Extension of Employment of Women
The rapid growth in the number of women workers and their entrance into
hundreds of occupations formerly carried on by men alone are two of the
most striking industrial phenomena of the world war. The decrease in
women’s employment which marked the beginning of the war disappeared
month by month until the level of July, 1914, was passed in April,
1915. In the next month the _Labour Gazette_ noted that the shortage
of male labor was now extending to female and boy labor in many lines.
Up to this time recruiting had been comparatively slow. Now came Lord
Kitchener’s appeal for “men and still more men,” and as the army grew
the women had to fill the depleted ranks of industry.
By August, 1915, the British Association for the Advancement of
Science set the increase of employed women over July, 1914, at over
150,000 in industrial lines alone, besides considerable gains in
certain nonindustrial occupations.[23] In November of that year the
number of women registering at the employment exchanges for the first
time exceeded that of men. In April, 1916, by which time the army had
been much enlarged and the first conscription act was in effect, the
increase had reached 583,000, according to official estimate, and
the number of women workers was growing at least five times as fast
as before the war. A year later the net gain in the number of women
gainfully occupied was 963,000, and in July, 1918, 1,345,000 more women
were at work than in July, 1914.[24] In short, in four years of war
more than a million and a third additional women entered work outside
their homes.
[23] British Association for the Advancement of Science, _Credit,
Industry, and the War_, pp. 75 and 137.
[24] Great Britain, _Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in
Industry_, April, 1919, pp. 80-81. [Cd. 135.]
The increase in the number of working women and girls was greatest,
perhaps, in the year from April, 1915, to April, 1916, during which
period there was an increase of 657,000 in the occupations covered by
the Board of Trades reports.[25] During the last year for which figures
are available, July, 1917, to July, 1918, the increase was but 277,000.
This check in the rate of increase was due probably to a decrease in
the demand for the kinds of munitions on which women were most largely
employed, an increase in the number of returned soldiers and apparently
the depletion of the supply of women readily available for employment.
[25] _Vide_ Appendix D, p. 236.
Among the various occupational groups factory work showed the largest
increase, namely, 792,000 women, during the four years ending July,
1918, and agriculture the smallest, 38,000. Commerce was second to
industry, with a gain of 429,000, and national and local government
third with an increase of 198,000. The number of women workers
decreased only in women’s traditional occupation of domestic service,
where a decline of 400,000, or nearly 20 per cent, was registered in
the four year period.
EXTENSION OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN DURING FOUR YEARS OF WAR[26]
July, July, Increase or
Number of Women Working 1914 1918 Decrease
Employers or on own account 430,000 470,000 +40,000
Industry 2,178,000 2,970,000 +792,000
Domestic Service 1,658,000 1,258,000 -400,000
Commerce, etc. 505,500 934,500 +429,000
National and Local Government,
including Education 262,200 460,200 +198,000
Agriculture 190,000 228,000 +38,000
Hotels, Theaters, etc. 181,000 220,000 +39,000
Transport 18,200 117,200 +99,000
Other (including professional)
Employment and Home Workers 542,500 652,500 +110,000
--------- --------- ---------
Total 5,966,000 7,311,000 1,345,000
[26] Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in Industry, April,
1919, p. 80.
Turning aside from the increases in the total number of women workers
to an analysis of changes in the various occupations, a picture is
obtained not only of what the army of new workers did, but also of many
of the alterations wrought by war on the fabric of British industry.
_First Year of War_
Within a few weeks after the beginning of the war the government “came
into the market as chief buyer,”[27] with large rush orders for the
equipment of troops. This involved an “enormously multiplied demand
for women’s services” in certain lines, some time before the period of
unemployment was over. Increases in the number of women in the leather,
engineering and hosiery industries were noted by October, 1914.
Before the end of 1914 there was said to be an increase of 100,000
women in the woolen and worsted industry (for khaki, flannel and
blankets); in hosiery; in the clothing trade (for military tailoring,
fur coat making, caps and shirts); in the boot and shoe trade; and in
the making of ammunition, rations and jam, kit bags and haversacks,
surgical dressings and bandages and tin boxes. Yet owing to lack of
the necessary skill or because they could not be moved to the locality
where their services were in demand, thousands of “capable though
untrained young women lacked employment when other factories were
overwhelmed with their contracts and girls and women strained nearly to
the breaking point.”[28] “The relative immobility of labor was never
more clearly shown,” says Miss B. L. Hutchins.[29]
[27] British Association for the Advancement of Science, _Credit,
Industry, and the War_, p. 71.
[28] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1914_, p. 33.
[29] B. L. Hutchins, _Women in Modern Industry_, 1915, p. 246.
