be keen in the future, judging from student enrollments in 1946. In illuminating engineering, electronics, and the design of household appliances, women have more natural advantages, however, than in power and utility engineering, including rural electrification, in which field-work and travel are more likely. The smaller utilities especially want their engineers to be available for rough outside work as well as for desk or laboratory work. Except for computers, therefore, there is relatively little opportunity for women in this field. Only 3 of the 81 industrial companies visited by a representative of the Women's Bureau in the course of this study employed women electrical engineers. Two were radio manufacturing companies which employed 5 or 6 in design or research; the other was an electrical manufacturing firm which also employed them in design engineering and in research.

On the whole, electrical engineering is expected to offer "good prospects for experienced engineers and for well-trained new entrants during the next 4 or 5 years," according to a 1946 statement by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (49). Those among the less-than-150 women enrolled in undergraduate courses in electrical engineering in the fall of 1946 (see table 7, p. 5-26) who complete their course should also find opportunities for their contributions to this growing field.

WOMEN IN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Industrial engineers are usually classified as mechanical engineers, although they are reported separately in the Census. Since they are concerned both with mechanical operations in industry and with the personnel engaged in these and other work tasks, they may enter the field with an engineering background (often obtained in a course that may be called industrial, management, commercial, production, or mechanical engineering) or with a background in economics or business administration (including training in the personnel field). Some industrial engineers specialize in safety engineering.

In 1940, there were 9,283 industrial engineers in the United States, including 74 women, 0.8 percent of the total (43). Two of the women listed in the 1941 Who's Who in Engineering have specialized in this field. One, beginning as a psychologist, became a consulting engineer with her husband, pioneering in time-and-motion studies. Licensed to practice engineering in the State of Indiana and qualified in mechanical and industrial engineering, she has contributed much to the literature as well as to the performance in her field. At present, she is professor of management at Purdue University in addition to her consulting work (11).

The other, an associate professor of economics at a woman's college, has specialized in the management field and has contributed to the

literature on the relationships between machines and those who operate them (11).

During the war, the limitations on the supply of production workers in relation to the overwhelming demand for them in industrial production made vital the most effective use of the personnel available. Industrial engineers were employed in the Federal Government and in war production plants to study the work processes, to eliminate unnecessary tasks and motions, and to suggest changes in procedures, work places, and equipment that would obtain the highest output with the least expenditure of effort. Women with experience in this field were especially welcome, since among the pressing problems were the adaptation of machines and equipment to the smaller average size of women operators, the solution of problems arising out of the employment of large numbers of inexperienced women and young people under wartime pressures, and the shortage of expert supervisors.

Very few women with specialized training were available. One, graduated by Ohio State University in 1945, was immediately hired by a Pennsylvania company manufacturing air-conditioning equipment. Young women college graduates with mathematics, physics, and chemistry, and some knowledge of production methods acquired by work experience or special training, were pressed into service. Typical of these were the five women employed as junior time-study engineers in a radio plant. They did time-studies on repetitive parts or products, established output rates for various classes of work under a senior time-study engineer, and suggested corrections to reduce costs or improve working conditions.

Although only one woman was graduated with a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering in 1946, according to reports from most of the engineering schools (see table 6, p. 5-26), this branch may hold more promise for women than some others. Those trained in it can make a special contribution in industries and occupations in which large numbers of women are employed. The most effective use of human energy in such professions as nursing and teaching, for example, is a problem to which industrial engineers can contribute as much in the future as they have in the past in manufacturing industry.

There ought to be room in this little-explored territory in the coming 5 years for a larger number of women than the 100 or so women in it and the 28 women enrolled in industrial engineering courses in the fall of 1946. (See table 7, p. 5-26.) Industrial engineering offers unusual opportunity for the woman who combines scientific interest and competence with interest in the maximum development and effectiveness of the individual in his job. But, she will also need patience, a considerable amount of work experience, and the persuasive qualities needed to obtain the chance to prove the economic as well as the social value of her skill.

WOMEN IN MINING AND METALLURGICAL

ENGINEERING

Although mining and the conversion of metals into useful products are economic activities with which women are seldom associated, the proportion of women among mining and metallurgical engineers in 1940 was greater than in any other of the branches except industrial engineering. Although they then numbered only 74, women composed 0.8 percent of the 8,813 mining and metallurgical engineers reported employed in the 1940 Census (43). The variety of specializations in this field and its relationship to others has been described by the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel (56) and in pamphlets on careers in the mineral industries such as those published by Pennsylvania State College (32) and the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers (34). Among the dozen women listed in the 1941 Who's Who in Engineering are two women classified in this field. Both married mining engineers with whom they have at various times worked in consultation. One, who took her bachelor's degree in metallurgical engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, became development engineer with an Ohio company where in 1946 she was head of the refractory and ceramic department and in charge of research and development on beryllium oxide. She has worked with her husband in South America, Central Asia, and Canada as well as in the United States (11) (22). The other, beginning as a secretary to a supervising engineer in an oil refining company, learned petroleum engineering by experience. Registered as a mining engineer, she is listed with her husband as co-inventor of a patent for process and apparatus for secondary recovery from oil wells and of a patent for recovering sulphur and iron from ores (11).

Another outstanding married woman in this field, also a Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduate, has her own laboratory on the development of products out of waste materials, in addition to a job as metallurgist with a communications company. She also taught part time in an engineering school during the war.

Even in the steel industry there have been a few women engineers, including a Stanford graduate in mining engineering employed with a New York company. During the war, a woman with a degree in mining engineering was used to survey the possibilities of using women for surface work in a molybdenum mine. She later supervised the women hired.

A few women have become ceramic engineers, who are sometimes grouped with mining and metallurgical engineers because they are concerned with the engineering of glass, pottery, tile, and other prod

ucts made from clay, silica, and similar nonmetallic minerals (56). Two have graduated with degrees in ceramic engineering from Ohio State University since it originated the first ceramic engineering course in 1894 (30). Both were employed by tile or pottery companies in the Midwest. During the war, one woman ceramic engineer was employed in the Federal Government with the War Labor Board. Another was employed at the National Bureau of Standards