<html><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body dir="auto"><div><span></span></div><div><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div>Courtesy of today's (September 17, 2017 Spokesman-Review.</div><div><br></div><div>---------------------------------</div><div><br></div><div><div><h1 class="f2 f1-l serif mt0 mb2" style="box-sizing: border-box; font-size: 3rem; margin: 0px 0px 0.5rem; font-family: georgia, times, serif; line-height: 1.1; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-feature-settings: 'liga' 1, 'dlig' 1; -webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); -webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;">100 years ago in Spokane: ‘Lumberettes’ fill wartime labor gap</h1></div><div><br></div><div>About 30 “lumberettes” – women lumber workers – went on duty at Spokane’s White Pine Sash Co.</div><div><br></div><div>“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.”</div><div><br></div><div>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.</div><div><br></div><div>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.”</div><div><br></div><div>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.”</div><div><br></div><div>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.”</div><div><br></div><div>From the tobacco beat: The Chronicle was sponsoring a “Smokes Fund” – a tobacco drive for soldiers.</div><div><br></div><div>The drive had already resulted in 237 cartons of cigarettes, to be sent to the boys “over there” in France.</div></div><div><br></div><div>--------------------</div><div><br></div><div>Photo . . .</div><div><br></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/Photos/SR_091717.jpg">http://www.moscowcares.com/Photos/SR_091717.jpg</a></div><div><br></div><div>---------------------------------<br><br><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)</span></div><div><a href="http://www.moscowcares.com/" style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#000000">http://www.MoscowCares.com</font></a></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span></div><div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Tom Hansen</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Moscow, Idaho</span></div></div><div> </div></div></div></div></body></html>