THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN AS

ENGINEERING AIDS

Although few women are employed as engineers, an additional number are engaged in assisting engineers with those duties that can be turned over to one with only partial training or experience in engineering. Before the war, computers and engineering draftsmen were the most usual type of assistants in engineering departments or on engineering projects large enough to employ specialized staff. Many of these and other assisting jobs in the larger firms have been customarily filled by young engineers who stayed in them only temporarily as part of their in-service training for more responsible work. However, some have been regularly filled by persons who specialized in this work, called engineering aids or engineering assistants.

Prewar Distribution

The term "engineering aid" was used by the United States Civil Service Commission before the war for certain subprofessional workers who assisted engineers, especially in field work. Few women applied for positions of this sort. In the year ended June 30, 1940, only 12 women were among the approximately 12,000 who passed Federal civil service engineering aid examinations (42). In that year 1 woman was among the 758 appointed to such positions.

Only a few large industrial firms, almost exclusively those in the electrical and communications industries, employed women in this capacity before the war. One large company, in addition to computers, had about 50 women engineering assistants on its prewar staff. Most of them were women with college degrees in physics, mathematics, or chemistry who were given special training by the company after they were employed.

Wartime Changes

During World War II, the attempt to conserve the skill and knowledge of engineers included supplying them with more assistance than they were accustomed to having. There was the additional problem of replacing the usual supply of young engineers, virtually cut off by the draft.

Early in 1942, the Federal Government began to recruit "student aids" to be trained for work in engineering, at a salary of $1,440. Later, women were actively sought as "engineering aids" for all fields

Figure 11.-Engineer explains design of special purpose acorn tube to engineering aid.

of engineering for jobs varying in pay from a basic salary of $1,440 to $2,600.

In the War Department, where the demand was greatest, the Engineer Corps, Ordnance, and the Signal Corps were the principal branches needing engineering aids. On February 1, 1943, the Office of the Chief of Ordnance announced a 3-month intensive training program (8 hours a day for 6 days a week) to train women to become junior engineering aids in ordnance. High school graduation, including courses in algebra, plane geometry and trigonometry or mechanical drawing, was required to enter the course set up at the University of Michigan. Although the course was established primarily to train civil service appointees, ordnance manufacturers working on Government contracts were also invited to send employees for training. The basic course included: Drafting, mathematics, machine shop practice or plane surveying, metallurgy or iron and steel or engineering calculations, and shop visits to study production methods. Similar programs were later given at Drexel Institute, Temple University, and the University of Pennsylvania to train personnel for the Frankford Arsenal. A group of college graduates and, later, high school graduates were trained at Rutgers University for engineering aid work at Picatinny Arsenal. No record of the total number of women em

ployed during the war as engineering aids in the various arsenals is available. But at the Frankford Arsenal, for example, a maximum of 18 women engineering aids and 3 women junior engineering aids were employed during the war.

The Signal Corps, beginning early in 1942, trained about 400 women as engineering aids. Women were placed at the Aircraft Radio Laboratory at Wright Field in Dayton after a 24-week course for engineering aid trainees (aircraft radio) offered at a number of Midwest universities covering mathematics, radio circuit theory, radio laboratory, practical radio communications, d. c. and a. c. (direct current and alternating current) theory, transmission lines, electrical measurements, radio laboratory and selected readings and supervision. For this course, college graduates or students with at least 6 hours of college mathematics and physics were preferred. An intelligence test was one of the factors used in selection. After assignment, these women worked in the Development Division on every phase of aircraft radio equipment. Some tested apparatus, assembled components, or worked on modifications designed to improve the most intricate communications devices (64). Others were assigned to clerical work for which a technical understanding was necessary. Many of the girls, expecting to do technical work, did not like the clerical assignments, and turn-over was high. Out of a class of 31 women selected for training at one college, for example, 19 completed the course and were placed at Wright Field Signal Corps Laboratories. In 1945, only 5 or 6 were still employed there. Some WACS were also trained for work as engineering aids with the Signal Corps.

