Training for War Work
It was with remarkably little organized training that the women took
up their new lines of work and fitted into the men’s places. The most
extensive development of special training was to be found in the
munitions industry, under the auspices of the Ministry of Munitions.
An official circular of the Ministry, dated November, 1915, outlined a
scheme for producing semi-skilled workers by strictly practical courses
of thirty to one hundred hours’ duration, intended to give the learner
“machine sense” and to teach him to use some one machine tool. It was
realized that this type was not in harmony with the best educational
principles, but the necessities of the case demanded that nothing
more should be tried than to turn out speedy and accurate workers in
the shortest possible time. The comparatively small demand for women
munition workers at this time was suggested by the fact that, while
the classes were to be open both to men and women, it was recommended
that the local authorities should be sure of employment for the latter
before training them. The pupils were required to agree to work in
munition factories at the end of their course.
Seventy such training centers were opened by the Ministry of Munitions
in the course of the war, accommodating 6,000 to 6,500 pupils. Seven
were factories utilized solely for industrial training, the smallest
of which accommodated 150 and the largest from 800 to 1,000 pupils at
a time. The others were smaller technical schools. The Ministry of
Munitions had direct control of the training factories and appointed
their staffs, but the schools were managed by the local educational
authorities. According to representatives of the Ministry of Munitions,
women were always trained “to order,” and not “to stock.”
Next, perhaps, to munitions work in frequency, though much less
extensive, were the courses offered in agriculture. In connection with
the women’s county committees it was arranged that women should be
admitted to the county farm institutes, and short emergency courses,
some of only one month’s duration, were started. During the season of
1916, 390 women completed such courses. In almost every county also
large landowners and farmers gave free training to some women. In 1917,
247 “training centers” were reported and 140 farms had registered for
the work.[96] Such centers were attended mainly by young country girls,
sixteen or seventeen years old, who in peace times would have entered
domestic service. Small “hostels” or boarding homes were sometimes
opened in connection with the training centers. The “Land Army” made
use of these various schools, centers and practice farms for its short
training courses and also arranged brief apprenticeships with employers.
[96] _The Survey_, Sept. 15. 1917, p. 527.
Vocational courses for other lines of work were much more scattering.
The London County Council carried on short emergency courses along the
lines advised by the “Shops” and “Clerical Employments” committees to
prepare women for retail groceries and for business. It also carried
on a successful course in gardening for six months, but had to drop
it because housing accommodations were not available. Classes in
the shoe trade were opened at Leeds, Bristol and London, and in the
manufacture of leather cases and equipment at London and Walsall. The
Liverpool authorities began to teach women power machine operating and
toy making, the last being a trade expected to grow in England with
the cessation of German imports. A course which attracted considerable
attention because it provided skilled work at comparatively high pay
after two or three months’ training was the class in oxy-acetylene
welding managed by “Women’s Service,” a private organization of women
for war work. A few enlightened manufacturers also set up training
classes, such as, for instance, a three weeks’ course for women
solderers in tin box making. Women were not sent out as London bus
conductors until they had several weeks of careful instruction in
schools conducted by the companies. One steam railroad also provided
a training course for women clerks and telegraphers. An interesting
development in special training which accompanied the growth of
welfare work in munition and other plants was the opening of several
courses for would be “welfare supervisors” in a number of the newer
universities. A fairly long list of training courses was given for
London alone by the National Union of Women Workers, but examination of
the list shows that only a few were special war courses, and that most
of them covered professional work for the minority, and not industry or
trade for the many.[97]
Some employers were said to prefer entirely untrained women to those
who had gone through short emergency courses, because the latter were
prone to overestimate the value of their training. But on the whole
the classes were believed to give a much better start to the woman who
realized that they left her, after all, still a beginner. But the keen
demand for workers, the high wages and high cost of living were all
unfavorable to the extension of formal training schemes. Some classes
were closed after the first year of war for lack of pupils. Others
were discontinued when the trade schools were taken over for training
in munitions work. Whatever the value of the provisions for training,
it is evident that the great majority of women learned their new tasks
without any such help, entirely in the workshop.
[97] National Union of Women Workers, _Occasional Paper_, May, 1916,
pp. 66-68.