manufacture of the lens or +prism, 'wiping off', is fraught with responsibility to the operator. +'Wiping off,' or cleaning the lens, can only be done with a silken duster, +for the finished glass, like a dainty lady, will tolerate the touch of +nothing coarse. + +In cases where the glass is graticulated, or marked with fine lines for +measurement purposes, the task of 'wiping off' is of extraordinary +difficulty; in the opinion of at least one foreman with whom I have +discussed this question, the operation is only perfectly successful when +performed by a girl's fingers. It is of supreme importance that no speck +of dirt or hint of grease from a finger-mark be left on the glass when +finally adjusted, or the instrument would become a source of danger to the +user. No wonder that the feeling of the optical instrument workshop +expresses itself in the words: 'Cleanliness is more than godliness at this +job.' + +The completed glass at length reaches the stage where it is set in its +instrument, be it periscope, dial-sight, telescope, and so on. Although +the most exact measurements have been observed both in the metal part and +on the glass, small adjustments are necessary; for the fit must be so +perfect that even if the metal case suffers shell-shock, the glass must +still not rattle. But it is the metal alone which is submitted to +alteration, and it is wonderful how women have been able to obtain +sufficient dexterity to make these infinitesimal changes in the metal +parts. One can see a mere girl undertaking such a task by giving the metal +three or four delicate strokes from a file so fine that it would not hurt +a baby's skin. Meantime, the lens or prism is finally examined (also by +women) for size, scratches, and other imperfections, and is then +re-cleaned. Girls and women take a full share in the production of the +metal parts for the optical instruments and also assemble, or collect the +parts, for the adjustment of the glass, but so far they do not generally +adjust or test the completed instrument. + +The operations used in the production of optical instruments for war +purposes are, of course, similar to those required in the manufacture of +implements used in peace-time, such as opera-glasses, telescopes, +microscopes, surveying instruments, photographic and cinematograph +apparatus, &c., and it is expected that women who have entered the new +war-time industry will happily find themselves, when peace dawns, in +possession of a permanent means of livelihood in a skilled occupation. + + +_In the Shipyards_ + +'Ships, ships, and still ships': such is the main need of the Allies in +this, the fourth year of the war. To answer this demand, every dockyard in +the country is working at the highest pressure. Into this work, strange as +it may seem to those familiar with the rough-and-tumble life of a +shipyard, women have penetrated and have so far surmounted all obstacles +in the tasks to which they have been allocated. + +At first, dilution in shipyards was looked upon as a hazardous experiment. +The work is mostly heavy and clumsy, and the type of men undertaking it, +splendid fellows enough in their physique and general outlook, are mainly +accustomed to dealings with the boisterous elements and with men comrades +of their own pattern. Their attitude towards women, it was feared, would +make for trouble immediately that the other sex was introduced as +fellow-workers. Even the most optimistic amongst shipbuilders were aghast +at the idea of women working shoulder to shoulder with men on board ship. +Yet here and there a pioneer employer has arisen, and the experiment has +been tried. It is succeeding unquestionably. + +I have been into the shipyards and seen the amazing sight and am convinced +of its expediency, at all events as a war-time measure. Special care must, +of course, be taken in the planning and the supervision of women's work on +board ship, but given the right type of inspectress, charge hand, and +workers, there is no reason why women should not, in increasing numbers, +fill the gaps in the shipyards, as in the factories. The women chosen to +undertake such tasks are well aware of the service they are rendering to +the nation at this juncture, and to the women workers the first day on +board ship is one of supreme happiness. 'They are so excited when they +actually get on board,' said a dockyard inspectress to me recently 'that +they forget all about the difficulties and objections to the work.' It is +well that this is so, for it is not too easy for the novice to move about +below, even on a big battleship. + +I was taken over one where the women were working. It was in a big yard +crammed with shipping of every kind--so full that one could echo the words +of the old Elizabethan, who said of a crowd: 'There was not room for a +snail to put out its horns.' A stiff breeze was blowing, and the sea +beyond ran full and blue. The great battleship along the dock lay serene +and stately, bearing, as it were, with grim humour the meddlesome tappings +and chippings of impertinent human beings, who presumed to furbish her up. +There were men on the conning-tower, busy with paint-pots, and there was a +tangle of ropes and pots on the upper decks where the guns were biding +their time. Men were calling lustily to each other, and were darting here +and there as brisk and wholesome as the breeze. + +'We go down here,' said the inspectress, pointing to a ladder as steep as +the side of a house. She bounded down with the ease of an antelope. +Another ladder, and yet another. The inspectress seemed to have forgotten +their steep incline and I was left, a helpless landlubber, cautiously +descending step by step. When I joined her in the engine-room she was +already deep in conversation with one of her staff. And then I noticed the +secret aid to her agility. All the women aboard ship were dressed in +trouser suits. The suits, of blue drill for the supervisors, and of a +similar material in brown for the labourers, were made with a short tunic, +and the trousers were buckled securely at the ankle. A tight-fitting cap +to match completed the smart workmanlike costume which permits of perfect +freedom of movement in confined places. Without such a costume it would be +hardly possible for women to work on board. + +The women workers on this particular battleship were engaged in renewing +electric wires and fittings, a job which requires a good deal of care and +accuracy. On the lower deck, they were fitting up new cables and were +perched in high places, here 'sweating in' a distribution box, there +marking off the position for the wires. Others were drilling holes, others +again were 'tapping', or making a thread in the holes. In the engine-room +the women were busy stripping worn-out electric wiring and were working by +the light of tall candles, as merry as a party preparing a Christmas tree. + +Everywhere the women were working in pairs, an arrangement found +especially advisable on board. Behind a small iron door we found one +couple working on a fire-control in a nook where the entrance of a single +visitor caused bad overcrowding. 'These are my mice', said the +inspectress; 'they always get away into the cupboard-jobs, and very well +they work there too. But we have to maintain a strict discipline on board, +far stricter than anything known in the factories.' + +No talking, I was informed, is allowed in that dockyard, during the +working hours on board, between the sailors or men labourers and the women +and there is constant supervision of the women employed. These work on +board in parties of 20-22, each party being under the care of a charge +hand. When the staff included three charge hands for supervision on board, +an inspectress was appointed for this special branch of the work. The +system seems to work well, and I noticed how the men and women had +evidently accepted each other as comrades. Coming into a secluded gangway +a man-labourer, who had finished his job, was unconcernedly shaving before +a square of mirror, while two or three women just beyond went on, just as +unconcernedly, tap, tapping at the electric fittings. There was no +chaffing, no 'larking', between the men and women, but a sense of +comradeship, such as one notices in a Co-education School. + +The women on electric-wiring receive, in that dockyard, one month's +instruction on dummy bulk-heads before going on board; their +instructors--expert men--accompany them to the number of two to every +party of twenty or so, and remain with them for ten to twelve months. +After that, the women are able to work without an instructor, and I was an +eyewitness to this arrangement on a cargo vessel, where electric wiring +was also being undertaken. + +Besides the work on board, women in dockyards are employed in the various +engineering shops where almost every description of construction and +repair work for vessels is undertaken. I have seen numbers of women at +work in such an electrical department, winding armatures, making parts for +firing-gear, polishing, or buffing and repairing electrical apparatus, &c. +The work in such a repair section is full of interest and variety. From +day to day the operators receive consignments of electrical apparatus +damaged on board by the elements, or worse. Great dispatch is needed, and +the women work with the utmost zeal and efficiency. I noticed them +undertaking such varying operations as lackering guards for lamps and +radiator fronts, repairing junction and section boxes, fire-control +instruments, automatic searchlights, &c., and they were turning out their +work, the foreman said, just like men. In the constructional department, +women are now employed in making bulkhead pieces, or metal-work of various +kinds, in oxy-acetylene welding, and occasionally in the foundry. + +When it is recollected that before the war only elderly women--the +grandmothers--were, generally speaking, employed in the dockyards, and +those only on such ornamental tasks as flag-making or upholstery for +yachts, it is hardly credible that the granddaughters are now working +successfully on intricate processes and even at jobs where physical +strength is a qualification. 