Re# NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION CHEMISTRY TEACHEM ofthe
0s
High-School Graduates in Gdustrial Laboratories' JANE HASTINGS General Electric Laboratory, PittsJield, Massachusetts
A.
S INDUSTRY increased its production of matenals to meet specifications of the various branches of the armed forces, it was evident that the laboratory personnel would not be adequate to meet the demands for the testing required. There were not enough technically trained men and women in the country to make the vast number of chemical analyses and physical tests which had to be made before material could be accepted by government agencies. Also, college-trained persons are not satisfied for very long, if a t all, with work which is repetitive, or to use the term which is the b&tenoire of youth, "routine." Since boys with high-school educations had been employed for many years in the laboratories of the General Electric in nontechnical positions, many more were hired in 1941 and trained for routine testing. At the Pittsfield Works a separate laboratory was equipped and put into operation for the analysis of metal castings to be used by the U. S. Navy. This laboratory was part of the analytical section, and was staffed wholly with high-school boys under the direct supervision of the author. Early in 1942 the author suggested to the director of the laboratories that girls could do much of the testing then being carried out by boys and i t seemed probable that we should have to employ them eventually, so it would be well to find out bow many girls from the local high schools would be interested in such work. The director not only accepted the idea graciously, but was very helpful in persuading the skeptical section heads to consider how the work could be organized so that girls could be employed to replace the boys as the latter left for college or induction into armed service. During the spring of 1942 the author visited six high schools in Berkshire County and interviewed girls who were interested in being considered for laboratory work and who were qualified for the work by having taken college preparatory chemistry, by having good academic records, and being recommended by the principal, the chemistry teacher, or the dean of girls.
A special dart was made to encourage applications by girls who planned on going to college later, but were forced to wait a year.or two for financial reasons, as it had beeu our experience with the boys that the prospect of learning things which would be of value to them in college was an incentive in their work. In June three college-trained women chemists were added to the staff to help with the training and supervising and to carry out analyses which required their training. Early in August the high-school girls reported for work, and by putting the boys on a night shift it was possible to use the equipment during the day to train the girls and still keep up with production. In September the boys left and the girls took over and from that time this division of the analytical laboratory has been staffed entirely with females. By October, 1942, a few girls had beeu hired for other laboratory positions and by January, 1943, even the engineers were able to reassign the work so that high-school girls could be employed satisfactorily. In the analytical section of the chemical laboratory in which the control tests are made the girls are given a training period of from four to six weeks. During this period the college women teach them bow to use an analytical balance, the names and use of laboratory equipment, and give them whatever instruction is needed in the calculations they will use, in making out reports, and in checking results against specifications. After one day of general instruction they start practicing in the laboratory on a sample of either aluminum alloy or bronze, carrying through all of the operations called for by the method, under direct supervision of one of the college women. Bronze is a satisfactory alloy for a beginner to analyze, as the total of the elements determined should add up to 100 per cent and a good total makes the operator have confidence in his work. Also, the analysis of bronze involves various types of manipulation, such as the use of a colorimeter and the equipment for the electrolytic determination of copper and lead. Each year a course of theoretical chemistry has been given one hour a week to supple1 Address presented before the Sixth Annual Summer Conference, New England Association of Chemistry Teachers. New ment the practical training in the laboratory. In the other sections of the laboratory there has London. Connecticut,August 26,1944. 2(12
been no regular period of training. A girl has been assigned to a technical person, with whom she works until she has gained enough experience to carry out simple operations by herself and thus free the more highly trained person for technical problems. Girls have been employed in the main analytical laboratory where they have carried out analyses on metals, glass, water, and refractory materials and have assisted in semimicro analysis of organic material and in making physical tests. In the metallurgical laboratory they have aided the men in development work on heat treatment of steels, rolling and magnetic tests, ultrahigh-frequency work, interpretation of X-ray data, and in general, the processing of metals. The electrical engineering laboratory has found girls most useful in the calibration of electrical instruments and in checking the operation of electrical measuring devices used for controlling plant processes. A great deal of new electronic equipment has been developed in this section and girls have worked in the pilot plants, assembling and testing newly designed apparatus before i t was turned over to the factory for general production. Most of these girls attended a course in elementary electricity given a t the local high school two evenings a week. This course was one of those in the E.S.M.W.T. program, sponsored by the U. S. Office of Education. In the section of the laboratory in which the work consists of development and testing of organic materials, girls have been employed to test cork products, varnishes, stickers, and paper products. They learned to make distillations, determine boiling points and refractive indices, and to do any of the physical tests required by standard methods of testing such products. In the laboratories where various types of insulation are studied and controlled, girls have aided in testing incoming materials. Since the materials varied from oils, resins, and mixtures of both to synthetic insulation, the work which the girls have done has been both chemical and physical testing, with many girls employed entirely in testing the electrical characteristics of materials. In general, the high-school girls who have worked in the laboratories for the past two years have made satisfactory records. Some of the men who have employed girls for the h t time have stated that they prefer them to college women since they do not object to repetitive work. Several have said that they stick to their work better than boys with the same training. The most serious objections to employing girls in technical work have been their lack of mechanical sense and ingenuity, absence of interest in their work, and the need for reorganizing the work where the latter requires more physical strength than the ordinary girl possesses. As for the pirls, and what they think of industrial work, their comments have been favorable, for the most part, and when they have been unfavorable they have borne out the criticisms made of them by the men. Those who have liked the work have said that laboratory work has taught them to think things out, m d once they have learned to do that they feel a confidence
in their ability which they never had before. They have found that their interest in reading has increased, especially news reports on recent discoveries. They have also expressed a definite satisfaction in having done work so closely connected with the war. There have been some girls who have found that the work has convinced them that they would not care to make industrial work a career. These have said that the work is monotonous and industrial problems do not interest them. Some of them have decided that they would prefer work which dealt with people and have left to study nursing or hospital laboratory technique. Others have felt that in a large organization one loses the sense of being a person and feels like a machine. As a supervisor of a staff which has been made up of high-school graduates with excellent academic records, who have later gone on to college, and who, for over three years, have maintained a high level in quality and quantity of laboratory work, the author feels that the following observations on deficiencies in the usual highschool training might be useful to those engaged in instructing in secondary schools. High-school graduates of the highest caliber have shown a lack of practice in arithmetic. A refresher course in the senior year, in which they would receive drilling in solving simple problems, should be valuable to all students who propose going to college or who are interested in technical work. Such a course has been given for the past three years a t the local high school and those who have taken i t have shown more ease when faced with calculations than those who have had no such course. Another obvious failing in the high-school training is the lack of knowledge of any method for checking calculations for correctness. In the training course given in the analytical laboratory, the trainees are required to outline methods. The difficulty the high-school graduates experience in finding the salient points in a paragraph so that it may be condensed for rapid reference, indicates that they cannot read quickly and critically. By their devotion to their work and by their keen interest in learning new technical work, high-school girls h:ve made a real contribution to the fine record of industrial production for the armed forces.
Notes At the meeting on December 9, 1944, the Executive Committee voted to propose the following amendment to the Constitution to be voted on a t the Annual Meeting in May, 1945. To strike out the word "and" and insert the words "and the Editor of the Report" in Article VII, Section 1, so that the Section will read as follows: "Article VII, Section I. The officersof the Association as listed in Article IV, Section I, together with the Division Chairmen, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Endowment Fund, the immediate past President, and the Editor of the Report constitrte the Executive Committee."
