conductors at the end of each run usually take a bite, and then have a
substantial meal during the long break of an hour and a half in the
middle of the ten-hour day.

Another problem brought to us by women in industry is, how can we house
them? The war industries have drawn large numbers to new centers. The
haphazard accommodation which men win put up with, won't satisfy women.
They demand more, and get more. To attract the best type of women the
munition plants are putting up dormitories to accommodate hundreds of
workers, and are making their plants more attractive, with rest rooms
and hospital accommodation. Take, for instance, the Briggs and Stratton
Company, which in order to draw high grade workers built its new factory
in one of the best sections of Milwaukee. The workrooms are as clean as
the proverbial Dutch woman's doorstep. From the top of the benches to
the ceiling the walls are glass to ensure daylight in every corner, and
by night the system of indirect lighting gives such perfectly diffused
light that not a heavy shadow falls anywhere. And the hospital room and
nurse--well, one would rejoice to have an accident daily!

The factory may become the exemplar for the home. The professional
woman is going over the top, and with a good opinion of herself. "I can
do this work better than any man," was the announcement made by a young
woman from the Pacific Coast as she descended upon the city hall in an
eastern town, credentials in her hand, and asked for the position of
city chemist. There was not a microbe she did not know to its undoing,
or a deadly poison she could not bring from its hiding place. The town
had suffered from graft, and the mayor, thinking a woman might scare the
thieves as well as the bacteria, appointed the chemist who believed in
herself. And she is just one of many who have been taking up such work.