'We can hardly believe our eyes,' said a +foreman recently, 'when we see the heavy stuff brought to and from the +shops in motor lorries driven by girls. Before the war it was all carted +by horses and men. The girls do the job all right though, and the only +thing they ever complain about is that their toes get cold.' 'They don't +now', said a strapping young woman-driver, overhearing the conversation. +'We've got hot-water tins.' Then, in a low voice, for my ears alone, 'I +love my work, it's ever so interesting.' + +It is this note that one finds above all, amongst the women in the +dockyards. The spirit of the sea, the almost forgotten heritage of an +island population, has been stirred once more, and the sight of the good +ships in harbour thrills the woman-worker, as the man, with a sense of +independence, freedom, and love for 'this England, ... this precious stone +set in the silver sea'. + +No wonder that Englishwomen find their work in the dockyards 'ever so +interesting'. + +[Illustration: CUTTING FRAYED-EDGED TAPE] + +[Illustration: BRAZING TURBINE ROTOR SEGMENT] + +[Illustration: MOUNTING CARDS FOR DRY COMPASSES] + +[Illustration: TREADLE POLISHING-MACHINES, FOR SMOOTHING LENSES] + + + + +CHAPTER V: COMFORT AND SAFETY + +WELFARE SUPERVISION--PROTECTIVE CLOTHING--REST-ROOMS AND FIRST AID--WOMEN +POLICE + + +The problems arising from the sudden employment of thousands of women in +the factories have obviously been connected not only with the technical +training of the workers and with the adaptation of machinery to their +physical strength. Something had to be done, and that without delay, to +ensure the comfort and safety in the workshops of these new-comers to +industrial life. + +In the first great rush for an increased munitions supply, war emergency +dictated the temporary suppression of the Factory Acts. There was no demur +within the factory gates. Women worked without hesitation from twelve to +fourteen hours a day, or a night, for seven days a week, and with the +voluntary sacrifice of public holidays. Their home conditions in a vast +number of cases offered no drop of consolation. Many of these women were +immigrants from remote corners of the Empire, or from faraway towns and +villages of the United Kingdom. Housing accommodation in crowded +industrial areas, or in a thinly populated countryside, was strained to +breaking-point. Undaunted, these workers--many of whom had previously led +an entirely sheltered life--rose before dawn to travel long distances to +the factory, and returned to take alternative possession with a +night-shift worker of a part share of a bedroom. The shameful conditions +to which the factory children were subjected at the period of the +Industrial Revolution seemed about to return. + + +_Welfare Supervision_ + +Such a state of things could not be tolerated, and Mr. Lloyd George, then +Minister of Munitions, grasped the situation. 'The workers of to-day', he +said, 'are the mothers of to-morrow. In a war of workshops the women of +Britain were needed to save Britain; it was for Britain to protect them.' +Measures were immediately adopted to improve the conditions of the workers +in the factory. A Departmental Committee was appointed to consider all +questions relating to the health of munition workers, and at the Ministry +of Munitions, on their recommendation, a Welfare and Health Department was +established, charged with 'securing a high standard of conditions for all +workers in munitions factories and more especially for the women and +juvenile employees'. Since then, step by step the machinery is being set +in motion for improving the conditions of life of munition workers. + +Yet Welfare work in the factory is no new thing in England. In pre-war +days it had not, it is true, reached as widespread a development as in the +United States, but as long ago as 1792 it was in practice in this country +under another name. It is recorded of that period of one David Dale, whose +factory was a model to his contemporaries, that he 'gave his money by +shovelfuls to his employees' to find that 'God shovelled it back again.' +From the early part of the nineteenth century, sporadic attempts were +successfully made to improve the conditions of the factory workers over +and above the requirements of legislation, and before 1914 a number of +enlightened factory owners had won renown by the practice of Welfare work +within their precincts. The seal of official sanction has, however, only +been gained since the war, through the influx of women into munitions +trades.[1] + +The Health of Munitions Workers Committee has, since its inception, +investigated at factory after factory such questions as the employment of +women, hours of labour, Sunday labour, juvenile employment, industrial +fatigue, canteen equipment, the dietary of workers. It has published its +conclusions in memoranda, stripped bare of officialism, so as to reveal +with frankness facts acquired by scientists in touch with reality. + +Working in connexion with this Committee is the Welfare and Health +Department of the Ministry of Munitions. It follows closely the +suggestions of the experts, its Welfare officers moving up and down the +country, now offering a suggestion to the management of a factory, and +again, assimilating some practical experiment in Welfare work, originated +by a progressive factory-directorate. Thus, a pooling of ideas is being +effected, and isolated experiments of value are now being propagated +throughout the country. + +But possibly one of the most valuable tasks of the Welfare and Health +Department is the selection and training of candidates for the work of +Welfare Supervision in the factories. A panel of approved candidates is +kept in readiness, so that a busy factory-manager may have at hand a +choice of Welfare workers who will, if necessary, undertake the entire +supervision of the personal interests of his female, or juvenile staff. +These officers, after engagement by the factory management, are +responsible solely to the firms that employ them and not to the Ministry +of Munitions. In establishments where T.N.T. (Tri-nitro-toluene) is +handled, the presence of a lady Welfare Supervisor is compulsory; in all +National factories such an officer is recognized as a necessary part of +the staff; and in Controlled Establishments, where a number of female +operators are employed, the management is officially encouraged to make +such an appointment. + +In many cases, engineering shops are for the first time employing female +operators, and the management depute with relief all questions as to the +personal requirements of the 'new labour' to the lady superintendent; in +other instances, such matters as the engagement of the employees, canteen +arrangements, and so on, are placed in the hands of other officials. +Hence, the duties of the lady Welfare Supervisor differ from factory to +factory. Generally speaking, the supervisor, or lady superintendent within +the factory is made responsible for some, or all, of the following +matters: + +1. She aids, or is entirely responsible for, the selection of women, +girls, and boys for employment. + +2. The general behaviour of the women and girls inside the factory falls +under her purview. + +3. The transfer of a woman employee from one process to another is +suggested by the Welfare Supervisor where health considerations make such +an alteration advisable. + +4. She is consulted on general grounds with regard to the dismissal of +women and girls. + +5. Factory conditions come under her observation, and reports are made, +when necessary, to the management, on the cleanliness, ventilation, or +warmth of the establishment. + +6. The necessity of the provision of seats is suggested, where this is +possible. + +7. In large factories, where the canteen is under separate management, the +Welfare Supervisor reports as to whether the necessary facilities are +available for the women employees. In smaller factories, the Welfare +Supervisor may be called upon to manage the canteen. + +8. While not responsible, except in small factories, for actual attention +to accidents, the Welfare Supervisor works in close touch with the factory +doctors and nurses. She also helps in the selection of the nurses, and +should see that their work is carried out promptly. She supervises the +keeping of all records of accidents and illness in the ambulance room, and +of all maternity cases noted in the factory. She keeps in touch with all +cases of serious accident or illness and with the Compensation Department +inside the works. + +9. She supervises cloak-rooms and selects the staff of attendants +necessary for these. + +10. The protective clothing supplied to the women at work comes under her +supervision. + +In large establishments where the female and juvenile staff is counted by +the thousand, these multifarious duties are necessarily divided among many +individuals, and the Welfare work within the factory (Intra-mural Welfare, +as it is now termed) develops into a Department. A typical example of such +an evolution may be seen at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich. In pre-war days, +the female staff numbered 125; to-day some 25,000 women are there at work. + +The Welfare supervision is happily in charge of a super-woman. In addition +to her manifold duties she has trained a staff of assistants who, like +herself, spare no effort to promote the health and happiness of those +under their care. I have stood many an hour in this super-woman's office +and watched her, surrounded by a throng of workers, fitting new-comers +into vacancies, listening to reasons from others for a desired +transference, or advising as to work, or meals, health, or recreation. No +girl was refused a hearing, however trivial the difficulty, and a +grievance as to the colour of a factory cap was discussed with as much +attention with one employee as the causes of a 'shop' disagreement was +with another complainant. I have accompanied her on visits through the +works (the entire tour