An interesting account of the introduction of women into munitions work
speaks of the rush of women to register for it in May, 1915, after
the battle of Neuve Chapelle, when the public first became aware of
the shortage of munitions.[30] But positions were then “exceedingly
difficult to obtain” and the use of women became general only in
September or later. An official report states that the employment of
women on munitions work was considered “tentative and experimental”
as late as November and December, 1915.[31] The success of a group of
educated women placed as supervisors in an inspection factory, who
were trained at Woolwich Arsenal in August, was said to have been the
determining factor in leading to the introduction of female labor on a
large scale at Woolwich and other government establishments.
[30] Rosamond Smith. “Women and Munition Work,” _Women’s Industrial
News_, April, 1916, p. 14.
[31] Great Britain, _Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in
Industry_, April, 1919, p. 111.
During perhaps the first six or eight months of war, however, the
additional women factory workers seldom took the places of men, but
entered the same occupations in which women had long been employed.
The “new demand was to a large extent for that class of goods in the
production of which female labour normally predominates.”[32] Women had
for many years operated power machines in the clothing trades and had
been employed in the making of cartridges and tin boxes, in certain
processes in woolen mills, in boot and shoe factories and in the food
trades: The needs of the army so far merely provided more opportunities
along the usual lines of women’s work.
[32] British Association for the Advancement of Science, _Credit,
Industry, and the War_, p. 72.
It was in the spring and early summer of 1915 that instances of the
substitution of women for men first began to be noted in industrial
employments. The _Labour Gazette_ first mentioned the general subject
in June, and in July stated that the movement was “growing.” In the
boot and shoe trade in Northamptonshire efforts were being made in May
to put women on “purely automatic machines hitherto worked by men.”
About this time a violent controversy broke out in the cotton trade
regarding the introduction of women as “piecers,” two of whom helped
each male spinner. Boys had been used for this purpose, and the union
rules forbade the employment of women. Union officials were strong in
opposition, saying that the work was unsuitable for women, and that
they would undercut the wage rates. An agreement permitting the use
of the women was finally made with the union, but even before it was
ratified women “piecers” had become increasingly common.
The frequent use of women on work formerly done by men in the munitions
branch of the “engineering” (machinists’) trade also dates from about
this time. On August 20, 1915, _The Engineer_, a British trade paper,
stated that “during the past few months a great and far reaching change
had been effected.... In a certain factory (making projectiles up to
4.5 inch gun size) a new department was started some time ago, the
working people being women, with a few expert men as overseers and
teachers.... By no means all of the work has been of the repetition
type, demanding little or no manipulative ability, but much of it ...
taxed the intelligence of the operatives to a high degree. Yet the work
turned out has reached a high pitch of excellence.... It may safely be
said that women can satisfactorily handle much heavier pieces of metal
than had previously been dreamt of.”
Women are said to have been successful in “arduous” processes, such as
forging, previously performed by men, and in managing machine tools not
even semi-automatic. “It can be stated with absolute truth that with
the possible exception of the heaviest tools—and their inability to
work even these has yet to be established—women have shown themselves
perfectly capable of performing operations which hitherto have been
exclusively carried out by men.”
But for industry as a whole the judgment of the British Association
for the Advancement of Science on the extent of substitution during
the first year of war is probably accurate. “Broadly speaking,” it was
said, “the movement [of women into trades and occupations hitherto
reserved wholly or partially to men] has only just begun to assume any
appreciable magnitude.... In few industries has the position yet shaped
itself.”[33] But in a number of trades, noteworthy among which were
leather, engineering, wool, cotton, pottery and printing, women, while
not yet undertaking the most highly skilled work, were “undoubtedly
slowly undertaking processes that were previously thought _just_ above
the line of their strength and skill.”[34]
[33] British Association for the Advancement of Science, _Credit,
Industry, and the War_, p. 70.
[34] British Association for the Advancement of Science, _Credit,
Industry, and the War_, p. 78.
Very soon after the outbreak of war there began to be an increase
in the number of women in certain nonindustrial occupations, most
important of which were clerical work, retail trade, and the railway
service. Unfortunately no estimate is available of the actual numbers
of women so employed in the first year of the war, but the increase
must have been considerable. Banks and insurance offices for the first
time hired women and girls in any great numbers, mostly for the more
routine parts of the work. The civil service took on a good many women
in the lower grades of its work, and already complaints were heard of
the prejudice which confined trained women to routine work while the
“upper division” struggled on understaffed. In the postoffice more
women clerks and some postwomen were noted. There was a considerable
increase in the number of women in retail trade in various capacities,
including shop assistants in dry goods and provision stores, packers
and delivery “girls.” In the railway service women were appearing as
car cleaners, ticket collectors on the station platforms and in the
railway offices. Some cities had hired women as street cleaners and
tram car conductors. The exodus of foreign waiters left openings for
more waitresses.
