WOMEN IN SOUTHERN LUMBERING OPERATIONS 



By Edw. N. Munns 

 forest Examiner, U. S. Forest Service 



There are in the Southern States from Georgia to Texas some 

 125,000 employees in lumbering operations in pine and cypress. Up 

 to the beginning of the war relatively few women were employed on 

 these jobs, even in the office, as the lumber business has been consid- 

 ered as work for men only. To be sure, in the larger companies and 

 in the larger communities women were used to some extent in steno- 

 graphic and clerical work, but the male element predominated, even in 

 the office force. Now, due to the labor shortage, woman has entered 

 the lumber game, and over 5,000 women are now employed in one ca- 

 pacity or another (December i, 1918), and just recognition of the place 

 they fill has been given them, both in the office and in the woods oper- 

 ations proper. 



Up to the time when labor began to be easier in lumbering work gen- 

 erally, there was a general tendency to employ women whenever possi- 

 ble to take a man's place, for the reduction of the force by 25 per cent 

 or more was correspondingly reducing the production of lumber 

 urgently demanded for ships, cantonments, and the railways. How far 

 women could have gone in this field is largely a matter of speculation 

 now, but it is certain that at least 25 per cent more of the male force in 

 lumbering operations could have been replaced by women, with but 

 little reduction in efficiency or production. To what extent women will 

 supplant the men with a return to pre-war conditions is impossible to 

 determine, and the operators are hesitant in making any statements as 

 to policy during the period of readjustment and reconstruction of 

 national business generally. 



It is generally conceded by the lumbermen that the Southern negro 

 laborer in the army has learned much of sanitation, living conditions, 

 and of co-operation, while the man who was not in the armed service 

 learned the value of his time and the dependence of the employer upon 

 him through the bids made for his services in increased wages, shorter 

 hours, and better living conditions by rival concerns or outside inter- 

 ests. Whether the negro will go back readily to the old conditions is 

 problematical ; but it is certain that during this transition period, if not 

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