would take almost a week to accomplish), and have +noted the diplomacy with which a suggested improvement in ventilation, or +a needed cloak-room alteration, was discussed with the official in charge, +and carried through. I have seen the faces of rows of workers light up as +this modern Florence Nightingale passed through their shop, and have +walked through the Danger Zone amazed at the arrangements for the +protection of the worker. + +What is true of the life in such large concerns as Woolwich Arsenal, or +His Majesty's Factory, Gretna, is typical on a large scale of the +development of Welfare work in many a munitions factory throughout the +kingdom. Protective clothing has been universally adopted, ambulance-rooms +and rest-rooms have been opened, cloak-room accommodation improved, +canteens established, sane recreation encouraged, and the protection of a +women-police service introduced. In short, an atmosphere is being +introduced by which the old-time barrier between employer and employed is +being helped to disappear. + + +_Protective Clothing_ + +So much has been accomplished since the advent of women in the munitions +factories with regard to protective clothing for the worker that the +subject might well fill a chapter to itself. A separate Department in the +Ministry of Munitions now concerns itself solely with its supply, and is +continually experimenting with improvements in aprons, gloves, boots, +caps, and tunics. Cotton overalls are now generally worn by the women +employees and much thought has been given to the production of these +garments in suitable materials and design. They are made with firmly +stitched belts and with inset pockets, so as to avert accidents by contact +of loose ends in the machinery, and are more often in the popular shades +of khaki, or brown, with scarlet facings, or dark blue faced with crimson. +But there is no set rule either as to colour, or design, so long as the +principle of protection is followed. + +Caps, which at first were much disliked by the workers, have at length +found general favour, not, it is true, by reason of the immunity they +offer against accident, but because they have been fashioned so as to add +'chic' to the wearer. They are usually of the 'Mob,' or 'Dutch' variety, +and match the overall in colour and texture; they are all designed so that +there is no pressure round the head. Sometimes, the cap of safety has been +skilfully used as a mark of distinction, and one may see, in a shop +staffed by women, the operators at the machines in khaki headgear, the +setters-up of machines in scarlet caps, and the overlookers or inspectors +of the product in bright blue head-dress. + +For wet and dusty work there are trouser suits in cotton, woollen, or +mackintosh, or tunic suits with knee breeches and leggings, or gaiters. +Mackintosh coats are also provided for outdoor work in shipyards, or for +trucking and lorrying, or for overhead crane-work within the factory. + +Acid-proof and oil-proof aprons are now furnished for certain operations, +and for other processes specially prepared gloves are supplied. The +varieties in workshop gloves are now very great; they are made in such +materials as india-rubber, canvas, or leather, or a union of these three, +or in teon-faced canvas or teon-faced leather. Some are cuffless; others, +for work in acids, have turned-up cuffs, and others again are gauntlets +reaching the elbow. In every case, the process for which they are provided +is minutely studied, and the fashion adopted is dictated by utility. + +Footgear has also received a considerable amount of attention, and there +are now available Wellington boots, or half-Wellingtons, for outdoor work, +or wooden clogs for processes in the shops where the flooring is apt to +become persistently wet. + +But, possibly, factory fashions receive most care when designed for +wearers in Filling shops. For these, suits in wool lasting-cloth are found +satisfactory, the most popular and smartest being in cream-colour, faced +with scarlet. Fire-proofed blue serge overalls and asbestos coats with +caps of the same material are also employed in certain of these factories. +For work in the Danger Zone no metal fasteners are permissible, and the +coat, or overall, is cut so as to protect the neck and throat from contact +with the powder used in the process. + +Boots and shoes for this type of work are also specially designed. No iron +must enter into their composition, the soles being either machine-sewn, or +riveted with brass. Sometimes, cloth and india-rubber over-shoes are the +chosen footwear of the Danger Zone, and in this case the fasteners must +also be free from iron. These precautions are no mere fad, but essential +safeguards where friction between a fragment of iron and a combustible +powder might lead to an explosion. Respirators, and in some cases veils, +are also needful accessories of the Filling factory, and these too are +provided for the workers. + +A complete factory uniform has thus evolved since the war: it is a model +of suitable clothing for industrial work. Arising from within the +workshops to meet essential needs, these fashions are not only free from +vulgarity, or eccentricity, but have a distinct beauty of their own. It is +unlikely that women, once accustomed to the comfort and cleanliness of +such garments, will desire to return to the discredited habit of tarnished +finery worn at work. + + +_Rest-Rooms and First Aid_ + +Ambulance and First-Aid work within the factory was not unusual even in +pre-war days. Since the development of munitions production it has become +almost a commonplace, and from December 1, 1917, its provision has been +obligatory in blast furnaces, foundries, copper-mills, iron-mills, and +metal works. Where T.N.T. is handled, the employment of at least one +whole-time medical officer is compulsory, if the employees number 2,000, +and, if in excess of that figure, at least one additional medical officer +must be employed. The professional work of these doctors is supervised by +the medical officers of the Welfare and Health Department, who also in a +similar way supervise the safety of workers employed upon the manufacture +of lethal gases. + +The extra expense involved in the provision of such safeguards is by no +means unproductive. In one factory, for example, it has been estimated +that 2,500 hours were saved in a single week by prompt attention to minor +ailments; in another factory, where the firm meets all smaller claims for +Workmen's Compensation, it was found that in a period of eighteen months +following the establishment of a First-Aid organization, a credit balance +of nearly L500 accrued to the management after all expenses connected with +the factory doctor and the nurses had been defrayed. + +Tribute should be paid to the medical staff for their share in the triumph +of First-Aid work within the munitions factory, for without their +extraordinary devotion the record of misadventure would undoubtedly be +higher. One hears from time to time how, in a temporary breakdown of such +a staff, a single worker will hold the fort. A typical case is recorded in +the press as I write. It tells of a young nurse who worked shifts of +twenty-four hours at a stretch, for a fortnight, during the absence of her +colleagues. + +The development of the factory rest-room and cloak-room has also been a +marked feature in the munitions factories where women are employed. +Formerly, it was usual to see the women workers' outdoor garments hung +round the workshop walls; to-day, in numbers of munitions works, the +women's cloak-rooms are provided with cupboards where hot pipes dry wet +boots and clothing, where each girl has her own locker with lock and key, +and where the maximum of wash-hand basins supplied with hot and cold water +are set up. In T.N.T. workshops compulsory washing facilities are even +more elaborate. Bath-rooms are available, as well as a generous supply of +towels, and face ointment, or powder, are supplied as preventatives to any +ill effects from handling explosives. + +Inside the workshops the spirit of reform is equally apparent; seats are +provided where possible, and lifting-tackle, or sliding boards, are +introduced to minimize strain when dealing with heavy weights. Sometimes, +one hears how such improvements, suggested for the women employees, are +extended to the men. At a certain engineering works, for example, where in +pre-war days women had never been employed, it was suggested by a +Government official that seats should be supplied for the women. The +management looked askance. It would be 'such a bad example to the +apprentices', it was said. The point was, however, pressed, and after a +short time the suggestion materialized. The manager then stated, with +surprised satisfaction, that the seats 'seemed to renew people', and he +had accordingly extended the improvement to the men. + + +_Women Police_ + +One of the most recent developments in the protection of women in the +factories is the employment of women police. In the summer of 1916, when +it was found necessary to obtain further control and supervision of the +women employees in munitions works, Sir Edward Henry, the Chief +Commissioner of Police, recommended that the Ministry of Munitions should +apply to the Women Police Service for a supply of trained women police. +This request has now created an extensive development of such work, and +to-day women police are undertaking numerous duties in munitions works. +They check the entry of women into the factory; examine passports; search +for such contraband as matches, cigarettes, and alcohol; deal with +complaints of petty offences; assist the magistrates at the police court, +and patrol the neighbourhood of the factory with a view to the protection +of the women employed. + +As many of the works have been erected in lonely places, and as the shifts +are worked by night as well as by day, it can easily be imagined what a +safeguard to the young employee is the presence of these female guardians +of the peace. Even within the precincts of the factory, the security +assured