[Vision2020] 100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Lumberettes’ fill wartime labor gap

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (September 17, 2017 Spokesman-Review.

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100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Lumberettes’ fill wartime labor gap

About 30 “lumberettes” – women lumber workers – went on duty at Spokane’s White Pine Sash Co.

“We can’t get male help,” said the company president. “And when the girls asked for a chance at the work, we gave it to them.”

The lumberettes had come from laundries and downtown offices and stores, attracted by the better pay: $2 per day. The European war and the draft had resulted in a shortage of male workers.

The company president was quick to point out that “they are getting none of the heavy work.” Yet a reporter noted that some of them were piling lumber and tending machines, which was “pretty tough work.” A male foreman was quoted as saying they were doing the work “as well as any man.”

They wore “rough skirts, heavy shoes and heavy gloves.” At one point, “a couple of burlies were surrounded by a bevy of girls – all doing their work as if it had ever been thus.”

The Spokane Daily Chronicle predicted that the girls would be sore the next day, but the soreness would soon wear off and “the lumberettes will have come to stay.”

From the tobacco beat: The Chronicle was sponsoring a “Smokes Fund” – a tobacco drive for soldiers.

The drive had already resulted in 237 cartons of cigarettes, to be sent to the boys “over there” in France.

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Photo . . .

http://www.moscowcares.com/Photos/SR_091717.jpg

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Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
   
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