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Figure 3.-An assistant professor who directs the Department of Art as Applied to Medicine at a medical school gives instruction to a

student.

(Baltimore, Md.); the Southwestern Medical College (Dallas, Tex.); and the University of Illinois (Urbana, Ill.). The 2-year course in art as applied to medicine at the University of Illinois is open to students trained in art who have completed at least 2 years of college with emphasis on the subjects included in the premedical curriculum.

In 1947, the Association of Medical Illustrators had about 67 members, about two-thirds of them women.

Biological supply houses, museums, as well as publishers employ scientific artists to prepare exhibits, museum mounts, and illustrations for publications. These artists are usually trained in science as well as in art.

This dual training is not generally found among women who do botanical illustration for botanical texts, books on wildflowers and gardening, and such periodicals as the National Geographic Magazine, many of whom have not had formal botanical training. They have usually spent a considerable amount of time in plant study and observation, usually at a botanical garden. Several of the most outstanding women in this field, however, have been both botanists and artists.

Some scientific illustrators, like other artists, do free lance work; others have staff jobs. Two sisters with a flair for drawing who were majoring in biology in a midwest college earned their way through college on free lance work by illustrating biology texts. The one, having graduated, had a staff job in 1947 as illustrator at a museum of natural history; the other was completing her Ph. D. on a fellowship. The United States Department of Agriculture at the end of 1946 employed 8 women as scientific illustrators in the Washington area, and the United States Geological Survey employed 20. Eleven other women were employed as illustrators in agencies engaged in technical or scientific work, such as the Ordnance and Engineer Corps in the War Department, the Naval Research Laboratory, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, and the National Advisory Committee on Aeronautics. (For the requirements for entrance to a beginning position as technical illustrator in the latter agency, see p. 8-28.)

The type of illustrating done in these Federal agencies is more akin to that done in engineering departments of industrial firms than to that done by medical artists. Most of the drawing done in industry is drafting work based on an engineer's conception which may have been aided in presentation by an industrial designer. Most industrial designers are men, although 2 of the 78 firms having research laboratories visited by a representative of the Women's Bureau in 1945-46 employed women as designers. One, a glass company, employed a woman with a bachelor's degree in design, and a firm manufacturing packaging materials employed 6 women in its Department of Design. All had training in design, art, or architecture.

To supplement the detailed drawings prepared in the drafting room, industry is using more and more 3-dimensional production drawings which show how the top, sides, and bottom of a part will look when completed. During the war, the airplane industry supplied illustrated

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Figure 4.-A student at a western technical school at work on a 3-dimensional drawing in perspective.

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catalogs to the users of planes showing every part as it actually appeared, with corresponding numbers and descriptions to simplify ordering and replacements. The drawings were superior to photographs and so true that crews and mechanics who could not read English could identify parts needed. These illustrations, which prevented many costly delays during the war, were developed from rough sketches and engineering blueprints, which guided the artist in visualizing the parts and in preparing the original drawings of each part. One aircraft company, in 1943, in service illustration of this type, employed 24! women who prepared drawings and photographs to illustrate manuals for aviation flight and ground crews. A background in commercial art, fine arts, or architecture was preferred for this work. An additional 14 women in this plant, who were assigned to production illustration, finished pictorial illustrations by drawing in the smaller detail parts and doing the lettering. Two years of architectural training were preferred as background for this work. Another aircraft company in 1946 still employed 6 women as technical illustrators out of a wartime total of 20. They prepared perspective and 3-dimensional drawings for catalogs, sales manuals, and advertising layouts and did some technical photography. Most of them had obtained their principal training in technical art schools. Additional knowledge of engineering, architecture, or physics was considered helpful.

In

Many colleges and art schools offer courses in industrial design, and courses in production illustration are becoming more common. the art department of a western junior college in 1947, 34 women were studying perspective illustration and 3-dimensional production drawing as preparation for work in advertising. Only a very few schools outside of industry, however, offer training in scientific or technical illustration. The Cleveland School of Art is one of the few and offers a 1-year certificate course in scientific illustration. Hunter College in New York City also offers training in this field.

Although there are altogether few women employed in work of this type, opportunities exist and offer interesting work to those who have both artistic ability and interest and aptitude in science.

THE OUTLOOK FOR WOMEN IN TECHNICAL SEC

RETARIAL AND OTHER CLERICAL WORK

There has always been a great demand for women trained in science to serve as technical secretaries or stenographers. But their knowledge of science must be offered to supplement expertness in stenographic skills rather than to offset a deficiency in them. Executives in chemical manufacturing plants, heads of laboratories, and directors of research institutions are among those who prefer secretaries with scientific training if they can find them.

Before the war, women with bachelor's degrees in chemistry or other sciences who were unable to secure laboratory positions often took stenographic training and became technical secretaries or stenographers. Some of them later became laboratory workers; some had charge of technical files and ultimately were trained as technical librarians. During the war, when better-paying jobs in industrial and government laboratories became available to women with a minimum of training in science, almost none of the oncoming college graduates took secretarial jobs.

Very few of the 78 industrial firms having research laboratories visited by the Women's Bureau in 1945-46 had women secretaries with college training in science, although many of them preferred secretaries with such background. Only one technical personnel director said there were no secretarial jobs in his firm for which science background was desirable. Fourteen of the firms had women secretaries trained in science. In a chemical manufacturing firm, one of the two women with bachelor's degrees in science who were employed as technical secretaries to research men had been there for 15 years. Another technical secretary employed in a chemical manufacturing firm for the past 13 years started as a high school graduate and then acquired college training in chemistry at night school. About 75 percent of her time was devoted to secretarial work for laboratory chemists, for whom she typed reports, maintained files, handled correspondence, and ordered supplies. The remainder of her time she spent assisting in the laboratory, taking down observations, and performing limited and simple tests under the supervision of the chemists.

Secretarial jobs may lead to full-time positions in the laboratory if scientific training qualifications are met. For example, a woman who had majored in chemistry at a teachers college took a position as a stenographer in the laboratory of a foods manufacturing plant in 1942. At that time, the scarcity of men trained in science enabled her to transfer to the laboratory within a month.

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