by the patrolling police-women is of great importance, since many +of the factories are built on isolated plots extending perhaps six miles +from barrier to barrier, and within these boundaries women are often +employed in isolated huts, should they be engaged on the production of +explosives. The preventive work of the women police is, in these areas, +incalculable. + +In such ways, Welfare work has taken root in the factories of Britain, and +in the words of Mr. Lloyd George, 'it is a strange irony, but no small +compensation, that the making of weapons of destruction should afford the +occasion to humanize industry. Yet such is the case.' + +[Illustration: SLITTING AND ROUGHING OPTICAL GLASS] + +[Illustration: VIEW OF CANTEEN KITCHEN] + +[Illustration: WEIGHING FERRO CHROME FOR ANALYSIS] + + + + +CHAPTER VI: OUTSIDE WELFARE + +RECREATION--MOTHERHOOD--THE FACTORY NURSERY + + +_Recreation_ + +The gift in the early days of munitions development of several thousands +of pounds from an Indian prince, the Maharajah of Gwalior, for the benefit +of munitions employees, helped to focus attention from the outset on their +needful recreation. The necessity for a maximum output, bringing in its +train long shifts, overtime, and a minimum of holidays, at first left +scant leisure at the munition girl's disposal, yet it was at once apparent +that some effort must be made to render that leisure healthful and +invigorating. As soon as the Welfare Supervisors took up their positions +in the factories and came into living touch with the needs of the women +employed, requests found their way to the Ministry of Munitions for grants +for recreation purposes from the Maharajah's fund. + +At first, 'a piano for the recreation-room or canteen' was the more +general appeal; for, strangely enough, after the long hours in the +engineering shops the normal munitions girl craves most, not for passive +amusement, such as 'the pictures', but for free movements of her own body. +Above all, she desires to dance, or to enjoy the rhythm of physical drill, +or, in the summer, to swim or dive, or to chase a ball in one or other of +the popular team games. Within doors, the piano provides, as it were, a +spring-board from which she can jump into a leisure-time atmosphere of +merriment; it is the send-off to her dance, the guide to her song, and the +backbone to the joy found in the united action of physical drill. + +The piano once provided in canteen, or recreation-room, you will find the +munition girl footing it in the dinner-hour, or tea-interval, or in any +other period when she is off duty. So long as the tune be bright, the +merry-hearted munition-maker will dance the old dances, or the more +complicated modern steps, as her mood suggests. + +From self-taught dancing, the desire for a more perfect expression in +movement is a natural evolution, and in certain cases grants from the +Maharajah's fund have defrayed the fees of dancing mistress, or sports +instructor. Sums from the same source have been paid to assist the +organization of a club, for the provision of a recreation-room, for the +erection of swings and see-saws, for the installation of a swimming-bath, +for tools and seeds for factory girls' gardens, for dramatic +entertainments, for lectures for the instruction of apprentices, and in +Ireland, for the enlargement of schools for children of women munition +workers. + +Side by side with these endeavours, other efforts to promote sane +amusement for munition makers have been fructifying. Many an enlightened +factory employer, studying the problem of woman-labour within his own +works, has come to the conclusion that 'if women are called upon to work +continuously, especially at repetition jobs, their pleasure in life must +be kept alive'. Being business men, they have soon turned the theory into +practice, and have encouraged, started, and financed recreation schemes +for their own employees. + +In Sheffield, for example, successful dramatic entertainments have been +given, the actors and actresses emerging from the engineering shops; near +Birmingham, a firm has provided a cinema, an orchestra, and a dancing-room +for their workpeople, and on Saturday evenings, free conveyance in an +omnibus is arranged for those workers resident in outlying hostels and +married quarters. + +At Norwich, another firm has appointed a woman recreation officer to teach +the girls physical drill, dancing, tennis, and other games. Dances and a +fancy-dress ball have been organized there, and in the summer, tennis, +bowls, and cricket are played in a large recreation ground. These are but +a few instances, typical of the growing understanding amongst employers in +this country of the value of playtime to a women's staff. + +Outside the factory other agencies have been at work, voluntarily +attempting to provide rest and refreshment for the women whose sacrifices +for the war are so great and so patiently endured. Such bodies as the +Young Women's Christian Association or local Civic Associations have +opened recreation clubs--sometimes for girls only and sometimes +'mixed'--where concerts, dramatic entertainments, and lectures are given, +and classes in useful arts or games are held. Women from the aristocracy +and working women, civic authorities and the clergy, have joined hands +throughout the country to help forward this effort for the physical, +spiritual and intellectual recreation of the munitions worker. + +The very spontaneity and eagerness of the movement have naturally led here +and there to overlapping, and in the spring of 1917 it was found advisable +to co-ordinate local streams of goodwill and energy. A branch of the +Welfare and Health Department of the Ministry of Munitions was thus +established to keep in touch with all agencies outside the factory which +deal with schemes regarding recreation, sickness, maternity-cases, +creches, housing, and transit facilities. Extra-mural Welfare officers +have since been appointed to undertake such duties in various localities. +These act as _liaison_ officers between existing associations of every +denomination in a given district, and centralize all outside efforts for +the protection and relaxation of the munition women of that area. + +The Welfare officer at first surveys carefully the needs of the district, +and institutes an inquiry as to provisions for their satisfaction. If +necessary, a conference is then called of individuals and representatives +of local bodies dealing with these matters, and sub-committees are +appointed for each part of the work. When the numbers of women workers are +comparatively small in a given area and no adequate provision has been +made for their recreation, a central club is often opened. In other +localities, existing clubs, or institutions, are adapted to new +requirements, or new ones are added, according to local needs. Where night +shifts are worked in the local factories, it is usual to arrange the open +hours of the club to suit the workshop leisure hours. Thus, a club may be +open from 6 to 8 a.m.; at midday, for two hours, and again from 4.30 to +9.30 p.m. In such cases, it is often necessary to employ paid club +managers, as well as local voluntary help. + +The clubs, however, vary, both in scope and management, the general +principle followed by the Welfare officer being to ensure provision for +recreation, and then to leave the administration to local effort. +Encouragement is given by the Ministry of Munitions to employers of +Controlled Establishments and to the management of National factories to +help forward the movement for recreation for their staffs by allowing +Treasury grants out of excess profits to be made towards approved schemes. +In many districts the grants are 'pooled' for recreation purposes for the +whole area. Recreation for the munition worker thus rests on a secure +basis. In the winter months, dancing, physical drill, theatricals, games, +and classes are in full swing in the principal munitions areas, and in the +summer, outdoor sports are encouraged, as well as the tending of vegetable +plots and flower gardens. + + +_Motherhood_ + +A more difficult task falling to the 'Outside Welfare' officer is the +supervision of maternity cases arising among munition workers. The +all-important question of motherhood necessarily crops up in the factories +where hundreds of thousands of women are in daily employment. Numbers of +them are wives of men hard at work in war industries at home; others are +war-widows, and while the illegitimate birth-rate has not gone up +disproportionately in munitions areas, the unmarried mother, from time to +time, presents a special problem. + +The care of the expectant mother necessarily begins within the factory +gates. We have so far no published conclusions from an authoritative +survey of this question, such as Dr. Bonnaire (Chief Professor of +Midwifery at the Maternity Hospital, Paris) has provided for France, yet +scientific investigations and experiments undertaken by the Health of +Munition Workers' Committee are in progress. As far as possible, the women +Welfare Supervisors within the works keep their management informed of +maternity cases as they are noted, and, where possible, the expectant +mother is placed on lighter work. + +No woman known to be in that condition is, after a certain period, kept on +at night work, nor is she allowed to work in an explosives factory, nor +yet to handle T.N.T. 'We send the girl to the doctor and we act on his +advice. If we can keep her, we always take her off night work and heavy +machines and where there is a good deal of exertion,' is a report typical +of the procedure in such cases in many factories. 