Excerpt from A Directory of Opportunities for the Vocational Training of Women in the State of Pennsylvania

An important lesson which the last two years' experience has impressed upon our national consciousness is the value of knowing some one thing definitely and well. This has been emphasized by the action of the United States Department of Labor in urging men and women to enter into training for some definite work. Statistics have shown that during the war emergency the value to the nation of the trained worker was fifty per cent. Higher than that of the untrained, a lesson which loses nothing of its force by the transi tion from war to peace.

The work of reconstruction involves not so much new methods of dealing with our problems as a shifting of emphasis and new adaptations, writes a Pittsburgh expert in economic matters. For the past two years we have seen women doing many things which we had been accustomed to judging beyond her ability, endurance and strength. Women in the machine shops have qualified as Operators of light and heavy punch presses, screw and milling machines and lathes; as runners of ore-crushers, sorters of scrap iron, nailers, riveters, wire-workers, acetylene welders and solderers of air craft pontoons; their work has included calking and chipping, pipe-fitting and assembling; in the engineering shops they have taken the drafting rooms by storm - in short they have developed, in an endless variety of industrial and mechanical processes, an ability which has won unstinted commendation from employers in every field. Particularly are they now encouraged in continuing the Operation of machines of delicate and complicated build, and processes requiring unusual dexterity and rapidity, as well as in the development of those higher branches of mechanical work from which their lack of training has hitherto excluded them.

Up to the time of the signing of the Armistice, the country was interested chiefly in the quantity and quality of women's work as a contribution to national efficiency. The era of reconstruction brings with it a changed point of view and a new responsibility. It is time for us now to consider this courageous and devoted service of women in relation to their own future welfare; what part of the experience gained may be useful in determining their future career; what we can do to help in conserving and developing the capacities evoked by this experience, and how women's scope of useful ness may thus be amplified and extended to meet the present need.

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