Earnings and Advancement

Before the war, entrance salaries for physicists in industry ranged from $1,200 to $2,000 a year (41). In 1946, however, women physicists employed in industrial research laboratories were reported to be earning $2,500-$3,000 a year, and a few were earning over $4,000 a year. The earnings of college teachers vary with the income and type of institution in which the teacher is employed, as well as with the rank and qualifications of the individual. Before the war, the median salaries of professors in different types of publicly controlled institutions ranged from $2,900 to $5,000, and in privately controlled institutions, from $1,800 to $5,000. However, associate and assistant professors and lecturers received less (50). In 1947 these salaries were undoubtedly higher, but there were no adequate statistics available to indicate what increases had taken place.

Salaries paid to high-school teachers of physics are the same as those paid other high-school teachers and vary with the size of the city in which the teacher is employed. Before the war, the median salary paid to a high-school teacher in a town having a population of from 2,500 to 5,000 was $1,428 a year, but in large cities having a population over 100,000 the median salary was $2,768 a year. In 1946-47, the median salaries of high-school teachers in comparable communities were $2,274 and $3,593, respectively (25).

In 1940, junior physicists in the Federal Government earned $2,000 a year. During the war, with overtime, the earnings on the same job were $2,433, and in 1947 the basic salary had risen to $2,644 a year.

In physics, as in many of the other sciences, advancement for women has been slow. Those with graduate training have had much better opportunities, for the Ph. D. is practically a prerequisite to advancement in physics, especially in college teaching. The importance of graduate training in this field is indicated by the fact that in 1944. more than half the men and women physicists registered with the National Roster of Scientific and Specialized Personnel had master's or doctor's degrees (47). Industrial employers, however, usually rate women physicists more in terms of the results they can produce. They hesitate to advance women who have not been with the company long enough to give evidence of an active and continuing interest in physics

as a career.

The few women who have received recognition in this field have all had their doctorates. One, for example, began her work as a research physicist in an industrial research laboratory during the last war. Later, she was awarded the first Ph. D. ever conferred on a woman by Cambridge University. Her discovery of "invisible glass" has contributed much to the improvement of lenses in cameras, periscopes,

and optical instruments. In 1945, the American Association of University Women presented her with an award in recognition of distinguished achievement (53).

Because of the increasing importance of electronics and nuclear physics, young physicists who recently completed work for their doctorates in these fields have been able to advance very rapidly. Since these specialties have developed only in the past two decades, there are relatively more young scientists who have pioneered in research in these areas.

Organizations

In 1941, the American Institute of Physics estimated that 4,100 physicists were members of at least one of the national professional societies in physics (29). In 1946, about 10,000 physicists were members of the societies coordinated by the Institute, about half of them members of the American Physical Society. Membership in the American Physical Society requires only the recommendation of two other members, but the applicant must be really interested in physics, although not necessarily a professional physicist. The others were members of one or more of the following: The Optical Society of America, interested in the science of light; the Acoustical Society of America, devoted to the science of sound; the Society of Rheology, for the advancement of knowledge concerning the deformation and flow of matter; and the American Association of Physics Teachers. There are women physicists in each of these organizations, their numbers in 1946 ranging from about 2 to 4 percent of the membership in the different societies. (See p. 6-29 for membership requirements in the American Association of Physics Teachers.)

The Outlook

The effective role played by physicists in applied research during the war and the present undersupply of persons trained in physics promise a favorable outlook for women in physics for the next few years. The increased use of physical methods in industrial research, the renewed interest of governmental and other research agencies in fundamental scientific investigation, and the growing recognition of the importance of a basic knowledge of physics to all scientists have increased the demand for physicists in all fields, as compared with that existing before World War II.

However, this demand is primarily for those with graduate training. In fact, the shortage of physicists with graduate training, occasioned by the war, is expected to continue for a number of years. The newer industrial demand for physicists is also expected to create a deficit

in the number of persons trained at the master's and doctor's levels. In 1945 a deficit of 2,000 physicists at the doctorate level in 1955 was predicted (52). But in view of the increased number of students preparing for the Ph. D. subsequent to the war, under the benefits of the GI bill and the Predoctoral Fellowship program of the National Research Council, or through the aid of part-time jobs in Governmentfinanced research projects at universities, this estimate appears to be high. Two years after the war had ended, women with Ph. D.'s in physics were still being sought by universities and government research laboratories. Of the women Ph. D.'s employed in industrial establishments covered in the present study, all were retained during the reconversion period.