In these lines from the first the women took men’s places. And, as the
public came into daily contact with women clerks in banks and business
offices, postal employes, employes in shops and on delivery vans, tram
conductors and ticket collectors, there probably arose an exaggerated
idea of the extent to which women did “men’s work” during the first
year of war.
The number of women in agriculture, in which the _Labour Gazette_ first
noted a shortage of skilled labor in the early months of 1915, is
reported to have risen slightly in the spring and summer of 1915. The
increases were reported in nearly all the principal branches of the
season’s work, first in potato planting, then in turnip hoeing, next in
haying and fruit picking and finally in the harvest. In almost every
case the additional women were employed on work formerly done by men.
But, according to a careful study covering this period:
Most of the press paragraphs referring to the
replacement of men by women upon farms have been
calculated to give an erroneous impression to the
unknowing public. The demand for female labor in
agriculture during 1915 was not very great and a large
number of girls who offered to take up such work failed
to find employment.[35]
Moreover, statistics show that, owing to the keen demand from higher
paid and more attractive lines of work, the number of women permanently
employed on the land in Great Britain actually decreased from 80,000 in
July, 1914, to 62,200 in July, 1915.[36]
[35] _Women’s Industrial News_, July, 1916, p. 28.
[36] Great Britain, Board of Trade, _Report on the Increased Employment
of Women during the War, with Statistics up to April, 1918_, pp. 13-14.
_Second Year of War_
The next convenient date at which to note the changes in the number of
women employed and in their occupations is April, 1916, when nearly two
years had passed under war conditions. A second investigation by the
British Association for the Advancement of Science covers conditions
at that period, and the first of the _Labour Gazette’s_ quarterly
summaries of “the extension of the employment of women” is of that date.
The total war increase in numbers in industrial occupations was put
at 13.2 per cent of the estimated number employed in July, 1914,
or 287,500, by April, 1916. In the metal trades, chemicals and
woodworking, the increases were by far the largest, being 88 per
cent or 126,900, 84 per cent or 33,600, and 33 per cent or 13,200
respectively. These figures show the rush of women into the engineering
branch of munitions work, which began to be heavy in the fall of
1915, and into the manufacture of explosives. Both patriotism and the
economic incentive of high wages helped to secure women to meet the
rapid expansion in these trades. The increase in woodworking trades
likewise had a direct connection with war orders, as it involved the
work of women on aeroplanes and in making ammunition boxes. Other
marked increases, though not proportionally as large, were found in the
textile and food trades.
During the autumn of 1915 and the early months of 1916 the replacement
of men by women in industry progressed much more rapidly than in the
first year of war. During nearly every month of this period the _Labour
Gazette_ noted the increasing shortage of male help as men were called
into the army, the growing substitution of women and the need for still
further replacement. By the end of 1915, the “Principal Lady Inspector
of Factories” stated in her report for that year that though the
replacement of men of military age was still “probably very much less
than is generally supposed” the employment of women on “men’s work”
in the expanding munitions industry and in many staple trades had so
“spread that an entirely new industrial position and outlook has opened
for women.”[37]
[37] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1915_, p. 13. _Vide_ Appendix B, p. 232.
In April, 1916, it was estimated by the British Association for the
Advancement of Science that about one woman industrial worker out of
every seven was replacing a man, the total number of substitutes in
industry at this time being approximately 226,000. By far the largest
number, 117,400, were found in the “metal trades” (munitions), and
textiles, clothing, miscellaneous trades, food, paper and printing,
and woodworking followed in the order named. Estimates by the Board of
Trade were somewhat more conservative. A month or two later the _Labour
Gazette_ could state that there were few industries or occupations “in
which some substitution of females for males had not taken place.”
By the spring and summer of 1916, also, the effect of extending the
employment of women had begun to be felt by those lines which, before
the war, had been considered pre-eminently “woman’s work.” The British
Association for the Advancement of Science reported in April a decline
of 100,000 in the number of domestic servants and a slight decrease
in the number of women in the paper and printing trade. In July the
_Labour Gazette_ found decreases also in dressmaking, confectionery
and the linen, lace and silk trades. By October, 1916, 40 per cent of
the firms in the textile trades, 21 per cent in clothing and 19 per
cent in paper and printing were unable to fill their demands for female
help, as contrasted with 5 per cent in the metal trades, 3 per cent in
chemicals and 8 per cent in woodworking. “It is clear therefore ...”
states the _Gazette_, “that the process of transference from these
trades (which are ordinarily women’s occupations) to munition work or
other better paid occupations still continues.”[38]
The largest increases in the employment of women, however, both
absolutely and proportionally, were to be found in April, 1916, in
the nonindustrial group. The total increase in this group over prewar
numbers was 310,000. In “commercial” work alone the number of women had
risen by 181,000. The gain in “banking and finance,” _i. e._, women
clerks in banks and financial offices, was 242 per cent or 23,000, and
in “transport,” that is to say railway work was 16,000, or 168 per
cent.[39]
[38] _Labour Gazette_, January, 1917, p. 8.
