The United States is behind other
great industrial countries in legal protection for the workers. War
requirements may force us to see in the health of the worker the
greatest of national assets. Meantime, whether approved or not, the
American woman is going over the top. Four hundred and more are busy on
aeroplanes at the Curtiss works. The manager of a munition shop where
to-day but fifty women are employed, is putting up a dormitory to
accommodate five hundred. An index of expectation! Five thousand are
employed by the Remington Arms Company at Bridgeport. At the
International Arms and Fuse Company at Bloomfield, New Jersey, two
thousand, eight hundred are employed. The day I visited the place, in
one of the largest shops women had only just been put on the work, but
it was expected that in less than a month they would be found handling
all of the twelve hundred machines under that one roof alone.
The skill of the women staggers one. After a week or two they master the
operations on the "turret," gauging and routing machines. The best
worker on the "facing" machine is a woman. She is a piece worker, as
many of the women are, and is paid at the same rate as men. This woman
earned, the day I saw her, five dollars and forty cents. She tossed
about the fuse parts, and played with that machine, as I would with a
baby.
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