But the extraordinary need for women with a minimum amount of work in physics, caused by the wartime emergency, has terminated, according to reports from college placement bureaus and departments of physics. College women with only the bachelor's degree no longer have a wide choice of jobs. In some instances, such women who were employed in establishments that were operating under wartime Government contracts have been released. Nevertheless, the small number of women graduating with these degrees in 1946 were being placed. Statistics furnished the Women's Bureau by nine of the colleges and universities which regularly graduate women with degrees in physics indicate that more women were enrolled in this field in 1945 and 1946 than there were during the war. But the number is still very small. In these schools there were only 50 to 60 women enrolled as physics majors in each of the years 1945 and 1946. Nevertheless, this was about twice the prewar number. Apparently there has been a general increase in interest in physics on the part of both college and high-school students. During the war, when the total enrollments of all high-school students showed a decrease, the number of boys and girls enrolled in physics increased more than 10 percent (9). It is too early to predict whether or not this trend will continue.

The increased postwar demand for women physicists appears to be following the prewar pattern, since teaching again ranks first as an outlet for women in physics. As a result of increased enrollments of students in physics the demand for physics teachers is expected to remain high. At the close of the war, college teaching staffs had to be reorganized to accommodate the increased numbers of students, and many openings for physics instructors were created. Although women with graduate training in physics are currently in demand as research and teaching assistants, by 1950 they will face greater competition from men veterans who are preferred by some institutions of higher education. It is likely that qualifications for such positions will be restored to prewar standards; women physicists who plan to

Department of Physics

teach will need more thorough training than the men with whom they must compete.

The increased demand for women trained in physics in colleges and universities was reflected in a count made in 1947 of women physics faculty members listed in the catalogs of institutions of higher education included in a sample of such institutions selected on the basis of enrollments by the United States Office of Education. There were 86 women on physics faculties in the 330 institutions included in the sample. Seventy of them were teaching physics only, and 16 taught another science as well, such as astronomy, chemistry, or mathematics. Undoubtedly a few of these women were on temporary teaching appointments, since they held such titles as those of temporary instructor, acting instructor, and teaching fellow. A large number were listed as assistants, research assistants, or graduate assistants and may have been devoting time to research as well as to teaching. There were 22 women, however, more than one-fourth of the total, who held professorship appointments. The importance of the Ph. D. in college teaching is indicated by the fact that more than two-thirds of the women professors held the doctorate.

If these schools are representative of all institutions of higher education, there were about 347 women teaching physics only in addition to about 93 who combined instruction in physics with that in

another science. More than 40 percent were employed by colleges of liberal arts and science, and about 30 percent by publicly and privately controlled universities. The remainder were in technological and professional schools, teachers' colleges, and junior colleges.

As a result of the emphasis on science during the war, the enrollment of high-school students in physical science courses is expected to remain high. The proportion of women teaching physics in secondary schools in 1947 was probably greater than it had ever been, and opportunities were expected to increase. In many high schools there has been a general trend away from the formal college preparatory courses in physics and chemistry (where men teachers have been preferred), toward courses in applied science of general interest. In some of these newer courses, such as consumer science, laboratory techniques, the science of photography, and general physical science, there appears to be more opportunity for women. Those women who combine a minor in chemistry or mathematics with their major in physics will be better able to meet the demands of high-school teaching, since they will almost always be called upon to teach several subjects, except in unusually large schools.

In 1946, the National Research Council reported that 2,660 physicists were employed in industrial research laboratories in the United States, as compared to 2,030 in 1940. However, this is still only about oneeighth the number of chemists so employed (27). But with the application of new principles and methods to practical problems, the number of physicists in industrial research is expected to increase. Physical tools like X-ray diffraction, electron diffraction, the electron microscope, and modern spectroscopy are being applied to biological, chemical, and geological problems encountered in industry (23). Physicists with their broad knowledge of principles and methods are being called upon more and more to solve the practical problems that arise in the production of electrical and communications equipment, optical and other scientific instruments, glassware, petroleum, chemical, and many other products. The long-range trend seems to be toward more physicists in industrial research.

In the period immediately following the war, some of the women physicists employed in industrial manufacturing establishments were adversely affected by the reconversion to peacetime production. However, among the 78 firms with industrial research laboratories surveyed by the Women's Bureau in 1945-46, women trained in physics were still employed in 17 of the 18 laboratories which had employed them in wartime. Separate statistics on physicists were not available from all of the 17 laboratories, but in 7 of them, 38 women were classified as junior physicists or research physicists. A number of other women trained in physics and mathematics were employed under other