[39] _Vide_ Appendix C, p. 234.
In agriculture during 1916 the increase in employment of women was
much more rapid, both among regular workers and among such temporary
workers as fruit pickers and harvest hands. An increase of 18,700 or 23
per cent in the number of regular women workers in Great Britain alone
was reported in July. In the autumn the numbers fell off, however, on
account of the physical strength required for the ploughing and other
work carried on at that season.
_Third Year of War_
The next group of figures carries forward the story of the increase in
women workers more than a year further, to July, 1917. This third year
of war was a period of striking developments, both in growth in the
number of women workers and in the extent to which they filled men’s
jobs.
Best known of these changes to American readers is the constant
expansion in the number of women munition makers. The number of
government munition factories had risen from four at the beginning of
the war to 103 in January, 1917, and the number of women employed in
them and in docks and arsenals increased by 202,000, or 9,596 per cent,
between July, 1914, and July, 1917. At Woolwich Arsenal there were 125
women in 1914 and 25,000 in 1917. The number of women in 3,900 of the
4,200 “controlled” establishments doing munitions work was reported to
be 369,000 in February, 1917.[40] In July, 1917, the increase in the
number of women in the trades which covered most of the munition work
outside national factories, namely, metals, chemicals and woodwork,
was 358,000, 52,000 and 26,000, respectively. In June, 1917, Dr.
Christopher Addison, then Minister of Munitions, told the House of
Commons that from 60 to 80 per cent of all the machine work on “shells,
fuses and trench warfare supplies” was performed by women. One shrapnel
bullet factory was said to be run entirely by women.
[40] John and Katherine Barrett, _British Industrial Experience during
the War_, Sen. Doc. 114, 65th Cong., 1st Sess.
Part of the total gain of 518,000 in the number of women in industrial
occupations under private ownership in July, 1917, was likewise found
outside munitions work in a great variety of staple trades less
directly connected with war orders, many of which were far removed from
the scope of women’s work previous to the war. For instance, the number
of women in grain milling rose from 2,000 to 6,000, in sugar refining
from 1,000 to 2,000 and in brewing from 8,000 to 18,000 by July,
1916.[41] Women became bakers and butchers and even stokers.[42] The
employment of women increased in the building trades, in surface work
in mining, in quarrying, brick making and cement work, in furniture
manufacture and in the making of glass, china and earthenware. Women
were reported to be building good-sized electric motors, working
in shipbuilding yards, testing dynamos, working electric overhead
traveling cranes, gauging tools to a thousandth of an inch and less and
performing the most highly skilled work on optical instruments.[43]
The British mission from the Ministry of Munitions described a former
kitchen maid who was running a 900-horsepower steam engine without
assistance.
[41] _Labour Gazette_, July, 1916, p. 357.
[42] Great Britain War Office, _Women’s War Work_, pp. 49, 56, 57.
[43] Great Britain Ministry of Munitions, _Dilution Bulletin_, April,
1917, pp. 82 and 95.
A committee of industrial women’s organizations stated, in the winter
of 1916-17 that, except for underground mining, some processes in dock
labor and steel smelting, and iron founding, “the introduction of women
in varying numbers is practically universal.” And even in steel works
women were sometimes employed in breaking limestone and loading bricks,
though not on the actual smelting of the metal, while in iron foundries
negotiations were going on to see where women could be used.
Meanwhile, the decrease in women workers in what, before the war, were
distinctively “women’s trades,” became more marked. For instance,
in April, 1917, the number of women was falling off in textiles and
the food trades, though these were still above prewar levels, in
dressmaking and domestic service, where the decline was put at 300,000,
and in laundry work, for which exact figures were not obtainable.
