Federal Policies for Women in Industry

W ITH the signing of the armistice, women in industry assumed a position in the public mind radically different from their status two weeks earlier. Two weeks before, government officials, employers, the wives, mothers and friends of soldiers and all the rest of the general public were showing lively interest in persuading women to undertake new occupations in order to release men for the war and to serve with adequate supplies those already at the front. With peace in sight the change seemed to be swift and radical. The question heard most frequently was whether women would now retire from industry. At least one central labor union passed a resolution calling upon women to give up their positions in order that there might be place for returning soldiers. For the moment it seemed as though the remarkable recognition of the importance of women's work in the war was leaving no permanent impression. The old idea that their position in industry was a transient one was now uppermost in the public mind with the added strength of a patriotic appeal to recognize the right of the soldier to his job. The issue thus raised cannot be settled in a few weeks. About the answer to it will center the policies to be adopted by federal and state agencies and by those voluntary associations of employers and workers through which standards governing the employment of women are established. No wise policy for the period of readjustment can be developed without clear realization of the position of women in industry during the war and the lessons for industry which the war taught. The outstanding fact was the change in attitude toward the work which women could do. Illustrations of their new occupations occur readily to mind. They have been conductors on street cars, elevator operators, taxicab drivers, railroad employes in a variety of occupations and machine operators in branches of the machinists' trade usually considered men's work. It is not to be forgotten that before the war there were very few large industries in the country in which there were not some women employed, so that the change was not so much the work which they did as the

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