'It is too risky for an +expectant mother to stay on at all,' is a characteristic opinion from a +Filling Factory; and from a high-explosives factory comes the verdict that +an expectant mother should, after a certain period, be discharged from the +works in view of the occasional occurrence there of small explosions. Such +maternity cases are, when possible, transferred, through local agencies, +to lighter national work outside the factory. + + +_The Factory Nursery_ + +Closely connected with the safeguarding of motherhood is the case of the +munition workers' children of pre-school age. After two months' interval +from the baby's birth, many of the maternity cases from the factory return +to their previous work, and the infant must, in the mother's absence, be +nursed by others. A similar condition applies to the work of other mothers +whose labour is required for munitions production. + +It sometimes happens that in a given area the call to the munitions +factories has been answered by practically all the available women in the +neighbourhood whose home ties are light, and the local labour reserve is +found amongst the women with one or two young children. If these women are +to offer their services, it is essential that their young family should +not be neglected. Sometimes, the mothers are able to make their own +arrangements and a 'minder', either a relative, or a neighbour, is +forthcoming, but, generally speaking, such a plan is not satisfactory in a +locality where every active individual is undertaking urgent war work. + +Thus has arisen in many districts the claim that a nursery for munition +workers' children should be established. A local association, or an +individual, often finds it possible to finance such a scheme; in other +cases, monetary aid is required and obtained from the Ministry of +Munitions. In the latter circumstances, the Ministry of Munitions, +co-operating with the Board of Education, grants 75 per cent. of the +approved expenditure on the initial provision and equipment of the +nursery, as well as 7_d._ a day for each attendance of a child, the +balance of the expenses being met partly by fees (varying from 7_d._ to +1_s._ a day, or from 7_s._ 6_d._ to 9_s._ 6_d._ a week) charged to the +mothers, and partly by contributions from the local originators of the +scheme. + +Where night shifts are worked, the munition workers may claim night +accommodation for their children; arrangements are also made to board the +infants by the week. In the schemes approved by the Ministry it has +generally been found possible to adapt existing buildings, but where no +suitable accommodation is available within reasonable distance of the +mothers' homes a new building is erected. + +Such a nursery has been erected near Woolwich and provides a useful model +for this country. It is a long low building of bungalow type, surrounded +by a small garden. The main room, the babies' parlour, is a long apartment +enclosed on two sides by a verandah, and on the third, by a wide passage +well ventilated at each end. The room itself is full of light and air, +there is plenty of play room, and no awkward corners to inflict bruises +unawares. A lengthy crawl brings a baby-boarder into the sunshine of the +verandah and the safe seclusion of its play-pens, and a longer crawl and a +hop is rewarded by entrance into the surrounding garden, where a +delectable sand-pit is a permanent feature. + +Brightly-coloured flowers enliven the garden in spring and in summer and +attract bird and insect visitors, companions often more interesting to a +two-year-old than the most sprightly of humans. Mattresses occupy part of +the floor space of the nursery, and at night-time are developed into +full-fledged beds. At one end of the room are cupboards let into the +walls, at the other, furniture fashioned for the needs of each 'two feet +nothing'. There, instead of being perched on a high chair to feed with +giants from an elevated table-land, the infant visitor sits on a miniature +arm-chair at a table brought to the level of childhood. The low tables +are, in fact, kidney-shaped and hollowed on the inside, so that a nurse, +or attendant, seated in the centre, may feed half a dozen children in +turn. The toddler's dinner in this retreat recalls the feeding time in a +nest. A smiling nurse in the centre feeds, turn by turn, her open-mouthed +charges whose satisfaction is expressed in human 'coos'. + +Another room in this delightful babies' house is devoted to infants: a +brigade in cots, of which the advance-guard, during fine weather, invade +the verandah. The daintiness of the room with its blue curtains and +cot-hangings and the chubby satisfaction of the cot-dwellers must be a +constant inspiration to the visiting working mothers. Spotless kitchens +for the preparation of the children's meals are situated in the rear of +the nurseries; there is also an isolation room where suspect infectious +cases are detained, and a laundry with an indefatigable laundress. The +bathing room, fitted with modern appliances, is in many respects +excellent. The whole establishment is warmed by a central-heating +installation, the radiators being well protected with guards. + +It may not always be possible, through lack of funds, to reproduce these +ideal conditions, but where the accommodation is less and the ground space +more limited, every care is taken that the factory nursery shall have an +ample provision of fresh air. Efforts are also made to obtain as much +local support as possible. + +In some districts, the whole of the clothing provided at the nursery is +made by the little girls from a neighbouring Elementary School. At Acton, +Middlesex, for example, I was shown piles of the daintiest little +underwear, diminutive shoes and charming cotton frocks, all made in the +sewing classes at their school, by pupils of eleven to thirteen years of +age. The boys of the local manual schools--not to be outdone--contributed +to this nursery all the carpentry for the cots for the elder babies. These +small beds, fashioned out of hessian cloth, swung on long broom poles, +with a wooden board at head and foot, seemed of a particularly economical +and practical pattern. + +The factory nursery is certainly gaining popularity as a war-time measure; +as a permanency in peace times it is recognized that there are some +objections to its establishment. An alternative scheme, even in the war +period, is being mooted. The suggestion is made that babies should be +'billeted', or boarded out in the munitions area amongst women who are not +employed outside their home. Supervision of the baby boarders, it is +thought, might be undertaken by inspectors under the Local Authority. This +scheme might, it is true, largely prevent the congregation of many +children in one nursery and the resultant danger of the spread of +contagious infantile disease. On the other hand, the proposal, if +accepted, might open the doors to overcrowding in thickly populated areas +and to the neglect of the baby boarder, undetected by a local +inspectorate, already overstrained by war-time conditions. The scheme is, +however, only at the discussion stage, as I write. + +In any case, the care of the munition workers' children is attracting +considerable public attention, since in spite of the war, or because of +it, the importance of the health and well-being of the ordinary +individual, and more especially of the young, is becoming part of the +creed of the average citizen. + + + + +CHAPTER VII: GROWTH OF THE INDUSTRIAL CANTEEN + +GENERAL PRINCIPLES--THE WORKER'S OASIS + + +'Money hardly counts; it is labour we have to consider nowadays', recently +remarked the managing director of a large munitions works. It is this new +conception that has given impetus to the development of the industrial +canteen, now a feature of the munitions factory. In the opinion of Mr. +John Hodge, M.P., Minister of Pensions, who since the war has acted for a +long period as Minister of Labour, canteens in the engineering shops were +'necessary from the start', and one of the earliest investigations of the +Health of Munition Workers' Committee was on the subject of the provision +of employees' meals. The results of the inquiry are embodied in three +valuable White Papers.[2] + +I have since been into many canteens connected with munitions works, and +so far I have not met a factory manager who has regretted their +introduction. Yet, only three or four years ago, the average employer +would have told you that a dinner brought by a worker in a newspaper, or +tied up in a red handkerchief, stored in the works, heated anywhere, and +eaten near the machines, was 'quite all right': and, as for the boys in +the factory, it was considered shameful to 'coddle them'; if necessary, a +factory lad should 'eat his dinner on a clothes line'. + +To-day, when the utmost ounce of energy is needed from man and woman, and +boy and girl, wherever munitions production is concerned, it is recognized +that the quality and quantity of the workers' food matters, and that even +the surroundings where the meal is partaken of counts in the conservation +of the essential reserve of human energy and power of will. Thus, the best +type of industrial canteen is designed not only 'to feed the brute', but +to rest his mind. This is especially the case in certain Filling +Factories, where immunity from ill-effects from the handling of T.N.T. has +been found to depend largely on the physical fitness of the workers. In +such factories, as well as in establishments where women are employed on +night shifts, the provision of canteens is obligatory on employers and, +indeed, recent legislation (the Police, Factories, &c. (Miscellaneous +Provisions) Act, 1916) has empowered the Home Secretary to require the +occupiers of workshops and factories to make arrangements, where +necessary, for the supply of meals for their employees. In the stress of +warfare, when the demand for a maximum output is necessarily the +pre-occupation of the factory manager, it was, however, recognized that +the canteen must be State-aided. A Canteen Committee was therefore +appointed under the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic). The work of +this committee is twofold: it aids the factory management to open its own +canteen or canteens, and it supervises and helps approved dining-rooms +managed by voluntary bodies. In the first case, the expense for any +necessary canteen is entirely borne by the Government, if the factory is a +'National' one. In Controlled Establishments, the employer is allowed to +charge the cost of the canteen as 'a trade expense', a concession by which +the State practically bears the expense out of funds which would otherwise +reach the Exchequer. In the case of canteens provided by voluntary bodies, +such as the Young Men's Christian Association, the Young Women's Christian +Association, the Church Army, the Salvation Army, the National People's +Palace Association, Ltd., &c., the Board pays half the capital +expenditure, where approved.