The following table brings out the changes in the employment of women
in several of the more important industrial occupations between July,
1914, and January and April, 1917:
INCREASE OR DECREASE IN THE NUMBER OF WOMEN EMPLOYED SINCE JULY,
1914[44]
January, April,
1917 1917
--------------------------------------------------
Metals 267,000 308,000
Chemicals 43,000 51,000
Textiles 23,000 22,000
Clothing -34,000 -37,000
Foods 26,000 18,000
Paper and Print -6,000 -7,000
Woods 19,000 24,000
------- -------
Total 399,000 453,000
It had become so difficult for the London high class dressmaking and
millinery shops to secure employes that in the fall of 1916 some of the
employers met with representatives of the London County Council and the
employment exchanges and planned considerable improvements in working
conditions. The changes included a reduction of the seasonality of the
trade and a shortening of the working hours. But in July, 1917, their
supply of labor was still “insufficient.”[45]
In nonindustrial occupations also during the period from April, 1916,
to July, 1917, there was a continued increase in the number of women
employed and the kinds of work they were doing. Next to “government
establishments” the largest percentage of increase (though the absolute
numbers are comparatively small) were found in some of these groups. In
“banking and finance” the gain over July, 1914, was 570 per cent, in
“transport” 422 per cent and in civil service 150 per cent. The gain in
numbers in the whole group, exclusive of agriculture, was 639,000, of
which 324,000 were found in “commercial occupations.”[46]
[44] _Labour Gazette_, August, 1917, p. 274.
[45] _Ibid._, p. 282.
[46] _Vide_ Appendix D, p. 236.
Along with the growth in numbers the kinds of work done by women in
these lines continued to extend. On the railroads, to the women clerks,
car cleaners and ticket collectors of the first months of war were
added shop laborers, engine cleaners and porters. In several Scottish
and a few English and Welsh cities, women became tram drivers as well
as conductors. Cities employed not only women street cleaners and
a larger number of women clerks and teachers but women in various
capacities in power stations, sewage farms, gas works and parks, and
as scavengers. A few official “policewomen” were appointed, and there
were numerous women “patrols” or voluntary police. There were women
lamp-lighters and women window cleaners, and the errand girl had
practically replaced the errand boy.
While in July, 1917, according to the _Labour Gazette_, the number of
women employed permanently on the land in Great Britain had increased
by 26,000 or 32 per cent since July, 1914, the number of casual workers
had increased 39,000 or 77 per cent during the same period. The total
number of women employed in farm work in July, 1917, may therefore be
estimated as 192,000, in addition to women relatives of farmers, who
are seldom counted in the returns.
As indicated by the variety of occupations, both industrial and
nonindustrial, in which their employment increased, the substitution
of women for men went forward rapidly during the third year of war.
The total number of “females substituted for male workers” amounted
in July, 1917, to 1,354,000, exclusive of casual farm laborers, or to
1,392,000 if such laborers be included. In “government establishments”
the number of women on men’s work was 9,120 times as great as the whole
number of women employed in July, 1914; in “banking and finance” the
number was 555 times as great; in “transport,” 437 times, and in “civil
service” 152 times as great. About one working woman out of every three
was replacing a man in July, 1917, in the occupations covered by the
tables of the _Labour Gazette_.
The report of the “Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops” for 1916
gives an interesting description of the progress of substitution and of
the work of women in heavy occupations formerly carried on exclusively
by men. The Principal Lady Inspector, Miss Anderson, says, in part:
It appears that the one absolute limit to the replacement
of men by women lies in those heavy occupations and
processes where adaptation of plant or appliances can not
be effected so as to bring them within the compass even of
selected women, of physical capacity above the normal. Very
surprising, however, is the outcome of careful selection,
even in fairly heavy work, in rubber manufacture, paper
mills, oil cake and seed crushing mills, shale oil works,
shipyards, iron and tube works, chemical works, gas works
and stacking of coal, tan yards, coarse ware and brick
making, flour milling and other trades. “If they stick this,
they will stick anything,” a manager is reported as saying
of the grit and pluck of the women in a gas works in the
recent severe weather.[47]
[47] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1916_, p. 5.
She adds, however, what may occur to many students of women’s work,
that “it is permissible to wonder whether some of the surprise and
admiration freely expressed in many quarters over new proofs of women’s
physical capacity and endurance is not in part attributable to lack of
knowledge or appreciation of the very heavy and strenuous nature of
much of normal prewar work for women, domestic and industrial.”
Nevertheless, despite these increases, the amount of substitution
varied widely between different trades and even between different firms
in the same trade, and opportunities for replacement still existed.
Often women had been more widely introduced into occupations like
railway trucking, for which they did not appear well fitted, than into
such work as electroplating, which seemed in every way suitable.
Women’s lack of trade training, their inferior strength, the special
restrictions of the factory acts, moral objections to having men
and women in the same workshop, and the need of increasing sanitary
accommodations and providing women supervisors had been from the first
alleged as objections to putting women in men’s places.[48] But the
strongest obstacles were apparently trade union opposition, frequently
expressed in restrictions in trade agreements, and the prejudice of
employers. “The progress of substitution probably depends in many cases
on the pressure exercised by military tribunals,” said the “Principal
Lady Inspector of Factories,” early in 1917. “Employers will not
experiment with women as long as they can get men, though once they do
so they are pleased with the result.”[49]
[48] British Association for the Advancement of Science, _Labour,
Finance, and the War_, 1916, pp. 83, 84.
