Veritas Harvard University Library
Page Delivery Service
Proposed employment of women during war in the industries of Niagara Falls, N.Y. [Washington: G.P.O., 1919].
Sequence 1 of 16 (Page 231)
View framed version of this document
V ~i~vu-v~ -~ ~MAA~k c~


jFr~ thO Mo.unuLT LLBOR REviEw (January, 1919) Of thO BUYSBI1 Of IAb& S t~tan, United SLaL~
Department of Labor4


FROPOSE!) EMPLOYMENT OF WOMEN DURING THE WAR IN THE IN.
DUSTRIES OF NIAGARA FALLS, N. Y.~

In the summer of 1918, the Employers' Association of Niagara
Falls wrote to the Department of Labor asking for the permission of
the Federal Government, under its war powers, to introduce women
- into their plants and to employ them in "shift work"-that is to say,
in work involving employment during the night at hours prohibited
by the New York State labor law. The request was made on behalf
of a few firms, not the entire membership. The reason given was the
great difficulty of securing men and the consequent set-back to the
production program of the War Department and the Navy through
failure to supply sufficient quantities of chemicals, metals and alloys
f or the war industries. The Niagara plants were manufacturing
gases for chemical warfare, picric acid for explosives, wheels for tanks,
carborundum products essential in the machine industries, storage
batteries, graphite, electrodes, and a variety of chemicals, including
chlorine, caustic soda, caustic potash, calcium carbide and other basic
materials.
Failure to secure labor for the making of such important products
would obviously be serious for the Nation at war and the request,
therefore, demanded thorough consideration as a production problem.
On the other hand, it had serious implications for the welfare of
woman workers. The industries of Niagara Fails are classed as
dangerous trades. The most recent official investigation made in
1912 by the Factory Investigating Commission of New York State
had shown, moreover, that the ordinary safeguards already
demon strated to be effective as health measures in the same industries
else where had not been established at Niagara Falls. To permit the
employment of women by day under these conditions would be to
deviate markedly from the standards which have been slowly and
laboriously built up for their protection in State labor laws and in the
industrial customs of the United States. To permit their
employ ment at night in a State like New York, which has a law prohibiting
the work of women in factories between the hours of 10 p. m. and
6 a. in., would be a departure from the policy of the Federal
Govern ment, rigidly adhered to throughout the war, to require strict
coin pliancewith State labor laws, unless the national need should become
so urgent as to convince the Federal authorities that temporary
1Repwt of the worn m hMiu~ry 5arv~ of the tmted States Depar~t of Labu~ BuIta~ No.1,
Novunbar. 191&