[3] + +[Illustration: BALSMING LENSES] + +[Illustration: MAKING INSTRUMENT SCALES] + +The efforts of these voluntary bodies have been of the utmost service, +especially at the outset of munitions production on a vast scale, when the +factory proprietors, or directors, were unable to devote even a fraction +of their time to matters not obviously connected with output. The devotion +of the unpaid workers in the voluntary canteen has through the turmoil of +war hardly received due recognition, but it is no less than that of the +nurses in the military hospitals, or of the munitions workers themselves. +Women of aristocratic families, accustomed to personal service from a +large staff of domestic servants, and entirely unused to physical labour, +as well as women hard-worked in their own homes or in livelihood +occupations, have, since the need of the canteen was declared, come, by +day and by night, to undertake the arduous duties of cooking and scrubbing +for vast numbers of working-people. _Mr. Punch's_ delightful illustration, +'War, the Leveller', where the rough scullery-maid from the slums is +depicted issuing the emphatic order to the well-bred marchioness, 'Nah +then, Lady Montgummery Wilberforce, 'urry up with them plates',[4] is by +no means a fancy picture of the hither side of canteen-life. + +In one factory, substantial meals have been provided daily by 17 +voluntary assistants for some 1,200 workers; in another locality, the food +of 2,000 to 3,000 munitions employees has been arranged by 23 volunteers; +and in another establishment, 6,000 workers have been provided with +standing-up refreshments by 17 voluntary helpers. The rapid growth of the +canteen system during the past fifteen months, accompanied by the +increasing difficulties of catering for vast numbers under war-time +conditions, has, however, led to the transference of numbers of voluntary +canteens to the care of the factory management. + + +_General Principles_ + +Industrial canteens differ from one another in many respects, partly +because there was at first no fund of common experience in this country +from which to draw, and partly because hours of work, tastes and customs +in industrial areas vary considerably. Hence, methods of administration +and catering, found possible or popular in one canteen, are sometimes a +complete failure when tried in other districts. In one canteen, with a +seating capacity for 2,000 women, I found that three gallons of pickles +were sold in pennyworths daily; in another district, the popular taste ran +in the direction of jam tarts. Yet, even with the small store of +experience so far accumulated, certain general principles at least as +regards site, construction, equipment, and administration of the canteen +have been evolved. For instance, as regards site, a gloomy dining-room is +never popular. If possible, a garden outlook should be arranged, and at +the least, the canteen walls should be of a restful colour. It seems +obvious that if pictures are introduced, they should be varied and bright, +yet I have seen one canteen of which the walls were covered at intervals +with reproductions of the same uninteresting print. + +Another obvious point, too often neglected, is the insurance of good +ventilation in canteen and kitchen. The dining-room should, if possible, +provide separate accommodation for men and women, and should have a +buffet-bar and serving-counter with separate hatchments for different +items of the menu. Again, it is a matter of common consent that the +'ticket system' of payment for the food handed over the counter is the +best. Ticket-offices, where the 'checks' are obtainable for cash, should +be carefully placed with regard to entrance doors, serving-counters and +dining-tables, so that the minimum time is expended in preliminaries by a +_clientele_ who has but a strict dinner-hour at its disposal. In a +well-organized canteen I have seen over a thousand workers seated and +served within ten minutes of the announcement of the dinner-hour within +the factory shops. + +In the larger canteens, developments, as may be expected, run chiefly +along the lines of labour-saving appliances. Electric washing-up machines, +electric bacon-cutters, as well as electric bread-cutters, tea-measuring +machines, counter hot-closets for warming food brought by employees may +now be seen in many kitchens where the needs of thousands of diners must +be considered. + +But it is perhaps in the smaller concerns that the development of the +industrial canteen is most assured. Experiments can there be more easily +tried, and if necessary, discarded, where the customers are counted by +hundreds, rather than by thousands. From a tour of canteens, I select a +couple of such instances. The other day I happened, during the +dinner-hour, to be in a new munitions factory concerned with the +production of magnetos, aero-engines, electric switches, and so on, work +undertaken by men and women, boys and girls. The manager of this works has +studied the labour question up and down the country, and has set down his +conclusions, not on minute sheets, but in the bricks and mortar of new +buildings, in green lawns and flower beds bright with colour, and in +allotments round his shops. + + +_The Worker's Oasis_ + +The canteen is a feature of the place. It stands apart from the factory, a +long low building, one side looking on to a tennis court and the other on +to homely but delightful vegetable plots. The workers' dining-room is +divided down the centre: one side for the men, the other for the women. A +serving-table, but no partition-wall, separates it from the kitchen, +which, in its turn, is divided by further serving-tables from mess-rooms +for the engineers and staff employees. The kitchen, in reality a series of +ovens, stoves, and steamers, is a revelation of labour-saving appliances, +heated by electricity. On the day of my visit there was not the slightest +odour of cooking from these various utensils, although hot meals for some +250 persons were in preparation. + +The factory hooter 'buzzed'. The dinner hour, the workers' oasis, had +arrived, yet there was no clatter of dishes, or bustle of serving-maids, +in the canteens. An atmosphere of repose was as manifest as in a +well-appointed reception-room of some stately English home. The workers +evidently react to these conditions, and standing at the back of the +kitchen I was quite unaware of the diner's entry. 'When do the people come +in?' I asked from my shelter behind a huge steamer where puddings were +rising to the occasion. 'A hundred men are already seated and served', was +the amazing reply. They had entered through a side door leading out of the +garden, had there purchased a 'check' for the value of the dinner +required, and presenting the 'check' at the serving-counter, had received +their portion, piping hot from the hot shelves fitted beneath. + +Picking up the necessary cutlery from an adjoining table, the customers +had seated themselves at any special small marble-topped table of their +fancy. Waitresses, some voluntary workers garbed in rose-coloured overalls +and mob-caps, and some staff employees in white or blue uniforms, moved +about amongst the tables, supplying small wants. Through the open windows +floated the scent of hay and flowers; it seemed almost ludicrous to +connect the scene with war and the manufacture of its engines of +destruction. The quality of the food was excellent and the variety great. +A dinner hour spent in such a canteen is a refreshment to both body and +soul of the employees. + +In another instance, the firm have handed over the canteen and its +management to a workers' committee upon which the managing director also +sits. I noticed in this canteen various devices worthy of imitation, where +catering is undertaken for large numbers. The method adopted, for example, +of dividing the serving-counter into hatchments for the various items on +the menu, and separating by rails the floor-space in front of each +compartment, seems to economize both the time and patience of the +customers. The note of economy with efficiency is emphasized in this, as +in many canteens, and I was shown with pride some 'little brothers' on an +adjoining piece of land--pigs that were fattening on the canteen 'waste'. + +These developments, started in munitions areas during the urgency of +warfare, will, without doubt, have permanent importance in the days of +peace, and it is probable that the munition workers' canteen, doubtingly +adopted by employers some two years ago, is symptomatic of a revolution in +the home life of the industrial worker, as well as of new methods of +economy in the national supply of fuel and food. