WOMEN IN SOUTHERN LUMBERING OPERATIONS 147 



MISCELLANEOUS POSITIONS 



In the shingle mill there are few jobs that the women are unable to 

 fill, except those involving the machinery and handling the bolts, which 

 are usually too heavy. Bundling and clean-up work is readily handled 

 by women. 



The negro women make indifferent loaders. At board mills, where 

 finish stuff is handled to a large extent and the stocks dry and of small 

 sizes, they can be utilized to good advantage both as passers and as 

 loaders proper. The work is heavy and rest periods must be given. 

 Heavier material nearly always recjuires men. 



As timekeepers, as talleymen, or checkers the white girl is found to 

 be superior to the men. As in grading, they soon learn the lengths, 

 sizes, and class of material and become as quick in recording this data 

 as the men. Furthermore, their sheets are always much neater and 

 cleaner than those made up by the men — a fact which is greatly appre- 

 ciated by the office force. In these places it is fairly safe to presume 

 that the operators will not go back to the old order of things, but con- 

 tinue to use women entirely because of their neatness and accuracy. 



In the boiler rooms negro women are occasionally employed as fire- 

 men, but generally without success because of the nature of the work 

 and their ability to go elsewhere for work. 



WOOD-l'SING INDUSTRIES 



The principal wood-using industries connected with the lumber cen- 

 ters are sash and door works, veneer, food containers and box manu- 

 facture, and novelty or small woodenware works. In these plants are 

 great possibilities for the development of woman labor because of the 

 lightness of the work and the possibilities of sitting while working. In 

 these places fully 60 per cent of the total employed force may be the 

 woman worker, with no reduction in the efficiency or output of the 

 plant. Among the positions where she is employed at present are in 

 the making up of crates and baskets, of veneers, the bundling of box 

 shocks, stapling, oiling, sanding, polishing, varnishing, handling lum- 

 ber, running planers or stave machines, etc. In many of these occupa- 

 tions it will be very difficult to get the old system of things again in 

 force. 



