FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR OF THE WOMAN IN INDUSTRY SERVICE. U. S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR, SIR: The first annual report of the Woman in Industry Service for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1919, is submitted herewith. INTRODUCTION. The Woman in Industry Service was organized in July, 1918, a year and three months after the entrance of the United States into the war. It was confronted at once with the problems involved in a rapidly increasing reliance upon the work of women, as the sole reserve force of labor to be called upon to measure up to the demands of an augmented program of production for the war in the face of the withdrawal of men for military service at the rate of a quarter of a million a month. It was clear that for the sake of production and for the good of the Nation the Federal Government must provide not only for the recruiting of women workers but for the safeguarding of the health and efficiency of these women who were meeting in many instances the requirements of new and unaccustomed tasks. Because they were new for women—at least, in such large numbersstandards for their employment had not been established in the customs of industry. It was this necessity for rapid increase in the employment of women which constituted the peculiar problem of the war. Fundamentally, however, the purpose of the Department of Labor in its relation to women in industry-to safeguard the interests of women workers and to make their service effective for the national good-is identical in peace or in war. That is to say, with all the changes brought by the war the organic act creating the department was still applicable. The purpose of the Department of Labor shall be to foster, promote, and develop the welfare of the wage earners of the United States, to improve their working conditions, and to advance their opportunities for profitable employment. The difference during the war was the wider public recognition of he necessity for "advancing the opportunities" of women "for profitable employment," couching it, however, in terms of recruiting women for a wider range of occupations in order to release men for military service. Added to this difference in point of view was the fact that the urgent necessities of a nation at war would influence policy just to the extent that in time of war measures which in the long run are essential to the national good must frequently be modified for immediate military necessity. This is one of the evils of war. Thus while the problems of women in industry during the war differed in form from similar problems in time of peace, and while the public attitude was also different under war conditions, nevertheless the fundamental tasks were so much alike that the experience gained in dealing with them during the war may be regarded as a basis for action in time of peace. A report of the activities and plans of the Woman in Industry Service in the four months which elapsed between its establishment and the signing of the armistice should, therefore, be not merely a history but an introduction to a program for the work of the Federal Government on behalf of women in industry in the period of readjustment and thereafter. But while the year's history has this fundamental unity, logically the record divides into two parts, the first describing the period of the war and the second setting forth the problems of the eight months after the armistice was signed. |