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII: HOUSING + +BILLETING--TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION--PERMANENT ACCOMMODATION + + +Of the indirect problems arising from a prolific output of munitions the +most acute has undoubtedly been the affair of the housing of the workers. +The opening of a new factory, or the conversion of existing works to the +needs of the State, often involve the transference of thousands of +workers, and in some cases the districts to which the stream of +immigration is directed are already congested, and already suffering from +inadequate housing accommodation. + +In one town in the North, for example, the population has since 1914 +increased by immigration from 16,000 to 35,000; in another town, where the +1911 census showed a population of 107,821, an unexaggerated estimate +gives the figure for the end of 1917 as 120,000; in other munition areas a +similar inflation of population has taken place. The housing problem has +been further complicated by the almost total prohibition of building +during the war period, save for Government purposes. + +The effect of these conditions in the early days of the war was, as may be +imagined, highly unsatisfactory to the residents in certain munition +areas, as well as to the immigrant work-people. Overcrowding became rife; +lodgers were at the mercy of unscrupulous landladies, and all the evils +associated with bad housing conditions began to make their appearance. +Then the Ministry of Munitions came to grips with the question, and +although it remains a thorny subject, the activities of the Department may +be fairly said to have accomplished a miracle in some areas in the housing +of the munition workers. + +The infinite variety of local conditions, as well as the humanness of the +workers, obviously complicate the matter, and while it has been found +possible to synthesize the factory system of a given area, no stereotyped +regulations can conceivably be produced to cover the accommodation of its +employees. The problem is therefore attacked piece-meal, each local +proposition being decided on its own merits. A broad guiding principle +has, however, been educed wherever the housing situation occasioned by the +output of munitions demands State intervention. In the first place, it is +decided whether the needed accommodation can be met in part, or +altogether, by existing houses--a system now sanctioned by the Billeting +Act of May 1917. Secondly, when it is found necessary to provide further +housing room, consideration is given as to whether new buildings shall be +of a temporary or of a permanent type. + + +_Billeting_ + +Chronologically, an authorized system of billeting munition workers has +been the latest development in the State housing schemes, but even in the +early days of the war this arrangement existed in embryo. Local committees +were then appointed which, with the aid of the Employment Bureaux, +compiled lists of suitable lodgings for immigrant women workers. From the +earliest war period, too, provision was made to meet young women +new-comers at railway stations and to place them, if necessary, in +temporary unimpeachable lodgings, until permanent accommodation was +available. This scheme has now developed into the regularized activities +of a Billeting Board (established August 1917), working under powers given +by the Billeting Act. Under this enactment, compulsory billeting is +provided for, but in practice is not adopted, sufficient facilities having +so far been forthcoming from voluntary sources. + +The Billeting Board works in hearty co-operation with local authorities +and individuals, and has met with extraordinary success. In the first +instance, two executive members of the Board proceed to a congested +munitions area and, with local aid, institute an inquiry as to whether +billeting can be successfully carried out. In such areas as the Clyde, or +Woolwich, billeting would, for example, be out of the question, but in +other localities, such as Barrow and Hereford, where public opinion ran +that there was no further accommodation even for a stray cat, the Board +has yet found suitable billets for 900 persons in Barrow and 1,200 in +Hereford. + +The question of transit, it is true, is intimately connected with the +housing problem, and through the action of the Billeting Board it has in +many cases been possible to remove difficulties of locomotion, and hence +to bring further accommodation within reach of the factories. The Board +has also been enabled to form local committees on which sit +representatives of each housing interest (e. g. landlady, locality, +lodger), and it has authority to recover rent from defaulting tenants. + +These, and other powers, have resulted in throwing many additional +apartments on to the market. Yet difficulties remain in the administration +of the Act in that the industrial workers are under no discipline such as +that applied to soldiers, and there is no local authority to compel a +munitions worker either to go into a given billet, or to remain there +when placed. The goodwill of the locality and of the employees has, +however, been so great that the system works smoothly, and from August +1917 to December 31, 1917, 3,000 to 5,000 munition workers have been +placed in existing houses. In a congested district where lodging +accommodation is exhausted, the Billeting Board reports on the need for +further houses, and at such centres as Barrow and Lincoln new houses are +now being erected on their recommendation. + + +_Temporary Accommodation_ + +Excluding the utilization of local lodgings and the adaptation of existing +buildings such as Poor-Law structures, Elementary Schools, charitable +institutions, three distinct types of provisional accommodation for +munition workers have made their appearance: temporary cottages, hostels, +and colonies. The temporary cottage corresponds fairly closely to the +ordinary type of permanent industrial cottage, save that the former is +built of wood or concrete and is usually one story instead of two; it +contains three to five rooms, and is rented on the basis of about 5_s._ +6_d._ to 7_s._ 6_d._ per week for a three-roomed abode. + +Generally speaking, these rooms are allocated to married rather than to +single women; sometimes the wife, as well as the husband, works in the +neighbouring factory, but more usually the wife, housed in the temporary +cottage, remains at home, housekeeping for the man worker. The unmarried +girls and women workers in crowded districts are generally accommodated in +hostels, or in colonies, the term used for a group of hostels. The hostel, +which is designed to accommodate from 30 to 100 persons, is provided with +its own kitchen, dining-room, and common-room, and to a certain extent +life therein approximates to that of a large family. + +The Colony, or group of hostels, has been found convenient where a large +number of women must be housed. Each hostel, or hutment, in the group is +arranged for the sleeping accommodation of 100-130 persons, the +dormitories being divided into cubicles (some single, some double), +accommodation for bath-rooms being always made in these dormitory blocks. +Under the Colony system, meals are usually partaken of in a separate +building or buildings. The residents from all the hutments also meet in +the recreation-room and in the laundry, common to all. + +Experience, however, teaches that each hostel should have its own common +room and that a Colony should not shelter very large numbers. About 500 +girls, in five hostels, seems to be the ideal number for effective +home-making, yet we have large housing schemes for the accommodation of +many thousands which are at present answering their purpose as a war-time +measure. For the management of the Colony an exceptionally capable lady +superintendent is needed, into whose hands usually falls the selection of +the hutment matrons and their staffs, as well as the canteen managers and +their subordinates. In the most developed Colonies a recreation officer is +often appointed. + +I recall a visit to one of the largest Colonies for munition workers in +the Midlands. The scheme embraces the housing and feeding of some 6,000 +women, drawn from every part of the United Kingdom, indeed, possibly from +every corner of the Empire. The staff, in all, comprises some 300 persons. +Perfect harmony reigned, and the girls seemed thoroughly at home in their +novel surroundings. Each girl can claim a separate cubicle, which is +divided from the adjoining compartment by a wall and door. Here and there, +indeed, the arrangement was varied and two friends--terrified at sleeping +alone--had secured permission to pool their bedrooms and to arrange a +double sleeping-room and dressing-room. + +The cubicle system is, notwithstanding, much appreciated by the woman, +who, working in company of hundreds of her fellows, and sharing perhaps a +common life for the first time, rejoices in the possession of some spot in +which to express her inner self. In some cubicles in that Colony a desire +for beauty asserted itself and the walls were gay with prints from +illustrated papers; in others, dainty coloured curtains had been +introduced and the locker was covered with a cloth to match. In another +room, the owner had evidently a taste for embroidery, and all the toilet +accessories bore this feminine touch. But, generally speaking, the chief +feature I noticed in that, as well as in other Colonies where the cubicle +system prevails, was the cleanliness and order of the apartments. A taste +for purity is infectious, and it is unlikely that girls, having once come +under an influence that induces them to leave their sleeping apartment +immaculate before going to work before dawn, will ever again tolerate slum +conditions. + +The many problems involved in the housing of these girls of various types +are indeed almost lost sight of by the visitor, but, as a lady +superintendent once reminded me, there are difficulties inherent in the +job. Some girls will arrive with uncleanly habits, even when the medical +officer has sorted out those unclean in person; others will, at first, +show signs of violent antipathies and strange fears, and there is always +the need for upholding an atmosphere of religious and racial toleration. +In the Midlands Colony a system has been adopted of placing the bedrooms +of girls from one part of the United Kingdom in the same corridor, the +Irish in one wing, the Scotch in another, and so on, but in the other +parts of the country I have found perfect harmony where such +classification is not observed. + +[Illustration: PAINTING A SHIP'S SIDE IN DRY DOCK] + +[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF WOMEN AT WORK ON AIRCRAFT FABRIC] + +[Illustration: THE CANTEEN] + +The feeding of the hostel residents presents its own difficulties, +especially in these days of war. In some hostels and colonies, such as the +one in the Midlands, the residents take their meals in their own canteen; +it being