Acknowledgment
This monograph was prepared by Terrell Croft. Acknowledgment is due to Dr. John Cummings of the Research Division for editorial assistance.
Thousands of men are now employed in the electrical manufacturing industries—in the shops and factories where electrical machines, devices, and equipment are made. The number of workers so engaged must, it is believed, increase materially in the future because of constant expansion in the applications of electricity. For illustration, consider the extent to which electric welding, electric-motor drives, electric heating and electric lighting are now utilized as compared with the use which obtained 10 years ago. Or again, consider the devices using electricity in the household to-day—vacuum cleaners, motor-driven washing machines, electric stoves, sadirons, and many others—as compared with the number in use a few years ago. The demands of electric communication, also, require an army of workers for the manufacture of telephone apparatus alone.
The ever-extending use of devices which utilize electrical energy means that there must be to supply them a corresponding enlargement in the manufacture of such electrical equipment as generators, switchboards, and transformers. Electrical manufacturing companies must, it would seem, expand rapidly, and for this reason the opportunities which they offer should afford excellent prospects for disabled soldiers who have had previous training in, or who have a liking for this field of endeavor.
The purpose of this monograph is to indicate briefly the opportunities presented in those occupations which are peculiar to electrical manufacturing. Electrical machinery and device factories often embrace foundries, paint shops, pattern shops, blacksmith shops, tin and press shops, and other shops, in which are performed certain processes necessary for the production of the electrical product in which that concern specializes. But in so far as the vocations are concerned, the work of the men following the occupations of these shops is not materially different from that of mechanics following the same vocations in similar shops in other industries. The general requirements of a mechanic in a machine shop are about the same whether the machine shop is part of a harvester factory or of an electrical machinery factory. Hence in this monograph will be treated only those manufacturing vocations which are wholly electrical. For convenience they have been grouped into the following classifications:
Engineering and drafting.
Coil winding and taping.
Coil impregnating and painting.
Coil placing and connecting.
Assembling.
Inspection and repair.
Testing.
By way of preface, it may be pointed out that there are certain general features of the situation which confront a disabled soldier, which should be examined carefully by him before he makes a break for a job.