[49] Great Britain Home Office, _Report of the Chief Inspector of
Factories and Workshops for 1916_, p. 6.
_Fourth Year of the War_
In the words of the Chief Woman Factory Inspector, 1917-1918, the
fourth year of the war, was as far as woman’s work was concerned “one
mainly of settling down into the new fields of work which were so
rapidly marked out in the three previous years.” Yet she enumerates
several lines of work employing women for the first time during this
year, among which were ship and marine engineering, blast furnaces and
forge works, copper and spelter works, concrete and other construction
work for factories and aerodromes, electric power stations and retorts
of gas works. The entrance of women as unskilled laborers in iron and
steel plants and chemical works was proceeding steadily in November,
1918.
Another interesting indication of the extent and variety of women’s
work in the latter months of the war is a list of placements made by
an employment exchange. The list includes learners in sheet metal
working, engine cleaners for a railway company; machinists in a torpedo
factory; drivers for a tramway company; gas meter inspectors; crane
drivers; insurance agents; sawmill laborers; cemetery laborers; railway
porters; painters of motor car bodies; machinists for engineering
firms; plumbers in a shipyard; bill posters; electric welders; foundry
workers; armature winders; postwomen; lorry drivers; wood cutting
machinists for shipbuilding; moulders at a grinding mill; chauffeurs;
lift attendants; tinsmiths; solderers in gas meter works; telephone
repairers; hay balers; laboratory assistants for wholesale chemists;
tailors’ pressers; cinema operators; bank clerks; glass blowers; pipe
plasterers; bake house assistants; cork cutters; gardeners; core makers
in an iron foundry, and mechanics of many kinds.[50]
[50] British Association for the Advancement of Science, _Industry and
Finance—War Expedients and Reconstruction_, pp. 39-40.
A Home Office report on the “Substitution of Women in Nonmunition
Factories” adds to the above classifications employment in scientific
work and in management and supervision, which a number of women
entered during the latter months of the war, though a lack of suitable
candidates retarded the movement. Educated women found places in
factory laboratories where, also, intelligent working women took up
the more routine processes. Most of the women engaged in managerial
work were found in the prewar “women’s industries” like laundries
and clothing factories, while the opening of new trades provided
opportunities for many forewomen.
In July, 1914, the total number of women at work for pay was officially
estimated as 5,966,000. Four years later this total had risen to
7,311,000 which, as has been noted, was a net increase of over a
million and a third. An increase was found in all the major industrial
groups except domestic service, in which the numbers decreased by
400,000, or about 20 per cent, during the war period. In private
industrial establishments the number of women workers rose in four
years from 2,176,000 to 2,745,000, an increase of 569 000, or 26.1 per
cent, while in government industrial establishments, only 2,000 women
were employed in July, 1914, and 225,000 in July, 1918, or over a
hundred times as many.
By far the greater part of the increase in the number of women factory
workers was to be found in the munition trades. Indeed, in the three
trades of paper and printing, textiles and clothing, the last two
of which had been “women’s trades” even before the war, there was
an actual decrease of 86,000 in the number of women workers during
the four year period under discussion. Out of the total increase of
792,000 in this group of occupations, 746,000 were to be found in the
metal, chemical and wood trades, which cover most of the munition work
done by private firms and in government establishments, which were
mainly munition factories.
Another interesting sidelight on the contribution of English working
women to the needs of the war is brought out by the numbers employed
in the manufacture of all kinds of military supplies, including such
things as uniforms, shoes and food, as well as munitions. In April,
1918, a total of 1,265,000 women were employed by private concerns on
war orders, while government work brought the total up to 1,425,000,
about equally divided between munitions and shipbuilding.
EXTENSION OF THE EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALES IN INDUSTRY DURING FOUR YEARS OF
WAR[51]
Per Cent
of Females
to Total
Estimated Estimated Increase (+) Number of
Number Number or Work People
of Females of Females Decrease (-) Employed
Employed Employed July, 1914- July, July,
Trade July, 1914 July, 1918 July 1918 1914 1918
Metal 170,000 594,000 +424,000 9 25
Chemical 40,000 104,000 + 64,000 20 39
Textile 863,000 827,000 - 36,000 58 67
Clothing 612,000 568,000 - 44,000 68 76
Food, Drink, Tobacco 196,000 235,000 + 39,000 35 49
Paper and Printing 147,500 141,500 - 6,000 36 48
Wood 44,000 79,000 + 35,000 15 32
China and Earthenware 32,000
Leather 23,100 197,100 + 93,000 4 10
Other 49,000
Government
Establishments 2,000 225,000 +223,000 3 47
------------------------------------------------------------------
Total 2,178,600 2,970,000 +792,000 26 37
[51] Great Britain, _Report of the War Cabinet on Women in Industry_,
April, 1919, pp. 80-81.
