Figure 5.-A physicist engaged in developmental research on the design and internal characteristics of radio and electronic tubes.

of the individual rather than by an arbitrary limitation of function. The control chemist or the plant engineer may experiment in the development of a new product or a new process. Similarly, an applied research chemist may hit upon a new chemical element or a new scientific principle. But the opportunity and the equipment available for pioneer exploration favor the pure scientist, who usually has a doctor's degree. The doctorate is also necessary for advancement in college teaching. In control work, on the other hand, the bachelor's degree is more usual.

These different types of scientific work are found in each of the sciences, although in some sciences the number working in one type may be proportionately larger than that in another. Among those engaged in astronomy, for example, pure research, background research, and teaching predominate; in chemistry, engineering, and geology, on the other hand, applied research, actual processing and control work, and related occupations engage a higher proportion of the total personnel. These differences in each field and the varying participation of women in them are brought out in the other bulletins in this series.

Below the general level of the college graduate who has specialized in science are the scientific aids in Government and the nongraduate laboratory assistants or technicians in industry who assist scientists in their work. Such workers, mentioned only incidentally in this study, have been steadily growing in number with the growth of specialization. Before the war, this work was usually performed by a man or woman who had taken some science in college, or in high

Figure 6.-A scientific aid determining the breaking strength of a

cotton sample.

school, or who, lacking any scientific training, had by accident, interest, or personal relationship obtained an unskilled job in a laboratory and had learned to perform more skilled procedures on the job. During periods of oversupply, persons with more training sometimes took such jobs in order to obtain a foothold in a laboratory. Others, with partial training, took them in order to finance the completion of their college work at night. Some were graduates of private technical schools.

The engineering-aid training programs and the engineeringdrafting programs for women sponsored during the war by a number of industrial corporations as well as the special training programs of the Federal Government added some thousands of specially trained women aids of this type at a critical time.

The need for some women trained at this level for subprofessional technical jobs will continue, but its volume will be relatively small in relation to the demand for men technicians and in relation to the demand for women with more training in science. However, a committee on vocational technical training appointed by the United States Commissioner of Education in a 1944 report, suggesting that programs to produce technicians be expanded, recommended that training for such occupations be made available to women students as well as to men (42). In Philadelphia, in 1947, 2-year courses of this nature in industrial chemistry and in architectural drafting were being offered in the public vocational school program to women as well as to men high-school graduates. In the bulletin on architecture and engineering in this series, the work of women engineering aids and draftsmen has been described. Otherwise, only incidental mention of this semiprofessional group appears in this report. The Work Environment in Scientific Employment

The environment in which a scientist, man or woman, works varies both with the type of work he does and also with the type of employer he has. The science professor working in a university obviously spends time in the classroom as well as in the laboratory. However, the laboratory is the setting most characteristic of the scientist, as the office is characteristic of the clerk. Some scientists spend all their working time in the laboratory; others spend a part of it in an office or a library. Some leave the laboratory incidentally to obtain samples or to observe the object of their study in its natural environment. Others may spend most of their time in "field work." Geologists and mining engineers, for example, may work at sites where there are known or are believed to be oil or mineral deposits. Certain foresters, mechanical engineers, or entomologists may spend most of their time outside the laboratory in forests, in manufacturing plants, or in insect-breeding areas, respectively. Others

792277°-49- -4

in these same fields may be in the laboratory or at desks most of the time. The mathematician is perhaps the only one whose work is primarily at a desk, where he usually has special equipment in the form of calculators, slide rules, logarithmic tables, and other reference works. On the whole, women have been relatively few in the occupations entailing field work and relatively more numerous in the desk jobs. employment.

However, they are found in every type of

Figure 7.-An entomologist identifying a new and strange insect by comparison with known insects in the Smithsonian Institution collection.

The laboratories in which they work vary not only in size but in appearance and type of equipment, according to the subject of study. In astronomy, an observatory, usually located on a point higher than the surrounding terrain, is typical. In meteorology, the weather station is characteristic. Both have special equipment used for observation or testing or calculating. This equipment, largely mechanical, resembles that found in a physics or engineering laboratory more than it does that in a chemical laboratory. Machinery seems to dominate as compared with the solutions, powders, glassware, and noticeable odors to which a chemist becomes accustomed. In biological laboratories, one is likely to find living animals and/or plants used for study, the ever-present microscope, slides, and media for cultures.

Because of the interrelationships in science itself and because a practical problem often involves the use of a number of sciences, even a small laboratory may actually be a combination of several types of laboratories. Almost all medium-sized and large laboratories have separate units classified either according to the science primarily used or according to the type of problem or product studied.

In the United States Bureau of Standards, for example, some of the principal divisions are as follows: Chemistry, electricity, optics, and heat and power. The Bureau of Human Nutrition and Home Economics of the United States Department of Agriculture, one of the largest laboratory employers of women, includes such divisions as: Foods and nutrition, textiles and clothing, housing and household equipment.

One large industrial company in the metal-products field, in addition to its plant-control laboratories, both physical and chemical, has the following research and developmental laboratories: Metallurgy, chemistry, physics, ceramics and nonmetallics, products research, and welding research, in addition to a photography group and a library group.

A large research laboratory in a foods corporation includes the following departments: Organic chemistry, colloid chemistry, physical and inorganic chemistry, food technology, biochemistry, microbiology, analytical chemistry, chemical engineering, mechanical development, technical kitchen, manufacturers' service.

A small ceramics company has a plastic laboratory which includes chemical and physical research, an analytical chemical laboratory, a ware testing laboratory, a ceramics research laboratory, and a glass composition research laboratory.

In a sizable drug company, the scientific division includes six laboratories: Bacteriology (with separate units for control, product, and research), organic chemistry, analytical (chemical) control, pharmacy, biochemistry, and pharmacology (which includes units on pathologyhematology, bio-assay work, and research). An additional miscellaneous group works directly under the head of the division, usually on ordinary examinations, and runs the library.

A large chemical corporation, in addition to many works or control laboratories, has the following divisions in its central research laboratories: Research, physics, technical service, biological-pharmacological, mining chemicals, and chemical engineering. There are numerous subdivisions and smaller units within these departments.

A laboratory in a merchandising company which tests, evaluates, and works on the development and improvement of merchandise, has the following divisions: Chemical, textile, electrical, home economics, and mechanical and combustion.