At the Lockheed-Vega aircraft factories on the West Coast of the United States, women are working side by side with the men on the production lines, helping to turn out Vega Ventura and Lockheed Hudson bombers, big Flying Fortresses, and Lockheed “Lightning” P-38s for the United Nations.
 

Click image to enlarge

......

In the Lockheed-Vega plants in California, women workers aid in the production of three world-famous war planes — the P-38s or Lightnings, the Lockheed-Hudson bombers, and the Boeing Flying Fortresses. This picture shows one of the fast, high flying P 38s in flight.  (Collection Shelby Stanton)

Although they're new at their important roles in great war industries such as this, these women have adapted themselves so readily and proved their ability so well that they are now very valuable units in an efficiently producing whole.

Just a little over a year ago the women were first introduced into several factory departments at Lockheed-Vega. They began with the more simple routines in the electrical detail assembly, fuselage sub-assembly, sheet-metal and paint departments and from there have progressed to departments requiring highly skilled techniques.
 

Electrical assembly was one of the first departments in which women worked at Lockheed-Vega. Here, Beatrice Vienna, a former beauty shop operator, uses her dexterous hands for work far more important today than her previous endeavors. (Collection Shelby Stanton)

....

Click image to enlarge

Click image to enlarge

.......

Riveting was another task to which women workers in Lockheed-Vega were first introduced. Doris Crist, left, and Lois Buckner are shown riveting on the fuselage rib section of a mighty bomber. (Collection Shelby Stanton)

The departments in which they first started still employ the largest number of women, but many of them are to be found in other parts of the plant, also. They work with veteran men mechanics in final assembly. They install parts, put on engine-nacelle coverings, and attach wing flaps.

A department foreman declared; "In every task in which there are no physical factors —such as weighty parts to move — women are as good as men."
 

"Physical factors" are often decisive, however.  Centuries of sewing and needlework have given women a natural finger dexterity and a phenomenal resistance to monotonous repetition which stand them in good stead now. At the exact techniques of spot-welding, delicate riveting, drill-press work, spot-facing and reaming operations, for instance — which require both precision and speed — their fine touch and keen eyesight are invaluable.
 

The precision assembly of electrical units demands infinite care and absolute accuracy. Shown are Mrs. Lucille Richey (left) and her daughter, Jean Glasser, who form one of Lockheed-Vega’s most dependable teams in this department.  (Collection Shelby Stanton)

...

Click image to enlarge

These same faculties have given women exceptional advantages over men in such factory jobs as cutting and soldering of wires, assembling motors, lacing small wires and cables, setting up panel boards, assembling radios, operating such equipment as saws and numbering-machines, and in most of the detail work involved in precision assembly.
 

Click image to enlarge

.......

This serious young lady is engaged in serious work. She is assembling a radio junction box, every part of which must be installed according to an engineer's layout. Only alert, well-trained workers can meet the responsibilities attending this operation. (Collection Shelby Stanton)

Beatrice Vienna and Flora Allen, now Lockheed workers, are examples of this adaptability.  One of these girls was a beauty shop operator and the other a milliner and dressmaker. Neither of them had ever seen the interior of an aircraft factory before the war, but years of experience with delicate work have made them experts in the assembly of precision parts.

Then, too, mass production has subdivided many of the phases of aircraft work into small repetitive operations, and at these women have another natural advantage. Patience, which is proverbially a woman's virtue, fits them for monotonous "small" work which leaves men workers exhausted from sheer boredom. Women can continue a single, small operation hour after hour without losing either their efficiency or their interest.

This same natural advantage of women, incidentally, often reacts as an advantage for men workers. When replaced by women in the monotonous jobs along the production line, men can go on to departments offering heavier and more varied tasks. In this way, women have accelerated production and have brought about an "up-grading" of men workers that would not otherwise have been possible.
 

Each woman at Lockheed-Vega is carefully chosen for her job. She must pass the temperament (Humm-Wadsworth) I.Q., manual-dexterity, and mechanical aptitude tests. Although preference is given to women with previous factory experience, the inexperienced, if they have all the other necessary qualifications, are hired and trained right on the job.