The addition of orders for the Allies brought the total number of women
on war orders up to 1,750,000.
The following table gives comparisons for April, 1917, and April, 1918,
for the various classes of industry:
NUMBER OF WOMEN ENGAGED ON GOVERNMENT ORDERS IN PRIVATE CONCERNS,
APRIL, 1917, AND APRIL, 1918[52]
April, April,
Occupation 1917 1918
----------------------------------------------
Building 13,000 16,000
Mines and Quarries 4,000 6,000
Metals 388,000 502,000
Chemicals 58,000 67,000
Textiles 238,000 338,000
Clothing 83,000 130,000
Food, Drink, Tobacco 32,000 53,000
Paper and Printing 30,000 41,000
Wood 28,000 39,000
Other 55,000 73,000
------- ---------
Total 929,000 1,265,000
[52] Great Britain Board of Trade, _Report on the Increased Employment
of Women during the War, with Statistics up to April, 1918_, pp. 8-9.
In nonindustrial employments, including commerce, banking, work for
the central and local government, transportation, hotels and theaters,
agriculture and the professions, the increase over the prewar level
of July, 1914, was 871,000 in July, 1918, a rise from 1,098,000 to
1,969,000 women workers. The increase in these occupations for the
fourth year of war alone was much greater than the increase in factory
workers during the same period, being 209,000 in contrast to 68,000.
The latest figures available for commerce are for April instead of
July, 1918, and show that 850,000 women were then employed in wholesale
and retail trade, about a 70 per cent increase since the beginning
of the war. The new workers were employed principally by wholesale
establishments and by grocery, fish, provision and hardware stores.
In the latter months of the war a number of women were promoted to
managerial and other positions of responsibility in stores. But in
spite of all the extension of their employment, a considerable number
of establishments reported a shortage of workers in April, 1918.
INCREASE IN EMPLOYMENT OF FEMALES IN COMMERCE, JULY, 1914-APRIL, 1918,
AND PERCENTAGE OF FIRMS REPORTING A SHORTAGE OF FEMALE LABOR IN APRIL,
1918.[53]
Percentage
of Firms
Reporting
Estimated Estimated a Shortage
No. No. of Female
Employed Employed Labor
July, April, April,
Occupation 1914 1918 1918
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Wholesale and Retail Drapers,
Haberdashers, Clothiers, etc. 132,000 167,000 20
Wholesale and Retail Grocers,
Bakers, Confectioners 80,000 182,000 5
Wholesale and Retail Butchers,
Fishmongers, Dairymen 42,000 69,000 8
Wholesale and Retail Stationers
and Booksellers 34,000 47,000 12
Retail Boot and Shoe Dealers 13,500 22,500 14
Retail Chemists 10,000 24,000 10
All (including some
not specified above) 496,000 850,000 8
[53] Compiled from Board of Trade Report covering Extension of
Employment of Women up to that Date.
The term “transportation” in the statistics applies chiefly to steam
railroads, as the employes of the many municipally owned tramways
are classed under “local government.” The number of women in the
transportation group was four times as great in April, 1918, as in
July, 1914, or 68,000 instead of 17,000. A list covering the principal
lines of work in July, 1918, shows that the largest number of women
were employed as telegraph and telephone operators, porters and
carriage cleaners.[54]
[54] Great Britain. _Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in
Industry_, April, 1919, p. 97.
NUMBER OF FEMALES EMPLOYED BY STEAM RAILWAYS.
July, July,
1914 1918
------------------------------------------------------------------
Booking Clerks 152 3,612
Telegraph and telephone operators
and other clerks 2,800 20,995
Ticket collectors .... 1,972
Carriage cleaners 214 4,603
Engine cleaners .... 3,065
Porters and checkers 3 9,980
Workshop laborers 43 2,547
Other laborers 420 580
Cooks, waitresses, attendants 1,239 3,641
Signalwomen, gatekeepers, guards 437 1,292
Machinists, mechanics 44 1,082
Painters and cleaners (including charwomen) 698 1,177
------ ------
Total (including unspecified) 12,423 65,887
In agriculture the increase was less than in most other kinds of work,
the number of permanent women workers rising only from 80,000 to
113,000 in the four years. For the fourth year of war alone the number
of permanent women workers in Scotland showed a rise for the first
time, and there was a slight increase in England and Wales, the total
gain over July, 1917, being 7,000. The number of casual workers dropped
from 88,000 in 1917 to 65,000, however. This fact is ascribed to two
causes. A larger number of male workers were available, including
soldiers on furlough, war prisoners, enemy aliens and school boys.