possible to supply the needs of a shift in the interval from +work. In other hostels, arrangements are made by which meals can be had +either at the hostel or the factory canteen. + +In these days of fluctuating food prices, it is difficult to indicate the +cost of up-keep of a munition-workers' hostel, but, in general, it has not +been found practicable to put the hostel on an entirely self-supporting +basis. This is especially the case in the Government establishments, where +the return on expended capital is at present only sought in increased +munitions output. + + +_Permanent Accommodation_ + +At first sight, the provision of temporary accommodation alone may appear +the obvious method for the housing of munition workers. Cheaper and more +rapid construction is obtainable by this method, and existing buildings +may be adapted. But if, in an area of pre-war housing shortage, there is +good prospect of permanent manufacturing activity, it is more often +decided that permanent, rather than temporary, structures are provided. + +It may be of interest to note the methods that have been adopted by the +State in the provision of permanent accommodation. These may be detailed +under four heads: + +1. In a certain number of cases loans have been made to Public Utility +Societies for the construction of dwellings for munition workers. Such +loans are conditioned after the manner already made familiar to the public +by Garden Suburb and other Associations. + +2. Loans have been made directly to certain individual firms to enable +them to house their immigrant employees. These loans have been issued at +the current rate of interest--usually 5 per cent.--and run, generally +speaking, for a period of forty years. + +3. In a few exceptional cases, certain private firms--now Controlled +Establishments--are permitted to charge a part of the increase on the cost +of building (due to war conditions) to that portion of the firm's profits +which would otherwise have gone to the Exchequer. + +4. A contribution is, in some instances, made by the State to certain +local authorities of a part of the capital cost of building. In all cases +this contribution is less than the estimated increase due to war +conditions. + +The type of permanent building erected by such means is that which +characterizes many of our newer industrial districts, namely a two-story +brick cottage, containing two or three bedrooms, a living-room and a +kitchen, a bath, in some cases a bath-room. Sometimes a complete village +or township has arisen, as it were from the earth, to shelter the working +population who have so willingly left their homes to further the common +cause by land and sea. In another instance, a large National factory has +been erected on an isolated waste in the North country. The workers come +from long distances, and not only need accommodation, but some reasonable +provision for recreation and the amenities of life. + +Beyond the great high road sweeping on to Scotland, some one- or +two-roomed cottages, a village shop or two, and a few more imposing +residences there was, in June 1915, nothing but bogland in the immediate +neighbourhood of the site of this new factory. The landscape presented a +view of coarse grass and brackish water; beyond that, beach and sea, and a +horizon bounded by rugged mountains, capped in winter by snow. It needed +courage, as well as genius, to undertake the transformation of such a +desolate waste into surroundings which should offer a lure to industrial +workers. But the work has been done in silence, quickly as well as +efficiently, with imagination, as well as thoroughness, and with an eye to +the future destiny of the place. + +By July 1915, the first huts were occupied, and by December 1917, when I +was a privileged visitor, there had arisen a thriving busy township and a +village some five miles beyond. Excellent railway communication between +township, village, and factory has been established, many good roads have +been built, there are permanent cottages, churches, a school, shops, a +staff club, an institute, a large entertainment hall, a cinema house, and +a central kitchen, providing cooked meals for all the workers in the +factories, and raw food-stuff for hostels and huts. Little gardens +surround the houses big and small, temporary or permanent, and allotments +are in great request, and there is also provision for outdoor recreation, +such as bowls, tennis, cricket, &c. The permanent brick cottages are built +in blocks of twelve, which are now thrown together to form a hostel. The +construction is so planned that ultimately these cottages can be +re-separated for family use. + +There is housing accommodation for over 6,000 women operators, which was +practically all in use. The task of supervising the home conditions of +this army of women falls into the hands of a lady Welfare Superintendent, +who keeps all the complicated machinery of hostels, huts, and lodgings in +running order. The possibilities in the housing of industrial women away +from their own homes have, I believe, never been so clearly demonstrated +as in this town on the marshes. The lady superintendent who has pioneered +this movement is of the opinion that its success is bound up with the fact +that the hostels are limited to the accommodation of from 70 to 100 girls +in each. Other key-notes to the prevailing happiness of the women +residents are, I gathered, that a minimum number of rules are enforced and +that the women are treated as responsible human beings. The elder women +are often housed in bungalows under the care of a housekeeper-cook, and +they greatly enjoy the greater independence and the appeal to their +individuality possible in such surroundings. + +The hostels, at the time of my visit, were in most hospitable mood. It was +the eve of Christmas, and festivities, tempered to war-time needs, were +the order of the day. The sound of a piano and singing outside a certain +hostel suggested a frolic within. We entered, the lady superintendent and +myself. The lower floor had been converted into reception-rooms and supper +was laid out on tables decorated with spoils from the hedge. Gleaming red +berries and glistening holly-leaves were on walls and brackets and here +and there a sprig of mistletoe placed in suitable places for 'auld lang +syne'. There were present young men, as well as girls, and a lively game, +'the Duke of York', was in progress. + +Suddenly the singing and accompaniment came to a sudden halt and the whole +of the company trouped in from adjoining rooms. A young girl came forward. +'We wish to take this opportunity', she said, 'of thanking our matron and +our secretary for the most happy time we have had under this roof. We do +it now because we hope not to be here next year, but instead to be +welcoming our boys home from the Front'. It was a simple, spontaneous +expression of the general emotion of the hostel residents in that area. + +Everywhere I found a similar joy of life among the workers: in the +Institute clubs, where both girls and men were reading, studying, singing, +and dancing; in the cinema hall, where the ever-popular 'movies' were +taking place; and in the big recreation hall, where a weekly 'social' was +being held. There, two girls provided the band, to which other girls +danced with girls, or with men in khaki, or with factory workers in +civilian dress. There was a healthy comradeship between girls and men and, +when the hour of parting came there were leave-takings of which no one +could be ashamed. Laughter and jollity in plenty, and snatches of song up +and down the darkened streets, as group after group found its way home, +but self-respect and dignity noticeably present. + +In a new town, emerging during the hurry and bustle of the war, amongst +new occupations, at which women needs must wear a masculine costume, we +have at least accomplished this: that the spirit of home-life, of joy, +and of love has not been discouraged: rather has it been fostered, or +rekindled, in these unaccustomed homes provided by the State. Indeed, many +of the girls passing through this strange war-time adventure have +assuredly gained by their pilgrimage precisely in those qualities most +needed by the wives and mothers of the rising generation. + +It was an inspiring glimpse into a new industrial world, a portent, maybe, +of the time to come. The words of a golden sonnet welled up: + + Then felt I like some watcher of the skies + When a new planet swims into his ken; + Or like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes, + He stared at the Pacific--and all his men + Looked at each other with a wild surmise-- + Silent, upon a peak in Darien. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Welfare work has since been officially extended to factories other +than those engaged in munitions production by Clause 7 of the Police, +Factories, &c. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act (1916). + +[2] _Health of Munition Workers Committee_, Memorandum No. 3, Report on +Industrial Canteens (Cd. 8133); Memorandum No. 6, Appendix to Memorandum +No. 3, Canteen Construction and Equipment (Cd. 8199); Memorandum No. 19, +Investigation of Workers' Food and Suggestions as to Dietary: Report by +Leonard E. Hill, M.B., F.R.S. (Cd. 8798). + +[3] A Food Section of the Ministry of Munitions has since been established +to carry on the work of the Central Control Board (Liquor Traffic). + +[4] _Punch_, September 6, 1916. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WOMAN'S PART*** + + +******* This file should be named 38437.txt or 38437.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/3/8/4/3/38437 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +http://www.gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/pglaf. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at http://www.gutenberg.org/about/contact + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. +To donate, please visit: +http://www.gutenberg.org/fundraising/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + http://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + |