VI

WOMEN OVER THE TOP IN AMERICA


American women have begun to go over the top. They are going up the
scaling-ladder and out into All Man's Land. Perhaps love of adventure
tempts them, perhaps love of money, or a fine spirit of service, but
whatever the propelling motive, we are seeing them make the venture.

There is nothing new in our day in a woman's being paid for her
work--some of it. But she has never before been seen in America
employed, for instance, as a section hand on a railway. The gangs are
few and small as yet, but there the women are big and strong specimens
of foreign birth. They "trim" the ballast and wield the heavy "tamping"
tool with zest. They certainly have muscles, and are tempted to use them
vigorously at three dollars a day.

In the machine shops where more skill than strength is called for, the
American element with its quick wits and deft fingers predominates.
Young women are working at the lathe with so much precision and accuracy
that solicitude as to what would become of the world if all its men
marched off to war is in a measure assuaged. In the push and drive of
the industrial world, women are handling dangerous chemicals in making
flash lights, and T.N.T. for high explosive shells. The American college
girl is not as yet transmuting her prowess of the athletic field into
work on the anvil, as is the university woman in England, but she has
demonstrated her manual strength and skill on the farm with plough