private employment of civil engineers, the construction industry outranked all other sources.

In 1938, there were no women among the almost 20,000 engineers employed in the Federal classified civil service, where the War, Navy, Interior, and Agriculture Departments and the Federal Works Agency were the largest employers of engineers (59) (37). Furthermore, no women were among the approximately 1,500 persons appointed to probationary or permanent positions in engineering in the year ending June 30, 1940, and only 8 women passed examinations for such positions that year (42). Some women were employed before the war, however, by State and local governments.

Most engineers were engaged in engineering operation work in connection with current production and other processes, or in design and research, or, in the case of civil engineers, in engineering construction activity. Comparatively few, only 5 percent in 1934, were engaged in teaching (45). This percentage is lower than that for most of the other scientific groups. A few women were probably among those teaching before the war, although the first figures available are for 1942 when 50 women were among the 5,394 teachers of engineering reported by the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (57).

Annual Addition to the Supply

Although about one-third of those entering the engineering profession each year in the twenties came from the ranks of experienced workers without benefit of college graduation, the proportion of college graduates among the beginners in the profession rose steadily during the thirties to three-fourths of the total (45). The number of students enrolled in undergraduate engineering courses in 1940-41 (either in 4-year programs leading to the bachelor's degree in engineering or in 5-year programs leading to an engineer's degree) was almost double the number enrolled 20 years before (31). In 1940-41, 17,684 students were in the final year of their undergraduate engineering program (16). Taken all together, they equalled about 7 percent of the number of engineers employed in 1940. The corresponding percentages for each of the principal branches of engineering in which these students had specialized differed widely. (See table 2.)

Table 2. Distribution by Major Field of Students Enrolled in Final Year of Undergraduate Engineering Program 1940-41 in 155 Schools Compared With That of All Employed Engineers in 1940

Sources: Statistics on students, Journal of Engineering Education (16). Statistics on employed engineers, U. S. Census (43).

Chemical engineers, in a field where the new entrants from schools equalled more than one-fourth the employed group, were multiplying most rapidly, assuming that withdrawals for death, retirement, and other causes were similar for all branches. The number of mining and metallurgical engineers was also increasing at a rapid rate. Civil engineers, on the other hand, were lagging behind in the rate at which new graduates were being added to their number. Perhaps students were influenced in their choice of specialization by 1929-34 trends which showed a 35 percent increase in chemical engineering employment as compared with a 1 percent increase in civil engineering. (A decline of 31 percent in private civil engineering employment was offset by increased Government employment.) However, employment in all branches was then failing to keep pace with the growing number of engineers. Although even in 1929, 6 percent of all professional engineers were in nonengineering employment, by 1934 during the depression period the proportion had increased to 14 percent, and unemployment had grown from 0.7 percent to 8.5 percent (45). In 1940, according to the United States Census, unemployed engineers found in a sample count numbered 16,000 or 5.9 percent of the total number of experienced engineers reported in the labor force. This was only slightly less than the 6.2 percent rate of unemployment for all professional and semiprofessional workers in 1940 (44).

Wartime Changes

The war, affecting both the demand for and the supply of engineers, altered the 1940 picture rapidly and drastically. The need for engineers skyrocketed especially in manufacturing industry and in the Federal service, both military and civilian. Because of the vital importance of engineering services in the war effort, a special analysis of the personnel situation in engineering was made by the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel in 1943 (58). The resulting estimates of the number of engineers in both military and civilian service are shown in table 3. According to these estimates, admittedly subject to such errors as emergency haste and the use of miscellaneous sources are likely to produce, the number of employed engineers in 1943 had increased 14 percent over the 1940 number, but their distribution among the branches of engineering was roughly the same as in 1940. Although, for most branches, estimates of the additional numbers needed for the next 6 months approximated one-tenth of the employed group, in aeronautical engineering the estimate was two-thirds and in industrial engineering one-third. In civil engineering a decrease in need of some 8 percent was expected.

Table 3. Distribution of Employed Engineers by Branch of Engineering, 1943

1 On all other tables in this bulletin, aeronautical engineers are included under mechanical engineers. Source: National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (58).

These estimates reflected the marked increase in demand for engineers in manufacturing, especially in the aircraft industry, only one year after the war began. At that time more than one-third of all engineers were already in manufacturing employment, and almost a third were in Government employment. (See table 4.) The shortage of engineers in manufacturing continued. More than 90 percent of the 105 industrial companies, large and small, canvassed in 1945 by the dean of engineering at Purdue University as a sample of the 400 with whom it placed its engineering graduates, reported a need for additional engineers; the average shortage was 47 per company (33). The Federal Government announced one civil service examination after another for engineers. Even the Navy Department,

Figure 4.-A junior engineer setting an assumed future rate of production for which a pressure prediction is needed.

largely staffed with men, ultimately sent out a plea for women in electrical, mechanical, or chemical engineering (12).

This demand affected all phases of engineering activity. Unfilled teaching vacancies in engineering ranked next to those in medicine, as engineers left teaching for war production or military service and as wartime engineering instruction was begun (60). A few women became instructors in engineering schools, in some of which women had not previously been found even among the students.

Table 4. Estimated Distribution of Active Engineers by Place of Employment, January 1, 1943

Meanwhile the war was also affecting the source of supply of young engineers. At first, enrollments were maintained in engineering schools by groups of servicemen trained under the Navy V-12 and the Army Specialized Training Programs. An enrollment peak was reached in 1942-43 when 115,000 men were enrolled. By 1944, however, the full effect of the draft was felt, and enrollments fell below 50,000. Although women were welcomed in many engineering schools and such institutions as Columbia University, the Drexel Institute of Technology, and Rensselaer Polytechnical Institute, and the Case School of Applied Science opened their undergraduate curricula in engineering to women for the first time, the numbers of women students increased by hundreds only and so remained a small fraction of the total. The 1,800 women undergraduate students in engineering in 1944-45 comprised less than 3 percent of the total (19).

That year, the 56 women graduating with first degrees in engineering were only slightly more than 1 percent of the total of 4,724. This total was only slightly more than one-fourth of the prewar 1940-41 number.

Most engineering schools also accelerated their curricula so it was possible to complete the degree course faster, in some cases in less than 3 years. A few set up special certificate courses of 2 or 3 years to train women for war jobs as assistants to engineers. Cooper Union in New York provided for three certificate courses, which when combined were equivalent to a degree course (29). A 2-year certificate program at the University of Cincinnati included algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry, calculus, general inorganic chemistry, industrial chemistry or qualitative analysis, general and experimental physics, statistics, dynamics, engineering drawing, and composition and literature. Half-time cooperative work experience, alternated with school and discussed in special classes in coordination, was a part of this program. Other training programs for engineering aids are described on pages 5-53 to 5-58.

As early as 1940, the Congress, recognizing that engineering skills were basic to an expanding military force, appropriated funds for a training program in engineering which later expanded into the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training Program. At first, few women applied for these courses offered in more than 200 colleges. But, as the war progressed, women were actively recruited. Many were paid by war production firms or Federal agencies while they took these courses in engineering, drafting, fundamentals of engineering, and such specialized subjects as aeronautical structure, to prepare themselves for the work for which they had been hired (29) (10). Subsequent training took place on the job. Requirements