What jobs did women perform in the steel industry?
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Women of Steel (Excerpt from a propaganda video)
Steel has been rightly called the sinews of peace and the backbone of war. Behind the guns, and tanks, and ships, and planes, are the blast furnaces and open hearths, the electric furnaces and blooming mills. Tending these giant furnaces have always stood a breed of men apart, giants in the land, those men of steel. But with our country in peril, the women of America rallied to the support of their men, and here in this, almost the last great industry we thought could be handled only by men, these mothers, wives, and sweethearts came to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in almost every capacity. These marvelous women of America. These women of steel. Of course, we had long since accepted their aptitude in fabrication, the swift, sure dexterity of their fingers, as in this stainless steel rib assembly. Their adaptability to small tools. Even the hand welding electrodes. But as the need grew for more and more production of the basic metal itself, more loyal women with a dash a true American pluck and venturesomeness, edged further and further into the real work of steel making. Some with a scientific bent, went into metallurgical control and research labs-- girls fresh from chemical engineering school, older women who had been technical librarians. Yes, women make good inspectors. Here's one applying the magnaflux test to steel for airplane motors. They make good drivers too.American girls raised to drive the family car find it no trick at all to handle trucks and tractors. Mrs. Warner at these crane controls must lift this huge bloom into the furnace to be heated red hot, then carried across the shop to the forging press. It takes good judgment and a steady hand to manipulate it under the drop hammer-- just the right amount and position each time. And Ms. Evans here is very adept at this. Here is the office of the supervisor of women employees. She can tell us more about it. If you will, Ms. Campbell. MS.
CAMPBELL: Women in steel are simply the result of realistic thinking.In time of war, you have to have steel. You also have to have people to make it. With the Army taking men by the thousands-- more than 16,000 from our plant so far-- we had to find people to replace them. A great untapped reserve was women.
NARRATOR: How many do you have?
MS. CAMPBELL: About half of the replacements are women, more than 8,000 of them. The rest are older men and young boys.
NARRATOR: And the women, are they doing all right?
MS. CAMPBELL: Beyond anything anyone ever dreamed of. They're doing something in almost every department in the plant. And I don't mean just clerks and checkers. We have women engineers and oilers in the boiler room. Women repair experts. Women work at the oil mines above ground. Along the unloading docks. And our private railroad tracks. Women carpenters. And women shipbuilders. And women load and unload our freight cars. We have girls in charge of our tool cribs, and that takes the knowing of a lot of tools to do that. These women are working around the clock around the calendar. They do a man's job, and they can draw a man's pay. And they're doing it safely. They're safer here than in their own homes.