Also there was a much lessened demand for women in the two lines in
which casual workers were most extensively employed—hops, in which the
acreage was reduced by government order, and fruit, in which the crop
was a failure in several localities.
The increase of opportunities for women in the professions was one
of the most significant of the war time changes. The number of
professional women more than doubled during four years of war, rising
from 50,500 in July, 1914, to 107,500 in April, 1918. There was, of
course, a much enlarged demand for nurses, and the number of women
in Red Cross and military hospitals rose from 10,000 in July, 1914,
to 38,000 in January, 1918. While the number of men teachers fell
off by 22,000, the number of women teachers increased by 13,000, and
they secured a larger proportion of appointments to the higher and
better paid posts. In January, 1918, the Society of Incorporated
Accountants and Auditors obtained permission to change their articles
of incorporation so as to admit women, and a few weeks later reported
that very desirable women candidates were applying for examination.
By the fourth year of the war women were also largely employed in the
various government departments. In August, 1914, there were 36,000
women and 191,000 men in government work, but in January, 1918, the
balance of the sexes had been reversed and the number of women had
risen to 143,000, an increase of 296 per cent, while the number of men
had been reduced to 135,000, a decrease of 29 per cent.
NUMBER OF FEMALES EMPLOYED BY GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS
August 1, January 1,
1914 1918
-----------------------------------------------------
Admiralty (Headquarters) 98 4,101
Board of Customs 21 1,415
Food Ministry New 3,086
Board of Inland Revenue 250 4,549
Ministry of Labor 1,017 3,239
Ministry of Munitions New 9,925
Ministry of National Service New 9,811
Ministry of Pensions New 5,311
Postoffice 32,000 79,000
Board of Trade 15 1,842
War Office 156 9,665
All Others 2,715 11,961
------ -------
Total 36,272 191,004
Perhaps the most direct help given by women to the progress of the war
was their employment in work for the army behind the lines in France.
In July, 1915, a member of the government, in answering an inquiry
in the House of Commons as to the number of soldiers detailed for
clerical work, remarked that on the continent “obviously neither old
civilian clerks nor women clerks would be suitable.” But two years
later thousands of English women were at work there not only as clerks,
stenographers, telegraphers and postal employes, but also as army cooks
and cleaners and in the handling of supplies and various sorts of
repair work. The majority were clerical or domestic workers, however.
The women employed in this way were carefully selected and organized
under semi-military discipline, as the “Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps”
(popularly known as the “Waacs”), and numbered over 50,000 before the
end of the war. They wore uniforms of different colors, according to
the branch of work which they undertook. They lived in small huts,
often unheated, not far behind the battle lines, and were constantly
exposed to danger. “Waacs” were at times killed in air raids, and a
considerable number suffered from shell shock. Other smaller bodies of
women organized on similar semi-military lines were the “Wrens,” who
were employed in certain shore duties for the navy, and the “Wrafs” who
did woodcutting under the Board of Trade.
The number of women replacing men, as well as the total number of
women employed, reached its highest level during the fourth year of
the war. In April, 1918, the latest date for which these figures were
available at the date of writing, there were 531,000 substitutes in
industry, 187,000 in government establishments, and 1,098,000 in
nonindustrial occupations, or a total of 1,816,000 women who were
carrying on work formerly done by men.[55] Ninety per cent of the women
munition makers were said to be employed on men’s jobs.[56] An index
of the distribution of substitutes among different types of factory
work may be gained from the results of a special questionnaire sent
to manufacturers employing 277,000 women.[57] Fifteen per cent were
doing clerical work, 7 per cent warehouse work and packing, and 5 per
cent other nonmanufacturing work, such as sack mending in flour mills
and meter inspecting and show room work in the gas industry. Of the
remaining 73 per cent, 9 per cent were engaged in “general laboring
work,” and many others in work requiring similar strength. “It is
clear, therefore,” says the report, “that the employment of women on
heavy work has become an important factor in the situation. Though many
of the processes mentioned were unskilled, it was noticeable how many
of the women were engaged on skilled or semi-skilled processes.”
[55] _Vide_ Appendices E and F, pp. 237-238.
[56] Great Britain. _Report of the War Cabinet Committee on Women in
Industry_, p. 81.
[57] Great Britain, Board of Trade. _Report on the Increased Employment
of Women During the War with Statistics up to April, 1918_, p. 8.