EXPERIENCES in the FIELD of MERCHANDISE CONTROL' ELIZABETH S. WEIRICK2 Sears, Roebuck and Company, Chicago, Illinois
M
Y WORK concerns the control of merchandise,
The Technical Laboratories, of which I am in charge, the goods which ,~ontrihution to the Symposium on Training and Opporreferred a few minutes ago. In telling you a t u n i t i ~for Women in Chemistry, conducted by the Division of little about it I will answer the question I am asked Chemlcal Education at the ninety-eighth meeting of the A. C. S., quite frequently, "How did you happen to get into Sears,Roebuck and it?" Company.
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are maintained to uphold the company's guarantee to their customers to give good values and tell the facts about the merchandise they sell. Today i t is impossible to judge offhand the true character and value of goods because of very clever methods of manufacture; therefore merchants have turned to the scientific method of learning the quality of what they have for sale. They are constantly endeavoring to offer cheaper ,but better goods to their customers, and they can do this much more satisfactorily through laboratory guidance than by the old costly trial-and-error method of buying and selling. The laboratories aid our professional buyers by ferreting out the superior and inferior features of a fabric, a tool, a water softener, an electric device, or whatever is under consideration. We determine its composition, construction, and efficiency; we recommend to the manufacturers ways of correcting faults or defects; ways of improving the product; and we keep in close touch with the factories while our recommended changes are being made. The laboratories set up specifications for such diversified items as drugs, metal plating for automobile accessories, or the construction of bed sheets; and these specifications must beadhered to by our manufacturers. The lahoratories must prove the usefulness of new materials, such as new alloys for cutlery or new alloys for housewares or for gears; or new detergents. We must prove the practicability of new finishes, such as finishes to prevent the corrosion of metals, or finishes to prevent wrinkling of fabrics, or to make fabrics water-resistant. We must pass upon new devices, such as air-conditioning units, new cameras, furnaces, electric motors, or household appliances; and occasionally we develop new products ourselves. We work with the advertising department by supplying facts for labels or for catalog descriptions of merchandise, and we check all catalog copy to he sure that claims made by the company are in accordance with the facts. ? These functions, you see, involve more than chemical problems. There are three main divisions in our laboratories: Chemical, Engineering, and Textile. The Chemical Division includes metallurgical, microchemical, and general analytical lahoratories; the Engineering Division includes a variety of electrical, mechanical, and household-equipment laboratories, and also a machine shop in which much of our testing equipment is designed and built; the Textile Division includes a chemical laboratory, a constant-temperature and humidity laboratory for physical testing, a laboratoryfor microscopy and photomicrographic work, and one for handling dye, finishing, and shrinkage problems. At present there are eighty-one persons on the staff. They handle about 27,000 items and problems a year, some that necessitate long-time investigations and even research; occasionally a problem may require the collaboration of members from all divisions.
Each member of the staff is employed to fill a particular need in the laboratories, and sometimes it is necessary to search long and diligently before the one is found who fits into the niche. He is chosen on the basis of training, experience, and personality. Most of the members are specialists. Of the twenty-one who are chemists, eleven besides myself are women. Two of them have doctor's, three master's, and the rest bachelor's degrees. Two women are pharmaceutical chemists, one of them having had considerable industrial experience, the other, teaching and research experience. Three are textile chemists; of these, one has charge of her division, the second has had ten or eleven years' experience as head of a lahoratory of a large textile printing and finishing plant in Massachusetts, and the third has had teaching experience. Two of the women, trained as chemists, are our librarians; they with their assistants abstract articles, compile bibliographies and do reference work, thus assisting memhers with their prohlems. Another is office manager and directs twelve clerical assistants. She is responsible for the proper distribution of prohlems, the sending out of reports and for the indexing system. Any person who fills this position must have a hroad understanding of technical problems of all kinds. Three are young chemists working under the supervision of more experienced memhers of the staff. These women are conscientious, thorough, take responsibility well, and are very much interested in the application of chemistry to practical merchandising prohlems. They are working side by side with experienced men, and the results of their work are equally satisfactory. It is true that the attitude toward women is that of skepticisnt; but women should not attribute all of their hard blows in business to this cause, because men have to take knocks among themselves-they clash in personality, are rivals for position-any business man knows that in most organizations all is not smooth sailing. If i t is the purpose of this symposium to emphasize personal experiences, I would stress the influence, in my own case, of unusually fine teachers, an opportunity to enter the textile field in its early stages, the chance to use my initiative, and the fortunate characteristic of not being toosasily discouraged. I was fortunate in having as my first teacher in themistry, one who was inspiring. Teachers do not realize the tremendous effect they have on the lives of their studentseither for better or worse. Later, a t The University of Chicago under such men as Dr. Julius Stieglitz, Dr. Lauder Jones and Dr. Alexander Smith my interest in chemistry grew. All of these men were unusual teachers and maintained a very friendly, fair attitude toward women, not only in their courses but toward their future opportunities. From my first stay a t the University I went to teach chemistry in the School of Household Science and Arts a t Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, New York. Although while there I gave a variety of chemistry courses, I
devoted most of my time to organic chemistry. In addition I had the interesting experience of organizing a course in textile chemistry, one of the first of its kind, I believe, outside textile schools that train men for manufacturing. To help develop this course, I arranged through Dr. Alexander Smith, who was then head of the Department of Chemistry a t Columbia University, to spend a summer in the Waldrich Bleacheries in New Jersey, working with Dr: Flynn in his laboratory there, where I had the unusual opportunity of seeing and studying the various bleaching, dyeing, and finishing processes in the plant. This experience, together with help from Dr. J. Merritt Matthews and Dr. James Chittick, well-known textile consultants
in New York, started me on the road of Textile Chemistry. It was because of this background of experience that I was later urged to go to Sears, Roebuck and Company to take charge of the textile work of their laboratories. During the 1923 depression our highly developed laboratories were almost eliminated. From that time on it fell to my lot gradually to redevelop them, so that I have seen them grow again from a small st& and cramped quarters to their present size. Although as yet there are few laboratories of this particular kind, science is being applied more and more to business, to merchandising; and opportunities for chemists in this field should increase.