At the October 1944 peak of its wartime employment, the Army Air Forces employed 474 women as engineering aids. However, many of these women, like those in the Signal Corps, were assigned to clerical jobs. The Air Forces also recruited women with electrical engineering or technical radio experience for positions as instructors in radio (29).

In 1943 the Engineers Corps employed 151 women as engineering aids, ranging from the lowest level of "under engineering aid” to the highest grade of "principal engineering aid." Other branches of the War Department employed an occasional woman as engineering aid. The Chemical Corps, for example, had 2 and the Quartermaster Corps, 5.

Industry, too, finding few women with engineering training immediately available, made a special attempt to recruit college women with mathematics and science backgrounds who could be trained as engineering aids. The dearth of young assistants to engineers, in the face of overwhelming expansion, was especially critical for the aircraft industry. One company, in spite of vigorous recruiting in the

summer of 1942 to obtain women for vibration analysis work (to analyze ocillograph records of tests made on airplane propellers for stress factors), was able to hire only 5 women with sufficient college training in mathematics; during subsequent war years, 10 more were hired. A number of aircraft companies, therefore, in cooperation with selected universities set up special training programs for which young women were recruited as "engineering cadettes"; the full cost was borne by the companies which in turn were covered in such expenditures by the "cost-plus" contracts under which they were manufacturing planes for the armed forces. The estimated cost per girl trained ranged from $1,500 to $2,500, since the students were paid while learning. Almost all of the larger aircraft companies inaugurated such programs, although they varied somewhat in detail. Complete information was obtained by the Women's Bureau on 5 of these programs operated by the larger firms in this field.

Altogether 1,670 women completed engineering aid training courses conducted by these 5 companies on a number of college campuses; the first course started early in 1943. One company recruited only college graduates, but the usual requirement was 2 years of college, preferably with mathematics and science background. Actually, selection became

Figure 12.-Students being trained during World War II as engineering

aids for work in an aircraft company.

highly individual, and students ranged from outstanding high school graduates with a background in mathematics and science to women with master's degrees. Intelligence and aptitude tests, school records. recommendations from colleges, and physical examinations were used in the process, but final selection was based on an interview with 1 or more company representatives.

The courses of study varied in length from 6 months to 1 year. All of them included: Mathematics (ranging from a course in "aircraft mathematics" to a review of algebra, trigonometry, analytic geometry. introduction to calculus, and computational and graphic procedures); engineering drawing; aircraft materials and processes; aircraft terminology; mechanics; aerodynamics; and shop practice. One company operating a 12-month program provided for specialization during the final 6 months in drafting and design; aerodynamics; chemistry and metallurgy; or engineering laboratory work.

Those who completed the training were assigned to jobs in one of the company's plants at basic salaries ranging from $130 to $150 a month. The first assignment was usually to the drafting board, although there were variations depending upon the needs of the company and the background of the new employee. In one company, the title "technical aid” was used to classify these women during the first year of their employment. They were then given regular assignments throughout all sections. About 40 percent of those in one plant remained in drafting and design, while the others were assigned to other sections such as aerodynamics and structures; experimental section; blade design section; material laboratory; research analysis; color design; administrative section. Next to drafting, the most common assignment was that of computing. In some plants, the title "engineering computer" was created for these women, since such work before the war was done by young junior engineers as part of their induction training following graduation from an engineering college. Others were called engineering aids, technical assistants, or laboratory assistants, according to their assignments. A few women with the best backgrounds after 1 or 2 years of employment were assigned to such jobs as junior aerodynamics engineer, junior structural engineer, junior stress analyst, junior weight engineer, and test engineer in the lower classifications. These jobs involved more complicated calculations than those usually done by computers and were performed with less direct supervision. Junior weight engineers, for example, assisted weight engineers in making estimates or calculations necessary to insure that the weight of aircraft and aircraft parts was kept to specifications and that proper loading and balance was secured. Junior stress analysts and junior aerodynamicists assisted engineers with mathematical work and records pertaining to wind-tunnel, vibrations,